Don Taylor: ‘You’re Up to Date in the World of Sports’ – 2024 Inductee Spotlight

By Jason Beck

In the summer of 1979 a 19-year-old Don Taylor had just moved north to Dawson Creek for his first media job at local television station CJDC. Don was hired to read the news on-air, and on this night he’d done just that during one of the first late-night newscasts. It had

gone really well. He left the station and walked by himself up to the Grandview area of Dawson Creek where he was renting a place.

“It’s a crisp cool night, even though it’s the summer,” Don recalled in an interview with the BC Sports Hall of Fame earlier this year. “You can kind of see the northern lights in the background. And I remember looking back at the neon marquee sign of CJDC and thinking, ‘I love this, I want to do this the rest of my life.’ I know it sounds so corny but that thought went through my mind that night. I kind of knew I was going to stick with this no matter what.”

Over 45 years later with a still-in-progress hall of fame career that has made him one of BC’s most popular and widely respected sports media personalities, Don has most definitely stuck with it. His latest show, Donnie and Dhali: The Team, co-hosted by Rick Dhaliwal and produced by Ryan Henderson on CHEK TV, is another huge hit with viewers combining all the best elements and spirit of his earlier television stints on Sports Page and Sportsnet Connected, and radio shows on TEAM/TSN 1040. In 2024, he earned induction into not one but two—count ’em—sports halls of fame: the Burnaby Sports Hall of Fame in March and the BC Sports Hall of Fame in May. His love for sports, especially local sports here in BC, and discussing the great, the bizarre, and the hilarious continues to shine through in whatever medium Don offers his trademark show-closing line: “You’re up to date in the world of sports.” Given the memorable year 2024 was for Don, what better time than now to look back at the life and career—to date—of one of the legendary sports media figures in BC history.

***

As he is very proud to point out, Don grew up in North Burnaby—”5091 Union Street and then we moved to 4683 Northlawn Drive when I was about 12 years old.” The youngest of Jack and Mary Taylor’s four boys and two daughters, his earliest sports memory dates back to when he wasn’t even yet a toddler.

“I remember throwing my baby bottle out of my crib,” he said with complete seriousness, which if true confirms he not only has one of the most prodigious memories in BC sport to draw upon but also explains how some of his obscure sports references come to him so easily. A few years later his first memory of attending a live sports event took place at Exhibition Park (today’s Hastings Racecourse).

“My dad played the horses,” Don recalled. “And I remember being on a railing looking at the horses and looking at my dad and saying, ‘I’m four years old, bet on number four!’ And number four lost: didn’t win, place, or show!”

As you probably guessed, sports were a huge part of the Taylor household. All of his brothers played sports. They ran track, played football, but lacrosse was number one in their house. Don’s dad Jack was involved with NorBurn Minor Lacrosse and older brother Dave was a lacrosse star. Dave was picked up by the 1971 Richmond Roadrunners on their run to the Minto Cup and he later went to Ohio State on a scholarship and played in the WLA. Dave was about nine years older than Don, which is a lifetime when you’re kids, but that didn’t matter: Dave dragged young Don everywhere.

“He was one of those guys if there was a touch football game, people would call him up to play quarterback, so I would go tag along and watch that. I looked up to him a lot.”

Although Dave was a particular hero, Don looked up to all of his brothers and also ‘The Big M’ Frank Mahovlich. Wherever Mahovlich played—Toronto, Detroit, Montreal—was Don’s favourite team growing up until, that is, the Canucks came along later on.

Everything seemed to revolve around sports in the Taylor house.

“I think we had a kitchen table—I’m sure we did!” Don laughed. “But it was TV trays in front of the television watching whatever sporting event was on that night, that was where we ate our dinner.”

And on Sundays?

“My mom went to church and I was baptized as a Roman Catholic,” Don explained. “When I was about 13 or 14, I looked over at my dad and wondered ‘what religion is he?’ Well, it turned out to be the NFL. Nothing against anybody, but I think I like that better!”

The Taylors had a huge house with a big backyard where they built a homemade ball hockey rink with plywood boards and a smooth packed dirt floor. They also played lacrosse in it as well.

