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NHL on Sportsnet<\/p>\nScott Oake has been one of the central figures on\u00a0Hockey Night in Canada\u00a0for more than four decades, and while he wanted to retire quietly after this NHL season, earlier this week, the 72-year-old from Sydney, N.S., was persuaded to make a public announcement that he\u2019s decided to call it a career.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, Oake will host his final\u00a0After Hours\u00a0show, and though he\u2019s not certain how long he\u2019s been conversing with many of the biggest names in the National Hockey League on the long-form interview show, \u201cit sure feels like more than 20 years,\u201d he said. Oake will stay on through the NHL playoffs, and then his incomparable broadcasting career will officially be over.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of the best interviewers in the game \u2014 a man appointed to the Order of Canada two years ago not only for his work in hockey, but his efforts in addiction recovery as well \u2014 Oake is also a delight on the other side of the equation, as interviewee (even if, as he points out, he doesn\u2019t like attention).\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ahead of his\u00a0After Hours\u00a0finale, which will air on Sportsnet after the conclusion of the Vancouver Canucks-San Jose Sharks showdown (Sportsnet, Sportsnet+, 10 p.m. ET \/ 7 p.m. PT), we got his thoughts on a range of topics, including whether he thinks he\u2019ll get emotional, if he\u2019s taken time to reflect on his career, and the incredible work he\u2019ll continue in retirement.<\/p>\n
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.<\/p>\n
SPORTSNET: There\u2019s been a lot of reaction since you announced you\u2019re retiring. What has that been like, people saying goodbye to you?\u00a0<\/p>\n
OAKE:\u00a0It’s been crazy. I never thought that it would result in this kind of reaction, either on social media or messages I received. I’ve never seen myself in that way. But I don’t even know how to explain it except that I’ve always done the job and I love doing it. But the way that, apparently, it’s resonated just caught me by surprise.<\/p>\n
Has it been kind of nice?\u00a0<\/p>\n
It has made me uncomfortable. Honestly, this is true of me: I am not great at taking a compliment. I either make a joke or change the subject or whatever.\u00a0And I think the reason for that is I kind of always had \u2014 and I think everybody in this business has it, to an extent \u2014 the imposter syndrome. \u201cThey’re going to find out I’m no good and then what?\u201d But they haven’t, and so here’s the thing: I’m getting out before they do.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Veteran move. Have you been reflecting on your career a lot since you made the announcement?\u00a0<\/p>\n
No, I haven’t. I know I have loved my career, and the only reason I’ve reflected on it in these last few days is because people keep asking me, \u201cWhat’s your best interview?\u201d Or \u201cWhat do you remember most?\u201d And there are things that I do say off the top of my head, but I haven’t really reflected beyond the fact that I have loved my career, and at this age, I still get thrilled out of doing something on the air \u2014 if I think it was good. And believe you me, I know when I got out of the chair many nights thinking,\u00a0Wow, that was good. And other nights thinking,\u00a0I need to go with the crew right now and have a few show erasers\u00a0\u2014 otherwise known as beers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Have you done interviews you felt couldn\u2019t have gone better, ones that were basically perfect?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Well, we’ve been on a pretty good run lately, I think. I would go back to Brandon Montour in Seattle. He was compelling as he talked about his late brother and his Indigenous heritage.\u00a0Then we had Seth Jarvis, entertaining kid from Winnipeg.\u00a0Jon Cooper, Devin Cooley \u2014 they were all good \u2014\u00a0and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins last weekend. So, I feel good about how\u00a0After Hours\u00a0is ending.<\/p>\n
Those are the most recent ones, but another one, and it may be hard for people to understand the context \u2014 being the paths taken by our family because of substance abuse and addiction, which claimed the life of our first son (Bruce, in 2011, at the age of 25). So, we had Brian McGrattan on (After Hours) years back\u00a0in Calgary. We had him on twice, actually, in recovery, when he was dedicated to it obviously. He was at the time working in the Flames organization, I think they called him a development coach,\u00a0but his principal role was to be there for younger players,\u00a0make sure that they stayed on the straight and narrow, and he could be there as a resource for them if they were faltering at all.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We had him on twice, as I say, and at the end of both of those interviews in the following days, there were tons of texts and phone calls from people wanting to know how they could get a hold of Brian McGrattan. And when I say tons, let\u2019s just say that it produced more reaction than most shows that we’ve done, and people wanted to get a hold of him because they were inspired by him, because they wanted to know more about recovery.\u00a0<\/p>\n
So, I saw those shows as having a very significant impact, but that’s not to disparage the others because they all work on some level, I think. That level being that you want people to get to know the guest as a person: what are they really like? It’s hard to do. You can’t do that in those one-minute walk-off interviews that are usually dominated by clich\u00e9s like, \u201cLet’s get pucks in deep, let’s play our game.\u201d But when you get the opportunity,\u00a0After Hours\u00a0presents to sit down with somebody for the better part of half an hour and you hear a few stories, most times people will come away from those shows thinking, \u201cWow, that was neat. I didn’t know that about this guy.\u201d That makes a successful show.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What\u2019s the plan for the\u00a0After Hours\u00a0finale?\u00a0<\/p>\n
