Un-bleeping-believable
Please allow me to detail what the closing moments of Thursday’s thrilling Bomber win over Edmonton are like for a regular hack like me trying to beat deadline…
(Especially for all those keen readers who noticed a mistake or two in my story and were eager to point them out).
We have two editions to the paper, an early edition and a later edition that allows us to try and get in the later scores. I was writing what is called ‘running copy’ for our second edition - essentially they are play-by-play game reports than can be duller than dishwater. But it would allow us to get the score and some details into the paper.
The game, what with all the sloppy play, injuries and a number of challenges, took an eternity to play. That made it even more difficult at crunch time. And then with the game being tight  Bombers win - Bombers lose - Bombers win thanks to Milt Stegall - piecing together something that is readable in a matter of minutes is a chore.
I had my head down writing as the final play began and, when Stegall broke free, heard one of my colleagues from an Edmonton paper blurt out: ‘You’ve got to be (bad word) kidding me’ not so much because he was cheering for the Eskimos, but because he now had to re-write his story in a nanosecond.
All that said, this isn’t meant to be a tale of woe. Instead, let me tell you that being witness to the Bomber locker room afterwards are those moments that make the reporting gig a blast. The players, understandably, were positively giddy and some of the quotes I compiled (for tomorrow’s paper) were as entertaining as I’ve ever picked up in 19 years in the sportswriting gig.
If you’ve got a comment or two on Thursday’s win, post them here.
Cheers
