Danny Gallivan (1917-1993)

Danny Gallivan

Year Born: 1917

Year Died: 1993

Year of Induction: 1991

Member of CAB Hall of Fame

Gallivan, Danny (1917-1993)

Danny Gallivan’s broadcast career began at CJFX in Antigonish, Nova Scotia while attending St. Francis Xavier University where, upon graduation, he taught high school algebra and latin and did some baseball and hockey broadcasting.

After a two-year stint in the Canadian Army and further experience on CJFX, Danny became sports director in 1946 at CJCH Halifax. His broadcasting of a junior hockey playoff in Montreal between Halifax St. Mary’s and the Montreal Royals so impressed the producer of Montreal NHL Hockey broadcasts that when the Canadiens’ regular announcer, Doug Smith, became ill in 1950, Danny was asked to fill in. When Smith turned his talent exclusively to football in 1952, Danny Gallivan began what was to be a 32-year association with the Canadiens. Before retiring following the 1983-84 season, Danny had described the play-by-play for more than eighteen hundred games involving the Canadiens.

In “retirement”, Gallivan became a goodwill ambassador for “Hockey Night In Canada” and a campaign spokesman for multiple sclerosis in the Atlantic area. He was engaged in fund-raising for the Halifax Cystic Fibrosis Association and was elected chairperson of the selection committee for the “Hockey Hall of Fame”. In 1990, the Atlantic Broadcasters’ Association, in acknowledging Danny’s contribution to the broadcast industry, presented him with its Broadcast Recognition Award.

At its Annual Convention, held in Toronto in 1991, the Canadian Association of Broadcasters inducted Danny Gallivan into the CAB Broadcast Hall of Fame.

Written by J. Lyman Potts – April, 1996