Hockey Night in Canada is one of the country’s venerated institutions and there are innate challenges with keeping a national audience satisfied on a daily and weekly basis. Jim Hughson operated as the lead play-by-play commentator on Hockey Night in Canada from 2008-2021 and shared his unfiltered view on the challenges that come with broadcasting the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Hughson grew up in British Columbia and worked on Vancouver Canucks broadcasts on Sportsnet, before taking over the lead duties on Hockey Night in Canada. He also endeared himself to a younger generation of fans as the play-by-play announcer on EA Sports’ NHL series from 1997-2009. There was a perception that Hughson operated as a Canucks fan, while some grew to believe that he supported the Maple Leafs. Hughson spoke about the unique challenges of calling a Maple Leafs game, along with the media economy writ large during a recent appearance on Sekeres and Price.
“Local people didn’t think I was a big enough fan,” Hughson said. “When I broadcasted the Maple Leafs, one of the downsides of having the top chair on Hockey Night in Canada is basically you become a Toronto Maple Leafs broadcaster. Everybody in a local fanbase expects their broadcasters to be like the it’s a hard one to win.”
It’s a tough challenge. The late Bob Cole was often thought of as a Maple Leafs supporter by the rest of the country and Hockey Night in Canada often tries to appeal to its largest — and perhaps most vocal — fan base. One can empathize with Hughson’s frustrations as he’s merely trying to do his job and call games with the appropriate level of enthusiasm required on a daily and weekly basis.
“As the years have gone by, I’ve noticed a real change in fandom,” Hughson explained. “And a part of it is social media, I think. But the local fan base expects their broadcasters to be like them. They want fans. And if you’re not, you must hate them! And that’s the problem you get when you’re broadcasting on the national level out of Toronto. They want a local broadcast but at the same time, the broadcasters are broadcasting to every corner of the province. You might be broadcasting a game where the New York Islanders are playing and the young men who play for the Islanders are from all different parts of Canada as well. And their people are invested in it. It’s a really a hard one to win in that sense.”
It’s a tough position for Hughson to be in, when a large faction of the audience is intentionally trying to misinterpret what he says. Hughson finished his legendary career in 2021 and perhaps he’s enjoying life in hockey away from the microphone, where his every word isn’t parsed, examined and clipped for further analysis on a daily basis.
