The return of sports to the Other Press
By Jake Wray, News Editor
“What in the great wide world of sports is going on?!” you’ve probably wondered. “Where is the Other Press’ sports section?”
Well, I am pleased to finally bring you the answers you seek.
The Other Press suffered a devastating upset in December when Davie Wong, our long-time sports editor, moved on to bigger and better things in life (as one does!). Davie was an absolute workhorse who wrote approximately five sports articles each week—and edited everyone else’s sports articles, too. He was able to do so in part because he had a deep, genuine passion for sports (which you can plainly see in his farewell column).
When Davie left, we needed a little bit of time to re-evaluate how we wanted our sports section to look, and to decide who would run the show. In fact, this coincided with a general re-evaluation of the entire newspaper, which has seen us pondering things like how large we want the paper to be and what sort of content our readers value.
We know the sports section has a number of dedicated readers, so after some logistical fiddling, we have brought it back! Currently we are producing (on a trial basis) a condensed 20-page newspaper, down from 24 pages, and within that there is now a condensed one-page sports section, down from three pages.
The solemn honour of filling Davie’s enormous shoes as Sports Editor now falls to me, your friendly neighbourhood News Editor. I’m not quite the sports nut that Davie was, but I am fond of sport and I have plenty of sports-reporting experience.
I have covered football, baseball, and pickleball in rural Alberta. I doggedly pursued the story of Langara College’s championship badminton team in their final year, as the provincial badminton league crumbled and was ultimately dropped by PACWEST. I intend to cover the Douglas College Royals vigorously as well.
While the sports section this week only includes this letter and international sports news (a wonderful check-in on the Pyeongchang Olympics written by senior columnist Jerrison Oracion), the section will generally have a strong focus on the Royals and Douglas College athletes.
Just as we are committed to reporting on local Douglas College sports, we are also committed to publishing the writing of Douglas College students. If you are a student and you are interested in writing about sports (or news or anything else), please feel free to get in contact with us—even if you feel your writing skills are rusty, we would be happy to have you in the paper and help you hone those skills.
You can find general contact information at www.theotherpress.ca or you can contact me directly with any questions, feedback or writing interest at news@theotherpress.ca.
Let the games begin!
