Doctor of Letters
(honoris causa) DLitt
Peter Handley was born in London, Ontario in 1933 and lived in Kenora and Toronto before his family moved to Kingston in 1942 where he grew up. He later graduated from Queen’s University with a Bachelor of Arts in 1955.
He started his radio career in 1949 at the age of 15 and has been involved in the media for nine decades. He helped found a high school weekly program (“KCVI on Review”) in 1949 on CKWS Kingston and in 1952 became an Arts staffer at CFRC, the Queen’s radio station. Two days after graduating from Queen’s he started his professional career at CKWS radio/television.
Handley transferred to North Bay and radio station CFCH in early 1958 where he worked in local radio, television, and print media until 1995 as a sports director, hockey play-by-play announcer, newscaster, radio host, interviewer, chief announcer, reporter, and columnist. He also spent 15 years freelancing with CBC Sports North and 17 years teaching interviewing and broadcasting at Canadore College.
He spent decades fulfilling various executive roles on local, regional, and provincial sports associations, including the Ontario Amateur Softball Association (38 years); Northland Softball Association (26 years); Gateway Major Fastball Association (42 years) and the Northern Football Conference/ NORFU (38 years). In 1977, he helped found and write the original constitution for the North Bay Sports Hall of Fame (NBSHF) where he served as its founding Secretary and later as Secretary-Treasurer from 1980 through 2022.
He was a play-by-play announcer for almost 1,000 Northern Ontario Hockey Association (NOHA) Junior A, POHA and Ontario Hockey League (OHL) games including 13 years for the North Bay Centennials. He kept shots on goal at Memorial Gardens for North Bay’s premier hockey teams for over 50 years and scorekept over 2,000 softball games at the local, regional, and provincial level. For 30 years, he chaired the North Bay Sports Awards Committee which chooses the recipients of many of North Bay’s key individual sport awards.
As a broadcaster, he hosted a folk music program for 32 years and volunteered with local cable television for three decades where he produced and hosted over 900 interviews for “Life Is” on MacLean Hunter and then Cogeco Your TV.
Entering municipal politics in 1994, he was elected to North Bay City Council in three consecutive elections, serving for a total of nine years before retiring in 2003. During his tenure, he served as Chair of Community Services, Chair of Public Works and as Vice-Chair of General Government. While on Council he served as the mayor’s representative on the Nipissing University Board of Governors for five years.
Handley was a member of the North Bay Public Library Board for 27 years and helped found the North Bay Local Architectural Conservation Advisory Committee/Municipal Heritage Committee in 1996 where he served as chair for 19 years. Under his guidance, the committee instituted a Heritage Site Program and the “Diary of Our Shared Past” podcast. With Brent Pigott, Handley wrote a pair of books for the NBSHF -“They Were Our Heroes” and “Flashbacks”and he also edited “Anent Mike Rodden” which detailed the Mattawa native’s life in Northern Ontario in his own words. He is currently working on a unique North Bay history based on the transcripts of over 60 interviews he recorded over a period of a half-century.
He is a member of the North Bay Sports Hall of Fame, the NFC Hall of Fame, and the Musicians and Entertainers Hall of Recognition. He is the recipient of numerous local, regional, provincial, and national awards including the Queen’s Jubilee Medal, the Syl Apps Award for Softball, the Provincial Electronic Media Award, the NEORSC Sportsperson Award, the Ontario Amateur Softball Association (OASA) Feaver, the Palangio Sportsperson and Davedi Club Award of Merit.
He married his wife Pam in 1962 and although given numerous opportunities to ply his trades elsewhere, opted to stay in North Bay where their children, Mairi and Peter Jon, were raised. Both earned degrees from Canadore College and Pamela was awarded a Bachelor of Arts from Nipissing University as a mature student in 1980.
Handley is still recognized by the catch phrase - “A Good Sport is Good for Sport!”