TSN co-hosts deliver emotional on-air tribute to late Darren Dutchyshen

Longtime TSN host Darren Dutchyshen may have passed away this week, but his colleagues are making sure to keep his legacy alive.

The network announced the sports media personality’s passing on Thursday before a series of tributes to his life and legacy flooded social media.

But perhaps none was better done by the one led by TSN host James Duthie, on a clip that ran on the network throughout Thursday and Friday.

Rod Smith provided the voice work for the montage of some of Dutchyshen’s best moments over the years, including many days on the SportsCentre desk alongside Jennifer Hedger.

Duthie, Hedger, and Smith then spent nearly 20 minutes talking about their favourite stories of their longtime colleague. The full video is available below.

Dutchyshen announced a cancer diagnosis in 2022 and had taken a leave of absence throughout 2021 and much of 2022 while dealing with the condition.

“It’s not the kind of cancer where you ring a bell. So it’s still in the base of my skull, my ribs, my legs, hips, and stuff like that, but it’s treatable, and I feel really, really good. And the place that I feel best is right here,” Dutchyshen told Hedger on his first show back in November 2022. “I had 54, 55 years of really good health. And then you really appreciate what [the doctors] do, and the people in your lives, and what you get to do for a living, so it’s fun.”

“Darren Dutchyshen was a legend of Canadian sports broadcasting, a great teammate, and an essential part of TSN for the last three decades,” said Stewart Johnston, senior vice president of sales and sports at Bell Media, in a statement posted to TSN.

“He passed as he was surrounded by his closest loved ones,” the Dutchyshen family said. “His sharp wit remained until his final moments, classically delivering plenty of jokes – most of them pretty good and all of them inappropriate.”

You might also like:
• Tributes pour in from sports, media worlds for passing of Darren Dutchyshen