There’s a matter I touched on last Sunday that I’d like to expand upon today.
It’s about an endangered species up here in Canada—the daily sports columnist.
Time was when the toy department at every major newspaper on Our Frozen Tundra featured at least one scribe tasked with delivering a daily yarn meant to make you think. Or inform you. Or make you PO’d like someone piddled on your Corn Flakes. Or make you laugh. Or entertain you.
The sports columnist was “the man” (or, in rare cases, “the woman”).
You’d reach for the morning rag on your doorstep, or at the newsstand, knowing his/her words would either enrage or captivate you. Depending on one’s perspective, “the man” was either a doofus with the IQ of a garden gnome or a genius (okay, that’s a stretch; no one has ever mistaken any sports scribe for Einstein).
In my youth, “the man” was Jack Matheson.
I couldn’t wait to read Matty’s “stuff” when the Winnipeg Tribune landed on my doorstep at 89 Helmsdale Ave. in East Kildonan, and, in one of my life’s blessings, I had the privilege of working for and with him until the day in August 1980 when a stooge from Southam Inc. stood on a desk in the newsroom and told both of us that we were out of work.
I often handled Matty’s copy, but I never actually edited it. None of us did. We held a pencil in hand, prepared to correct a typo or a misspelled word, but no. It was pristine. Always. And there was never any thought given to tinkering with structure or his turn of phrase. That would have been like painting a goatee on the Mona Lisa. Or telling Paul McCartney that he might want to have another go at the lyrics and melody to Yesterday.
The point is, there was a Matty at dailies across the land—Trent Frayne, Milt Dunnell, Jim Taylor, John Robertson, Dick Beddoes, Cam Cole, Jim Hunt, Terry Jones, Hal Sigurdson, Eric Bishop, Christie Blatchford, Allen Abel, Stephen Brunt, Dink Carroll, Jim Coleman, Shakey Johnson, Hal Walker, Jim Proudfoot, Ed Willes, etc.
Their copy might not have been as clean, but they all had their own style and all were must-read, sports-front scribes in their respective markets.
Today, the sports columnist on Our Frozen Tundra is a dying breed, mainly due to Postmedia’s ransacking of toy departments hither and yon.
Who’s left as a stand-alone, full-time general jock columnist? Well, there’s Cathal Kelly, Steve Simmons and Dave Feschuk. Three guys in the Republic of Tranna.
Other people write columns, of course. Just not daily, or at least four per week.
Paul Friesen, as an e.g., does a superb job supplying opinion for the Winnipeg Sun when granted the space to do so. Sadly, Postmedia has left the tabloid with a bare-bones budget, a bare-bones staff and a bare-bones sports section that some days has so few pages it couldn’t line the bottom of a budgie cage. As a consequence, Friesen’s opining seems to be hit-and-miss. Is he working the Jets beat, the Bombers beat, the curling beat, writing a feature, or on his soapbox? Who knows from day-to-day?
Meantime, opinion is a gaping hole on the other side of the street at the Winnipeg Free Press. The Drab Slab toy department features a fine roster of reporters, from top to bottom, but it’s lacked a definitive jock voice since Paul Wiecek swanned off into the sunset in 2018.
Oddly enough, the sports column is disappearing at a time when it should be more vital than ever.
Think about it. By the time we open (or call up) our favorite fish wrap in the morning, we already know who won, who lost, who scored, which jock the FBI is targeting in a gambling probe, and which U.S. state is the latest to kick female transgender athletes to the curb.
Thus, I don’t need a rehash of something like the old fashioned shinny square dance New York and New Jersey engaged in the other night, a Gotham gong show featuring throwback-to-the-1970s Rangers rookie Matt Rempe and more fighting than you’ll see in a John Wayne western. I want to know the sports columnist’s take on the mayhem at Madison Square Garden. Tell me, is it a black eye on the National Hockey League, or is a circus-like sideshow a selling point for a sport that struggles mightily to attract attention in the U.S.?
The Broadway Brouhaha is what’s known as “the talker.” You know, what the rabble is squawking about at the water cooler and in watering holes the next day.
The “talker” once was the sports columnist’s wheelhouse, but, alas, he/she appears to be as outdated as a telephone land line.
More’s the pity.
Perhaps you don’t think a daily columnist adds anything special to a sports section. After all, they’re just paper blowhards, right? Except opinion sells. Give a look and a listen to jock talk on TV shows with a made-in-America sticker. What do they deliver in heaping helpings? Opinion. Gums flap like flags in a stiff breeze. Men and women debate the talker of the day. They disagree and sometimes shout at each other (hello, Stephen A. Smith and Mad Dog Russo) as they flog or rain hosannas on a player/coach/manager/owner. Either way, none of the gasbags is looking for a fence to sit on. And a good portion of them are former sports columnists (hello, Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon). Opinion is the reason a podcast like Winnipeg Sports Talk exists. Hustler Paterson and Michael Remis don’t sit in front of a mic and read scores. They opine, as do their guests. Yet, newspapers have moved away from that very thing. Go figure.
