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Struthers among four to receive SJHL honour

The Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League will induct the first media member to its Hall of Fame Friday, when former GX94 broadcaster Terry Struthers will be among four to be installed at a ceremony during the Yorkton Terrier home game at the Farrell Age
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Terry Struthers


The Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League will induct the first media member to its Hall of Fame Friday, when former GX94 broadcaster Terry Struthers will be among four to be installed at a ceremony during the Yorkton Terrier home game at the Farrell Agencies Arena.

Struthers said the selection was completely unexpected.

"It still just blows me away You're doing a job. For them to give you something like this is surprising," he said.

So when the call came about his selection, it was unexpected.

"Lyle (Walsh) called me when I was out swathing. It was a real bad day, I didn't even recognize who it was to start with," said Struthers, adding Walsh said they wanted to induct him in the SJHL Hall of Fame. "I asked him 'are you sure you've got the right guy?'"

In selecting Struthers the SJHL turned to a former radio broadcaster with a long involvement in covering the league, and in doing the play-by-play for a legion of games.

While most of his career was spent in Yorkton, 19 years in fact, Struthers started on radio on Weyburn where he got his break to call a game in the then Centennial Cup playoff run, doing a fill-in game featuring the local Red Wings and Melville.

"It would have been the south final," recalled Struthers. "Me and my boss did Game 6."

Struthers said he had always wanted to call hockey games.

"When I first got into radio I was asked 'what would I like to do?'" he said, adding he said he wanted to cover sports and do play-by-play.

The job in Weyburn started out doing 18-hours on weekends, but when the 1984-'85 season started, Struthers was the radio voice of the Wings.

Within a few years he moved to GX94 in Yorkton, a stop he expected would maybe extend five years before he would move on again. The move simply never came, and for 19-years, Struthers was the voice of hockey on the local radio station.

Doing play-by-play in Yorkton meant being on the road a lot, since the station carries not only Yorkton Terrier games, but also Melville Millionaires and before they folded Lebret Eagle games.

"When I startedwe were doing all the road games for Yorkton, and half the road games for Melville," he said, adding arriving late in 1988 in Yorkton he did nearly 80 games the remainder of the season.

In addition Struthers was the play-by-play man for Manitoba Junior Hockey League games as GX94 covered Swan Valley (Swan River) and Waywayseecappo games, as well as senior hockey league games in various leagues over the years.

"I was gone probably four nights a week doing games," he said, adding over his career be probably called more than 2,000 games.

Selecting one game out of a couple of thousand is not easy, but Struthers said some of the bigger moments with the Terriers do stick out in his mind.

As an example Struthers said he recalls the Terriers at their first national championship, then the Centennial Cup in Sudbury, Ont., in 1991, where Terrier "Sandy Gasseau scored a goal that wasn't a goal," and the Terriers would lose the semi-final game.

"That sticks out in my mind," he said,

"And when we went to Toronto (in 2006) with the Terriers and they got their butts kicked by Kyle Turris (now in the NHL)." Turris was with Burnaby Express who won the Royal Bank Cup final over the Terriers.

Struthers was also with the Terriers at the RBC in Melfort in 1996 when local defenceman Lee Rusnak ran Melfort goaltender Scott Frankhouser, who went on to be drafted by St. Louis in the NHL, playing a few games with Atlanta.

Struthers said four years after leaving radio there are things about covering hockey he misses.

"I miss the people," he said. " I loved doing the hockey games."

Struthers said he was amazed by how people treated him, pointing to the SJHL, "there wasn't a coach I didn't get along with. I can't think of one coach that wasn't accommodating."

And doing senior hockey games was appreciated too.

"The people really appreciated everything you did for them," said Struthers, adding all he needed was a place to view the game from, and a phone line, and sometimes a heater against the cold of small town hockey rinks.

And while Struthers admitted he was "pretty burned out" by the time he retired from radio in the fall of 2007, he added, "I'd like to do another game, just to see if I can still do it."