Roy Storey’s dulcet tones were employed on Bay Area sports and news broadcasts for many years, but some of the events he described were ones he couldn’t even see.
That’s because Storey was one of the last practitioners of the art of the “re-creation”, in which a radio broadcaster would weave a play-by-play story out of an account being received from afar via teletype.
While he covered everything from baseball to auto racing and was the lead voice on mid-50’s San Francisco 49ers broadcasts (working with fellow 2008 BARHOF inductee Bob Fouts), Storey is probably best known for his hockey broadcasts. His ebullient call, “Shot on goal!” is remembered by generations of West Coast hockey fans.
Storey was already well-established as a leading hockey voice when the National Hockey League expanded to the West Coast in 1967, bringing the Los Angeles Kings and California Seals (eventually the California Golden Seals) into the league. Storey would broadcast games for both teams at various times.
When not doing sports play-by-play, Storey found work in the news departments of several Bay Area radio stations and had several jobs calling for him to provide sports commentary segments. One, on Oakland’s KLX, was known as “Sports Story by Roy Storey”.
A native of Grand Rapids, MN, Storey attended the University of Minnesota on a scholarship to play hockey. World War 2 service interrupted his education, but he completed a degree in speech at the University of the Pacific after the war. Storey passed away in Desert Hot Springs, CA in 2012.
ADDITIONAL EXHIBIT: