Bob Cole began his tenure as the play-by-play man on Hockey Night in Canada way back in 1969. Back then, the CBC’s hockey coverage was only available on the radio. When HNIC moved to TV in 1973, Cole came along. He mainly worked on broadcasts of Maple Leafs games.
Fifty years later, Cole is finally done as a hockey broadcaster. He announced that 2018-19 would be his final season in the booth before the season even began. Saturday night his career came to an end with the Maple Leafs’ shootout loss to the Montreal Canadians.
2018 was the first postseason of his career that Cole did not take any postseason assignments. He worked an abbreviated schedule this season to ensure he could get in his fiftieth year of service to Hockey Night in Canada fans.
