SMU Alumni Highlight: Steve Armitage
Photo by CBC
You may not recognize his face, but there is a good chance you have heard the voice of Steve Armitage when watching or listening to the CBC. This SMU alumnus has been a part of the CBC broadcasting team for over 50 years, working specifically as a championship reporter for CBC Sports for about 40 of those years. Armitage has been a crucial part of sport in Nova Scotia and the rest of Canada for over half a century, and his love of sports can be traced back to his time at Saint Mary’s University.
Steve Armitage was born in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England, and his love for sports first began with an interest in English soccer. After moving to Dartmouth, Nova Scotia at a young age, his interest in athletics grew to encompass football as well. He began attending Saint Mary’s University in 1964, where he played quarterback for the Huskies football team.
Throughout his time with the Huskies football team from 1964-1968, Armitage was part of some of the best lineups in SMU history. In 1964, his rookie year, the team played in the Atlantic Bowl Championship, later re-named the Uteck Bowl after the death of former SMU athletic director Larry Uteck in 2002. Some of the highlights of the championship include the Huskies beating St. Francis Xavier University, ending a 47 game winning streak for the other school, as well as winning seven of their eight games in the regular season. These wins helped the Huskies clinch the Atlantic Bowl in 1964, beating out the McMaster Marauders, who were one of the top teams in the country at the time. This was the first Atlantic Bowl win in SMU history. In the same year, however, the national championship was cancelled, and therefore the Huskies did not have the opportunity to contest for the national title.
Today, the SMU football team holds seven Atlantic Bowl wins, the most wins of any team, along with winning the Uteck Bowl twice since 2003. The 1964 team was honoured with an induction into the Saint Mary’s Sport Hall of Fame in 1999, along with having their portrait done by artist Barb Dorey, who has painted portraits of each inductee of the Hall of Fame for over 15 years. Armitage was such a large part of these accomplishments, all starting back in 1964.
Along with his football accomplishments, Armitage graduated from SMU in 1948 with a Bachelor of Arts, studying both Political Science and Philosophy. After his time at SMU, he went on to try out for the Canadian Football League (CFL) with the Montreal Alouettes before joining Halifax’s semi-pro team, the Halifax Buccaneers, who he played with for two years. While still in Halifax, Armitage also worked at Saint Mary’s for a time as their Sports Information Director.
Portrait by Barb Dorey. Portrait Art Photo by Joe Chrvala
Armitage began working for the CBC in 1956 as a part-time writer for the late night sportcast in Halifax, until the company relocated him to Vancouver in 1973. There, he joined broadcaster Bill Good Jr. in covering both local sports in Vancouver and national sports highlights. Since then, Armitage’s career has truly taken off in incredible ways.
Since his relocation to the West Coast in 1973, Armitage has reported on every sport that CBC covers, which is an amazingly wide range. He was a part of the Hockey Night in Canada team for almost 30 seasons and has announced for many major championship games, such as the Pan Am Games, the Grey Cup, the Canada Games, Export “A” Skins Golf, as well as many Commonwealth and CFL games. On top of being the voice for so many of these notable games, Armitage has also covered 17 Olympic Games, both winter and summer. Most recently, he was covering the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, his seventeenth Olympics, where he announced Rowing, Canoeing, and the Kayak Sprint events.
Throughout his over 50 year career with CBC, Armitage has won multiple awards for his sports coverage. He has been nominated for multiple Gemini awards over the years, an award that aims to recognize Canada’s television industry and its accomplishments. His first Gemini award win was in 1986 for his coverage of the 1986 FIFA World Cup, and his second in 2005, which was shared with his broadcasting partner Byron MacDonald. This later win was for the “Best Sports Play-By-Play”, awarded for their coverage of the aquatic events in the 2004 Olympic Games.
In addition to these awards, Armitage was also honoured with the ACTRA (Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists) Foster Hewitt Award for Excellence in Sports Broadcasting in 1982. More recently, in 2017, he was awarded the Sports Media Canada award for career achievement. Armitage was also inducted into the BC Sports Hall of Fame in 2006 for his swimming coverage, and received an honorary degree from SMU as Doctor of Civil Law in 2009.
Over his 50 years of sports coverage, Armitage has truly stood out as a SMU alumni with the consistency of his work, his work ethic, and passion for sports. With every game he covers, every award he wins, and everything he does for Canadian media and sports, Steve Armitage makes SMU proud to have him as an alumnus.