A little fun

In the thread announcing Tom Joseph's passing, Bill Howard suggested:
[q]Some time it would be fun (well, a little) to recall all the Cornell sports announcers and where they've gone on to. It would be boring as hell for eLynah denizens who thank Adam Wodon is an old-timer.[/q]

Here's what I remember ...

I arrived at Cornell as a freshman in the fall of 1967. Sam Woodside announced Cornell hockey (and most other Cornell sports) on WHCU. Sam was occasionally assisted by his son Jim Woodside, but for the most part he did the broadcasts by himself.

Sam retired in the early 1970's, and was succeeded by Jay Levine, who broadcast games for a year, or two at the most. After Jay came Roy Ives, with Tom Joseph as his sidekick.

After the 1980 ECAC championship / NCAA "frozen four" season, Roy left briefly to broadcast minor league hockey, but that didn't work out, and he returned to Ithaca. WHCU hired Chris Moore, a recent Ithaca College graduate, to handle Cornell hockey in Ives' absence. Moore worked first with someone from WVBR (Pat somebody, whose name escapes me now ... sorry, it's been a long time), and when that didn't work out, with the sports columnist from the Ithaca Times, Arthur somebody ... the name's right on the tip of my tongue). More than a thousand people petitioned WHCU to restore Roy Ives to the broadcasts. Playoff games weren't beholden to WHCU's in-season contracts, and the 1981 playoffs featured competing broadcasts between Moore's WHCU team and Ives on WTKO.

Moore continued to broadcast on WHCU through 1984, with first Howie Borkan and then Kurt Smutko as color commentators. Moore left after the 1984 season for Wisconsin, and eventually the Florida Panthers of the NHL and WFAN in New York). Jim Lester succeeded him, with John Heron and Jim Connors (not the tennis legend) as color men. Ives came back for several years, with Pete Tufford at his side. Grady Whittenburg succeeded Roy, initially with Pete on color, but it was during Grady's tenure that WHCU (which had been taken over by Eagle Broadcasting, along with WTKO) started moving toward a single broadcaster, especially for games outside of Lynah Rink. Grady left for the Binghamton Senators in 2002. Adam Wodon broadcast for two seasons through 2004, and Jason Weinstein succeded him.

[Disclaimer: These are my best recollections as to what happened. I may be off by a year or so about when transitions happened, but I believe that the names, the roles, and the stations are substantially accurate. I welcome corrections to the details. And, obviously, I'm the "Arthur" who worked with Chris Moore, and I also did several games with Grady over the years; you can decide how good a job I did.]

That was interesting...I had tried to forget Chris Moore. He brought a new element to broadcasting hockey- the "mystery whistle." That's when the officials blew the whistle and Chris was absolutely clueless to explain why The last I knew, he had moved onto ESPN. Obviously a late bloomer. That kind of potential didn't show at CU. When "Ives came back for several years", that was on WTKO. Correct? Roy was the best!! And you, Arthur, were a damn good color man!

Woodside's last hockey season was '68-69, though I think he did football longer. Jay Levine's only season was the glorious '69-'70 year. I can still hear him in my mind saying "Lodboa shoots, he scores." Jay was pretty good, although I didn't hear him often as I think I was at 22 or 23 of the 29 games.
I recall an Andy Andrews doing games in '70-'71 and maybe '71-72, perhaps with Roy Ives.
Woodside was way past his prime when Arthur and I attended school. The call I remember most was the '69 NCAA semi-final where Sam said (perhaps not exactly but pretty close) "Gordie Lowe in the Cornell end, and a goal" and we all turned to each other with a "who scored" question and about 10-15 seconds later Sam explained that Lowe scored and Cornell had won.
Jay Levine and his wife Mary Ann Childers have been TV news anchors and reporters in Chicago for the past 25 years or so.