Robert Cecil Cole CM (June 24, 1933 – April 24, 2024) was a Canadian sports television announcer who worked for CBC and Sportsnet and a competitive curler.

[1][2] A knee injury suffered from playing soccer put Cole in the hospital for approximately six months as a youth.

It was during this time that he would listen to Foster Hewitt calling games on the radio and developed an interest in becoming a sports announcer.

Cole was the lead play-by-play announcer for HNIC on CBC, usually working Toronto Maple Leafs games, from 1980 to 2008.

[4][5] In November 2013, Rogers Communications reached a 12-year deal to become the exclusive national television and digital rightsholder for the NHL in Canada, beginning with the 2014–15 season.

Although now at the age of 82, Cole told the Toronto Sun that he wanted Rogers to call and tell him if he would be a part of their hockey coverage: "I still feel the same as when I was 50.

[16][17][18] Cole's work during CBC's broadcasts of the Olympic ice hockey have also become memorable among legions of Canadians.

"[20][21] With an average Canadian audience of 10.6 million viewers, that game was the most-watched CBC Sports program, beating the previous record of 4.957 million viewers for Game 7 of the 1994 Stanley Cup Finals (the final game of the 1972 Summit Series between an NHL all-star team and the Soviet Union, which had been the most-watched sports program Canadian television history, was simulcast on CBC and CTV while Cole called the game on CBC Radio), in which the New York Rangers won their first Stanley Cup in 54 years, beating the Vancouver Canucks, another moment Cole himself called: "Here comes the faceoff and blare it Manhattan!

Following the departures of Neale and Irvin, Jr., his usual broadcast partners were either Garry Galley or Greg Millen.

[26][27][28] Prior to his career in broadcasting, Cole was a successful curler,[29] playing in the 1971 and 1975 Briers as the skip for the Newfoundland team.

[34] Cole was honoured in the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1996 as the recipient of the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award for broadcasting excellence.

[36] Cole received an honorary Doctorate of Laws from Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John's in October 2002.

[40] His voice could also be heard in the CBC 2013 TV film The Magic Hockey Skates (based on the book of the same name).