View From The Broadcast Booth: Peter Maher Honoured On Hockey Day in Canada

Unless you're from Calgary, live here or have lived here, you may not be familiar with the Hall of Fame radio broadcaster, Peter Maher, of each and every Calgary Flames's games."The Voice of the Calgary Flames" has not missed calling the action of a game and has over 2800 games under his belt. The Campbellton, New Brunswick native has mixed emotion today, as today Hockey Day in Canada is being celebrated by CBC from there, the host town this year. Peter stated earlier today:

"Everything is revved up to a fever pitch," Maher said, noting spirits are high despite the cold and snow that's greeted all on hand." I would say this is probably the biggest stage Campbellton has had from a national point of view. It's a great chance for people across Canada to see how passionate Campbellton is for its hockey."

Maher is one of the class acts of the world. Having moved from the East Coast myself 4 years ago, I was elated to discover the FAN960 and with it Peter Maher's broadcasts of Flames games. Having been a rare Flames fan in Newfoundland, I only wish I had discovered this radio network sooner! "Maher in the Morning" is featured every weekday morning on Mike Richards' morning show. He offers up valuable inside information on the Calgary Flames not even The Hockey Spy could uncover! He has great relationships with players, coaches and other media personnel, and is well respected by all.

In Peter's blog yesterday, he reflected on how he got his start in broadcasting in Campbellton, NB. Before the start of CBC's broadcast of the final leg of their coverage of Hockey Day in Canada, they interviewed Maher live. In a touching moment, while Peter was live on air, the folks of Campbellton, NB revealed they had honored Maher by renaming the press box in the arena the "Peter Maher Broadcast Booth".

I recall one hilarious story a couple of weeks back when Mike Richards of the Fan960 had Pete, Jim Peplinski (co-captain of the Flames 1989 Cup-winning team) on at the same time. "Pep" told the story of when they were on the road and at a restaurant when somehow a bunch of the team had Pete in the washroom and got Pete's pants off, while covering his "nether" region with paper towels. Maher, being the great sport he is, came out of the washroom and went up to the saloon style doors to the main part of the restaurant. He, of course, thought, he was covered by paper towels, but this wasn't the case and because of his stature, he was actually exposed to everyone in the restaurant! Needless to say, the restaurant patrons cleared out in less than 5 minutes!

"YEAH BABY!!!" and "You can put it in the win column!!!" are just a couple of Peter Maher's war cries that the Flames Faithful have come to love to hear, and look forward to hearing a lot more of in the future.