John Arthur Davidson (born February 27, 1953) is a Canadian-American professional

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice h ...

executive and former player, who serves as President of Hockey Operations and alternate governor for the

Columbus Blue Jackets The Columbus Blue Jackets (often simply referred to as the Jackets) are a professional ice hockey team based in Columbus, Ohio. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division in the Eastern Conference ...

of the

National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

(NHL). As a

goaltender In ice hockey, the goaltender (commonly referred to as the goalie) is the player responsible for preventing the hockey puck from entering their team's net, thus preventing the opposing team from scoring. The goaltender mostly plays in or near t ...

, he played in the NHL for the

St. Louis Blues The St. Louis Blues are a professional ice hockey team based in St. Louis. The Blues compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Central Division in the Western Conference. The franchise was founded in 1967 as one of the ...

and

New York Rangers The New York Rangers are a professional ice hockey team based in the New York City borough of Manhattan. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division in the Eastern Conference. The team plays its home ...

. He is also well known as a long-time hockey broadcaster, and was honored by the Hockey Hall of Fame with the 2009

Foster Hewitt Memorial Award The Foster Hewitt Memorial Award is an annual accolade honoring a member of the ice hockey broadcasting world. It was named for the Canadian hockey radio broadcaster and newspaper journalist Foster Hewitt, and it has been presented every year at a ...

for his contributions to broadcasting.

Playing career

Growing up in western

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 ...

, he played his junior hockey in Calgary, Alberta. He was drafted fifth overall in the 1973 NHL Amateur Draft, and became the first goalie in NHL history to jump directly from major junior to the NHL.

St. Louis Blues

Davidson stepped right into the NHL and split duties with veteran Wayne Stephenson during his rookie year and posted slightly better numbers. Just before the start of Davidson's second season in the league, the Blues dealt Stephenson to the

Philadelphia Flyers The Philadelphia Flyers are a professional ice hockey team based in Philadelphia. The Flyers compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division in the Eastern Conference. The team plays its home games in Well ...

, making Davidson the Blues' starting goaltender. Davidson played 40 games for the Blues but his goals against average rose from an impressive 3.08 as a rookie to 3.66 in his second year. That summer, the Blues packaged Davidson with Bill Collins and shipped him to the New York Rangers for

Jerry Butler Jerry Butler Jr. (born December 8, 1939) is an American soul singer-songwriter, producer, musician, and retired politician. He was the original lead singer of the R&B vocal group the Impressions, inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame i ...

Ted Irvine Edward Amos "Ted" Irvine (born December 8, 1944) is a Canadian former professional NHL hockey player who was active during the 1960s and 1970s. Career Irvine was a left winger. He amassed a total of 331 points in 774 games played over a 15-yea ...

and Bert Wilson.

New York Rangers

In New York, Davidson was to share the crease with Hall of Famer Ed Giacomin, who had tended goal for the Rangers for the ten previous seasons. However, early in the year, the Rangers shocked their fans by placing Giacomin on waivers where he was claimed by the Detroit Red Wings, making Davidson the undisputed starting goaltender for the team. Davidson played a career-high 56 games for New York that year, a total he was unable to ever match due to a string of injury issues in the years to come. He helped lead the Rangers to the

1979 Stanley Cup Finals The 1979 Stanley Cup Finals was the championship series of the National Hockey League's (NHL) 1978–79 season, and the culmination of the 1979 Stanley Cup playoffs. The New York Rangers challenged the defending champion Montreal Canadiens, w ...

on an injured left knee. His jersey numbers were 35, 00 and 30. Davidson was the first, and one of only two, NHL players to wear the number 00; after

Martin Biron Martin Gaston Biron (; born August 15, 1977) is a Canadian American former professional ice hockey goaltender. Drafted by the Buffalo Sabres in the first round (16th overall) of the 1995 NHL Entry Draft, he spent the first half of his 16-year ...

briefly wore the number in 1995, the league banned the use of the number. Davidson was the inspiration for the song "

Double Vision Diplopia is the simultaneous perception of two images of a single object that may be displaced horizontally or vertically in relation to each other. Also called double vision, it is a loss of visual focus under regular conditions, and is often v ...

" from 1978's album ''Double Vision'' by Foreigner. Members of the band who were Rangers fans were watching a Stanley Cup playoff game between the Rangers and the

Buffalo Sabres The Buffalo Sabres are a professional ice hockey team based in Buffalo, New York. The Sabres compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Division in the Eastern Conference. The team was established in 1970, along w ...

. Davidson was shaken up when a shot hit his

goalie mask A goaltender mask, commonly referred to as a goalie mask, is a mask worn by goaltenders in a variety of sports to protect the head and face from injury from the ball or puck, as they constantly face incoming shots on goal. Some sports requiring th ...

. As he was recovering, announcers Jim Gordon and Bill Chadwick said Davidson was suffering from "

double vision Diplopia is the simultaneous perception of two images of a single object that may be displaced horizontally or vertically in relation to each other. Also called double vision, it is a loss of visual focus under regular conditions, and is often v ...

Broadcasting career

After retiring due to injury, he joined

MSG Network The MSG Network (MSG) is an American regional cable and satellite television network, and radio service owned by MSG Entertainment, Inc.—a spin-off of the main Madison Square Garden Company operation (itself a spin-off of local cable provider ...

