That’s a lot of recent Tiger-Cats history jammed into one small booth.
The Tiger-Cats’ 2025 game broadcast duo, made public today, unites veteran media personality Rick Zamperin with future Canadian Football Hall of Famer Simoni Lawrence for all of the action on the Ticats Audio Network and Y108.
That’s 21st Century Hamilton football personified. Both are so familiar to Ticats fans that their voices enter a room before they do.
Zamperin, who called Ticats games for eight seasons from 2007 to 2014, is back for his second play-by-play stint while Lawrence, who also plays a role as a brand ambassador with the Hamilton Sports Group, will take his inimitable personality behind the mic as the colour commentator. He was always analyzing and talking about the game as a player, trying to give his teammates, local media and fans some of his insight and now he’ll continue that as a broadcaster.
“I saw it in real life,” Zamperin recalled during a casual sit-down this week. “I was at a practice last year and Simoni was in the press box with me and a few others and Sim was breaking the practice down in a very understandable way. It was interesting seeing it through his eyes.”
The final two years of Zamperin’s time calling games for now-defunct CHML were Lawrence’s first two with the Ticats.
“Words that I associate with Simoni; relentless, ferocious, contagious excellence,” he says. “And every game he brought it. And not only did he bring it, but he is such a galvanizing force that others also said, ‘Well, I’m bringing it too. He’s doing it. I’m hopping on his back and let’s go.’”
Zamperin grew up in Toronto but long ago became a core Hamiltonian. After working radio in several cities across Canada, he arrived in Hamilton in 2000 and reported on the Cats for the first time in the 2001 season. He covered the team in various capacities, which led to his landing the play-by-play job in in 2007 and continuing until the rights moved to a different outlet in 2015. But he still was a fixture at Ticats games and practices, and continued with The Fifth Quarter, the popular fan-venting post-game show which eventually transitioned to a live YouTube stream (and will be a part of the Ticats Audio Network). He was the host of Good Morning Hamilton, an iconic morning general news show that presented a lot of Ticats content, and now he’s back on the seventh floor of Hamilton Stadium as the Voice of the Tiger-Cats.
“I was 10 years old when I fell in love with sports,” he says. “Whether it was watching on TV or listening on the radio, while I always wanted to be the athlete I thought it was very cool the way that the men and women were able to tell the stories. I thought, ‘That’s what I want to do.’ I was just hooked on how they would describe things, their energy level, the cadence, all that kind of stuff.
“I fell in love with how they told their stories and the personalities of the people telling their stories, whether it was Bob Cole or Dick Enberg or Jim Nantz. The best know how to let the moment live, with them included in it.”
Lawrence hung up his cleats following the 2023 season after 11 years in the CFL, the final 10 of those in black and gold. In his playing time here, the Ticats went to four Grey Cups and missed the playoffs only once. The creative strong-side linebacker was a five-time East all-star, a three-time CFL all-star and was a finalist for the CFL’s Defensive Player of the Year in 2015, ’19 and ’21.
He holds the CFL record for tackles in a single game (17), recorded the 10th-most tackles in CFL history and is the all-time Ticats’ leader in several categories, including total tackles and defensive tackles.
“We’re a sports-entertainment business and I’m just here to entertain the folks.”
The linebacker, consistently selected as the league’s ‘top trash talker’ during his playing career stimulated Hamilton fans with his appeal for supportive noise, his broad smile you could see from the upper tiers of the stadium and his obvious sense of fun and danger.
“I think I’m just going to be me,” he says of his approach to broadcasting. “My main objective is I want to teach football in a fun way but in a simple form that anyone can understand, even somebody who doesn’t know anything about football.”
Part of his preparation for this new branch of his career is research on what makes good, sustainable, listening and viewing. He’s deep into ‘You Are Looking Live!; How the NFL Today Revolutionized Sports Broadcasting’, an insider’s description of the history and best practices of football broadcasting.
“You can be high-level and still be funny,” Lawrence says. “I think people aren’t looking for how smart you are, they’re looking for entertainment. That’s what football is all about. We’re a sports-entertainment business and I’m just here to entertain the folks.
“I think Zamp does a great job because he’s been on radio for so long and he’s a star himself. I think he’ll set up a lot of alley-oops where I can just be me. I’m excited about working with him.
“Entertainment is the product, of course, and it starts with the players. I tell people all the time that these football players are amazing athletes. Our job is to showcase their athletic ability to our fan base and explain what they are doing and why it is so amazing.”
The new broadcast duo will have big shoes to fill, following the admirable work of RJ Broadhead and Luke Tasker, who had been calling games together since 2021 (Tasker informed the team during the offseason that he would not be able to return to the booth due to time commitments elsewhere). Together, Broadhead and Tasker were instrumental in launching the Ticats Audio Network, and the organization is deeply grateful for their dedication and contributions over the past few seasons.
Both Zamperin and Lawrence have a strong affinity for Hamilton and their respective roles within it.
“That’s why I’m so excited about this job, because I get to be my authentic self while calling this game and that’s what the fans want,” remarked Lawrence. “If somebody is doing something that’s not supposed to be done, they don’t want you to sugarcoat it. They want to hear the real. I’m excited about that.”
There’s a lot of local cachet to being the Voice of the Tiger Cats and Zamperin has always taken that label seriously.
“It means a lot because this team means a lot to the city,” he says. “In my role, I’m describing the action on the field from an audio sense. I have to bring the game to life for the person who can’t be there.
So it’s my responsibility to explain what happened and kind of how it happened. Celebrate the wins and talk about the losses and how the team can get better. It’s a great responsibility, right? With responsibility comes accountability and transparency; being a cheerleader when they’re playing well but being critical when they’re not playing well.
“I take a lot of pride in that.”
