Five Questions with Chuck Kaiton

NHL.com's Q&A feature called "Five Questions With …" runs throughout the 2018-19 regular season. We talk to key figures in and around the game and ask them questions to gain insight into their lives, careers and the most recent news.
The latest edition features former NHL play-by-play announcer Chuck Kaiton, who started calling NHL games in the 1979-80 season with the Hartford Whalers. In 2004, he received the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award, presented by the Hockey Hall of Fame to broadcasters in television and radio who make outstanding contributions to their profession.

Chuck Kaiton has found this NHL season challenging.
It is his first not doing radio play-by-play since he started with the Hartford Whalers for the 1979-80 season. This summer, he left the Carolina Hurricanes after 39 seasons with the Whalers/Hurricanes, unable to agree on a new contract.
Kaiton, 66, has launched a new podcast,
"Live Happy Show,"
a weekly offering that focuses on sports, cigars and wine. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, Hockey Hall of Fame member Bobby Orr and legendary coach Scotty Bowman have been among the guests in the eight episodes.
"The happy things in life," Kaiton says as he sits in a downtown hotel on the day of the 2018 Hall of Fame Inductions.
Kaiton does the show with Peter D'Arruda, a financial planner and radio veteran. He met D'Arruda at a golf tournament in Raleigh, North Carolina, several years ago and D'Arruda approached him with the podcast idea this summer after the contract impasse with the Hurricanes.
"We had lunch and said why don't you do something different?" Kaiton said. "I enjoy it. It's a nice little respite. I would still like to be doing NHL hockey this year but that is not the case and it is out of my control. This is great. It's a nice little diversion and it gets me out of the house and my wife (Mary) loves that. And, it is something that keeps me in the broadcast world."
Here are Five Questions with … Chuck Kaiton:
So we're here in Toronto for Hockey Hall of Fame Induction Weekend and you are already in the Hall of Fame as a Foster Hewitt Memorial Award winner. Who were some of the Hall of Fame broadcasters who shaped your career?
Foster Hewitt himself, Danny Gallivan, who used to do the Montreal Canadiens on CBC's "Hockey Night in Canada." Bill Hewitt, who was Foster's son, Dan Kelly from St. Louis. Those were the four big ones. Then I was kind of a contrarian as a kid, so even though I grew up in Detroit, I was a Chicago Blackhawks fan, so I liked Lloyd Pettit, who was the Blackhawk broadcaster and I could get WGN in Detroit when I was a kid. Those would probably be the big five. Those were the most influential to me that worked in the NHL at the time and also my local guys with the Red Wings, Budd Lynch and Bruce Martyn.
What made you want to do play-by-play on the radio so early on?
I loved the creativity of it. As a listener, as a fan, when I would listen to these guys, I just enjoyed what they did. I was always fascinated ever since I was young, listening to a game on the radio and thinking, 'Boy, how do those guys know what they know and do what they do?' It looked like such a fun job. I wasn't a great athlete and I knew I was never going to play in the NHL, even though I did play hockey. I was a better baseball player. But I knew if I couldn't be on the field or on the ice, that is what I wanted to do. They made it so, because they were so individually different. They brought their personalities out. There's a lot of younger guys today that sound the same whether it is on the minor league level or even some guys in the NHL, you can't tell the difference in who they are. All of those guys I just mentioned, you knew who they were when you listened. Bob Wilson in Boston, the same thing. When you were listening to the radio, you knew Dan Kelly immediately, you knew Danny Gallivan, Foster Hewitt, Bill Hewitt. That individuality intrigued me. I wanted to be a part of that. And I did that as a kid playing hockey, I was announcing the games when I played. It was the individuality and the creativity, especially on the radio.
You were the voice of the Hartford Whalers for a long time and so many things about that team have stood the test of time, but nothing is as endearing as "Brass Bonanza." What makes it so popular to so many in your opinion?
It was their goal song for so long, all the way back to their days in the World Hockey Association. In fact, when I got the job, I was still hosting the Blue Line Club Luncheon when I did the University of Wisconsin games and the day that I told them I was leaving to go to Hartford, they told me, 'Oh, you will love the theme song.' Theme song? That was unheard of back then except for "Here Come the Hawks." There weren't a lot teams that had theme songs and I was like, 'What are you talking about?' That was my introduction before I even got to Hartford. That song was a production piece from BMI or ASCAP that they picked up and I have no idea how they picked it out. It was Bill Barnes, the marketing director for the Whalers, who picked it. It became catchy and he was responsible for that. No teams ever played a song after they scored a goal like that. It was so innovative at the time.

How many times have you heard it?
I can't even start to guess how many times I have heard that song. You would have to go back and count the number of goals Hartford scored at home from 1979 to 1997. Plus, you heard it when they came on the ice and you heard it when they won. So, who knows, 10,000 times, conservatively. I love it. I know a lot of people don't, but I absolutely love it.
Are there younger announcers you like to listen to now?
I'm partial to the radio guys because I love radio. The TV guys, they have a whole different way of doing it. It is a producer's medium, where radio is an announcer's medium. I like the Bob Cole approach. He does TV like you should do radio. He's an expert at it. Fifty years, I got to give that guy credit. He's exciting to me. There are a lot of good young announcers. I like Jack Michaels in Edmonton. I love David Goucher in Vegas. I was so happy for him when he made the transition to Vegas from the Boston Bruins. I think he does a great job. I'm partial because he was a radio guy that moved onto TV, but I think he is unique. You listen to him, you know it is him. Those two guys to me stand out. Those would be my two guys, with all due respect to my other colleagues, that are in that 40s range and are really making their mark. Dave has been around since 2000, so that is 18 years for him and Jack has been around for 10 or 11 years now after Rod Phillips retired. I give those guys a lot of credit. They are very good at what they do, and they are unique."