Speaker Biography
Jay Onrait is a Canadian television personality, author, sports anchor and most importantly your friend. Born in Calgary, Jay and his family eventually moved to Athabasca, Alberta where he was raised in the aisles of the family drug store. To this day the concept of paying for magazines confuses him. Following a two-year stint at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, a period of life Jay refers to as “The Lost Years” for their general lack of productive activity and missing brain cells.
Jay applied to and was surprisingly accepted at Ryerson University in Toronto; where he enrolled in their prestigious Radio and Television Arts Program. Several hundred orders of Pad Thai at Salad King later he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts along with a two-year stint as a writer for “Sportsdesk” on TSN.
Jay took his first on-air sportscasting job at Global Television in Saskatoon – followed by a two-year period as the host of The Big Breakfast on A-Channel in Manitoba, a city he loves and will defend to the death. Jay returned to Toronto as the first ever host hired on the brand new NHL Network, presenting nightly editions of NHL on the Fly and That’s Hockey 2.
He returned to TSN and for 10 years was a host on SportsCentre, first with Jennifer Hedger and then alongside Dan O’Toole in a partnership many critics described as “the death of the medium in our country.” Jay also covered the NBA Finals for TSN from 2005-2008, served as the play-by-play voice for Red Bull Crashed Ice and somehow convinced his bosses to allow him to conduct an all-day NHL Trade Deadline Day blog from his home wearing only a robe. Onrait and O’Toole hosted their final SportsCentre at the time on June 28, 2013, joining the launch of the new Fox Sports 1 network in Los Angeles as hosts of their flagship show Fox Sports Live.
During the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Jay served as co-host of Olympic Morning alongside Beverly Thomson on the CTV Network. During the 2012 Summer Olympics in London Jay co-hosted daily live editions of SportsCentre on TSN from London alongside Dan O’Toole. He returned as host at TSN in 2017 and continues with SC with Jay Onrait.
Jay is author of two entertaining books: His first is Anchorboy – True Tales from the world of sports, and Number Two: More Short Tales from a Very Tall Man.
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