Demise of Saskatoon Express just plain old sucks

The final Saskatoon Express.

    I never thought the last story I ever wrote for the Saskatoon Express wouldn’t make it into the outlet’s print edition.

    Actually, I believed I would be contributing more stories to upcoming editions of the weekly paper well into the future. This is a common thought at the time when a media outlet ceases operation.

    On the morning of May 13, I was typing out a story on Saskatoon Valkryies linebacker Emmarae Dale from a hotel room in Prince Albert for what was supposed to be the upcoming edition of the Express.
    I was in Prince Albert to cover Game 7 of the WHL Championship series that night between the host Prince Albert Raiders and the Vancouver Giants for this blog and for The Canadian Press.

    I was trying to finish the story on Dale before the lunch hour arrived.
    When the lunch hour did arrive, I had the story on the Western Women’s Canadian Football League standout player ready to be sent into the Express office along with a photo package.

    I opened my email to discover my urgency wasn’t needed.
    A message was sitting my inbox from Express editor Cam Hutchinson that was only five minutes old.

The seniors guide produced by the Saskatoon Express.

    The message thanked me for the stories I wrote for the Express over the years and said the weekly had officially closed its office doors.
    I was caught off guard, because I was expecting the Express to close up shop any time soon.
    The publication was moved into a nice new office space in the north end of the city.

    Plans had been in development for me to work in a closer partnership with the Express, and some of the steps in that plan had already been executed.

    I wasn’t surprised, because this type of things happens on a regular basis in today’s volatile media industry, especially in Canada.

    The story on Dale meant for the Express appeared in my blog and can be found by clicking right here.

     At first, I compartmentalized the demise of the Express, because I was so involved with the WHL final and the Raiders run to the Memorial Cup tournament. Prince Albert won the series deciding Game 7 of the WHL final that night 3-2 in overtime with Dante Hannoun picking up the winner.

Emily Clark on the Saskatoon Express cover.

    Before going to that game, I put posts up on Facebook and Twitter linked to Hutchinson’s farewell column for the Express.
    When you motor around Saskatoon now 18 days later, you wouldn’t even know the Express existed for an eight-year run.
    All the yellow bins that held the print versions of the paper have been picked up.

    If you try to connect to the Express’s website, most links come up with an error message. The Express’s Facebook and Twitter social media lines have gone untouched for about a couple of weeks.

    In the Lawson Heights Mall, I found copies of the seniors’ guide that was produced by the Express.
    That was the only sign I could find in town that the Express even existed.

    Hutchinson wrote in his column that advertising dollars were drying up. The final edition of the Express was covered in an advertising wrap and about 35 percent of the interior of the publication contained ads.

    I am speculating here, but I believe there was a fear in this volatile economy that ad revenue would dry up.
    Most of the people who had money invested in the Express were older veterans from the newspaper industry who were nearing retirement age, at retirement age or past retirement age.

Julia Flinton on the Saskatoon Express cover.

    Again, I am speculating, but I think that played a lot into the decision to close up shop. Eventually, people would like to have the option to roll into the sunset and not work.
    Still, the fact is the Express is no more.
    The thing that hurts the most is Saskatoon lost a media voice that was an alternative from the mainstream outlets.

    Hutchinson did a great job of rounding up what I call were the “outlaws” or media members that were often cut loose by the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.

    Due to the connections these media members had, the Express as a weekly was a vehicle that could keep the mainstream outlets accountable in their coverage, especially if they are owned by chains.

    You can bet the big local managers with companies like Postmedia, which owns the StarPhoenix, have to be doing fist pumps, because a competitor went down giving them more of a free rein.

    The Express’s demise reinforces the notion for chain media companies that they wait out local competitors and watch them close when they run out of steam.

    Because the mainstream outlets in Saskatoon are shadows of what they were 19 years ago, there are tonnes of stories in Saskatoon not being covered.

A Saskatoon Express story featuring Kaitlin Willoughby.

    When the Express was around, the mainstream outlets had to check it out to see if there was anything pressing or big that was missed.

    The Express carried stories in arts and sports that often were overlooked elsewhere or wouldn’t become stories unless the big local managers at the mainstream outlets took an interest in them.
    The weekly contained writers that typed out political columns you would not likely see in mainstream outlets as well.

    The Express provided a vehicle to showcase some of my stories on the Saskatoon Stars of the Saskatchewan Female Midget AAA Hockey League.

Kirby Dach on the cover of the Saskatoon Express.

    The Stars won four of the last five SFMAAAHL titles and earned berths at the Esso Cup female midget AAA nationals in each of those runs.

    Global did stories on them. If it wasn’t for Global and myself doing stories on the Stars, their exploits would have been ignored.
    They have produced players that have skated in Canada’s national team system too.
    The most traction the Stars had in mainstream outlets came in the 2017-18 campaign, when they fell in the Esso Cup title game to the St. Albert Slash 2-1.

    Even looking at the sports scene, there is so much I am not able to do as a solo person with my blog.
    The high school sports scene in Saskatoon is barely covered, and it was a staple of coverage for years in mainstream outlets.

    For minor sports at that level, they are usually the first to get cut because they draw the most jealousy complains by irate parents, who often confront the big bosses at mainstream outlets. The complaints usually revolved around one school getting more coverage than other schools or one minor sports team getting more coverage than other minor sports teams.

A Saskatoon Express story featuring Ashley Messier.

    The big bosses realize if those sports aren’t covered, they don’t deal with irate parents and have more hours in their day to focus on other things.

    I’ve often written stories on the University of Saskatchewan Huskies football team and hockey teams.
    When I’ve tried to do stories on the other Huskies teams on top of that, I find my time gets too taxed, and those teams I don’t write about deserve props too.

    In Saskatoon, the WHL’s Blades and the CJFL’s Hilltops aren’t covered to the extent they should be even with the work of my blog added in.

    In a naive way, I was hoping to work with the staff at the Express and hopefully try to better bridge gaps in the coverage.

Cianna Lieffers on the Saskatoon Express cover.

    The Express helped me work with sports scenes that I didn’t have any links to like the local stock car scene at the Wyant Group Raceway.

    Another thing I found disappointing with the demise of The Express was the lack of reaction.
    My initial social media posts on Facebook and Twitter drew no reaction.
    The Express Facebook page had three readers write in with their sympathies.
    I was told by lots of people in the community they loved checking out the Express, because they finally got to see a well put together print publication again.

    I have been met with lots of surprise over the past two weeks when I tell people the Express is no more.

    The Express offered lots of support to this blog. I admit I will have to deal with a hole not having that support there.
    Overall, I enjoyed working with the staff at the Express. Hutchinson, who is a long time friend, and general manager Dan Senick are gems.

The Saskatoon Express office all closed up.

    If they ever wanted me to work together on another media venture, I would be all for it.

    At the moment, I am still feeling disappointment the show isn’t going on.

    If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com.

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Sports media in Canada hits more uncertain waters

An enormous thank you to Grant, Dave & all those associated with @WHLonShawTV for the last 13 years. It's been an absolute honour. pic.twitter.com/Js6iH5vrZg

— The WHL (@TheWHL) May 15, 2017

     There was a pending air of finality on Sunday at the Brandt Centre in Regina, and it had nothing to do with the Regina Pats needing to win to stay alive in the WHL Championship series.

    The Pats were down 3-2 going into Game 6 of the best-of-seven set and needed a win against the Seattle Thunderbirds to force a series deciding Game 7 the next night. If you were in the media and scouts lounge pre-game during the hour before puck drop, there was a pending feel of finality circulating from a large number of media members in attendance.

    The obvious feel of finality came from the crew working the Shaw television broadcast. Shaw bought itself out of its contract to show WHL games next season, so Sunday could have been potentially be the last broadcast.

    If the Pats won, a Game 7 on Monday would definitely be the last hurrah. Ultimately, the Thunderbirds claimed Game 6 by a 4-3 score in overtime to make Sunday the final Shaw broadcast.

    Away from the Shaw crew, a number of other people were wondering if they would be around a year from now, when the Pats host the Memorial Cup. Some of the Regina media members noted they wouldn’t get to go to Windsor, Ont., for this year’s Memorial Cup if the Pats won the WHL title. That latter worry was erased with Seattle’s win.

    In reality, the media landscape that covers sports in Canada has the potentially to be vastly different when September arrives bringing with it the next winter sports season, which has the potential to run through to March, April or May.

