Craig Laughlin attended speech classes to fix his Canadian slang and accent when he first started calling Capitals games: 'Fans [were] saying, 'Locker, you stink"

"I had to go to speech class - and people didn't understand this - like, I had to go to a speech class in Maryland, and they wanted to take my Canadian slang and accent out of my telecast. So I went in the summer, and I had to go to a guy who was a speech guy. The biggest thing I remember from that [class], Vogs, is: 'C-O-T' how do you say that?"

"'Cot,' Vogel answered phonetically. 'C-A-U-G-H-T?' Laughlin followed up. 'Caught,' Vogel replied, smiling as his American brain realized the two very different words are casually pronounced the same. 'And [the teacher] was trying to say, 'Cot and caught. Cot and caught,' Locker explained, over-enunciating the back-of-throat 'gh' sound in the latter. 'You've gotta learn the different things, and I spent a whole summer doing that because I wanted to get better"

Craig Laughlin has been the Washington Capitals color commentator since 1990 and remains known for his distinctive Lockerisms. Early in his broadcasting career, fans criticized his voice and accent. Laughlin, a Toronto native, took speech lessons in Maryland to reduce Canadian slang and soften his accent for American audiences. He spent a summer with a speech coach practicing specific pronunciation differences such as cot versus caught and over-enunciating the back-of-throat 'gh' sound. Laughlin practiced intensively to improve his telecast delivery because crowds often taunted him at the arena. The accent adjustments aimed to make his on-air delivery clearer and more widely accepted.

Read at RMNB