Miss Bob Cole?

The iconic voice of hockey play-by-play has been missing from Hockey Night In Canada broadcasts in the playoffs.

But even as Sportsnet drives itself into the future with a new streaming relationship with Twitter while mining data-driven broadcasting, there’s still room next season for the simple audio pleasures of Cole’s cadence, says Scott Moore, president of Sportsnet and NHL properties at Rogers.

“Bob is a legend. I’ve been a fan of Bob’s a long time. We made a very difficult decision not to have him on playoffs this year,” Moore said. “I would love to see Bob continue with us in some way, shape or form.

“I’ve asked him to do some games next year.”

That is if Cole wants to come back. Cole turns 85 on June 24 and is said to be quite hurt at being left out of the playoff loop for the first time in his hockey broadcasting career.

Cole didn’t return calls to the Star on Tuesday. He expressed his displeasure at being told he wasn’t part of the playoff broadcast to Michael Traikos of the National Post in April. “The decision sure wasn’t mutual,” Cole said then. “It was right out of the blue. Rogers decided to go with other (broadcast) teams and I have to live with that. But it was their decision ― not mine.”

Another octogenarian, 84-year-old Don Cherry, is expected to return to “Coach’s Corner.”

“Don and I have lunch in July of every year and talk about whether he wants to come back,” Moore said. “I would be surprised if he wasn’t back next year. But we haven’t had our lunch yet.”

Moore said he is in negotiations with former Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke about returning next season in an expanded role — possibly on Hockey Night In Canada — after a successful run as an analyst through two rounds of the playoffs. Burke will be part of Sportsnet’s draft and free-agency broadcasts.

“I’ve said to him for years he’s a natural on television,” Moore said. “He speaks his mind. I was happy with how he did. He brings real first-hand recent experience with how to deal with players, what goes into draft strategy. He does his homework.”

Burke stepped down as president of the Calgary Flames in April.

A certain segment of Leaf Nation would love to see Joe Bowen return to the team’s television broadcast. Bowen used to do some TV until Rogers and Bell purchased the team. Bowen now does only Leaf radio broadcasts for both Sportsnet 590 The Fan and TSN 1050, which split Leaf games.

“Joe is the perfect home radio guy,” Moore said. “Because we split the games with TSN, it made sense to give him a destination. We didn’t think it made sense for him to occasionally show up on television when we can tell the fans: ‘Any game you want, he’s going to be available on radio.’”

Bowen will be going into the Hockey Hall of Fame next season as the recipient of the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award for outstanding contributions as a hockey broadcaster.

As for its Twitter streaming deal, a sponsored link will be on Twitter feeds, connecting users to “Sportsnet Ice Surfing,” a weekly show that will have a couple of hosts talking hockey, interacting with users and dropping in and out of live-action games.

A March trial run, featuring Jeff Marek and Jason York, drew 600,000 viewers.

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“We’re going to be reaching an audience in a different way, which is really important,” said Moore. “We think it will be a different demographic, and appealing to different advertisers.

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