This is the time of year when Stanley Cup overtime games often make headlines, and the longer the overtime the greater the chance that somebody will remember Mud Bruneteau. It was his goal that ended the longest game in history, three minutes and 30 seconds before the sixth overtime period […]
Bob Dunn – Distant Replay
How being in the sports media gave one writer & broadcaster the opportunity to interview sports personalities he never imagined he’d even meet in places he never imagined he’d be. These will be his stories about their stories — or just about them — from the pages of his past, while working out of Montreal, Winnipeg and Vancouver in the 60s and 70s.
There is a “rule” in the newspaper business than you don’t become friends with the people you write about on a regular (or even irregular) basis. I confess it’s a rule I’ve broken a few times. My ex-colleagues in Montreal would say I broke it with Expos pitcher Steve Rogers, […]
Concussion. The most feared word in sports medicine. Once regarded as a “mild traumatic brain injury” and now more terrorizing than torn ligaments, separated shoulders and broken backs. Concussion. Studies analyze it. Books are written about it. Brains are donated dying from it, for the worthy cause of posthumously understanding […]
My relationship with no-hitters is, ah, unusual. I’ve seen five…four in doubleheaders. For one, I was late arriving and didn’t know it was a no-hitter until it was almost over. For another, I was on my vacation and wrote a story about it anyway. For another, I was a batboy. […]
Every May, I start rooting for a Canadian team to win the Stanley Cup for the first time in three decades…or lamenting that, once again, it’s not going to happen. And while both the Toronto Maple Leafs and Edmonton Oilers are still in the running, how I wish it were […]
The Montreal Expos have been gone for 18 years and seven months, yet they refuse to go away. For years there was alleged interest in having the Tampa Bay Rays play summers in Montreal, and springs and falls in St. Petersburg, but the best team in baseball in 2023 is […]
It happened that I arrived in Montreal, my new home, eight games before the baseball season ended in 1972. That gave me an opportunity to witness two historic events at Jarry Park — Bill Stoneman’s second no-hitter and, more significantly, Jackie Robinson’s last visit to his adopted city. In both […]
The problem I have with the 2022-23 Boston Bruins is the 1976-77 Montreal Canadiens. At the risk of sounding like somebody who has that everything-was-better-in-my-day attitude, Boston’s assault on the National Hockey League record book is a little out of context. As the Bruins were racing towards all-time records for […]
At the Masters this week, the first golfers to tee it up will be Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson and Gary Player. Collectively, they been Masters champions 11 times, and their three ceremonial tee shots make the 2023 tournament official before they retire to wherever old champions go to watch it. […]
My daughter is a rabid and passive hockey fan and, no, that’s not an oxymoron. The passive part that keeps her from being full-on rabid is being Mom to two busy children, yet she’s enough of a fan to have ideas, which is what fans do. I think she has […]
In baseball, time has never mattered. You play until somebody wins, in two hours or six. Umpires call “Time!” only at a player’s request, if a bug gets in his eye or a pitcher gets under his skin. Well, “time” has changed. The clock will be ticking when major-league pitchers […]
Hockey’s Boy Wonder was never going to grow old. Come Monday, Bobby Orr turns 75. Orr was 18 when he burst into the National Hockey League to save the Boston Bruins, who the previous season were last in goals, last in goals-against and one point away from last place. Although […]
