The first time I went to spring training, it included a side trip to Puerto Rico, which was also a first. The reason for the side trip? That’s where the Montreal Expos were playing a Grapefruit League game against the Pittsburgh Pirates and, as a rookie on the baseball beat, […]
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.
The death of Jim Robson last week brought an understandable outpouring of tributes, from TV from the Olympics to news outlets across Canada. It’ll likely continue next week, when Hockey Night in Canada is back in business, when the Vancouver Canucks resume their dismal season. My hope for several years […]
When goalies didn’t wear masks, nobody wore helmets, sticks were made of wood and pucks were retrieved from snowbanks, I played hockey. I didn’t make it to teenage hockey. There were only four of us in my community, so we had to transfer to a team in the next neighbourhood. […]
If you’re interested in knowing who holds the honour of being Canada’s all-time leading goal scorer at the Olympic Games, the name might surprise you – Harry Watson. And it’s not even the Harry Watson who won five Stanley Cups with Detroit and Toronto after the Second World War – […]
Normally, I disregard column ideas from friends and readers, even when they’re both. However, comma… “I expect to see a Wilbur Wood column next week,” texted one loyal reader. Wilbur Wood, who died at 84 last Saturday, was a major-league pitcher. He became famous with the Chicago White Sox when […]
It was a two-hour sports show on the radio every Sunday morning. Anybody who has worked in radio knows Sunday morning is typically a wasteland of listeners… unless the station is way down south and features a televangelist. After almost a year of being responsible for “Sunday Morning Sports Page” […]
Since the National Football League is always my personal second choice for this game’s entertainment, only rarely do I care who wins the Super Bowl or any of the games preceding it. Most years, I don’t watch “America’s game” until the playoffs. This time, I thought it would be cool […]
When Auston Matthews scored his 421st goal last weekend, he became the greatest goal scorer in Toronto Maple Leafs history, at age 28. As much as the facts support his status, in the world of Distant Replays has there ever been a greater goal scorer in the hearts of long-time […]
The deal that made superstar defencemen Quinn Hughes a member of the Minnesota Wild last week sent hockey historians — well, one of them anyway — scurrying to see how many other Norris Trophy winners have been traded. The answer is surprising. Just 33 players have won the Norris, as […]
Why would a hockey player who has been dead more than half a century still generate enough interest to have a seventh book written about him? Either he was the Greatest Of All Time, or he was forever mysterious. Terry Sawchuk may have been both. “The Sawchuk Diaries: An Oral […]
It happened just over 44 years ago. A soccer team filled a Canadian city with European emotions. Victory-mad fans. An unimaginable sports parade – 100,000 strong – that may never be seen in Canada again, or at least until the Toronto Maple Leafs win the Stanley Cup. This was Vancouver […]
Last week, I was listening to one of those often-mindless sports radio shows when the chatter was interrupted by an infomercial flashback that was sports-related but not mindless. I immediately recognized the voice of Phil Esposito, the more famous of the two Hockey Hall of Fame brothers from Sault Ste. […]
