From left: Bruce Gordon, Trish Wiebe, Murray Guest (aka The Dancin' Guy), Tonya Lewis, Rod Barch, and James Simpson smile from their vantage point at rinkside in Rutherford Arena, where they announce the Huskie men's hockey games, keep the stats, and keep the fans entertained.
Gordon's gang keeps the game stats.
Bruce Gordon, left, and back-up announcer James Simpson keep tabs on a Jan. 10 game in Rutherford Arena between the Huskies and the University of Regina Cougars.
By Lawrence McMahen
It's a lucky person who gets to follow their dream in life.
Dr. Bruce Gordon must be doubly blessed. He's managing to follow two of his dreams.
Gordon is a U of S-trained clinical psychologist who has worked at the Alvin Buckwold Child Development Program for 19 years, helping kids with developmental challenges like fetal alcohol syndrome, Down syndrome and autism.
Working with children and their families in the Buckwold Program's offices just a couple of blocks from campus satisfies one of Gordon's dreams.
But it's the pursuit of his other passion, right on campus, that has gained Gordon a bit of notoriety. And some might even say this vocation calls for just as much psychological know-how as his day job.
For the past 18 years he has been the verbal master of the 'Dog House' - running the public-address announcing of Huskie men's hockey games at the venerable Rutherford Arena and, with a close-knit group of friends, looking after the official and unofficial duties of scorekeeping, statistics, music, and a joke-filled banter that keeps the fans informed and entertained.
It's a labour of love for Gordon. "I grew up loving the game," he recalls.
"When I was a kid I didn't have the skills to play organized hockey - but I played shinny and was a huge Montreal Canadiens fan. Watching them on Hockey Night in Canada was like going to Sunday mass."
Gordon's interest went beyond just watching the games. He became an expert on hockey trivia of the 1960s and '70s - especially about goaltenders and announcers.
"There was a time I knew who every goaltender in the NHL was, and my favourite, of course, was Ken Dryden. And I was as much a fan of (Hockey Night in Canada announcer) Danny Gallivan as of Ken Dryden."
When Gordon arrived on campus as an undergrad student in 1979, he decided to volunteer with the former U of S radio station, CJUS. As luck would have it, his former phys. ed. teacher from Aden Bowman high school, Dave King, was by then coach of the Huskies hockey team. King initially told him he needed help with videotaping the games, but Gordon soon gravitated to the microphone and became the CJUS on-air play-by-play announcer. He did that until 1985, when the station shut down.
"By then Brent McEwen was coach, and I was hanging around and he said, 'Well, I could use some help with the public address and the off-ice officials...'."
Gordon hasn't looked back since.
"First and foremost, I thought, if I'm going to do this well, who can I get" for the statistics, music and other duties?
He had been playing for years with a group of friends in a regular weekly pick-up soccer game, so he naturally invited his buddies to help out - and the rest is Rutherford Arena history.
While his gang's personnel has changed a bit over the years, its core has always been made up of his old soccer friends. The off-ice 'team' consists of Murray Guest, handling the visitors' penalty box, Rod Bartsch, with a rich mixture of upbeat interval music, Tonya Lewis, looking after stats, Trish Wiebe, on the Huskies' penalty box, James Simpson, timekeeper and back-up announcer, and Gordon, as announcer, joke-teller, and all-round ringmaster.
"It's a great team," says Gordon. "James is a really fine p.a. announcer. Rod has been doing the music since at least 1990 and does a great job."
He says Wiebe is the only one of the bunch that actually plays hockey.
The group has two claims to fame. Key is the fact that they do a good job of the off-ice statistics and game record-keeping. Gordon says they pride themselves on being accurate and fair to all visiting teams.
And it's quite a job. They have to note the goals and penalties, and make four copies of the official game score-sheet.
"There's enough paperwork to make you feel like you're doing your taxes," Gordon says. And that's for each of the 14 scheduled home games from October to February, along with the usual six pre-season exhibition games and three playoff games.
But the part of their work that has raised eyebrows and a lot of smiles over the years is the fun the group has with the announcing and the fans.
Gordon, who keeps up on current events by reading three newspapers a day, jokes back and forth with his friends in the officials' box, and he "cherry-picks" some of the best of their quips and passes them on to the fans over the p.a. system. With a fairly literate University crowd, and one that's always happy and friendly by hockey-rink standards, Gordon often has a field day with subtle jokes that play on current happenings in the news.
All the while, whenever the Huskies score, Bartsch is quick to play loud dog-barks - and when play stops, he whips on the fun music, often '80s rock. Guest, a Saskatoon teacher by day, takes his cue from Bartsch's music and becomes The Dancin' Guy by night, bobbing his head and moving his body to the music throughout every Huskie game - no doubt staying warm, but also providing the audience with a lot of entertainment during pauses in the hockey action.
Gordon notes that Guest's Dancin' Guy has become a bit of a celebrity lately, and he's all for that.
Gordon has worked some of his lore of les Canadiens into his Huskies schtick - the opening of each game blasts off with a booming rendition of O Canada half in French and half in English by the Montreal Forum's renowned former singer, Roger Doucette. And Gordon borrows a lot of his style from his "idol", former Forum p.a. announcer Claude Mouton.
"A lot of the stuff we do is homage to the game," Gordon says.
An aspect of the work that he values is the chance to get to meet and chat with the coaches, referees and players about various aspects of his beloved hockey.
He has discovered that a lot of the coaches and refs "are very smart, and they're darn good psychologists."
Gordon says he has even picked up some valuable behavioural tips from them that he has been able to use in his work with children and their parents. He can help parents emulate good referees when dealing with their children: "There are times when you call everything, times when you let them play, and times to stay out of it."
A highlight of his team's announcing and scorekeeping career was the privilege of working the University Cup in the late 1990s in SaskPlace. "That was very rewarding. There's a real buzz around national championships, and if you have pride in the job you do as an off-ice official, this allows you to take your game to the next level."
Much of what motivates Gordon is his identification with the U of S. He's been an undergrad student, a grad student, now works in the affiliated Buckwold Program, and has had the long association first with CJUS and now as the voice of the Huskie men's hockey - and on top of all that, he also teaches in the University's Psychology Department and the Department of Educational Psychology & Special Education.
"I always think if they walked in tomorrow and said 'You're going to have to pay (to announce the Huskies game),' I'd say, 'Okay'. It's fun!"
Gordon says his gang knows the Huskies fans "have been very gentle, sweet and tolerant of us."
Nevertheless, he knows his group's run with the 'Dogs' will come to an end someday - but he'd like it to be after the move to a new arena. He sympathizes with the fans, who have to contend with pillars in their line of sight.
"We need a new rink, but it's going to be hard to see Rutherford go. The last night there would be a tough night - but I'd also like to see the new rink."
Even when he hangs up his microphone, the Gordon run with the Huskies may not end there. He has 10-year-old twins, a boy and a girl - "and my daughter is a huge Huskies fan, and she's starting to play hockey!"
