A joy ride down memory lane
It's been an adventure, it's been a fun little space to tell some great stories. With an anniversary in sight, we look back fondly at a few of our favourites
What exactly makes a great story? Is it witnessing something historic? Is it getting to share a tale you maybe never thought you’d get to write? Or maybe, perhaps, is it simply making the most of a conversation that you just found enjoyable just to be a part of?
How about … all of the above.
These are the thoughts the author of this space had run through his mind when he considered how to write about the fact that Hammer That Keyboard celebrates its third anniversary in the next few days. While that might not seem the largest of milestones, it sure is to the person who first wandered onto this platform back in 2023, wondering exactly how successful (or not) he might be.
Let’s flash back, for a minute or three, to the manner in which this little space on the internet first came into being. It was toward the beginning of 2023 that this writer saw a long-term freelance gig dry up under the most tragic of circumstances (which we feel no need to rehash here). His full-time job involves strictly editing, so a crossroads of sorts had definitely been reached when it came to tapping out his thoughts.
In the end, the decision was made to do what a growing number of wordsmiths do these days — create a space of your own. And so it was that the decision was made to jump into the world of Substack, with this space in particular gaining a name that had been rolling around in my head for quite sometime (it’s an homage to his current home in Hamilton a.k.a. “The Hammer”).
Expectations were admittedly low in the beginning and well, maybe that was a good thing. Yeah, it was a slow build in the early months, to say the least, but 255 columns later, the payoff continues to show itself in a big way. Audiences have boomed in a manner that, quite frankly, we never really saw coming (and thanks so, so much for that).
Lessons were learned along the way, to be sure. Heard this piece of advice years ago when it comes to this kind of writing, and it’s so very true: being regularly visible matters and I mean really, really matters. The commitment was made here to publish at least once a week and that’s been met since the very beginning.
Do a search for this Substack’s name on every Friday or Saturday, and it’s guaranteed you’ll find a fresh piece of writing. That was my vow to both myself and those who subscribe, who make a commitment of their own to take time out of their busy lives to read what you see here.
While Hammer That Keyboard launched with a somewhat broad focus, it became apparent rather quickly which sport readers clearly had the most appetite to consume. That would be figure skating, a sport I’ve covered for more than 30 years, and a Canadian favourite that is wildly underserved in terms of media coverage these days.
Things like the Olympic Games, NCAA football and the ins and outs of sports television all have found a home here. But then again, these also happen to be subjects that have been personal favourites of this author for an extended period of time. Let’s just say it’s way more fun to write on topics that you’re passionate about.
Speaking of personal favourites … we decided to use this occasion for a bit of a trip down memory lane. For at least one of the reasons in the opening paragraph of this column, these are some of the stories that we’ve most enjoyed telling (with a little bit of explanation underneath each to explain the why behind these choices).
Perhaps these are your favourites, too. If they’re not, toss a thought or two in the comments and let me know what you think. At the end of the day, there is endless gratitude here for those who have become regulars in reading this space (a number that has risen tremendously in the last three or four months, ever since the Olympics. Covering those Games remotely the way we did was the best decision ever made here).
For those who are new here and may have missed some of the earlier pieces, we’ve provided links for you to do a little bit of memory tripping of your own. Hope you enjoy this ride as much as I have since this all started 36 months ago. And here’s one final vow: we’re not close to done here yet.
On to our list of personal favourites, in no particular order …
Yeah, there’s a serious bit of recency bias with this one. But did you really think I could leave out one of the most magical nights in modern Canadian skating history?
Put it this way. It’s a very safe bet that lots of folks reading this have had multiple viewings of Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier’s wonderful “Vincent (Starry Starry Night)” free dance at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics. I actually did it one more time a few nights ago.
(CBC had Gilles rewatch it herself earlier this week and filmed it, just to show her reaction. It’s really something to see, if you haven’t).
This was truly a story 15 years in the making. I’ve literally covered this duo’s career since the season they got together, and the long, steady climb to get to that Olympic podium in Italy. Coming off back-to-back silver medals at the World Championships, it certainly seemed to be squarely in this Canadian tandem’s sights.
But then there was all that judging nonsense that went on back in the fall during the Grand Prix season (which was well documented here, and eventually in that “Glitter & Gold” Netflix documentary). But then came that February night in Milan. And then Govardo’s music started playing, and we were all swept up in the masterpiece they carved across the ice. One of those absolute memories for a lifetime.
There are stories you really hope you get to write in your lifetime. Knowing Gilles and Poirier as I do, this was truly one of them. Just a total privilege to witness that moment and to string together some words to describe the meaning of it all.
(Story link is right here).
It was a wintry March evening in Montreal, and something that almost defied words to describe had just happened inside the raucous Bell Centre, which played host to the first World Championships on Canadian soil in more than a decade.
And yet, I had to find a few thousand or so.
