The cacophonous voice of Craig Laughlin has been synonymous with Washington Capitals hockey since his debut on Home Team Sports in 1990.
But if you’ve been watching the team’s games since then, you may have noticed a difference in Laughlin’s on-air delivery — though the Lockerisms have remained.
In an episode of the “Break the Ice” podcast released Thursday, the Monumental Sports Network color commentator revealed details about how he had to de-Canadianize his speech during the early days of his broadcasting career.
“The transition was hard at the start when fans [were] saying, ‘Locker, you stink,’ ‘Locker we hate your voice,'” Laughlin, a proud Toronto native, recalled to host Mike Vogel. “‘Okay, well, I’m going to get better, give me a break, it’s my first couple of years here. Give me a break and I’ll be better.’
“I had to go to speech class – and people didn’t understand this – like, I had to go to a speech class in Maryland, and they wanted to take my Canadian slang and accent out of my telecast. So I went in the summer, and I had to go to a guy who was a speech guy.”
Laughlin demonstrated one example of the complex challenges the English language presents when pronunciations cross the U.S.-Canadian border.
“The biggest thing I remember from that [class], Vogs, is: ‘C-O-T’ how do you say that?” he quizzed.
“Cot,” Vogel answered phonetically.
“‘C-A-U-G-H-T?'” Laughlin followed up.
“Caught,” Vogel replied, smiling as his American brain realized the two very different words are casually pronounced the same.
“And [the teacher] was trying to say, ‘Cot and caught. Cot and caught,'” Locker explained, over-enunciating the back-of-throat “gh” sound in the latter. “You’ve gotta learn the different things, and I spent a whole summer doing that because I wanted to get better because I was getting nailed by people in the stands walking up the stairs at old Caps Centre.”
Laughlin was courted by Home Team Sports producer Bill Brown ahead of the 1990-91 season to replace Al Koken, the now-longtime rinkside reporter for Monumental, in the booth. In an old HTS clip from that season dug up by journalist Ted Starkey in 2022, you can hear Locker’s accent slip through as he interviewed then-Capitals enforcer and current Monumental colleague Alan May.
However, Laughlin’s television debut was only made possible because of his sudden decision to end his playing career. Locker completed the 1989-90 season with a 33 point campaign (22g, 11a in 33 games) for German club EV Landshut, good for second-best on the team. He signed a three-year extension that offseason but upon receiving Brown’s offer and having a long discussion with his wife, Linda, Locker chose instead to retire and step into the broadcast booth.
“I was supposed to fly to Frankfurt to start that three-year deal and I was playing the best I ever was,” Laughlin humble-bragged. “I called [Landshut GM] Max Fedra… and I said, ‘Max, I’ve got to tell you I can’t be in Frankfurt and I can’t come to Munich. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to play this year.’ And he’s on the other end of the phone, ‘What do you mean? It’s so late. I can’t get another import [player].'”
Hilariously, the euphemism Locker provided Fedra as his explanation wound up becoming the official reason for his retirement in the local press.
“‘My back’s so goddamn sore from carrying your team last year that I’m going to retire,'” Laughlin reenacted for Vogel. “Next day in the Sport Bild, the big sports magazine over there, ‘Laughlin retires due to back injury, tough luck for Landshut.’ And so that’s how I started into the TV [business]!”
