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HOMETOWN HERO: Manderson’s mic is always hot in the Quesnel ice rink

Broadcaster and rink announcer excited for Coy Cup
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Al Manderson is the voice of Quesnel hockey. (Frank Peebles photo - Quesnel Cariboo Observer)

Al Manderson is the voice of hockey in Quesnel. He’s been on the radio, the internet and throughout the rink. Whenever the puck drops on the ice, his familiar voice is on the air.

He’s had a lot to talk about, this season, and nothing more exciting than the two Quesnel Kangaroos wins on home ice this past weekend (March 11 and 12) to seal the Central Interior Hockey League playoff title to go along with their regular season championship. One of those final games was in overtime, the other a back and forth affair only decided by two goals’ difference late in the third period.

“It was probably the best two games back to back in that barn (West Fraser Centre) since they opened it,” he said. “It has to go back and compare to the days when Quesnel was winning Coy Cups on a regular basis, when they had the Gassoffs, the Marsh brothers, the Festerlings, all those kinds of family names that played with the Roos and won I don’t know how many times in a row. It was great having that fan support again.”

He’s seen it before. Few have had a better seat in the house, regardless of where that house was, to watch Quesnel hockey at its best. He arrived in 1977, fresh out of Northern Alberta Institute of Technology to work at the radio station, and immediately got involved in the hockey scene. The newly invented Quesnel Millionaires of the (then) Peace-Cariboo Junior Hockey League won the Cyclone Taylor Cup, the year he arrived, and went on to win two more in a row. He was doing play-by-play, colour commentary, public address announcing, anything the team needed to communicate the action to the fans.

The only time he spent away from the microphone was when his three kids were younger, but they soon had him back at the rink for parental reasons. His two sons, Ryan and Darren, and daughter Kimberley all played hockey. Ryan is the current backup goalie for the Roos, a uniform he’s worn off and on since 2011 after an amateur career that saw him cross paths with the likes of Carey Price and Nick Drazenovic, among other star players over the years.

Eventually being at the rink as a dad glided back into the broadcast booth.

Manderson said coming to the hockey rink has always been as much about the opponents as the home team, for him, and appreciating the hidden talent that emerges at the most exciting of times. Numerous NHLers and other pros have passed the puck on Quesnel ice, and some have worn Quesnel jerseys. He remembers when Gilbert Brule played for the Millionaires on his way to the WHL and eventually an NHL career. He scored 32 goals and put up 57 points in only 48 games as a 15-year-old in the 2002-03 season.

Price, Brule, Sheldon Sourey, Trevor Smith, and many other future NHL players pulled on a Quesnel jersey on their way to the big leagues.

Sometimes, said Manderson, the local audience didn’t appreciate the talent right in their midst, be it on the Quesnel team or on the visiting teams that brought world class hockey to the Cariboo on a regular basis. He once became the marketing manager for the Millionaires, he believed in that so much. He wanted to help and he just loved the game.

The Kangaroos keep that alive, with a team loaded in amateur adult talent most towns would salivate over. Perhaps Junior hockey can return and do that for younger ages.

“It’s just fun going to the rink. There’s nothing like a good hockey game,” he said. He got a little reminder of that just the other day when he and his wife Yvonne were ambling through the rink when they were stopped by current Kangaroos player Jordan Low (a former player for the Spruce Kings and Clippers of the BCHL, the league the Millionaires belonged to before they moved to Chilliwack in 2011) who wanted to pass on how much the team enjoyed his public address style.

“I can’t think of what I do that any announcer wouldn’t do,” he said. “You try to elevate the crowd a little bit. I don’t care how fast you can move, you can’t go faster than my voice.”

It’s the kind of job where you really only want the crowd to notice you subliminally, not make a specacle of yourself. The best compliment he was ever paid were the times he wasn’t able to attend the game and got told afterwards that the audience didn’t realize how good he was until he was gone. Thankfully, for him as much as the fans, those are rare occasions.

There are more than 1,400 seats in West Fraser Centre, and it’s such a new building that not a lot of history has been made inside those walls, yet, but the Kangaroos have changed that this year, winning a banner right on home ice, and they still have the Coy Cup provincial championship coming up March 28-April 1. The Roos have every intention of winning it right in front of their fans. None is as close to the action, even from high above the ice surface, as Al Manderson.

“I’m always nervous. I’m a fan just like everybody else is,” he said - a fan who has probably watched more hockey games in Quesnel than all the Kangaroos players combined, and still a lot more to go.

Read More: Kangarooting for the CIHL champs



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Frank Peebles

About the Author: Frank Peebles

I started my career with Black Press Media fresh out of BCIT in 1994, as part of the startup of the Prince George Free Press, then editor of the Lakes District News.
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