Stumbledore
Registered User
This discussion reminds me of an old player called Dave Balon.
He was born and raised in Saskatchewan and played his junior there and his name was always pronounced BAL-on. He joined the NY Rangers in the 1950s and didn't play that much. But when he was acquired by the Canadiens, Hockey Night in Canada assumed he was French and started calling him Bal-ON. It spread throughout the league. It was only when he moved to the Minnesota North Stars that the pointed out to the local media that his name was BAL-on and he was never French. Poor guy got hit with MS and lost his career early.
I understand now that every NHL announcer gets the game line-up now with phonetic pronunciation for each player's name.
