Mellanby in Hometown Hall

By Don Goodwin

Former Sports Media Canada vice president Ralph Mellanby, now Chair of the association’s Advisory Committee, was inducted into the Windsor/Essex Sports Hall of Fame last October in Windsor.

Ralph Mellanby

Ralph Mellanby


Widely known as an innovator and fresh thinker in TV sports production in North America, Ralph is best remembered for his 19 years as Executive Producer of Hockey Night in Canada. On his ‘watch’ the program expanded and prospered as never before and introduced TV coverage methods and modes which revolutionized not only hockey on TV but were applied to other sports on TV as well.

Introduced to Olympic TV coverage when invited to produce hockey for the leading US sports network of the time, ABC TV, Ralph won an Emmy (TV version of the Oscar award). He continued to be a regular in Olympic TV coverage with his talents enlisted by NBC and CTV. Ten years ago, he was hired to mastermind much of the host-broadcast coverage of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. He moved to Atlanta prior to those games and maintains a residence there, splitting his time between the southern U.S. city and Toronto where he maintains business connections and interests.

Ralph is a graduate of Essex District High School — well known in basketball and baseball teams in the area — and has retained a fondness for and an interest in the area. Ralph is also a recipient of the Sports Media Canada Achievement Award.