    Shaw is closing television stations in Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver on Aug. 15. Corus Entertainment and Shaw Communications made that announcement in late April. Corus acquired Shaw’s media arm, which includes Global, in a $2.65-billion deal last year.
    Corus also announced that on Sept. 1, Global News will get a $10-million boost and part of those funds will be used to bolster coverage of university-level sports.

    Still, the closing of the Shaw stations in Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver means at the moment WHL hockey games and U Sports football games from the Canada West Conference will no longer be shown in Western Canada.

    On the U Sports front, the Silhouette, which is the student paper at McMaster University, ran a big column on March 31 that showed how U Sports has been messed over on its television contract with Sportsnet.

Saskatoon Blades HC Dean Brockman takes part in a media scrum.

    In late March, Bell Media cut a total of 14 jobs in local sports departments at CTV stations in Calgary and Edmonton in Alberta and Windsor, London and Kitchener in Ontario. A total of 20 jobs were lost in all at those CTV stations. Local sports was cut out at the CTV station in Barrie, Ont., in February.

    Thanks to all these cuts, there was a small fear by some in the sports media in Regina that it is possible their positions could be eliminated any day without notice.

    The saving grace in Regina is the presence of the CFL’s Saskatchewan Roughriders, whose national popularity will be keep local sports positions in that market. Still, the total number of sports media positions in that market have shrunk. It is easy to find people with the University of Regina athletics department that believe coverage of their teams will be considerably less at the start of this coming season now that Ian Hamilton is no longer with the Regina Leader-Post.

    The Leader-Post’s parent company, Postmedia, keeps constantly finding ways to downsize and did more downsizing late last year, where the company parted ways with Hamilton. Postmedia also owns the Saskatoon StarPhoenix, and there was downsizing at that outlet last last year as well.

    Across Canada, the number of people covering sports in the mainstream media in Canada outside of the NHL beat will be generally less in September of this year than it was in September of 2016.

    On the bright side while traveling across Saskatchewan and Alberta covering the WHL playoffs, it was nice to see mainstream media outlets in Regina, Swift Current and Lethbridge following their communities’ teams on the road to cover games.

    When I ventured across Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta covering WHL playoffs in 2016, the only media outlet I saw hit the road to cover their community’s team in the post-season was the Brandon Sun, which is basically an independent outlet.

    The WHL office itself is trying to do more to cover its member teams. Due to the cuts across the sports media in Canada, coverage of WHL is way less than it was five to eight years ago in mainstream outlets.

    Leagues like the WHL, U Sports and the Canadian Junior Football League are going to be forced to do more of their own media coverage on themselves through their websites and social media lines in order to get more exposure. The National Lacrosse League seems to already have made a big push on that front.

    The exposure of all those leagues would be helped if national wire services again decided to circulate stories about them, but anything outside of the NHL, UFC, Roughriders, Toronto Blue Jays or Toronto Raptors won’t even get a look by a wire service these days. The big mainstream media outlets and national wire services are addicted to getting instant gratification.

    Locally in Saskatoon, I can already see less cameras on the sidelines of the home opener for the University of Saskatchewan Huskies football team in September compared to their home opener on Sept. 2, 2016, when the Dogs downed the U of Regina Rams 41-39 in overtime.

    In the past three months, this blog has seen over 53,000 page views, which is the largest surge of views over any similar period since starting it up in late August of 2014. I thank those who have checked my blog out.

    I know some of the surge has come from the fact leagues like the WHL, U Sports, CJFL, the Western Women’s Canadian Football League or local minor sports like female midget AAA hockey are covered a lot less by the mainstream, and this blog is one spot that provides information on those circuits.

    I big time thank and appreciate the support of Gregg Drinnan, who the greatest to ever cover the WHL, and Cam Hutchinson, who is the editor of the Saskatoon Express, for consistently giving me encouragement and reinforcement.

Saskatchewan Rush HC and GM Derek Keenan takes part in a media scrum.

    With that said, I know I want to take time to reset and see where the chips covering sports in the media industry in Canada fall by the time September rolls around. I am not going to make any guarantees about what I will be around writing about in September.
    On top of media changes, I never know how things will unfold in my personal life.

    My goal is to ensure whatever I do cover it will be something I am passionate about. I find that when you cover something you are not passionate about, the readers see through it, and you do them a disservice. I really hope to avoid that.

    Until September, I just take things one day at a time and roll with the punches as they come, which is something I always try to do.

