Labor of love: Columbus Blue Jackets' Jeff Rimer ready to join his 'rock' in retirement
The man has a million stories.
That’s roughly one for every name Jeff Rimer counts among his vast list of contacts. Rimer, 72, has spun a few yarns the past 20 years in Columbus while also becoming the instantly recognizable TV voice of Blue Jackets hockey.
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There’s one about him scoring an exclusive interview with boxing legend Muhammad Ali in the early 1970s, getting the “champ” to meet him at a nearby community TV station. There’s the story of befriending John Davidson, the Blue Jackets’ president of hockey operations, upon showing up for "home room" at their high school in Calgary. There are stories about baseball stars, about his friendship with former CNN host Larry King, of the Olympics he covered in 1976, and plenty of hockey stories about some of the greats who’ve intertwined with his broadcasting career ― which concludes Tuesday at Nationwide Arena after spanning three teams and six decades.
Bobby Orr’s name tends to come up a lot. Davidson's does, too. He'll also sprinkle in a little Sidney Crosby, Connor McDavid and even Wayne Gretzky. Name a star hockey player, and Rimer probably has a story about him. His hockey tales also include the multiple times his cell phone went off, loudly, during former Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella’s press conferences. Tortorella always assessed him “fines" of varying amounts.
There is one story, however, that tops them all. In fact, it was the first thing he mentioned during a pregame speech the night he was honored by the Blue Jackets earlier this month.
“I am totally humbled to receive this recognition ... and where do I start?” Rimer said. “Well, it’s actually very easy. From the bottom of my heart, and with great gratitude, I say a huge, ‘Thank you,’ to my wife of 48 years, Ferrel, who has been my rock.”
He glanced back in her direction. She stood, uncomfortable in the limelight, with tears welling.
“While I was traveling around Canada and the U.S. all these years, she was raising my two children ... my son, Josh, my daughter Kylie,” Rimer said. “And she did an exceptional job. You’re the best and I love you so much.”
That was only a glimpse of their story.
Jeff and Ferrel Rimer’s whirlwind romance withstands the test of time
It began with a blind date.
Rimer’s mother knew Ferrel's cousin, who lived in Calgary. She couldn’t help but utter four words upon meeting the young woman from Los Angeles.
"What she said is, ‘I have a son,' " Ferrel Rimer recalled. "His mom fixed us up on a blind date.”
That phrase, 'I have a son,' was one that Ferrel heard multiple times from multiple mothers during her stay in Calgary, which was supposed to be just a detour to visit a cousin while training to become an entertainment "variety" agent. Neither one was all that excited about meeting, at first, but it soon became a “love at first sight” story for Jeff.
Their first date was a dinner with one of Rimer's college friends and his girlfriend in Calgary. Rimer worked in Edmonton doing sports radio and local television but drove to Calgary that day for the meetup. He wound up falling asleep on the carpet of his friend's living room after they all returned.
That was a Friday.
Two days later, Jeff and Ferrel had a second date. They cruised over to Banff, Alberta, in Rimer’s orange 1974 Triumph TR-6 convertible to have lunch. Rimer then returned to Edmonton, but kept Ferrel a high priority.
“He called me, and wanted me to come up and visit him,” she said. “I told him that I didn’t even know him that well, and I wasn’t going up there. So, he came back down to see me in Calgary a few days later. We went out again ... and he kind of asked me to marry him that night.”
As Rimer tells it, he “swept her off her feet,” after hopping on a "puddle jumper” from Edmonton to Calgary. They were married less than three months later at the Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles. Their wedding was festooned with Ferrel’s white roses and “maple leafs” for her Canadian groom.
“I wanted to get married outside, but it was November and they had just reseeded the lawn,” she said. “So, we got married inside and the florist made the inside look beautiful. I loved white roses, so it was white roses and maple leafs. It was interesting.”
It was just the beginning.
Jeff and Ferrel Rimer began their journey fighting 'ice fog' in Edmonton
The newlyweds honeymooned in Vegas, because of course they did.
After winning the approval of his wife’s family in Southern California, Rimer and his bride had a bright future ahead. Neither had a clue what was in store, but both enjoyed the stops ... except for one. They started in Edmonton, where Rimer was a sports broadcaster, but didn't stay there long. The girl from "SoCal" could only take so much of Alberta's winter before the two headed back to L.A.
