The call heard ’round the hockey world By: Devon Shewchuk Posted: 3:00 AM CDT Friday, Oct. 30, 2020 Last Modified: 11:15 PM CST Thursday, Dec. 17, 2020

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This article was published 30/10/2020 (1774 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

On the biggest night of her life, Leah Hextall saw Kelly McCrimmon on the catwalk high above the Scotiabank Saddledome ice and couldn’t help but realize just how far she’d come.

That rookie reporter, who walked through the doors of CKX Brandon 17 years ago today, was about to become the first female to do play-by-play for an NHL game. The former Brandon Wheat Kings owner was the first person she ever interviewed on the job.

“My heart just swelled. The fact that he waited to wish me luck meant everything, with all he’s meant in my journey and development,” Hextall said.

“I was completely unprofessional and gave him a hug — his smile and his words, ‘Be great, have fun,’ gave me great confidence as I stepped into the booth, put on my headset and made a little history.”

She may not have admitted it to him at the time, but Hextall was nervous that day in 2003. The pair would meet time and time again throughout her career at the now defunct television station, while working on the Wheat Kings beat.

As it turns out, her time covering the Wheat Kings helped set the stage for the rest of her career.

Now Hextall’s play-by-play assignment calling the Calgary Flames and Vegas Golden Knights on March 8 was the first of what she hopes is many NHL games in her future.

The assignment was part of Sportsnet’s groundbreaking first all-female NHL broadcast for International Women’s Day. She was part of an all-star crew, with Olympian Cassie Campbell-Pascall by her side doing colour commentary, Christine Simpson reporting from the rink level and an all-female production team behind them.

Calling the game was something Hextall never would’ve believed could happen the day she walked through those doors at CKX in 2003. At the time, there were no women doing such a thing. The experience has helped Hextall grow and change her mindset when it comes to accomplishing things in her career.

“I used to look at it as, ‘Keep moving up, keep moving on, keep getting to the next bigger network, to the next bigger spotlight.’ Now I think about it as, ‘What’s challenging? Play-by-play is challenging,’” Hextall said.

“Secondly, how can I advance and push for progress for women? Those are now things I need to accomplish. So, when you look at it, you go from the superficial — in my opinion — of wanting to be successful in the spotlight, to ‘What can you truly achieve, to leave a legacy when you’re done in your career?’”

When Hextall first started out as a broadcaster, she had her sights set on one thing, and one thing only: Making it to Hockey Night in Canada.

As a rookie sports reporter at CKX, it took Hextall years of commitment to work her way through the ranks. In 2005, she joined CTV Winnipeg’s sports desk, staying there until 2012 when she hit the biggest break of her career.

“I had always thought it’d be interesting to work in the U.S., because sports is on a different level in the United States than it is in Canada. Sports is life down there, and I always wanted to see if maybe I could do it,” Hextall said. “I auditioned in Boston three times before I got the job, so it was pretty crazy … it almost felt like the Hunger Games.”

In November 2012, Hextall moved to the United States, taking a sports broadcasting job at New England Sports Network, for what proved to be the two most career-shaping years of her life.

Hextall credits her agent for getting her through the door to NESN, who’s known for hiring other Canadians like Hazel Mae and Sarah Davis.

The following year in Boston was a formative one for Hextall — it was her first time covering the MLB, in a season the Boston Red Sox just so happened to make it to the World Series. She utilized analysts like former World Series champion Tim Wakefield as a huge resource to learn the game.

It was a different beast than covering hockey, with games being played every day and statistics ever-changing. Her co-anchor, Boston native Adam Pellerin, was another person who proved to be a great help.

The Boston Red Sox were eventually crowned the World Series champions, defeating the St. Louis Cardinals 4-2 in the best-of-seven series, and Hextall was there for it all.

As the Red Sox own 80 per cent of NESN, ownership gifted Hextall — and the whole NESN on-air team — their own, personalized World Series rings, a keepsake like none other for Hextall.

The reporter also covered the team’s victory parade. She was stationed where the finish line of the Boston Marathon was just months before, when two bombs went off and killed three people — injuring at least 264 others.

As she stood in her position, the rolling parade stopped and World Series MVP David Ortiz stepped out, paying tribute to the victims.

“Going from Brandon to Winnipeg, Manitoba to Boston, which is truly one of the greatest, if not the greatest sports market in North America, was truly a game-changer for me,” Hextall said.

“It opened up the eyes to a lot of national networks back home that perhaps put me in a box of what they thought I was. When you’re down there talking to Tom Brady or covering the World Series and whatnot, they see how versatile you are and that, ‘Hey, we better take a look at this girl.’”

In 2014, Sportsnet took a look. Hextall moved to Toronto after the company received NHL rights and took over the Hockey Night in Canada brand, offering Hextall her dream job at the time— reporting rink-side, and representing Hockey Night in Canada.

