Posts with the LGBTQ tag

Barris Beat

NHL shoots and misses the point

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
NHLer Travis Dermott when he played for the Erie Otters. MSNBC

I’m considering becoming an Arizona Coyotes fan. Not because I have an affinity for either the Arizona desert or the wily mammal in the team name. Since I’ve lived in or around Toronto most of my life, I’ve always considered myself a Leafs fan by default.

But I’m beginning to think – even in sports – I should support people with more admirable attitudes. And recently, Coyotes defenceman Travis Dermott did an admirable thing. He used Pride Tape on his hockey stick in a game Saturday night.

“I have some family involved in the LGBTQ community,” he told ESPN in 2021. “I’d like to step forward and take part in supporting them.” (more…)

Barris Beat

An unwritten book

Written by Ted Barris on . 3 Comments
Student Neil Powers during his placement at The National Post in early 2018.

He came to my office a bit tentatively. He didn’t want to impose. It was early in the semester – back about three years ago. At the time, teaching journalism at the college where he’d enrolled, I told him it was my job to listen and offer feedback. And frankly, I told him, I welcomed the interruption. His whole face broke into a genuine smile and he settled into a chair across from me for our first conversation. Not as teacher and student, but as fellow writers.

“I know you’re an author,” he started, “and I want to write a book too. But I don’t know where to start.”

I should have asked Neil Powers, the mature student across from me in my office at Centennial College, what he wanted to write about, but I never did. (more…)

Barris Beat

On his own terms

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment

JASUN_SINGH_PORTRAIT_EMy writing staff and I had just completed a production meeting. I had just given our writers – the senior students of our online newspaper at Centennial College – their Remembrance Day assignments. With the recent loss of two reserve soldiers here in Canada, we were all sharply focused on Nov. 11 coming next week. So, I’d gone around the table and assigned stories to our student reporters. One would write about a woman in the Royal Canadian Navy in the Second World War. Another had an interview with an Afghanistan vet. A third would feature young military cadets.

And one reporter, a young man named Jasun, needed a phone number for a D-Day vet I asked him to interview.

“May I give you a bit of background?” I asked him.

He started writing notes on a single sheet of paper with his other hand as the writing surface.

I invited Jasun into my office. He sat at my desk. I stood across from him and gave him as much detail as I could about the 90-year-old veteran he would be interviewing later that day or the next. (more…)