Dan Robertson has been the voice of the Montreal Canadiens since 2014, delivering emotion and personality to the challenging faceless medium of radio broadcast. On this episode of Habsent Minded, Habs Eyes on the Prize contributor Andrew Zadarnowski invites Dan to speak about the art of storytelling in play-by-play, his road to the announcing job, whether personal bias can take place, and what his game day preparation is like.
Among the topics discussed was Dan’s favourite memory from behind the broadcast booth, and he pointed to Game 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs in 2017 between the Canadiens and the New York Rangers, where Dan said that he never felt the Bell Centre vibrate so much as it did when Tomas Plekanec scored the latest game-tying playoff goal in franchise history, and especially the game-winning series-tying overtime goal by Alexander Radulov. Just listen to that crowd!
In a half hour interview, Dan went into detail into his philosophy of the play-by-play profession, if he approaches doing television differently to doing radio, and how to build storylines that would draw listeners and capture their attention. He concludes by offering his advice to prospective future broadcasters, and what advice Ron McLean gave him when he first started out.