“Holding that mic was a really special moment for me, because it’s just such an iconic brand and that was the goal all along,” Hextall said.

“But, that didn’t look like it was supposed to. When I got to Hockey Night in Canada, there was a moment where I felt a great deal of satisfaction, but it wasn’t what I thought it was going to be. While I enjoyed it and I always loved my job, there was something about it that didn’t quite fit.”

Hextall spent two years with Sportsnet, interviewing the likes of Sidney Crosby and Brent Burns.

But in 2016, her career took a major turn.

She was laid off from Sportsnet after two years on the job, as part of big company cutbacks. At the time, Hextall was absolutely devastated.

After 13 years of reporting and hosting, she couldn’t find a job in the industry and was left unsure of where to go next. That’s when the idea came to her — start doing play-by-play.

It wasn’t an easy road, by any means.

With no play-by-play experience, where would she start?

Looking back at the earlier portion of her career, Hextall never once felt like there wasn’t opportunity for women in sports broadcasting. In fact, there was more opportunity back then, because of the limited number of women doing sports broadcasting at the time — being a woman could actually help you, because higher-ups wanted to have you at the network.

But until Hextall came around, hockey play-by-play was territory nearly untouched by women. When she started calling hockey, it wasn’t about making it to an NHL game — that was just the incredible cherry on top.

So, why did she really start out? Hextall thinks it’s about time for a female voice to call women’s Olympic hockey.

“It’s the one thing I haven’t done in my career, cover an Olympic Games,” she said.

With that in mind, two years ago Hextall called up the head of Sportsnet, to tell him she wanted the chance to do play-by-play for Canadian Women’s Hockey League games.

“He was so open to that conversation. I was there, directly asking for what I wanted, I gave my reasons why and he was open to it. Everyone at Sportsnet on an executive level was open to it,” Hextall said.

Since then, her career has propelled from calling her first CWHL game to less than two years and 12 games later, Sportsnet opening the door of opportunity to calling an NHL game.

While Hextall had no problem speaking her mind to the head of Sportsnet, a younger Leah probably wouldn’t have.

While the world of sports has been kind to her for the most part, as a female working in the industry, there have been points she’s had to go along to get along.

Hextall noted the times where she had to watch how she expressed her opinions, or when she chose to use her voice when it came to dealing with male executives in the business.

Early in her career she was working for a major network, where she wanted to propel herself to a higher level. She had the chance to speak to a top executive, who asked Hextall what she wanted to achieve and what her goals were.

After laying it out to him, he told her, “Don’t want it so much.”

At that time in her later 20s, she was left feeling awful and wondering if she’d blown it. From that moment, Hextall started to mute what she’d say. She stopped being so direct, because she didn’t want to come across as being demanding in what she said.

It came around to two years later when Hextall was up for a job opportunity with the same network but a different executive. She didn’t get the job after interviewing — the new executive told Hextall he felt like she didn’t want it enough. She really did want it, but hadn’t articulated it, because of her previous experience.

“I’ve always felt there was an imbalance between men and women in that way, and that’s not just in sports broadcasting. It’s more than likely in society in all of our roles that you’re not a part of the boys’ club — and there still is that boys’ club — and I can look back at it now and say when that executive told me not to ‘want it so much,’ I didn’t say anything to him that a male in my position wouldn’t say. It’s because I was a female saying it,” Hextall said.

It’s an experience Hextall has gotten over since, but she’s been able to reflect on it and realize that some progress has definitely been made since that time — or her conversation with Sportsnet wouldn’t have went as well as it did.

Hextall believes being a female voice is part of what propelled her career to where it is today.

“Yes, I was a female who worked hard and wanted to do the job and did it properly, but being a female and quite frankly my last name — I’m not gonna to get it twisted — helped me get through that door.”

As mentioned, Hextall is part of a family illustrious in Canadian hockey history.

“People always think, ‘Oh, well she’s a Hextall. Of course she knows the game,’” she said.

The thing is, Hextall didn’t grow up playing hockey, and up until her broadcasting career began, she was really just a casual fan.

Her cousin Ron was the famed Philadelphia Flyers goalie; grandfather Bryan, an all-star winger for the New York Rangers in the 1940s and her uncles Dennis and Bryan Hextall Jr. played in the NHL too. Her late father Randy played in the MJHL with the Portage Terriers.

So yes, Hextall comes from deep hockey bloodlines. But she started off being nowhere near the diehard fan she is now. She has to break apart the game, piece it back together and study it from the inside out.

She admits, she’s still learning things.

Sometimes she’ll miss a hand pass, or there’s a penalty she’s not quite sure about, but that’s what Hextall takes the most pride in.

“I didn’t play the sport myself and here I am with the knowledge, being a student of the game for the last 18 years, being able to stand in there in my high heels and call an NHL game,” she said. “It was absolutely amazing and I look forward to getting another chance to do it.”

