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Norm Marshall
Norm Marshall 1918 - 2008 Norm Marshall, one of Hamilton’s best-known and prolific broadcasters died recently (November 5, 2008). Marshall was just a few days short of his 90th birthday. While the veteran television and radio personality covered a wide range of sports on the local level, he started his career as the play-by-play announcer for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. He helped in presenting the first televised Grey Cup in 1952 on the CBC. He also went to work for CHCH television in 1954, remaining at the station until 1997. After “retiring” from broadcasting, he taught media studies at Mohawk College and was the first public relations spokesman for Copps Coliseum. But for many years Marshall was on the mike for CHCH’s broadcast of the Hamilton Red Wings hockey games, and he would climb up into the little booth at the Forum to present the play-by-play action to a devote group of Junior A fans.
The show was known as Hockey Night in Hamilton, and in the early 1970s was the only league game telecast in the area. He along with color commentator Sandy Hoyt, would start getting ready around 6:30 pm while the rest of the crew had been would setting up, taking about an hour before going live at 7:00 pm. The audience not only reached fans in the Golden Horseshoe area, the games were watched by fans as far away as North Bay and Western New York State. In a 1972 Spectator story, Marshall, who was sports director for both CHCH and CHML Radio, described how he would have to shift his delivery from presenting a studio newscast to getting mentally prepared for presenting an exciting hockey game. Sometimes the change was awkward. “Keeping excitement in a game between the league-leading junior Marlies (Toronto) and the Red Wings firmly entrenched in last place would be tricky,” noted the article, “and Marshall frowned when he learned junior superstar Marty Howe had been scrapped from the Toronto team with a Charlie horse.” Marshall noted that a previous game in Toronto had provided more excitement, and he was able to capitalize on that excitement. “Last week in Toronto was the best game I’ve been involved in for a long time,” he said. “The Russian student team and the U of T Blues. You could feel the tension. I got off the news at 6:30 (in Hamilton), had to be a Varsity arena by 8. But when I arrived everything was set. This team has been together so long, when we start to roll nothing can stop us.” Along with Marshall and Hoyt, a major part of the CHCH broadcast team was producer Henry Pasila, who kept the game coverage fluid and interesting. In charge of the games since 1965, Pasila was an expert on providing the unusual and necessary camera angles from the Forum’s protruding steel beams and low ceilings. Marshall earned many accolades,
including the Fred Sgambati Media Award in 1985 for his contributions
to youth sports, and he was named to Hamilton’s Gallery of
Distinction in 1994. “For a newscast you
have to be calm and sincere,” he
has said. “Then for hockey it’s completely switched.
You’ve got to turn on the viewers and keep them involved.”
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