In case you haven’t noticed, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers are currently tied for last in touchdowns — 12 in eight games and one in the last two games — as the Canadian Football League nears the half-time of the 2024 season. This, folks, is a tragedy of tradition. Historically, the […]
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’s something you should know about how the National Hockey League regards Canada: It has grandfather rights, it’s necessary and it’s secondary…and I say this at the risk of sounding anti-American, which I’m decidedly not. The NHL announced its 2024-25 schedule this month. On November 18, Vancouver sports fans will […]
I’ve been to the Summer Olympics twice, and I’ve been to Paris twice, but never both at the same time. Since it won’t happen when the 33rd Games begin next week, and since it is exactly 100 years between Paris Olympics, I’ve probably missed my chance. So I’ll be content […]
Once upon a strikeout, the only pitches mentioned as part of a repertoire — for right-handers as well as left-handers — were the fastball, the curve and the change-up. Pitchers hoping to make it in major-league baseball were scouted on their abilities to throw each, or all, of those pitches. […]
Famous athletes are full of surprises for happenings away from the games that make them famous…Tiger Woods might be the poster child. Twice last month, it happened to famous athletes from different sports and different eras, one for what he said, one for what he didn’t say. Exhibit A: Reggie […]
If you accept Canadian football history as starting 110 Grey Cups ago, as most reasonable sports fans do, there have been — conservatively speaking — between 4,000 and 5,000 players who have run back kicks of some variety. They’ve been speedy or shifty, almost all from the U.S., where there […]
As any sports fan knows, it’s hard to be on a bandwagon when there isn’t one. Such is the life for Chicago White Sox followers, one of whom writes this column. To say the Sox and I have a history is an understatement, and understating the White Sox is about […]
A few weeks ago, my favourite six-year-old asked a thoughtful question: “How old do you have to be to read?” The first six words — “How old do you have to be…” — can be asked of many situations, of many people. Even hockey coaches: “How old do you have […]
This year is the 50th anniversary of the night Edmonton Eskimos’ head coach Ray Jauch evicted the media from the dressing room after his team had lost the Grey Cup. The room had been open to sports writers in search for words of wisdom from the combatants for maybe 10 […]
The King and His Court: Eddie Feigner. The Clown Prince of Baseball: Max Patkin. Historically, everybody viewed such acts as sideshows to the real game — baseball. Dismissed as promotions to attract fans. Gimmicks to entertain them. Add-ons, in most cases, to the ball game they were really coming to […]
It was an unexpected email, with a speech from the International Concussion Summit, on May 2 in Niagara Falls, sent to me that afternoon by the person who delivered it. Ken Dryden. If you regularly read this column (the right answer is yes), and if your memory is exceptional, you […]
It’s inspirational to hear somebody like 54-year-old Milt Stegall say he’s making a comeback. It’s also delusional. He reported to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers’ rookie camp last week to show that he still has it, inspiring people his age and older — football players or not, athletes or not — […]
