790 RISP, Episode 21

The guest and his book

Danny Gallagher, “The Tragic Story of Willie Davis: and Other Expos Vignettes,” Dundurn Press, May 5; 288 pages.

You know him…

Gallagher is the all-time DH — diligent historian — of a lost baseball franchise, the Montreal Expos, nos amours, les Expos de Montréal. “The Tragic Story of Willie Davis” is his 16th book and 11th focused on the Expos. The book has sold well as it evokes the names of the famous and forgotten associated with the Expos, who played in Montréal from 1969 to 2004.

You can find him…

On X (@dannogallagher7) and at the Canadian Baseball Network. Gallagher is part of the Players on Base Committee that is advocating for top-flight baseball to return to Montréal.

Why this book, right now?

It is the heart of the baseball season, and whatever content made now might be needed to tide us over for the lockout in 2027. Any opportunity to remind people Montréal is a city of 4 million people without a top-flight baseball team should be taken.

This episode has plenty of meat on the bone as two Eastern Ontario natives talk some baseball.

When does the interview actually start?

Around the 12:50 mark. Savourez!

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Textually related

In order of recency:

• A.M. (Andy) Gittlitz discusses his “Metropolitans: New York Baseball, the Class Struggle, and the People’s Team,” from Astra House Publishing.

• Sean J. (Jeff) McLaughin discusses his “Royal Treatment: Jackie Robinson, Montreal, and the Breaking of Baseball’s Color Barrier,” from University of Nebraska Press.

On the page — long works

Mike Shropshire’s “Seasons in Hell: With Billy Martin, Whitey Herzog and ‘The Worst Baseball Team in History’—The 1973-1975 Texas Rangers” (Dutton Adult, 1996) and “The Last Real Season: A Hilarious Look Back at 1975 — When Major Leaguers Made Peanuts, the Umpires Wore Red, and Billy Martin Terrorized Everyone” (Grand Central Publishing, 2008) provided background on 1970s baseball and Willie Davis.

On the page — shorter works

Daniel Nugent-Bowman scribed a big read on the infamous 1980 Memorial Cup tournament for Sportsnet a few years ago.

A quote from Canadian Gov.-Gen. Louise Arbour used during the intro segment comes from John Ibbitson, “New LGBTQ monument a reminder to keep standing up to wrongs,” The Globe & Mail, Aug. 24.

Observations about U.S. citizens’ consideration of Canada drew on a column by Elizabeth Renzetti, “What do Americans think of Canada? They don’t — and now they’re facing the consequences,” Toronto Star, Aug. 27.1

Jack Todd, “Billionaire blunders are why the Expos won’t return to Montreal,” Montreal Gazette, July 10, 2023.

Finding an essay by Katy Waldman, “Philip Roth’s Dream of Baseball,” in The New Yorker, May 24, 2018, prompted some reflection on how baseball fosters community—the whole ‘the friends we made along the way.’ Baseball is at the centre of Roth’s The Great American Novel (1973) and draws into his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel American Pastoral (1997).

Friendly FYI: pièces de #Résistance

I post about current affairs in Notes and on Bluesky (n8sager). Hopefully, this is enough for now. Please stay safe and be kind.

Cha Ghèill. Continuez à écrire. Fortsätt Skriva. And keep it Gordy.

April 11-Sept. 2, 2026 | Hamilton, Ont. : traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee, and Mississaugas.

What are you on about, Sager?

Source text

A reflection on baseball’s capacity for emotional regulation and the need to create the game in your mind’s eye… harkening back to a game in early September 1988. The Toronto Blue Jays against the division rival Detroit Tigers, old Tiger Stadium, and the recently departed Duane Ward (1964-2026), then a young relief pitcher in his first full season in the big leagues, coming into a big spot…

Oh, is this going to be about baseball?

All things come back to baseball.

Textually related …

Ontario is having the worst Smoke Season in its history.

That links to sports since it is impossible to have sports and physical culture without good air quality and potable water. The gross incompetence, environmental racism, and anti-accountability, particularly in the Government of Ontario and its ruling party, cannot pass without comment.

The bottom line, if you want your sports and summer evenings, perhaps ally up with First Nations that say this cannot continue without better mitigation.

Here is to reading up so we can support that saying what is correct is correct.

John Vaillant, “Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World,” Knopf, 2023.

Seth Klein, “A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency,” ECW Press, 2020.

Madeleine Orr, “Warming Up: How Climate Change is Changing Sport,” Bloomsbury Sigma, May 2024. Of note, Orr appeared on a podcast I was a part of in 2024, and her text was selected as a Guardian sports book of the year.

Previously …

This episode is, admittedly, a copycat of works by guests who have graced 790 RISP. Hey, if you cannot imitate, copy ’em… Yogi Berra, probably.

Oren Safdie, a playwright and screenwriter, discussed Beyond Ken Dryden: A Memoir this spring.

Ryan Basen was the first author to put his trust in me as a solo indie podcaster, appearing in the fall to discuss his Death of a Childhood: A Memoir of 1989 and the ‘Why Not’ Baltimore Orioles.

Resources

Baseball Reference, “Toronto Blue Jays vs Detroit Tigers Box Score: June 4, 1984,” “Toronto Blue Jays vs Detroit Tigers Box Score: September 5, 1988,” “Toronto Blue Jays vs Washington Nationals Box Score: July 29, 2026.”

Friendly FYI: pièces de #Résistance

I post about current affairs in Notes and on Bluesky (n8sager). Hopefully, this is enough for now. Please stay safe and be kind.

Cha Ghèill, et continue à écrire / fortsätt skriva. Elbows up.

Sept. 5, 1988-July 31, 2026

Storms Corners, Ont., and Hamilton, Ont. : traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee, Omámíwinini and Mississaugas.

Time for the exercise in Cope that is imagining What Would Norm Say about sports in a time of unhingedness that is slow-imploding the United States, with debris and shrapnel flying toward Canada and the wider world. All of this, however clumsy, is well-intentioned and directed at those who will not deal with the abusers; survivors are always heard out with compassion. The wheels of justice move slowly, like the Moth Joke…

Upon heading to the highest point in Hamilton, Ont., and raising the Spirit of Norm, he shared his notebook, a du Maurier, some cold Labatt 50, and said, “In tribute to Canada’s first-ever run to the round of 16 in the men’s World Cup, these jokes contain undeniable effort, but may lack a certain professional finish.”

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Hey everybody. I’m not sure where I am as I write this, but I joined a slo-pitch team. We’re doing great. But we have a big doubleheader next week against the team who’s in first place, and rumour has it that Mitch McConnell is joining them to bat cleanup.

Well, we knew democracy is in trouble, but now even Philadelphia is paying a ransom for an aging King to mark America 250. At least, at this time when rights are under attack, Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce, and 2,000 of their closest celebrity friends used their platforms to stand up for transactional marriage.

But first, next week marks the Major League Baseball trade deadline. Fans of the Toronto Blue Jays would be willing to trade the entire season for a root canal and a colonoscopy, done simultaneously.

Ace lefthander Tarik Skubal, the two-time Cy Young Award earner with the flailing Detroit Tigers, might be the hottest commodity on the trading market. I hear Canada might trade bridge tolls to get him to Toronto!

Seriously, though, Prime Minister Mark Carney faced criticism after the U.S. and Canadian media outlets with U.S. ownership said he gave up too much to get the Gordie Howe International Bridge opened between Windsor, Ont. and Detroit. Some Canadians were all-too-eager to believe it. Good Lord, is your first trade war?

In truth, it is argued, quite reasonably, that “paying an administrative toll of $21 million a year to open a $365-billion annual economic artery for Canadian manufacturers and truckers is not ‘surrender’—it is pragmatic statecraft that leaves Canada holding full ownership of the actual asset.”

Gooooooooo Statecraft!!

There were no U.S. officials at the Gordie Howe bridge’s opening ceremony. All of the U.S. politicians must have sent their RSVP to the same address they used to write to the wildfires.

As mentioned right off the hop, the NBA all-time scoring leader LeBron James is joining the 76ers for his record 24th season. To make it work under the salary cap, as Sportsnet noted, he will be taking the veteran minimum salary and “will earn $3 million less” than Toronto Raptors bench player Gradey Dick. Even in the off-season, he’s still dunking on Toronto!

So, what sealed the deal to get LeBron James to Philadelphia? You guessed it — a private dinner with Frank Stallone!

Some knowers of ball believe the soon-to-be 42-year-old James “could have soared the highest on the Minnesota Timberwolves.” However, James would never sign in Minnesota — there is way too much risk of being asked to play quarterback for the Vikings.

So, James is seeking a fifth NBA championship ring — or third if you do not count injury-plagued, lockout- or pandemic-shortened seasons. That’s right, James is still three rings away from being in the conversation with Michael Jordan. You’re welcome, Xennials.

Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham says she’s not transphobic, but just wants to protect girls and women in changing rooms. When cynics pointed out that her “protecting girls” position seems calibrated to pander to MAGA and raise her profile beyond what her modest pro basketball skills merit, Cunningham reportedly shot back, “Hey, my 9 points and 2 rebounds per game represent far more than what Congress, the Justice Department and Corporate America combined are doing about the Epstein Files!”

In sports media, ESPN has laid off several prominent public-facing talents, including NFL analyst Ryan Clark and longtime baseball play-by-play commentator Karl Ravech. Critics charge that there soon will be nothing left on the network, aside from live events, besides knee-jerk reactions and gambling talk.

Hey, ESPN, quit stealin’ my moves!

When you’re Romo, drink as the Wisconsinites do, but don’t drive!

The NFL on CBS analyst and former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo was arrested late last week in Milwaukee on suspicion of operating a vehicle while under the influence. Authorities say Romo performed poorly on standard field sobriety tests, but his lawyer will contest this by saying the police forgot to warn him it was not a playoff game.

Romo did avoid one serious charge. Wisconsin’s distracted driving law does not include infatuation with Patrick Mahomes.

Anyway, be careful, Mr. Romo. A few more embarrassing drunken episodes, and you might be in line to be the next U.S. defense secretary.

Of course, clickbait articles are pondering potential consequences for Romo. However, if you took a poll of people who consider themselves NFL fans, they’d say, “Hey, leave me alone so I can enjoy what’s left of summer!”

OK, Michael O’Donoghue wrote me some stuff about U.S. politics. He also plays a great third base on our slo-pitch team.

How about that White House Correspondents Association dinner last weekend? I liked it when the journalists — well-meaningly, half-measuredly — presented an award to Wall Street Journal reporters Khadeeja Safdar and Joe Palazzolo for getting goods on the Orange Shitegibbon sending a bawdy birthday card to fellow child-raping pervert Jeffrey Epstein, the child-raping pervert sat on the stage, and everyone either pretended he is not a child-raping pervert or ir-rationalized, ‘it’s not, like, 8-year-olds,’ and listened to him blobviate for a half-hour like he’s not a child-raping pervert.1

Whoops, I probably should copypasta the legal disclaimer: the President of the United States is only an adjudicated rapist.

In the course of last week, the two-time reigning World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers visited the White House.

Sure, some would say the baseball team is just going out of respect for the office of the president of the United States, but if respect for the office was valid, why do a whole network of well-connected people protect a child-raping pervert employed there?

Last kick at the Cup

Some of us are still coming down from, from, all the crazy soccer moments.

Did soccer take over the United States and Canada yet? Or, given how much political corruption and greed marred the tournament, did the U.S. conquer the World Cup?

History will say that Spain captured their second World Cup with a one-nil extra-time win against Argentina on July 19, but we all know who big winners are: OLD WHITE MEN.

The most touching moment came during the pregame ceremonies before the final, when all the U.S. fans stood up and said the Eleven Words in Unison:

Meantime, FIFA president Gianni Infantino and his minions are busy. They promised to find 11,780 Republican votes in Georgia from the 2020 election.

Also, shiteposters get another two years of It’s Coming Home memes. In these uncertain times, we know that in every even-numbered year, there will be a major international men’s tournament, and England will show up with a lot of hype and media attention and, invariably, they will bottle it again.

For some fans, a lot of the air went out of their enthusiasm during the Round of 16 when United States goal scorer Folarin Balogun had his one-game red-card ban reversed after a call from the White House to Gianni Infantino.

Now, now. Sure, pausing an automatic suspension because of political influence — allegedly! — jeopardizes the integrity of an event. However, in this commentator’s opinion, this is so far down the list of what FIFA stooped to cater to MAGA and the Red America maladministration that who even gives a shite anymore.

Well, that’s all I got for now. Bye!

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Friendly FYI: pièces de #Résistance

I usually post about current affairs in Notes and on Bluesky (n8sager). Hopefully, this is enough for now. Please stay safe and be kind.

Cha Ghèill, et continue à écrire / fortsätt skriva. Elbows up.

June 23-July 27, 2026

Hamilton, Ont. : traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee, and Mississaugas.

When all attempts at positivity fall short, believe in Cope — and lift every spirit by trying to raise that of that old chunk o’coal. After several weeks of leaving texts to his realm “unread,” Norm finally got in touch, explaining apologetically that a whole notebook full of great material is “lost somewhere between the pillows on Harold Delaney’s couch. Although, those might not have been pillows.”

Hey, it has been too long. Am I the only one who noticed that on the same day after Canada’s men’s soccer team recorded a first-ever win at the World Cup that felt like a fever dream, there was a Dream-Fever game in the WNBA featuring Jordin Canada?

First, a bit of advice: when you are getting pelted with enshittification balls, get an enshittification bat. And now, the real-fake sports news.

Well, Brady Tkachuk got his wish — to play on the same line with his brother Matthew on the Florida Panthers? No, to play in a state that has no income tax and hero-worships child rapists!

In exchange for Tkachuk, the Ottawa Senators will get three first-round choices — including two in the upcoming NHL draft — and one second. They were, however, unable to get a rostered player in return. Did they even try to tempt Florida by offering them U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra?

Of course, here’s where terminally online hockey fans will point out that a hockey team in Canada’s capital of Od-a-wah cannot trade an ambassador. Hey! If you think rules actually apply to anything, Canada and Michigan have an international bridge they would like to open sometime this summer.

The timing of the trade is awkward. Typically, NHL teams have interviewed potential draft choices by now. But now Canadian teams such as the Senators might want to make a couple more phone calls making a final decision to draft a U.S. player?

On Monday morning in the U.S., a Maryland federal court shot down a Department of Justice lawsuit to gain access to state voter data. Some fear this is part of a White House strategy to tamper with November midterms where Democrats are favoured. Those are administered by states because something-something states’ rights. That makes the Trump DOJ 0-for-9 in such cases. Two more such failures and they can bat third for the New York Mets.

Also on Monday, Keir Starmer resigned as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. What, you mean doing everything that centrist U.S. political commentators told him to do was a losing play?!

Hey, I have a question. If Starmer is no longer PM, who will welcome the England team to 10 Downing Street when Football Comes Home?

Argentina star Lionel Messi scored a hat trick last week, adding fuel to the fire for takes that he is the greatest player in the history of soccer. However, fans of the classics note he scored all of his goals with his feet. Call me when scores one with his hand whilst possibly high on cocaine, like Diego Maradona.

Getting back to hockey, the NHL reminded everyone of an eternal rule: never interrupt the Edmonton Oilers when they are in the middle of making a mistake.

The league decided “there is no current basis to restrict” Mike Babcock from working in the league, three years after he was forced away from the Columbus Blue Jackets before even coaching a game. They went on to say they “completed (a) review of Mr. Babock’s tenure.” In other words, he was barely in Columbus long enough to get half-Babcocked! And if he did great harm to the Blue Jackets, how would anyone tell?

Of course, this overshadowed the Carolina Hurricanes — Taylor Hall! Nikolaj Ehlers! Mark Jankowski! Jalen Chatfield! K’Andre Miller! Brandon Bussi! — winning their second Stanley Cup in team history. (AUDIENCE WHOOPS AND YELLS.)

Got some Hartford Whalers fans here today, I see. Carolina defeated the Vegas Golden Knights four games to two.

The turning point in the series might have, however, been Vegas star forward Mitch Marner’s four-point period in Game 3. It triggered the Hurricanes’ goalie switch that led the Vegas Golden Knights to stop scoring. Toronto Maple Leafs fans were heard to remark, “YOU SEE? MITCH DOESN’T KNOW WHEN YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO HAVE A FOUR-POINT PERIOD IN THE PLAYOFFS!”

Hurricanes captain Jared Staal became the oldest and most thoroughly hetero player to win the Conn Smythe Trophy. He should take pride in that.

Some of those previous winners were some of the most decadent fellows around! Why, in 1987, Ron Hextall won the Conn Smythe even though he was swinging his stick every which way!

I haven’t watched much of the World Cup because it takes away time from my hobbies. Like, so many hobbies. However, I did notice that Toronto had a flood of German fans for Die Mannschaft’s match against Côte d'Ivoire last Saturday. Obviously, many of the German fans were more interested in checking out the art school.

A Boo-Soaked Ford Fest

Last week, Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who a reputable pollster says has a 21 per cent approval rating, was heavily booed by demonstrators at his Ford Fest gathering at a Toronto city park in his borough of Etobicoke. Isn’t it a shame when a community barbecue that is a thinly veiled campaign rally gets crashed simply because the person being fêted has done a little social murder?

