ROBSON RULES THE (AIR)WAVES

    Twenty-six thousand feet above Sioux Falls, S.D., the man who says he has the best job in the world sits crammed between two overweight sports writers on Republic flight 560 from Denver to Minneapolis.  His throat scratchy from the previous night's game.  CKNW play-by-play broadcaster Jim Robson busies himself updating the statistics of the Vancouver Canucks.  Among the adjoining rows of seats, suppressing their obvious fatigue, are the athletes who will be called upon that night to play their 4th game away from home in less than a week.  Twenty hours and 1,000 kilometres since his last broadcast, Robson too will perform again. 

     Following the game, he will return to his hotel room, switch on the television sports and watch replays of all the scoring plays, hoping he called them correctly.  It has been Robson's routine for the 11 seasons the Canucks have belonged to the National Hockey League.  The schedule was more demanding when Robson covered the Western League Canucks, the baseball Mounties and football's B.C. Lions for rival station CKWX.  He worked over 230 games a year.  

     When television came calling with an offer of full-time employment, he saw an opportunity to further decrease his load and fly first class.  Robson intended to make the move this year.  "I would like to go to TV full time," admits the infrequent member of the Hockey Night in Canada crew.  "But it's tough because NW is so far.  Every time TV offers me something, NW tops it."  Negotiations with Canadian Sports Network reached their climax last summer.  The offer would have put Robson on Hockey Night in Canada full-time and would have made him available for BCTV's Wednesday night telecasts. The previous summer he had negotiated with BCTV for the play-by-play job.  Robson has already done three NHL all-star games for Hockey Night in Canada, and he is scheduled to do his 4th on Feb. 10 in Los Angeles.  Robson was their man for the final 4 games in last year's Stanley Cup finals.  "That was kind of Jimmy's shot." says Hockey Night in Canada executive producer, Ralph Mellanby, "and I thought he did pretty well."  "We've talked to him about going full-time, but the cards just haven't fallen into place.  The guy likes Vancouver, and he wants to stay there.  Right now I think he feels he has the best of both worlds."

     This year, NW agreed to free Robson for more televised Saturday games provided he works a minimum of 65 radio broadcasts.  Robson signed a 2-year contract, the longest agreement he's had with NW.  When he misses a Canuck game to do TV, Robson pays the fee for his radio replacement Jim Hughson.  Mellanby admires 3 features in Robson, his distinctive voice and style, the method in which he brings colour into the play-by-play, and his "first-class image."  But Mellanby dislikes his special hello to shut-ins because "it's too repetitive."  Robson defends the trademark from former WX disc-jockey Cal George by saying: "People in the business think it's corny, but it's not corny to the shut-ins." 

     "I thought this year was going to be the breakaway year," Robson reflects.  "Down the road, it's getting to the point where I'd just like to do TV."  It was time to look at the next step.  In 2 years, who knows." 

     The arrival of Hughson was one reason CKNW was willing to loosen the reins on Robson, who had seen every Canuck regular-season and playoff game (835) before Dec. 13.  He was in Toronto that night describing the action between the Leafs and Buffalo, while Hughson was in Boston with the Canucks.  "I saw him the next day in a restaurant in Buffalo," Hughson relates.  "It was like a game of 20,000 questions.  He wanted to know everything."  Hughson, who once operated the Canucks game of the week for CKNL in Fort St. John did his first game Oct. 18 when the Canucks were in Montreal.  Robson was in the televison booth.  "I don't think I slept for about 3 days before I did it,"  says Hughson, who practised by using his pen as a make believe microphone.  "It was my first NHL game and I wanted to prove I could do it.  And also, I was following an institution like Robson, who people have listening to forever.  If I went in there and blew it, there may not have been a second chance."

     Of Robson's play-by-play, Hughson says: "Jim takes the shortest route from "A to B" in words.  If you do that, you never get caught behind the play.  He's a master at that."  A perfectionist, people who know Robson describe him as the most conscientious worker they've met.  In many ways, he is like a diamond on a string of glass beads, whether you compare him to the Canucks he was watched or his cohorts in the electronic media. "He never takes anything for granted, no matter how many times he's seen a team play or how well he knows the players," states Bob Mutis, who produces Canuck home broadcasts on NW.  "He expects the people around him to be as sharp as he is.  I think that's what has got him to the forefront; he's so demanding on himself and on those people around him." 

