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Spotlight on Sports by Paul Graif
Ted Tevan: Homage to a real straight arrow Ted Tevan’s passing has brought memories of my childhood flooding back. I will never forget those nights in the mid-to-late 1970’s, staying up way past my bedtime to listen to his show, “the event,” as Hall of Fame broadcaster Dick Irvin told me earlier this week. Those bleary-eyed mornings at elementary school when my friends and I would stand around in the schoolyard at recess the next day: “Did you hear Tevan machine gun that guy last night? It was awesome. He was such a mooch.” I always marveled at a couple of my friends who managed to stay up late enough to listen to it all. We had an informal competition between us: Who could get past his producer, McGaritty, and actually get on air with Ted to talk sports? I even had my parents call so that I wouldn’t sound like a kid. And if we did get on air, the goal then was hardly to be called a “straight arrow.” We wanted to get machine gunned off the radio. We wanted to hear Ted say “You’re gone… 790-0741” or “You’re banned for a year.” Irvin was right. Tevan’s show wasn’t about the statistics or the plays on the field, it was about him. Thirty years later, we don’t remember who was on first base on some random summer night when the Expos turned a game-ending double play to win it. We think back to the man behind the microphone who turned that game we had just listened to, featuring Dave and Duke, into something far greater than just a game.
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We needed to hear how Tevan was friends with the players. We wanted to hear how he handled all the callers, who, like us, aspired to be shot down, aspired to be humiliated by this man who was larger than life. Fast forward 15 years to 1994. I was just breaking into mainstream radio and producing and reporting for the Mitch Melnick Show on CIQC and I was lucky enough to break the story of the end of the NHL referees strike one day. I remember going live on radio stations across the country with the news. For five decades, family But it wasn’t until I returned to the studio to file my reports that I was really put to the test. Ted Tevan was on air that night. business OTA has been He wanted me to guest on his show. I had finally secured the here, serving Montrealers biggest badge of honour among my elementary school friends - I was going on the radio with Ted Tevan as an equal! from the West End and
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Before going on, Ted told me he was proud of me. I beamed. But that night I learned a big lesson. It wasn’t about the news that I had broken. It was all about the show. Years later the only people who remember that I broke that story are related to me, but everyone who listened to the radio in Montreal in the 1970s and ‘80s knew who Ted Tevan was. What many didn’t know was that he was kind and generous. He and I stayed in touch over the years: We last spoke about four months ago and he told me that I was doing a great job on TV and radio. To hear that kind of praise from the man who knew how to put on an event like no other meant the world to me. Ted Tevan was a pioneer who affected far more careers than just mine. I am honoured to have known him, to have worked with him and to have learned from him. Ted, you were a straight arrow.
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