It’s safe to say the first time I went to Winter Meetings — yes, it’s capitalized — as baseball’s newsmaker that bridges the World Series and spring training, it was a far cry from next week’s annual gathering in Nashville. There was no mystery then about whether the Toronto Blue […]
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.
On my first sports beat, the first superstar-to-be I wrote about was Bobby Clarke. He was a junior hockey legend and there was much speculation where he would go in the National Hockey League team. Discussions extended after work. One included a newspaper colleague and his wife who — like […]
His name was John O’Leary. While the names of other Canadian Football League players have come and gone from my memory bank, and often forgotten, his never will. He was a running back with a big heart, durability and average skill for the Montreal Alouettes in three Grey Cups. Prior […]
On Saturday, Mike O’Shea’s 12th playoff game as head coach of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers will decide whether he’ll be on the sidelines for his fourth Grey Cup Game one week later. In both games, and probably in every game as long as he’s the Bombers’ coach, O’Shea will be […]
Ron MacLean, who is sometimes the King of Corn, dropped a clever observation during a more serious Hockey Night in Canada moment. It was about the Brothers Hughes: Quinn (Vancouver Canucks), Jack and Luke (both with the New Jersey Devils). “How would you feel,” MacLean asked, approximately, his panel of […]
When I was a kid, I didn’t like Hal Patterson. Nothing personal, but he played for Hamilton, and the Tiger-Cats were the Grey Cup enemy of “my” Winnipeg Blue Bombers. In three of their championship meetings, Patterson was the receiver and kick returner who couldn’t be stopped. Others ran, he […]
Once every year, and this is the week, baseball fans lament the loss of the Montreal Expos. Not losing the team to Washington in 2005…The Loss, as in the game that kept the Expos from reaching the World Series. October 19th is the 42nd anniversary of the Expos’ day that […]
Every time I think about one of the Canadian Football League’s most talented players, ever, I also think of Buckingham Nicks…the last names of half the supremely popular rock group Fleetwood Mac. The football player was Tom Cousineau. Cousineau was drafted No. 1 in the National Football League, the Connor […]
So now that baseball is down to its delightful dozen for the playoffs, fans and TV viewers will be paying more attention to their strengths and weaknesses. They’ll be analyzed ad nauseum. They’ll be dressed up for their moments in the sun, and if it rains their manicurists will be […]
Sometime over the weekend, I stumbled across a list of statistics that quantifies the best Montreal Expos of all time, regardless of position. Such contentions are always open to debate, naturally, but seldom does it lead to war like this one does. Major-league baseball is at WAR. It has been […]
Sports fans usually have their 15 minutes of fame and disappear into anonymity. There was the guy who”cost” the Chicago Cubs their first World Series appearance in almost a century….what was his name again? (Steve Bartman, I looked it up). Other than him, the two guys who followed Hank Aaron […]
And so another National Football League season is underway. It’s a moment big enough to scare television shows and rival football games (CFL) from going head-to-head on Sundays that aren’t super. It’s the revival of America’s greatest sport, which supplanted baseball decades ago. It’s the lighter that ignites the gambling […]
