That was clearly not the way anyone at the CBC wanted to go out, although it was another memory to add to the mountain.

A technical glitch caused the CBC feed to cut out at the end of Game 5 of the Stanley Cup final just as the players were in the handshake line. A wonky split-screen of the NBC feed appeared a few seconds later, while CBC’s feed returned after 15 minutes, then disappeared again for a bit during the montage that officially ended the network’s creative control after more than 60 years of Hockey Night in Canada.

It’s too bad the national broadcaster went out in such a clumsy fashion, but perhaps fitting in a season when it lost the rights to HNIC and came under much criticism and scrutiny as it moves to an uncertain future.

Change is coming. Next year, Rogers takes up the torch and promises more hockey than ever. CBC will continue to carry hockey on Saturday nights for the next four years, packing up its control room and simply airing one of Rogers’ feeds, one game among many on several channels.

But before we all flip the switch and turn off the arena lights, let’s take a moment to look back on what has been a universal experience for sports fans in this country.

We asked the CBC for remembrances for this piece, but many staffers said they didn’t feel right eulogizing something that they feel isn’t really dying. Whatever you feel about the CBC, its folksy-feeling hockey coverage will likely be gone next year.

Part of that reluctance to glorify the past is likely because the network doesn’t want to cast its new partner, Rogers, in a negative light as the two move forward. One example of that chumminess was Ron MacLean making a bad joke during Friday’s pre-game show, commending colleague Scott Oake for his good work and saying he seemed to be auditioning to host Hometown Hockey next year. That is MacLean’s Sunday night assignment on Rogers next year, and he pointed to the coming changes while introducing the closing-night montage.

Everyone who watched Hockey Night in Canada felt a connection to it — which is why we solicited memories from our readers — but that was especially true for anyone lucky enough to appear on it.

That’s Mel Angelstad’s story. In 1996, he was featured in a Scott Russell piece while playing with the now defunct Thunder Bay Thunder Cats. An enforcer from rural Saskatchewan who had bounced around the minor leagues, Angelstad lived a dream by appearing on the program.

“I had the opportunity to be the guy that they were going to do the interview on,” he says. “They called our team before and said, ‘Who would you like to see? Or who was charismatic and might be able to talk to the camera or has an interesting story?’ And they’re like, ‘You got to give Mel a shot at this.’ It was awesome. I got to talk to them, and they followed me around a little bit.”

He remembers the piece and some of the audience talking about him, although he laughs about what didn’t make it in.

“I can remember that night and thinking, ‘Okay, this is going to be on HNIC.’ And my only thought in the world was, ‘How do I get up? How do I get to the next level?’” says Angelstad, now 42 and an industrial firefighter in Fort McMurray, Alta.

“Because Thunder Bay is out of the way, you know, and I was trying to fight everybody that night. You know, not going crazy or anything, but going, ‘C’mon guys, someone do me a favour.’ And I know all the guys were going, ‘Eh, I’m not getting beat up on Hockey Night in Canada.’ So nothing came out of it that night, which is too bad because I know they were filming hoping for something like that to happen.”

You can watch the piece in a grainy video on YouTube, but Angelstad’s is a small story writ large of the many instances when the biggest show in the land decided to highlight a minor league and player from a small community, one of the ways it touched the game at all levels, best seen recently with the CBC’s elaborate Hockey Day in Canada setups from across the land.

Angelstad did go on to earn his footnote in hockey history, playing two games for the Washington Capitals in 2003-04 and becoming the first player to wear the number 69 in an NHL game.

“That’s something that will go down in the record books,” he laughs.

Beyond the players, HNIC always looked to get into communities and, through lighter segments like visiting hospitals, rub shoulders with regular Canadians.

Michael Hill of Orillia, Ont., also made it on to HNIC, although through an unfortunate accident. In 1965, he was 11 when he was hit by a pickup truck while riding his bike and suffered a broken arm. He spent a month in traction at Sick Kids hospital.

