Canada’s Telecommunications Hall of Fame has selected the Communications Research Centre Canada (CRC) as the recipient of the 2007 "Special Recognition Award." The award, granted to CRC and its predecessor, the Defence Research Telecommunications Establishment (DRTE), honors the federal laboratory’s ongoing excellence in the research and development of Canada’s telecommunications technologies.

Throughout CRC’s rich history, one of the most notable technology milestones is the Hermes satellite, created and developed in Ottawa and launched into orbit in 1976. With the recent denouement of the latest NHL season during which the Ottawa Senators went all the way to the final playoff round, it seems a fitting time to commemorate satellite technology, which brings our national pastime into Canadian homes.

While Hermes and hockey may seem to be worlds apart, they actually have a significant link in history. In fact, it was nearly 30 years ago today that the first-ever, direct-to-home satellite broadcast of an NHL play-off game was broadcast from the labs of CRC across the western hemisphere. A Canadian diplomat stationed in South America was familiar with the Hermes program, and knew that a hockey broadcast was feasible. He put in a special request which enabled him and a group of Canadian expatriates to watch the NHL game from the embassy in Lima, Peru. A revolution in its time, Hermes spawned the use of satellite technology in treating the annual epidemic known as playoff fever.

Dave Halayko, a long-time researcher with CRC’s Satellite Communications branch, was part of the team working on the Hockey Night in Canada experiment back in 1978.

"They went into sudden death overtime," Halayko recalls of the Montreal Canadiens match-up against the Boston Bruins. "The problem was that the spacecraft antennas were to be re-directed to the USA at midnight and they would not be able to see the end of the game. Fortunately, the Habs scored just before we had to move them."

Fittingly, that first telecast game was won by the Canadiens en route to a third straight Stanley Cup win, defeating the Bruins in a six-game series.

Canada was the third country behind Russia and the United States to enter the "space race" with the 1962 launch of Alouette, but was the first to capitalize on the commercial potential of satellite broadcast technology.

CRC President Veena Rawat credits the Hermes technology as a giant step forward for Canada.

"There are places in the country where you can’t have anything but satellite communication," says Rawat. "So it was extremely important to have this broadcast technology, not only on the entertainment side but also for tele-education and tele-health applications. Today, the satellites are used for widening broadband access to rural and remote areas."

CRC will be further honored at the Telecom Laureate Award ceremonies and gala dinner, taking place in Montréal in October.