A podcast on sports books where journalists Neil Acharya and Neate Sager discuss the latest titles with authors and athletes.
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The lead-up to Father’s Day is a fitting time to release our latest episode. That’s because when David Jr. Machado became a dad for the first time, it drove him to fill a void in the children’s book market, not with any grand illusions of riches, but because he wanted a specific sport to be the theme of what he read to his son. The result? Zachary Plays Golf.
Range is a great indicator of talent. In Canadian broadcasting, the versatility of Rod Black is hard to touch. For over forty years, from the early 1980s till present day, he has done it all, from play-by-play for niche sports to mainstream staples, hosting local nightly broadcasts and later, the Olympics….and his talents have served multiple national networks. Since 2021 when Black and TSN parted…
A hook is not ideal in golf, but it is essential for most sports books. In the publishing industry’s present chapter, telling your life story needs an extra layer to get sold. That lies perfectly for Canadian golfer Richard Zokol. A veteran of 412 PGA tournaments over three decades on tour from the early 1980s to 2000s, Zokol shares his application for mental mastery developed over time on the…
As one of the greatest NBA players of all-time, Larry Bird’s life has been covered extensively. Out of common roots in midwestern basketball and out of a passion for regional history, Randy Mills (Retd. Prof. Oakland City University) mines Larry Legend’s origin story. In doing so, he presents the fervent foundation for the sport that existed in Bird’s home state of Indiana, using it as a base to…
Don Cherry’s Coach's Corner segment on Hockey Night in Canada ended abruptly in 2019. Was it ever going to happen any other way? Controversial and entertaining, Cherry spoke his mind to the country for 37 years in the aforementioned first intermission segment. On Nov. 9, 2019, going over the top met with the times at hand and the contemporary media landscape. Cherry was fired by Sportsnet in what…
There is an unending well of culture to draw from when it comes to hockey in Canada. Ronnie Shuker's bucket is full after driving across the country, 30,000 miles (or roughly 50,000 kilometres for you hosers!) in all. After traversing the "true north", Shuker (Editor-at-Large, The Hockey News) emptied his experiences over 244 pages giving further contemporary context to a game that exists in the…
The business of women’s sports has never had this much momentum. So what is it building on? Jane McManus provides a real-time snapshot of where we currently are and how we got here in Fast Track: The Surging Business of Women’s Sports. McManus has spent a career covering sports for major outlets such as the New York Daily News and was a founding columnist for espnW. Now an Adjunct Professor at NYU…
The story, and history of Maple Leaf Gardens is well documented. It has been described as having religious significance, there is reverence and well earned-lore. A loathsome thread exists too. Without question it is one of the most significant buildings ever constructed in Canada and a big part of its legend is that it was completed during the early years of the Great Depression. But what was…
Hakeem Olajuwon left Lagos, Nigeria in 1980 and barely a year after taking up basketball, he blossomed into the game’s first international star in Houston, first collegiately with the Cougars and then with the NBA’s Rockets. In an 18-season career he was a nine-time NBA all-star and two-time league champion. He played his last season with the Toronto Raptors. Olajuwon was inducted into the…
Every hockey fan knows how it always ends for the Vancouver Canucks — no Stanley Cup — but Ed Willes digs in the corners to poke at the why, with a wry perspective. The veteran journalist (Regina Leader-Post, The Province) presents a case study, with novelistic detail, about the West Coast NHL franchise. Weaving a thread — one of instability at the top — through the history (and prehistory) of the…
