Language of hockey in Canada is Punjabi too

The broadcast marries Canada's national pastime with the sounds of Indian subcontinent

Harnarayan Singh and Bhola Chauhan sat at a desk in the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.'s studio here last month, watching the first period of a game between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Winnipeg Jets on two televisions.

Singh, a play-by-play announcer, called the end-to-end action in an animated stream of Punjabi, punctuated with English words like “linesman,” “icing” and “faceoff.” Singh spoke at great volume as Toronto scored its first goal, crediting wing Joffrey Lupul for what translates to “picking up the wood,” a traditional Punjabi battle cry akin to bringing the house down.

“Chak de phatte goooaaalll Joffrey Lupul! Torrronto Maple Putayyy!”
A few minutes later, Winnipeg’s Chris Thorburn and Toronto’s Colton Orr dropped their gloves and began pounding on each other, and Singh rose in his chair to animate each blow. As the players were led to the penalty box, Chauhan, an Indian-born draftsman, writer and taxi driver, read a fighting poem he had written based on a Punjabi style of verse.

``The guy who is winning has a punch like a lion, and takes over the fight.
``He hits like a sledgehammer.

“They’re rivals, and he’s hung the other out to dry, not letting him go.”
The weekly Punjabi broadcast of “Hockey Night in Canada,” as venerated an institution for Canadians as “Monday Night Football” is for Americans, is thought to be the only NHL game called in a language other than English or French. The broadcast marries Canada’s national pastime with the sounds of the Indian subcontinent, providing a glimpse of the changing face of ice hockey.

Singh, 28, has developed a signature style tailored for his audience. A puck can be described as an “aloo tikki,” a potato pancake his mother makes especially well. When a team comes back in the second period with renewed energy, Singh might say what translates to “someone must have made them a good cup of chai in the intermission.

”A player who celebrates after a big goal will “dance bhangra moves.”
Hockey players are overwhelmingly white in both Canada and the United States, and the diversity of the sport’s fans pales in comparison with those of baseball, basketball and football. The NHL has one player of South Asian heritage, the Vancouver Canucks’ Manny Malhotra.

The number of children playing ice hockey in Canada has remained stagnant, said Paul Carson, vice president for hockey development with Hockey Canada.
“Growth in this country is coming from immigration from a lot of non-hockey-playing countries,” he said. “They’re coming from the Mideast, Africa, East and South Asia.”

Punjabi Sikhs

The members of Singh’s family, like most of Canada’s 1.1 million Punjabi speakers (almost twice as many as in the United States), are Sikhs. Sikhs have been in Canada since the late 19th century.

Singh’s parents, Santokh and Surjit, were born in India and moved to Canada in the late 1960s, to work as teachers in Brooks, a small town in Alberta. Singh, the youngest of their four children, was born in 1984, months after Wayne Gretzky and the Edmonton Oilers won their first Stanley Cup.

“These were the prime Gretzky years,” Singh said. “I would set up a podium in the basement and do whole hockey awards shows. I’d sit in front of the TV and call games until everyone told me to shut up.”

Inderpreet Cumo, a distant cousin who then lived in British Columbia, would sometimes visit, and they would narrate games together. Today, Cumo, 31, is a teacher in Calgary and shares the analyst role with Chauhan, 46.

By the time Singh was 4, “all he was doing was remembering hockey,” his father said.

He added: “I told him: ‘You just have a hockey encyclopedia in your head. Nothing else!”’

Singh said his obsession stemmed from a desire to have something in common with other children at school, where he was the only minority student.

“I wore hockey shirts,” Singh said, “because then I didn’t have to answer, ‘What is that thing on your head?”’

Over time, Singh’s fixation took over the family. A visitor to his home in northeast Calgary – where he lives with his wife, Sukhjeet, a teacher; his parents; and his sister Gurdeep – can expect to see a car with a vanity license plate based on Gretzky’s No. 99, a large television continually showing NHL games or highlights, and closets stuffed with hockey jerseys.

Singh’s wedding took place recently at a nearby rink, with hockey ticket invitations, a Stanley Cup cake and custom hockey cards with marital statistics. The couple had a photo session at the Saddledome, with Singh in an Oilers jersey and Sukhjeet in a Flames jersey – she is a longtime fan – taunting each other from the penalty boxes. The ceremonial puck was dropped by the former NHL goalie Kelly Hrudey, who is Singh’s broadcasting mentor.

For every Sikh religious figure on the walls of the Singh home, there is an equivalent picture of Gretzky nearby.

“Faith is a big part of our lives and a part of our everyday routine,” said Singh, who wears a turban, keeps his beard long and plays the tabla, a percussion instrument, at a nearby temple on weekends and during festivals. “Hockey is equivalent. I do my prayers religiously, and I watch highlights religiously.”

When he was a child, Singh would make special prayer offerings on Gretzky’s birthday, and the family schedules prayers and festival celebrations around game times. Even in the serene prayer room, the tissue box bears an Oilers logo.

Singh, who has a degree in broadcasting, began working in televised professional hockey as an intern for the cable sports channel TSN when he was 19, and he worked for CBC Calgary as a radio news reporter. “Hockey Night in Canada” dropped into his lap in 2009, when Joel Darling, the executive producer of the show, asked Singh if he would call a game in Punjabi.

Darling said that as a public broadcaster, CBC had a responsibility “to attract new Canadians and people who normally wouldn’t watch the sport of hockey.” In 2008, CBC broadcast the playoffs in Mandarin online and on a specialty channel. The next year, for a “Hockey Day in Canada” special, the network added Inuktitut, an Inuit language, and Punjabi.