Taking it to the corner: Introduction

A story about beginnings... and endings

Photo by Matt Foxx on Unsplash

The trophy glimmered in the golden hour sunshine as I stood quietly among the chaos. It was cold. Very cold, but at that moment it was irrelevant. I was experiencing something akin to bliss — the culmination of more than a decade-long obsession.

More on that in a moment, but first let’s set the scene a little bit more.

I was on the 50-yard line of Hamilton’s Ivor Wynne Stadium. It was December 3, 2005, and the Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks had just defeated the Saskatchewan Huskies 24-23 to win the Vanier Cup, Canada’s national university football championship.

The other kind of football.

It was one of the best sporting games I’d ever attended. Laurier had won the game with a 32-yard field goal with just 19 seconds remaining. It was the final moment in a dream season for an underdog side, who finished the season with a perfect record.

I had flown to the game from my then-home of Fredericton, New Brunswick. I could not afford to do that, but I also knew I would have hated myself forever had I not done so.

Some more context is needed: Laurier is my alma mater. Class of 1996. My major was geography, but in truth, I mostly just watched reruns of The Simpsons, drank at Phil’s Grandson’s Place, and obsessed over WLU football during my time on campus.

Obsessed.

Most of that shouldn’t be surprising. Beer was just $1.50 at Phil’s and The Simpson’s used to be quite funny. However, the university football bit was kind of my thing. Sure, there were other fans — Laurier was pretty good and a big game would attract a few thousand people — but not many people got into it the way I did.

I followed the team and the league year-round. Found early-Internet discussion boards dedicated to it and, in time, established myself as an expert on Canadian university football and on WLU football, in particular.

Most oddly of all, I didn’t leave the obsession behind after I graduated. I continued to follow the team religiously and, in fact, further cemented my status (ok “status”) in the very small world that was Canadian university football fanatics. I started a website in 2001 (CollegeColours.com) that was, in hindsight, a prototype blog, and even started to get some mainstream media attention for work I was doing with it.

It was my first taste of internet attention and it’s safe to say it was a transformative experience that would inform much of the way that I continued to interact with sports over the next few decades. He writes in his newsletter 25 years later.

Getting back to Ivor Wynne and the mighty Purple & Gold.

When I close my eyes, I can still see the colour of the light. It was so illuminating. An absolutely perfect shade of gold that looked warm, despite the temperature being below zero. As I wrote above, there was a stillness to the moment — it was dreamlike, even — and that was unexpected.

I had followed the pitch invasion crowd onto the field, but not in a frenzied way. No, I simply hopped down and calmly strolled into the celebration, attempting to absorb it and to remember the fine details. It wasn’t just that I was older than most of the fans around me — although for the first time that I could recall, I was slightly conscious of that — or that I was more invested in the outcome — who is to say I was, really.

No, it was more than that. There was also a finality to it. It felt like the end of a journey, not the celebration of an accomplishment.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved every minute of that day. There was a moment in the winning drive where I literally put my hand over my mouth in astonishment — the way I had previously only thought was done by actors in a cliched script — and said out loud, “Oh my God, they’re going to win.”

There was nothing sad or bittersweet about the moment. I just felt something changing then. Speaking of cliches, a door was closing to allow another to open.

If I were from a generation younger than the one I was born in, I would be more inclined to put a label on my tendency to become hyper-focused on things. I used the word obsession earlier, but it’s possible that’s not quite strong enough to describe me.

I’m Gen X, though, so let’s just say that I’m not someone who picks up a hobby just to dabble in it from time to time. No, I live my passions — 24/7/365.

Until I don’t. And I’m never sure when that is going to be. With university football it was on that cold field in Hamilton, watching my team hold up a trophy.

With Canadian soccer…

Some of you may have picked up on where I was going with this already, but in case you didn’t: The door that opened that day in 2005 was the one that led me to the domestic soccer scene and was a central defining thing about me for close to 20 years — I was the soccer guy. I loved being the soccer guy. I’m still putting the -ed on that word, though.

I’ve written a few things about this already, but the drive to be all-knowing about Canadian soccer left me sometime over the last 3 years. I can’t point to an exact moment as I can with university football — it’s more a combination of the Messification of MLS and FIFA greed adding up to me struggling to feel the same passion I once did — but it’s gone. It’s not that I have lost all interest — I still care about my teams and I especially still care about the game here in Canada — but…the daily grind of it all?

Yeah, I’m done. I kind of just want to pop in for the games now. Well, most of them, anyway. If I’m not running (speaking of doors opening…), that is. As it relates to this space, I’ve decided to write to a conclusion. When the 2026 World Cup ends, so will the 24th Minute. I’m not going to take it down or anything, but there will be no expectation of updates.

I will obviously remove the paid aspect of the newsletter at that point as well. If anyone who has been paying feels that there hasn’t been enough content on here over the last while, please contact me. I don’t want anyone to feel ripped off. We can work something out.

I’m not shutting the door on writing more in the future — if the spirit moves me, I will (so feel free to remain subscribed), but I need closure, and I don’t want to feel pressure to update.

So, let’s call it a semi-retirement. Like your favourite band, I might pop up to do the odd show at the casino in the days ahead, but I’m probably not going to record another album.

I probably will write more on non-soccer subjects, but only about 10 people read those posts, so they’re mostly for me anyway.

In the time that remains, I want to tell the story of the last 20 years — I want to try to articulate what the sport has given to me. The highs and lows, the laughs and the tears.

It’s been a great run and I want to write it all down before I forget.

I’ll get into a little of the football, too, but this space has always been more about what things might mean rather than what’s on the scoreboard.

I’m excited to tell the story of what it’s felt like to be a Canadian soccer fan prior to now — to celebrate and share what’s mattered to me and to hopefully add a little context to it all.

Consider this the introduction to a multi-part post — the very beginning of the end.

More soon…