VANCOUVER - He's played with Bing Crosby and hung out with Frank Sinatra, gave Michael Buble his first paying gig and hobnobbed with Lena Horne.

But legendary Vancouver big band leader Dal Richards says he's overwhelmed that he'll carry the Olympic torch this week in the final hours before the Games begin - and just weeks after celebrating his 92nd birthday.

"I couldn't believe it,'' Richards said about receiving a phone call from his local MLA, who asked if he'd carry the torch this Friday, the final day of its 106-day journey across Canada and hours before the cauldron is lit at the opening ceremonies.

Richards had been watching news coverage of the torch relay that involves 1,000 communities across the country, but never thought he'd be participating in the spectacle.

"It seemed to be people, in one way or another, associated with the Olympics or had a history of athletics or so forth. And I thought, `My God, she's calling a 92-year-old to run 300 metres?''' he said of the appeal from MLA Mary McNeil.

Richards, who's still swinging with his music career after more than seven decades, has been jogging twice weekly and swimming 20 lengths - about 1,000 metres - once a week to prepare for his Olympic feat that starts "at 8:31, not 8:30'' Friday morning.

He also hired a personal trainer who's putting him through his paces with weights so he can hoist the 1.6-kilogram torch while jogging.

"Not in a 1,000 years did I consider being a torchbearer,'' said the man who hung out with crooner Sinatra during Vancouver's nightclub heyday in the 1940s, when the city scene after dark rivalled San Francisco's.

"I think Frank (Sinatra) might say, `Are you crazy?''' Richards said of his torch-bearing endeavour.

In the late 1990s, Richards gave singing sensation Buble his first paying gig at the Pacific National Exhibition, where he has directed the Dal Richards Orchestra every summer for 70 years straight, drawing thousands of fans.

Buble waxes eloquent about Richards in the recently released book "One More Time: The Dal Richards Story,'' (Harbour Publishing) saying he's among the many entertainers who have been influenced by the big band leader.

"My grandfather had always hoped that some day I'd get to meet Dal - my grandfather! Then I entered the PNE Youth Talent Search and there he was, larger than life,'' Buble said in the book.

"It was such a neat feeling to be this young kid and get up there with this great big band and get to sing for those big audiences - mixed, not just older people, a lot of kids, which proved to me that this music I was singing was palatable to everyone.''

Richards said training for his torch-bearing gig has him reminiscing about Vancouverites being caught up in an Olympic glow after the Amsterdam Games more than 80 years ago.

"My first recollection of the Olympics was in 1928, when Percy Williams won the 100 and 200 (metres) running in Amsterdam, and there was a parade for him when he came home,'' Richards said of Vancouver's homegrown track and field gold medallist.

"I marched in the parade and saw Percy sitting in his convertible that they presented him with and I was in total admiration,'' said Richards, who at age 10 was part of a boys' band that won several competitions around the world.

The Kitsilano Boys' Band, in which he played the clarinet before switching to saxophone, won top honours among competitors across North America at the 1933 world's fair in Chicago.

Now as the world comes to Vancouver for the 2010 Games, Richards, dubbed Dr. Swing, said he's looking forward to cultivating more Olympic memories.

Blues musician and actor Jim Byrnes, who met Richards in the early 1980s and has recorded two CDs with him, said he admires the big band leader for how long he's sustained his career.

"He's my idol,'' Byrnes said. "Just the fact that he can still get out and do it, and he still has that great love for music.

"I think it's a great way for the city to say thanks to him and it's a great way for him to say thanks to the world,'' Byrnes said of Richards carrying the Olympic torch.

"I think it's a fabulous honour.''

In his early music days, Richards was hobnobbing with Hollywood heavyweights including the famed Rat Pack - Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin - and jazz legend Horne, whose 1946 sell-out performances at The Cave nightclub garnered rave reviews and brought in other big acts.

His band also played for Crosby while the singer was in town to record a radio show.

Audiences continue to flock to see Richards and his orchestra at an annual New Year's Eve extravaganza, which he has hosted for 75 years in a row.

He also takes to the airwaves every Sunday night for his weekly radio show, called "Dal's Place,'' on which he takes a nostalgic look at the golden era of big band music while spinning tunes from the 1930s to the '60s.