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Brian McFarlane | |
|---|---|
| Born | New Liskeard, Ontario, Canada |
| Alma mater | St. Lawrence University |
| Occupation(s) | Sportscaster, author |
| Spouse | Joan MacFarlane |
| Children | 3 |
| Father | Leslie McFarlane |
Brian McFarlaneCM is a Canadian televisionsportscaster and author. He is best known as a broadcaster onHockey Night In Canada and as an author of hockey books. He is[when?] also the honorary president of theSociety for International Hockey Research.
Brian McFarlane, the son of writerLeslie McFarlane,[citation needed] was raised inWhitby andOttawa Ontario.[citation needed]
He attendedSt. Lawrence University inCanton, New York, on a hockey scholarship, graduating in 1955.[citation needed] In his four years he scored 101 goals for theSkating Saints, which remains a St. Lawrence record. On three occasions, he scored five goals in a game, a school record shared with several others. McFarlane was honoured as an All-American in 1952.[citation needed]
After graduating, he worked in television atWRGB inSchenectady, New York, before moving toCFRB Radio inToronto,Ontario and thenCFCF-TV inMontreal,Quebec (where he was sports director) andCFTO TV in Toronto. He had a lengthy career in broadcasting and journalism.
He is best known as a color commentator and studio host onHockey Night in Canada, beginning in 1964. He made similar broadcasts onNHL games for the major American networksCBS,NBC, andESPN. He was a colour commentator onToronto Maple Leafs local telecasts until 1980, when he made on-air comments that were supportive of Leaf captainDarryl Sittler and critical of Leafs ownerHarold Ballard. He was subsequently banned from theMaple Leaf Gardens press box. ForHockey Night in Canada, he was moved off Toronto games at this point, broadcasting the Montreal Canadiens andWinnipeg Jets (original team) games as the host. His last year with HNIC was 1991, ending a 28-year association with HNIC.[1][2]
McFarlane is often incorrectly cited as the creator or father of the cartoon characterPeter Puck. The cartoon puck, which appeared on bothNBC's Hockey Game of the Week and CBC'sHockey Night in Canada during the 1970s, was actually the creation of NBC executive Donald Carswell, although McFarlane had significant input. The character itself and the animation footage was created by NBC's production partner,Hanna-Barbera. After the network stopped carrying NHL hockey, McFarlane purchased the rights to Peter Puck from Hanna-Barbera and continued to promote the character.[3]
As of 2010, McFarlane had written 96 (with one in the works) books on hockey, selling over 1.3 million books. His first book,50 Years of Hockey (Pagurian Press) was published in 1968 and he continues to write about hockey. McFarlane is an expert on hockey history and has compiled several volumes of NHL lore titledIt Happened in Hockey, a 1999 series detailing the colourful history of theOriginal Six NHL teams, and "Proud Past Bright Future," the history of Women's Hockey (1994, Stoddard,ISBN 0-7737-2836-8). He published two memoirs,Brian McFarlane's World of Hockey (2000,Stoddart Publishing,ISBN 0-7737-3263-2) republished asColour Commentary (2009, Key Porter,ISBN 978-1-55267-600-4) andFrom The Broadcast Booth (2009, Fenn,ISBN 978-1-55168-327-0). In 2008, he began a youth fiction seriesThe Mitchell Brothers which always features hockey in the plots.[4]
Throughout his career, McFarlane collected many memorabilia, photos, and objects focusing primarily on hockey history. In 2006, Brian sold most of his hockey collection to theMunicipality of Clarington, where it became Total Hockey, a multimedia, interactive museum located at the Garnet B. Rickard Recreation Complex in Bowmanville.[citation needed] The museum was closed in 2007 and the collection was sold to an Edmonton-based collector in 2013.[citation needed] Plans for the collection have not been made public, but McFarlane was assured by the purchaser that the collection would be preserved and made available to the public at some point.[citation needed]
From his teenage years, McFarlane was interested in painting. In semi-retirement he began painting regularly producing several hundred paintings, mostly in theGroup-of-Seven style of Canadian landscapes. He became an accomplished painter, exhibiting professionally.[citation needed]
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