For the uninitiated, what is Ford Fest? Some haters have called it a branding exercise where a small-minded politician skirts the lines of campaign finance laws for an annual, ‘sell your soul for a Costco hotdog’ rally that feeds the ego of a wannabe political dynasty in Etobicoke, except when it is Vaughan, and local Nazi cosplayers show up to get a picture.

Now, in the defence of Ford, politicians meet with a lot of people. Unless they are representatives of the public sector and teacher unions, trying to negotiate a collective agreement so workers can lead lives with less stress.

Thankfully, at Ford Fest 2026, underpaid and overworked police officers heroically protected that bouncy castle as though it were an algae-filled reflecting pool.

Surly Sedition

In Washington, D.C., “prank projections” are everywhere ahead of the Fourth of July celebrations. According to The New Republic, these projections variously depict defence secretary Pete Hegseth as a crocodile in a swamp, adviser Stephen Miller as a bat hanging from the ceiling of the Lincoln Memorial, Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz depicted as a sex worker wearing “Trump” underwear, Vice President JD Vance as some kind of worm, and old footage of Trump and together with Jeff Epstein, the financier.

That’s good prankin’. But the best parody has been both parties in Congress.

Over in Alberta, where the separatist movements are totally organic and not a psyop funded by oil companies, the Assembly of Treaty Chiefs voted unanimously to call on the RCMP to investigate Premier Danielle Smith for treason. Said Smith’s spokesperson, “The premier has not committed treason. Once and for all, she is a seditionist.”

Last week, just before National Indigenous Peoples Day, city councillors in Kingston, Ont., voted to change the name of Indian Road to the Ojibway name of Aki Road. Area residents implored their elected leaders not to make the change, with one saying the street name is “part of who we’ve been our whole lives. It’s a place we cherish. It’s home and it seems like it’s being pushed aside.” Damn! If only there were some historical example of this happening to an entire people on a wide scale over hundreds of years.

Comedian Carlos Mencia is facing charges of tax evasion. Hey, Mencia, quit stealin’ my sitcom character’s moves!

And lastly today, or tonight — oh, what’s the difference, I’m dead!! Have a good week, everybody.

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Friendly FYI: pièces de #Résistance

I post about current affairs in Notes and on Bluesky (n8sager). Hopefully, this is enough for now. Please stay safe and be kind.

Cha Ghèill, et continue à écrire / fortsätt skriva. Elbows up.

June 14-22, 2026

Hamilton, Ont. : traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee, and Mississaugas.

Source text

Farhan Devji, “Alphonso Davies: A New Hope,” ECW Press, May 2023. Audiobook excerpts used with permission. —

Just a few words

If every player tells a story, perhaps a ‘small joy exercise’ to do during FIFA World Cup 2026 is reflecting on how players get there. There has to be talent and dedication, but what about the systems that help them progress?

Sport is the best social lubricant there is, even as we fans are priced out of even watching it legally on television, never mind inside the stadiums. What can shine through is your consideration of why we still watch, and what it took for each athlete to get there, and eschew all the hype and hyper-individualism.

Today you get a treat: ECW Press shared two audiobook chapters from Farhan Devji’s 2023 sports biography: “Alphonso Davies: A New Hope,” which was released initially in 2023.

One bit of awkwardness, narratively, is that Alphonso Davies, that lightning-quick linchpin left back for Canada and Bayern Munich, has not been cleared to play in this home-soil World Cup due to a barking hamstring. It is not looking too good for him playing in Canada’s second group game against Qatar on June 18 at Vancouver — his old stamping ground with Major League Soccer’s Vancouver Whitecaps. But we’ll press on.

Alphonso Davies is Captain Canada in a Dangerous Time. This FIFA World Cup 2026 reflects how a key part of the social contract — sport as escapism — has been destroyed by private equity, gambling, and cultural-assault politics. Immigration and refugee resettlement have also become convenient political scapegoats, and it should not be lost that our national soccer teams reflect the great Canadian experiment of inclusion. So, as sport and fandom, the counter play, is living your ideals, values, for good or ill, and looking not and results but, well, the friends we make along the way.

Case in point: as other people, such as Jon Stewart — a pretty fair U.S. small-college soccer player in his youth — have put it, the effing real celebration of America for its 250th birthday did not happen June 14, and it will not happen on July 4. It was in New York City on June 13 after the Knicks won the championship of the National Basketball Association for the first time in two score and 13 years.

That was a celebration for all ideas of America — in no way, shape of form present in the current federal government of the United States. One thinks of ideas that are throughout that country, Canada, Latin America, all over the world. Those watch parties when the Knicks won were people of all creeds, credos, origins, gender expressions, social strata, watching the projections of the closeout game on the side of buildings, all TOGETHER … that social lubricant… all together in unfettered joy and their id hanging out, whether it was truly celebrating the first Knicks finally finding th antidote for two-plus generations of stepondickitis, or just some dunderheads using it as an excuse to break stuff.

To borrow from the full title of Metropolitans, recent guest Andy Gittlitz’s political history of New York baseball,the Knicks were the people’s team. A line on the map away, it felt very parallel to seven years to the exact day earlier when the 2019 Toronto Raptors won the whole schebangabang.

Throughout these often-grim years, I have sometimes thought the Chicago Cubs’ 2016 World Series championship, that image of Bill Murray crying on the field in Cleveland, was The Last Good Thing That Happened. We know what happened right after that. Perhaps the Knicks winning signals some kind of tectonic shift. Or the San Antonio Spurs are just really badly coached.

But I digress. These are not easy times, you know. In the midst of this World Cup, we have to be adults in the room and acknowledge that, as a someone smarter than I put it, it “isn’t a sporting event anymore. This is a highly coordinated asset extraction program.”

Ask not how that can hold, but ask what you can hold to … well, remember, always, always, value the human just being. Think of the intrinsic value of good work.

That brings us to the ascendance of Alphonso Davies, whose parents are from Liberia, oft-called a Little America. And the assists he had along the way … both chapters from “A New Hope” will be just more than 20 minutes long, and are read by Farhan Devji himself, exactly as received from ECW Press….

The first selection is Chapter 3, “The Beautiful Game.” Devji conveys Davies’ early immersion in soccer, and the supports he had on the north side of Edmonton. Then we will jump ahead to Chapter 11, “Road Runner,” explains why Davies is Davies, how he is an evolutionary player since he is so fast, can win 50/50s balls, and line up all over the field. I have zero purchase on being any kind of sophisticated soccer follower, so I needed this, and maybe you do, too.

And perhaps it is a pause to think that Davies, for all the improbability of going from born in a refugee camp to starring for one of the biggest clubs in the world and captain, has had a lot going for him. It was in the people with Inter SC and the footballing community in Edmonton who put what was good for a child ahead of money. It was in the people in Lower Mainland British Columbia who did not put limits on how high he could climb.

Hopefully all that sets this up enough.

En tout cas, savourez de la Coupe du Monde. N'oubliez pas le principe de « distanciation critique active ». That is Active Critical Distancing… for reasons of self-care throttling down the hoopla, the spectacle, the take-having, and just reflect on how those players from all over the world reached that level … because that is the magic you need to see in the théâtre de l’esprit — the theatre of your mind.

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Textually related

Previous podcastia

Firstly, Hockey Night in Canada on linear, over-the-air television is dead, after an announcement from one of the oligopolistic networks on June 16. For Xennials and anyone older, this cuts the sustaining illusion of Hockey Night tying together a far-flung nation once and for all. It is also ironic since U.S leagues, more and more, are realizing local broadcasts need to be on over-the-air channels.

Anyway, in 2018, David Shoalts joined a podcast I was a part of to discuss his, “Hockey Fight in Canada: The Big Media Fight Over The NHL,” from Douglas & McIntrye.

Since this is a guestless episode — guileless, too; I have never guiled! — here is a summary of recent full ’sodes of 790 RISP.

Canadian golf legend Richard Zokol discussed his memoir, “Zokology: Change Your Perspective Not Your Swing — How I Competed and Won on the PGA Tour by Changing the Way I Thought,” from ECW Press. Highly topical with the third men’s golf major, the U.S. Open, coming up. The recent RBC Canadian Open in Caledon, Ont., was a refresher on the new generation in Canadian golf. For a caszhuel golf observer, it was cool, after a discussion of Zokol’s lead-hand theory, that lefty-swinging Sudarshan Yellamaraju was the top Canadian with a top-10 placing.

For a prompt to think about fandom creating culture rather than reflecting it or running separately, there is David Faflik’s, “Segregation Games: Boston, Busing, and the Making of Red Sox Nation,” from University of Massachusetts Press.

Oren Safdie plumbed new depths to the notions of sports-as-theatre in our discussion of his solo stage show turned memoir, “Beyond Ken Dryden,” from , Linda Leith Publishing / Linda Leith Éditions.

Hey, with the World Cup afoot (sorry), there is a month yet to marinate in the sport’s lore. Alex Broad has that covered in “101 Fascinating Football Facts” from Dundurn Press.

One also thinks of Murray Mollard, who, if memory serves, will be in B.C. Place for the Canada-Qatar match on June 18. Mollard lent his time and thoughts on the growth potential of Canadian male soccer, collected in “Winning Pitch: The Canadian Men’s Soccer Team at the World Cup and Beyond,” also from ECW.

And with one blue-and-orange New York City sports team celebrating a championship that united people, there is the ultimate history of the idea of a people’s team — just in baseball, not basketball. A.M. (Andy) Gittlitz was a great guest to discuss, “Metropolians: New York Baseball, Class Struggle, and the People’s Team,” from Astra House Publishing. Gittlitz did mention having some interest in the now-newly anointed NBA champion Knicks, so here is hoping he is celebrating.

Short to medium works

Amarnath Amarasingham, Stephane Carvin, “What Three Extremist Attacks Tell Us about the State of Hate in Canada,” The Walrus, June 4.

Marney Carmichael, Simone Gavros, “Waterdown Islamic school classes cancelled after bus hit with Islamophobic graffiti,” CHCH News, June 2.

Christian D’Avino, “Police investigating hate-motivated arson threats against Whitby women’s shelter,” CBC Toronto, June 5.

Ismael N. Daro, “We cannot continue to ignore the Toronto Sun’s toxic output,” J-Source, Oct. 19, 2018.

Saima Desai, Desmond Cole, “CBSA using ‘harsh, unprecedented’ tactics in Quebec for record-breaking deportations,” The Breach, June 12.

Ali Harb, “U.S. confirms it denied entry to Somali referee set to take part in World Cup,” Al Jazeera, June 8.

Mark Hill, “The awkward tension of cheering on Team Canada this World Cup,” Toronto Star, June 15.

Shaun King, “The United States Just Banned the Best Soccer Referee in Africa from Entering the United States for the World Cup... Simply Because He is From Somalia,” The North Star With Shaun King, June 9.

Paul MacInnes and Alexander Arbo, “Top African referee Omar Artan refused access to U.S. and will miss World Cup,” The Guardian, June 8.

Robert Smigel, “Knicks Championship NY Watch Party and Celebration Highlights (with Triumph’s Handler and Friends),” YouTube/Triumph The Insult Comic Dog HQ and Humor Me with Robert Smigel & Friends, June 15.

Friendly FYI: pièces de #Résistance

I post about current affairs in Notes and on Bluesky (n8sager). Hopefully, this is enough for now. Please stay safe and be kind.

Cha Ghèill, et continue à écrire / fortsätt skriva. Elbows up.

May 28-June 17, 2026

Hamilton, Ont. : traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee, and Mississaugas.

First off, congratulations to whoever’s math mathed for Mitch Marner: there is a place in the hockey world with no state income tax and where 30 regular-season wins is good for two rounds with home-ice advantage.

Make no mistake, the Vegas Golden Knights deserve their flowers if they lift the Stanley Cup this week. The Cup is, with four rounds of best-of-seven and the infamously lip-serviced playoff rulebook, the hardest and most random trophy to win in major men’s pro sports. Winning it takes a singular focus and a supply of anti-inflammatories that would numb a herd of wildebeest.

Perhaps the Vegas media relations team that shielded goalie Carter Hart from pesky questions get to lift the Cup before some of the hockey people. May reliable playoff scorer Brett Howden get so many congratulatory texts, and not suffer “une inexplicable amnésie” — like he apparently did, at the Hockey Canada Five trial involving Carter Hart.

To reïterate, one fun side quest as a fan is about finding mentally healthy ways to let results marinate.

The numbers should not lie. However, in the NHL of commissioner-for-life Gary Bettman, they kind of do! It bears noting that Golden Knights are in line to have the fewest regulation-time wins of a champion team since GaryPucknBall, the hard-salary-cap NHL, was created in 2005-06. That is a problem that can be discussed without a content advisory. The Payoff Matrix in the regular season, guaranteeing each team one point in the standings for a regulation tie, has crept ‘playing for a tie back into the sport. If this has been pointed out in the mainstream hockey discourse, I would not know, since I consume nearly none of that intentionally.

In the regular season, the Knights overwhelmed their opponents only 30 times in 82 starts. They underwhelmed 26 times, and whelmed their way to a Bettman Point in the other 26 contests.

Here are the regulation-win totals of all Stanley Cup winners in no-lockout-or-pandemic seasons across the last two decades:

47: 2008 Red Wings

46: 2022 Avalanche

43: 2011 Bruins

42: 2024 Panthers

40: 2006 Hurricanes, 2017 Penguins

39: 2007 Ducks

38: 2016 Penguins, 2018 Capitals, 2023 Golden Knights

37: 2010 ‘Hawks, 2025 Panthers

36: 2015 ’Hawks, 2019 Blues

34: 2014 Kings

33: 2009 Penguins

31: 2012 Kings

30: 2026 Golden Knights

Those are just the facts, ma’am. And space should be held for the idea it would be dull if the playoffs just became a redux of the regular season.

Vegas, which finished first in the Pacific Division with 95 points (30 regulation wins, 9 overtime-or-shootout wins, and 17 Bettman points), has fewer wins than the 2012 Los Angeles Kings. And those Kings of Drew Doughty, Anže Kopitar and Jonathan Quick reign as one of those great built-for-the-playoffs stories, winning as the No. 8 seed.

So, a Western Conference 8 seed in 2012 had more regulation wins — or real wins — than a division winner in 2026. That might match with an eye test that an inordinate number of games are going to overtime.

At least the Vancouver Canucks have recovered from that first-round loss 14 years ago.

A prime directive of my sports-ing is finding mentally healthful ways to interpret often arbitary results. One stat that is simple and tries to get at the unwritten narrative of sport, instead of the ones a wise friend calls “predictable fodder for the wood chipper.”

That was said in the context of the off-season trade rumours, often more smoke than substance as if our summers are not smokey enough already, that exist solely to keep the hockey talk going endlessly. Eventually, it builds up. It got Marner out of Toronto and to Vegas. An outside observer might say Marner just needed a change in toxic cultures, but that would be cynical.

Last fall, this humble athletics supporter introduced MADDOX to quantify full-season achievement in Major League Baseball. It stands for Meaningful Achievement Determined by Depth of October eXhiliation. (It also spells the name of my nephew.)

However, MADDOX is just as applicable to the NHL. It’s a noble effort to try to quantify a whole season’s work and get away from the all-or-nothing thinking that dominates sports and leaks into our own thought processes. Anyway, I have been working on that, but would prefer to save it until after the Stanley Cup is decided.

How do Bettman points affect the playoffs?

For now, let’s focus on the issue of Bettman Points and the spillover into playing hell with playoff matchups the best reflect the strength of the teams.

A rigorous analysis would look at whether offensive activity decreases in the final 10 minutes of the third period of a tie game relative to other scores. And it would see how many games have required overtime in each season.

For the time being, some back-of-the-bar-napkin calculating shows nearly 1 in 4 games in the NHL regular season, 24.8 per cent, needed overtime in this 2025-26 campaign.

That is getting close to the 25.61 overtime-game rate in 2003-04, the last season before the NHL introduced the shootout. That was also in a much more scoring-suppressed era with the two-line pass prohibition, stifling defensive tactics, and the neutral zone trap. The game has much more skill now.

Through Hockey-Reference.com, I cherry-picked some other seasons. Fellow relics who never saw an issue with the old wins-losses-ties format (W-L-T) know that 4-on-4 overtime and the OL (overtime loss) point was introduced in 1999-2000. Well, the season prior, ties, that problem that was supposedly holding the NHL back from the U.S. mainstream, happened in 13.8 per cent of games, or about 1 in every 7.

Even relickier fans might remember regular-season overtime was not reintroduced until 1983-84. The year prior, ties happened in 15.1 per cent of games, just under 1 in every 6 contests.

What does that have to do with Vegas’s run in these playoffs, though, where they play 5-on-5 overtime until someone scores? Plain and simple, holding out the Bettman point as a carrot discourages teams from playing attacking, competitive hockey, so fans are now only get 2½ periods after paying handsomely to see three, and not just on weeknights in Ottawa.

