Howard William Meeker was a Canadian professional hockey player in the National Hockey League, an educator in ice hockey, a youth coach and a Progressive Conservative Member of Parliament, renowned to Canadians as an enthusiastic television colour commentator for Hockey Night. Meeker is known for breaking down strategy in between periods of games with the early use of the telestrator. Meeker played his junior hockey with the Kitchener Greenshirts in the Ontario Hockey Association. Meeker, who wa... moreHoward William Meeker was a Canadian professional hockey player in the National Hockey League, an educator in ice hockey, a youth coach and a Progressive Conservative Member of Parliament, renowned to Canadians as an enthusiastic television colour commentator for Hockey Night. Meeker is known for breaking down strategy in between periods of games with the early use of the telestrator. Meeker played his junior hockey with the Kitchener Greenshirts in the Ontario Hockey Association. Meeker, who was a right-winger, joined the Toronto Maple Leafs in the National Hockey League in 1946–47 and coached the Maple Leafs, replacing King Clancy on 11 April 1956, who led the Leafs to a 21–34–15 record and was later promoted to general manager in 1957. However, he was fired before the start of the 1957–58 season. Meeker ran hockey schools as summer camps in the United States and Canada. In 1973, he published His book Howie Meeker's Hockey Basics, accompanied by his weekly telecasts based on these camps, Howie Meeker's Hockey School, on CBC Television. This cemented his reputation in the coaching trade. Meeker was known to a new generation of hockey fans in the 1970s and 1980s as the excitable, squeaky-voiced analyst-colour commentator on Hockey Night in Canada. Meeker, who often used the phrase, "Keep your stick on the ice", died on 8 November 2020 in a hospital in Nanaimo, British Columbia.
