Stu Nahan, a onetime minor-league hockey goalie who delivered sports reports on Los Angeles television and radio for decades, has died. He was 81.
Nahan died Wednesday at his Studio City home, after battling lymphoma, a form of cancer, since January, his family said.
In 1968, Nahan began doing nightly sports reports on KABC-TV Channel 7. He moved to KNBC-TV Channel 4 in 1977 and to KTLA-TV Channel 5 in 1988, retiring from television in 1999.
Nahan also appeared in a number of movies and television episodes. After landing a bit part in the 1971 TV movie "Brian's Song," he had a string of film roles as a sports commentator, most notably in Sylvester Stallone's series of "Rocky" films.
He also played himself in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" (1982), interviewing the character Jeff Spicoli -- played by Sean Penn -- in a dream sequence.
Nahan was also a radio sports talk show host at KABC-AM (790) and most recently worked on Dodger pre- and postgame radio shows on KFWB-AM (980).
A native of Los Angeles, Nahan moved at age 2 with his mother to Canada, where he grew up playing hockey.
A star goalie at McGill University in Montreal, he signed a contract with the Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League in 1946. He was assigned to the minor-league Los Angeles Monarchs, who through the early 1950s played at the Pan Pacific Auditorium.
When the Monarchs folded in 1952, so did Nahan's pro hockey career -- which, he admitted, wasn't a promising one.
"The real reason I quit was because I had a terrific sunburn on the back of my neck, which I got because the red light was on most of the time I was in the net," he would quip about the signal for a goal scored in hockey.
He found work driving a delivery truck, and one day in 1954 he came across Bob Kelley, a prominent sports announcer who was the original voice of the National Football League's L.A. Rams.
Kelley, recalling Nahan's gift of gab when he was playing for the Monarchs, offered to teach him the broadcasting business.
Nahan worked as a gofer for Kelley during broadcasts of the Pacific Coast League's Los Angeles Angels, who played at the old Wrigley Field in L.A.
"I kept the stats and got coffee, and every once in a while I'd get to broadcast an inning," Nahan recalled in an interview with former Times columnist John Hall in 1980.
