With the wrap-up of the World Curling Championships in Utah this past weekend, the sporting world learned that Vic Rauter, longtime TSN host and broadcaster, was retiring after more than 50 years on television. Calling the gold medal game between Canada and Sweden would be his last.

Rauter was a master of his craft. Smart, famously hard-working and consistently the kind of “friend” you gladly invited into your living room when an important game was on the line. He knew when to talk and when to let the play, the shot, speak for itself.

He had a particularly warm, welcoming approach to his work in curling — he played off his inquisitive, fanboy understanding of the game, always in the presence of two experts beside him, generously asking Russ Howard or Cathy Gauthier about the thinking behind an upcoming shot.

Vic was a big reason why the game of curling has earned the reputation here in Canada as such a broadcast-friendly professional sport. Thousands of non-curlers tune in every week. He made it so.

Golf is a beautiful game for many reasons, but one of the most compelling is the opportunity it affords one to meet special people you wouldn’t otherwise get the chance to. Golf is the way I managed to spend entire afternoons with such childhood heroes as Frank Mahovlich, Russ Jackson, Red Sullivan and Bob Armstrong. And as I joked to my extended family here on Easter weekend, seizing on the moment, Vic Rauter and I go way back.

I met Vic just a few years into his tenure at TSN, back when its on-air personalities sported black blazers and gold ties on the anchor desk. I was a few months into living in Calgary for my first big job after university, and I only knew a handful of people. On weekends, I’d drive the hour west into the Rockies and hang out at Kananaskis Golf Club. I would check in at the pro shop first thing on a Saturday morning, and they’d assign me a tee time later in the day, usually as an add-on to a threesome of friends or work pals or, if I was unlucky, tourists from Japan bent on getting their money’s worth with a six-hour round.

Often, I’d have more than a few hours to kill until my tee time, so I’d drive my super cool company car, a black Buick Regal, around Kananaskis Country, a huge provincial park that would play host to the alpine skiing events of the 1988 Winter Olympics the following year.

I showed up at the first tee about 10 minutes before my starting time on that July day to discover who the rest of my foursome would be. I recognized Vic right away, dressed head to toe in black, and learned later that his friend Graham was actually Graham Leggat, esteemed Scottish-Canadian footballer and TSN’s soccer analyst. The third guy was a cameraman from their broadcast crew. All three were here to broadcast a Calgary Kickers professional soccer game the next day. I don’t remember a lot about Vic’s golf game. He got it around respectfully.

But what I do remember was that trademark “make you feel comfortable” voice and personality throughout the four hours of golf. He clearly loved the role of host, and he played that to perfection that afternoon at Kananaskis, bringing this wide-eyed stranger into the conversations of these three good work friends, and not for a second making me feel like I was anything other than his golf buddy for the day.

I love when famous people turn out to be exactly how you imagine them to be, how you want them to be. He created a super fan in me that day. And I have enjoyed watching the progression of his career ever since, culminating with a low-key, classy farewell on TSN this weekend. They simply don’t make broadcasters like Vic anymore.

And to quote a famous line he often delivered following a spectacular curling shot, “Oh my. Oh my!” Happy retirement, Vic.

© Peterborough Examiner