Stauffer gets the call

With Wanye Gretz, The Warrior, Tony Fiorello, Al Nagy and fingernails on a blackboard somehow being overlooked, Bob Stauffer will be the voice of the Edmonton Oilers on 630 CHED for the next seven games.

I’ve just received word Stauffer will take over the microphone from HHOF play-by-play man Rod Phillips, silenced for the upcoming road trip through Nashville, Carolina, Philadelphia, Columbus, Pittsburgh, New Jersey and New York by an ear infection that won’t allow him to fly.

Short of lining the Skipper up with his own bus, à la John Madden, and motoring him across the continent—the Oilers Express would’ve had to have left city limits today to make it to Music City on time—Bombastic Bob was clearly the best option, and the one the Oilers have chosen.

Stauffer, best known as an outspoken critic of the Oilers on TEAM 1260 during a five-year tenure on Total Sports before Daryl Katz closed his big yap with hush money in the form of a job alongside Phillips, will do play-by-play for all seven games.

Stauffer will have Global TV’s Kevin Karius as his analyst for three of the games, which should make for some interesting pre-game preparation at Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge in Nashville—where yours truly once slurred the line, “I’ll take the redhead,” which is a proclamation Karius torments me with at every opportunity. Rob Brown will be Stauffer’s sidekick for four other broadcasts.

Stauffer’s already got one NHL game as a play-by-play man on his resume. He filled in during a game here during the 2000–01 season when San Jose microphone jockey Dan Rusanowsky was injured in a card wreck.

He’s also done play-by-play for more than 400 Alberta Golden Bear hockey broadcasts and more than 100 football broadcasts, so, despite his infamous “Thompson Twins” goal call during one CIS hockey final, Stauffer’s got the chops.

Phillips, 67, had missed just two regular season games in 35 years before being slowed up by this ear infection.