Bio:
Jim's bio in his own words: That old line about starting out as a child applies to me. I was 17 when I got my first newspaper job and used it to work my way through college. When I finished with a B.A. in English I was still employed by the Buffalo News and, eventually, there was an opening in the sports department.
Rest assured it was an entry level spot, high school sports, but I loved it and every beat that followed, working my way up through the ranks and eventually landing the one I always wanted; hockey.
That was the ride of a lifetime considering I arrived on the Buffalo Sabres scene about the same time Scott Bowman came down from Montreal to be coach and general manager. Talk about a baptism by fire.
Still it was a great run and moving through the eras hockey has been very, very good to me. I've seen 26 Stanley Cup finals in person including the one Mike Keenan and his good pal Nick hold dear.
I've been vice president and later president of the Professional Hockey Writers Association. I had the incredible good fortune to have won the 2004 Elmer Ferguson Award which happens to come along with the very nice perk of having a plaque in the Hockey Hall of Fame. I also won the New York State Publishers award for excellence in sports writing for, surprisingly enough, a column about hockey
Along the way I left the News (after 32 years) and have since worked for Foxsports.com, ESPN.com and now Sportsnet.ca, but it hasn't all been just hockey, hockey, hockey. I scored a great opportunity when Bob McCown asked me to co-host PrimeTime Sports, Canada's premier sports broadcast on the Fan 590 radio station and simulcast across the Sportsnet network.
I've been around longer than all of my friends and colleagues at Sportsnet.ca and have the gray hair to prove it, but I still have a passion for the game (I'm the only writer in the history of the News that was assigned to cover the NFL Buffalo Bills and then asked (begged actually) to go back to hockey). I think my time in the game gives me a perspective slightly different from most.
I have a wife who has been at my side before I even got into hockey (which makes her qualified for sainthood) two daughters and three grandchildren. My life away from work revolves around them. I also like sailing and boating in general, play a poor round of golf (hey when the team's I covered got booted I kept going to the final and the draft every year. That doesn't leave much time for working on a game.)
I have almost as many books as Broph has CDs and I love to read or even watch good writing on TV (West Wing, Boston Legal).
I got in on the ground floor with Sportsnet.ca at least in regards to writing columns. Most of you who have read me know I have strong opinions on the game and the people in it. Being of a certain age I don't worry much about what those people think. I write what I believe and let the chips fall where they may. That angers some people including some of you who read me regularly, but I didn't get into the business to make friends, I got in it to tell stories and, now, to give opinions based on what I've seen and learned in what is now a professional lifetime in the sport.
I like offence, appreciate good defence and great goaltending and lean toward larger nets, even less obstruction and a limit on the kind of stupid actions that too often disgrace the game and the many good people in it.
I don't ask you to agree with what I write, but I would hope you read it with an open mind, think about what's being said and, hopefully, realize that there is always more than one way to see the game.
Rest assured it was an entry level spot, high school sports, but I loved it and every beat that followed, working my way up through the ranks and eventually landing the one I always wanted; hockey.
That was the ride of a lifetime considering I arrived on the Buffalo Sabres scene about the same time Scott Bowman came down from Montreal to be coach and general manager. Talk about a baptism by fire.
Still it was a great run and moving through the eras hockey has been very, very good to me. I've seen 26 Stanley Cup finals in person including the one Mike Keenan and his good pal Nick hold dear.
I've been vice president and later president of the Professional Hockey Writers Association. I had the incredible good fortune to have won the 2004 Elmer Ferguson Award which happens to come along with the very nice perk of having a plaque in the Hockey Hall of Fame. I also won the New York State Publishers award for excellence in sports writing for, surprisingly enough, a column about hockey
Along the way I left the News (after 32 years) and have since worked for Foxsports.com, ESPN.com and now Sportsnet.ca, but it hasn't all been just hockey, hockey, hockey. I scored a great opportunity when Bob McCown asked me to co-host PrimeTime Sports, Canada's premier sports broadcast on the Fan 590 radio station and simulcast across the Sportsnet network.
I've been around longer than all of my friends and colleagues at Sportsnet.ca and have the gray hair to prove it, but I still have a passion for the game (I'm the only writer in the history of the News that was assigned to cover the NFL Buffalo Bills and then asked (begged actually) to go back to hockey). I think my time in the game gives me a perspective slightly different from most.
I have a wife who has been at my side before I even got into hockey (which makes her qualified for sainthood) two daughters and three grandchildren. My life away from work revolves around them. I also like sailing and boating in general, play a poor round of golf (hey when the team's I covered got booted I kept going to the final and the draft every year. That doesn't leave much time for working on a game.)
I have almost as many books as Broph has CDs and I love to read or even watch good writing on TV (West Wing, Boston Legal).
I got in on the ground floor with Sportsnet.ca at least in regards to writing columns. Most of you who have read me know I have strong opinions on the game and the people in it. Being of a certain age I don't worry much about what those people think. I write what I believe and let the chips fall where they may. That angers some people including some of you who read me regularly, but I didn't get into the business to make friends, I got in it to tell stories and, now, to give opinions based on what I've seen and learned in what is now a professional lifetime in the sport.
I like offence, appreciate good defence and great goaltending and lean toward larger nets, even less obstruction and a limit on the kind of stupid actions that too often disgrace the game and the many good people in it.
I don't ask you to agree with what I write, but I would hope you read it with an open mind, think about what's being said and, hopefully, realize that there is always more than one way to see the game.
