In stories told by his children, Roland Robertson — everyone called him “Rollie” — was a compact man with a rich, textured voice and an abiding love of hockey. He never missed a single game when his two sons were playing, even after his eldest, Peter, had long since aged into “old man beer hockey.”
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“He’d be one of the three people in the rink,” Peter said with a laugh.
A few years ago, Rollie broke his hip after a fall in the basement. He was taken to Aberdeen Hospital, not far from the family home in Trenton, N.S., and he began to fade. One day, his daughter, Sue Ellen, wanted to lift him from the encroaching fog. She reached for her phone and loaded a hockey highlight, narrated by her baby brother, Dan, the English radio play-by-play voice for the Montreal Canadiens.
“That’s Danny?” Rollie asked.
“Yeah, dad,” she said. “That’s Dan — can you believe it?”
Their father stirred. Sue Ellen texted Dan: “You should see the smile on his face.”
Dan Robertson inherited a deep and rich voice, but that alone never guaranteed a spot on the airwaves of an NHL team. He was a skilled youth hockey player who became an English major at Saint Mary’s University, in Halifax, before drifting down several disparate career paths: Security guard, video store clerk and, briefly, a man of leisure living in suburban Denver, Colo.
Even when he finally found his focus, the microphone seemed distant on the horizon. He was deep into his 40s when he landed the Montreal radio job in 2014, and the exceptionally rare NHL television seats always seemed to slip from his grasp.
This April, a chair opened. Dennis Beyak, the play-by-play voice of the Winnipeg Jets, announced he was retiring. Five months later — almost to the day — Robertson signed onto the air, introducing himself to TSN viewers in Manitoba.
It was part of a dual transaction involving the Canadiens broadcasts. Long-time Montreal reporter John Lu has also moved to Winnipeg to host TSN’s coverage of the Jets, shifting to a broader role after long-time reporter Sara Orlesky surprised colleagues by joining the Jets over the summer.
Lu grew up in Winnipeg and jumped at the chance to go home. At 52, Robertson, meanwhile, is settling in with the job opportunity of a lifetime.
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“We’re all proud as the devil,” said his older brother, Peter. “Not being biased: He should have been on TV years ago.”
“It’s not just dumb luck,” said Sue Ellen. “He totally deserves it.”
Unlike her younger brother, Sue Ellen always had a clear view of her career path. She was going to be a teacher. And since she was seven years older than Dan, he was going to be her first student, from the earliest days of elementary school.
Sometimes, she would quiz him. Sue Ellen would hold up a series of baseball or hockey cards, and ask Dan to recall specific details from the statistics listed on the back. She would ask him about a pitcher’s earned-run average, or how many points a hockey player scored the previous season.
Somehow, she said, he seemed to remember them all.
Even later in life, Peter remembered walking into his parents’ home to see papers strewn across the big table. Dan was preparing to call games for a hockey tournament, and the papers were filled with names of Russian players: “He memorized the whole thing.”
There is no vocational school in the Maritimes specifically designed for play-by-play voices, though, so Dan drifted after university. He followed a friend to Vancouver and eventually found work as a security guard, earning $7.10 an hour on the night shift, where his primary role was just trying to stay awake.
He also spent time working at a video store in Halifax. His former wife was a nurse, and when she was working in Aurora, Colo., he mostly spent his days on the golf course or at the gym. (“Lived the life of leisure,” he said with a laugh. “It sounds good, and it was fun for a while, but it got old fairly quickly.”)
Robertson was playing the back half of his 20s by the time he returned to Canada, increasingly anxious about finding a job he could call a career. He landed work with Eastlink TV, a regional service based in Halifax. It became his home for a decade.
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“I thought: ‘I just hope I get a crack at it before I turn 40,’” said Robertson. “And then 40 became 44 — that’s how old I was when I got the Canadiens radio job.
“I thought I was good enough, to be honest with you. And I don’t mean for that to sound boastful, but I think you have to believe in yourself. I wanted a chance. That’s the thing: You can be good enough and not get a chance because there’s just not many opportunities.”
In Montreal, he got to dabble in TSN’s regional television coverage of the Canadiens whenever Bryan Mudryk, the regular play-by-play voice, was called away for the network’s curling broadcasts. Beyak’s retirement opened the door to calling televised NHL games as a full-time job.
“I’ve always tried to be kind of an old-school play-by-play guy,” said Robertson. “I think Dennis is that way. By old-school: I like to stick to calling the play more than telling stories while the game goes on — which I think there’s room for.
“But for me, the play is king. I think it’s been that way for Dennis all these years. Somebody put it to me well: ‘You’re not replacing Dennis Beyak, you’re following Dennis Beyak.’”
Lu, meanwhile, followed a feeling that had been growing stronger during the pandemic. He spent time in a Montreal hospital with COVID-19 in 2020 — an episode marked by two fainting spells, and then a pulmonary embolism — and then endured the sudden death of his sister that fall.
He wanted to go home. And even after two decades spent in Toronto and Montreal, home was still in Winnipeg.
“As exciting as the opportunity was to grow my skills as a broadcaster, the ultimate bonus of being home makes this truly the perfect opportunity for me,” said Lu. “I honestly could not be happier. I’m over the moon.”
It was just a coincidence he made the move west in lockstep with Robertson.
“He is so talented, and such a good guy,” said Lu. “Quintessential Atlantic Canadian. Salt of the earth. Deadpan funny. Dan was one of my favourite colleagues in Montreal.”
Both men opened the hockey season living in a downtown Toronto hotel while their long-term living arrangements were still being settled. Lu and his wife had bought a house, while Robertson filled his new apartment with suits — but nothing else, with his furniture still en route from Montreal.
“I just hope that people — when they watch, and when they listen — will be kind enough to realize I’m kind of new to the place, and that I’m not sure where everything is yet,” said Robertson. “My world’s been pretty small since I got here.”
His father, Rollie, was born during The Great Depression, and never got the chance to play hockey, but watched it on television. He was a maintenance supervisor at the pulp and paper plant in Pictou County, about two hours north of Halifax, and he also worked part-time at a hockey rink — the one he built for his children in the backyard every winter.
The hockey games were held during the day, and Sue Ellen, a figure-skater, would practise at night. At the end of the day, Rollie would head back outside to scrape and flood the surface.
Rollie never considered himself to be old, even when he started slowing down. Once he was admitted into the hospital after his fall, though, he never got to go home. He died in April 2016, at the age of 82.
He still got to hear his youngest son call NHL games on the radio.
“He was the proudest man in the universe,” said Sue Ellen.
“Dad would be some proud of him,” said Peter. “We all are.”
(Photo: Courtesy of Dan Robertson)