The night Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps became world pairs champions was unlike anything I’ve seen in all my years (and decades) of doing this thing. A 40-year-old woman teaming up with a 32-year-old guy with a rather pedestrian past to become world champions? Nah, that can’t possibly happen.
And yet it absolutely did.
Here’s a bit of the backstory to the story above. Due to a series of unplanned circumstances, the press conference after this historic result was way late in happening. And by the time we got back to the media centre to somehow sum all of this up, we got word the building had to lock its doors in 15 minutes and we had to leave.
So began my wintry walk back to the delightful apartment-hotel in the Griffintown area of downtown Montreal that was my home for a week. Thoughts raced through my mind, so many thoughts. But one of them stood out most of all: this might be the best story I ever get to write about, and there have been plenty of great ones over the years.
And that’s the mindset that went into producing a story that didn’t get published until almost 2 a.m. It was exhilarating stuff and well, it’s exactly the kind of energy that was intended to go into this space. It’s my why, as the saying goes, and damn, it felt so good to feel that.
(Story link is right here).
There are certain people in this world you always look forward to interviewing, simply because what they often say is so raw and honest and you betcha that makes for some of the best stories.
Kaetlyn Osmond has always been one of those people.
Whenever we get together for a chat, you know there’s going to be a nugget or two (at least) that is going to make for some extra great copy. The interview we did in the weeks after she became world champion in 2018 — she was sitting in a lounge at the airport in Calgary, waiting for a flight home to Edmonton — was just chock full of behind the scenes material most of us would never have seen.
Yeah, it was very worthy of a magazine cover story.
To get up to the present moment … when Skate Canada announced early in 2025 that all the retired members of its gold-medal team at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics would be the next inductees into its Hall of Fame, it immediately led to the idea to produce a series of stories centred around those golden days.
Among other things, it gave me the chance to reconnect with Osmond and, yet again, the young woman who is a recent graduate from the media studies program at the University of Alberta delivered in her usual honest way (and yeah, there are a few things in that story that’ll make you wonder where exactly that came from).
That kinda stuff will always be a favourite with this guy.
(Story link is right here).
The Olympic Games have been a life-long source of passion and drive for literally thousands of athletes around the globe. And that sort of sentiment also fits for some of us who like to write about all the magic they give us every two years.
It’d be incredibly naive to think there isn’t a dirty underbelly to the world the exists beneath the five rings. A cynic might actually let it take away from the spectacle of it all. But always, always, the athletes find a way to rise above the swamp and give us the kind of moments that keep us coming back for more.
That pretty much sums up the reasons behind this particular story being among the favourites compiled here. If you want a little more depth on that line of think … you’re welcome to read on.
(Story link is right here).
Some of the best stories you get to write are the ones you never see coming. Right out of the blue, as the old saying goes.
This was certainly one of those. Katherine Medland Spence endured (and that is precisely the right word) an injury filled 2023-24 season, one in which she struggled just to escape feeling pain.
Then something truly magical happened. She found the right set of coaches in Ken and Danielle Rose at the Richmond Training Centre in Toronto, and they put together a plan to keep the Ottawa native as healthy as she needed to be just to train regularly. And as any athlete in any sport will tell you, that matters so, so much.
Medland Spence got in quality reps in some early season competitions, producing the kind of scores needed to earn her first international assignment. And darned if she didn’t go out and win the whole thing (Warsaw Cup, a Challenge Series event).
Even a few weeks later, that golden success still hadn’t sunk in for the then-24-year-old. But it didn’t end there. She went on to earn a bronze medal at the Canadian national championships in Laval, Que., another career first (which led to a dream trip to Four Continents).
All in all, it ended up being one of my favourite stories of the 2024-25 season. Alas, as we detailed just a week ago, the injuries (and other serious issues) reared their head again last season. But Medland Spence remains determined to get back to the kind of skating she showed just one year ago. And that’d be another great story if it happens.
(Story link is right here).
I’m sure a whole bunch of folks over the years have wondered how I got so deeply involved in covering this particular sport. So early on into this Substack journey, it was time to tell that story.
What came out of that was a fun look back at my small-town roots in the sportswriting biz — because that is indeed where all of this started — and man, was that a true blast from the past.
Just typing those words was quite the reminder of the days when our newsroom in southwestern Ontario clickety-clacked its way to producing story after story (and for those old enough to remember typewriters, remember how, um, fun it was to change ribbons when you noticed you were clearly running out of ink?).
This was long before things like computers and the internet (imagine doing the job without that vast well of resources?), although the former did finally come into our world in the last few years before I headed eastward to Ottawa for a nearly two-decade run.
How times have changed, indeed. Like, glacially so.
(Story link is right here).
We mentioned my fascination with NCAA football in the intro to this wee bit of memory tripping. What started out as an early season theme — over-reaction to the first weekend results, which is an annual event — turned into a weekly series that traversed the entire season.
