Hi everyone! After a hiatus that has lasted far too long, 50 Years Ago in Hockey is making a comeback. We’ve been engaged in a few other projects over the past year and are now ready to get back to supporting our daily @1969hockeynews Twitter account, where we report on news and events in the hockey world from 50 years ago.
Our reporting this time will take a different format than the text and picture stories to which you have become accustomed. With the encouragement and support of my two kids (who both have had great careers in media and broadcasting) and my wife Francine (the most understanding spouse in the world) we will be launching the 50 Years Ago in Hockey Podcast in a few short weeks.
The podcast will appear weekly, usually on Fridays if all goes according to plan. It will follow the basic format of our news articles, that is to say, it will contain news and features from 50 years ago, but with more detail and analysis than Twitter’s 280 characters allows. We will, from time to time, hopefully about twice a month, present “premium content” episodes, which will be available to subscribers. But rest assured, the weekly Friday episodes will be available free to everyone!
The premium content podcasts will contain features on players and issues from 50 years ago and interviews with personalities from the hockey and sports worlds.
Some of those who will be appearing are former Maple Leaf goalie Ed Chadwick, broadcaster Jim Tatti, Leafs play-by-play voice Joe Bowen, retired Globe & Mail journalist David Shoalts and a host of other authors, former players and folks connected with sport.
Focus of the premium podcasts will be, of course, on the guests themselves. But we’ll also try and link how events from 50 years ago compare to and even influence things that take place today. And we won’t limit ourselves to strictly events and issues from the time period we normally would cover. We will discuss the entire spectrum of hockey history, as well as socially relevant issues of today and what changes have taken place with those issues over the past 50 years.
Despite the fact I have a face for radio and a voice for print journalism, we’ll try and make these podcasts as professional as possible. My son Andy Cole has had a fine career in radio and will produce the podcasts. My daughter Amy Cole, a television writer and producer, will provide writing help and tips, and contributes the intro music via her band, the Rural Alberta Advantage.
We’ve even obtained a couple of sponsors to help defray the costs of putting all this together. Newspapers.com is providing enormous assistance with our research, and the great news items we have found would remain buried and forgotten without the access they have provided to their entire database.
Also helping us out is the Breakwall Brewing Company, located in beautiful downtown Port Colborne, Ontario. Fred Davies and his son Conrad produce the finest craft beers in the Niagara Region, as well as some of the best pub food anywhere on the planet. And Fred himself has some interesting hockey and local history we’ll explore during the series. Many of our guest interviews will be taking place at The Breakwall. Their web site can be found at https://breakwallbrewery.com/
The podcast will be available wherever popular podcasts can be found. We’ll also post links here, and on Facebook and Twitter as the episodes drop.
It’s an ambitious project, but one that has been so much fun to get started. We’ve already done a few interviews, which have been so great thanks to amazing guests, and more planned over the coming weeks. I think we’ll produce something that will appeal not only to those who love the history of our sport, but that will resonate with fans of today’s game as well.
As my dad, who loved history as much as I do, once told me: “You can’t know where you are going until you understand where you’ve been.”
50 Years Ago In Hockey 