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A podcast on sports books where journalists Neil Acharya and Neate Sager discuss the latest titles with authors and athletes.
Episodes
Monday May 09, 2022
Monday May 09, 2022
Fifty years on, the 1972 Summit Series between Canada and the then-Soviet Union remains the most famous international hockey series ever played.
In "1972: The Series That Changed Forever," Hockey Hall of Fame-honoured writer Scott Morrison draws a complete narrative of that classic confrontation a half-century ago.
What started out with good intentions between the sports’ reigning world power and a country that wanted to show that it was the best, when it chose to ice the best, became so much more in real time that September. The final result was as close as it gets, and for the Canadian and Soviet stars whom Morrison has come to know, it has bonded them uniquely over time.
It is a series that Canada won and where hockey won. One side showed it could play with the NHL superstars, the other went to extraordinary lengths to assert their skill and will, and in turn, this Cold War on ice created a legacy they celebrate together.
Friday Nov 19, 2021
Friday Nov 19, 2021
Brian McFarlane has written so many books he has lost count, but never one about his life in hockey.
Approaching age 90, he finally decided it was time, at the behest of Michael Holmes, executive editor at ECW.
McFarlane is familiar to generations of fans from his three-decade tenure at Hockey Night in Canada as well as working in the U.S. with CBS and NBC.
His connection to the game is deep. As a standout NCAA player, he scored over 100 goals in his college career. An astute businessman, he brought the game to children and new audiences with Peter Puck. That was just one of his many ventures.
Above all, he is a student of the game, writing and sometimes correcting its rich history. In October he released A Helluva Life in Hockey and joined us to tell us why that was the case… Sunday Mar 28, 2021
Sunday Mar 28, 2021
An Olympic misstep might be how the public defines a career, but it hardly defines a high-performance athlete’s life.
When Perdita Felicien crashed into the first hurdle in the 100-metre final at the 2004 Summer Games in Athens, all the reigning world champion from Canada could do was watch the race play out on a video screen high above the track.
Though her dreams were dashed, she would stand proud and tall again — it was in her DNA. In My Mother’s Daughter: A Memoir of Struggle and Triumph (Doubleday), Felicien fastidiously constructs a poignant narrative that extends far beyond sport.
By bringing her mother Cathy Browne’s tale of leaving St. Lucia to resettle in Canada to light, we can better understand the contemporary Canadian experience.
Saturday Mar 27, 2021
Saturday Mar 27, 2021
Hockey player’s are told to go to the net but Ryan Minkoff took his shot from the perimeter of the sport's universe.
Through his path in the game, readers gain an idea of how the sport operates on the far reaches of its icy landscape. Minkoff’s premise in Thin Ice (Lyons Press) is essentially that if you have some talent and take your approach seriously, you can make a go of it. Now a player agent working in Seattle, Minkoff did not allow himself to become discouraged by youth hockey politics while growing up in the State of Hockey, Minnesota.
In our latest episode, Minkoff talks about how he came of age in American club college hockey and seized an opportunity to play pro in Finland’s fourth division, where he moonlighted as a Zamboni driver. All of that led to him finding himself by keeping an eye out for other possibly overlooked players who are trying to live the dream.
Thursday Mar 18, 2021
Thursday Mar 18, 2021
In the sport of Kings, Eurico Rosa da Silva (Seven-Time Outstanding Jockey – The Jockey Club of Canada) reigned at Woodbine Racetrack, but for most of his life, he was living in a mental dungeon.
When writing his biography with Bruce McDougall, he held steadfast that this would not just be a book about his success as a jockey. The pages had to paint an unvarnished portrait of struggling with demons that tormented him in the form of gambling and sex addiction.
It had to examine how his roots in Brazil led him to where he is today, for better and for worse.
When Riding for Freedom was released in December, people weren’t expecting what they read about a man who seemingly lived high on the horse and that is just the way Rosa da Silva wanted it.
Tuesday Mar 16, 2021
Tuesday Mar 16, 2021
The analytics wave had yet to sweep over the NHL when Brantt Myhres played in the league from 1994-2003. To be frank, goals, assists and plus/minus didn’t even matter that much in his role as enforcer. It was win lose or draw, no different from a heavyweight fighter.
So why do metrics apply to a man that last played a game almost 20 years ago? Because the numbers show his memoir is a top seller and for good reason.
In Pain Killer: A Memoir of Big League Addiction, Myhres shoots straight about trying to make it in the game he grew up loving, how it became intertwined with drugs and alcohol and eventually led to a lifetime ban.
Where his story had so many chances to end tragically, it hasn’t and along the way back he found purpose in a commitment to helping others who have carried the weight of walking miles in his boots.
Monday Mar 15, 2021
Monday Mar 15, 2021
Breathe easy Canada. This isn’t the only country where parents have gone crazy over watching their kids play minor hockey.
Esteemed writer Rich Cohen (Contributing Editor - Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair), navigated the Connecticut interstate with his son Micah during the Ridgefield Bears 2018-19 AA Pee-Wee season and emerged on the other end with his latest book, Pee Wees: Confessions of a Hockey Parent.
As the months pass and the season wears on, the immersion of mothers and fathers into the progress of their kids and outcomes of their games, builds.
They might have thought they could stay out of the politics, but it can and will pull you in, just like Cohen’s narrative.
Pee Wees’ is exceptionally written. Fun, insightful and unguarded, it looks at the game we love, outside of our lens.
Thursday Mar 11, 2021
Thursday Mar 11, 2021
The reason that players like James Worthy and Michael Jordan were able to leave college “early” and enter the NBA draft or later, Kobe Bryant and Lebron James could do the same from highschool was because Spencer Haywood challenged the system and won.
50 years ago, the concept of “one-and-done” or “early entry” was born after a landmark Supreme Court ruling and the landscape of pro basketball seismically shifted.
Today, Haywood, an Olympic gold medallist (1968), NBA Champion (1980) Hall of Fame Inductee (2015) and former star power forward in the ABA and NBA still wants the league to put some respect on his name – officially.
It is why his biography is titled - The Spencer Haywood Rule: Battles, Basketball and the making of an American Iconoclast.
Released last fall, it covers a life that began in the Jim Crow South, weaved through the Pacific Northwest, Broadway, Hollywood and Europe.
Along the way, Haywood built up the emotional baggage that followed blazing a trail. Creating upheaval came with a cost and his legacy paid a price in the delay of his due respect.
Thursday Dec 17, 2020
Thursday Dec 17, 2020
In hockey, either you are trying to keep the puck out, or put it in the net.
Whether you are Wayne Gretzky, who has scored an NHL record 894 times or a member of the NHL's one goal club, they all count the same.
Ken Reid (Sportsnet) tracked down 39 players who have lit the lamp just once, and in the process, turned footnotes into features, bringing to life the stories of men who have accomplished a feat that is the envy of anyone who has hit the ice with big league dreams.
Monday Dec 14, 2020
Monday Dec 14, 2020
Hockey fans in Canada know Paul Romanuk best from his broadcasting days at TSN and Hockey Night in Canada (Sportsnet), but for well over 30 years, he has also written Hockey Superstars, an annual release that showcases the NHL's best, to kids.
The 2020-21 edition was released on Oct. 6, and Romanuk joined us to discuss the challenges of producing the most recent installment during the pandemic, a TV/Radio career which has taken him to the top levels of sports media, and his new podcast The Walrus Was Paul.