Before a sportswriter becomes one, it’s understood you don’t get too close to the people you write about, because it can affect your objectivity. Well, I got that one out of the way before my occupation became official. His name was Walt Williams. Our friendship, which began about this time […]
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.
This is the week the National Hockey League throws away one page of its rulebook: the one about overtime. When the final horn sounds on the final game Thursday in Los Angeles, out goes limited overtime and in comes unlimited overtime. There’s a generation — maybe two — of players […]
The closest I have come to Augusta is 183 miles. That’s how far the home of The Masters is from Atlanta, where I’ve covered baseball and hockey games. The closest I have come to playing Augusta, the world’s most famous golf course, is living vicariously through two friends who played […]
At the risk of dipping into the recipe boxes (electronic or printed) of chefs whose culinary talents exceed mine, which is pretty much everybody who walked through a kitchen, this column is about cooking. Well, cooking with a touch of sports, from the archives that make this column worth reading. […]
It was March. The power-hitting first-baseman being interviewed stood five feet, eight inches tall. Based on today’s player size, he could go eye to eye with Marcus Stroman or Jose Altuve, who are among baseball’s shortest specimens. On that day, he was eye to eye with me. He weighed 174 […]
My daughter was 13 the last time her country could brag about winning the Stanley Cup and, while always a hockey fan, she doesn’t really remember it as a “where-were-you-when-it-happened?” moment. After all, teenage girls have other things on their minds, as she knows with her own 13-year-old hockey fan […]
This used to be when baseball spring training really arrived. Pitchers and catchers reported at the end of February. The rest of the team strolled in to start playing exhibition games a week or so later. Opening Day was almost a month away. The stadiums were often glorified Class C […]
Curling and I go back a long way, which is why I am unable to resist writing about the grand old game this week — Brier week. The Brier’s uniquely Canadian. From its birth 98 years ago, it has changed names…from Macdonald to Labatt to Nokia to Tim Hortons to […]
How does a hockey hero shred an image that has been so carefully crafted and purposely protected for decades, in less time than it takes to serve a minor penalty? Ask Wayne Gretzky, who achieved it in 99 (okay, approximately) seconds. In their wildest imaginations, Canadian sports fans could never […]
Cooperstown is a unique little town in upstate New York, home of the Baseball Hall of Fame, a recommended destination for any baseball fan. I’ve been there twice and hope to go again, because things may have changed a little in the 45 years since my last visit. You think? […]
Ho-hum hockey. That’s how a learned friend of mine refers to what’s replacing the National Hockey League for two weeks — the 4 Nations Faceoff. This is the NHL’s attempt to recapture the magic of international hockey, to have fans wave the flags of four countries: Canada, the U.S., Sweden […]
I’ve never been much of a clock watcher, but I took one for the team this week and became a “stop watcher.” That’s the Canadian team which believes Canadian football is more entertaining than American football, and that if it’s ever exported to the U.S. there should be a tariff. […]
