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The Central Hockey League St. Louis Braves: Phil Esposito, top row fifth from the left; Gus Kyle, bottom row center.

The Royal Mountie

Former Blues broadcaster Walter L. "Gus" Kyle of Affton, whose colorful style turned thousands of St. Louisans onto hockey, died Sunday. Mr. Kyle, 75, had heart disease for a dozen years. He spent the last several weeks in a South County nursing home. Mr. Kyle brought an unabashed enthusiasm to the microphone, along with an often fractured phraseology that delighted his many fans. His signature line during hot action was "It's a real barn burner!" Mr. Kyle enlivened Blues broadcasts for 16 years until forced out by KMOX radio in 1983. For most of that span, he and the late Dan Kelly formed one of hockey's most memorable broadcast teams.

Once, an admirer sent a model of a barn to the broadcast booth at The Arena. Mr. Kyle cheerfully set it on fire while on the air. That gesture, by both the fan and Mr. Kyle, typified the down-home relationship he had with his audience. His association with the Blues began in 1967. Owner Sidney Salomon Jr. hired him as sales director. He soon joined the initial broadcast team of Jack Buck and Jay Randolph, all smooth talents but hockey novices. Mr. Kyle was neither. Kelly, smooth but full of hockey savvy, soon arrived to call play by play. He and Mr. Kyle complemented each other in style and substance. Mr. Kyle was then a rarity - an analyst who had played, coached and managed at the professional level.

He was a rugged defenseman in the National Hockey League from 1949-52 with the New York Rangers and Boston Bruins. An imposing 6 feet 2 and 210 pounds, he scored six goals in 203 games while pounding out 362 penalty minutes. After the NHL, he became a minor-league hockey coach. His last stop was here with the Braves of the Central Hockey League from 1963-66. He joined the Blues in part so he could stay in his adopted home.

Kyle's Spirit Never Left The Booth, Where He Put The Color In The Bluenote

Gus Kyle, a former Blues broadcaster, died Nov. 17 after years of heart problems. When that organ is examined - he donated his body to a local medical school - the exact cause of death will not be found by science.

Walter L. "Gus" Kyle of Affton died at age 75 from a broken heart, his friends will tell you.

That may be hard to picture for Blues fans who remember his rollicking, upbeat style. "Gus brings a lot of funny memories," said Bernie Federko, the former Blues great who has succeeded him in the analyst job on KMOX radio. "We had a lot of fun with Gus." Yet it's no coincidence that Kyle suffered his first heart attack in 1983. That's when he was being ousted from the KMOX radio broadcasts. He had another heart attack five years ago.

Friends say he was most damaged by his 13-year exile. His beloved sport may have suffered even more. "The hockey area really missed something when a guy like Gus left the scene," said Red Berenson, a former Blues player and coach. "You never knew what he was going to say. "He knew the game, and he knew the players, so he could say it the way it was in his broadcasts." Kyle also knew English, but not so an elocutionist would recognize it. His malaprops were legendary. Example: "Bob Plager just threw a puck of pails on the ice!"

Jack Buck, who had the first and shortest tenure as Blues play-by-play man, said, "Gus was also my partner in 1965 when we did the old Braves hockey games. The little I know about hockey, he taught me. "But he used to make me stiffen. He'd say, 'Minnesota are at Toronto,' and 'The Canadiens is winning.' But he was a fun guy. He did the polka, and if he ever danced in your living room, he knocked everything off the mantle. Lamps would fall and stuff would come off the shelves." Susie Mathieu, a former Blues publicist, said, "He certainly wasn't the most polished announcer ever, but he was so entertaining. Gus was Gus. He was just so fun-loving."

Kyle's trademark line was, "It's a real barnburner!" The phrase sprung from his youth in the Saskatchewan prairie. "There was nothing for miles and miles but farms and no fire departments," Kyle once said. "When a barn would occasionally catch on fire, it was an exciting event." The late Dan Kelly, Kyle's longtime play-by-play partner, paid for Kyle's exuberance. Kyle, a rugged ex-defenseman, was a physical presence in the booth. He often punctuated his comments by spilling a soft drink or jabbing his sidekick in the ribs.