    If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com. To see column from the Silhouette regarding the television contract between U Sports and Sportsnet, you can do that by clicking here.

The Sermon over a year old and still going

Me just out relaxing and enjoying the day.

    Like your typical guy, I am bad at observing anniversaries.

    I almost forgot to mark the creation day of this blog. The first post on Stanks’ Sermon blog came back on Aug. 29, 2014, and it marked my thoughts about settling down in Saskatoon. I am just over a month late in recognizing the one-year anniversary for this site, but it is better late than never.

    This will be the 121^st unique entry to Stanks’ Sermon, and I just passed 25,000 page views in total, which includes views from a number of high ranking officials from various sports teams. The fact I would make that many entries or attract that many page views were both unexpected. I figured this might be a side project, but it seems to be turning into a focus.

    When I moved to Saskatoon to be closer to family, I figured I would basically be retired from covering sports after leaving the Medicine Hat News. I expected to arrive in Saskatoon, get a communications, public relations or an office administrative position with a company like Cameco or PotashCorp and disappear into the background of real life as an ordinary person not in the public view.

    I know a lot of my friends from the media field figured I would end up in the communications and public relations field upon my arrival to Saskatoon. From there, I would figure out how I would be involved in the sports community.

    In real life, plans don’t work out as cookie cutter like that. Since arriving in The Bridge City, I have applied for numerous communications positions in town with various organizations. Going back to the start of August of 2014, I have had only three career related job interviews. Of those three career related interviews, one was with an organization in another centre.

    While talking to about three friends similar to myself who are trying to land a position in the communications and public relations field, they also seem to be running into the same roadblocks. Those positions seem to be used by organizations or companies to satisfy unwritten equal opportunity employment ratio numbers. In other words, you need to be from a visible minority group or female to even be considered for such work.

    If you are a Caucasian male in your later 30s, it seems like you shouldn’t even try to apply. I have even had the odd bud from football joke I should look into becoming like Caitlyn Jenner to get work in the communications and public relations field.

    From there, I naturally moved to find freelance work with various entities as a writer and a photographer. Becoming a freelance journalist was something that wasn’t in the plans.

    I did kick tires sending resumes to various local media outlets to see if they needed a writer or a photographer. Even broadcast outlets have former print reporters managing website content, but in the media’s budget cut era, I wasn’t expecting too much, even with the fact I have been in media in some form since 1996.

    I sent resumes to, in no particular order, the StarPhoenix, CTV Saskatoon, Global Saskatoon, the Saskatoon Media Group, CBC Saskatoon, 650 CKOM, Planet S and the Verb Magazine. Outside of getting an email from a StarPhoenix human resources representative in June, I didn’t get a sniff from any of them. As I was living with family, I figured I put myself in position to work under the hometown discount, which would help my employment chances in the media’s budget cut era.

    I have friends who ended up with positions in mainstream media outlets in Calgary and Edmonton due to the fact they moved there before applying or they already lived there.

    My disappointment on that front wasn’t too large. I know how stressed the media situation is in Canada, and I know a lot of great people work at the Saskatoon based outlets.

    The coolest thing that happened to me on the media front was reconnecting with Cam Hutchinson, who is the editor of the Saskatoon Express weekly publication. He was the long-time managing editor at the StarPhoenix, which included the period I worked there on an internship. I became a regular contributor to the Express.

    The Express contains a number of former StarPhoenix staffers, and they are spectacular when it comes to looking at my copy.

    Hutchinson had also gone public with his battles with anxiety, and he became a great person to talk to on that front. I have also long gone public with my battles regarding issues with anxiety, which started due to workplace mental health issues that arose during my final years at the Medicine Hat News.

    Hutchinson has been one of two people in the media industry that I feel have really understood what I have gone through. The other has been Gregg Drinnan in Kamloops, who is the ultimate veteran when it comes to covering the WHL and regularly tries to shed light on mental health issues in his Taking Note blog.

    In Hutchinson’s case, he has been great when it comes to offering reassuring words. It is also great to have someone in town you can go out for a coffee with to talk about mental health issues.

    The fact I have come forward with my mental health battles does kind of stick somewhat in the back of my mind of being the reason I don’t get interviewed for communications and public relations positions. I have often been told by people dealing with their mental health battles that it is a career and job killer to talk about these issues, due to the stigma that surrounds mental health issues.