“The day I was to be released, the five other boys and I in my ward were treated to a visit by a camera crew from Hockey Night in Canada. Long-time host Ward Cornell, Leaf trainer Bobby Haggart and New York Ranger defenceman Harry Howell came to our bedsides and interviewed us about why we were there, what we liked about the NHL playoffs and that sort of thing,” Hill writes. “I arrived home shortly before the hockey game started that night. I had to phone all of my friends to let them know that I was going to be on Hockey Night in Canada between periods. First time on TV and it was nationwide! Harry Howell even commented that he had asked me how I was injured and what I felt. I told him, ‘I don’t know. I got knocked out.’ That, apparently, made him laugh.”

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Felix van Dijk, who lives in New York but grew up in Toronto, managed to crack up Don Cherry in 1999, during a CBC camera operators strike when the Maple Leafs were playing the New Jersey Devils.

“In order for HNIC to cover the game and not cross the picket line, Bob Cole, Don Cherry and Ron MacLean came to the New Jersey Devils’ arena. They converted a large men’s room with an HNIC backdrop for Coach’s Corner. The urinals were just out of camera range.

“Bob Cole was in the next bathroom seated in front of a large television calling the game. I had a chance to chat with Ron MacLean and Don Cherry just before they went live for the Coach’s Corner segment. I was standing with a clipboard just out of camera view when they were about to go live. I turned to Don Cherry and quickly told him a joke. He started laughing so hard and they suddenly went live. The whole of Canada saw Don Cherry laughing with no apparent explanation. He absolutely lost it in front of the camera. There was a big, sheepish grin on Ron MacLean’s face.”

(Van Dijk did share the joke, but it’s a little off-colour so we can’t share it in a family newspaper.)

For many fans, the memories come straight from their younger days, and involve the unforgettable voice of Foster Hewitt.

“Correctly or incorrectly, Hockey Night in Canada was Foster Hewitt calling a Toronto Maple Leaf hockey game (on radio, not TV),” says John Pipher of Feversham, Ont. “Perhaps sweetest of all for me was when I was in the RCAF and stationed in Britain 1942-43. . . . One practice at that time was for Foster to record his portion of the Saturday Leaf game with the tape then flown across the Atlantic immediately following the last adieu to ‘hockey fans in Canada, the United States and Newfoundland’ with a special word ‘for the troops overseas.’ Probably most Britishers and visiting foreigners at that time neither knew nor cared much about professional ice hockey, but HNIC was unquestionably a great and unforgettable boost for the morale of many homesick Canadian troops.”

One perfect example of how things have changed is that during the early days of TV, Hockey Night in Canada broadcasts didn’t start until the game was already in progress.

“It was a very unusual broadcast back then,” writes Rob Cowan. “The game would start at Maple Leaf Gardens at 8 p.m. but the television broadcast didn’t start until 8:30. So the game didn’t come on until approximately 15 minutes into the period. If you wanted to track the game, you would have to listen to the radio broadcast. I preferred to be surprised.”

There’s no shortage of memories over 60 years. Depending on your era — Peter Puck, host Dave Hodge’s pen flip, Ron and Don, the Hot Stove, Howie Meeker — many personalities and great games have helped build a brand that has become synonymous with Canada.

“My father worked for the RCA dealer so we had the first TV on the street,” write Bill Murphy, who was living in Newfoundland in the late 1950s and early ’60s. “Our living room would be full of neighbours every Saturday night for HNIC.”

Murphy later went on to work for HNIC in Calgary.

For Dan Charuk, 35, of Owen Sound, Ont., there was a chair in front of the TV that was just big enough for a kid to fit into. He and his family dubbed it the “penalty box.”

“My grandparents still love to tell this story, but apparently as soon as I heard the Hockey Night theme, no matter where I was in the house I would come running and jump into the penalty box to watch the hockey game.”

Hockey Night in Canada as we know it is over. There will always be hockey to watch, but the change of broadcaster and the creation of a multi-channel hockey universe means an end to the collective memory of the great game on Saturday nights.

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