“We had our honeymoon and drove to Calgary for the (Canadian Football League’s) Grey Cup, so he could watch it on TV,” Ferrel said. “We were at his mother’s house, and then we drove home to Edmonton and that lovely weather. I was in Edmonton about a year. That was as much as I could take.”
One particular memory stands out. Jeff and Ferrel once had dinner with former Edmonton Oilers standout Mike Rogers and his wife, friends of the Rimers, but conditions outside were miserable.
“It was about 40 below for two straight months,” Rimer said. “It was just so cold. Literally, the exhaust from cars was just hanging in the air and you couldn’t see anything in front of you. She barely left our College Park apartment on the campus of the University of Alberta for what seemed like two months.”
As Ferrel recalls, their apartment was near the 20th floor and the “ice fog” was so dense that she often couldn’t see the ground.
"It was not fun," she said.
Returning to L.A. didn’t pan out either. Rimer couldn’t find a full-time broadcasting gig there ― his accent was “too Canadian” for then L.A. Kings owner Jack Kent Cooke — so it was back to Canada. On the same day he accepted a job in Calgary, another break arrived with an offer to work in Montreal, including Canadiens broadcasts.
Rimer jumped at it, and off they went.
Jeff Rimer befriends Montreal Expos catcher Gary Carter, tussles with Pete Rose
Ferrel Rimer had a challenging assignment during their seven years in Montreal, and it had nothing to do with the weather. She and Jeff started their family there, but having a sports broadcaster for a husband meant a lot of the time it was just her and the kids.
Those years, however, provided cherished memories. Jeff worked pre- and postgame shows for the Canadiens during hockey season and also for baseball’s Montreal Expos in the summers. He became friends with former Expos star Gary Carter and Ferrel became friends with Carter’s wife, Sandy. Both couples had two kids, all around the same age, and they'd play in the “wives room” during games while the adults watched — and in Carter's case, played ― ballgames.
“It was fun,” Ferrel said. “During the summer, it was baseball and during the winter, it was Canadiens hockey.”
Ferrel had never watched a hockey game before meeting her husband. Baseball and football were more familiar to her, after growing up going to games with her father ― a diehard University of Southern California football and Los Angeles Dodgers baseball fan.
Montreal also suited Rimer, outside of a well-publicized locker room scuffle with Pete Rose, the star he’d spent the previous offseason lobbying on the radio for the Expos to sign. The full story is long and quite entertaining, but Rose wound up grabbing Rimer by the shirt collar before a game against the Pittsburgh Pirates in June 1984, after calling into Rimer's postgame radio show the previous evening to demand an apology for comments he didn’t like.
Rimer refused, was friends with most of the Expos and felt that he hadn’t done anything wrong. He also had actor David L. Lander, who played the character "Squiggy" on the TV show "Laverne and Shirley," on his postgame show as a guest. Lander, a Pirates fan who'd befriended Rimer through baseball, couldn’t believe his ears.
“Lander’s laughing,” Rimer recalled. “He says, ‘Hey, this is unbelievable. Tommy Lasorda wouldn’t call Dodger Talk in LA.’”
Rimer should’ve sensed trouble when he entered the clubhouse the next day. A couple of Expos players, Chris Speier and Jim Wohlford, were holding boxing gloves while others made light of the broadcast by chanting: “Pete! Pete! Pete! ... Rimer! Rimer! Rimer!”
According to Rimer, Rose had told his teammates to listen to the postgame call-in show the previous day because he'd planned to call up himself. The incident began shortly after Rimer walked over to Rose at his locker stall and attempted to hand him a cassette recording of the show, which he'd told Rose he was going to record. "Bedlam” soon broke out after Rose grabbed Rimer and ripped his shirt collar as the young broadcaster hit the ground to avoid being punched.
Carter and others broke it up, but not before Expos president John McHale took notice and became incensed. Not too far down the hall, in the wives room, Ferrel learned about what happened quickly through players’ spouses.
“I heard all about it,” she said.