    That actually jumped to the forefront of my mind during one of my career related interviews. Back in February, I interviewed for a media position with the department of Advancement and Community Engagement at the University of Saskatchewan.

Me checking out action at Saskatoon Minor Football Field.

    Going into the interview, I had this plan all figured out for the question, “What was the biggest change you ever faced in your career?”

    I had a strategy to talk about what I encountered on the mental health front in the workplace, and how that it was a big thing for me to find a way to overcome that challenge. I had a very minimal idea or education what to do on the mental health front just four years earlier.

    During the interview, a question came up regarding how do I deal with times that are extremely busy. When I heard that question, I figured that wasn’t much of a question. If anyone could see a video of my time at the News, they could see that every shift was hyper busy during my last two years there and that dealing with the world is caving in scenario got to the point it was an ordinary, everyday thing.

    I decided in my mind let’s stop daintily dancing around the soft question and get to the hard one. I said that being busy wasn’t a problem for me, because life was always busy at the News. I then said the biggest challenge I faced came on the mental health front.

    After I said what had happened to me, the four woman panel that interviewed me gave me this stunned, shocked look. My first reaction to that was I should have never brought up my mental health story.

    My mind then drifted into thoughts about educated stereotypes. My mind started thinking if a four woman panel interviewing me for a position at a major university can give me this look I am really screwed, because women traditionally are a little more caring and emotional than men and major universities are supposed to be forward thinking places.

    In evaluating that whole interview, I felt I didn’t perform well enough on an overall standard. I believe I was good, but I needed to be great, spectacular or impressive. One of my former media colleagues from another centre got that position, and I do have to conclude that was an extremely good hire.

    Even with that in mind, the reaction to when I brought up the mental health issues sticks in my mind. Looking back, I just should have answered the question about how I deal with being busy.

    To supplement the income from freelancing and money that comes in from this blog, I have been working temporary contract positions through Kelly Services. I started off with mainly office work, but have doing more warehouse assignments lately, which means I have put on steel toed footwear for the first time in about 19 years.

    All the work environments I have encountered through Kelly Services have been positive ones, which have been big in helping me. Since my mental health problems started due to troubles in the work environment, it was important for me to regain the experience of feeling safe leaving my place of residence and going to a work site.

    In these positions, I also met a number of other people who dealt with troubles in other work environments where employers hired outright street creatures to letting unthinkable things get overlooked like personal theft between employees or theft from the company as two examples. They were happy to find a better environment as well. On a side note, I applied to some of the companies my temporary co-workers talked about, posted the highest score on an employee assessment one company had ever seen, but still didn’t land a job.

    During my ups and downs on those fronts and feeling like I am being left behind in the game of life compared to my friends, I always had this blog. I used it to document cool stuff regarding in random order the University of Saskatchewan Huskies, the Saskatoon Hilltops, the Saskatoon Blades, the Saskatoon Valkyries, a UFC card and a couple of NHL exhibition games.

    It would be cool if creating this blog could become a full-time thing, and with that said, I eventually need to put in work on the advertising front. Actually, if I averaged getting a dollar for every page view that occurred, I could get away with writing this blog and relying on freelance work for income.

    The highlight moment with this blog so far has been writing about the Saskatoon Stars of the Saskatchewan Female Midget AAA Hockey League, whose roster contains my young cousin Danielle Nogier. Nogier’s presence on the team is honestly the only reason I discovered the Stars and their talented young and energetic bunch. Last season, they won the female title at the Mac’s tournament, their first SFMAAAHL title and bronze at the Esso Cup national championship tournament.

    During my life, I would consider myself not to be the greatest family guy. Heck, I lived 13 straight years in centres that didn’t contain family before moving to Saskatoon.

    I was able to be at the Agriplace Arena the night the Stars won the league title, and the big personal highlight was getting to snap a picture of my cousin skating around the ice with the championship banner. I have covered and lived through a number of highlight moments in sports, but I can count on one hand the number of times those moments included family members. As sports is my passion, it was cool, special and different in a very good way for me to see one of Danielle’s big moments.

    One of the reason’s I came to Saskatoon was to experience a moment like the Stars winning a league title, even if I didn’t know that when I made the move here.

