Donald Rae Wittman (October 9, 1936 – January 19, 2008) was a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

sportscaster.

Early life and education

Born in

Herbert Herbert may refer to: People Individuals * Herbert (musician), a pseudonym of Matthew Herbert Name * Herbert (given name) * Herbert (surname) Places Antarctica * Herbert Mountains, Coats Land * Herbert Sound, Graham Land Australia * Herbert, ...

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a province in western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North ...

, Wittman attended the

University of Saskatchewan A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase ''universitas magistrorum et scholarium'', which ...

and got his start in the field of broadcasting as a news reporter with CFQC radio in

Saskatoon Saskatoon () is the largest city in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. It straddles a bend in the South Saskatchewan River in the central region of the province. It is located along the Trans-Canada Yellowhead Highway, and has served as ...

in 1955.

Career

Wittman began his long association with CBC Sports on January 1, 1961. He joined

CBWT CBWT-DT (channel 6) is a CBC Television station in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. It has common ownership with Ici Radio-Canada Télé station CBWFT-DT (channel 3). Both stations share studios on Portage Avenue and Young Street in Downtown Winnipeg, ...

's supper-hour

news program News broadcasting is the medium of broadcasting various news events and other information via television, radio, or the internet in the field of broadcast journalism. The content is usually either produced locally in a radio studio or televi ...

''24Hours'' in 1970 as sports anchor alternating with Bob Picken. He also worked on

Winnipeg Jets The Winnipeg Jets are a professional ice hockey team based in Winnipeg. The team competes in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Central Division in the Western Conference, and is owned by True North Sports & Entertainment, p ...

television and radio broadcasts. During the late 1970s–early 1980s, Wittman hosted ''Western Express'', a half-hour weekly program broadcast in Western Canada which consisted of lottery ticket drawings for the lottery of the same name. The format of the series included Wittman co-hosting with media and community personalities from towns and cities across the region and conducting interviews in-between ticket drawings. (Western Express later changed its name to The Western and converted to a scratch-card lottery format). Connollystraße 31 - Gebäude

During the

Munich massacre The Munich massacre was a terrorist attack carried out during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany, by eight members of the Palestinian militant organization Black September, who infiltrated the Olympic Village, killed two members ...

crisis at the

1972 Summer Olympics The 1972 Summer Olympics (), officially known as the Games of the XX Olympiad () and commonly known as Munich 1972 (german: München 1972), was an international multi-sport event held in Munich, West Germany, from 26 August to 11 September 1972 ...

, Wittman and

Bob Moir Robert Munro Moir (1929December 18, 2016) was a Canadian television producer, sports commentator, and journalist. He covered the Canadian Football League for the ''Winnipeg Free Press'' from 1948 to 1958, then worked more than 40 years for th ...

crawled through a hole in a fence to access the

Olympic Village An Olympic Village is an accommodation center built for the Olympic Games, usually within an Olympic Park or elsewhere in a host city. Olympic Villages are built to house all participating athletes, as well as officials and athletic trainers. Aft ...

and give live reports, while posing as medical staff on the 1972 Canadian Olympic team. Wittman and Moir were away from the Israeli Olympic team building, and could see the nine hostages sitting in a circle, guarded by the Palestinian terrorist group

Black September Black September ( ar, أيلول الأسود; '' Aylūl Al-Aswad''), also known as the Jordanian Civil War, was a conflict fought in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan between the Jordanian Armed Forces (JAF), under the leadership of King Huss ...

. They filed radio reports to the CBC, and remained on location all day until the hostages were loaded onto a bus. In a 1994 interview, Moir discussed the decision to sneak into the Olympic Village by saying, As a sportscaster, Wittman covered many sports including

athletics Athletics may refer to: Sports * Sport of athletics, a collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking ** Track and field, a sub-category of the above sport * Athletics (physical culture), competiti ...

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping ...

, and was most known as a commentator and announcer for the CBC's CFL coverage, on ''

Hockey Night in Canada CBC Television has aired National Hockey League (NHL) broadcasts under the ''Hockey Night in Canada'' (often abbreviated ''Hockey Night'' or ''HNiC'') brand that is primarily associated with its Saturday night NHL broadcasts throughout its his ...

'', and for major Canadian and international

curling Curling is a sport in which players slide stones on a sheet of ice toward a target area which is segmented into four concentric circles. It is related to bowls, boules, and shuffleboard. Two teams, each with four players, take turns sliding ...

tournaments. Famous events covered by Wittman include Donovan Bailey's 100m sprint

world record A world record is usually the best global and most important performance that is ever recorded and officially verified in a specific skill, sport, or other kind of activity. The book '' Guinness World Records'' and other world records organizati ...

at the 1996 Summer Olympics and the infamous brawl between Canada and

the Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

at the

1987 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships The 1987 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships (''1987 WJHC'') was the 11th edition of the Ice Hockey World Junior Championship and was held in Piešťany, Trenčín, Nitra, and Topoľčany, Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia). Finland captured its ...

Death

On January 19, 2008, Wittman died as a result of cancer in a Winnipeg hospital surrounded by his family. He was seventy-one years old, survived by his wife, Judy, two daughters, Karen and Kristen and a son, David.

Awards

Wittman won two

ACTRA The Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA) is a Canadian trade union representing performers in English-language media. It has 25,000 members working in film, television, radio, and all other recorded media. The org ...

awards, was named Broadcaster of the Year by Sports Media Canada in 2002, and named to the Canadian Curling Hall of Fame in 2003. He was inducted into the CBC Sports Hall of Fame in January 2008. Wittman is an "Honoured Member" of the

Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame The Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame and Museum is a hall of fame and museum for ice hockey in Manitoba, located on the main level of the Canada Life Centre in downtown Winnipeg. It was established in 1985, when the first honoured members were named ...

. He was inducted into the

Canadian Football Hall of Fame The Canadian Football Hall of Fame (CFHOF) is a not-for-profit corporation, located in Hamilton, Ontario, that celebrates great achievements in Canadian football. It is maintained by the Canadian Football League (CFL). It includes displays about ...

in 1990.

References

Further listening

External links

Don Wittman's biography
a

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wittman, Don Olympic Games broadcasters Canadian television sportscasters National Hockey League broadcasters Winnipeg Jets announcers University of Saskatchewan alumni People from Winnipeg Curling broadcasters Canadian Football League announcers CBC Television people Deaths from cancer in Manitoba 1936 births 2008 deaths People from Rural Municipality Excelsior No. 166, Saskatchewan Track and field broadcasters Canadian Football Hall of Fame inductees World Hockey Association broadcasters