That blurs and fuzzes the true calibre of the teams, and it effectively interferes in the race for playoff positioning. Is it cool to quote what H.L. Mencken said about hating sports as much as someone who likes sports hates common sense?

This season, and it’s appreciated that the hockey chatterati likely chewed this over months ago, was exceptional. Hockey-Reference.com does a great service by posting each team’s regulation record — RgRec — on its page for each season from 2005-06 onward. This season was especially screwy.

• As mentioned, Vegas had only 30 regulation wins, but nabbed first in the Pacific by a two-point margin over Edmonton, with 32 regulation wins. Vegas had six more overtime contests than the Oilers. They also were granted home-ice advantage in the first round against the Utah Mammoth, who actually had more regulation wins while playing in the deeper Central Division.

• The Washington Capitals had the seventh-most RW, 37, in the league, and missed the playoffs. At least that freed up Alex Ovechkin to watch the world championship.

• A regulation tie was the most frequent result from Los Angeles Kings and Philadelphia Flyers games. The Kings were 22-27-33 in regulation, and the Flyers were 27-27-28. The most ties a team ever had in a no-regular-season-OT season is 24, by the way.

• The Toronto Maple Leafs earned 69 points from regulation results. Nice, at least for anyone registered as a conscientious objector in Leaf Nation.

• Thank goodness the Canucks were 10-8 in extra time, or their season would have been really ugly.

So, 3-point regulation wins, then? Not so fast, mon ami.

That has a downstream effect on the playoffs. It affects who plays whom, and at what stage. That changes all the uncontrolled variables with injuries, bounces, and whether the whole crowd vibe is thrown off by the security theatre surrounding the arena.

The Professional Women’s Hockey League and short-tournament hockey, such as the world championship, use the 3-2-1 system. At the very least, it meets one Professor of Logic requirement. Every game is worth the same number of points!

It will have a comprehension problem, though. The PWHL season is much shorter than the men’s. Over an 82-game NHL season, almost every team would tally 100 or more points. For example, a 3-2-1 system would take the Leafs from 78 points to 101, and no one needs that.

If anything, a better system would take points out. Sports statistics are supposed to be accessible and easy to grasp.

Changing the payoff would change actions, though, and that ought to be addressed; if the league doesn’t, then just deengage from results-based thinking and actively critically distance yourself a little more from the results.

For argument’s sake, though, one has to recalculate the standings with a 3-2-1 system, and the old conference-based 1-through-8 format with division winners seeded in the top-2. Regular-season wins are used as a tiebreaker.

The playoff tree looks a bit different.

Eastern Conference

1vs8: Hurricanes (152 points, 39 RW) vs. Penguins (132, 34)

2vs7: Sabres (151, 42) vs. Capitals (132, 37)

3vs6: Lightning (146, 40) vs. Bruins (133, 33)

4vs5: Canadiens (140, 34) vs. Senators (137, 38)

Western Conference

1vs8: Avalanche (169, 48) vs. Ducks (118, 26)

2vs7: Oilers (125, 32) vs. Blues (119, 33)

3vs6: Stars (150, 38) vs. Golden Knights (125, 30)

4vs5: Wild (135, 31) vs. Mammoth (125, 33)

Your guess is as good as any about how the Stanley Cup tournament plays out with those first-round matchups, whether it is a hard bracket or a re-seed after the first and second rounds.

Overall, a small point is that just because the league adopts a certain playoff format to ensure representation from points across the continent long into spring, one need not have their fan emotions ruled by it.

Under a 3-2-1 points system and the old conference-based format that was used from 1994 through 2004 and ’06 till 13, Vegas draws in a No. 6 seed.

Anyone wanna play in the mud and see how Western Conference No. 6 seeds fared in those 19 seasons of competition? Warning: this section has high amounts of Cliff Ronning1 and Nikolai Khabibulin.

Stanley Cup champion: None

Stanley Cup champion, unofficially: 2004 Flames

Third round: 2003 Wild, 2006 Mighty Ducks, 2012 Coyotes

Second round: 1995 Canucks, 2007 Canucks, 2008 Avalanche, 2013 Sharks

One-and-done: 1994 ’Hawks, 1996 Flames, 1997 Blues, 1998 Coyotes, 1999 Mighty Ducks, 2000 Coyotes, 2001 Oilers, 2002 Coyotes, 2009 Blues, 2010 Kings, 2011 Coyotes

So, the No. 6 seed won two playoff series about once every fifth playoff. The only one to reach the ultimate, final stage is the Jarome Iginla-led 2004 Calgary Flames, who were a sliver of a puck and a few advances in video capability from winning it all.

Also, how did the NHL’s first foray into the desert, the Coyotes, come up more in this subset than anyone else, five times? It’s as if they crawled so the Golden Knights could run…. and hide captain Mark Stone on long-term injured reserve when they need to? They haven’t done that since 2024, and that was the first time they did it since ’23. Get some new material.

Nevertheless, with a little revisionism, Vegas slots into a No. 6 seed. True, they made a late-season coaching change from Bruce Cassidy to John Tortorella. Hart also had only 18 regular-season games — well less than half the workload of a No. 1 goalie on a Western Conference — after being signed. But they were also afforded a cushion by their division, and while it spoils the Leaf schadenfreude maybe a little, it’s undeniably a factor.

Sum it up, Sweaty

Part of the point of the MADDOX concept is to remind people that regular seasons should matter, and yes, playoffs matter more. The playoff-weighted system I have does help show the gap between contenders and also-rans, and I’ll write about it after the Stanley Cup final wraps, since it requires a full season of results.

And, yes, it accounts for teams playing for the regulation tie in a fairly novel way.

Ultimately, here we have seen that the NHL’s payoff matrix is affecting its signature event. And, to understate, that is kind of a problem.

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I post about current affairs in Notes and on Bluesky (n8sager). Hopefully, this is enough for now. Please stay safe and be kind.

Cha Ghèill, et continue à écrire / fortsätt skriva. Elbows up.

May 28-June 10, 2026

Hamilton, Ont. : traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee, and Mississaugas.

790 RISP, Episode 20

The guest and his book

Richard “Disco Dick” Zokol, “Zokology: Change Your Perspective Not Your Swing—How I Competed and Won on the PGA Tour by Changing the Way I Thought,” ECW Press, May 19; 438 pages.

You know him…

Zokol, of Vancouver (hometown) and Kelowna (home now), B.C., is a Canadian golf legend who played in over 450 Tour events in the 1980s through the early oughties and is in four halls of fame. Zokology focuses on the mental and emotional toll of élite golf and the development of MindTRAK Golf, a venture Zokol founded to support the next generation of top linkspeople.

You can find him…

On X @RichardZokol and on the Tough Lies Podcast.

Why this book, right now?

It is a big time on the golf calendar, with the RBC Canadian Open coming up ahead of the season’s third men’s major, the U.S. Open. Zokol once carded 30 on the front nine in a round at the U.S. Open (in 2000 at Pebble Hills in Southern California).

When does the interview actually start?

Around the 12:50 mark.

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Preamble

Whatever you can measure, you can improve. As Richard Zokol asserts, it’s the how of measuring a good golf shot that causes toss-and-turn nights before an early tee time.

In Zokology, Zokol goes into the deep rough of a pro’s mind as he describes his nearly quarter-century as a pro. And he discourses about neuroplasticity, lead-handedness, mental training, and how to “detach from the extrinsic result,” which is the brain-training point of the MindTRAK Golf system he founded in the late 2010s.

“There was a point — and a lot of people do this — where I thought myself right off the PGA Tour,” Zokol relates in an all-new episode of 790 RISP. “And you’ll do it to yourself if you do not have a method in which to follow to keep you present. And when you project forward into what may, or may not happen into those extrinsic results — money, profile …. that’s where you can get in a lot of trouble … Your ego will sneak up on you. You do not want your ego driving the bus.”

Zokol is hopeful that MindTRAK will be endorsed by developmental golf circuits. Taylor Pendrith of Richmond Hill, Ont., one of the Canadians playing full-time on the PGA Tour, was an early adopter.

“I would have loved to have had this program and this understanding back in the ’80s,” Zokol says. “But everything changes, and I am just happy to play my role and share this; it’s the Holy Grail of performance.”

At 438 pages, Zokology might be a par-5. If any testimonial from a non-golfer is needed, though, the completeness is Zokol’s secret sauce. One needs to understand the round-by-round and week-by-week struggle, especially before the PGA took a quantum leap in sponsorships and purses during the Tiger Woods era.

Zokol says that once a friend named Jeff Cox suggested he should thread his stories of representing Canada in the golf world, walking with one-named legends — Jack, Arnold, Lord Byron — the mental approach, swing theories, and feelings about course design into a book, he could not stop. By his estimation, once he started writing about the peaks and valleys of a golfing life, Zokol penned 90,000 words before he even started pitching publishers.

“When I put it on paper, opened that file up, it just started to gush right out,” he says. “And I thought, people will be able to relate to this because golf is a very difficult game.”

Previous Podcastia

Book title contains an episode link

British Columbia authors have been a rich vein for my podcast curiosity!

In order of recency:

• Murray Mollard discussed his “Winning Pitch: The Canadian Men’s Soccer Team at the World Cup and Beyond,” (Harbour Publishing, March 2026).

• Betty Baxter came on to discuss her memoir, “Outspoken: A Journey From Olympic Athlete to Activist” (Harbour Publishing, March 2026).

• Ed Willes, longtime Vancouver Province sportswriter, discussed “Never Boring: The Up and Down History of the Vancouver Canucks” (Harbour Publishing) in a 2024 episode of a podcast I was part of that year.

Textually related

Short works

David Foster Wallace, “The String Theory,” Esquire, July 1, 1996; Sept. 17, 2008.

Long works

S.C. Gwynne, “The Perfect Pass: American Genius and the Reinvention of Football,” Scribner, 2016.

Dan Jenkins (1928-2019), “Dead Solid Perfect,” Knopf Doubleday, 1974, 2000.

Mike Leach (1961-2022), Bruce Feldman, “Swing Your Sword: Leading the Charge in Football and Life,” Diversion Books, 2011.

Steve Magness, “Do Hard Things: Why We Get Resilience Wrong and the Surprising Science of Real Toughness,” HarperOne, 2022.

Friendly FYI: please pick up your pièces de #Résistance

I post about current affairs in Notes and on Bluesky (n8sager). Hopefully, this is enough for now. Please stay safe and be kind.

Cha Gheill, et continue à écrire / fortsätt skriva. Elbows up.

April 17-June 3, 2026

Hamilton, Ont. : traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee, and Mississaugas.

Like a wily leadoff batter, David Faflik thrives at setting the table to lead one to think of other games on top of a game.

The literature professor and author relates that he often tries to put “play” into his teaching. In his new book, “Segregation Games: Boston, Busing, and the Making of Red Sox Nation,” (University of Massachusetts Press on May 18) he takes his cut at a seeming fourth wall in the story of his favourite baseball team. Faflik dives intov popular culture and mass duress, examining the mid-1970s Boston busing crisis that flared after a federal school desegregation order, and was pacific somewhat by the 1975 Red Sox making a run almost to the summit of baseball.

This all requires some exposition, so if listeners want to get to the good stuff with Faflik, feel free to go about the 29-minute mark.

“I’m convinced that society does not just subsume sport, but that sports subsumes society on some level — that there is a kind of hidden play, give-and-take there,” Faflik says in an all-new episode of 790 RISP (reading into sports podcast).

“It’s one space where people can be themselves, do ‘kidding, not kidding,’ “ adds Falflik, a professor in the department of English and creative writing at the University of Rhode Island.

He adds, “The book is about how Red Sox fandom and the historical moment of busing overlap in a mutually reinforcing way.”

The greater New England region has pinned sports triumphs to larger adversities when the threat was external. Faflik notes that save for the lefthanded star pitcher Bill (Spaceman) Lee, omertà overtakes an impulse to tie the historical dots of an unforgettable Red Sox team and a grim time in the city.

In a tidy 177-page book, Faflik “facilitates a better understanding of a subject that is as freighted as contemporary race relations are by making it feel like a form of play.” He also notes, “protests… had the look and feel of sport,” saying some antibusing demonstrations in Boston looked like pep rallies.

Faflik emphasizes there is no “smoking gun” that attributes causality to the Red Sox. Most sports trivia nuts likely know they were the last MLB team to integrate in 1959 — 18 months after Bruins right wing Willie O’Ree of Fredericton, N.B., integrated the National Hockey League.

However, when looking at how the organization under chairman Tom Yawkey dug in against integration and received compliance check-ups from the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination; how talented centrefielder Reggie Smith “was run out of town”; and a white player he was traded for started taking a stuffed gorilla on road trips, Faflik notes, “Given what’s happening with the busing crisis, you can’t really call this an age of innocence.”

However, one feels about that, the book is a prompt to think about other “Games” as people live in competition.

David Faflik’s other books are “That Futebol Feeling: Sport and Play in Brazil’s Heartland” (Temple University Press, February 2025) and “The Literary Gift in Early America” (Stanford University Press, March 2025).

Topics discussed are included but not limited to:

• “A long-standing weight that’s carried with me”; how Faflik’s early adoption of the Red Sox, as a native Ohioan, put the spur to write social history about Boston

• The necessity of making sure to avoid “some kind of neatly dividing line” in revisiting a period of strained racial relations in 1970s Boston

• Effects on community sport — Boston cancelled an entire high school football season due to tension, which fuelled protest movements

• In the present, how prediction markets have become a game that Faflik notes is “institutionalized at the highest levels of (the United States) government”

• Spotting current instances of racist stereotypes being bandied by upset fans, with a very specific Toronto Blue Jays-sphere reference

• “My sense is that if he ever needs to get out of the country quickly, he’s well-positioned to do so”; on speaking with Bill Lee, who now resides in northern Vermont near the international border.

The épilogue also mentions:

• The experience, as someone from the area where The Tragically Hip took their first steps to becoming Canada’s Band, of seeing the world premiär of “It’s a Good Life If You Don’t Weaken,” the stage musical that features 18 of the band’s songs

• And how the play’s themes subtly comment on the situation Canadians are facing now in the face of imperialism and new forever wars, same as the old forever wars

• The one simple request for branding a new sports team in Hamilton

• The Hamilton, Ont., intersection that demonstrates Ontario’s Autocracy Games

• Memories of the “George Bell Karate Kick game.”

The interview was recorded May 17, 2026, through StreamYard and condensed with Audacity.

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Textually related

Book title contains an episode link

A few episodes influence the conversation with David Faflik and the content of other segments.

In order of recency:

• A.M. (Andy) Gittlitz discusses his “Metropolitans: New York Baseball, the Class Struggle, and the People’s Team,” from Astra House Publishing.

• Sean J. (Jeff) McLaughin discusses his “Royal Treatment: Jackie Robinson, Montreal, and the Breaking of Baseball’s Color Barrier,” from University of Nebraska Press.

• Harvey Sahker provides important context about the minor-league matriculation of Reggie Smith in his recently released “Before The Blue Jays: Professional Baseball in Toronto Prior To 1977,” from Dundurn Press.

• Ed Willes, inspired by his Red Sox fandom, researched and wrote, “Never Boring: The Up and Down History of the Vancouver Canucks” (Harbour Publishing). He discusses it in a 2024 episode of a podcast I was part of that year.

• Also from ’24, Melissa Ludtke released her memoir, “Locker Room Talk: A Woman’s Struggle To Get Inside” (Rutgers University Press). Ludtke, by luck-is-the-residue-of-design happenstance, is a keynote speaker on May 27 (that is today!) at the National Baseball Hall of Fame’s Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture.

• The perspective of the team that, in another, more accurate way, won the 1975 World Series. is covered by Keith O’Brien in his The New York Times bestseller list, “Charlie Hustle: The Rise and Fall of Pete Rose, and the Last Glory Days of Baseball” (Pantheon).

• From 2022, Boston native Howard Bryant discusses his “Rickey: The Life and Legend of an American Original” (Mariner Books).

Textually related

On screens

Jon Bois, “George Bell: The fighter MLB chose to forget,” Secret Base / YouTube, May 15.

Gary Waksman, David Gavant, and David Check, “Four Days In October,” ESPN, MLB Productions, 2010.

On stage

Ahmed Moneka, Jesse LaVercombe, “It’s A Good Life If You Don’t Weaken,” Thousand Islands Playhouse, The National Arts Centre, National Creation Fund, 2026.

Long works

Bryant, “Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston,” Routledge, 2002.

George Bell, Bob Elliott, “Hardball,” Key Porter Books, 1990.

H.G. (Buzz) Bissinger, “Friday Night Lights: A Town, A Team, A Dream,” Addison-Wesley, 1990.

Stephen Brunt, “Diamond Dreams: 20 Years of Blue Jays Baseball,” Penguin Group (Canada), 1996.

Alison Gordon (1943-2015), “Foul Balls: Five Years in the American League,” McClelland & Stewart, 1984.

Scott Gray, “The Mind of Bill James: How a Complete Outsider Changed Baseball,” Doubleday, 2006.

David Halberstam, “Summer of ’49,” William Morrow Co., 1988.

Magic Johnson, with William Novak, “My Life,” Random House, 1992.