The squabble became national news, with Rimer threatening to sue Rose, but things quickly simmered down after Rose apologized in the owner’s box a day later. The Expos traded Rose two months later, which led to the Cincinnati Reds, his former team, hiring him as a player/manager. Years later, after becoming the Blue Jackets' TV voice, Rimer took analyst/former Blue Jackets forward Jody Shelley and radio play-by-play announcer Bob McElligott to meet Rose, who was signing autographs in Las Vegas.
“We went to where he was, and we walked in, and Jody said, ‘Hey, I’ve heard a lot about you from ‘Rims,’ and Pete Rose started laughing,” Rimer said. “He said, ‘Whatever he tells you is 100% true.’ Jody got a kick out of that.”
Jeff and Ferrel Rimer shift to Baltimore, Washington and Florida before heading to the Columbus Blue Jackets
After spending a while at each place, Ferrel didn’t mind moving. “It got to the point where it was like, ‘OK, I’m ready to go,’ ” she said.
She and Jeff moved to the Baltimore/Washington area after Montreal, and he covered the Baltimore Orioles and hockey’s Washington Capitals. Their son, Josh, played hockey. Kylie, their daughter, got into figure skating and synchronized skating.
“We were driving on buses up and down the East Coast,” Ferrel Rimer said. “It was fun. I was home most of the time with the kids, and we always had fun. We always tried to make the best out of it.”
South Florida was next, where Rimer began calling games for the expansion Florida Panthers. His first season, he split duties between the Panthers and Capitals, which was the only time in the NHL that's happened. The weather was a lot more agreeable in Florida, and Ferrel was excited when they moved from Coral Springs to Davie to live in a “dream” home they'd built.
That was nearing the time of the 2004-05 NHL lockout, which erased an entire season and brought the Rimers to Columbus. Twenty years later, Jeff and Ferrel can’t believe how fast it’s all gone. In November, they’ll celebrate their 49th anniversary and Jeff won’t be in Columbus or elsewhere with the Blue Jackets.
He’ll be in Florida with his soulmate, whom he asked to marry on their third date.
Along with watching their three dogs, Rimer will enjoy watching his youngest of three grandchildren, 8-year old Crosby, grow up. There will also be time to visit their son and two granddaughters, Taylor and Ella, in Toronto. Rimer also plans to start a media consulting gig to keep himself busy, working with young hockey players and broadcasters.
It’s exciting and a little sad at the same time.
“Life’s gone fast,” Ferrel said. “It’s gone very fast, and the last month has been tough for me. It’s just that it’s over, kind of the finality of it.”
As for getting her husband back full-time and how she’ll react to having him around more?
“That’s a good question,” she said. “I just tell people, ‘I have him for six months, usually, so now I just have to get used to the other six months.”
Jeff Rimer leaving Columbus Blue Jackets to follow his best story
Young Jeff Rimer dreaded family gatherings. He had cousins who were “Grade A+” students, and all wound up becoming successful in their respective fields. Rimer’s report cards never saw the light of day. His grades didn’t compare.
He studied the Toronto Maple Leafs.
“My dad used to tell me, ‘Hey, hockey and Frank Mahovlich, they’re not going to help you get a job and a profession,’” Rimer said. “He’d say, ‘You need to buckle down with your studies.’”
Rimer’s father died long before he was able to see what his son did in sports broadcasting, including his coverage of 2,546 NHL games. Rimer was in his early teens when it happened. His mother got remarried, they moved to Calgary and that’s where his broadcasting career sprouted. Davidson, a fast friend, made the AAA team and became a star goalie who played in the NHL before becoming a TV analyst and then executive.
Rimer got a tap on the shoulder from a coach prior to the same tryout, telling him that “house league” was a different day. Also scratched in house league, a poor skater with a nice shot, Rimer pondered a different avenue while watching from a snowbank. He attended Mount Royal College in Calgary — now Mount Royal University — to study broadcasting and became a sports star a different way.
He got an early start at it, knew the love of his life the moment they met, had a family with her and did what he loved for a long time. Jeff and Ferrel Rimer have come a long way since buzzing around the Canadian rockies in that orange Triumph. They’ve collected countless memories everywhere they've gone, including many during 20 years with the Blue Jackets.
Among all of Rimer’s million stories, however, theirs remains the best.
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Labor of love: Jeff Rimer retires from Columbus Blue Jackets