's hockey coverage staff in 1983, and was the

color commentator A color commentator or expert commentator is a sports commentator who assists the main ( play-by-play) commentator, typically by filling in when play is not in progress. The phrase "colour commentator" is primarily used in Canadian English and ...

for Rangers games from 1986–87 to 2005–06. Davidson, often known by the nickname "J.D.", became one of the most prominent color commentators in the sport, and his hockey insight is so well respected that he currently sits on the Hockey Hall of Fame selection committee. Long-time network TV partner Mike Emrick also sits on that committee, and the two shared the 2004

Lester Patrick Trophy The Lester Patrick Trophy has been presented by the National Hockey League and USA Hockey since 1966 to honor a recipient's contribution to ice hockey in the United States. It is considered a non-NHL trophy because it may be awarded to players, c ...

for service to hockey in the U.S. Davidson has also contributed to NHL coverage on various national

television network A television network or television broadcaster is a telecommunications network for distribution of television program content, where a central operation provides programming to many television stations or pay television providers. Until the mid- ...

s (including CBC, Fox,

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...

/ ABC,

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

OLN OLN (formerly Outdoor Life Network) is a Canadian English-language Category A specialty channel. OLN primarily broadcasts factual-based and adventure-related reality programming aimed at male audiences. OLN is wholly owned by Rogers Sports & Me ...

SportsChannel America SportsChannel is the collective name for a former group of regional sports networks in the United States that was owned by Cablevision, which from 1988 until the group's demise, operated it as a joint venture with NBC. Operating from March 1, ...

, and

Global Global means of or referring to a globe and may also refer to: Entertainment * ''Global'' (Paul van Dyk album), 2003 * ''Global'' (Bunji Garlin album), 2007 * ''Global'' (Humanoid album), 1989 * ''Global'' (Todd Rundgren album), 2015 * Bruno ...

). He served as the lead color commentator, partnering with lead play-by-play announcer Mike Emrick, for the ''NHL on Fox'' from 1994–1999 and again for the ''NHL on NBC'' and ''NHL on OLN'' from 2005–2006. Eddie Olczyk, a studio analyst, took over the color commentator position in the 2006–2007 season after he left broadcasting to become president of the St. Louis Blues. Davidson became known as a broadcaster for his signature phrase of "Oh, baby!" He was also featured in full motion videos shot for the

EA Sports EA Sports is a division of Electronic Arts that develops and publishes sports video games. Formerly a marketing gimmick of Electronic Arts, in which they tried to imitate real-life sports networks by calling themselves the "EA Sports Network ...

video game ''

NHL 97 ''NHL 97'' is an ice hockey video game by EA Sports. It was released on October 31, 1996 and was the successor to ''NHL 96''. It is the sixth installment of the NHL series and the first to be released on both PlayStation and Saturn. A Panasoni ...

''. Davidson co-authored the book ''Hockey for Dummies'' with sportswriter John Steinbreder.

Executive career

Davidson was named president of the St. Louis Blues on June 30, 2006. He left the Blues after agreeing to a buyout of his contract on October 9, 2012. He was then named president of the

on October 24, 2012, and held this position until his resignation on May 17, 2019. On May 17, 2019, Davidson was named as president of the

. On May 5, 2021, Davidson was fired as president and alternate governor (along with general manager

Jeff Gorton Jeff Gorton (born June 6, 1968) is an American ice hockey executive currently serving as Executive Vice President of Hockey Operations of the Montreal Canadiens of the National Hockey League (NHL). He previously served six seasons as general manag ...

) of the Rangers after failing to make the playoffs. On May 20, 2021, the Blue Jackets announced that Davidson would return to Columbus as President of Hockey Operations and alternate governor. Davidson agreed to a five-year contract with the Blue Jackets.

Achievements

Playing

Alberta Junior Hockey League The Alberta Junior Hockey League (AJHL) is an Alberta-based Junior A ice hockey league that belongs to the Canadian Junior Hockey League (CJHL). It was formed as a five-team league in 1964. There are currently 16 teams in the league. The re ...

– MVP (1970–71) *

– Best goalie (1970–71) *

– Second team All-Star (1970–71) *

Western Canada Hockey League The Western Canada Hockey League (WCHL), founded in 1921, was a major professional ice hockey league originally based in the prairies of Canada. It was renamed the Western Hockey League (WHL) in 1925 and disbanded in 1926. The WCHL's Victoria C ...

–

MVP In team sports, a most valuable player award, abbreviated 'MVP award', is an honor typically bestowed upon an individual (or individuals, in the instance of a tie) whose individual performance is the greatest in an entire league, for a particu ...

(1971–72) *

– Top Goaltender Award (1971–72) *

– First All-Star Team (1971–72) *

– All-Star Team (1972–73) * In the 2009 book ''100 Ranger Greats'', was ranked No. 56 all-time of the 901 New York Rangers who had played during the team's first 82 seasons

Broadcasting

*CableACE – "Outstanding Live Event Coverage" (1994) *New York Emmy – "Outstanding On-Camera Achievement" (1995, 2001) *

– "Contribution to American hockey" (2004) *Foster Hewitt Memorial Award; Hockey Hall Of Fame (2009)

Career statistics

Source:

Regular season and playoffs

References

External links

JD's official bio
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Davidson, John 1953 births Living people Calgary Centennials players Canadian colour commentators Canadian emigrants to the United States Canadian ice hockey goaltenders Canadian people of British descent Canadian television sportscasters Columbus Blue Jackets executives Denver Spurs players Edmonton Oil Kings (WCHL) players Foster Hewitt Memorial Award winners Ice hockey people from Alberta Ice hockey people from Ottawa Lester Patrick Trophy recipients Lethbridge Sugar Kings players National Hockey League broadcasters National Hockey League executives National Hockey League first-round draft picks New Haven Nighthawks players New York Rangers announcers New York Rangers players St. Louis Blues draft picks St. Louis Blues executives St. Louis Blues players Sportspeople from Calgary Springfield Indians players Edmonton Oilers announcers