Stubbs reflects on ‘lucky’ career, looks forward to return
It’s been just over a year since the OHL last dropped the puck — and since Mike Stubbs, the Knights’ play-by-play man, called games for the Green and Gold.
Mike Stubbs in his element — calling hockey games from the booth, which he’s done for over two decades. It’s a job he still feels lucky to have. (Photo: Matt Hiscox Photography).
As Mike Stubbs heads to work, he’s been known to belt out a few tunes on the drive. A little solo Carpool Karaoke, if you will. But it’s strictly work-related, he implies.
“The important thing is to get your voice ready, so believe it or not, there's a lot of singing in the car that tends to help. I get caught a lot at stop signs and stoplights when I do that,” he laughs. “So, if you're somewhere in London, and look over and see some guy singing away, it's just me actually getting ready to go to work.”
Up until March of last year, when the COVID shutdown hit the Ontario Hockey League (OHL), that work included his play-by play duties with the London Knights, a role he has relished for more than 20 years. The London-born Stubbs, with his distinctive bellowing voice, challenges anyone to think of a better gig.
“I'm a lucky passenger in all this,” he said of his time behind the mic, which has included four OHL championships and a pair of Memorial Cup titles. “One of the things you always do is to try and have that connection with the fans. The biggest compliment you can get is if someone says to you, ‘Hey, you make me feel like I'm there.’ That's the goal. If I had any small part in someone’s enjoyment of the game then, yeah, that is really, really special. I’ll take it.”
Growing up in the Ottawa region, Stubbs got his first taste of radio at age 15, working at CJET in Smiths Falls. After some behind-the-scenes work, they tossed him a mic to do a few weather reports and, eventually, had him hosting an overnight call-in Country and Western show.
“I was lucky enough to speak to the boss, and lucky enough to be hired by that boss, and so I ended up starting in radio pretty early and was lucky enough that they saw enough in me to bring me along. I will use that word (lucky) over and over again if you ask about anything that I've done,” said Stubbs, who was immediately bit by the radio bug. “It was a great experience, and I knew at that point this is what I wanted to do.”
His interest in staying in radio brought him back home to London to attend Western, where he called some Mustangs games and earned what he called his ‘double degree’ – one in History (BA) and the other in play-by play.
“I was able to do a lot of learning under some really fantastic people and it really helped set up what has been a great career to this point,” he said.
After calling a few games for the struggling Knights in the late ‘90’s, Stubbs was off again, this time to Calgary where he did pre- and post-game work with the NHL’s Flames for a couple of years. But something was missing. It wasn’t play-by-play.
“I found myself going to Calgary Hitmen (WHL) games and going up to an empty broadcast booth and broadcasting the games just to do it, because I missed it that much,” Stubbs said. “There was no microphone. I didn't care who heard it, it was just I missed doing it.”
He anxiously wanted to be behind the mic again. But would that opportunity ever happen in Calgary?
“My wife and I were about to have a family and we knew I had a decision to make career-wise, in terms of if I wanted to go any further with this.”
Did he want the travel demands of a job he dreamt of having (but one that he was not guaranteed to achieve)? Stubbs sat down and put together a pros and cons list.
“It was full on both sides. In the end, I think the thing that drew me back was I had missed doing play-by-play,” he said. “I can remember sitting down with Peter Marr, who was the radio voice of the Calgary Flames at the time, and who is just a phenomenal individual, and he asked me what I wanted to do and I said, ‘I want to one day get back into doing play-by-play.’ He told me, ‘Well, if you want to do something, I find the best thing is to be doing that something.’”
With some family still in London, and an opportunity to call Knights games again, Stubbs returned to the Forest City once again.
Mike Stubbs addresses the crowd at Budweiser Gardens on Jan. 17, 2020 during a pregame ceremony to retire Patrick Kane’s No. 88. (Photo: Matt Hiscox Photography).
“I've never looked back or questioned the choice, because we made it and it was the right choice,” he said. “I've had just an absolute blast being here watching how Mark and Dale Hunter have grown the London Knights. To be a passenger on that trip, and have a front row seat for it, you couldn't trade that for anything.”