As a rule, the squawk boxes on TV jock talk stateside discuss hockey about as often as the Bidens and Trumps get together for a night of Trivial Pursuit. I mean, they’ll prattle on at length about Taylor Swift and Travis Kelse frolicking on a beach in some tropical locale, but give Connor McDavid or Nathan McKinnon a bit of oxygen? As if. (According to a December Gallup poll, the NHL ranks fifth on the food chain, behind the NFL 41%, MLB 10%, NBA 9%, MLS 5%, and barely a speed bump in front of the fast car crowd and fancy skating.) That, however, all changes when there are five fights two seconds into an NHL game, and eight skaters are excused for the night two seconds into an NHL game. Cement-head hockey cannot escape their notice, and gums flap at full gallop. Indeed, the boys on Around the Horn and Pardon the Interruption weighed in on the Rangers-Devils romp of last Wednesday, as did the regrettable Pat McAfee, who was thoughtful enough to cover up his arm pits for the occasion. “Hockey’s the only sport that’s left that isn’t scared to go ahead and throw some hands. Settle some businesses,” the ESPN host said, as his stooges provided the backup vocals and grunted in agreement. So, yes, hockey’s Cult of Dumb extends to the TV studio. And the biggest nincompoop was McAfee’s guest, P.K. Subban, former NHL practitioner of the slewfoot. “This is the most exciting thing in sports, I don’t care what anybody says,” the ESPN gasbag gushed. “We need this in hockey. This trumps everything in sports. This is great for the game. This is what hockey’s all about.” Oy.
Things that make me go hmmm, Vol. 1,176: According to Subban, “There’s an element of toughness and testicular fortitude that goes into being a hockey player.” Hmmm. Wasn’t it just the other day that Philly Flyers head coach John Tortorella suggested his players might not have “enough balls” to be successful. Which begs the question: How many balls is an NHL player expected to have?
Isn’t it time media stopped giving oxygen to the angry-man act Tortorella has been selling lo these many years? Why do they continue to highlight his pathetic hissy fits? He isn’t funny, he isn’t clever, he isn’t entertaining, and rant No. 8,957 certainly isn’t news. He’s a nasty bit of business, is all. I suppose we’ll always have the occasional public flogging of athletes by coaches, managers and/or owners, but when it becomes chronic a case could be made that it’s a workplace issue. I mean, in what other business would employees be expected to put up with such a high level of bullying and denigration from a supervisor?
I’ve heard some mutterings about an eastern media bias that will work against Quinn Hughes of the Vancouver Canucks in voting for the Norris Trophy as top defenceman in the NHL. According to the conspiracy theorists, since eastern-based news hounds are in the kip when Hughes is playing on the West Coast, they don’t observe his brilliance, thus they look past him in balloting. Pure piffle. Postal or zip code has nothing to do with it. Drew Doughty won the Norris trinket in 2016, and, like Vancity, there’s oceanfront property where he hangs his hat. Ditto Rob Blake. Erik Karlsson and Brent Burns both took the Norris home while wearing San Jose linen and, last time I looked at a map of the U.S., you can’t step any closer to the Pacific Ocean without getting your toes wet. So spare us the phony narrative, fellas.
Loved this quote from hoops hall-of-famer and current talking head Charles Barkley on the Dan Patrick Show: “We got enough idiots and fools on television that act like they know everything about every sport. I watched more women’s college basketball the last three weeks than I have all year. So, I don’t want to get on here like some of these fools on other networks, who talk about every sport like they’re an expert on every sport. And quit using the damn word ‘expert.’ There’s no such thing as an expert. It’s just somebody’s opinion. I hate when these guys say, ‘Well, he’s an expert.’ No, he’s not. It’s just some fool giving his opinion.”
I keep awaiting evidence that the Drab Slab is giving female athletes/teams an increased share of space in the sports section. Alas, it isn’t happening. Here are the numbers for articles exclusive to females/males in the first three months this year vs. 2023:
2024
January: 280 M; 73 F…30 local F
February: 244 M; 76 F…25 local F
March 255 M; 70 F…33 local F
Totals: 779 M; 219 F…88 local F
2023
January: 362 M; 74 F…22 local F
February: 306 M; 86 F…38 local F
March: 347 M; 80 F…36 local F
Totals: 1,015 M; 240 F…96 local F
In fairness, it must be pointed out that, in a nickels-and-dimes decision, the Drab Slab ceased posting its Sunday e-edition last July, thus the total numbers for the first three months this year vs. 2023 are bound to be lower. However, the average number of articles exclusive to female athletes/teams per edition is almost identical—1.17 to 1.07.
And, finally, Eddie Dearden has left us at age 96, and his death cuts close to home because he was second-in-command in the Winnipeg Tribune sports department when I broke in more than 50 years ago. Eddie worked the golf beat in the summer and the Jets in the winter and, as mentioned, he gave us our marching orders whenever sports editor Jack Matheson had traipsed off to track down the Bombers, our elite curlers or the national men’s hockey team. Also gone from my original June 1971 roll call in Trib sports are Matty, Vince Leah, Gus Collins, Harold Loster and Ronny Meyers, leaving just Vic Grant, Larry Tucker and myself on the green side of the sod. Although they weren’t on board in ’71, we also lost Murray (Swamp Dog) Rauw and Bob (Doc) Holliday not so long ago. Trib Sports was special people, special talents. I think about them often.
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