Chris Cuthbert Canadian Athlete From Toronto

Early life

Chris Cuthbert was born on 20 September 1957 and grew up in Brampton, Ontario. He attended Brampton Centennial Secondary School and later graduated from Queen's University. As a child he listened to Foster Hewitt on the radio, and Hewitt became one of the inspirations for his own path into broadcasting.

Career

After almost five years at the radio station CJAD in Montreal, the last two of them as sports director, Cuthbert joined CBC Sports in 1984. He anchored regional Western Canada games for Hockey Night in Canada, usually from Edmonton, and he took occasional play-by-play assignments when the network's main western voice, Don Wittman, was busy elsewhere.

His breakthrough came during the 1988 Stanley Cup playoffs. On 18 April he was in Washington as a reporter for the game between the Capitals and the Devils when a power cut ended the CBC broadcast from Montreal. The network turned to him to carry the entire telecast, handling play-by-play, analysis and hosting with no regular analysts, graphics or replays. The performance brought him to the network's attention and a Gemini Award nomination.

At CBC he went on to call Olympic sports, figure skating, Canadian football and NHL hockey. He became the secondary voice of the Canadian Football League on CBC behind Wittman in 1992 and later the lead voice, broadcasting the Grey Cup every November from 1996 to 2004. On Hockey Night in Canada he mostly covered games involving the Montreal Canadiens or western Canadian teams, and he was assigned to a conference final each year from 1993 to 2004. CBC ended his contract on 24 February 2005, during the NHL lockout, a decision that drew considerable public criticism.

In spring 2005 he joined TSN, where he became the lead voice of the CFL and a secondary hockey play-by-play announcer. He worked for NBC in 2005-06 and 2006-07 alongside Peter McNab. When TSN gained exclusive CFL rights in 2008, he called every Grey Cup during his time there, working with Glen Suitor. On 1 December 2006 he became the first NHL play-by-play announcer to broadcast a game from ice level instead of a booth, calling a Sabres and Rangers game in Buffalo with Glenn Healy.

At the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver he was the lead play-by-play announcer for men's ice hockey on CTV, including the gold medal game in which Sidney Crosby scored in overtime for Canada. He and Ray Ferraro again led the hockey coverage at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, calling the bronze medal match between Canada and the Czech Republic and the gold medal match between Russia and Germany.

In June 2020 he moved to Sportsnet. He called the 2020 Western Conference playoffs with Louie DeBrusk and the 2021 Canadiens run, including the Stanley Cup Final, with Craig Simpson. After Jim Hughson retired, Cuthbert took over as the lead Sportsnet voice for Hockey Night in Canada from the 2021-22 season, working with Simpson.

Recognition

Cuthbert won a Gemini Award for Best Sports Broadcaster in 1998, and Sports Media Canada named him Sportscaster of the Year in 2004. He shared a second Gemini in 2006 with Suitor for best sports play-by-play or analyst. He was inducted into the Brampton Sports Hall of Fame in 2003 and into the media wing of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 2014. In June 2026 he received the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award, which honours outstanding contributions as a hockey broadcaster.