A broadcasting giant, gone too soon
Plus, the new meaning of the phrase 'coach killer' and a Vince Carter jersey retirement
I wouldn’t profess to have known Darren Dutchyshen all that well. We crossed paths a few times over the years, mostly at Grey Cups, and he was always friendly and helpful, and really did increase the energy of a room just by bounding into it.
But there is no greater case for the value of being kind to people than the outpouring of affection on social-media on Thursday upon the news of his passing, at just 57 years old, after a long illness. His former colleagues at TSN, where he anchored SportsCentre for what seems like forever, delivered heartfelt tribute after heartfelt tribute. The station immediately started airing retrospectives and joyful memories. It seems to have been turned into something of a televised, spontaneous wake. They could have aired a package of highlights, and faded out to commercial over a moment of silence, but you know how much he must have meant to a lot of people by how TSN is doing so much more than that.
Some lovely tributes here from former colleagues Steve Simmons and Bruce Arthur.
We were chatting at an airport once, and as he got up to leave his seat by the gate a group of young women came by looking for seats together. He called over, indicated that he was giving one up, and they came over and sat down. There was a minute of idle chat. They were evidently not TSN viewers and didn’t recognize him. He left. One of them said, when he was out of earshot, “That dude was JACKED.” We were not far from one of the bars at Pearson, and SportsCentre was playing on a loop. I pointed toward it when he was on screen, they looked, and immediately burst out laughing. I told him about it later, and he had a grin a mile wide. RIP, Dutch.
The kiss of death
The Cleveland Cavaliers were eliminated in the second round of the NBA playoffs on Wednesday night, and not long after the game ended there was a long piece on The Athletic that detailed considerable internal unhappiness with head coach J.B. Bickerstaff. The opening anecdote has him getting “admonished” by his boss, general manage Koby Altman, over a game in which star Donovan Mitchell played a ton of minutes. Bickerstaff’s job is in “serious jeopardy,” according to the piece, which is triple-bylined, by two Cleveland writers and Athletic NBA scoop merchant Shams Charania.
On its own, this is relatively unremarkable. Sometimes big stories are dropped as soon as a team is eliminated, because information is gathered on the condition it not be published until the end of the season. Sources will tell journalists certain things, but they don’t want it public if there’s a chance it upsets an ongoing campaign.
But the weird thing is this is the third time in these playoffs that The Athletic has unloaded a behind-the-scenes story, co-bylined by Charania, that depicts the head coach of a losing team unfavourably, within moments of that team being eliminated. There was the piece that skewered Frank Vogel right after they were knocked out by Minnesota, leading with an anecdote in which Suns players were rolling their eyes at an angry outburst. There was also the piece on Darvin Ham, published just after the Lakers were eliminated by the Nuggets. That one led with an anecdote in which players were unhappy with the coaching staff’s defensive schemes in a February game, then switched it up themselves and managed a comeback win. Vogel and Ham were both fired within a few days. Which is not great news for J.B. Bickerstaff.
Anyway, if NBA players or their agents want to vent about their coach in an attempt to undermine him in the event of an early playoff exit, they definitely know where to turn.
The retiring type
The Brooklyn Nets announced this week that they are retiring the jersey of Vince Carter.
This is extremely weird. Carter, an NBA Hall of Famer who was both a superstar and also didn’t quite have the high-end career that seemed inevitable when he burst into the league with the Toronto Raptors, played less than five full seasons with the Nets, when they were still in New Jersey. He was an All-Star in three of those seasons, the first of which began in Toronto and during which he forced his way out of town. He made the playoffs three times with the Nets, never getting beyond the second round. That is, he won two playoff series in New Jersey.
And that’s it. His best years unquestionably came in Toronto, where he was a five-time All-Star (six if you count the season he sulked his way into a lousy trade) and two-time All-NBA player, plus Rookie of the Year and one of the best Slam Dunk champions ever. He was incandescent as a Raptor, had a few good years with the Nets, and then settled into a remarkably long career, with six more teams over 10 seasons. I’m not sure that if you asked any basketball fan about Vince Carter, they would respond by telling you that he was a legendary Net.
They might now, though. I guess that’s what the banner is for.