Friends and family remember longtime CHCH host Emilio Mascia

Emilio Mascia, known to CHCH viewers in the 1960s as the host of Italian Panorama, died last weekend at the age of 94.

On Saturday, his family and friends said their final goodbyes at a funeral service held on Hamilton Mountain.

“Whether it’s his viewers on air, versus anyone he met in person, he loved them with the same affection,” said his son, Anthony.

To Anthony, Emilio Mascia was first his dad and his best friend, and second, a teammate directing the longtime CHCH program Italian Panorama. Mascia was also the founder of Telelatino Television (TLN) and a broadcaster on CHML radio.

But 52 years ago today, Anthony remembers the first World Cup game broadcast in Canadian venues during a time when no one thought it could be done.

“So he went and reprinted all the tickets and said ‘Okay, if there’s no signal, then you get your money back,” Anthony said. “The places were packed. The police had to came in, we had lineups down the road.”

In the days leading up to the service, Anthony heard from the Hamilton community, learning new stories about his dad and how he changed lives.

“A lady came to me yesterday, an Italian lady and says ‘Listen, you don’t know what your dad did. But when we came over from Italy, we couldn’t afford to bring our family and your dad paid for us to come over. And he never asked for a cent back.’ I said wow, there’s his legacy,” Anthony said.

Donovan Bailey, Anthony’s best friend, said “Uncle Emilio’s” passing makes him think of his own legacy.

“As a Jamaican, we grew up in a culture that family sometimes are not necessarily attached to your DNA, it’s the people that you love and the people that show love,” Bailey said. “For me, he’s an immigrant man who came from Italy to Canada and maximized every opportunity to leave an incredible legacy, and that’s the story of my own father.”

Family friend Dash Domi also reflected on Mascia’s impact.

“Mr. Mascia, every time we’d go visit him, I felt like — my dad passed away in ’91, and he felt like a dad,” Domi said. “He was a dad, a mentor, a hero to everyone.”

Emilio Mascia passed away peacefully in his sleep last Saturday.

READ MORE: Longtime CHCH host of ‘Italian Panorama’ Emilio Mascia dies at 94