Paul Romanuk | |
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| Born | (1961-10-31)October 31, 1961 (age 63) Oshawa, Ontario, Canada |
| Occupation | Sportscaster |
| Years active | 1983–present |
| Known for | The NHL Tonight on TSN play-by-play announcer(1989–1998) Hockey Night in Canada play-by-play announcer(2014–2018) |
Paul Romanuk (born October 31, 1961) is a Torontosportscaster and writer. He was born inOshawa, Ontario, Canada.
Romanuk did television play-by-play for theToronto Maple Leafs and theNHL on Sportsnet.
Raised in Oshawa, Romanuk grew up a hockey fan, playingroad hockey and watchingHockey Night in Canada. He would simultaneously develop a fondness for sportscasting by watching hockey games called byHNIC's play-by-play announcerDanny Gallivan.[1] Furthermore, the youngster also followedBill Hewitt's announcing work as well asDan Kelly's whose broadcasts he listened to onKMOX out ofSt. Louis.[1]
Despite growing up 60 km (37 mi) from Toronto, in the 1970s, young Romanuk became a fan of theMontreal Canadiens whom he took a liking to by watchingCBC'sPeterborough-basedCHEX-TV channel 12 affiliate, which usually carriedHNIC`s national feed that often featured Canadiens games called by his broadcasting hero Gallivan,[2] alongside colour commentatorDick Irvin Jr., while, in contrast,CBLT-TV channel 6, the CBC's flagship station in Toronto, carriedToronto Maple Leafs games called by Bill Hewitt andBrian McFarlane.[3] Stating to have been "as much in love with Gallivan as I was with the Habs", Romanuk considers the broadcaster to be as much a part of the 1970s Canadiens as their star playersGuy Lafleur,Steve Shutt,Ken Dryden,Serge Savard, etc.[3]
In 1981, Romanuk moved toToronto in order to study atRyerson Polytechnical Institute's radio and television arts program.[1]
From 1981 until 1984, in parallel with attending classes at Ryerson, Romanuk did unpaid work onToronto Marlboros Sunday broadcasts onCKLN-FM, Ryerson's campus radio station.[1] He began as a stats and technical equipment associate for play-by-play announcerMichael Landsberg before taking over the play-by-play duties following Landsberg's departure.[1]
In 1983, Romanuk, still a student at Ryerson, got his first paid job in broadcasting, getting hired to provide radio colour commentary for theOntario Hockey League'sOshawa Generals onCKAR alongside play-by-play manMike Inglis.[4] By 1984, Inglis moved on and Romanuk took over the play-by-play duties. He continued on the job even after graduating, performing it until 1987.
Upon graduating from Ryerson in 1984, in addition to continuing as the radio voice of theOntario Hockey League's Oshawa Generals, Romanuk added a few more freelance gigs.
First onHockey Night in Canada as stats assistant and runner for theCBC Sports on-air hockey personnel—play-by-play announcerBob Cole, colour commentatorHarry Neale, and studio hostDave Hodge—a job he did until 1987.[4] While working behind the scenes atHNIC, on March 14, 1987, Romanuk was among the first hand witnesses of Dave Hodge's pen flip, an incident where the host—irritated over the network's insistence on cutting to local news at 11 pm rather than sticking with coverage of an exciting conclusion toCanadiens vs.Flyers game that had been headed into overtime—criticized the CBC live on air while signing off to throw to local news.[4]
Additionally, fresh graduate Romanuk freelanced for the new all-sports cable channelTSN, starting there as a newsroom editorial assistant in February 1985, months after the channel's September 1984 launch.[4] Aside from working in the fledgling network's newsroom, he soon got the opportunity to contribute field pieces and file on-camera reports, even doing the occasional update on TSN's central nightly sports newscastSportsDesk.[4]
With his television profile raised as a result of the TSN on-camera appearances, Romanuk got hired to host theOHL Game of the Week presentation during the1986–87 season onGlobal Television Network. This further television exposure led to Calgary'sCFAC-TV station (at the time still nominally unaffiliated though increasingly reliant on Global's programming) offering him C$50,000, an amount Romanuk in a later interview described as "more money than I had been making from all my freelance gigs put together", for a full-time job of reporting and anchoring theirNewsfirst news show.[4] The 25-year-old took the generous offer, bringing his girlfriend along across the country in 1987.[4] However, mere months after moving to Calgary, Romanuk received a full-time reporter position offer for TSN'sSportsDesk back in Toronto and decided to take it to the displeasure of his Calgary employers.[4]
In October 1987, Romanuk began atTSN as a full-time commentator and reporter.