(and my apologies to the skating fans out there who aren’t into such things and have to put up with those yarns landing in your inbox).
While all of that is great fun for moi, a piece that was crafted here over the holiday season last year was doubly so. Fans of the old sitcom “Seinfeld” will know that Festivus, the fictional holiday invented by Frank Costanza, lands on Dec. 23. And when that happened to fall on a Tuesday in 2025 … let’s say some wheels started turning.
Grievances were aired, feats of strength were noted, all of it connected to the college football goings on of the day. It made for what is perhaps my favourite gridiron-themed column of them all in this space.
(Story link is right here).
It wasn’t long into watching the stream of the 2025 World Championships in Boston that my ears began to realize that a very familiar (and distinct) voice was part of the commentary team.
That voice belonged to Kirsten Moore-Towers, the four-time Canadian pairs champion and 2014 Olympic Team Event silver medallist who first cut her broadcasting teeth on Skate Canada Productions events. With a recommendation from Ted Barton, the guy behind those webcasts, playing a big role, Moore-Towers was off to the big show.
Very quickly, this viewer noticed just how informative she was being for those watching, and how much her knowledge and interpretation of certain happenings made for an enjoyable listen. Three days into it, a tweet was posted noting that fact, and it became apparent in a hurry that I was hardly alone in having that thought.
All of which inspired me to put together a story on how this all came out. It also married two of my aforementioned passions, which made for a column that stands out among the rest for that reason.
(Story link is right here).
It’s always been a thought here that writing about someone for the first time is both a challenge and a treat. It’s a blank canvas of sorts that you can choose to take in any direction you want.
What it causes you to do is invest a bunch of time doing research, seeking out an offbeat nugget or two that might lead to some interesting questions during an interview. Like, for example, when you find out the subject of your story happens to have a thing for magic (and we don’t mean the on-ice kind, in this case).
So it was that we introduced that topic to Lulu Lin, who had just been crowned Canadian junior champion in the icebox that was Calgary in January 2024 (if you know, you know). Even found a video of her online displaying her prestidigitation skills. And of course, we had to work that into the headline in some way.
Fun stuff, indeed. The season that followed that story wasn’t the best for Lin, with it scuttled largely by injury. But she bounced back in a big way in the just-concluded campaign, finishing fifth among the senior women at nationals in Gatineau, Que. (with the fourth-best free skate).
At 16 years old, the native of Oakville, Ont., is in a good place to make plenty more magic in the quadrennial to come. But then again, she’s rather used to doing that kind of thing, in one way or another.
(Story link is right here).
A new journey begins
We wrote all about the split between Canadian ice dancers Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha a few weeks back, mindful about the emotion this had caused for the couple’s many fans in this country and beyond (yeah, that column attracted more than just a bit of interest in this space. On its own, it accounts for nearly 70 per cent of the new subscribers we’ve picked up in the last month).
Almost immediately, the rumour mill began to churn about where this duo might be headed next (both had indicated their change in direction would come with a new partner). Earlier this week, one of those rumours became the real deal.
With a video posted on both of their Instagram accounts, Lajoie and Jean-Luc Baker announced their new partnership, with Skate Canada confirming that they will represent the red maple leaf (Baker previously skated for the United States) going forward. It’s a new team that is already generating plenty of positive reaction.
A little bit of background …
The 25-year-old Lajoie’s story is widely known by folks who frequent this little corner of the internet. The native of Boucherville, Que., and Lagha won the world junior ice dance title in 2019, making them only the second Canadian team ever to accomplish that feat (the legendary Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir being the others).
During a 15-year career together, they represented Canada at the 2022 and 2026 Olympics (finishing 10th in Milan earlier this year) and placed fifth at the 2024 World Championships in Montreal, their high-water mark in five appearances at that event.
Baker, who’s 32, skated for 11 seasons with Kaitlin Hawayek — their 2023-24 campaign was wiped out be injury, and the partnership ended at that point. Their resume together included an 11th place finish at the 2022 Beijing Olympics, a gold medal at the 2018 Four Continents Championship and a world junior crown in 2014.
The duo began training at the Ice Academy of Montreal in 2018 and Baker, who got engaged to Spanish ice dancer Olivia Smart during the Milan-Cortina Games, lists that city as his hometown (he was born in England and lived there until his parents, both former competitive skaters, moved the family to the U.S. when he was four years old).
During his two years away from competition, Baker worked as a choreographer at I.AM and was involved in crafting programs for a number of top-level skaters, most notably (at least for Canadians fans), the pair team of Lia Pereira and Trennt Michaud, the reigning World bronze medallists.
There have been consistent rumours about who Lagha’s new partner will be, but we’ll reveal that name when that partnership is officially announced. Do a spin around certain social media spaces and you’ll no doubt discover who we’re talking about.
Congratulations on an amazing three years!