That front row seat has given Stubbs a treasure-trove of memories. He’d be hard-pressed, though, if he had to pick just one highlight.
“Wow, I don't even know if I can boil it down to even just one game,” he said, adding that each game brings with it something special. “When we were in Red Deer (Alberta) after they won the Memorial Cup in 2016, it was so unique because it was such a small celebration with just the players and their family and the team staff. But you go back to the 2005 Memorial Cup win and you have the complete other end of that. London wins on their home ice and you've got thousands and thousands of people who are involved in the celebration. To see both ends like that was great.
While the Knights continue to make themselves competitive on the ice each year, they have produced outstanding players who have gone on to great careers the NHL. But what Stubbs admires is how those teenagers are turned into respectable young men off the ice. Not every player will continue with hockey, but what they take with them is the experience of what it takes to play in the OHL.
“These young players are under a microscope in London, where you have 9,000 people watching your each and every move every night,” he said. “The fact you can do that as a 16- or 17-year-old, you can look back at this life experience, no matter what comes at you, and you can say, “If I can do that, if I can play in the OHL, I can handle what’s coming. The Knights have created so many success stories off the ice that haven't been told enough.”
While having a daily talk show on London’s CFPL AM980, hosting a podcast, having his weekly Friday Knights show (6-8pm on CFPL) and teaching at Fanshawe College, Stubbs’ schedule remains quite busy, even despite the lack of Knights games to call.
With last year’s season iced due to COVID-19 concerns, and the 2020-2021 season yet to see a puck drop, it’s now been officially a full year since the Green and Gold hit the ice. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long, Stubbs says.
“If we go back to last year, and we didn't know what to expect obviously, but if you were to say to anybody that in 365 days we're still going to be in essentially the same spot as we were back then, I think you’d have a lot of people who’d be surprised,” said Stubbs.
With the Western Hockey League (WHL) and the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL) already back on the ice, Stubbs notes there has been some encouraging things said by Ontario Premier Doug Ford about getting the OHL up and running again, but a decision has yet to be made. Ontario sport minister Lisa MacLeod mentioned in her press briefing March 10 that she is optimistic a portion of the OHL season can be salvaged. She expects an announcement to be made the week of March 15.
Stubbs said he feels for the teams unable to bring in any income over the time period – in particular, some of the smaller markets where they’ve had to lay off people. As well, there are a number of players, especially the ones in their draft year, that have had to find other ways to stay on the ice – with some even heading to Europe to play.
“It’s hard on the players and it hasn’t been ideal, but you know I haven’t heard them complain. They all know this (COVID) is bigger than we all imagined,” he said. “I think it's just a matter of trying to figure out if you can do things safely … I know everybody is still hard at work and trying to make that happen.”
While he certainly misses calling Knights games, it's the ‘extras’ that he’s also looking forward to getting back to – hanging with the players in the dressing room, saying hello to the folks around the arena, and sitting and having dinner in the media room with his colleagues.
“I haven't worked a day my life,” Stubbs says, smiling. “I guess you could say I worked at a gas station back when I was 15, but that's probably the last job I've had. I love prepping for games. I love the memorization and the research. So, just to be able to go through the whole experience again will be great.”
While the OHL hockey world patiently awaits a decision on when hockey will return, Stubbs considers himself lucky – there’s that word again – to be a page in the London Knights’ illustrious history book. And he plans to add a couple more pages, if he can.
“If I could be lucky enough to follow my career in the footsteps of play-by-play guys like Jim Gilchrist (42 years with Kingston), Fred Wallace (32 years with Owen Sound) or Larry Mellott (30 years with Guelph) – even Pete James (London) and the late Don Cameron (Kitchener) – then, yeah, I would take every single second of that,” he said.
“I simply try and soak it all in. When you leave the arena at the end of the year, you hope you’re able to come back and begin the next year. It’s about wanting to do that next game no matter when it is. I would take it one game at a time if you gave me that. It's that enjoyable.”
Better start singing in the car, just in case …
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