Fans of the Vancouver Canucks have been blessed to have a series of world-class talents calling their games on television and the radio.
It started right from day one, with Bernie Pascall on television and Jim Robson on the radio, then continued with the likes of Jim Hughson and Brendan Batchelor.
Since 1998, John “Shorty” Shorthouse has been calling Canucks games for either the radio or television — 25 seasons of doing play-by-play for the Canucks. In that time, he has never called a Canucks playoff game on television. That’s about to change.
Shorthouse, along with his broadcast team with Dave Tomlinson and Dan Murphy, has been tapped to call the Canucks’ first-round match-up with the Nashville Predators for Sportsnet.
It’s an opportunity Shorthouse has been dreaming about since he was a kid.
“You mean, as a kid that grew up in Kerrisdale and wants nothing more than for the Vancouver Canucks to win a Stanley Cup?” said Shorthouse to Sportsnet 650. “A kid who grew up with a transistor radio under his pillow so he could listen to Jim Robson and Tom Larscheid past his bedtime? It’s huge. It’s great.”
Canucks fans agree. The response to Shorthouse being named to the Canucks’ playoffs has been immediate and overwhelmingly positive.
While Shorthouse has never called a Canucks playoff game on television, he has called many on the radio, including his immortal call when Alex Burrows scored to send the Canucks past the Chicago Blackhawks into the second round in 2011: “They’ve slayed the dragon!”
Canucks fans will be hoping he has a few more moments like that to call in the 2024 postseason.
“People who haven’t witnessed it or for fans who are maybe gonna go to their first-ever playoff game in person, those first ten minutes of Game 1, you’re going to be, like, ‘Wow, there’s this gear?’” said Shorthouse. “There’s going to be such an electricity in the building because it is just a completely different beast when you get to playing games at this time of year.”