He didNational Hockey Leagueplay-by-play for theTSN Hockey from 1989 until 2001. Before 1994, Romanuk was the secondary TSN hockey play-by-play voice behindJim Hughson. Hughson left TSN and from the 1994–95 season to the 1997–98 season (when the network lost national NHL rights) Romanuk was the network's lead NHL play-by-play announcer. From 1998 to 2001 he was the English-language television voice of theMontreal Canadiens' regional broadcasts on TSN.[5]
He was best known in Canada for his play-by-play work of international hockey on TSN, where he called virtually every majorIIHF tournament from 1990 until he left the network in early 2001. He covered the NHL Entry Draft from 1987 to '93 and 1997 as a reporter, and from 1994 to '96 and 1998 as a co-host. He also co-hosted the programBaseball Tonight.[6]
In November 1992, while covering theVanier Cup with TSN as a sideline reporter, he was literally picked up and carried around the field in good-natured celebration by Queen's fans after the game had ended, shortly after interviewing MVPBrad Elberg. He has not covered a Vanier Cup since then.[7]
Romanuk has also shared a production credit onCHL Sunday Night on TSN and also onRogers Sportsnet's presentation of theSpengler Cup hockey tournament. He has also worked at sixOlympic Games (Sydney, Salt Lake City, Athens, Beijing, Vancouver and London), covering a variety of sports for CBC, TSN and CTV.[8]
In spring 2001, Romanuk left TSN after fourteen years at the network, accepting the offer of hosting a morning drive show onThe Team 1050, newly re-branded AM station in Toronto. In a later interview, Romanuk cited the fact that the job didn't entail regular travel as well as CHUM's superior financial offer to his TSN compensation as two reasons he decided to leave his established post at TSN.[9] Previously operating for decades as 1050 CHUM in theoldies format, the struggling station looked to turn its financial fortunes around with an all-sports format. Simultaneously, the station's corporate ownerCHUM Limited launchedThe Team Radio Network, an ambitious grouping of sports format AM radio stations throughout Canada.
Romanuk wasn't the only prominent Toronto-based sportscaster on board for the launch of The Team 1050; CHUM Ltd. also brought inMike Richards to be Romanuk's co-host in the morning while further managing a bit of a coup by luring one of TSN's most prominent personalitiesJim Van Horne away from television and pairing him in the afternoon drive slot withThe Globe and Mail's sports writerStephen Brunt who had prior been appearing as pundit and guest host onBob McCown'sPrime Time Sports, the established afternoon drive show the newly assembled Team 1050 afternoon duo were now trying to compete with.
Romanuk's morning show with Mike Richards as well as the entire station turned out to be short-lived, however, getting dismantled in late summer 2002 due to poor ratings as they were unable to attract any of the audience fromThe Fan 590, the legacy sports AM station in town.
After the Team 1050 job went away, Romanuk began freelancing again, doing hosting work forLeafs TV among other gigs.
Owing to his friendship and past business collaboration with theToronto Argonauts president and CEOKeith Pelley, Romanuk got hired to call radio play-by-play alongside colour commentator Pete Martin for the Argonauts games during the2004 season.[10] As Romanuk left after only a season, the radio play-by-play job got taken over byMike Hogan.
