playoff matches, including 16 Stanley Cup victories for the Canadiens. His colour commentator for 18 years was Dick Irvin Jr., from 1966 until Gallivan's retirement in 1984. On October 9, 1970, he had the distinction of announcing the Vancouver Canucks' first-ever game in the NHL, a 3–1 loss to the Los Angeles Kings on CKNW radio. "Gallivanisms" Gallivan was known for his colourful descriptions of action on the ice. Hard shots became "cannonading drives"; saves were "scintillating", "larcenous" or "enormous" rather than merely spectacular, and after a save the puck tended to get caught in a goalie's "paraphernalia" (goalie equipment). If the goaltender made a fantastic or impossible save, he would refer to it as a "hair raising save" or that the goalie "kicked out his pad in rapier-like fashion" to foil a "glorious scoring opportunity". He would use words such as "anemic" to describe an ineffective offence or powerplay. He also coined phrases like "nowhere near the net" when a shot would go wide, and commented that "there has not been a multitudinous amount of shots" to describe a game with a "dire dearth" of shots on net. Passes from the corner and through the crease area would always feature Gallivan shouting "centred right out in front!!". Players were also known to "dipsy-doodle" with the puck or come out of their own zone "rather gingerly". Gallivan would comment that late in the game was an "inopportune time" for a team to take a penalty, would mention that a penalty killer was "wasting valuable seconds in the penalty" when he was ragging the puck, and would almost always announce, "and the penalty has expired!" at the end of a penalty. When a university professor wrote to Gallivan protesting that there was no such word as "cannonading", Gallivan wrote back: "There is now." The ultimate Gallivanism was another word he coined: the "spinarama," which described a player evading a check or deking a defender with a sudden 180- or 360-degree turn. Its chief practitioner was Montreal Canadien Serge Savard so that the move was also known as "The Savardian Spinarama". The Canadian Oxford Dictionary now includes an entry for "spinarama". Later life Gallivan retired after the 1984 NHL Playoffs when a severe illness rendered him blind in one eye. He was active in retirement, working with several charities, and was the recipient of several television/broadcast industry awards. He made a cameo