Key takeaways:
- Broadcaster heard on airwaves across Canada for almost 50 years.
- John Hancock’s profession has taken him worldwide to nine Olympics Games.
John Hancock offered a play-by-play analysis of hockey and baseball matches long before he got paid for it.
Hancock joked that when he was a kid, he would trouble his friends with his commentary as they played in the lanes of his hometown of Cambridge, Ont.
“The children thought I was crazy, but they even thought that maybe I would likely get into this business, ” he stated.
He did precisely that.
After 49 years as a sports commentator — 44 of those with CBC — he’s been marked where his broadcasting aim started.
Hancock, who now stays in Halifax, has been the voice of sports news for decades. His outstanding career has taken him around the world.
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He covered nine Olympic games, including Calgary, in 1988. He also covered the 1999 Pan American Games.
He stated one of his career highlights was declaring the men’s and women’s figure skating at the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City.
Canadians Jamie Salé and David Pelletier got gold in pairs.
“I recall how scared I was, but how thrilling and exhilarating it was,” he spoke of announcing at those Olympics.
One day at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta is engraved in his memory. He got a call to cover the men’s 100-meter final.
“I happened to be in a nightclub that evening. The bomb went off in the Olympic Plaza,” stated Hancock, referring to the bombing in Centennial Olympic Park that murdered one person and wounded almost 100.
Source – cbc.ca
