Bryan Hall Celebrates 70 years on the air

Bryan is moving from daily to weekly contributions after 65 years broadcasting in Edmonton. Not bad for a guy who came here to call horse races. He had instant recall for names and numbers so he could look at the names and numbers before the race and call the race without looking at the program.
Came in handy because when he started calling football I don't believe they had names on the jerseys.
My single biggest memory was they could have use him instead of chains. It was very very rare he was wrong on what down and who's possession ir was after the ball was spotted.

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Names were introduced on the backs of jerseys in 1970 for the All Star game I Believe, and teams put them on their backs for the most part for the 1971 season.

Hallsy started covering Edmonton sports in 1953, moving to CHED in 1955 as the sports director for the station. The players and games he has seen over his time is absolutely incredible.

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People forget it wasn’t all good either. But there were a ton of awesome players that played for the organization.
He got to call a lot of great games and I know a lot of people who turned down the tv and turned on the radio for games.

We were lucky to have him and Rowdy Roddy Phillips call games for Edmonton for so many years…

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No question. Hallsy had a schtick, but in reality a lot of the callers to his show did ask some stupid questions lol. Rod Phillips was the only voice most people remember when they remember the WHA Oilers, plus the early NHL days when not every game was televised. Nobody has gotten close since IMO.

So many good players during some of the years Bryan Hall was broadcasting games on some pretty terrible teams. He did follow Jackie Parker to Toronto, and when Jack retired, Hallsy game back “home” here to witness a lot of bad QB play for years. Still, those defenses were stellar, and I’m still unsure why some players from those teams aren’t on the Wall of Honour or even in the Hall of Fame in John LaGrone’s case.

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I remember a lot of the stupid questions were deliberate, just to get his goat. He would get mad and the stupider the question the madder he got.

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