SportsLit

Gambling has become a new revenue stream for major sports leagues in the last few years, raising questions about how to protect competitive integrity. It also calls to mind the fallout from the Black Sox Scandal, the greatest game-fixing scandal in the history of North American sports.   In "Joe Jackson vs. Chicago American League Baseball Club: Never Before Seen Trial Transcript," the public can...

Erik Kramer built an NFL career on precision, timing, and accuracy, but it was his greatest miss that led to him building a complete life. Since surviving a 2015 suicide attempt, the former quarterback is making his ultimate comeback day after day, living with renewed sense of purpose.   Athletically, Kramer climbed up from the "bottom of the barrel," in his words. Getting a chance to make a first...

Nothing is ever as good as it once was. That’s a lie —they improve, or more accurately, they evolve. Still, why not look back with a bit of wonder? Rich Cohen is the right writer to put the NBA, then and now, into perspective. In When the Game Was War: The NBA's Greatest Season, Cohen stress-tests his belief that the 1987-88 season was the zenith of pro basketball.   Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Isi...

Pride and Prejudice It could have easily been the title of Ted Nolan’s biography. My Life in Two Worlds: A Coach’s Journey from the Reserve to the NHL and Back encompasses the duality of his drive to show people from his world, Garden River First Nation, could succeed in another one, whilst centering their Indigenous identity. A career coach who has achieved success at every level, Nolan is best k...

The NHL Draft is one of hockey's great spectacles. Just after the Stanley Cup is awarded, the spotlight shifts to the draft floor, where teams hope to acquire future stars and the diamonds in the rough that can lead them — or keep them — in contention.  As a former NHL president and general manager, Doug MacLean has seen the process from the inside. That is where he and Hockey Hall of Fame-honoure...

Jonathon Jackson captures the spirit of the thing Like “Slap Shot” itself, Jonathon Jackson might have been slightly ahead of his time when he set out to write about the timeless hockey movie. Nowadays, ‘how it was made’ books, podcasts, and limited series are everywhere. But it was back in 2006, Jackson set out to write about the “nuts and bolts” that held together a raunchy, rollicking 1977 spor...

Act like a champion, talk like a champion, run like a champion. Wired like a prizefighter, Donovan Bailey became the fastest man on earth in the 1990s.   He did it for himself while raising Canada's standing in international sport. In his memoir, the 100-metre and Olympic and world gold medalist tells his life story with intent.   Rooted in Jamaica and then Oakville, Ont., Bailey rocketed around t...

Dave Hill is a multitalented man, but a fan for one season — hockey season.   The comedian, essayist, and musician is meh toward his hometown NFL Cleveland Browns, but hockey had him hooked right off the hop. Over his life, it has become a source of perplexment as to why more Americans are not similarly stoked about hockey. In his fourth book, "The Awesome Game: One Man's Incredible, Globe-Crushin...

Step into the arena. Step outside the bubble. Justin Davis offers the public a personal story of a life in hockey with all aspects considered. What was wrong? What can be changed? What did he like? What should be maintained? With Canada’s national winter sport facing a moral audit, check out our discussion with an NHL draft choice and Memorial Cup champion player turned high school teacher who has...

Baseball banter comes easily to John Gibbons,  but it was a hard and winding road to get to that point. Over two stints covering 11 seasons, Gibbons won over Toronto Blue Jays fans. Getting the Jays back into pennant contention helped, but he became more relatable, a shrewd observer whom fans could imagine sharing baseball yarns and beers with up in the 500 level. Getting there involved 22 seasons...

Whether one calls it soccer or football, the women’s game is coming into its own.  The advancements might seem brand-new considering the first World Cup was held in 1991 and the inaugural Olympic tournament kicked off in 1996. It would also be easy to assume that the charge forward for female footy began in North America.  After all, the United States has had the most success, while Canada is the...

Canada ascending to FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 was surely cathartic for every footballer who has worn the Maple Leaf — especially Dwayne De Rosario, one of this nation's best ever . The Scarborough man helped grow the beautiful game in North America as one of the first stars of Major League Soccer, contributing to four MLS Cup-winning teams and twice earning Cup MVP honours. It gnawed at him, thoug...

