Al Shaver

In 48 years he has broadcast everything from baseball to football to curling to golf, but for listeners in Minnesota, the “Voice of Hockey” is Al Shaver.

He graduated from the Lorne Greene Academy of Radio and Television Arts in Toronto in 1948, and worked briefly as a morning show host and baseball play-by-play announcer at CJOY Guelph, Ontario, before moving to CJCJ Calgary, and later to CHAT Medicine Hat, Alberta. In 1952 he joined CFRN Edmonton, where he did play-by-play for the Edmonton Eskimos of the Canadian Football League, and called five Grey Cup championship games broadcast nationally on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. In the 1960s he worked in Montreal at CKGM Radio and CFCF TV and then at CKEY Toronto. He came to Minneapolis/Saint Paul as the Voice of Minnesota North Stars Hockey when the team began play in 1967, broadcasting on WCCO until 1978, and on KSTP until the team moved to Dallas in 1993. He then broadcast Minnesota Gophers college hockey until his retirement in 1996. A ten-time Minnesota Sportscaster of the Year, he is also a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto.