The Way It Looks from Here Contemporary Canadian Writing on Sports

by BRUNT, STEPHEN

• ISBN13: 9780676973525
• ISBN10: 0676973523
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-11-01
• Publisher: Vintage Canada

Summary

In the first ever anthology of its kind, Canada's premier sportswriter Globe and Mailcolumnist and author of the internationally acclaimed bestsellerFacing Ali brings together the best writing on sport in this country, with a strong contemporary flavour. It's all here: classic reports on Canada's great sporting triumphs, from Joe Carter's World Serieswinning home run for the Toronto Blue Jays in 1993 to the excitement of the back-to-back men's and women's hockey gold medals in Salt Lake City. Stephen Brunt gives an entire section to writers who, unlike those covering other beats, must work tightly by the clock, submitting their stories just as soon as the action for the day is over. But he has also chosen our best writers' more thoughtful pieces on our national obsessions such as Ed Willes on the WHA's seven tumultuous years and Wayne Johnston on the Original Six and a good sampling of the great sportswriters such as Trent Frayne, Peter Gzowski and Milt Dunnell. The net effect is an examination of the deep role sport plays in our lives and imaginations, in our sense of self and nationhood. Stephen Brunt has cast his net widely. He includes superb stories of lower profile Canadian sports such as wrestling and horse racing, even Monster Truck battles, and allows space for his own unequalled and unforgettable profiles of Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson, as well as his post-mortem on Ben Johnson's fall from grace. Full of triumph and heartbreak, great writing and great passions and a few wonderful surprises this book will be essential reading for every serious sports fan. Including: Ian Brown on the stud-horse business Christie Blatchford on the 2003 Women's Olympic Hockey Gold Rosie DiManno on the Men's James Christie on Ben Johnson's 1988 Olympic triumph in Seoul Michael Faber on Pat Burns Red Fisher on Lemieux and Gretzky at the 1987 Canada Cup Trent Frayne on Canadian Open golf champ Ken Green deciding to play Sun City during apartheid Bruce Grierson on Canada's best squash player Peter Gzowski on the Oilers with Gretzky Tom Hawthorn on John Brophy's last brawl Brian Hutchinson on Owen Hart's widow's revenge Wayne Johnston on the Montreal Canadiens Guy Lawson on curling Allan Maki on the 1989 HamiltonSaskatchewan Grey Cup Dave Perkins on the biggest home run in World Series history Mordecai Richler on snooker's Cliff Thorburn Steve Simmons on Donovan Bailey Mike Ulmer on Cujo's charm and more... From the Hardcover edition.

Author Biography

Stephen Brunt is Canada’s premier sportswriter and commentator. In addition to Facing Ali: The Opposition Weighs In, he is the author of Mean Business: The Rise and Fall of Shawn O’Sullivan, Second to None: The Roberto Alomar Story, and Diamond Dreams: 20 Years of Blue Jays Baseball. He lives in Hamilton, Ontario.


From the Hardcover edition.

Table of Contents

Introduction	xi
Baseball
Raines Beats $1000-a-Week Habit
Michael Farber
The Gazette (Montreal)	1	(12)
Carter's No Ordinary Joe after Series-Winning Blast
Dave Perkins
Toronto Star, deadline writing	13	(4)
Walker Worthy Target for Jays
Milt Dunnell
Toronto Star, deadline writing	17	(3)
August 7, 1921
Steven Hayward
From Buddha Stevens and Other Stories, fiction	20	(12)
Basketball
White Rules
Gare Joyce
Saturday Night	32	(16)
Boxing
Part of the Game
Allen Abel
The Globe and Mail, deadline writing	48	(5)
Discord Works in Tyson's Favour
Milt Dunnell
Toronto Star, deadline writing	53	(4)
Boxing the Greatest at Ali's Farm
Stephen Brunt
The Globe and Mail	57	(8)
Going the Distance from Reality
Chris Jones
National Post	65	(7)
The Trouble with Tyson
Stephen Brunt
The Globe and Mail	72	(11)
Curling
Merv Curls Lead
Guy Lawson
Saturday Night	83	(20)
Football
Destiny Finally Arrives for Long-Suffering Franchise
Allan Maki
Calgary Herald, deadline writing	103	(4)
Garry Sawatzky: Uncaged Lion
Jim Taylor
Sports Only	107	(7)
Out of Africa
Jack Todd
The Gazette (Montreal)	114	(9)
Golf
Rough Stuff in the Rain
Cam Cole
National Post, deadline writing	123	(6)
Issue Black and White, but Green Sees Only the Colour of Money
Trent Frayne
The Globe and Mail, deadline writing	129	(4)
Weir Wins in Canadian Style
Cam Cole
National Post, deadline writing	133	(6)
Hockey
Lemieux, Gretzky Team for Winner: Oh, Canada!
Red Fisher
The Gazette (Montreal), deadline writing	139	(5)
Pat Burns Goes Home
Michael Farber
The Gazette (Montreal)	144	(8)
Real-Life Slap Shot
Tom Hawthorn
Toronto Life	152	(10)
Mogilny
Iain MacIntyre
The Vancouver Sun	162	(8)
The Montreal Canadiens
Wayne Johnston
From Original Six: True Stories from Hockey's Classic Era, fiction	170	(19)
The WHA Revisited
Ed Willes
Ottawa Citizen	189	(8)
Curtis's Charm
Mike Ulmer
Saturday Night	197	(9)
The Best in the World
Peter Gzowski
Maclean's	206	(5)
Still Scrapping After All These Years
Dave Feschuk
National Post	211	(8)
A Win When It Counts
Christie Blatchford
National Post, deadline writing	219	(4)
Gretzky's Gang Beats U.S. 5--2---and Keeps the Faith for a Desperate Nation
Rosie Dimanno
Toronto Star, deadline writing	223	(7)
Saving the Game
Ken Dryden
The Globe and Mail	230	(9)
Orr's Left Knee Gone for Good
Damien Cox
Toronto Star	239	(5)
Goaltender Suite (iii) ``One of You''; Things in Our Day; Desperate Moves
Randall Maggs
From The Sawchuk Poems, unpublished	244	(8)
Horse Racing
The Flood
Jim Coleman
Toronto Telegram	252	(3)
Front Page Girl
Archie McDonald
The Vancouver Sun	255	(6)
Racing's Other Plate
Beverley Smith
The Globe and Mail	261	(9)
A Stud Is Born
Ian Brown
The Globe and Mail	270	(12)
Silent Cruise
Timothy Taylor
From Silent Cruise: Stories, fiction	282	(27)
Monster Trucks
Return of the Battle of the Monster Trucks
Tom Hawthorn
This Magazine	309	(10)
Pool
Mr. Iceberg
Stan Dragland
From Stormy Weather: Foursomes, unpublished	319	(3)
Snooker
From On Snooker: The Game and the Characters Who Play It	322	(10)
Mordecai Richler
Squash
Court Jester
Bruce Grierson
Saturday Night	332	(18)
Swimming
Olympic Pressure Takes Personal Toll
James Christie
The Globe and Mail	350	(10)
Track
World's Fastest Man Even Faster
James Christie
The Globe and Mail, deadline writing	360	(8)
Simply the Best
Steve Simmons
The Toronto Sun	368	(4)
Unforgiven
Stephen Brunt
Toronto Life	372	(19)
Wrestling
The Widow's Revenge
Brian Hutchinson
Saturday Night	391	(18)
Acknowledgments	409	(2)
Permissions	411

Excerpts

Introduction

Anyone who has written about sport for a living has received the letter, or e-mail or phone call, that always begins with the same few, stinging words: “I don’t know what game you were watching . . .” What invariably follows are great waves of outrage. The correspondent has missed a flagrant foul against the fan’s favourite team, or erred by pointing out some hero’s sin; he or she has overlooked a great coaching blunder, been oblivious to the key contribution of an unsung star, thought the wrong guy won the fight, and in general couldn’t see the forest for the trees.

