Courtesy Hamilton Spectator

(February 16, 2010) As he takes a rare five-minute break in the radio corner of the massive International Broadcast Centre, Doug Farraway has no trouble articulating what this all means to him.

"I've been doing this for 35 years and this is absolutely the highlight," says Farraway, the 58-year-old director of news and sports at The FAN 590.

The Toronto sports station is the official radio broadcaster of the Olympics and Farraway is overseeing a crew which is staffing every event. Besides his demanding managerial chores, he called the Opening Ceremonies on Friday night.

A few metres away, Doug Beeforth spends much of his time with the other major executives of Canada's Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium, in a high-tech room where he, as president of Sportsnet, and top-of-the-totem-pole execs from CTV, RDS, TSN and can monitor every second of the television feeds which will be winnowed into a record 4,800 total broadcast hours. He echoes Farraway's sentiments.

"The biggest thrill in a broadcaster's career is to be able to be part of an Olympics in your own country," says Beeforth, "and, unbelievably, I've been able to do it twice."

Beeforth and Farraway are prime examples of the upper tier broadcast talent which the Hamilton area is known for producing. Beeforth, whose varied career includes Hockey Night in Canada, CTV and seven Olympics, is from Waterdown, and Farraway was born, raised, and still lives in Hamilton.

"I was a Henderson baby," he says proudly.

Brian Williams, Canada's Olympic face, voice and tone-setter, is a Westdale graduate, and never fails to boast about his hometown.

Dave Rashford, SportsNet's director of communications and promotions, is a Hamiltonian and former all-star for the Hamilton Hurricanes. He's part of the promotional crew here for the unique consortium which contains entities which are rivals in most areas but are in their fourth collaboration here (after the 2004 World Cup, 2006 Europa Cup and last year's Junior Hockey Summit in Vancouver).

Hamilton's Jim McCauley, formerly of CHCH, NHL hockey, and international skating, is well-known in international sports and has moved to Spain to be co-ordinating technical manager for the Olympic Broadcasting Services.

The director of venue technical operations for Olympic Broadcasting Services, Mark Stokl, is a former Hamiltonian.

Peter Jonasson, laboratory supervisor for the Department of Engineering Physics at McMaster, oversees broadcast technical operations for the biathlon, and will also help with cross-country ski broadcasts. Even Louis J. Horvitz, the celebrated American brought in to produce the opening ceremonies for the Canadian TV consortium, has a Bay Area connection. His father was from Hamilton.

Plus, there are a number of camera operators and other behind-the-scenes TV technicians here -- people like Rick Houston of Burlington -- who are either from the Bay Area or worked there for a significant part of their careers.

What's the deal here?

"I think that although Hamilton is not quite a "major" market, it's very close to it," says Farraway, after some thought. "And you get the exposure here to networks in Toronto that somebody from, say Winnipeg which is a similar market, might not get.

"CHCH, of course, has been a great training ground for all kinds of people in this business."

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