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Lionel Duval, who was an interviewer and play-by-play man of Canadiens games on Radio-Canada’s La Soirée du Hockey has died at 83.

He had been retired for 23 years, and was suffering from Parkinson’s disease.

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Seventh of a family of eight children, Duval was born Feb. 11, 1933 in Brompton, in the Eastern Townships.

In the mid-1940s, his family moved to Hull and it’s there he took his first foray into media, working at CKCH radio station while completing his studies at Hull’s École supérieure, in the early 1950s.

In the early 1960s, while still working in the Outaouais, Duval made the leap to television. As a freelancer, he first had a weekly 30-minute program devoted to regional sports on CBC’s affiliate station in Ottawa.

In 1964 he transferred to Montreal, where he became one of the regular hosts of La Soirée du Hockey, where he rubbed shoulders with some of the biggest names in the profession, including René Lecavalier, Jean-Maurice Bailly, Richard Garneau, Raymond Lebrun and Pierre Dufault.