Markham would have been a success as an NHL city, says a man with more than three decades of hosting NHL hockey broadcasts on Saturday nights.

“For sure,” answered Ron MacLean, when asked if Markham would have done well, had the bid to build an NHL-sized arena and bring a team here worked out earlier this decade.

MacLean will be in the city March 4 as part of the weekly Rogers Hometown Hockey broadcast and events that take place in Markham Downtown.

He talked about some of Markham’s hockey heroes, singling out Tampa Bay Lightning captain and superstar Steven Stamkos, 28, who has enjoyed a 10-year NHL career.

“I remember when Steven came to the NHL awards for the first time in Las Vegas," MacLean said. "Most of the players are gone as soon as the television cameras are gone, but not Christopher (Steven’s father) and Steven; they actually went in to this little fan meet and greet at the Palms Hotel, spent a good hour with fans posing for pictures and signing autographs."

MacLean said he wished he’d had the chance to see Stamkos and Stouffville native Michael Del Zotto when the pair played under Paul Titanic for the Markham Waxers minor midget powerhouse squad in 2006.

MacLean also tipped his cap to Jeff Skinner of the Carolina Hurricanes, a Markham native who has also had a stellar NHL career.

As part of hosting Hockey Night in Canada, many people know MacLean for his longtime work on Coach’s Corner with the inimitable Don Cherry.

“It’s been 33 years now that we have worked together,“ marvelled MacLean of his “crazy marriage” with Cherry on the Saturday night first-period HNIC segment.

MacLean said Cherry was “really, really great to me from the get-go. He would always say, 'Ron, don’t go in the dressing room unless you really have a reason; don’t go down on the bench during the morning skates unless you really have to be there. Try to keep a distance so that the players won’t see you as a floater or a hanger-on and they’ll actually come to you.'”