“All the neighbourhood kids used to come play there. We used to have just massive games and it was really special. I’m getting sentimental just thinking about it. It’s where everybody hung out in the neighbourhood, a really vibrant, kind of rough, working man’s neighbourhood.”

So it would have been difficult not to become interested in sports in this environment. It was every day, everywhere, all around them.

“The root of my sporting interest was that we were all involved in sports,” Don said. “I don’t even know if there needed to be a spark. It was just always there, that interest.”

Don followed his older brothers into lacrosse but also became the only kid in his family to play hockey. He was a pretty good athlete, with good hands who could score goals, especially in lacrosse. Under coaches John Brassington and Wayne Sutherland, Don was a key part of a Burnaby team that won the Canadian U18 national championship in the mid-1970s. Their archrival at that time was a team from Saanich on Vancouver Island.

“One of their better players was a guy with a big muscular upper body and skinny legs by the name of John Horgan. Good athlete.”

Horgan, of course, served as BC’s premier from 2017-22 while earning widespread respect and popularity before sadly passing away just recently from thyroid cancer. In the days when billeting was common—where teams travelling to out-of-town tournaments stayed with the families of local opponents—Don and John were paired up as billets several times whenever their teams travelled to play one another. They didn’t keep in contact, but many years later reconnected.

“I was already on TV when John was starting to get famous in politics,” remembered Don. “I wondered if that was the same guy. I ran into him one day on Robson Street in Vancouver and asked him. ‘Yeah!’ he said.”

Having that decades-old lacrosse connection allowed Don, Rick Dhaliwal, and Ryan Henderson to secure Horgan, then still serving as premier, as an early guest when their new show Donnie and Dhali went on the air in 2021—a major ‘get’ for any show.

“I think the guys in the news department were mad at us!” Don chuckled.

***

After graduating from Alpha Senior Secondary in Burnaby, Don had good grades and could have pursued anything he wanted at a university, but naturally his interest was in sports. He decided to try going after a job in sports media.

“It’s something that sounds so simple and kinda stupid, but I just thought it’d be a cool thing to do,” he said. “I kind of knew I’d be okay at it. I just had a feeling. I was just so absorbed in it. It was just something I wanted to do.”

And really, based on a story Don shared during his Banquet of Champions induction speech in May, the path of his life was likely set early on. As a young kid, Don had severe allergies, which regular allergy medication couldn’t lessen, so every second Friday Don’s mom took him out of school to get a shot at a clinic in downtown Vancouver. Afterwards they’d always do some kind of ‘Vancouver’ activity, maybe Stanley Park or Gastown. Then one Friday Don’s mom said that an event for Rossland skier Nancy Greene, who had just won Olympic gold and silver medals in Grenoble, was going to take place at Woodward’s in downtown Vancouver. After getting his shot, Don and his mom were among hundreds gathered to hear Nancy speak and get her autograph.

“I had my autograph book, which my mom had bought me for the occasion, and I was front and center because I was the only kid there given the time of day it was—everybody else was in school,” he recalled. “The emcee said it’s time for autographs and photographs with Nancy, come on up. So I was the first person up to the stage and I roared past Nancy, much to the horror of my mom and went right to the emcee to get his autograph! The emcee was Al Davidson.”

“Tiger” Al was one of the most listened to members of the Vancouver sports media at that time on CKNW radio.

“I just thought, man, this guy has the greatest job in the world. He spends each and every day talking about sports, how cool is that?! He must make a ton of money! I just thought he was the greatest. Maybe that was when the seed was planted for the rest of my life.”

That seed began to sprout after high school. While working on a City of Vancouver road construction crew to earn some money, Don took a broadcasting course taught by Bill De Cateret at Columbia Academy. Almost the day after the course finished, Don had a job.

“Instantly I had this job offer for $400 a month up in Dawson Creek,” he recalled. “They listened to my audition tape and probably thought ‘We can get this guy for cheap.’ So I went up north and it was the best decision I made.”

Initially Don was hired by radio station CJDC to read the news.

“I didn’t care. It was a great way to get your foot in the door. Within four weeks I was a DJ.”

He did the overnight midnight shift, working by himself on-air, cueing up the records and reel-to-reels which were still being used, and running the control board on top of that.

