By Bill Hutchins
with photography by Ian MacAlpine
In a city filled with sports icons, Mark Potter can surely be considered one of them — not exactly as a gifted athlete, by his own admission, but as a champion promoter of all things in the sporting world through his many roles both on and off the microphone.
Mark is a well-known Kingstonian, born in 1960 as the middle child to parents Charles and Marilyn in the neighbourhood near the Portsmouth Olympic Harbour.
The proud fourth-generation Portsmouth kid recalls playing around the harbour boathouses that would eventually be torn down as the area was revamped to host world-class sailing events starting with the 1976 Summer Olympics. “My mother’s family, the Westlakes, owned a large number of boathouses and ran the Westlake Boat Livery for decades. It’s where I would swim as a kid,” he says.
But it was actually at the nearby arena and ball diamond where Mark developed a lifelong passion for covering and promoting local sports. “I played hockey at Harold Harvey Arena. I would also sweep the dressing rooms and was the head timekeeper in my youth. At Garrigan Park, I grew up working as a bat boy, changing the scoreboard and putting down chalk lines.”
At the age of 14, he organized and played in what was then the world’s longest road hockey game for 16 straight hours. But as a tall, lanky kid, he declares, “I love sports, but I wasn’t a good athlete.” . . .