    I have to remember I arrived with the goal to live in Saskatoon. I believe I am a community minded person, which comes from the influence of former University of Regina Rams head coach Frank McCrystal, and my university days involved with the teams at the University of Regina. Thinking about those years and the old rivalry between Regina and Saskatoon, I don’t think McCrystal could imagine anyone going to Saskatoon to try and have a positive impact there. Lol.

    While my living is a modest one since arriving in the Bridge City, I have been able to buy my own $1,000 ticket to the One Voice Fundraiser, attend the Dogs’ Breakfast, take part in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, give to the Canadian Cancer Society, donate money to the late Cody Smuk in his battle with cancer, support the scholarship fund for the U of Saskatchewan Huskies women’s hockey team, attend the Saskatoon Hilltops PotashCorp Pitchfork Fondue and pass money on to the Hilltops scholarship fund.

My young cousin Danielle Nogier and the SFMAAAHL title banner.

    On the out of town front due to longstanding links I have made, I have made small donations to Dorothy Drinnan’s participation in the Kidney Walk in Kamloops and to Medicine Hat News sports editor Sean Rooney for his participation in the Extra Life fundraiser in Medicine Hat to supports children’s hospitals nationally. Of course, I am still making donations to the Rams scholarship fund, which is something I have been doing since leaving Regina in 2001.

    The One Voice Fundraiser to support the Neural Health Project at the U of Saskatchewan, which looks to find a more complete approach to treat mental illnesses, was the one big night I felt like I was an on top superstar again. I wrote a blog post to advance that fundraiser telling my mental health story, and I felt from the people I met that night it was really well received. The warm feeling I had at TCU Place that night was something I wish I could constantly carry with me.

    I thank all of those who have invested in me in some way and have followed this blog, so that I can give back.

    My goal is to remain in Saskatoon, and hopefully, continue to be more of a positive influence. For now, this blog isn’t going away and neither am I.

    I hope you will continue to follow what I write. I enjoy writing stories mainly from the sports side of this community, and I will continue on as long as there is an audience that checks out what I do.

    If you have any comments you want to pass on about this blog post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com.

My mental health story

Me trying to be calm about the day ahead.

    Don’t talk about it. Pretend it doesn’t exist.

    At times, the silence can be painful. I have no problem admitting I have issues dealing with anxiety, and I have known about these issues since 2012. These are issues and not a full out disorder, but it is something that has affected my life.

    I have no problem talking about it.  I find the more I talk I actually gain allies that want to help. Talking also makes me feel better.

    During my journey with a mental health issue, I have found that isn’t the case with everyone. I have met people that still hide their mental health problems and issues.

    I have run into a couple of friends with issues on the mental health front that have warned me to not talk about my issues. They say if you do so you will be blackballed out of life. They said that since I have long gone public with my issues the high point of my life will have been covering the Medicine Hat Tigers WHL hockey team for the Medicine Hat News.

    Now that I am home in Saskatoon, I can forget about doing anything else of significance with my life. I will no longer be able to get a good job, because I have baggage that will scare employers away. I will never be able to hold a romantic relationship because of the stigma that still surrounds mental health.

    For all intents and purposes, my life is over.

    There is a big part of me that doesn’t believe this. During the early years of my career as a sports reporter, I had a habit of proving people wrong. There is still part of me that believes I will persevere. I will find a way. My mental health issue will be part of my life story, but it won’t be the thing that defines me.

    There was a time not so long ago I never thought mental health would play a part of my life. I can pin the last time I was normal on a day-to-day basis for an extended period as the 2010-11 hockey season, or more accurately, the winter sports season.

    On a personal level entering that season, I was trying to distance myself from residue that remained from a couple of relationship situations. Due to budget cuts at the News, the winter sports season was very busy.

    My plan to get on the rebound included not engaging in anything on the relationship front. I was just going to enjoy covering the Hat’s sports scene, and my focus revolved around the Tigers, Medicine Hat College Rattlers and high school football.

    I had long befriended a number of people in all those walks of life, and I gained a lot of joy covering their journeys through their respective campaigns. In 2010-11, The Tigers had a strong season, and most of the Rattlers teams had successful campaigns.

    As the calendar turned to March in 2011, the Rattlers seasons closed and the Tigers were gearing up for a playoff run. I was looking forward to the WHL post-season and was feeling really good.
    Every day was a great day, and even the day-to-day challenges that caused some extra stress didn’t feel like a problem. Little did I know, my life path was going to change drastically over the next few years.