So, what exactly goes into calling a professional-level hockey game?

“First and foremost, you have to know the names and number of players by heart. There’s no time to rack your brain, or even take an extra beat,” Hextall said. “Players are going at such a fast speed — the puck touches their stick, then it’s gone.”

When she first got into calling games she put too much emphasis on learning player stats and story lines, because of her hosting and reporting background. She quickly realized all of that is secondary — if you know just 10 facts about both teams together, you’re good to go.

“It’s all about the roster, the names, numbers and knowing the lines, knowing the power play and the penalty kill and the units, knowing it so well that you can just run it and you have to be able to do that. That’s the main focus and then from there is just watching.”

Watching games for the month leading up to her big day was something Hextall was able to do with Calgary and Vegas, making the preparation for her NHL debut a lot easier for than prepping for all the NCAA and CWHL games that came before it.

In 2019, Hextall became the first woman to call an NCAA Division I men’s tournament game.

“Being able to see a player skate and know who that is without even seeing their number is because you’ve watched them so much, you absorb how they play, how the line plays … it’s so helpful,” Hextall said.

Looking back, Hextall is now thankful for her layoff at Sportsnet. If it hadn’t happened, calling an NHL game — which Hextall considers to be one of the biggest moments in her career — probably never would’ve happened.

“I think it’s the hardest thing you can do as a broadcaster so you can take pride in your ability to do it,” she said.

“The speed of hockey makes it even more difficult. To be under that spotlight and that scrutiny and to deliver it to the best of my ability and then to more importantly, represent women, to be a female voice calling an NHL game which until that day I had never hear a woman do and it just so happened to be my voice? Wow.”

As far as her future in NHL play-by-play goes, Hextall is hopeful. She’s had some positive conversations with Sportsnet and is looking forward to next season, whenever that may start.

“I do believe just from doing that one game, from the feedback I got, I showed enough people what I can do. I’m on people’s radars now in the National Hockey League, I’m on networks’ radars as an actual option if they need someone to kind of pinch hit and come do a game,” she said.

“The goal is to do it enough, to continue to showcase and get better and to one day have a full-time job calling the National Hockey League … maybe even the female NHL, which we still hope one day will happen.”

With COVID-19 leaving much of the sports world in limbo as to when new professional seasons will start up again, Hextall has spent a lot of time freelancing in recent months, doing virtual conferences and hosting seminars — something many organizations have been leaning towards, especially with the recent surge of COVID-19 cases.

For the Brandonite, it’s been a welcome change of pace.

One of the more recent online events she took part in was the Coaches Site’s virtual hockey summit — usually a yearly conference in Toronto that welcomes the best of the best when it comes to NHL coaches and presenters.

This year was a big first for the summit, as they decided to put together the first-ever all-female hockey panel. As the moderator, Hextall led the way as she and her other panelists — Olympians Cammi Granato and Florence Schelling, NHL executive vice-president Susan Cohig and head of the NHL Coaches Association, Lindsey Artkin — presented the challenges, but also successes of women within the hockey world.

While there’s still work to be done at the elite levels of the game, successes like Granato and Schelling’s shine through. This year, new NHL expansion team Seattle Kraken named Granato a head scout, making her the first female NHL scout in history.

Schelling became the general manager of the Swiss National League’s SC Bern, making her the first female GM in the history of pro hockey.

“I think it’s so important for women to see, but even more importantly for our male counterparts to see that and understand how they can support women in bringing them up through the ranks and making sure that they take that extra step,” Hextall said.

“There are qualified women, they just have to go out and look for them.”

Now 41, Hextall may be long gone from her days as a rookie reporter at CKX, but she’s still grateful as ever for her roots.

While she wasn’t born in the Wheat City, she considers herself a Brandonite. Hextall moved to town at age 11 and to this day, her mom and sister Lindsay still live here.

“As long as my family is there my heart is there. I still have so many of my high school friends that I’m close with that are there, so Brandon is just home. I get really pissed off when people say I’m from Winnipeg,” she said with a laugh.

For any female thinking of applying for a position they may think is out of reach, Hextall will be the first to tell you: Go for it.

“The one thing that will always be, no matter where we are, is to make it about the work. You have to work and if you’re willing to put in the time and the effort to always make sure that you show up and you’re ready to perform and you know your stuff inside and out, that’s gonna come through,” she said.

“Also, always be authentic to who you are. Don’t try to look like other people, don’t try to be other people — because the audience can see that — and you will not make it if you try to be that. I’ve had many executives throughout my life try to tell me I needed to go blonde, or my voice was too high or I wasn’t thin enough. Well you know what? It may have taken me a little bit longer, but I’ve learned a lot down this road and I’m always just glad that I’ve stayed true to who I am, it’s served me well.

“Just make it about the work and be yourself — believe that you belong and away you go.”

» dshewchuk@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @devonshewchuk