Bill Lee, with Richard Lally, “The Wrong Stuff.” Three Rivers Press, 1984.

Glenn Stout (ed.), “Impossible Dreams: A Red Sox Collection,” Mariner Books, 2003.

Short to medium works

Jeff Angus, “Reggie Smith,” Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), Jan. 10, 2016.

Marie Brenner, “The Confession of a Rookie in Pearls,” Esquire, July 1, 1980.

Ernie Clement, “Dear Jays Fans,” The Players’ Tribune, March 26.

Alexander Edelman, “Jim Rice,” SABR, Jan. 7, 2015.

David Faflik, “Hope Springs Eternal, or the Story Behind Segregation Games,” umpmarketing, May 4.

Arpita Ghosal, Scott Sneddon, “From bromance to romance: inside the new Tragically Hip musical,” Sesaya Arts, May 7

Dan Holmes, “Willie Horton,” SABR, 2008.

Bill Nowlin, “Tommy Harper,” SABR, Dec. 1, 2018.

Bill Reynolds, “Harper exposed the nation’s divide,” The Providence Journal, Oct. 22, 2014.

Chris Smith, “That’s Him in the Spotlight: How Lane Kiffin Eagerly Became the Most Polarizing Coach in College Football,” Vanity Fair, May 11.

ESPN News Services, “Yawkey Way name change gets green light from Boston,” ESPN.com, 2018.

“1974 Boston Desegregation Hate,” r/HolyShitHistory,

Friendly FYI: pièces de #Résistance

I post about current affairs in Notes and on Bluesky (n8sager). Hopefully, this is enough for now. Please stay safe and be kind.

Cha Ghèill, et continue à écrire / fortsätt skriva. Elbows up.

Feb. 20-May 27, 2026

Hamilton, Ont. : traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee, and Mississaugas.

For Oren Safdie, it can be 2026 or 1971 at the same time when it comes to his beloveds, the Montréal Canadiens. Present tense is best, on ice, on stage, or in the stands.

Like an NHL team’s chance to win the Stanley Cup, the opportunity to connect with the award-winning Canadian-American-Israeli playwright and screenwriter and talk sporrrts! and how he writes to capture the human condition. Suffice to say, my eyes flashed like Rocket Richard in those vintage photos upon seeing that Safdie published “Beyond Ken Dryden: A Memoir” (May 1, Linda Leith Publishing / Linda Leith Éditions). Reading like a novella, the text is adapted from the solo stage show depicting Safdie’s 1970s Montréal boyhood. And talk about topical — the book went to market while the current iteration of the Canadiens are playing long into the spring.

“There was a security in knowing the Canadiens could elevate your emotions every year,” is how Safdie describes his boyhood attachment in conversation on 790 RISP, Reading Into Sports Podcast.

“I personally, sports became a huge part of my life. It was probably what saved me.”

Safdie relates that he drew from his own teaching to develop “Beyond,” to which Dryden (1947-2025), the Hockey Hall of Fame goalie, best-selling author, and parliamentarian, contributed notes. The work started while Safdie was teaching a class in personal narrative writing at St. Olaf College in Minnesota.

“One of the things I emphasize is that writing in the present form is much more connected to your audience,” Safdie says. “Instead of, ‘I remember when I went to the restaurant and I ordered three hot dogs,’ it is, ‘I go to the restaurant. I plop down my money. I order these three hot dogs.’ So you are living it even though it is in the past; you are living it in the present.

“And that also lends itself to an actor on stage. When he is reading, or saying these words, it’s almost as if he’s reliving this situation.”

To paraphrase the tagline from one of Richard’s commercial endorsements, two minutes for immediacy. “Beyond” débuted at the Montreal Fringe Festival in 2024 and ran at the renowned Soulpepper Theatre in Toronto in the spring of 2025. It is a solo show depicting Safdie, from kindergarten age till adolescence, turning to the Canadiens and Dryden amid competing turmoils — family separation and the effect of Québécois separatism. (It is a lot. Read the book. No further spoilers.)

For Safdie, his rite of passage into Canadiens fandom occurred in 1971, when a 23-year-old Dryden and the Canadiens loosened Bobby Orr and the Big, Bad Bruins’ grip on the Stanley Cup. The heavily favoured Bruins — as any hockey trivia lover knows, that was the season Phil Esposito had 76 goals and 152 points, setting the record bar for that Wayne Gretzky fellow — and Canadiens were pitted in an opening-round series. Dryden and the Canadiens won that round, and went on to the first of six Stanley Cup victories in that decade.

The Canadiens in those days were at once the glue holding together Montréal and Québec, and also an affirmation of Québécois identity. That has already been a theme in a play, “Les Canadiens,” by Rick Salutin (“with an assist from Ken Dryden”), whose story arc begins in 1759 with the Battle of the Plains of Abraham and climaxes on Nov. 15, 1976,1 the night the Parti Québécois won their first election mandate. But Safdie notes what stood out about the Canadiens was “their mix of players from Québec and Ontario,” during a time when the NHL workforce was heavily Canadian.

The 2026 Canadiens are a somewhat unlikely conference-final contestant, and they are a bit too reliant on their power play. That’s another bailiwick.

Safdie sees a parallel to those glory days in the way Montréal has emerged as a young, endearing team led by the likes of Nick Suzuki, Juraj Slafkovský, Cole Caufield, Lane Hutson, Alex Newhook, and Ivan Demidov. Goalie Jakub Dobeš is from Ostrava, Czechia rather than Etobicoke, Ont., but like Dryden in ’71 he is six-foot-four, and wearing the braid of two Game 7 away wins.

“For a while in sports, there was a lot of focus on free agents, but now you’re seeing it come back to the idea of building a culture,” Safdie says in a conversation recorded May 13. “They really have the right mix of people. And there is absolute love for that team.

“Sports has a way of focusing us in on what’s important,” he says. “Sure, there’s politics and everything else, but at the end, we’re just people.”

Safdie’s father, Moshe Safdie, is the master architect who designed the one-of-a-kind Habitat 67. And yes, that one-of-a-kind housing structure comes up in conversation, since Oren lived there as a child.

Oren Safdie’s on-stage works include plays such as “Boycott This!”; “Checks and Balances,” “Gratitude,” “Hyper-Allergenic,” “Laughing Dogs,” “Mr. Goldberg Goes to Tel Aviv,” “Private Jokes, Public Places,” and “Unseamly.” The above-mentioned “Gratitude” will be in the Toronto Fringe Festival this summer, and he is also the author of the forthcoming film “Lunch Hour,” starring British Columbia-born Thomas Middleditch, Alan Cumming, and Krysta Rodriguez.

By the end of the chat, Safdie had left a reminder of why it’s always better live, in any realm.

“With live theatre, it’s like a sporting event — you don’t know what’s going to happen. It’s not like a movie that’s already been produced and put together. Sometimes I’d rather go see bad theatre than a film. You don’t know what’s going to come out of it. Nobody knows.”

Topics discussed are included but not limited to:

• Ken Dryden’s sensitivity about the power of teaching by example

• How “Beyond” evolved as a project, with Safdie taking inspiration from his St. Olaf students, and with Dryden giving notes

• The challenge of writing about family experiences

• The act of fandom and loyalty, as Safdie learned early in life from his mother

• Safdie’s vibe checks on 2025 Toronto vs. 2026 Montreal

• The experience of attending games in the fabled Forum with his grandfather, a Syrian-born merchant who had season tickets

• The notion that one can have two tracks in early life, the “difficult” and “wonderful” childhood

• “It was like lightning hit the Kremlin”; Safdie’s classmate’s reflection of the effect that the 1972 Canada-USSR series had behind the then-Iron Curtain

• Safdie’s experiences as a helper at Montreal Alouettes football practices in the ’70s, when they had teams with legends such as Sonny Wade, Peter Dalla Riva, and Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Rodgers

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Previous Podcastia

Book title contains an episode link

Karissa Donkin shouted out her initials-sake during her 790 appearance last November to discuss her “Breakaway: The PWHL and the Women Who Changed The Game” (Goose Lane Editions, 2025).

Ken Dryden was discussed his final book, “The Class: A Memoir of a Place, a Time, and Us” (Penguin Random House Canada) on a podcast I was a part of in 2024.

In 2022, John U. Bacon (“The Greatest Comeback”) and Scott Morrison (“1972: The Series That Changed Hockey Forever”) discussed their books about the 1972 Canada-Soviet Union Summit Series.

Manon Rhéaume, general manager of the PWHL Detroit expansion team, discussed her autobiographical children’s book, “Breaking The Ice: The True Story of the First Woman to Play in the National Hockey League” in 2020.

Serge Savard, a 1970s Canadiens hall of fame defenceman, discussed his “Forever Canadien” in 2020.

Textually related

Long works

Ken Dryden (1947-2025), “The Game,” MacMillan of Canada, 1983; “Scotty: A Hockey Life Like No Other,” McClelland & Stewart, 2019.

Ken Dryden and Roy MacGregor, “Home Game: Hockey and Life in Canada,” McClelland & Stewart, 1989.

Dick Irvin, “Now Back to You Dick: Two Lifetimes in Hockey,” McClelland & Stewart, 1988.

Shorter works

Dr. Matt Hoven, Tracy J. Trothen, “What the Montreal Canadiens’ hockey playoff run reveals about faith, belonging and the sacred,” The Conversation, May 9.

Jennifer Hsiung, “Playwright and screenwriter Oren Safdie discusses his new play, ‘Beyond Ken Dryden,’ ” CP24, May 16, 2025.

Luca Ittimati, “Australia’s 1980 Moscow Olympians were ‘labeled as traitors’. Now they’re finally being recognised,” The Guardian, July 19, 2025.

Sudna Krishnan, “Montreal playwright relives Habs’ heyday in his memoir, Beyond Ken Dryden,” CBC News, April 24.

Lisa Timpf, “Beyond Ken Dryden: A Memoir by Oren Safdie,” Seaboard Review of Books, Jan. 19.

Anya Wassenberg, “Oren Safdie Talks About His Play Beyond Ken Dryden And Its Toronto Premiere,” Ludwig-Van.com, May 1, 2025.

Hunter Weaymouth, “In Theatre Aquarius’ new Tragically Hip jukebox musical, emotion comes first,” Intermission, April 21.

Paul Wells, “Team player: Ken Dryden and politics were an uneasy fit, but we can still learn from him,” Paul Wells Substack, Sept. 6, 2025.

Stephi Wild, “Oren Safdie Returns to Montreal With BEYOND KEN DRYDEN,” May 8, 2024.

Friendly FYI: pièces de #Résistance

I post about current affairs in Notes and on Bluesky (n8sager). Hopefully, this is enough for now. Please stay safe and be kind.

Cha Gheill, et continue à écrire / fortsätt skriva. Elbows up.

March 29-May 20, 2026
Hamilton, Ont. : traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee, and Mississaugas.

Take it from Alex Broad — FIFA cannot put a price on the value of absurdities and anecdotes — such as the player whose contract was transferred for a freezer of ice cream.

All that, and an overarching love of the game is on offer in Broad’s book, “101 Fascinating Football Facts” (Dundurn Press, April 28). Released just weeks before FIFA World Cup 2026, where 13 of the 104 matches will be played in Canadian stadiums in Toronto and Vancouver, the book is part of a series from Dundurn that where experts right about the love of a sport or form of entertainment in easily communicable and consumable chunks, encouraging lifelong learning.

“Whether you are a diehard fan or a casual up-and-comer, there is always going to be something you do not know about a sport,” Broad says on the latest episode of 790 RISP, Reading Into Sports Podcast.

“There’s always going to be something interesting, or something absolutely bizarre, that you were not aware of … one of the fun things about this book is the whole trivia aspect. With the World Cup coming up, you can know this fact, and when you’re watching a game, that can open up whole new lines of discussion.”

Canada hosted the Women’s World Cup in 2015, and both female and male age-group teams have hosted (one of the best vignettes in Broad’s book is about that 2002 under-20 women’s final). Next month will be as big as it gets for the generation that grew up with a ball at its feet (to quote the ad campaign), regardless of how the footballing Fates might align for Canada, beginning with the fitness of left back Alphonso Davies.

Broad, a Kingston, Ont., resident, has an active social media presence on the quondam Bird app — @alexjbroad, @krakencanada and @wrexhamcanada on X.

Some, but not all of the topics encountered in this episode:

• Why personal stories and oddities are more stirring for potential new fans than a focus on the transactional

• How Broad, an Ontario resident, beat Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney to Wrexham AFC

• The emotional aspect of the promotion-relegation system, and how it could look in North American leagues, such as the NHL

• The much-discussed price-points and political tension enveloping the World Cup

• How the Football Manager simulation was an entry point into Broad developing his soccer fandom

• His discovery of the history of early women’s footie in First World War-era United Kingdom, and Italy’s role in the recovery of the women’s game

• A personal story from the host about an out_standing chirp one night in a Kingston, Ont., Irish pub

• Revisiting midwinter NBA Finals predictions by guests Dalton Higgins (101 Fascinating Basketball Facts, Dundurn Press) and Oren Weisfeld (The Golden Generation, ECW Press).

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Previous Podcastia

Book title contains the episode link

Dalton Higgins appeared this winter to discuss, “101 Fascinating Basketball Facts” (Dundurn Press).

Murray Mollard discussed his “Winning Pitch: The Canadian Men’s Soccer Team at the World Cup and Beyond,” (Harbour Publishing, March 2026) on 790 RISP on May 6.

Oren Weisfeld discussed his first book, “The Golden Generation How Canada Became A Basketball Powerhouse” (ECW Press).

Suzanne (Suzy) Wrack discussed her “A Woman’s Game: The Rise, Fall, and Rise Again of Women’s Soccer” (Triumph Books, 2022) on a podcast where I contributed.

Textual relations

Long works

Ken Bensinger, “Red Card: How the U.S. Blew the Whistle on the World’s Biggest Sports Scandal,” Simon and Schuster, 2018.

John Doyle, “The World is a Ball: The Joy, Madness and Meaning of Soccer,” Doubleday Canada, 2010.

Simon Kuper, Stefan Szymanski, “Soccernomics: Why England Loses, Why Germany and Brazil Win, and Why the U.S., Japan, Australia, Turkey—and Even Iraq—Are Destined to Become the Kings of the World’s Most Popular Sport,” Nation Books, 2009.

Short works

Henry Grabar, “The Unhappy Hosts of the World Cup,” The Atlantic, May 13.

Allan Woods, “There’s no hiding the ugly face of World Cup 2026,” Toronto Star, May 19.

Friendly FYI: pièces de #Résistance

I post about current affairs in Notes and on Bluesky (n8sager). Hopefully, this is enough for now. Please stay safe and be kind.

Cha Ghèill, et continue à écrire / fortsätt skriva. Elbows up.

March 29-May 20, 2026

Hamilton, Ont. : traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee, and Mississaugas.

That old chunk of coal hasn’t been sending in jokes from the Great Beyond. He did, however, send what appears to be an attempt to get back into writing TV scripts. It’s no “A Minute With Stan Hooper,” but Norm’s contract says anything he sends in has to run, within the “post too long for email” limits.

“Norm Saves The Segment, Nay, The World”

By Norm Macdonald and Jim Germany1

INT. NIGHT -– “LATE NIGHT” STUDIO, 15 MAY 1997

COME UP on a tight shot of a late-night host, Conan Christopher O’Brien, a well-coiffed Irish-Catholic ginger from New England. You can never trust a ginger from of them fancy Easterner schools. On his immediate right is Norm Macdonald, flanked by some Swedish-German fella, Andy Richter. It’s the period between the first guest and the band.

CONAN: All right everybody, we’re back. Uh, ladies and gentlemen, for the last five seasons my next guest has played Allison Parker — one of the many dysfunctional but gorgeous residents of “Melrose Place.” Please welcome, Courtney Thorne-Smith.

Norm and Andy GET UP to move one spot to the right. Courtney, a blonde woman in her late 20s wearing a leather jacket over a black top with jeans, ENTERS.

AUDIENCE: [Applause]

BAND: [Music]

She is instantly ENFOLDED IN A HUG by Norm. Conan GETS UP FROM HIS DESK. He LIGHTLY SHOVES Norm into the middle chair and offers Courtney a handshake.

CONAN: Norm, Norm, Norm, you’re sick, and you are all over her like a bear rug! Just leave her alone.

NORM: No, no, you know, because before, during the commercial, I was saying I had a huge crush on her! And then you said, you did too!

CONAN: I did, when you were on “Day by Day.” I had. I developed this big crush on you, and this whole talk show is a scheme to get you here.

NORM: I liked her when she was on “The Tomorrow Show” with Tom Snyder. Not “The Tomorrow Show.” But “The Later Later Show.”2

CONAN: He says to me in the break—

COURTNEY: — you have no idea who I am.

NORM: Yeah, I know you from that show, that’s all.

CONAN: He says to me, ‘I really like her, her, I really think she’s great. I really have a crush on her.’ And I said, ‘where do you know, oh you saw her on “Melrose Place?” And he said, ‘no, I was watching “Tom Snyder” and she was on and she was a great guest!’ And I said, ‘Wait a minute, that’s the show that’s opposite our show!’ Why aren’t you watching our show, pal?

NORM: ’Cause I wasn’t on it that night!

COURTNEY (rising): I gotta go!

CONAN: No, stay, we have exciting stuff to talk about! You’ve been on this show “Melrose Place” for five years—

COURTNEY: For five years—

CONAN: And now you’re leaving. Why are you leaving?

COURTNEY: Uh, it’s just, it’s time, you know.

CONAN: I feel like Oprah.

COURTNEY: I mean, how many times can you get fired, rehired, drunk, sober…

CONAN: Yes, I see. You mean you got tired of… because they had your character pretty much go insane, go through all these really weird—

COURTNEY: Allison has been through so much. I was sexually harassed, carjacked, had an affair with a married man who then tried to rape me, and then shot himself while on the phone with me. I was drunk, sober, while getting sober, though, I got to have an affair!

CONAN: Did he do all that stuff on the phone with you or just shoot himself? I’m curious.

COURTNEY: No, I was on the phone in the office, which makes it really awkward!

CONAN: All right! Okay!

COURTNEY: And he was in Seattle and he shot himself—

CONAN: Oh my god!

COURTNEY: —While he was on the phone.

CONAN: And so you finally said there’s no more that this character can do?

COURTNEY: Right, I can’t do any more. I’ve been married and divorced and widowed and it’s it’s too much.

CONAN: What’s going to happen in the season finale? Can you give us a tip for all those fans out there on what’s going to happen?

COURTNEY: I can’t tell you.

CONAN: Ohhhhh-kkkkay. Goodnight everybody, we had a good time! But no, I mean give us some sense of it, like is it one of those…. ’Cause every year they try and have a season finale where everybody gets into a Zeppelin and blows up, you know?

COURTNEY: Well, now you’ve given it away.

CONAN: It’s a Zeppelin! It’s a Zeppelin! Alright.

The mention of a Zeppelin reminds Norm of that tragedy…

NORM: Are you talking about “Melrose Place?”

CONAN: You’re the biggest ass I ever met, and I love you for it.

NORM: No, ’cause I swear to God when I lived in L.A., I lived on the actual street called Melrose Place. There’s an actual street.

CONAN: There’s a Melrose. Is there really a Melose Place?

NORM: You know this, right?

COURTNEY: Yes, it’s true.

NORM: So they open a restaurant called Melrose Place on it, and then it’s right beside my house. And every time I go out there’s all these, like, tourists! And these tourists are always fat, and they’re takin’ pictures standing in front of this restaurant.

CONAN: Uh-huh? Yeah?

AUDIENCE: [Applause]

CONAN: What, uh now I want to talk you about something, ’cause this came up earlier in the show, accidentally, ’cause I didn’t know what Norm was going to talk about tonight — and it’s best sometimes if I don’t know…. But he mentioned Carrot Top. You are making a movie with Carrot Top right?

COURTNEY: Made a movie with Carrot Top.

CONAN: Okay. You made a movie with Carrot Top, it’s not out yet.

COURTNEY: No.

CONAN: Can you put the picture up of Carrot Top again, so we can all see him? All right.

NORM: Waitaminute. She left “Melrose Place” to do a movie with Carrot Top?

CONAN: That’s where I’m going, my friend! This begs the question: now, now, why a movie with Carrot Top?

COURTNEY: Why a movie with Carrot Top?

CONAN: I mean, I don’t know much about Carrot Top. I’m a little jealous ’cause he’s a redhaired comedian, and I felt like maybe you do a movie with me first, then move on to Carrot Top, then to Ralph Malph from “Happy Days.”

You know, sort of the three, there’s an order in which you do movies with the redheads. What, what’s he like, first of all?

COURTNEY: He’s extraordinarily sweet.

CONAN: Nice guy?

COURTNEY: He really is! And he worked very hard, and he was adorable.

CONAN: And he worked with a lot of props and stuff, too, right?

COURTNEY: Not in the movie.

CONAN: Oh, in the movie, they took his props away!

COURTNEY: They took his props away.

CONAN: That’s a bad time to suddenly take away everything you know about comedy! ‘You know, you’ve been using props now all your life for comedy — now we’re going to take him away when you make your first movie! Was he okay, though, with it? Was he cool?

COURTNEY: He was great, he did a wonderful job.

CONAN: You have a scene where you and him… embrace?

COURTNEY: Yeah, lots of making out.

CONAN: Ohfergodssake.

COURTNEY: Nothing but making out all right. It’s like “9½ Weeks, But Carrot Top,” basically what we were doing

CONAN: WOW! I got to check out that movie!

There is blood in the comedy water, and the Norm is a joke shark, serving a youthful purpose … the males 18-to-34 demographic.

NORM: Is it called “9½ Seconds”? (Long pause, then mumbled) Like he’s a premature ejaculator.

COURTNEY (murmured): We got it.

CONAN: You know, you know what happened. This is what happened, you know what happened. He said “9½ Seconds” and I’m looking at him ’cause I know there’s more and I wait and wait and I see the glimmer in the eye and then, bang! What’s the movie gonna be called?

NORM: I know what it’s going to be called.

CONAN: Yeah, what’s that?

NORM: If it’s got Carrot Top in it, you know what a good name for it’d be?

CONAN: What’s that, Norm?

NORM: “Box Office Poison!”

COURTNEY: I’m in it too!

CONAN: She’s in it!

COURTNEY: What about my career?

CONAN: Courtney Thorne-Smith, the young woman sitting to your left, is in the movie!

NORM: I’m going to go see it for you!

COURTNEY: After you scare everyone away?!

NORM: No! I love this girl! I would see any movie with this girl in it! She’s a beautiful lady and a talented, nice talk show guest, okay?

CONAN: As evidenced… by her appearance on our rival show!

All right, well there is this two-hour season finale of Melrose Place; there’s this movie coming out, title undetermined at this point.

COURTNEY: “Chairman Of The Board.”

CONAN: Oh. All right, do something with that, you freak!

NORM: I bet the “board” is spelled B, O, R, E, D.

CONAN: All right, everybody, that’s pretty much it. We’re going to take a break now! We’re going to have Collective Soul in a second! Courtney Thorne-Smith, we hope she’s still our friend! We do love you.

FIN

- 30 -

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Friendly FYI: pièces de #Résistance

I post about current affairs in Notes and on Bluesky (n8sager). Hopefully, this is enough for now. Please stay safe and be kind.

Cha Gheill, et continue à écrire / fortsätt skriva. Elbows up.

May 15, 1997-May 15, 2026

Loyalist Twp., Ont., and Hamilton, Ont. : traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee, Omámíwinini, and Mississaugas.

(Editor’s note: this episode does have some audio issues. Hopefully it does not affect your enjoyment.)

For Murray Mollard, the time is now to plan how Canada can take the next step on the international men’s fútbol stage.

Come what may amid geopolitical turmoil and inflated prices at the men’s FIFA World Cup 2026, Canada Soccer will realize a boost from serving as a co-host this summer. Mollard, as a lifelong devotee of soccer in Canada, is concerned about the game’s grassroots. Over the last few years, he trained a lawyer’s mind and a lifelong passion into a ‘cele-critical’ work, “Winning Pitch: The Canadian Men’s Soccer Team at the World Cup and Beyond” (Harbour Publishing, March 24).

“I asked (national team coach) Jesse Marsch, ‘Jesse, we’re in Dream Land, you have 5 or 10 million dollars to invest however you wanted?” Mollard relates on an all-new episode of 790 RISP (reading into sports podcast). “And he said, ‘I would create a residency program for the men’s U17 (under-17) team, and I would bring them together, and I would coach them.’ Whatever level you play at, you want to play at the best level possible.

Canada has been racking up wins in international men’s footie. Marsch’s men, graced by the likes of Alphonso Davies of German powerhouse Bayern Munich and Jonathan David of Italian stalwart Juventus, have a legit chance of making it out of the group stage in the now-48-team World Cup format. That said, the expensive price tag to play sports in Canada runs counter to the proof-of-concept in most of the footballing world, where clubs’ academy systems help children hone their ball mastery.

Mollard adds, “The question is, can we sustain that success? Can we not only sustain it but can we elevate from that?”

Overall, though, youth national teams failing to qualify for age-group World Cups is a trend-line trouble. Mollard’s timely tome looks at the ‘bio markers’ of being a true nación del fútbol — development from childhood up to adulthood, facilities, and coach culture.

“Winning Pitch” is also a paean to the game and a chronicle of Canadian progress from a lifelong devotee, who was taken in by the sport from around the time that he attended his first pro match 50 years ago — the NASL iteration of the Vancouver Whitecaps hosting the Hartford Bicentennials on Aug. 6, 1976 at Empire Stadium. Mollard has been invested as the sport has gone from a niche import to mainstream, with the national teams and many pro clubs buffeted by a robust supporter culture.

“Soccer for me was an irresistible enchantress who offered one unbelievable adventure after another, a way to connect to people, culture, personal health and joy,” writes Mollard, who has participated as a player, coach, parent, and supporter, even venturing to Qatar in 2022 when Canada competed in its second World Cup.

The interview was recorded on April 3, before the news really blew up about the future of the current Whitecaps. This forum finds it utterly absurd that Major League Soccer believes it will be a legitimate league without a team in the Cascadian-Canadian soccer hotbed of British Columbia’s Lower Mainland. It’s like the National Football League without the Philadelphia Eagles, or Major League Baseball without the Detroit Tigers.

Unthinkable. Then again, Canadian soccer supporters have had their imaginations stretched every which way over the years.

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Textually related

(Texts and podcasts that informed the host’s end of the conversation. Calling it research would glorify it.)

Short works

John Ackermann, “A Long and Mostly Potholed Path: a new book looks at Canada’s road to the 2026 FIFA World Cup,” johnackermann.substack.com, March 22.

J.J. Adams, “Stop with the clown show and get a deal done to keep the Whitecaps in Vancouver,” Vancouver Province, April 30.

Hafsa Adil, “FIFA rejects Iran’s request to relocate World Cup games amid US-Israel war,” Al Jazeera, April 12.

Michael Arace, “The MLS Ponzi scheme shakedown expands to Vancouver,” Disrespected Media, April 28.

Bruce Arthur, “The inside story of Canada’s Soccer’s financial breakthrough — and what it buys,” Toronto Star, March 7.

Michael Cox, “Sweden are among the least deserving World Cup qualifiers this century — but they could still be a force,” The Athletic, March 31.

Sharif Hassan, “Cheers turn to sadness in Toronto’s Little Italy as Bosnia wins World Cup qualifier,” The Canadian Press, March 31.

Richard Jolly, “Why Italy’s latest World Cup disaster is now the norm,” The Independent, April 1.

Paul Livengood, “Man bursts through Iraqi soccer fans sign at DFW airport, sparking profanity-laced argument, video shows,” WFAA Dallas, April 1.

Khalid Sayed, “ICE looms over World Cup as Winter Olympics, Paralympics end | Opinion,” USA Today, March 14.

Alex Shephard, “Trump and FIFA Have Already Broken the 2026 World Cup,” The New Republic, April 19.

CBC News, “Why Montreal isn’t hosting the World Cup — and FIFA’s rigid rules for Toronto, Vancouver,” CBC Montreal, April 7.

Long works

Ken Bensinger, “Red Card: How the U.S. Blew the Whistle on the World’s Biggest Sports Scandal,” Simon and Schuster, 2018.

Dwayne DeRosario, with Brendan Dunlop, “DeRo: My Life,” ECW Press, 2021. DeRosario and Dunlop appeared on a podcast I contributed to in 2022.

Nick Hornby, “Fever Pitch,” Riverhead Books, 1992.

Atiba Hutchinson, “The Beautiful Dream: A Memoir,” Viking Press, 2024. Hutchinson appeared on a podcast I contributed to in ’24.

Joshua Kloke, “Come on You Reds: The Story of Toronto FC” and “The Voyageurs: The Canadian Men’s Soccer Team’s Quest to Reach the World Cup,” Dundurn Press, 2018, 2024. Kloke appeared on a podcast I contributed to in 2018.

Ian Plenderleith, “Rock ‘n’ Roll Soccer: The Short Life and Fast Times of the North American Soccer League,” Thomas Dunne Books, 2014.

Friendly FYI: pièces de #Résistance

I post about current affairs in Notes and on Bluesky (n8sager). Hopefully, this is enough for now. Please stay safe and be kind.

Cha Ghèill. Continuez à écrire. Fortsätt Skriva. And keep it Gordy.

March 29-May 6, 2026

Hamilton, Ont. : traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee, and Mississaugas.

One good first reference point for A.M. (Andy) Gittlitz is a story about some guerrilla self-promotion of his book, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, codes of ethics, and the coupled titans of mascotery.

Like the mayor of the largest city in the United States, readers of Gittlitz and his “Metropolians: New York Baseball, Class Struggle, and the People’s Team” will recognize the lean. Across 400-plus pages, mixing political history with the loving detail of a true fan, Gittlitz explains the through line of “left-coded” ball teams in New York City, somewhat as a call to confront “the permanent crisis of capitalism — who do you side with?”

That gave Gittlitz an urge to get a book to Mamdani, the United States’ most successful Democratic Socialists of America elected politician.

“I got a tip from someone in the media world that Zohran was going to Citi Field to greet the workers,” Gittlitz relates in an all-new episode of 790 RISP (reading into sports podcast). “I knew he was in there and came to the game with a ticket.

“This was about an hour before Citi Field opens (for a night game). I walked around and I saw where the motorcade was. And I sat on a bench, waiting for him to come out. Strangely enough, I didn’t attract any attention from the police or his security detail – just looked like an ordinary Mets fan.

“Sure enough, around five o’clock, he comes out — no one else knew he was going to be there. By then, the few fans that are waiting in line aren saying, ‘hey, isn’t that…’ and he’s over there shaking hands because that is the kind of guy he is.

“And so that was my opening. I went over and pulled the book out of my bag. I handed it to him and said, ‘Mr. Mayor, have you seen this book yet? It’s a political history of the Mets. And he looks at it and says, ‘No, I haven’t,’ and he looks very interested. And his press guy takes it away, and gives it back to me and says, ‘he can’t accept gifts.’ I’m like, ‘OK, they think I’m some crank handing him my weird manifesto — which to be fair, I am.

“But then, when Zohran posts the photo of him with Mr. and Mrs. Met, I reply with a photo of me giving my book to Mrs. Met. And he replies, ‘I’m going to buy a copy.’ And I know he’s a busy guy, but I think he would really like it if he got a chance to skim it, and maybe he’d hand it to his buddy Donald Trump (the president of the United States).”

“Metropolitans” (Astra Publishing House, March 31; also distributed by Penguin Random House Canada) might be the first Marxist political history of a Major League Baseball team to reach t The New York Times best-seller list. In our talk, Gittlitz (@amgittlitz) relates he hasn’t necessarily had as much flak or blowback from the book as he was braced to receive from people not of his political stripe.

Gittlitz details from, since professional baseball’s nascence in the 19th century, the game has always stood for the middle-class’s deep-seeded desires. The middle class’ desires and struggles have run through New York’s ball teams going back all the way to the 19th century.

And, here in the present, Major League Baseball may have a disruption mirroring much of the zeitgeist, with a lockout likely to happen in 2027. Suffice to say, “Metropolitans” is well-timed.

“Whether you are talking about the MLBPA (players’ association), the Mets, the American working class, or the American left, we all have the same problem, which is, in some way, to become a team with a mission and a will to fight,” Gittlitz says, noting that athlete activism follows popular social movements.

Gittlitz’s writing has graced the The New York Times, Baffler, Vice, The New Inquiry, HTML Giant, Truthout, Protean, and the Outline. He also produces and cohosts This Wreckage podcast, available through Apple.

Topics examined include but not limited to…

• How organized labour is going from “(being) on the defence for so long … (to) starting to see some victories.

• The ties between baseball’s 19th-century nascence and New York’s Tammany Hall political machine

• “When offence is higher, you have to pay the players more” — touching on how MLB can ‘switch out’ the baseballs to suppress run scoring, which author Bradford William Davis proved in 2023

• The challenge the Players’ Association will face with messaging when the owners lock them out following the 2026 season, which is expected to lead to lost games in ’27;

• The Mets’ early 1960s inception as a case study in branding exercises and political solutions, “albeit superficially,” to deïndustrialization

• The black cat that cursed the Chicago Cubs in 1969, and how it was part of a “cosmic vibe” that enveloped the 1969 Miracle Mets

• Pitching ace Tom Seaver’s sortie into anti-war activism during the Vietnam era, and how popular social movements encourage athletes to use their platforms

• The similarities between the current president of the United States and the late Yankees chairman George M. Steinbrenner

• How interleague play kicked up a heated City Rivalry between the ‘City of Shadows’ Mets and the Yankees

• How Dominic Smith led the 2020 walkout following a Kenosha, Wis., police shooting is an important

• “Let’s go out there and start sucking” – how the 2024 ‘Gay Grimace Mets’ turned the tables on social media noise and almost won a league pennant

• The Yankees’ early 20th-century origin story as the team of Rooseveltian progressive “trust-buster” Republicanism

• The way “paper pushers” standardized baseball as “a kind of improvised theatre” in the late 19th century

• “Different laundry!” — an anecdote about a Labour Day Classic football game in Hamilton; possible personal compromise to resolve assistant (to the) regional host Nathan Sager’s search for a PWHL team, and the significance of Trey Yesavage rejoining the Toronto Blue Jays on April 28.

The interview was recorded on April 17 via Streamyard and edited for clarity and length in Audacity. The author photo is by David Siffert.

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Textually related

Short works

Kelly Candaele and Peter Dreier, “Tom Seaver’s Major League Protest” and “How Minor League Ballplayers Won a Union,” The Nation, September 11, 2020, and March 6, 2023.

Bradford William Davis, “Major League Baseball used at least two types of balls again this year, and evidence points to a third,” Business Insider, Dec. 6, 2022.

Adam Gopnik, “Engels in the outfield,” The New Yorker, March 23.

Jeff Pearlman, “At Full Blast,” Sports Illustrated, Dec. 23, 1999.

Don Van Natta Jr. and Jeff Passan, “Sources: MLBPA fires COO, human resources head with cause,” ESPN.com, April 15.

Long works

Rich Cohen, “The Chicago Cubs: Story of a Curse,” Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017.

R. A. Dickey, “Wherever I Wind Up: My Quest for Truth, Authenticity, and the Perfect Knuckleball,” Penguin, 2012.

Peter Golenbock, Bums: An Oral History of the Brooklyn Dodgers,” G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1984.

James S. Hirsch, “Willie Mays: The Life, the Legend,” Scribner, 2010.

Jonathan Mahler, “Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning: 1977, Baseball, Poli tics, and the Battle for the Soul of a City,” 1st Picador ed.; Picador: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006

Jeff Pearlman, “The Bad Guys Won! : A Season of Brawling, Boozing, Bimbo Chasing, and Championship Baseball with Straw, Doc, Mookie, Nails, the Kid, and the Rest of the 1986 Mets, the Rowdiest Team Ever to Put on a New York Uniform — and Maybe the Best,” HarperCollins, 2004.

Joshua Prager, “The Echoing Green: The Untold Story of Bobby Thomson, Ralph Branca, and the Shot Heard Round the World,” Pantheon Books, 2006)

Michael Shapiro, “Bottom of the Ninth: Branch Rickey, Casey Stengel, and the Daring Scheme to Save Baseball from Itself,” Henry Holt, 2009.

Friendly FYI: please pick up your pièces de #Résistance

I post about current affairs in Notes and on Bluesky (n8sager). Hopefully, this is enough for now. Please stay safe and be kind.

Cha Gheill, et continue à écrire / fortsätt skriva. Elbows up.

Feb. 17-April 29, 2026

Hamilton, Ont. : traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee, and Mississaugas.

Whelp, this is about the only podcast that will mention Warren Cromartie and Warren Zevon.

One, the editorial one, can play the Six Degrees of Personal Antiheroes in this troubling time.

Through David Letterman’s late-night television programs, I became a fan of the rock and/or roll artist Warren Zevon. Zevon was a neighbour and friend of the gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson. That most leftist lefty, Bill (Spaceman) Lee, was a fan of Zevon. Zevon wrote and named a song after him.

And I'm standing in the middle of the diamond all alone
I always play to win when it comes to skin and bones

And sometimes I say things I shouldn't, like —
And sometimes I say things I shouldn't, like…

The first-ever guest on both of Letterman’s late-night programs was the actor Bill Murray. Bill Murray, and no one else, was the definitive cinematic Hunter Thompson.

So, from time to time, one Deep Cope — the first cope is the deepest, and you probably know the Sheryl Crow version — I have as a neurodivergent adult, is finding haven and refuge in books. Everyone knows the score at this stage…. the United States has fallen into domestic terror, weaponized racism, kindergarten-worldview Christian Nationalism, increasingly fascist tactics and 24-7-365 wraparound grifting. They have manifested an an incoherent, immoral, illegal war in the Middle East — the worst part is the incoherency — on, as the comedian Michael Ian Black puts it, “the ghost of Jeffrey Epstein.”

And, there is no ‘so helping me,’ this made me think of one of the funniest baseball memoirs, The Wrong Stuff by Bill Lee and Richard Lally. It’s a paperback I keep handy, especially as the days get warmer and the sun is out longer, and we know we’ll be back at the ballyard soon enough. Bill Lee, the late Ball Four author Jim Bouton, those fellows are who I think of when I recall how the Esquire political columnist Charles Pierce — I’m aware of his book Idiot America — said there is a “lost renegade spirit of baseball.” It has this folklore of ‘flakes’ and ‘kooks’ who were dialled into a different frequency.

What does that have to do with the war? Well, as a Xennial in Canada, one cultural influence was growing up with movies about the Vietnam War that showed the brutality, the futility, of war. And what it does to people. There were so many made for about 15 years, which coïncide with my first decade and half or so of life. Somehow, in the VHS era, I saw Oliver Stone’s Born On The Fourth of July, Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, Brian De Palma’s Casualties of War with Michael J. Fox, Sean Penn, and John C. Reilly in his film début. A blessing was having parents who trusted me to stretch and handle complex and layered themes.

What that — and other classics I sought out later — did was seal in a very antiwar attitude. I realize later that the two generations ahead of me had, through sharing their experience, really drilled in a sense of Never Again. That’s the generation who fought the Second World War, where my maternal grandfather, John Clarence Head (1922-1993), fought with the Royal Canadian Army for four years in England and France — and it’s the Boomers who saw the aftermath, and perhaps drew sighs of relief about how Canada reacted when the U.S. went into Vietnam. Other people are entitled to their feelings about it but I am trying to hold up an antiwar flank.

OK, so Bill Lee came up as a major-league left-handed pitcher at a time when pro athletes were joining the privileged strata who would never have to fight.

In The Wrong Stuff, he writes about five pages about the logical absurdities of his stint in the United States Army, where he had to do basic training, then became a clerk-typist, all while being against the war. The way Lee told it, the writings of British military officer and counter-insurgency expert Robert Grainger Ker Thompson had profoundly affected his views on Vietnam. Thompson had published his book Defeating Communist Insurgency around the time Bill Lee was a 19-year-old college pitcher at the University of Southern California, the one in Los Angeles. Not to be confused with California Southern University, the diploma mill where Ontario’s associate attorney general, MPP Michael Tibollo, got a fake degree.

Hey, diploma mills do not give diplomas to just anyone. They sell them.

So we’ll read about Bill Lee in the Army, but to get in the right ambience, we will have to go in reverse and share the passage from way back in 1979 when he joined the Montreal Expos and gave that “I sprinkle marijuana on my pancakes” interview.

So, the readings from The Wrong Stuff are: Bill Lee, 1979 spring training with nos amours, Les Expos, and 1970, as a clerk-typist in the United States Army.

Oddly enough, Colonel Thompson published Defeating Communist Insurgency the same year that Hunter S. Thompson wrote his first book, Hell’s Angels. And if you can find it, that Thompson biopic with Bill Murray is called Where the Buffalo Roam. And now let’s go where my mind roams, for not all who wander are lost.

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Bill Lee, with Richard Lally, “The Wrong Stuff.” Three Rivers Press, 1984.

Friendly FYI: pièces de #Résistance

I post about current affairs in Notes and on Bluesky (n8sager). Hopefully, this is enough for now. Please stay safe and be kind.

Cha Gheill, et continue à écrire / fortsätt skriva. Elbows up.

Feb. 28-April 16, 2026
Hamilton, Ont. : traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee, and Mississaugas.

Much has been said about Jackie Robinson’s understanding of the assignment. But popular history tends to fly by how Montréal understood it too — in more than just Canada’s two main languages.

This spring marks exactly 80 years since the Robinsons, Jack and his wife Rachel, strode toward becoming civil rights icons by racially integrating baseball. The ‘great experiment’ of reformist Brooklyn Dodgers president Branch Rickey unfolded first with the minor-league Montreal Royals in the International League in 1946.

And that’s where Canadian-born historian and baseball fan Sean J. (Jeff) McLaughlin comes in. In Royal Treatment: Jackie Robinson, Montreal, and the Breaking of Baseball’s Color Barrier (April 1, University of Nebraska Press), McLaughlin draws on his international relations expertise — his first book was about France’s Vietnam policy in the early 1960s — and fluency with baseball to explain why Montréal wanted the role of making a sports and social revolution work.

“Underdogs have a way of finding other underdogs and cheering them on,” McLaughlin, a Sarnia, Ont.-raised writer, who is director of special collections and exhibits at Murray State University in Kentucky, says on 790 RISP (reading into sports podcast).

“You see a victory for Jackie Robinson on the ball diamond in 1946, and you see a victory for yourself at home. No one is saying, I’m a Royals super-fan and I’m here cheering my lungs out for Jackie Robinson because I want a strong, independent Québec nation some day — but these are the ideas that are circulating.

“At the end of the day, I wanted to tell a story about Canada, to Americans,” McLaughlin adds. “So I went to the University of Nebraska Press, because they do all the best baseball stuff here.”

Our Canadian tacking to better-by-comparison complacency — present company included, eh! — gave McLaughlin a current to row against, as a writer. Royal Treatment also stims some reflection on the nature of societal change.

“It’s better to view societal change as something that happens in small pockets,” McLaughlin notes. “We don’t all move together at the same speed. We don’t agree about everything. And I think that one pocket can advance the whole, while there are still rearguard actions from those who would prefer to keep the status quo. Things get better, but it’s not like there’s a lightning bolt where things are one way on Friday, and completely changed on Monday.”

McLaughlin is also the author of JFK and de Gaulle: How America and France Failed in Vietnam, 1961-1963.

Robinson before the Dodgers

Jackie Robinson, in a matter of speaking, was almost a celebrity athlete without a team before he hired on with the Kansas City Monarchs as a 26-year-old rookie shortstop in 1945.

He had evinced much more dynamism in football and track-and-field on the West Coast at Pasadena City College and with the UCLA Bruins — in fact, Duke Snider, his fellow hall-of-famer teammate, wrote that Robinson was his childhood hero — which sounds odd and yet telling since they both débuted with the Dodgers in 1947. With the NFL also segregated, the Olympics paused due to the Second World War, and his military career eradicated by an unjust court-martial, Robinson turned to baseball, and the Dodgers began following his progress.

Through McLaughlin, we know now an vital keystone in the rest of the story.

This interview was recorded March 10, 2026 through StreamYard, and edited for clarity and length with Audacity.

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Some of the topics discussed include, but are not limited to:

• Should Jackie Robinson Day be on April 15 (the anniversary of his Dodgers début) or April 18 (his Montreal Royals début)?

• Understanding “The other side of the line” — McLaughlin’s consciousness of Canada’s historical two solitudes, as someone who came of age around the time of the 1995 Québec referendum, and family ties that piqued his interest in the Robinson-Royals story

• The “residual pride” in Montréal, Québec, and Canada helped Robinson settle into organized baseball, and the traces that remain there today

• “Because there’s no one singular party that can dominate the others” — Why Canadians, in general, are more “predisposed to accommodation” than their North American counterparts in the United States

• The Dodgers picking up on the “French quality” of acceptance, since in 1946, two future Black stars from their The Boys of Summer era teams, the hall-of-fame three-time MVP catcher Roy Campanella and ace pitcher Don Newcombe, played for a farm team in Nashua, N.H., which had a large Québécois population.

• The choice of whether to pitch Royal Treatment to a Canadian academic publisher or a U.S. university press

• The shrewdness of Rickey vs. the showmanship of Bill Veeck, who integrated the American League by signing Larry Doby in Cleveland in 1947, away from the Newark Eagles;

• Knowing that the “muted” Robinson who had, per Rickey, “the courage not to fight back” was not wholly reflective of his personality

• How Canadiens hockey players, notably Maurice (Rocket) Richard, brought Robinson into their friend group

• The difference in acculturation for the California-raised Robinson and the Jim Crow Alabama-raised Willie Mays that affected their relative outspokenness

• The Toronto Blue Jays’ 2025 pennant-winning season, and how the way the franchise has handled “unpleasant instances of homophobia” will look to future generations.

• McLaughin’s lifelong love of baseball, which he can fulfill these days by watching his university’s Murray State Racers, who made a Cinderella run to the College World Series in 2025

• In the closeout, a memory of writer Mordecai Richler (1934-2001) at the time of the 1995 Québec referendum

• “Create and maintain equality of opportunity” — closing thoughts on parallels between 1940s integration and Major League Baseball’s reticence to address anti-immigrant actions in the U.S., and meme culture replacing understanding.

Textually related

Short works

Megan Balogh, “Napanee arena arsonist sentenced to five years in prison,” Kingston Whig-Standard, Nov. 8, 2024.

Doug Harrison, “Blue Jays suspend Yunel Escobar 3 games for anti-gay slur,” CBC Sports, Sept. 18, 2012

Patrick Lennox, “Canada Is Already at War with the US — We Just Don’t Know It Yet,” The Walrus, March 6.

Elizabeth Merrill, “A Cinderella run for the books: Murray State’s road to Omaha,” ESPN, June 16, 2025.

Jan Murphy, “Napanee arena blaze stole our building, but never our memories,” Kingston Whig-Standard.

Rob Neyer, “Digging into ‘42’ — Did they get their facts straight?,” SBNation, April 2013.

Glenn Stout, “TRYOUT AND FALLOUT: Race, Jackie Robinson and the Red Sox,” glennstout.com, Massachusetts Historical Review, volume 6, 2004.

Jules Tygiel, “Revisiting Bill Veeck and the 1943 Phillies,” Baseball Research Journal.

Gordon Wittenmeyer, “ ‘We’re scared.’ Latin American players on edge as ICE tactics intensify,” Cincinnati.com-The Enquirer, March 9.

Long works

Henry Aaron (1934-2021), with Lonnie Wheeler, “I Had a Hammer: The Hank Aaron Story, HarperCollins, 1991.

Fredrik Backman, Neil Smith (translator), “Bear Town,” Simon & Schuster, 2017.

Jeremy Beer, “Oscar Charleston: The Life and Legend of Baseball’s Greatest Forgotten Player,” University of Nebraska Press, 2019.

Howard Bryant, “Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston,” Beacon Press, 2002; “Rickey: The Life and Legend of an American Original,” Mariner Books, 2022.

Bryant discussed “Rickey” on a podcast I contributed to in ’22.

Jonathan Eig, “Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson’s First Season,” Simon and Schuster, 2007.

Noah Gittell, “Baseball: The Movie,” Triumph Books, 2024. Gittell appeared on a podcast I contributed to in ’24.

A.M. (Andy) Gittlitz, “Metropolitans: New York Baseball, Class Struggle, and the People’s Team,” Astra Publishing, March 31, 2026.

Jerry Grillo, “Big Cat: The Life of Baseball Hall of Famer Johnny Mize,” University of Nebraska Press, 2024. Grillo appeared on a podcast I contributed to in 2024.

Peter Golenbock, “Bums: An Oral History of the Brooklyn Dodgers,” Contemporary Books, 1984, 2000.

Roger Kahn (1927-2020), “The Boys of Summer,” Signet, 1973.

Rob Ruck, “Raceball: How the Major Leagues Colonized the Black and Latin Game,” Beacon Press, 2011.

Mordecai Richler (1934-2001), “Dispatches from the Sporting Life,” Knopf Canada, 2002.

Harvey Sahker, “Before the Blue Jays: Professional Baseball in Toronto Prior to 1977,” Dundurn Press, Feb. 24, 2026. Sahker discussed his book on 790 in January.

Michael Shapiro, “Bottom of the Ninth: Branch Rickey, Casey Stengel, and the Daring Scheme to Save Baseball from Itself,” Henry Holt, 2009.

Duke Snider (1926-2011) with Bill Gilbert, “The Duke of Flatbush,” Warner Books, 1988.

Friendly FYI: pièces de #Résistance

I post about current affairs in Notes and on Bluesky (n8sager). Hopefully, this is enough for now. Please stay safe and be kind.

Cha Ghèill, et continue à écrire / fortsätt skriva. Elbows up.

Feb. 19-March 22, 2026
Hamilton, Ont. : traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee, and Mississaugas.

As someone accustomed to being in the middle of the action, Olympic alumna and human rights activist Betty Baxter needed time to get outside of her lived experience.

(If you don’t need the hoopla, the interview starts at the 18:25 mark of the podcast.)

Understandably, the first point of reference with Baxter is how, in a span of 5½ years, could go from being captain of Canada’s first Olympic women’s volleyball team at the 1976 Montréal Games, to “persona non grata” — expelled as coach due to rumours about her sexual orientation. There is, though, so much more in Baxter’s memoir Outspoken: A Journey From Athlete to Activist (Nightwood Editions, March 10).

In Outspoken, Baxter takes pains to illuminate parallels and pattern recognition. The mistreatment she endured as a gay woman in early-1980s pre-Charter Canada ties to contemporary moral panics aimed at excluding trans individuals from sport and other activities. Gaining that perspective required time, and some downtime.