My advice to people is if you’ve got anything better to do, go ahead and do it, because I’m not sure the show can possibly live up to expectations with all the hoopla of this week.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ryan Reaves will be our guest and then there’s other stuff that they’re going to run in the show and I’m sad to say that I have lost control of this show. So, if anything happens that you don\u2019t like, don\u2019t blame me.<\/p>\n
Smart of you to put that out there. Do you think you\u2019ll be emotional?\u00a0<\/p>\n
I don’t think so. I’m good with retirement. I’ve made the decision. I could have kept working, but it’s time, and I’m confident and I’ll be okay within a month or two, however long it takes to think: \u201cWho was that guy again?\u201d\u00a0[Laughs.]<\/p>\n
How much preparation goes into interviewing someone on\u00a0After Hours?<\/p>\n
There’s a lot, because for whoever the guest is, we like to find historic video, pictures, whatever. So, I would normally spend hours per week, starting as soon as we know who the guest is, and we try to get that confirmed as soon as possible. I would start probably on Tuesday, looking for stuff and spending a couple of hours on Wednesday, and then our producer, Scott Carruthers, will also spend time looking, and then we combine our info and come up with a list of stuff that we think would be good for the show. So, all told, it does take hours, but the key is, of course, to go on the air and make it look like it’s easy, like no work at all. And I think we’ve been able to do that.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What historic photos and videos of yourself would you pull out to elicit a good reaction during an interview with you?\u00a0<\/p>\n
[Laughs.]\u00a0Pick any one where I’m screwing up on the air, but we wouldn’t have enough time for that. You know, I was on with Ron (MacLean) and Tara Slone on\u00a0Rogers Hometown Hockey\u00a0when it was in Sydney, Nova Scotia, one year, because that\u2019s where I\u2019m from. And so, they dug up some video of me, I might have been at the Olympics, but I thought, \u201cHey I looked pretty good there,\u201d and so I joked with them on the air that is when I should have been cryogenically frozen. Because look at me now!\u00a0[Laughs.]<\/p>\n
Were you a sports-obsessed kid growing up in Sydney?\u00a0<\/p>\n
I was always a big-time hockey fan. One of the best players to come out of Sydney at the time was a guy named Norm Ferguson. And, you know, games weren’t on radio or TV. He’s playing in Oakland (for the NHL\u2019s California Seals), and you weren’t getting those games in Sydney. You weren’t getting those games unless you went to them back then. So, I used to scour the paper. We’d get the\u00a0Cape Breton Post\u00a0the day after a game and, of course, the games were way out on the West Coast, so they wouldn’t necessarily have the results the next day. So, two days later, you’d find out he had a hat trick or something, but I was always trying to keep track of stuff like that.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Is it true you were going to be a doctor?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Well, that’s been overdone. I took pre-med at Memorial University (of Newfoundland), but what happened was I followed my brother to the university radio station, MUN radio, it was called, and volunteered there. Got to go on the air, do sportscasts, and we actually went and covered hockey games, live remotes.\u00a0So, as I like to say, that’s where I fell in love with the sound of my own voice.<\/p>\n
After a couple of years of university, somebody at the radio station said, \u201cYou should apply for that CBC summer relief sportscaster job.\u201d I did, and I didn’t hear anything for a while, so I called and the guy who answered the phone was a gentleman named Ted Withers, who was a legendary sportscaster in Newfoundland, and he said to me most matter of fact: \u201cYou’re the only person to apply, so come in and start on Monday.\u201d Thereby proving the only way for me to get a job was if no one else applied.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I did that summer relief job for two years, and at the end of the second year, one of the two full-time sportscasters quit to go to law school. I applied and don\u2019t ask me how I got it, but I did. My father was not happy because he had come from that generation where all parents wanted their kids to do a little bit better than they had done, and for him, that entailed a university education.\u00a0To placate him, I told him, \u201cI’m only going to do this for a couple of years, then I’ll go back to school.\u201d But no chance of that. Once I hit the air and got to go to the Olympics in 1976, I thought I\u2019d made it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And he used to ask me sometimes, even late in my career, when I was going to go back to university and finish my degree, so I’d have something to fall back on when the CBC and\u00a0Hockey Night in Canada figured out I was no good.<\/p>\n
You\u2019ll have time now in retirement, right?\u00a0<\/p>\n
[Laughs.]\u00a0I don\u2019t know, it\u2019s a bit late for that now. I used to say that to him, too: \u201cIt\u2019s a bit late for that now, don\u2019t you think?\u201d<\/p>\n
What was your first appearance on\u00a0Hockey Night in Canada\u00a0like in the late 1980s? Were you nervous?\u00a0<\/p>\n
No, I wasn’t nervous. I was terrified.<\/p>\n
I don’t recall the first game, actually. It might have been at the Winnipeg Arena. But I do remember one of the markers of working on Hockey Night for me was that I got to work with the legendary Dick Irvin once in Montreal. The first game I ever did with him, we were in studio. There was time to go before the opening faceoff and there was a video that came up, and I screwed up the voiceover, totally, and he rescued me. And there have been more than a few occasions of that. I guess it’s like anything, you might have had 100 great broadcasts, but you remember the two where you thought, \u201cThis is it. This is where they’re going to call me and say, \u2018We figured it out. You’re not coming back.\u2019\u201d Honestly, this is how I’ve lived my broadcasting career, to do a good enough job one week so that they’ll have you back the next.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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