Ralph Mellanby was a Canadian sportscaster and television producer, who was the executive producer of Hockey Night in Canada broadcasts from 1966 to 1985 and on the production team for various Olympic Games broadcasts.
12 Facts About Ralph Mellanby
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Ralph Mellanby played professional baseball during his years at college.
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Ralph Mellanby found his first job at CKLW-TV in Windsor, Ontario, first as a prop assistant, and later as a stagehand, cameraman and floor manager.
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In 1959, Ralph Mellanby accepted a job as a cameraman at WXYZ-TV in Detroit, and the following year he moved to Chicago to become a sports producer at WGN-TV in Chicago, before returning to Canada to work at CFCF-TV in Montreal in 1961 where he produced sports programming, including NHL game broadcasts beginning in 1963.
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Ralph Mellanby was involved in the production of Olympic Winter Games hockey broadcasts across Canada, starting with the 1976 Winter Olympics up to the 1994 Winter Olympics, was a member of the productions teams for Summer Olympics in 1992 and 1996.
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Ralph Mellanby oversaw a production which featured a television lens identified by Maclean's as "the world's longest", for coverage of ski jumping, cameras mounted on rolling tracks and on athletes themselves, as well as four high speed cameras to capture slow motion footage.
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Ralph Mellanby was involved in the broadcasts for Canadian Open tournaments in golf and tennis, the Canadian Football League, and Major League Baseball.
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Ralph Mellanby was the vice president of MacLaren Advertising from 1969 to 1977 and founder of Mellanby Robertson Productions.
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Ralph Mellanby won five Emmy Awards, two Kennedy Awards and a Lifetime Achievement Award from Sports Media Canada.
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Ralph Mellanby married Janet, a University of Alberta school nursing graduate, around 1963.
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Ralph Mellanby's son, Scott Mellanby, was a professional hockey player who played 1,431 games in the NHL, and his daughter Laura was a sports broadcasting executive with CTV and ESPN.
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Ralph Mellanby died on January 29,2022, at the age of 87 from heart failure.