Bob Dunn – Distant Replay

Ted Turner is the only person besides Connie Mack to own and manage a major-league baseball team. His solitary game as a big-league manager (a loss) was seven days before I sat in his office — just the two of us — in 1977. A couple of months later he […]

Something that Gordie Howe “did” after he died made more of an impact on me than anything from his illustrious hockey career. Yes, you read that right. The story requires a little context. My grandson Gareth, who was born at La Verendrye Hospital, was a passionate young hockey player. His […]

It was just before a Cactus League game in Arizona. Four retired major leaguers had been imported to shake hands and sign autographs for fans who remembered them. At the end of a long table, one man sat alone. No visitors. No autographs. He brought is own chair. It was […]

Every time I talk to Dick Irvin, Jr., as I did a couple of weeks ago, I learn something. This is a process that has been going on for about five decades, off and on, and you’d think by now my sports IQ would be more impressive than it is. […]

This Olympic year, delayed 12 months by the pandemic, seems like an appropriate time to share one sports writer’s “medal-winning performances” from Games past. It began when I took my vacation for a no-expenses-paid trip to Mexico City for the 1968 Olympics. As the Winnipeg Tribune’s swimming writer (once, there […]

Mr. Nice Guy is never perfect, which prompts me to tell you about Wayne Gretzky, who never claimed to be perfect and who is such a national treasure that it’s considered blasphemous to be critical, especially a national treasure who shared Canada’s late “hockey dad” with the whole country. Before […]

The Golden Age of Cerebral Coaching in Montreal lasted 947 days and, like many golden ages, it became a snapshot easily forgotten. It was unrecognized then and perhaps preserved only in the memory of a sports writer who knew all three. Gene Mauch. Scotty Bowman. Marv Levy. From January 25, […]

The first time I was in the presence of the great Rocket Richard, we were in jail. Both of us. He was a few paces ahead of me (that’s royalty) as the big iron door clanged shut behind us. The jail was Saint-Vincent-de-Paul Penitentiary, in suburban Montreal, and we were […]

The restaurant was west of downtown Quebec City, and “The Kid” across the table from me was just 19. At 200 pounds, this was no under-nourished minor-league prospect. As the server handed him a menu, the reporter from Montreal told him this was a legitimate expense and he should order […]

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 […]