“I remember looking at the control board and back then it looked like something out of NASA and thinking ‘I’m not going to be able to do this here.’ There was a lot going on. But it was great practice.”

Although it was a radio job, early on Don also began doing a lot of work on TV. One of his earliest TV gigs in Dawson Creek was doing the weather.

“I had no idea what I was doing in television, but it helped eliminate any fear I had of going on television because I didn’t expect it. So I ended up learning about cold fronts and warm fronts. It was great to learn how to think on your feet and sound like you know what you’re talking about. It’s better to do that in front of three or four people than several thousand. This just in, I’m not a meteorologist! I must have done okay because they kept putting me back on or maybe there was no one else to do it.”

Don remembered one of the first stories he covered for CJDC was when Tommy Hunter, the Canadian country musician who had a popular show on CBC for decades, came to town to perform, a big moment for Dawson Creek. Eventually, CJDC’s sports director left and Don took over for him.

“I was the sports director and I was also the only person in the department,” he laughed.

Don covered the Dawson Creek Kodiacs of the Peace Cariboo Hockey League and the Dawson Creek Canucks, a senior team, as well as other local sports. Don also played hockey in the community league himself.

“It was culture shock, very different from living in Vancouver. But I absolutely loved it and got absorbed into the community.”

As much as he enjoyed Dawson Creek, it was always going to be a stepping stone. While learning the ropes and gaining experience, he applied everywhere he could, trying to move up from small-market Dawson Creek to a medium-sized market somewhere. He drove through the Okanagan one summer dropping off audition tapes as he went.

“I remember dropping one off at CKIQ in Kelowna on a 40-degree day wearing a three-piece wool suit. With pit stains,” he laughed.

It’s entirely possible if Don was offered one of jobs he applied for in Ontario or Nova Scotia, his career would have gone in an entirely different direction. As it turned out, CKGY, a country western radio station in Red Deer, Alberta, was his next stop. Red Deer was a step up, but that didn’t make leaving Dawson Creek after three years easy.

“I cried when I left, I loved it there.”

In Red Deer, Don covered hockey, baseball, softball, and rodeo for CKGY. On the side he did play-by-play for the Red Deer Rustlers on Shaw Cable. CKGY’s station owner was a guy named Rod Stevens, who was very well known throughout Alberta.

“He prided himself on his station’s slo-pitch team, named Rod’s Raiders,” Don chuckled. “There was this big media tournament every summer and CKGY won it years on end. He hired me based on the fact I played some baseball and softball and I was a decent athlete back in the day. I don’t think they would have hired me if I didn’t play! Sometimes he’d have guys up there, they weren’t great on the air, but, man, they could play ball! We won that tournament two of the three years I was there.”

Someone else Don got to know while working in Red Deer was a popular DJ on the local rock station CKRD and a weatherman on TV: Ron MacLean. You might have heard of him.

“So, I kind of got to know him as a broadcaster. But I also played senior hockey in Red Deer and Ron was an outstanding referee. I got to know him more through that than through broadcasting. He’s a wonderful guy.”

***

After a couple years in Red Deer, Don began looking for his next step up. He saw an ad in one of the trade magazines at that time that posted media jobs. There was an opening at CKVU back in Vancouver working in sports. Working back at home, that was definitely intriguing. And sports at CKVU meant Sports Page, already an established, popular show in the Vancouver sports media landscape. So Don applied, creating an audition tape at the Shaw Cable station in Red Deer and sent it to Paul Carson at CKVU in Vancouver. It came down to Don and another guy who was older and who ultimately got the job over Don.

“But Paul said, ‘Well, you’re my safety valve if this guy doesn’t work.’ That was fine. And…he didn’t work out.”

And the rest, as it turned out, became BC sports media history.

Carson had Don come to Vancouver to do a couple stories, try a fake sportscast, and see how he’d do.

“So the story they sent me out on was a New Westminster Bruins game,” Don recalled. “This was in the 1984 Cooperalls era: Cliff Ronning, Al Patterson, that group. That was the first story I did. And my reaction to it was awesome. Because I had been to a million New West Bruins games during the first Ernie ‘Punch’ McLean era—Barry Beck, Mark Lofthouse, and all of that. So I just instantly felt comfortable. It was at Queen’s Park Arena, which I was very comfortable with. It just could not have gone better. The interviews went well. The editing went well. I remember a cameraman by the name of John Tunschel and I overheard him saying to Paul—I happened to be walking by—‘Hey, this is your guy.’—I’ll never forget that. So that was the first story and it was just a game report. I don’t even know if it aired, but it went really well.”