    This is the part where the story gets tough to tell. I do have to play politics a bit in order to protect good people that meant well but didn’t know how to handle the situations that came up.

    While covering the Tigers post-season run, I discovered a mental health issue inside my workplace. Before arriving in the Hat in September of 2004, I worked three years at the Prince Albert Daily Herald, and from my training there, I remembered we had the ability to dial a 1-800 number if you discovered something on this front that might be concerning. A number of workplaces have this option in place for their employees, but the News did not.

    My memory also vaguely recalled an incident in 2001 back in Regina, where a former CTV employee fired a shot through the entrance of his old workplace after being let go. My mind seemed to recall that was linked to mental health, but I wasn’t sure. I had a couple of friends that worked at CTV at that time, and they were freaked.

    My educated gut feeling was that my discovery at the News should be treated seriously.

    When playoffs concluded, I told my mom what had happened, and I consulted a small group of three people for advice. Looking back now, I should have expanded the group, but worked to keep some details like names and places vague. That group should have also included my older sister, Michelle Stephen, who has been a social worker for over two-and-a-half decades.

    I also have to admit my concern at this time was tempered. The summer of 2011 was looking to be an exciting time, as I was pursuing opportunities to make a career move upwards in Calgary and Saskatoon.

    I was excited, because up to that point in my life, it seemed a break upwards in my career seemed to always work out at the appropriate time. I figured the appropriate time had come again.

    Unfortunately over a two-week vacation late that summer, it became clear those opportunities wouldn’t work out. I had a good break watching the University of Regina Rams play their season opener and the Saskatchewan Roughriders play in the Labour Day Classic, which included some great social time around those games. I also kept a promise I made to an old friend from Prince Albert in Elizabeth Hudon, and I watched her play for the University of Saskatchewan Huskies women’s soccer team in her fifth and final season of eligibility.

    Looking back now, the first bad sign for me came up, when it came time to return to the Hat. I remember getting in my car to leave my mom’s place, and I started crying. That had never happened on a return trip to the Hat.

    I admitted to her I didn’t want to go back, because I worried about what awaited me. I had kicked the tires about living in Saskatoon in the summer of 2010 for family reasons, but this was totally different. I feared my return to Medicine Hat wouldn’t be good.

    When I returned to the Hat, I told a member of the senior management at the News about the mental health issue I discovered. I figured that would make everything better. Unfortunately, I think this whole situation was new for the senior manager too, which further complicated things.

    I was left to manage the issue, and if people say otherwise, I definitely felt like it fell on my shoulders to manage it. To make matters worse, I wasn’t in a position to manage that situation.

    As the months went on, things kept getting worse, incidents piled up and my mental well-being went down the tube. It seemed like those in the small group that knew about the situation and my mom didn’t think the situation was as serious as I thought it was.

    This became another lesson I learned on the mental health front. If a mental health situation is discovered and no one acts on it, it becomes way worse.

Hanging out with Elizabeth Hudon in 2011 before the tough times.

    For the longest time, I soldiered on convincing myself everything was in my head. I kept thinking God and life wouldn’t throw anything in my path that I couldn’t handle.

    With that said, I got to the point where I would shut off my cell phone and disconnect my land line when I was on days off. I basically did what I could do to isolate myself.

    Things disintegrated to the point in 2012 that I considered suicide, which will likely come as a revelation to my family members let alone my friends. In my mind, I was sick of being the pawn that was shouldered with making everyone else’s life easier.

    Other thoughts that ran through my mind was that no one outside of my mom would miss me, if I no longer existed. The paper would still come out and each Tigers season would come and go whether I was there or not. I wasn’t in any relationship, so no one would care from that front.

    I also reasoned that I had a good run at life, as being a sports reporter allowed me to have a number of unique experiences most will never have. I was thinking that it was better to burn out than to fade away.

    It was around this time my mom arrived for an extended visit, and couldn’t believe the bad shape I was in. Another lesson I would learn is that this journey was extremely hard on my mom. With her arrival, I never did attempt suicide.

    It was also round this time my social working sister Michelle became more active in the picture. She would drop hints about courses of action to take. I guess she figured I would follow them, when I was ready.

    One of the actions included going to see my doctor, telling him everything that was going on and getting help that way. I had no clue you could do such a thing.