“I had to let go of it, and I let go of sport in the ’90s,” Baxter says on the latest episode of 790 RISP. “But I had to let go of my investment in being right, or hard done by. Whatever those feelings were, I had to let go of them.

“And the good news — I will tell you this, because I don’t think it’s necessary for the story but it adds context. I was very ill between 2018 and ’21. I had two hip replacements, I survived ovarian cancer. And when I came out of that, the first thing it did was it made me stay home. One of the only things I could do was prop myself up with pillows and sit in front of the computer for two hours — any other movement was painful after 20 minutes.

“So I could let my brain go to focus, concentrated places in a way it normally is not able to do …. Even though the illness was difficult, it let me write this book, and it helped me understand that you don’t control the outcome.”

Outspoken is strikes many celebratory notes, perhaps never more than when Baxter recounts Celebration ’90: Gay Games III and Cultural Festival in Vancouver, where she was a lead organizer. That event changed Vancouver.

Baxter relates her life arc from getting the spark to pursue sports as a girl in 1960s Brooks, Alta., through her playing and coaching days, and movement into activism. (Coincidentally, her hometown’s elected representative is Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, whose United Conservative Party government has passed laws to ban trans athletes from female sports._

Sport in Canada ‘having a moment’

Overall, just as volleyball is a game that takes precise timing and body control to complete a perfect spike, Baxter is hopeful Outspoken finds a receptive audience. Publication fell during the Milana Cortina Olympics and Paralympics, and just ahead of resumption of the Canadian government’s Future of Sport Commission in April.

“That’s where I feel very grateful — I think I’ve hit a time where sport in Canada is having a moment, and people are being quite serious in how they want to look at it,” adds Baxter, who lives on a farm in xwésám (Roberts Creek, B.C.) on the unceded territories of the shíshálh and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh people, along the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia.

“They’re interested in knowing, how did this come to be in the 1970s, ’80s, and ‘90s? By design, with this book, that was the period of my life, those (roughly ) 20 years, that I wanted to capture.

These days, Baxter tends to five horses and three dogs on the farm in xwésám (pronounced KO-sep-sam). She had a long career as an educational and human rights consultant, has served on her local school board, and was the first out lesbian to run in Canadian federal election when she stood for the New Democrats in Vancouver Centre in 1993.

A few years ago, her alma mater, the University of British Columbia, inducted Baxter into its athletic hall of fame in recognition of her leadership of two national championship teams in the 1970s and her national-team tenure. Baxter related that she has been invited to appear remotely at a North American Sports Historians Association conference in May, and will also have a panel with the journalist Mary Ormsby in Toronto on June 18 during Pride Month.

This interview was recorded March 12 over StreamYard, and was edited for clarity and length with Audacity.

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Some of the topics discussed include, but are not limited to:

• Baxter’s hope that Outspoken will influence Canada’s Future of Sport Commission, which is convening again in April

• How Baxter let her “brain go to places, in a focused concentrated way” between 2018 and ’21 while recovering from two hip replacements and cancer treatment

• How she found an inroad in this memoir by writing a travelogue about a tour of China with the national volleyball team

• “Come on down, let’s play” — the “collective joy” of the Celebration ’90 Gay Games and Cultural Festival in Vancouver, where Baxter was a lead organizer

• Disabusing people of the canard that a trans woman has a physical advantage in female-only sport

• Correcting canards about trans women competing in women’s sports

• The stresses of being a gay person in the 1970s, some 20 years before LGBTQ+ people were a protected class under Canadian law — and the parallels with today’s social environment

• The effect that Michelle Douglas’s case against the Canadian military had in improving human rights law and Charter protections for #LGBTQ+ people

• The lasting influence that John Carlos and Tommie Smith’s black-glove demonstration on the 1968 Mexico City Olympics medal stand had on a generation of sportspeople

• The lesson from the Olympics about the effects of being “hardwired” to overtraining for years and months on end

• Why sports parents, and younger athletes should seek out competitive opportunities that allow for building “personal agency”

• The recent 20th anniversary of Canada legalizing same-sex marriage and how it’s “changed the country”

• Post-interview, some close-out thoughts on recent U Sports championships in the winter court sports (basketball and volleyball).

Textually related

(Texts and podcasts that informed the host’s end of the conversation. Calling it research would glorify it.)

Short works

St. John Alexander, Lisa Steacy, “17 B.C. Pride societies call for MLA’s censure, resignation,” CTV News Vancouver, March 9.

Bruce Arthur, “Bullying, basketball and an online firestorm: How B.C. college star Harriette Mackenzie stood up to anti-trans hate — and won,” Toronto Star, March 23, 2025.

Kelsea Arnett, “Skate Canada to stop holding national, international events in Alberta,” CBC News, Dec. 16, 2025.

Kerry Gillespie, “Canada’s Olympic medal letdown masks the real sports crisis in this country. One potential game changer is already on the table,” Toronto Star, March 13.

Rachel Gilmore, “The Fallout from Reporting on White Nationalism in Canada,” The Tyee, March 12.

Rumneek Johal, “Who is Barry Neufeld, the Former School Trustee Who’s Become a Cause Célèbre for the Canadian Right?”, Press Progress, Feb. 26.

Lisa Timpf, “Outspoken: A Journey from Olympic Athlete to Activist by Betty Baxter,” The Seaboard Review of Books, Feb. 9.

Karleigh Webb, “Trans hoop standout Harriette Mackenzie’s Vancouver Island stumble in CCAA tourney opener,” OutSports, March 12, 2025.

Rick Westhead, “ ‘This shattered my son’: AAA parents question Hockey Canada response amid alleged sexual assaults,” CTV News, March 13.

Long works

Tiffany Brown, Erin Strout, Katie Steele, “The Price She Pays: Confronting the Hidden Mental Health Crisis in Women’s Sports―from the Schoolyard to the Stadium,” Little, Brown, and Spark, June 2024. Brown and Steele discussed their book on a podcast I contributed to at that time.

John Carlos, Dave Zirin, “The John Carlos Story: The Sports Moment That Changed the World,” Haymarket Books, 2011.

Karissa Donkin, “Breakaway: The PWHL and the Women Who Changed the Game,” Goose Lane Editions, September 2025. Donkin discussed her book on 790 in 2025.

Charlie Francis, Jeff Coplon, “Speed Trap: Inside the Biggest Scandal in Olympic History,” St. Martin’s Press, 1991.

Mike Hickey, “Dream Big Dreams: The Jack Donohue Story,” Maya Publishing, 2006.

Bruce Kidd, “The Struggle for Canadian Sport,” University of Toronto Press, 1996.

Melissa Ludtke, “Locker Room Talk: A Woman’s Struggle to Get Inside,” Rutgers University Press, August 2024. Ludtke discussed her book and life on a podcast I contributed to in ’24.

Mary Ormsby, “World’s Fastest Man*: The Incredible Life of Ben Johnson,” Sutherland House, 2024. Ormsby discussed her book on a podcast I contributed to in ’24.

Dick Schaap (1934-2001), “Flashing Before My Eyes: 50 Years of Headlines, Deadlines & Punchlines,” William Morrow, 2001.

Oren Weisfeld, “The Golden Generation: How Canada Became a Basketball Powerhouse,” ECW Press, November 2025. Weisfeld discussed his book on 790 in January.

Friendly FYI: pièces de #Résistance

I post about current affairs in Notes and on Bluesky (n8sager). Hopefully, this is enough for now. Please stay safe and be kind.

Cha Gheill, et continue à écrire / fortsätt skriva. Elbows up.

Feb. 18-March 19, 2026
Hamilton, Ont. : traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee, and Mississaugas.

Here is a cranky sports ’n’ other stuff newsletter in the inimitable style of Norman Gene Macdonald (1959-2021, or so the German obituarists would have you believe). Any content that refers to sensitive subject matter is intended to comment on the powers-that-be’s lack of compassion and integrity. Please know you are valued and loved.

Hhhhhwell, the United States and Israel’s forever war continues to escalate. They sent ground troops into Iran. And apparently sent a tank into Leaf Nation.

Since captain Auston Matthews shook hands with a president who is a convicted felon and credibly accused child rapist, the Toronto Maple Leafs have lost 9-of-10 games and are close to being in the draft lottery. However, one Canadian NHL market is not enjoying seeing them tumble on the ice. In Vancouver, they’re saying, “Hey Toronto, quit stealin’ our moves!!”

The Leafs confirmed last Friday that Matthews is out for the season after a Grade 3 tear of the medial collateral ligament and a quad contusion after the dirty knee-on-knee takeout by Anaheim’s Radko Gudas. Of course, the Leafs had already confirmed their spirit was broken in October.

Down the QEW highway, the best story in hockey might well be the Buffalo Sabres, who have surged to the top of the Atlantic Division as they strive to end their NHL-record 14-season playoff drought. Some are wondering, though, how it can be that winger Tage Thompson leads Buffalo in even-strength goals and points and is still a minus player. If the Buffalo media asks Thompson about why that math ain’t mathin’, I bet he’ll say, “Talk to my hat.”

According to the Vancouver Sun, two people face possible charges following an argument over bringing in a cake at a trampoline park during an eight-year-old’s birthday party. But who is really at fault here? I say it’s that one mother who sent her kid to the party with celery sticks.

Also out on the West Coast, chiefs of four British Columbia First Nations suggested member of Parliament Aaron Gunn should “chillax” after he criticized land acknowledgments spoken before public events. They said Gunn is “completely harmless, though momentarily unsettled by the alarming possibility that someone might acknowledge the land before a meeting.”

Oh, so this is what happens when you bring a Gunn to a snark fight.

Last night was Selection Sunday for March Madness, the U.S. college men’s and women’s basketball tournaments. On the women’s side, the No. 1 seeds are UConn, UCLA, South Carolina, and Texas. Over on the men’s side, the No. 1 seeds are Duke, Florida, Arizona, and Michigan.

The odd-on favourite to have a perfect bracket in both tournaments? Cayden-Ming Wo, whose parents met in the 1990s at CalTech.

Team USA: Hot damn! No more sewing the Canadian flag to our backpacks!

The big story of the World Baseball Classic, which concludes Tuesday, is a surprising run by Team Italy. While some question the legitimacy of a Team Italy with 21 U.S.-born players, others say they are living the dream: Kicking ass in international sports without having to represent the United States.

Team Italy captain Vinnie Pasquantino has learned a lot about his heritage during the WBC. For instance, he learned that Italian national teams in all sports wear blue to honour the country’s former royal family. Right then, Pasquantino broke into tears. It was then he remembered he plays for the Kansas City Royals.

Team USA is through to the final on Tuesday, where they will face either Venezuela or Italy. While there’s no doubting the talent of the U.S. team, their run has not been without controversy. For instance, fans are split over what is more alarming: manager Mark DeRosa’s choice of motivational tactics, or umpire Cory Blaser’s blatantly incorrect strike-3 calls that rang up Team Dominican Republic’s Juan Soto and Gerardo Perdomo in the final two innings on Sunday.

Team USA will be a favourite in the championship game on Tuesday. But DeRosa is not counting chickens before they hatch. When asked about that, he said, “Uh, I already explained that I can’t count.”

It is less than three months until fútbol’s World Cup, and FIFA has said nothing about holding most of the tournament in a country that is sliding into dictatorship and waging wars on Iran, Lebanon, Cuba, and Venezuela. Normally, I’d deadpan that the worst part is the hypocrisy, but this involves feigning interest in soccer.

Dateline: Fordville, ONTerrible

Here at home, Ontario Premier Doug Ford drew widespread ire when his government introduced a bill that will severely — and retroactively — curtail the powers of the Freedom of Information Act.

When asked whether this had anything to do with how his government has been throwing up roadblocks to an active access-to-information case from Global News for almost four years, Ford shot back, “What, did you also forget we went to court to keep ministerial orders sealed? You ingrates, I work my balls off not working for you people!”

Don’t worry, though. With his cuts to Ontario Student Assistance Program grants, Ford is expanding the powers of the Freedom To Be Ignorant Act.

So, who do Ford and the Ontario PC Party work for, anyway? Based on their latest move to take over the airport on the Toronto Islands to allow jets to fly there, waving away environmental and human health harms, and vehement local opposition, they’re working for CANCER.

Take it from me, though. You won’t even know you’re sick!

The premier and his government were also in the news after a judge denied their attempt to get an injunction to stop an Al-Quds Day rally on Sunday near the United States consulate in Toronto. On reflection, Ford said, “We thought we shut down all the injunction sites months ago!!”

A certain conspiracy theorist radio host has alleged that several prominent political leaders are gay, including Canadian former prime minister Justin Trudeau. Know why she thinks Justin Trudeau is gay? He listens to Katy Perry.

Not to be outdone in the Nepo Babylympics, TV host Ben Mulroney is telling his staff that he has been dating a pop star. But, actually, his staff created her with AI.

Producer in earpiece: Norm, stick to sports!

In its continuing effort to dominate sports headlines even when it won’t play serious games for six months, NFL free agency has begun.

After moving on from quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, the Miami Dolphins will have $151 million (U.S.) in ‘dead cap money’ this upcoming season. Their city’s baseball team, the Miami Marlins, has a projected payroll of $73 million. So one Miami team pays players twice as much money not to play for them as their baseball teams pay people to kinda-sorta play for them.

The Minnesota Vikings are giving a second chance to quarterback Kyler Murray, whose last contract in Arizona had a “homework clause” in it to keep him from spending so much time video gaming. Murray going to Minnesota makes sense, since the only place the Vikings have won the Super Bowl is in Madden.

And, finally, congratulations to future Hockey Hall of Fame centre Anže Kopitar, who has passed Marcel Dionne for the most points scored in the history of hockey’s Los Angeles Kings. Now, who holds a share of the mark for the fewest points scored in the history of the L.A. Kings? You guessed it — you, me, and Frank Stallone!

That’s all. See you under the Queensboro Bridge.

Special Thanks to all the Fellow Jagovs, Jerkarse and Jesters for making this possible. “Normswers” will appear on random Mondays.

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Friendly FYI: pièces de #Résistance

I post about current affairs in Notes and on Bluesky (n8sager). Hopefully, this is enough for now. Please stay safe and be kind.

Cha Ghèill, et continue à écrire / fortsätt skriva.

March 3-16, 2026
Hamilton, Ont. : traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee, and Mississaugas.

If you listen to the wind, you can still hear him slay.

There is a voice that keeps on calling me; there’s a role to always troll broadly. And, in the wrong hands made clenched fists by extreme onlineliness and upset at the emotionally stunted eight-year-olds trying to rule the world, the Deep Cope is to write a cranky sports ’n’ other stuff newsletter in His style.

He, of course, is Norman Gene Macdonald (1959-2021). Welcome to “Normswers.”

It is acknowledged that this might affront some people and infringe on their own memories of Norm Macdonald. He was a one-of-a-kind humourist. Also, as a content warning, there is riffing on some corners of media that seem to have a certain morally casual attitude about consent and coercion.

Please receive this as a Deep Cope. At this moment, when the United States and Israel have begun an illegal and unconstitutional war against Iran, when everything seems to suck, when corporate control has become vise-gripped, the fitting response for opening the valve is to wonder What Would Norm Say?

Hey, better it come from a neurodivergent ginger than AI. Especially when that neurodivergent is looped into the shack in the woods of a rural southeastern Ontario golf course, where a cabal gathers for a séance with Norm and other Gruffaïn-Canadian personages. You have no idea how many times the channel is drowned out by Mackenzie King’s dog barking.

And with that no-doubt disarming disclaimer, we are off.

Well, the biggest concern with the United States and Israel launching a major combat operation in Iran — boy-oh-boy, regime change wars work so well! — is wondering how this affects Donald Trump’s roundtable to save college sports?

What if there were a way to combine the two? With that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei outta the way, who is the right kind of person to take over a dictatorship? What kind of job in the United States involves accepting unchecked power, legions of sycophants, manifold opportunities for self-dealing and self-enrichment, and still contracting Stage 4 stepondickitis by their third year?

I know! The college football coach. As a service to statehood, here are a few who could take the Tehran job.

Hugh Freeze, formerly of Auburn

A religious fundamentalist who lost the best gig he will ever have since he used his employer’s resources to hire sex workers, and once coached a game from a hospital bed in a skybox? Sounds ideal, even if there are doubts that he could handle an SEC schedule.

The topper of the Freeze fallout when he coached at Mississippi is that the discovery of the sex worker calls came during another coach’s litigation against the university. Freeze at first claimed it was a misdial… except there were a dozen calls.

Lane Kiffin, LSU Tigers

Well, we know he can be packed up and gone in a flash, even when things haven’t taken a turn for the worse. He will not be bothered if the locals go to the airport to boo his plane as he departs for Sardinia or South Bend. Kiffin is in the first months of his contract at LSU, so he might not be immediately available.

His time with the Raiders in 2007-08 is ideal for taking over in Iran. He’s steeped in a place pushed to the fringes that harbours deep-seated resentments. Someone who coached the Raiders in the late Al Davis period also has transferable experience for dealing with a Trump White House.