Sports Page had usually been anchored by a single on-air host, but the first time Don hosted the show, Paul Carson eased him in by having him co-host with Chris Hebb, one of the established hosts of the Page. It went well for Don and eventually he was given the green light to host on his own as he found his footing.

“It was one thing to do sports in Dawson Creek or Red Deer, but to host an iconic show like Sports Page, I can remember Paul saying, ‘Just so you know, you’re going to get criticized from here on in. Even if you get really good, it doesn’t matter. We all went through it, plow through it. We believe in you.’”

Sports Page was already an established, popular show, but with Don alongside Carson and Hebb and later other popular hosts like Dave Randorf, Barry MacDonald, and John Shorthouse, the show climbed to unprecedented levels of popularity. It became appointment viewing for much of the sports-crazed population of the province in the pre-internet era. And whether it was the show’s humourous side, focus on local coverage, Sports Page Trivia, or Yulin’ With The Page, there seemed to be something for everyone.

“We had a lot of fun and the show just kicked ass,” Don said, the pride in his voice unmistakable. “It was just so much fun to be part of.”

That fun shone through on camera and connected with an army of viewers.

“We made sure that we had fun doing it because that’s the root of sports and I think I’ve kept that throughout my career. We all got into sports because it’s fun, whether you’re watching it or playing it. You’re doing it because it’s fun. That was the focus of our show. Yeah, there were serious times, no question about it. But if you’re putting a puck in a net or trying to get an oblong ball over a line, it’s supposed to be fun. I’ll never forget having a consultant come by at Sports Page and later on at 1040—wasn’t the same person, but same message—but your sportscasts should be like a locker room. It’s not always about sports. Sometimes it’s about arts and entertainment, television references, and things like that. Don’t be so rigid and don’t have boundaries set up about what you’re going to talk about. That always stuck with me. And that stuck with all of us at Sports Page.”

No one succeeded more in this respect than Don and maybe that’s why he’s often considered the most popular host of BC’s most popular sports highlight show ever.  No other host brought so many memorable lines, impressions, and other fun and goofy aspects to show than Don. When many think of Sports Page, they think of Don citing jersey colours or obscure Canuck player numbers, doing impressions of American announcer Marv Albert or dour Maple Leaf Gardens announcer Paul Morris, or maybe one of several catchphrases that entered the popular public discourse in BC like “top shelf where grandma keeps the peanut butter.” As a long-time Sports Page fan myself, I always wondered how did one guy come up with all of this?!

“Well, it’s all stolen!” Don said with a laugh. Even if that is partially true in some cases, Don is being overly modest here because without his natural charisma, timing, and delivery, these bits all go nowhere.

One of his signature lines, that he still uses to this day to close Donnie and Dhali, is his trademark finisher: “You’re up to date in the world of sports.” Not many know that line goes all the way back to Dawson Creek where he worked with a morning DJ up there from London, Ontario named Wayne McAteer.

“He was a real talent, so much better than all of us. We were all in our late teens and early twenties. He was really old. He was 30,” Don laughed. “I remember doing the sports one day and he goes, ‘You say something different after every sportscast. Come up with some catchphrase.’ Then Wayne just off the top of his head said something like ‘you’re up to date in the world of sports.’ I thought, ‘That’s pretty good!’ So that’s how it started! So I kept saying it and I just felt really comfortable saying it and it sort of caught on.”

Thousands of shows Don has hosted over the years have since been closed with that line. Even if back in the Sports Page days some cranky English dude called in complaining “this guy’s full of crap because he’s not covering Division II soccer in the Old Country! How dare he say ‘you’re up to date in the world of sports’!”

What about “top shelf where grandma keeps the peanut butter” and countless variations on that line—where did that one come from?

“That was something my dad said,” Don explained of the line that until now I bet few realized was a tiny tribute to two members of his family.

And the jersey colours?