Steve Simmons dishes it out, and Steve Simmons takes it.   He would not have that any other way. It’s been A Lucky Life. As a national columnist with Postmedia, his articles are some of the most widely discussed amongst Canadian sports fans. He has also appeared regularly on radio and television including TSN’s The Reporters. Simmons began his professional writing career in 1979 at the Calgary Her...

In 2019, veteran live sports producer John Shannon was — no need for an euphemism — fired by Sportsnet.  As he has learned across nearly a half century in sports media, one has to evolve or die. In this memoir, Shannon writes of how he has absorbed and applied lessons that are wrapped as mortal blows in order not merely survive, but thrive in an often cutthroat field. In “Evolve or Die,” he writes...

When it was announced that Hockey Hall of Fame centreman Bryan Trottier was releasing a memoir, one had to wonder why that had not already happened.  Trottier won the Stanley Cup six times as a player and once again as an assistant coach. The son of a Cree-Chippewa-Métis father and an Irish-Canadian mother from a Saskatchewan ranching family, he also earned multiple major awards an 18-season NHL c...

Barrie Shepley had his eureka moment while working a summer job in an auto plant. Captivated by Canadian swimmer Alex Baumann racing to gold at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, Shepley realized that he wanted to be in elite sport.  His skillset was best suited to being a coach. Chasing greatness began with hustling. Starting from his residence room at McMaster University, he bootstrapped and helped...

It only took 50 years for the original Team Canada to fully participate in a book about that September, in 1972. John U. Bacon, a seven-time best-selling author based in Ann Arbor, Mich., was drafted to put "The Greatest Comeback" into words for a new generation.   Through unfettered access, Bacon expands upon the time-honoured narrative about the Summit Series by blending in modern hockey analyti...

Corey Hirsch played 14 seasons as a professional goalie, including 108 NHL games. He raised the Stanley Cup and came within a postage stamp goal of backstopping Canada to an Olympic Gold medal. But the save of his life never happened on the ice. It happened when he stopped short of driving off a cliff.  The plan was to finally be rid of intrusive thoughts he couldn’t shut off. Now he has learned h...

Ken Caminiti was the type of ball player that fans loved. He electrified third base and the batter's box with a formidable combination of grit, finesse and power. However, it was what the one-time unanimous NL MVP (1996) did after his playing days that stands above the great fielding plays, all-star appearances and revitalizing the San Diego Padres franchise.  In 2002, Caminiti came clean about ba...

Rickey Henderson is as enigmatic as he was dynamic on a ballfield. Major League Baseball's all-time leader in runs scored and stolen bases and greatest leadoff hitter of all time vexed and perplexed teammates, fans and the media as much as he did opposition over a 25-season career. Even up until his induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2009, questions of who Rickey actually is and what has...

We finally landed Survivorman. Les Stroud is a creator who is best known for his world famous TV show, but he is also a musician and an author.  In March 2021, he released Wild Outside: Around the World with Survivorman, his first book aimed at a youth audience. It recently won a Yellow Cedar Award presented by the Ontario Library Association for nonfiction books intended for readers in grades 4 t...

Tyrone (Muggsy) Bogues is one of the most recognizable “names” in NBA history. At five-foot-three, he is the shortest player to ever play at basketball’s highest level and he succeeded with four teams across 14 seasons during the rugged 1980s and '90s.  A testament to his focus, talent and toughness. In April 2022, he released Muggsy: My Life from a Kid in the Projects to the Godfather of Small Ba...

Just Win Baby! Sounds simple enough, but how do you get there? Talent alone isn't always the answer. The inner game is often the hardest aspect to manage. André Lachance (Manager – Women’s National Team - Baseball Canada 2004 – 18) and Jean François Ménard (Author - Train (Your Brain) Like an Olympian) have years of practical and professional experience in mental performance coaching from boardroo...

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 a...

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...