New voice ready for kickoff Derek Taylor is well aware that he’s facing great expectations in taking over from retired hall-of-fame broadcaster Bob Irving By: Alan Small Posted: 3:00 AM CDT Tuesday, May. 24, 2022 Last Modified: 7:33 AM CDT Tuesday, May. 24, 2022 Updates

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Derek Taylor has an enviable job at a most unenviable time.

The 47-year-old broadcaster is the new radio voice of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. The Canadian Football League team is scheduled to open its pre-season Friday night against the Edmonton Elks, but it’s possible that will change after the league’s players rejected a tentative deal on a new contract. Whenever the Bombers play their first game, Taylor will live out a fantasy every Blue and Gold fan has had when yelling “Touchdown!” after catching a football.

The difficult part will begin when he utters his first words into a 680 CJOB microphone that evening.

Taylor has the task of being the first person in 47 years to call a Blue Bombers game other than Bob Irving who, save for a handful of contests in 2000, when he had open-heart surgery, and again in 2008 and 2017 when he underwent heart-related procedures, is the only voice most local football fans have known.

Generations of fans grew up listening to Irving’s colourful descriptions of the Bombers’ wins and losses, how the team’s greats since 1974 excelled on the gridiron and, most recently, the reigning CFL champions’ run to back-to-back Grey Cup victories in 2019 and 2021 (the 2020 season was cancelled because of COVID-19).

“Bob is absolutely a legend and he started doing games the year I was born, but you could not have a more gracious person than Bob Irving,” Taylor says. “Always, through my entire time here that I’ve known him, he’s been willing to help with this or give me a tip on that.… Honestly, that makes it a lot easier.”

Taylor will join analyst and CFL Football Hall of Famer Doug Brown Friday in the Bob Irving Media Centre at IG Field when he becomes Irving’s successor, and he’s prepared for any backlash to come from listeners who’ve not accepted the reality that Irving has passed the torch.

“The way Bob Irving loves the Canadian Football League, I love the Canadian Football League,” Taylor says. “Though we’re transitioning from one broadcaster to another, the passion for the CFL and the Bombers will be the same, and I hope people grab onto that.”

Eyebrows were raised around the CFL when the Blue Bombers and CJOB announced Taylor would be Irving’s successor. His previous job was at CKRM Regina, where he was the play-by-play voice of Winnipeg’s arch-enemies, the Saskatchewan Roughriders.

The rivalry being what it is, Taylor hopes unhappy fans from either team — but especially the Riders — will stick to friendly ribbing rather than calling him a traitor. Or worse.

“I was there for only three years, but man, do I love football and I hope I left that impression on folks, and (that) I did my best in covering the Riders and the team that they love,” he says.

“There’ll be some actual hard feelings, but I think more than that there will be some not-so-hard feelings, that we’re going to give you a hard time. But good-natured more than, ‘We’re going to dump a truckload of poop on your yard.’”

Taylor’s Blue Bombers broadcasting debut was supposed to come Monday in — of course — Regina to kick off the clubs’ pre-season schedule, but a short-lived CFL work stoppage last week forced the league to postpone the game, pushing his return to Mosaic Stadium to May 31.

Friday will also mark Taylor’s return to Winnipeg’s airwaves. He called University of Manitoba Bisons games on UMFM from 2006-14, including its Vanier Cup victory in 2007. He also hosted the morning news on Global Winnipeg from 2012-14 and spent almost five years as an anchor and reporter with TSN.

While announcing football games sounds like a dream job, it would be a nightmare without Taylor’s gift of the gab. Blue Bombers broadcasts are marathons, so a strong voice and doing plenty of homework ahead of time are essential.

CJOB’s game-day broadcasts begins at 5:30 p.m, two hours before kickoff, and Taylor, Brown and the rest of the crew don’t sign off until more than an hour after the final gun sounds.

Taylor gets to the stadium hours before that, interviewing coaches and players, and chatting with broadcasters from other teams to gain further insight for listeners.

“Game day, though it is the best day… it can be long and it can be taxing,” he says. “All in all, it’s a lot of me yakking about football.”

Then there is the unexpected, and even though announcers can’t be seen, there’s nowhere to hide on live radio.

“I think in my first year of doing Riders games we had three broadcasts that were delayed by weather,” he recalls.

“The first… was delayed by more than two hours. That was just, ‘Talk straight through — keep talking because there’s no commercials for that.’ You better be studied up and know what you’re talking about because you need to be ready for anything, there could be time to fill.”

Taylor grew up in Okotoks, Alta., a town just south of Calgary, and his family learned the hard way what it was like to raise a broadcaster.

“Game day, though it is the best day… it can be long and it can be taxing. All in all, it’s a lot of me yakking about football.” – Derek Taylor

“I think it’s kind of I’ve been loud my whole life. Dad complaining about, ‘Derek, take it down a notch, we’re in a truck,’” he says.

He’s worked in radio and television for more than 20 years, and it was doing the latter, at Winnipeg’s A-Channel, where he met Fiona Odlum, his future wife, in 2002. She continues to work for CBC Saskatchewan in Regina, but they agreed he should take the Bombers job even if he had to move down the Trans-Canada Highway.

Taylor returned to Winnipeg several times covering Roughriders games over the years, but he’s noticed some changes to the city now that he’s living here again full time.

“Just driving around town, some of the neighbourhoods have really expanded towards the Perimeter Highway. It’s gotten bigger and it catches me off guard in spots,” he says.

“The potholes are where I remember them too, and the drivers are as happy and polite as they always were, so honestly, it feels like the city I remember, which is really nice.”

It’s too soon for any talk for a Grey Cup three-peat for the Bombers, but Taylor likes the team’s chances this year.

“At the moment, when you see the players they’ve been able to bring back and the coaching staff is all the same and all the support staff is the same, you have to consider them the favourite to win,” he says.

“That said, it’s a nine-team league and just about anything happens if the wrong player gets hurt.”

 

Alan.Small@winnipegfreepress.com

Twitter: @AlanDSmall