Sometimes, any or all of that is true, or at least true for one set of eyes, because perspective matters so much. The way it looks from here is not the way it looks from elsewhere because of the life experience and passion and need and cultural baggage we all bring to the table. What’s great and powerful about spectator sport, the reason the athletes and owners make all those millions, is that it can be anything you want it to be, from light background noise to all-consuming obsession, from empty spectacle to full-blown belief system. Unlike the movies or the theatre, sport requires a real commitment from its audience, a sense of identification with the competitors, a rooting interest that extends beyond the final whistle or the last out. That continuing relationship can originate in community identification, or family history, in forging a bond with a single star, in riding high with a great team, or suffering along with a hopeless underdog. Always, though, it’s personal, and in some way unique.

This collection, a very subjectively assembled cross-section of some of the best Canadian writing on sport, is the product of two, commingled “heres.”

The first is the press box — a place where people who have seen too much, who have told the same story too often, who have witnessed the sports gods at both their best and worst and so can’t help but be a bit cynical — still rise to the occasion night after night, capturing the moment in words. There remains the notion that the sports section is the toy department of newspapers, a place not known for journalistic heavy lifting, but where tall tales are spun out of facts. Once upon a time, there was some truth to that, but the contemporary sports writer often faces a far more complex task than do confreres in the parliamentary press gallery or at a corporate annual meeting. A touch of artistry is a given: the sports pages have always been and always will be a place where good writing truly matters. But sports reporters and columnists have been forced to adapt to a world in which it pays to have some knowledge of economics and labour law, of the ins and outs of a criminal prosecution and the machinations of the stock market, of racial politics and government fiscal policy and, of course, the infield fly rule. Even the fantasy part has become more complex, since any fan can see any game at any time. Thanks to the double-edged miracle of the five-hundred-channel universe, the writer no long enjoys free rein as the lone witness to an otherwise mysterious event. It’s not good enough merely to describe, and perhaps even embellish just a little, what people have already seen for themselves (and seen over and over again, in the replays and highlights). And in some ways, they know too much. Readers now harbour doubts about their athletic heroes, and aren’t always willing to suspend disbelief.

So the challenge for the ink-stained wretch is to spin the event and the personalities involved into a neat little story, with insight, with wit, with insider knowledge, to know when to go with the emotion, to be a fan, and when to stand at arm’s length and deconstruct, chipping away at the myth’s foundation. And do all of that in about twenty minutes, or less.

Deadline writing is rapidly becoming a lost art in the business. So much of what fills the pages in the news, the business, the arts sections of any paper, are forms of institutional reporting and analysis, easily collected and written during a nine-to-five day, long before the presses run for what are now all morning newspapers. (The Internet, obviously, is a different animal, with its perpetual deadlines. So far, though, in terms of sport, it’s a medium that is sensational in providing raw information instantly, but that delivers little or nothing of literary value.) Sportswriters are among the last of a dying breed, called upon to think and write very quickly, to watch an event, to analyze what’s taken place, to turn some aspect of that into an easily digestible tale suitable for a saucy T&A&Sports tabloid, or a mass-market broadsheet, or a gray, super-serious, business-driven rag. The selections contained here come from all of the above, and there are gems to be found in every genre. Stories written to deadline, by definition, aren’t as polished as newspaper features that are fretted over for days, or magazine pieces that are fretted over for weeks, or books that are fretted over for years. It’s a literature made up entirely of first drafts. But there’s also an immediacy to it, something raw, in the moment. The images are still fresh in the writers’ minds; the crowd’s roar still rings in their ears. To have started typing seconds after Ben Johnson crossed the finish line, or after Joe Carter’s home run sailed over the left field fence in SkyDome, or after Mario Lemieux’s goal won the Canada Cup at Copps Coliseum, is different than mulling over the event months later. When it’s done well, a little bit of life and blood and sweat and joy makes its way right on to the page.


From the Hardcover edition.

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Excerpted from The Way It Looks from Here: Contemporary Canadian Writing on Sports
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