As he prepares to kick off his 38th season of broadcasting NHL games, Ron MacLean is thinking a lot about his responsibility as the host of one of the few TV shows that still brings the country together every week.Photo illustration The Globe and Mail. Source photo: George Pimentel/Getty Images/Getty Images
Ron MacLean knows he has critics – the ones who call him too woke, or blame him for Don Cherry’s “You people” self-immolation – but they don’t really bother him. “Everyone gets to chime in,” he said recently over the phone, adding, “‘People have the power’ – Patti Smith.” As he prepares to kick off his 38th season of broadcasting NHL games, MacLean, 63, is thinking a lot about the changes spurred by that people power, and his responsibility as the host of one of the few TV shows that still brings the country together every week.
Mind you, he admits, it would be nice if he could stop talking so much.
What does opening night of a new NHL season mean to you?
A reunion of the panel. One of the most exciting parts is just to see Kevin and Kelly and Jennifer and Elliotte – the Happy Gang back together again. I feel like the soul of a show or of a team is the togetherness. And after that, the key to show business, or the entertainment business, is surprise, and it all starts opening night.
When were you happiest?
You know, Gord Downie seemed satisfied – and that sounds like a dangerous proposition, but I feel it gave him licence to be self-aware and to be critical, and I think a certain amount of – lucky for just the break of being alive that Gord seemed to possess. And I think there’s sort of an internal happiness that I seem to have been born with.
What trait defines you?
Research. I think people think I have a good memory, but I know it’s only research – you ask me three weeks past the date of a performance, and I’m apt to not remember I had done the performance.
What trait do you dislike in yourself?
The temptation to answer back, to retort. Some folks seem to let things breathe way better than I ever do.
Do you mean both on-air and in your personal life?
Yes. You know, I find – too many dinners, I’m the one talking. Obviously as a host your job is to elevate those around you – and that can be confused with enabling, when folks find it disturbing. But you’re trying to set a table at which you won’t be the only one talking, and I struggle with that. Not to exonerate bad behaviour, but I think being an only child might account for the fact that I was always making new friends, and we moved around a lot as an Air Force family. My mom used to say, ‘Okay, Ronnie, that’s enough, go to your room,’ when I would come out to meet the company they were having. And I haven’t cured that. But I’ve been aware of it since I was five.
Ron MacLean apologizes for controversial comment on Hockey Night in Canada
What’s your favourite book?
Harold Bloom’s Where Shall Wisdom Be Found? He compares the great wisdom writers, and my favourite chapter compares Cervantes to Shakespeare. And the conclusion in that chapter is that the wisdom was always revealed in conversations, whether it was Hamlet and Falstaff or Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. So he understands the power of two in mining wisdom. He concludes in the book that wisdom is knowing what to overlook. And I think that is a great little point.
Who is your favourite author?
I would say most of my favourite authors are female authors. Miriam Toews is my No. 1. Nuala O’Faolain, the Irish writer, I was just absolutely gobsmacked with her work. And I would add Rebecca Solnit as maybe No. 3. She wrote Recollections of My Nonexistence, and she also wrote an essay about what’s now known as ‘mansplaining.’ And she wrote about the hurricane in Halifax in 2003, and how the communities rallied, and she described the scene of chaos and community as “a paradise built in hell.” And I always thought: Wow. When I was in the Royal University Hospital in Saskatoon after the Humboldt Broncos crash, what I saw in the ICU reminded me of that “paradise built in hell,” because there was a lot of good in the carnage.
Which historical figure would you most like to meet?
Shakespeare, for sure, because I can’t find him in his work. He’s the Gretzky of all authors. It’s like, ‘How did Wayne do that?’ And in the case of Shakespeare, you will never know whether he liked beer or guitar or piano. It’s just not there. Like Robertson Davies said, asking a writer if their work is somewhat autobiographical is like asking a spider where it buys its thread. You can almost always pin down the artist in the art, but not Shakespeare, and I’d like to know what made him tick. Or her.
What is your favourite possession?
I would say my hockey cards. I don’t take care of them, but they were for me what Google became. My way of watching Hockey Night in Canada and going beyond what was just on the screen was to go through my hockey cards and get birthplaces and statistics. You know, when I read, I always wished there was a university prof next to the bed to explain what the heck that reference was. My hockey cards in my youth were a great way to seek, to learn more.
What is your idea of joy?
Beer-league hockey. Just sitting on the bench, playing a most interesting game that uses arms and legs and imagination, then going for beer after. And maybe a beach. You know, like David Byrne of Talking Heads said, ‘I like staring at the sea and I like a good story. Do I have to choose?’
What’s your idea of misery?
Misery is envy. When a person suffers a spinal-cord injury, the misery comes from the fact that they probably won’t do some of the things others do. And I just pray that they grow through that normal and completely understandable window of envy, that their life won’t be what others’ is, to realize that their life could be better than others’ lives are. So, I find in a state of, ‘You are what you perceive,’ is a kind of terminal envy. And I would describe that as misery.
What would be your favourite journey?
Sailing in the British Virgin Islands. There’s something about the freedom on the water. We were at Cooper Island in the BVI, and Walter Cronkite came by on his boat and he was in his eighties at that point, and I thought, ‘Ah. Good. There’s a guy who’s seen and done a lot. He’s also identified sailing as a great escape.’
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
I don’t know that I have one. I can never answer if anybody ever asks, What do you want your legacy to be? I certainly don’t have any desire to have a legacy.
Do you have a greatest regret?
Oh, I mean, I have to say Don having to leave on the terms that we ended Coach’s Corner. That is a regret. That’s a 33-year-old friendship that basically ended over two decisions: his to not apologize, and mine to carry on. And that, naturally, I’ll take to my grave as a regret. We speak, but you know, how can you take that chunk of your life and suddenly hit a wall? That’s upsetting. And it’s a regret.
What’s your greatest fear?
No fear. Well, maybe it’s the fear that, when the diagnosis comes, I don’t handle it well. I loved Chi-Chi Rodriguez, the golfer, he said that with big putts he always prayed – not that he’d make the putt, but that he’d handle it well if he missed. And I have seemingly had an innate dose of perspective that keeps me happy, even when it’s all imploding around me. There’s a Snow Patrol song, This Isn’t Everything You Are, it has that line: “When it all implodes / Breathe deeply in the silence / No sudden moves / This isn’t everything you are.” And that’s kind of a mantra for me, for sure.
What’s your greatest hope?
I hope that we come out of the struggle that we’re in right now transforming society, and somewhat better for it. I remember the writer Feminista Jones – she doesn’t know me, and I don’t know her – but she said, Don’t call yourself an ally, because the minute the going gets hot, you’ll retreat to your privilege. And I thought, You know what, Feminista? I’ll never forget what you said there. And I’ll try not to retreat to my privilege. But I feel like an ally in some of the great advances that are being made. And I will play no specific role, but I would love to be in a world where it all worked.
Do you have a favourite sport to bet on?
Never bet. I don’t even try to learn, but I’m in a world that has welcomed gambling to every part of the broadcast. It doesn’t bother me, because they’re just talking about their feelings on who could win or do something. But it’s got no appeal whatsoever to me, personally.