Jim Hunt (columnist)
Jim "Shaky" Hunt (9 November 1926 – 9 March 2006) was a Canadian sports columnist who spent over 50 years as a journalist and covered the biggest events in sports including the
Hunt died aged 79 after suffering a heart attack.[1] and is remembered as a "character who had a loud and distinctive voice and loved telling good stories".[3] Hunt left Caroline, his wife of 54 years, daughters Kathryn, and Cally, and sons Rod and Andrew.[3] He also left two brothers, Don and Jack, and six grandchildren, Ben, Billy, Cally, Katie, Aiden and Ella.
Career
Born and raised in
At the Star's sports department, he worked under Milt Dunnell in 1953 and later the Star's former weekly magazine as sports editor.[3] While with the Star, one challenging assignment saw him smuggling a gun — he opted for a fake one made of wood — in a gun case into Maple Leaf Gardens in 1956 during a Toronto Maple Leafs playoff game against the Detroit Red Wings.[3] The objective for Hunt was to test the Gardens' security. He was able to get past the ticket-takers and the Star ran the picture of him and the gun case on the front page the next day.[3]
Along the way he interviewed a long list of well-known figures in the sports world and outside it. He wrote a biography in the mid-1960s on hockey legend Bobby Hull.[3] It was titled, Bobby Hull: The first million dollar hockey player. He had lunch with
His interview with Ali took place in a midtown Manhattan hotel room prior to Ali's 1964 upset win over Sonny Liston. After telling Hunt what he was going to do to Liston, the young and brash Ali (then known as Cassius Clay) burst into one of his trademark verses. "After I beat Liston I'll be sad, then there'll be no one to make me mad."[4]
His book also described what it was like covering the hockey riots in 1955 in Montreal. The incident occurred after the NHL suspended Canadiens great Maurice Richard for attacking a Boston Bruins player with his stick, and later going after a linesman who tried to stop him. Hunt said it was a day he'd never forget, "one of the blackest in the history of hockey."[4]
He moved to CKEY in 1967 as sports director of the AM radio station, eventually becoming news director.[1] Hunt credited the CKEY job with giving him the opportunity to cover the 1972 and 1974 Canada-Russia hockey series.[1]
In 1983, he became sports columnist with the Toronto Sun.[1] He would later co-host a sports program with Bob McCown called Prime Time Sports on Toronto’s The Fan 590 radio station while with the paper.[3]
Harold Ballard
Jim Hunt had many run-ins with Toronto Maple Leafs owner Harold Ballard. It was Hunt that gave Harold Ballard the nickname Pal Hal, which would be the title of Dick Beddoes biography about Ballard.[5] The first notable incident with Ballard took place as a rebuttal towards Hunt’s comments about the Toronto Maple Leafs. Ballard went on the air after the next Maple Leafs game and called Hunt a bastard.[6] He then told TV host Dave Hodge that his comments were about someone whose last name starts with one of the first three letters of the alphabet. Hodge responded by saying Jim Bunt. Ballard responded by saying the name started with the letter C.[6]
When Hunt worked for the
Grey Cup
He holds the distinction of having attended every Grey Cup game between 1949 and 1999.[1] Every year, for as long as sportswriters can recall, Toronto Sun columnist Jim Hunt asked the most critical question at the coaches' press conference during Grey Cup week.
"What is your position on your players having sex the night before the Grey Cup game?" he would ask the coaches, always eliciting good-natured laughter from his colleagues.[3] So entrenched is this quirky tradition, that when he couldn't attend the last few Grey Cups, another journalist stood up to pose the question in his absence.[3]
He was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1987.
Golf Adventures
- One year in the press room at New York Times went to the media director and asked for his seat to be moved because "there’s some loudmouth sitting beside me." That was Hunt, who never stopped yapping or laughing.[8]
- One year at The Masters, we were walking past the clubhouse and Arnold Palmer walked past, stopped and said: "Hi Jim." Hunt looked at him and said: "Do I know you?"[8]
- There was another year when Hunt took Masters chairman Jack Stephens to task. At the annual press conference with the heads of Augusta, Shaky said: "You invite Japanese, Spaniards, Frenchmen, Australians but you never invite Canadians. Why is that?" Stephens conferred for a moment with a couple of others and then said: "We consider them North Americans."[8]
Retirement
In 2001, Hunt was honoured by Sports Media Canada, the Canadian arm of the international sportswriters' association, with an achievement award.[1] He also authored the autobiography All Work and All Play: A Life in the Outrageous World of Sports (
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h Sportscaster and columnist Jim Hunt dies
- ^ "Jim Hunt". oshof.ca. Ontario Sports Hall of Fame. Archived from the original on 29 December 2014. Retrieved 25 September 2014.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Toronto Star, 13 March 2006, Donovan Vincent
- ^ ISBN 0-470-83552-4
- ISBN 0-470-83552-4
- ^ ISBN 0-470-83552-4
- ISBN 0-470-83552-4
- ^ a b c Farewell Ol' Hunt