Riders' John Lynch: An Ode to a Great Voice

John Lynch, longtime Saskatchewan Roughrider broadcaster, is old skool, and that's primarily what I love about him.

I've been listening to his rapid, booming, authoritative voice during Rider radio broadcasts since I was a kid, over thirty years ago. Lynch's over-the-top energy and enthusiasm make any game he comments on seem like the thing of the moment. His descriptions of the day's football happenings take on the urgency and magnitude of a news broadcaster describing the Normandy Invasion from a German bunker.

Like other great sports broadcasters, Lynch has a colourful, gregarious, yet overly-serious personality that lends a feeling of consequence and significance to even the lightest of CFL contests. 

And it should be that way. Sure it's just a game, but when commentators bring that kind of intensity to their broadcasts, the league they work within benefits. The best marketing for a sport is on-air people who make you feel like there's no other happening in the world as important or as exciting as the game you are witnessing at this moment in time. John Lynch is as good as anyone I've ever heard at achieving that.

The man has great insight as well. During the often-tedious post-game call-in shows I always relish the brief moments where Lynch is set off on tangent by a caller's comment.I'd much rather hear his opinions and analysis during the call-in show than the half-drunk regulars CKRM allows to phone in every week whose typical insight is: "I just want to say good game today by the Riders, I just thought they played really well today..."

The CFL is doing well with their TV marketing these days, the high ratings prove it, and I applaud what they are doing, how they are doing it, and what they have achieved. 

But in this day and age of fluffy, burger-chain-sponsored mass-appeal CFL television broadcasts, John Lynch is an invigorating local radio voice who brings a sense of excitement, importance and history to Canadian Football every time he speaks in front of a microphone.