As you read this, NHL players will be crashing, banging, and board-and-glassing through the end of the second (of three!) months of Stanley Cup playoffs – an unequalled skeleton-rattling grind for all concerned. “I love it,” says David Amber, BA’93. “This is the best time of the year.”
If you watch hockey at all, you’re almost certainly familiar with Amber, who, along with Ron MacLean, is the host of Hockey Night in Canada and the studio host for Sportsnet’s NHL coverage. “Every game [in the playoffs] matters,” says Amber. “The fan bases are incredibly engaged, the love and desire to win the Stanley Cup – it’s amazing to watch the sacrifices the players will make this time of year, the physical, emotional and psychological toll it takes on them.”
He cites the “unrivaled pageantry and mystique” surrounding the Cup, noting that “it’s the one major professional sport where the players get the trophy” – not the owners. “They’re the ones out there blocking shots and taking sticks to the face and everything else.”
Amber, who grew up in Toronto, completed an undergraduate degree in North American studies at McGill, where he enjoyed the opportunity to meet students from across Canada and from other countries. He was also grateful to graduate with no student loans to pay back. McGill had been “very affordable, at least for my family back in the day.”
The son of an executive producer at the CBC, Amber wrote for the McGill Tribune. He remembers it was “probably around my second, third year at McGill, when I got the itch to get into sports television.” Amber was interested in being “on the other side of the camera.”
He earned a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Syracuse University, but launching a career proved to be difficult. He “sent out tapes to like 30 different U.S. entry-level markets” for a weekend sports anchor job – and it was just rejection, rejection, rejection.” He received “a really nice letter” from one station, praising his tape, but they opted for a more veteran anchor from the 68 applicants for the job “and I’m thinking, geez, 68 tapes to North Platte, Nebraska for a $15,000 a year weekend job, this is going be a problem…”
He persevered and landed his first on-air job in Sault Ste. Marie. Amber might look effortlessly poised on TV these days, but he says it “took a long, long time to sort of just feel the natural comfort” of being on air.
He insists his work on hockey telecasts isn’t scripted. “There’s no Teleprompter, no one in my ear telling me what to say.” He and the hockey panelists he regularly interacts with dig into the themes that make sense in the context of the game they’re covering: “Hey, let’s talk about the Montreal power play, [Nick] Suzuki in the face-off circle.”
As a host, his job isn’t to “editorialize, it’s to let the people around me shine. They’re the experts” who typically have had playing or coaching careers in the NHL. His knowledgeable viewers are quick to point out any perceived flaws. “There’s this incredible passion” among audience members, says Amber. They “make sure we’re factually correct.”
Aside from the Stanley Cup, Amber has also covered the Olympics, the NBA Finals and the World Series over the course of his career. There have been many highlights, but “the coolest moment I’ve had in my almost 30 years of doing this was meeting [baseball legend] Hank Aaron,” he says.
“I just look at him as one of the classiest human beings there is.” This was likely in 2000 in the former Skydome (now Rogers Centre) while Amber was at TSN. “I told him I really looked up to him and that he was sort of an idol in many respects – everything he embodied, and everything he had to endure. A pinch-me moment, just breathing the same air as Hank Aaron for the hour.”
Of the four major North American sports, hockey remains the whitest and Black players have frequently had to contend with racist incidents over the years (a subject chronicled in the film Black Ice by Hubert Davis, BA’00).
“Hockey is continuing to evolve,” says Amber. He cites the work of Kim Davis, the NHL’s senior executive vice president for social impact, growth initiatives & legislative affairs, who has “done a really good job,” including with the Fan Inclusion Committee “which I was a part of,” assessing how to grow the game and “create a space where everyone feels safe, included and welcomed.” He points to the recent hiring of Black individuals for senior management positions in the NHL, like San Jose Sharks general manager Mike Grier and Florida Panthers assistant general manager Brett Peterson, as a positive sign.
Amber says he doesn’t take his job for granted – “People are blessing us with the ability to go into their living rooms” – or too seriously.
“We’re talking about sports. It’s supposed to be fun, it’s supposed to be an escape.” He says he always enters the studio “with enthusiasm and excitement, but also recognizing that this is not life and death.”
Until Game 7, that is.
