Jiggs McDonald (born November 28, 1938) is a sportscaster who has done play-by-play announcing for NHL games for more than 40 years. In 1990, McDonald received the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award from the Hockey Hall of Fame.
Biography[]
National Hockey League broadcasting career[]
McDonald began his NHL broadcasting career in 1967, as the voice of the expansion Los Angeles Kings.[3]
In November 2003, he announced his 3,000th regular season game; his number of games called is thought to be the highest by an NHL announcer. He was the original voice of both the Los Angeles Kings, where he was nearly paired with Al Michaels, and the Atlanta Flames, where Bernie Geoffrion served as his broadcasting partner.
When the Flames moved to Calgary in 1980, McDonald joined the New York Islanders broadcast team as play-by-play announcer, taking over for Tim Ryan; former Islanders captain Ed Westfall was the color commentator. McDonald spent 15 seasons as the Islanders' play-by-play man, and the team won 3 Stanley Cups during the period. Including national work, as well as work for other teams, McDonald called the play-by-play of over 200 NHL playoff games.
Although he was not the announcer for the first (1980) Stanley Cup championship team, McDonald hosted the New York Islanders' 25th anniversary celebration in 2006.
In future years, McDonald did play-by-play on Toronto Maple Leafs telecasts and Florida Panthers radio broadcasts. Following the 2003–04 season he retired, but he substituted for Dave Strader when the latter was on NHL on NBC assignments on Panther telecasts during the 2005–06 season. Since the 2006–07 season to present, he has returned to call Islanders games on MSG Network. With his Islanders work in 2010, he has called hockey games across 6 decades. With Rose broadcasting the Mets playoffs in 2015, McDonald filled in for the first 3 games of the 2015-2016 season.
McDonald also did broadcasts on nationally televised NHL games for numerous networks. Notably, he called games for SportsChannel America for 5 years, during which the channel was the rights-holder for national NHL telecasts. In addition, he broadcast the Winter Olympics for ABC and TNT, announcing at three Games alongside Peter McNab.
In addition, he filled in for Florida Panthers radio play-by-play man Randy Moller for three games when Moller became ill in January 2010.
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Outside of ice hockey, McDonald served as an announcer for the New York Mets Major League Baseball team in 1982. In 1992, he did play-by-play on CTV for Olympic basketball games.
Personal life[]
In late October 2008, McDonald and his wife were vacationing in Asia, only to be stranded in Bangkok, Thailand in late November and early December for a week in the wake of the 2008 Thai political crisis that resulted in the takeover of two commercial airports in Bangkok by pro-democracy activists.[8]