After 46 years of sports coverage. One of hockey's most respected writers, he has his final article on The Athletic today, which is worth a read if you have any free articles left.
Enjoy the retirement, Eric.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/590...chek-farewell/
Some highlights:
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I saw the U.S. men’s team play seven times before the
Olympics, so when the Canadian team was eliminated, I veered over to cover the final two games of the tournament and accidentally was in place to cover one of the seminal sporting events of the 20th century, the Miracle on Ice.
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But journalism isn’t all celebratory, either. There were some really hard moments: the Swift Current bus crash, the Humboldt Broncos bus crash, the deaths of George Pelawa and Steve Chiasson.
None was more personally and professionally challenging than the events of September 2011. I’d been admitted to the hospital in Calgary with a collapsed lung that stubbornly refused to heal. It was determined that I needed major surgery, a thoracotomy. While I was preparing for that operation, the plane carrying the Lokomotiv hockey team crashed in Russia, killing almost everyone aboard, including Brad McCrimmon, who had become a friend over the years. That spring, I’d seen Brad postgame after a
Detroit-Phoenix playoff game. He introduced me to his parents that night and mentioned the possibility of a new adventure in the fall. I’d previously written a book about hockey in Russia a few years prior with Dave King, the first Canadian to coach in what was then called the Russian Super League.
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That was one of the best things about the job. It took you everywhere. Sometimes, you knew you were witnessing history. Other times, it came as a complete surprise. I was at the final game played by the Colorado Rockies (April 3, 1982, against Calgary). I was at the first home game played by the
San Jose Sharks (Oct. 5, 1991). I was there, in Florida, the night the Panthers defeated the Flames 4-3 in their home opener and Scott Mellanby scored twice. Afterward, Panthers goalie John Vanbiesbrouck noted how, just before the game, a rat had scurried across the dressing room floor in the old Miami Arena, and Mellanby, who had his stick with him, sent it splattering against the wall, with a quick flip of his wrist. Not a hat trick, but a “rat trick.” When the Panthers unexpectedly made the Stanley Cup Final later that season, plastic rats rained down on the ice surface after Florida goals, a tradition that continues today.
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Here’s something not everybody knows about me. When I began school, I couldn’t speak a word of English. We spoke only German at home, as my parents were also in the process of learning a new language after arriving in Canada. The fact that I ended up making a living writing in what is effectively my second language is the thing I take the most pride in.
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