In fall 2004, Romanuk got hired by theTelemedia-ownedFan 590 AM station management—consisting ofJohn Shannon and Nelson Millman—as the radio play-by-play voice of theToronto Raptors broadcasts alongside colour commentatorPaul Jones.[11] Romanuk ended up completing only the2004–05 season before quitting.
In terms of work, I naively thought: 'Well, you know, 15–20 years of credibility in the Canadian broadcast industry will be worth something [in England]'. Actually, it's worth nothing. I did work, but not at the level...... I mean, I didn't think I'd be callingfootball on Sky, which would be the equivalent of Hockey Night in Canada on CBC. I wasn't that stupid! But I did think I would get more work than I got. However, I had thewrongaccent. And they're veryxenophobic when it comes to things like that, as we are in Canada.... I would say that over the course of the 9 and a half years that we were there, I had what ranged between one and two-thirds of a job. I had a bunch of gigs.
[9]
In spring 2005, Romanuk quit his Raptors radio play-by-play job at The Fan 590[12] and moved toLondon,England, following his wife who took an executive job atThe Coca-Cola Company's European division based in the city.[12] Moving to London, Romanuk had nothing lined up professionally, initially just hoping to continue a career in sports broadcasting.[13]
Settling in theBattersea area of London,[9] Romanuk found work as a freelance sportscaster, performing various one-off jobs such as calling different sports (including hockey) onEurosport. In the lead-up to the2007 Asian Indoor Games in Macau, China, Romanuk got hired by a contract publishing company to edit a magazine for the games, a full-time job that had him commuting between London and Macau for about six months.[9]
He additionally freelanced on the Canadian networks CBC, CTV, TSN, and Sportsnet coverage (either individual orconsortium) of various international sporting events such as play-by-play announcing oftriathlon andweightlifting at the2012 Summer Olympics in London. Other such events included IIHF World Championships,Spengler Cups, and the2010 FIFA World Cup.
He also did voice-over work for theInternational Ice Hockey Federation, did play-by-play commentary for theChampions Hockey League in2008–09, and emceed the 2012 Hockey Forum inBarcelona and the draw of the re-launched CHL in 2014 inMinsk.[14]
By the early 2010s, Romanuk and his wife moved toWest London while she also switched from a marketing executive job at Coca-Cola to one withL'Oréal.[9]
In 2014, the couple decided to move back to Toronto as Romanuk accepted an offer fromHockey Night in Canada.
In November 2013,Rogers Media's $5.2 billion, twelve-year deal with the NHL for the national and regional broadcasting rights in Canada got announced. Approached by Rogers Media sports executivesKeith Pelley andScott Moore about being part of the broadcast team, Romanuk accepted and, after signing in June 2014 followed by arranging a move back to Canada in September 2014, re-joined Sportsnet as a play-by-play announcer for itsnational NHL coverage. He thus further became one of the newHockey Night in Canada voices and personalities, a group that included new studio hostGeorge Stroumboulopoulos whose hiring received plenty of Canadian press coverage.[15] Alongside analystGreg Millen, Romanuk additionally became part of the regionalToronto Maple Leafs television package airing onSportsnet Ontario.[16]
In 2015, Romanuk was assigned to his first conference final. Until 2018, he was the number two play-by-play announcer for Rogers' NHL coverage (behindJim Hughson). However, he did not call a single 2016 NHL conference final game for unknown reasons (Jim Hughson called that year's Eastern Conference Final whileBob Cole called that year's Western Conference Final). In 2017, he called his second conference final.He would go on to call three conference finals in four years.
In August 2018, Romanuk left Rogers NHL to pursue other challenges.
He has also produced corporate films and television commercials. His most notable writing work is a series of children's books – Hockey Superstars – forScholastic Publishing, Canada. He has written many newspaper and magazine articles and continues to create projects for various clients. in 2010 he produced a "Behind The Scenes" documentary of Canadian recording artistTomi Swick's record, which was recorded in London.
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