Hockey-Crazed Glenview Kid is Blackhawks' Voice

Ever see that commercial where the 1960s kid, sneaking a transistor radio under his pillow to bed to listen to Bobby Hull and the Blackhawks, morphs into his 21st Century counterpart?

These days, he’s worshipping Jonathan Toews via all the modern electronic trappings.

Well, Pat Foley was that early-version kid in Glenview. He’s never truly grown out of that wide-eyed, wide-awake, persona two generations later as the Hawks’ longest-running play-by-play voice in franchise history.

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“That literally was true,” Foley said in the broadcast booth high up in the United Center. “I was in the top bunk in my bedroom. My brother (Brian) was in the bottom bunk.  I would have the radio underneath my pillow when I was supposed to be asleep, 8:30 or 9 p.m. I was listening to the Hawks with Lloyd Pettit.”

Frozen fun at Cole Park

The hockey bug bit Foley early on and never let go. He’s a lifelong Glenview resident except for his four seasons right out of college in 1977 while working a broadcast apprenticeship in Grand Rapids, Mich.

“My back yard in Glenview was ,” he said. “We neighborhood kids played all the sports. But in winter, they’d freeze an ice rink out there. We didn’t have any boards or anything. We just went out and played. No pads. The Hawks were the hottest ticket in town. My dad (Bob) would take me once or twice a year, and we’d stand in the second balcony (of old Chicago Stadium). It was a real treat to experience that.”

Now Foley has outdone and outlasted Pettit, a Hall of Fame hockey announcer. With a two-year detour to the minor-league Chicago Wolves, he’s now starting his 29th season as Hawks announcer on Comcast SportsNet and WGN-TV. That’s almost a decade longer than Pettit, Foley having begun on radio before switching over more recently to the TV-only broadcast--his teaming with analyst Eddie Olczyk, a former Hawks star, both informative and hilarious.

Most kids bail out when they realize they’re not fast enough or agile enough or strong enough after those pond pickup games. After attending and Loyola Academy, Foley channeled his hockey passion into broadcasting. He always remember Pettit’s “a shot and a goal!!!” call for a Hawks score and a guttural “a right (hand)…and another right” done like a heavyweight bout for a hockey fight.

Praise from Lloyd Pettit

Foley got to meet his broadcast idol. Cutting his hockey-broadcasting teeth  for Grand Rapids in the old International Hockey League, he met Pettit, then owner of the rival Milwaukee Admirals.

“I would ask for an interview every year we went there,” Foley said. “One time he came up in the old Mecca, the Milwaukee area. There’s Lloyd Pettit, and I’m quivering, nervous as hell. I’m 24.

“I interview him for the entire intermission. At the end of it, he says, ‘Young man, you don’t know that I was listening to you the last eight or 10 minutes of the period. If you stick with it, you’re going to make it to the National Hockey League.’ I still have that tape somewhere. It was very meaningful to me.”

Pettit influenced Foley subliminally before he developed his own style and trademark “He shoots…He scores!!” for a Hawks tally.

“The first hockey game I ever did at Michigan State University, first score in the game and I call ‘A shot and a goal!’” he recalled. “I listened to the tape afterward and I called every goal like that. I asked myself, ‘What are you doing? That’s his line.’ I had to figure out a different way to do it.”

Later, Foley received mentoring from Dan Kelly, another Hall of Fame announcer (for the St. Louis Blues and network broadcasts). “I love that man – he took me into his wing when I got into the NHL,” he said. Now Foley’s in a position to mentor a whole new generation of ice-bound voices.

A picture-painter

“When I first caught wind of him doing the games on radio, he painted a picture,” said native Chicagoan Olczyk, who was college-aged when he first listened to Foley in 1981. Now he’s in his sixth season as Foley’s partner, an eventful time factoring in the Hawks’ quick rise to the 2010 Stanley Cup.

“It was magnetic,” said Olczyk. “Pat helped build a lot of the popularity and a lot of the following because of his passion. It goes further than hockey. This is the greatest city in the world. You’ve had many voices people can relate to. When they hear this voice, they know it’s hockey, baseball, football. Pretty high-praise and pretty prestigious people in that chair. That’s why Pat will go down as a legend in this town.”

Hockey is the fastest-paced of all team sports with the smallest object – the puck – shooting up and down the ice. An announcer’s  mouth has to be nimble, but his mind has to work even faster to keep up.

“Remember, I grew up with radio and there wasn’t a lot of TV in the business,” Foley said.  “My whole goal was painting a picture. You have to learn what’s important and when you can catch your breath. A pass from (defenseman to defenseman) in the defensive zone, you don’t have to describe that. You have to be able to read the play, anticipate when a scoring chance will happen, so you raise your voice and pick up the pace.”

The style long ago sold Olczyk and scores of hockey fans throughout the Chicago area.

“I know him as a friend and it’s hard not to say he’s the best I’ve ever heard in this town, for sure,” Olczyk said.

Up next for Foley: He'll handle the upcoming first-round telecasts of Hawks playoff games, beginning next week. 

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