CHED/CFRN Aluminus Mark Lewis, Voice of Rexall Place

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Remembering Rexall: Mark Lewis the voice of Rexall
Edmonton Journal
October 10, 2015 1:00 pm

For 41 years, Rexall Place has been the home of professional hockey in Edmonton. But this Thursday, the arena originally known as Northlands Coliseum and later Skyreach Centre, will host its last Oilers home opener. Next season, the NHL team and its WHL counterpart, the Oil Kings, will move to new digs downtown. But the old arena won’t be forgotten, nor the history that was made there. We take a take a stroll down memory lane with some of the arena’s longest serving characters.

Mark Lewis has been a constant voice at Rexall Place over the last 35 years.

Lewis has been the public address announcer at the arena since 1981 — calling out the goal-scorer and the players’ assisting, the time the puck went into the net and who was getting the penalties for what infraction.

He’s hardly ever called in sick, starting at was then called Northlands Coliseum.

“I’ve only missed nine games in all that time … that’s a long, long commitment but I always figured ‘what else am I going to do in the wintertime if I’m staying here in a five-month winter?’ ”

He got the gig — a side job from his other duties at CFRN and CHED in radio and TV advertising sales — in August 1981, taking over from Gord Ross. He called up Bill Tuele, who had done public relations for the Oilers: “I told Bill “I’m your guy.’ Bill asked me how I was with foreign languages. I said I knew them all. He said ‘perfect.’”

Lewis was pulling Tuele’s leg on knowing Russian and Czech, but he could always pronounce names. He’s always taken great pains to get the names, right.

“I remember a Swedish guy who played for the Oilers for a cup of coffee, maybe 20 NHL games, named Bert Robertson. Bill’s head almost blew apart because he said it was pronounced Row-Bert-Son. I went up to Bert and asked him ‘how do you want me to pronounce your name?’ He said ‘how do you want to pronounce it?’ I said, ‘well, it’s Robertson over here.’ He said ‘go with it,’’’ said Lewis. “Bill’s ears were almost bleeding when he heard me pronounce it that way,” laughed Lewis.

Lewis has never changed his presentation on game nights, his voice raising a few decibels when he’s announcing an Oilers goal, rather than a visiting team score.

“I was the first guy to ever say ‘that was his fifth goal and 19th point by No. 10,” he said. “I don’t do that for the visiting team players.”

Why not? “One year, Brett Hull scored his 70th goal for the St. Louis Blues and I gave it a little extra gas. One of the Oiler executives came over and said ‘Don’t do that.’ I said ‘Geez, 70th goal! That’s quite something.’ But the Oilers are paying me and it’s their show,” said Lewis.

His two favourite nights were when Wayne Gretzky scored his 50th goal on Dec. 30, 1981, and the night the Oilers won their first Stanley Cup in 1984. But he treats every night seriously.

“I’ve tried to show up prepared. They’re hiring you to be a professional for three hours a night. If I make a mistake, it’s not like they’re going to execute me outside Rexall Place,” he said.

Did he ever get tired saying “Gretzky goal!?”

“Never,” he said. “You ever get tired writing about Gretzky?”