Born in Toronto, Ontario, he started as a sportswriter for a Toronto newspaper but soon turned to radio. In March 1923, using a telephone, he made the second ice hockey broadcast ever in the world (he was preceded by Pete Parker), from Toronto's Mutual Street Arena. For the next sixty years, he would be Canada's premier hockey play-by-play broadcaster. He coined the phrase "He Shoots-He Scores!" He had offers to go over to television to continue his broadcasts, but he decided to stay with raido. His son was a television broadcaster.
Foster Hewitt is buried in Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Toronto.