Mike Gundy, late of Oklahoma State

He’s available after being fired early last season, and has popped out of (one imagines) his doomsday prepper bunker only occasionally to do TV. This is a natural step for Gundy since Oklahoma State thrived, relatively, in the late amateurism era when a fossil-fuels magnate, T. Boone Pickens, was writing the cheques for the team. The team was less a football team and more of a petrostate in helmets and pads.

Gundy can bring stability, quirkiness, and some retrograde views. His teams’ 4-15 record vs. Oklahoma means he will only drop the big one often enough to be useful for fear-stoking in election years and when approval ratings drop because, say, the gangster president is a child rapist.

Rex Ryan, analyst, ESPN Sunday NFL Countdown

Not a college football coach, but perfect for the job. Those who watched him coach the Bills in the mid-2010s know he has no idea how to build an offensive attack. Controlling the counter-insurgency that is inevitable after an unprovoked attack on a sovereign country will also require lots of foot soldiers, and Rex Ryan knows something about feet.

It’s also a package deal. Hire Rex, and his twin brother Rob Ryan gets to lead the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, whose spirit was forged from smuggled VHS game films of their dad Buddy’s 1980s Chicago Bears defences.

Bobby Petrino, offensive coordinator, North Carolina

He has connections to Arkansas, the same home state as the Christian Nationalist who is MAGA’s Ambassador to Israel. Hey, AIPAC can buy him out of his contract to be offensive coordinator under Bill Belichick at North Carolina.

Petrino can lie through his teeth like it is a bodily function. However, sending him to the Middle East can only end in one way…. with Ayatollah Bobby Petrino falling off a camel with his mistress. If he lives, he’ll deny it. If he’s critically injured or dies, well, all sorts of people connected to Trump and Jeffrey Epstein seem to die suddenly.

Meanwhile, up in Canada, here’s a show pitch: Bleated Rivalry! Every week, the audience can discuss which take was more cringe and insensitive, and whether it would have been a headline if Donald S. Cherry uttered it back in the day.

In this week’s première… what is worse?

• Hockey Night in Canada analyst Elliotte Friedman, perhaps unintentionally — well, you have to give everyone some benefit of the doubt — evoking icky misogyny on Feb. 28 when he said, “It’s like dating, the more you hear ‘no,’ the more attractive they are...” to discuss the NHL trade market?

• Or Cherry’s “you people” rant back in 2019?

Well, depends on who is looking at it. Racist dogwhistle vs. a very prosaic casual misogyny.

Good Lord, thank goodness that no misogyny has tarnished hockey's image, or betrayed its inner nature. Like Hysteria podcast says, everyone knows one nice hockey player.

Not lately, no sirree, not by any Team USA players who laughed at the child-rapist gangster president’s misogynistic joke and then turned into life-sized political props two days later. Nor by any Facebook Uncles — speaking as a Facebook Uncle — who carry on that the privileged players in the Hockey Canada trial in London, Ont., are the real victims. One prefers that misogyny stay deeply closeted.

No one on the Hockey Night panel blinked after Friedman went offside. Plenty of children, whose attitudes about consent, harassment, and boundaries are forming, might have been watching when the commentator likened trade interest to unwanted romantic and sexual advances. Perhaps it went over in a production meeting when the only women and members of minority groups present knew to be quiet.

Of course, Friedman is no Cherry at his worst. Even Don Cherry was not Don Cherry at his worst. If this becomes a headline anywhere, there will be plenty of people, women and people of colour, who will stand up to defend Elliotte Friedman as a gentleman and a scholar. ’Cause he is!!

Nevertheless, at a time when We Breed Lions author Rick Westhead is very much in demand by social services that perform violence prevention work, and there is a serious suggestion that Parliamentary committees should be seeking his insight, Friedman might have shown how everyday sexism is fine in hockey discourse.

Of course, one wonders if there would be outcry if the group he slighted were predominantly Rich White Men.

Hey, this sounds more like vitriol from a male spinster than it sounds like Norm Macdonald!!

Well, if you’re expecting one-liners…

I haven’t watched the hit show Heated Rivalry. It’s a completely unrealistic depiction of hockey in the 21st century. Now, I am onboard with the 2SLGBTQIA+ positive themes, but a Canadian team wins the Cup! Ridiculous!

By the way, what do you call a show about two guys sharing an apartment in the rough part of Hamilton, Ontario? Unheated Rivalry!

Ya know, the more I follow this JD Vance guy, the more I think his calling Trump “America’s Hitler” was an endorsement.

In entertainment, singer-songwriter Neil Sedaka died late last week at age 86. The cause of death? Bahhhhad… blood.

(Norm holds his half-smile until the studio audience yields and applauds.)

Oddsmakers now have the Toronto Maple Leafs’ odds to make the playoffs at 10-to-1 after they lost their first three games coming out of the Olympic break. When asked about the defeats, a defiant captain Auston Matthews said, “I think it’s obvious how much we really care about making the playoffs.”

Of course, in Canada, the nation is still in mourning after both Olympic hockey teams took home silver medals following losses to the USA decided in TOTALLY NOT GIMMICKY 3-ON-3 OVERTIME.

Ackshully, though, old-timers know the most painful gold-medal-game defeat was against Sweden in 1994. Not because of the shootout! Because, unlike last week, that was against a team representing a democratic nation.

The reason for playing 3-on-3 overtime in a championship contest is so it doesn’t delay the start of the Closing Ceremony. But these Olympics were in Italy. When does anything in Italy ever start or finish on time?

In the U.S., even some Republicans found fault with FBI director Kash Patel being in the Team USA dressing room after the game. They could excuse the drinking on the job and the use of taxpayer resources… but barging into a dressing room occupied by people who are — counting on fingers — over age 18, male, and fully clothed?! Jeepers, those are three Donald Trump Don’ts.

It was revealed that Ottawa Senators captain Brady Tkachuk was the Team USA player selected from a random drug screening after the Olympic gold-medal game. The testers gave him an IQ test, too. Both came back negative.

Last week, Anaheim Ducks players donned fake white mustaches to honour coach Joel Quenneville after he earned his 1,000th career National Hockey League coaching victory. An emotional Quenneville told his players the win will be one of the top memories of his career.

The worst memory associated with Quenneville? When the public learned he worked with people who did not believe man-on-man rape was a thing... worth bringing up during a playoff run.

Thankfully, having a coach whose reputation was marred by a sexual abuse scandal achieve a career milestone was just what the NHL needed to change the channel. What a way to guide fans past players shaking hands with a gangster president who is a child rapist — allegedly.

As the World Baseball Classic gets underway, eight members of Cuba’s delegation have been denied visas to enter the United States. When asked why they hadn’t filled in the applications properly, the response was, “We don’t have reliable electricity because someone is keeping oil shipments from reaching us!”

Pre-tournament preparation includes exhibition games between the national squads and MLB teams, which takes some getting used to. For instance, Brazil will play the Colorado Rockies. Since when do the Colorado Rockies play baseball?

And that’s the fake news.

Normswers will be posted irregularly on Mondays until the day comes that there is no need for it, or his estate sends a cease-and-desist letter.

At least this tries to be unique. Actually, it’s already been been done… by whom, you ask? You guessed it: Frank Stallone.

Special Thanks to all the Fellow Jerkers and Jesters for making this possible.

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Friendly FYI: pièces de #Résistance

I post about current affairs in Notes and on Bluesky (n8sager). Hopefully, this is enough for now. Please stay safe and be kind.

Cha Gheill, et continue à écrire / fortsätt skriva. Elbows up.

Feb. 22-March 2, 2026
Hamilton, Ont. : traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee, and Mississaugas.

Julian McKenzie sees layers in between increased Black contributions and visibility in hockey and the force multipliers that imperil the game itself.

The author says he was struck by how only about one-quarter of a class of Canadian schoolchildren he spoke to, while promoting Black Aces: Essential Stories from Hockey’s Black Trailblazers (Triumph Books, Feb. 3), indicated that hockey is their favourite sport. A decade ago, he figures that would have been half. That segues into a driving motivation to write his book — to continue showing the success stories, and also advocate for making hockey more accessible.

“Hockey finds ways, to this day,” McKenzie, who is The Athletic’s Ottawa Senators beat writer, says on this new episode of 790 RISP. “Even if the numbers are changing, It still finds ways to appeal to people based off how cool the sport is, how people skate, the goals that are scored, the personalities we do get to see. There are all sorts of way the game finds a way to people like me, and we see that reflected now in seeing more people of colour drafted into the NHL, and that needs to continue.

“You want to make sure your sport isn’t too exclusive to play, whether that is due to cost or race,” adds McKenzie.

Black Aces covers a combination of well-known Black hockey people and the lesser-known. That stretches from the legendary Herb Carnegie, who was posthumously inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame and shone a light on how racism kept him out of the NHL, to contemporary hall-of-famers such as Grant Fuhr, Jarome Iginla, and Angela James. Not to mention players who have built marketable personalities and moved into broadcasting, such as Blake Bolden, Anson Carter, Sarah Nurse, Kevin Weekes, Anthony Stewart, and P.K. Subban.

The interview was recorded Feb. 19, 2026, and edited for clarity and length using Audacity.

Some of the topics discussed include, but are not limited to:

• The enduring legacy of Herb Carnegie (1919-2012) and his Future Aces foundation, and how it inspired McKenzie’s writing

• How the cost-of-living crisis could accelerate declining participation in youth hockey across many class and cultural lines

• An idea for a documentary project about the late NHL goalie Ray Emery (1982-2018)

• How hockey figures such as Nurse and Subban recognized what they could do by crafting marketable personalities

• How Subban resonated with people of colour in the first half of the 2010s during his tenure with the Montréal Canadiens

• How hockey figures such as Kevin Weekes have repeated Carnegie’s Future Aces model by holding hockey skills camps for child players who grew up to be NHLers, such as Subban, Wayne Simmonds, and Devante Smith-Pelly

• The need to “tell stories correctly” to best illustrate how racism plagues hockey

• Blind spots among the hierarchies in hockey that lead to failures to sufficiently understand the effects of racial abuse

• McKenzie’s intake into the sports media field: how he understood early that knowing hockey was essential to having success in Canada, and the ampler-than-ample opportunities to learn the sports journalism craft by covering Canadian university sports (U SPORTS, friends!)

• A Chris Cuthbert shout-out!

• Something for arena chasers: McKenzie interned with the AHL Syracuse Crunch once upon a time, so he could give a tour of the old War Memorial barn;

• Some hockey talk! Two topics: (1) do any Canadian-based teams besides the Edmonton Oilers and Montréal Canadiens make the Stanley Cup playoffs; and (b) who does McKenzie see making the Stanley Cup final sometime late this spring?

• Post-interview, some special comment about the climax to the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics, and a fond personal remembrance of Canadian football figure Bob Howes (1943-2026).

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Textually related

Julian McKenzie: at The Athletic, on Instagram (@jkamckenzie), on X, and Meta.

Ibid., “McKenzie: Bill Peters’ return to junior coaching is another sign of hockey’s racial blind spots,” The Athletic, Sept. 1, 2023.

CBC Sports, “Wittman’s Memories - 1975 Grey Cup,” YouTube.

Elliotte Friedman, “Herbert Carnegie Interview,” CBC Hockey Night in Canada, February 2009.

Samuel Kayll, “Concordia graduate and former Link sports editor releases new book,” The Link, Feb. 14.

Matt Robinson, “Julian McKenzie On His New Book ‘Black Aces,’ Ullmark, The Sens, The Olympics & More,” Tall Can Audio, Feb. 3.

Lukas Wisenthel, “Richard Lord was ‘Mr. Montreal,’ ” The Globe and Mail, April 4, 2014.

Cecil Harris, Breaking the Ice: The Black Experience in Professional Hockey, Insomniac Press, 2003.

Valmore James, John Gallagher, Black Ice: The Val James Story, ECW Press, 2015.

Stephen Kimber, Reparations, HarperCollins Publishers, 2006.

Jack McCallum, The Real Hoosiers: Crispus Attucks High School, Oscar Robertson, and the Hidden History of Hoops, Grand Central Publishing, 2024.

Willie O’Ree, Michael McKinley, Jarome Iginla (foreword), Willie: The Game-Changing Story of the NHL’s First Black Player, Viking, 2020.

Bernie Saunders, Barry Meisel, Shut Out: The Game That Did Not Love Me Black, HarperCollins Publishers, 2021.

Friendly FYI: pièces de #Résistance

I post about current affairs in Notes and on Bluesky (n8sager). Hopefully, this is enough for now. Please stay safe and be kind.

Cha Gheill, et continue à écrire / fortsätt skriva. Elbows up.

Feb. 4-25, 2026
Hamilton, Ont. : traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee, and Mississaugas.

Since 2018, the trained historian and author has worked to guide hockey fans, both young and well-seasoned, in colouring their sense of the game’s history. Bruins 365: Daily Stories From The Ice (Dundurn Press, Oct. 21) is the latest addition in the series, and it seemed worth asking how Commito gets the facts straight and streamlined, usually in the span of 175 to 200 words.

“I wish I had a giant basement in my home so I could have a screen where I have all these things in front of me,” is how Commito (@MikeCommito on X) describes his book projects on this episode of 790 RISP.

The 365 titles have found an audience among young readers and longtime fans who relish getting their hands on team memorabilia. Talk about an affirmation that fandom is what you make of it; a salve to soothe the long suffering.

Some of the topics discussed include, but are not limited to:

• The value of public history;

• Commito’s plans for the “Daily Stories” series, and the challenge of writing tight and bright to tell a team history in 366 short vignettes

• The effort to balance out the feats of the Bruins’ inner circle of stars — Messrs. Orr, Esposito, Bourque, et al. — with supporting players who contributed to the club’s century-plus of history

• Commito’s background as the “bear guy” who did his doctoral work at McMaster University on bear hunting in Ontario — and the one bear souvenir that his wife refused to allow into their home

• Differing emotional effects from all those Game 7 gutpunches Toronto Maple Leafs loyalists have endured since “it was 4-1” in 2013

• How Sudbury, Ont., explains that hockey fandom is not necessarily monolithic, but forged on emotional connections

• The tripartite nature of rivalry — how it’s not just Us against Them, but it’s every other team you have history with deciding what outcome is more palatable;

• The alternate timeline where both Commito and the host, a guy called Me, might have ended up rocking the spoked-B as Bruins fans

• How one benefit of social media, despite all its problems, is that it does allow for seeing opponents’ full humanity

• The effect of abundant information on fan banter with the “triple hard cap” NHL

• A possible daily story for a future printing of Red Wings 365, and which NHL fanbase is clamouring the most for an entry in Commito’s series

• The origin of the Sudbury Wolves’ shade of blue, the prettiest in the Ontario Hockey League

• Whether Dwight Schrute and the 2006-vintage The Office writers are well-informed on bear attacks

• A closing thought on the one Bruins book that best captures one Donald S. (Don) Cherry

• From the assistant (to the) regional host, a suggested biopic project for Canadian creatives Jared Keeso and Jacob Tierney about another Cherry from Kingston.

The interview has been edited for clarity and length using Audacity.

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Tangentially related texts

Mike Commito on X.

activehistory.ca.

“Bruins-Maple Leafs rivalry,” Wikipedia.

Eastern Professional Hockey League [1959-1963] history and statistics, hockeyDB.

“Full Kilimanjaro Hockey Odyssey,” simmerpuck/YouTube/NHL Network, 2008, 2017.

Stephen Brunt, Searching For Bobby Orr, Knopf Canada, 2006.

Pam Coburn, Hitch, Hockey’s Unsung Hero: The Story of Boston Bruin Lionel Hitchman, Pamdre Publishing Inc., 2019.

Craig Custance, The Franchise: The Business of Building Winning Teams, Simon & Schuster, 2024.

Valmore James, John Gallagher, Black Ice: The Val James Story, ECW Press, 2015.

Willie O’Ree, Michael McKinley, Jarome Iginla (foreword), Willie: The Game-Changing Story of the NHL’s First Black Player, Viking, 2020.

George Plimpton, Open Net: A Professional Amateur in the World of Big-Time Hockey, WW Norton & Co. Inc., 1985.

Bernie Saunders, Barry Meisel, Shut Out: The Game That Did Not Love Me Black, HarperCollins Publishers, 2021.

Rob Simpson, No Heavy Lifting: Globetrotting Adventures of a Sports Media Guy, ECW Press, 2018.

Camilla Foster, “I’m Scandinavian. Here’s my tips for finding joy in the dark winter months,” The Independent, Jan. 27.

Olivia Hicks, “Ice rink was a sanctuary for this girls hockey team until ICE touched down in the Twin Cities,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, Jan. 30.

Andrew Nurse and Roberta Lexier, “ ‘The Time of Monsters’: History in Challenging Times,” Active History, Feb. 2.

Friendly FYI: please pick up your pièces de #Résistance

I post about current affairs in Notes and on Bluesky (n8sager). Hopefully, this is enough for now. Please stay safe and be kind.

Cha Gheill, et continue à écrire / fortsätt skriva. Elbows up.

Nov. 28, 2025-Feb. 5, 2026
Hamilton, Ont. : traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee, and Mississaugas.