    After a couple of incidents at the start of the 2012-13 season, I decided I would see a doctor, but not just any doctor. I was going to go see the team doctor of the Medicine Hat Tigers, Bill Ruzycki. My mind was made up that he would be able to make me better.

    The thinking came from the fact the Tigers former long-time head coach and general manager Willie Desjardins, who is currently the head coach of the NHL’s Vancouver Canucks, had his master’s degree in social work, and I felt very confident mechanisms were put in place with the Tigers medical staff to deal with mental health issues. With that in mind, I didn’t want to see anyone else other than Dr. Ruzycki.

    To be honest, I did not have the greatest faith in the staff at the News at that point in time to be able to handle things.

    I was put on medical leave for November of 2012. Dr. Ruzycki set me up with a really good councellor and a plan was put in motion to help me get better. I wanted to get better without the use of drugs.

    I found out I developed issues dealing with anxiety due to my situation at work. I started to learn about how breathing exercises and meditation could help.

    I also tried to do my best to learn more about mental health. That is still an ongoing process.

    Talking also helped.
    My best listeners during my medical leave included former Tigers Brennan Bosch, Ryan Holfeld and David Schlemko, as well as Kelsey Konihowski and Talayna Tremblay. Konihowski and Trembley were still members of the Rattlers women’s volleyball team at the time, and I felt secure talking to them due to the fact they had been in nursing at one point in time.

    Schlemko, an NHL veteran defenceman who finished last season with the Calgary Flames, came back to town when I was on leave for a funeral, and he has always been genuine and trustworthy. I also went to see Bosch and Holfeld play with the Huskies men’s hockey team, and going to those games became a regular tradition for me to get into a different but good world for a short time.

    When I was gone, the News brought in the human resources department to handle the issues that were in place. I returned and had a good 19 months. There were still a lot of changing stresses due to budget cuts at work, which no one could really control.

    A pile of 30 reasons built up, where I thought it would be best to switch scenery. At the end of June of 2014, I resigned from the News to move to Saskatoon to be close to family. I was giving a heartfelt and unreal great going away.

    No matter what happened in that building, I still see everyone there as being good. I believe everything that went down was a learning experience for everyone as it was for me. It wasn’t one anyone always liked, but it was a learning experience none the less. I will go out for pops with anyone from that place at any time.

    Now in Saskatoon, I have to be honest and admit some residual effects from what I encountered in my last three years in the Hat still surface. From time to time, my anxiety will get heightened due to triggers I would never suspect. On the bright side, I have become more mindful in recognizing what is happening, which has helped to get me settled down.

    It has also been great for me to reconnect with Cam Hutchinson, who is the editor of the Saskatoon Express and former long-time managing editor of the Saskatoon StarPhoenix. He has gone public with his battles with anxiety, and when I talk to him, it feels like someone else actually does know what I am going through.

    I tell my mental health story in hopes people can learn just how quickly things can go downhill, even if you were at an awesome and healthy place at one point in time.

    On Friday night, I will be heading to the One Voice fundraiser at TCU Place here in Saskatoon, which supports the Neural Health Project at the U of Saskatchewan. From what I understand, the hopes of this project are to develop a more complete approach to the treatment of mental illness.

    Mike Babcock, who is the head coach of the NHL’s Toronto Maple Leafs, and Dr. DeeDee Maltman are the ones behind the idea of the One Voice fundraiser. The idea for the project and fundraiser came about after the deaths of Saskatoon products Ian Buckwold and Jordan Chartier in July of 2013 at the hand of mental illness. Their deaths were hard on their family and friends.

Out watching a Huskies hockey game with Howler.

    I plan to learn more about the Neural Health Project, and I am hoping it will create an avenue to better treat mental illness. The fact Babcock is involved in this fundraiser increases my optimism for the project.

    I will see a lot of people I have met from the sports world again on Friday night, and I expect to make some new friends. A lot of the people attending the One Voice fundraiser have had their own mental health battles.

    I expect I will learn some new lessons about mental health on Friday night, but I plan to go for all intents and purposes to have a good time.

    I hope I can add to the conversation and gain another reminder I am not alone in my mental health journey.

    If you have any comments about this blog post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com. Feel free to check out the other post I wrote back in February about my mental health journey entitled, “Huskies hockey was good for me.”