     For many years Robson did the radio broadcasts alone, but station manager Ted Smith introduced a colour commentator.  For the fourth season it is Tom Larsheid.  "If Tom makes what seems to be a small error, Jim will correct him on it in a friendly way.  But it makes you think 'Geez, this guy doesn't let anything get by,'" says Mutis.  Larsheid says: "Jim is such a nice guy when you meet him and talk to him, but when you get in the booth, it's strictly business. It can be very unnerving to be corrrected.  If my contribution to the broadcast is not up to the standard Jim expects, he doesn't have to tel me he's upset; I know.  Jimmy makes mistakes.  He will correct himself if the game's on television.  But Jim makes very few mistakes.    "Jim didn't ask for a colour man," says Larscheid adds.  "The real reason I was selected was because of Robson's voice.  It's prolonged his career as far as the company's concerned; he isn't talking for 3 hours like he did for 7 years." 

     Robson had never had voice training and many mornings he wakes up hoarse.  Bill Stephenson, the sports director, of WX in the late 50's, now with CFRB in Toronto, says: "Jim's biggest selling point iat that time was his extreme enthusiasm and his willingness to work; it wasn't his broadcasting ability.  In those days, as it is today, the biggest concern was his voice."  A headset microphone has eased the strain on those abused vocal cords.  Robson critic's are as abundant as Canuck playoff victories.  But if there is one rap against him, it is the way in which he avoids controversy.  "Jim has always taken a postive approach to the the home team, the Canucks," says Larscheid.  "He can very  critical about an individual player off the air, but on the air he tempers it a bit. I think as far as reporting the straight, hard news goes, there's no one better.  I think when it gets to something highly controversial, or it could be met with mixed emotions, Jim's philosophy is let it ride and it will all smooth over in the long run.  He stays away from controversy." 

     Robson admits: ""I'm not interested in scoops or inside information.  My job is to describe an event.  If players get in a fight in practice or something fine.  But if two guys get in a fight in bar, and I find out about it, I'm not going to mention it.   I can't think of anything I've covered up.  But I do know some things that I've never seen in print.  People say I never say anything critical, but if you listen closely, you'll be able to tell who played well and who didn't." 

     Robson rejects the label of "house man," a tag he must tolerate when Western Broadcasting Co. Ltd.  owns both the Canucks and NW.  Responding to criticism, one-time Canuck defenceman Randy Holt caught some unexpected wrath when he tried to convince Robson that sportscasters were part of the team.  On the final night of a 5-game road trip, the Canucks are playing Winnipeg.  Jim Robson and Tom Larscheid are clicking, the radio broadcast is enjoyable even to to watch.  As Robson talks about the penalty-killing of Doug Small, Larsceid waves 3 fingers to indicate the number of shorthanded goals the Jets rookie has scored.  When Winnipeg's Barry Long takes a shot from centre ice, and Robson descirbes it as a 'long shot,' he shudders at the obvious pun and rewords the play.

     At his rather comfortable home in Shaugnnessy, Robson extracts boyish glee from sorting through the memorabilia that clutters his den.  Along one side of the room is his collection of books--sports biographies, fact guides, and every Canuck program.  He has a football cap given to him by Dave Skrien, the coach of the only Lions team to win a Grey Cup.  he as a cassette recording of a Mounties baseball reconstruction he did with Ron Robinson.  He still has photographs and newspaper clippings of the Alberni Athletics, Canadian senior basketball champions when Robson's brushcut was its bristly best.  He has saved a bottle of Napoleon Courvooisier presented to him in 1970 when he left WX.  He plans to open it the night when the Canucks win the Stanley Cup.

     Hidden on a top shelf is a plaque from one of his numerous ACTRA awards nominations.  Asked about it, Robson instead reaches down beside his portable typewriter for the Roy Chapman Memorial Award, which Robson receives from the B.C. Association of Broadcasters as the broadcaster of 1980.  Among the 5 previous winners is Bill Hughes, the man who lured Robson to CKNW to cover the Canucks.  It is the same Bill Hughes who steered a keen 16-year-old he met during a vocational day at Maple Ridge Junior High toward his first job as a "continuity writer" for CJAV radio in Port Alberni. 

     Robson has turned a corner of sorts in his career.  But 28 years after he did his  first hockey broadcast between the Lake Cowichan Bruins and the Alberni  Valley Flyers, he found himself spending his 46th birthday Saturday in a Calgary hotel.  Robson can't  even recall where he was or what  he was covering when his 4 children--Mike, Rob, Jennifer and Stephani--were born.  Wife Bea still laughs about the time she photographed him putting a Canuck decal on a garbage can near the Plains of Abraham. 

     Robson returns to the TV room to watch the Maple Leafs play the Edmonton Oilers.  As he listens to Bill Hewitt's familiar voice describe the action, he pushes a bowl of chili to one side of the TV tray and picks up a glass of red wine.  To no one in particular, he says, "I bet if I said last year that I'd move to Toronto, I'd be doing all these games." 

Written by Mike Gasher
The Province  Monday, Jan. 19, 1981