Courtesy Kamloops This Week

(December 22, 2010) It’s Jon Keen’s job to take the radio-listening people of Kamloops inside Interior Savings Centre on Blazers’ game nights and that is exactly what the play-by-play man has done.

A Lanigan, Sask., native, Keen, 32, is a prairie man at heart, but he’s been climbing the broadcast world’s mountain since he was in high school.

“When I was in Grade 8 and Grade 9, I started doing public address announcing at the local Lanigan rink,” recalled Keen during an interview at ISC, occasionally glancing down at the ice from his press-box perch.

“People said, ‘Oh, you’re good at it, you’re good at it.”

And so the journey began.

Keen, who admits his on-ice career as a goaltender had as much promise as Tim Hunter’s career as a male model, often listened to Western Hockey League broadcasts when he was growing up.

“I just thought, ‘Wow, they’re taking me inside the rink right now and I feel like I’m in Seattle, like I’m at this game, with the crowd and the noise,’” Keen said. “It’s the theatre of the mind.”

Drawing inspiration from some of his future colleagues, knowing his playing days would end at the minor-hockey level, Keen traded his goalie mask in for a pair of headphones and a mic.

“The first route to the WHL would have been playing but, when you’re not any good and you can’t make a save . . . ,” said Keen, cutting himself off mid-sentence, refusing to state the obvious.

In his time pursuing a broadcast journalism degree at Lethbridge Community College, Keen would make it hard for play-by-play men across the Dub to forget his face.

“I remember going to the games, covering them as a college kid, and always knocking on the WHL broadcasters’ doors and introducing myself,” said Keen, an avid Saskatchewan Roughriders fan.

“They always said, ‘Hey, that’s great, but get in line, kid.’”

So he did — and it didn’t take long for Keen to jump the cue.

Regan Bartel, now the voice of the Kelowna Rockets, left his post with the Swift Current Broncos in 1999, leaving the door wide open for Joey Kenward, who brought a hungry Keen on as his colour man.

Three years later, Keen realized his dream and took over the play-by-play duties from the departed Kenward.

Keen honed his craft on-air in Swift Current, spending 10 years with the Broncos, calling more than 500 games.

While Keen was growing up in front of Swift Current’s listeners, he watched as young hockey players, with whom he spent countless hours on buses and in hotels on road trips, grew into men.

“There was a player on the Broncos that I saw go from 16 to 20 and really grow up,” said Keen, speaking of former Bronco captain and fan-favourite Luke Hunter.

“At the end of every season, the 20-year-olds would take a lap. I just started crying. Five years with this guy and I could see him crying on the ice. My colour man had to take over. It just goes to show that you really develop a connection with these guys.”

While Keen did mask his emotion that night, he does not believe a play-by-play announcer should remain 100 per cent objective in the broadcast booth.

“People always say you’ve got to be impartial, but screw it,” Keen said.

“I know my audience and I know what they want to hear and you’ve got to cater to that a bit.”

Colour-man Tom Larscheid’s calls with the Vancouver Canucks over the years prove Keen is not the only person in the business who subscribes to that theory.

When former Blazers play-by-play man Kirk Fraser stepped down after 11 seasons and a spot opened up in Kamloops in the summer, Keen had a tough decision to make: To apply or not to apply?

“Here, I had a great setup in Swift and the town and the city had grown on me a lot, but I had to make a decision,” Keen said. “For me, I just didn’t want any regrets down the road. I thought I had to take a shot and take a chance.”

Radio NL operations manager Jim Reynolds decided Keen was the man for the job, and it wasn’t long before he took to Kamloops’ airwaves.

He did get off to an inauspicious start: “The very first time I cracked the mic live here, I said ‘Welcome, it’s the Swift Current Bronco . . . and I cut myself off,’” said Keen, noting it was one of his most embarrassing on-air moments.

One Freudian slip aside, the veteran broadcaster has settled into his new role just fine,

“I always think about what a great job this is and that’s what keeps me going,” Keen said.

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