“Jim Robson would often mention the jersey colours at the beginning of his broadcasts,” he explained. “That was a tribute to Jim, who we all in this area grew up listening to. I was always, even to this day, fascinated by jerseys and their colours.”

How about the long-running jersey number schtick? As it turned out, that one just kind of happened, but there is a lot more meaning there than might first appear.

“I always had this vision in my head of somebody in Thunder Bay or Wetaskiwin when I was doing a national broadcast or when I was doing Sports Page somebody in Coquitlam who might have played just six months in the NHL and to hear his name brought up that way—’wearing John Grisdale’s old number 18’—maybe that would bring a smile to their face or their family. They’re people. They have memories and families. I think a lot of people like obscure nostalgia. It brings a smile to people’s faces. I thought it was a cool thing to do.”

One of the other great aspects of Sports Page was the show’s ability to use mistakes to its advantage and not awkwardly hide them while trying to move on.

“The broadcasters that I really admired were Johnny Carson and David Letterman and one of the things that hit me is that they were always at their best when things were screwing up! Those were the moments you remember. How they managed to tap dance their way somehow through something really, really bad. And it just ended up being iconic. I think we brought a lot of that to Sports Page. Not that we tried to make mistakes on purpose, but if something screwed up, it was very human and we let everyone know about it. I always loved people who always looked at things in a humourous way. Almost seemingly looked forward to the mistakes.”

It’s another aspect of Sports Page that Don has tried to bring to every one of his shows since.

“If people saw the notes we have for our show now, Donnie and Dhali, I scribble things down like a doctor’s prescription and that’s the bones of the show! I just love that feel of I don’t really know what’s next. And getting things off the rails and getting them back on, I love that! I think that’s a great test of a broadcaster. I just like that loose feel, I always have. I kind of like hanging on by a thread and almost show off your ability to get things back on track. I don’t want it to be formatted perfect or anything like that. Those are the broadcasters I admire most that aren’t perfect but just come across so well, they can get things back on track and just smile and be smart.”

The other thing about Sports Page was, yes, it was a barrel of laughs, but the local stories they covered were really smart. You could watch a half-hour of Sports Page and the next day talk to just about anyone and sound like you yourself were a sports expert too.

“We really valued reporting, going out and doing stories not just on the Canucks, Lions, and Whitecaps but on local sports, amateur sports, and up-and-comers. We did a story on Steve Nash when he was in Grade 9, right? We really valued telling stories so it wasn’t just about highlights and being a goofball on the air, it was also about some journalism too.”

Add it all up and Don considers working at Sports Page the highlight of his career.

“The whole 16-and-a-half years. So much fun. Just knowing that each and every day you were kicking ass. It was just a feel. It wasn’t the numbers or anything. We just knew we were doing well. Kind of a top of the world feeling.”

***

Even before departing Sports Page in 2000, Don had been branching out into other sports media for some time. For four years in the late 1990s, Don contributed a weekly sports column to The Province that gained a strong following. A lot of television personalities can’t make the transition to print media, but Don’s natural wit and sports knowledge shone in column form, even if it didn’t come naturally to him.

“I think I’m a good writer, but it’s hard. It doesn’t come easy to me as it does for other people. Maybe it would if I did it more. I gained so much respect for the Tony Gallaghers and Jim Taylors of the world.”

At the same time, Don was also writing a weekly piece for the BC Lotteries Corporation and doing Tuesday morning radio hits on CFOX with popular hosts Larry & Willy in a segment called “Stump the Sports Guy.” For a year Don hosted his own sports talk show on CKNW. A little bit later he recorded colour commentary for several EA Sports video games such as NHL 2002. If it seemed like he was everywhere all at once, he was, and it was beginning to get to be too much for him.

“I can talk about this comfortably now, but I was having some problems,” he said. “Getting to sleep. I was close to having an issue with depression and mental illness and I had to let some things go. I took on every opportunity I could on top of a relationship and a family. It got to be really tough on me, so I let some gigs go. I learned not to take too much on. I see this with a lot of young guys now. As much as you want to and it’s a challenge, it can mess with you. I got caught up in that world. Not blaming anybody except myself. It was a really interesting part of my life where you feel like you’re on top of the world, but you’re not.”