Kyle loved educating and amusing that first generation of Blues fans. His world included two groups of people: hockey lovers, and those he hadn't had a chance to convert. He was limited only by KMOX's 50,000-watt signal, which covered much of the continent, and his appetite, which needed a similar pasture for grazing. When Kyle wasn't talking hockey on the air, he was talking hockey at banquets, saloons, socials and Boy Scout meetings. "We went to a hundred dinners together for the team," said Emile Francis, a lifelong friend from Saskatchewan who became Blues coach, manager and president. "The fans loved him." Kyle, 6 feet 2, was then well beyond the 56 pounds gained in his first year of dinner speeches for the Blues. If not larger than life, he was far larger than the 210 pounds he carried in his three-year NHL career.

His airy style appealed to hockey experts as well as novices. "I was in New York when the Blues started," Francis said, "and I used to be able to pick up KMOX. I used to listen to him and Dan Kelly because I thought they did a great job." So did Ken Wilson, then a college student in Detroit. Wilson, Kyle's successor once-removed at KMOX, now does play by play on Blues telecasts. "He didn't sound like a broadcaster," Wilson said. "He sounded like an old-time hockey guy who weaved in fabulous stories. They were earthy. He was rough and gruff. He was entertaining and humorous. You could feel the game when he was talking, and it was a great contrast with Dan."

Kyle left the booth for a couple of years before his final exile. He and Blues owner Sidney Salomon Jr. had a spat over money. A strange parade marched through his analyst's seat, including: Noel Picard, colorful ex-Blues defenseman; ex-football star E.J. Holub; and Nancy Drew, wife of ex-football star Larry Wilson. Kyle eventually returned and remained through the Ralston-Purina ownership. When Harry Ornest bought the team in '83, Kyle was caught in the changeover. Ron Oakes, a smoothie from the West Coast, was imported. Kyle filled in that season when Kelly had network conflicts, then was out for good. "He was really upset by that," said Gary Mueller, who knew Kyle from covering the Blues for 13 years for the Post-Dispatch. "In some ways, he played the buffoon, so you didn't think he had any feelings. But he did." Bob Owens of St. Louis, who worked with Kyle for 18 years in the insurance business, did not believe his friend was eaten up inside. "He would kind of fly off the handle and let it out," Owens said, "and that would be it."

But Kyle's pain was obvious. Bill McKenna was a friend for 30 years, first as a linesman when Kyle coached the St. Louis Braves of the Central Hockey League, then as a referee for youth games. "When he was separated from the Blues," McKenna said, "I'd see him at a rink when his boy, Kevin, was playing. You could see the man was hurt. He was depressed. "Hockey was his life." The phrase "get a life" would not apply to Kyle. He had several and excelled at most.

He was born in 1921 in Dysart, Saskatchewan, population 180. As a lad of 12 or 13, he did manual labor during the Depression for 25 cents a day. The legendary Father Murray gave Kyle an athletic scholarship to Notre Dame College, actually a high school in nearby Wilcox. The priest and the school are the Canadian equivalents of Father Flanagan and Boys Town. Kyle, through a contact made while driving the team van, entered the elite Royal Canadian Mounted Police. He served a five-year hitch. Kyle and his late brother, Bill, ran the Kyle Brothers sporting goods store in Regina. Kyle later opened a branch in Calgary, Alberta.

After three years in the NHL with New York and Boston, he went back to Regina to run the store and play minor-league hockey. He coached and later managed the Chicago Blackhawks' minor-league teams in Calgary and St. Louis, the latter from 1961-66. When the expansion Blues moved into The Arena in 1967, Salomon hired Kyle as sales director, a post now held by Bruce Affleck. "Gus obviously sold the high seats very well in The Arena," said Affleck, who played for the Blues during Kyle's on-air tenure. "People still come up and say that he told them, 'That's where the scouts sit.'"

Nobody was a better prankster. Yet Kyle had his serious side. Local broadcaster-turned-attorney Jon Sloane saw it shortly after he first met Gus on a Blues playoff trip to Winnipeg, Manitoba. Winnipeg, of course, is not known as the Paris of the Prairie. But Sloane said, "He told me, 'This is a great town. I'm going to take you on a tour of Winnipeg.' So Gus took me on a daylong tour. It was the worst city I've ever been in, but he was so excited about it and he made it so much fun. "It was hockey. It was an NHL city. And it was Canada."

That was also Gus Kyle.

He was hockey. He was the NHL. And he was Canada come to St. Louis, to the lasting delight of thousands of new hockey fans.

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