This sporting spring in Canada is all about the Toronto Raptors in the NBA final.
The 2019 Stanley Cup final? What’s that?
But Jim Laing, of Victoria, can be excused if he is watching the Stanley Cup with more interest than most people, and even for bleeding a little black and gold.
Laing was the Boston Bruins play-by-play radio broadcaster for Bobby Orr’s rookie season in 1966-67.
“There were only six teams in the NHL back then and it was a bit of a miracle to get that job because there were only six of them in the league,” said Laing, who retired to Victoria in 2009.
Before the introduction of the entry draft, NHL clubs sponsored junior affiliate teams which developed players. Boston’s junior affiliates included the Oshawa Generals in Ontario, out of which Orr came, and the Estevan Bruins in Saskatchewan. Laing was the 23-year-old play-by-play broadcaster for the Estevan club when his voice was noticed by Boston Bruins president Weston Adams during a visit to Estevan.
That led to Laing being elevated to the Boston broadcast booth, where he called Orr’s rookie season. The big-league gig lasted one year before Laing returned to his family’s Coke business on the Prairies because they needed him back home.
“The timing was a little off and blood was thicker than water,” Laing said.
His family was also involved with Soo Line Broadcasting in Saskatchewan and Laing kept his place in hockey booths and continued a broadcasting career for many more seasons of junior hockey with the Estevan Bruins and Weyburn Red Wings. He said it was a proud moment to call Weyburn’s 1984 championship season.
With the Bruins in the 2019 Stanley Cup final, Ron MacLean gave Laing a shout out during one of the TV broadcasts of the Bruins-Blues series, even airing a clip of Laing’s call of an Orr goal from 1966.
One might think Laing would have been a lonely Bruins supporter among a sea of fervent Canucks fans in B.C. during the lamented and ill-fated 2011 Stanley Cup final. But not so, as he was, by then, well settled in his adopted province.
“I was saddened for the [Sedin] twins,” Laing said. “It showed you have to be a nasty and tough team to win the Stanley Cup now.”