Given his widespread popularity here in BC, it’s no surprise that Don received many offers to move to national positions in eastern Canada, where he likely would have gone on to even greater levels of success. TSN wooed him, but Sportsnet came to him with an opportunity to stay in Vancouver and do a show from here. In 2001, he began a 13-year run hosting Sportsnet Connected five nights a week. As it turned out Don still did end up spending a lot of time working in Toronto, several times for several weeks or a month straight, living out of a hotel while broadcasting from Sportsnet’s national studio. He even liked it there.

“But I had the opportunity to stick around in my own hometown. I think most people would do the same as me. And I did. I often wondered what it would be like in Toronto but I have no regrets. It’s all worked out well.”

And if anything, because he chose to stay in BC, his popularity here has only grown.

“I’m kind of like the Tragically Hip of broadcasters,” he laughed. “Only popular in one part of the world!”

Staying in BC also allowed Don to have a successful, full family life at the same time as his media career. He is especially proud of the life he’s built with his wife Lisa and their three kids, daughter Laine and sons Reid and Quinn. For over a decade, if you were at an ice rink in the Tri Cities region, very likely you’d run into Don coaching one of his sons’ minor hockey teams. Staying close to home allowed him to be involved with his kids like that while still working dream media jobs. It’s turned out to be the best of both worlds.

While Sportsnet Connected was his evening gig for many years, Don soon found something to fill his mornings at the same time. In 2003, he began a long run co-hosting Vancouver’s most listened to daily sports talk radio show on TEAM/TSN 1040 until that ill-fated February 2021 morning when Bell Media infamously pulled the plug on the station to widespread outcry from the public in BC. Don co-hosted with three very different individuals during that time—David Pratt, old Sports Page colleague Barry Macdonald, and Bob ‘The Moj’ Marjanovich—and greatly respected the skills of each.

“Moj is just a wonderful, big, knowledgeable person I really enjoyed working with. Barry and I are friends from back in the eighties. Just tremendous knowledge and humour. He and I laugh at the same things and giggle. Pratt takes a lot of heat in this market. He is one of the most knowledgeable, brave broadcasters out there. He’s not everybody’s cup of tea, but they all listen. I learned a lot off Dave. What Dave taught me was to focus on issues. It’s not so much about knowledge or analytics, it’s about getting people talking about issues. That makes for good conversation in talk radio and talk television.”

From audio reels, videotapes, and fax machines to the internet, social media, and sports analytics, Don has witnessed the sports media landscape change dramatically over his career. His advice for young people interested in sports media today is applicable to any era though.

“I think there is still some value for starting out small,” he explained. “If you get an opportunity in a place like Vancouver, you’re going to jump at it. It’s prestigious and all that. Maybe this is an old man talking but maybe try going to a small town or community station and getting your mistakes out there, getting comfortable there, and then making your way to the so-called big time.”

He cited Rick Ball as a guy who spent time in Nanaimo, Kelowna, and Victoria before coming to Vancouver and zooming by everyone here who hadn’t done that. He did his time in small towns and got really good at his job “in the minors” before coming to Vancouver and excelling. He then did a decade as the Calgary Flames play-by-play broadcaster on Sportsnet before recently taking on the same role with the Chicago Sports Network and the Blackhawks. Don also singled out Jordan Armstrong on Global BC as a young, local broadcaster who has really impressed him recently.

When Don pivoted back to television one more time in 2021 with Donnie and Dhali on CHEK TV, in many ways it was a return to his Sports Page roots. Smaller show, but tight. Local focus. And if it looks like Don, Rick, and Ryan are having the time of their lives on air, it’s because they are. His focus for the near future is to take this show as far as they can. He can see retirement in the not too distance future, but he’s having fun now.

“I wouldn’t mind some time to relax and do some other things,” he said. “But doing what we’re doing now is a good way to bookend my career, I think. I’m going to see this through as long as I can.”

In the meantime, we’ll continue to tune in to the legendary career of a local boy from North Burnaby—watching, laughing, and of course staying up to date in the world of sports.

As part of the Class of 2024, Don Taylor was formally inducted into the BC Sports Hall of Fame in the Media category at the annual Banquet of Champions held May 16, 2024 at the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver.

 

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