Steve Armitage (born June 20, 1944) is a retired

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

-born

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

sports Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, th ...

reporter A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

formerly with

CBC Sports CBC Sports is the division of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation responsible for English-language sports broadcasting. The CBC's sports programming primarily airs on CBC Television, CBCSports.ca, and CBC Radio One. (The CBC's French-languag ...

. He reported on and hosted ''

Hockey Night in Canada CBC Television has aired National Hockey League (NHL) broadcasts under the ''Hockey Night in Canada'' (often abbreviated ''Hockey Night'' or ''HNiC'') brand that is primarily associated with its Saturday night NHL broadcasts throughout its hi ...

'' broadcasts for the

Vancouver Canucks The Vancouver Canucks are a professional ice hockey team based in Vancouver. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference, and play their home games at Rogers Arena. Bruce B ...

for nearly 30 years, the

Canadian Football League The Canadian Football League (CFL; french: Ligue canadienne de football—LCF) is a professional sports league in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football. The league consists of nine teams, each located in a ci ...

and

Grey Cup The Grey Cup (french: Coupe Grey) is both the championship game of the Canadian Football League (CFL) and the trophy awarded to the victorious team playing in the namesake championship of professional Canadian football. The game is contested be ...

for 30 years, the

Olympics The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a var ...

including speed skating, swimming and diving, and the

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the concept i ...

Early life and education

Born in

High Wycombe High Wycombe, often referred to as Wycombe ( ), is a market town in Buckinghamshire, England. Lying in the valley of the River Wye surrounded by the Chiltern Hills, it is west-northwest of Charing Cross in London, south-southeast of Ayl ...

Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-ea ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, UK, he was raised in

Victoria, British Columbia Victoria is the capital city of the Canadian province of British Columbia, on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific coast. The city has a population of 91,867, and the Greater Victoria area has a population of 397,237. Th ...

and

Dartmouth, Nova Scotia Dartmouth ( ) is an urban community and former city located in the Halifax Regional Municipality of Nova Scotia, Canada. Dartmouth is located on the eastern shore of Halifax Harbour. Dartmouth has been nicknamed the City of Lakes, after the larg ...

. He attended

Saint Mary's University, Halifax Saint Mary's University (SMU) is a formerly Catholic, public university located in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The school is best known for having nationally leading programs in business and chemistry, as well as one of the best Canadian women ...

where he played football

quarterback The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern Ame ...

, graduating in 1968 with a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

degree.

Career

In 1965, he began working at CBC on a part time basis in Halifax, writing the late night sportscast. In 1973, he moved to Vancouver, joining Bill Good Jr. at CBC Vancouver covering local and national sports. Armitage won the 1982

ACTRA Foster Hewitt Award The Foster Hewitt Award for Excellence in Sports Broadcasting was presented annually by ACTRA, the Canadian association of actors and broadcasters, to honour outstanding work by Canadian television and radio sportscasters. The award was named after ...

for Excellence in Sports Broadcasting and he was nominated for a

Gemini Award The Gemini Awards were awards given by the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television between 1986–2011 to recognize the achievements of Canada's television industry. The Gemini Awards are analogous to the Emmy Awards given in the United States ...

in 1998 for his coverage of

speed skating at the Winter Olympics Long track speed skating, Speed skating has been featured as a sport in the Winter Olympics since the 1924 Winter Olympics, first winter games in 1924. Women's events were added to the Olympic program for the first time in 1960 Winter Olympics, 1 ...

. In 2006, he was inducted into the

BC Sports Hall of Fame The BC Sports Hall of Fame is a museum located in BC Place Stadium, at Gate A, the main entrance to the stadium, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It collects, preserves, studies and interprets materials that relate to British Columbia's spo ...

. Armitage was one of the two play-by-play announcers (the other being Nigel Reed) announcing for CBC Sports in the

2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup The 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup was the 16th edition of the FIFA U-20 World Cup (formerly called the FIFA World Youth Championship), hosted by Canada from 30 June to 22 July 2007. Argentina defeated the Czech Republic in the title game by the score ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. Paul Dolan was the analyst alongside Armitage. He called

swimming at the 2008 Summer Olympics The Swimming (sport), swimming competitions at the 2008 Summer Olympics took place from 9 to 17 August 2008 at the Beijing National Aquatics Centre. The newly introduced open water marathon events (10 km) were held on 20 and 21 August 2008 ...

for CBC. Armitage was laid off by the CBC in August 2014 due to cuts to sports programming and the loss of hockey coverage to

Rogers Media Rogers Media Inc., operating as Rogers Sports & Media, is a Canadian subsidiary of Rogers Communications that owns the company's mass media and sports properties, such as the Citytv and Omni Television terrestrial television stations, Sportsnet, ...

. He did, however, return to work for CBC at the 2018 and 2022 Olympics to call events such as long track speed skating. Armitage announced his retirement at the conclusion of the

2022 Winter Olympics The 2022 Winter Olympics (2022年冬季奥林匹克运动会), officially called the XXIV Olympic Winter Games () and commonly known as Beijing 2022 (2022), was an international winter multi-sport event held from 4 to 20 February 2022 in Beij ...

References

External links

CBC biography of Steve Armitage
* 1944 births Association football commentators Canadian Football League announcers Canadian expatriates in England Canadian colour commentators Canadian television sportscasters CBC Television people English emigrants to Canada Living people National Hockey League broadcasters North American Soccer League (1968–1984) commentators Olympic Games broadcasters People from High Wycombe Players of Canadian football from Nova Scotia Saint Mary's Huskies football players Saint Mary's University (Halifax) alumni Swimming commentators {{canada-journalist-stub