What exactly is the book about?
At face value, Reality Check traces the 2014 season of the Australian Ice Hockey League in a pretty linear fashion - it is written in a diary entry style. So all the news touch points of the season are there. But I was less interested in results than introducing the reader to the players, administrators and volunteers who make it unique. The book is really about the people putting on the show, passionate amateurs creating an increasingly professional product. We follow what happens on the ice, and give the finals due attention, but the book is more about how a completely amateur national league of a minor sport keeps growing and attracting professionals from overseas. And why they do it, what dreams and values motivate their dedication.
What inspired you to write it?
I had fallen back in love with hockey after seeing an AIHL game in 2010 at the newly opened Icehouse in Melbourne. It was the best hockey I had seen in Australia by a long margin and I started reporting on if for theage.com.au, feeling it was a competition many more people would enjoy once they knew about it. The more I learned about the league, the more I wanted to see all of its rinks. Once the idea to travel to each of the rinks lodged in my brain, it seemed obvious I should write about it in more than just web articles.
How have you found the book writing process for Reality Check?
It’s been exhausting but fun! I started interviewing players and administrators in the summer of 2013. Then I attended training and took three trips each interstate with the Mustangs and Ice, whilst conducting phone interviews with folk from all the clubs during the week. On the road, I was taking photos and making notes incessantly, except when in the company of the players and staff. I would sit up talking hockey and life with them, sometimes until pretty late, then get back to my accommodation and desperately try to capture the most salient and amusing things that had been said in notes. There is a mix of observational pieces and material sourced from formal interviews in the finished product.
Throughout the season, I was still writing an article a week about the league in my own time at home, so I had to try to cram writing about those trips on whatever nights were spare. Luckily, I took leave on most Mondays after most road trips, so I got as much as possible down while it was fresh in my mind. I would write 5000 words on most of those days off.
After I finished at The Age at the end of September, I was writing and editing flat out all day every day. The book has since been professionally edited and is now in the hands of a professional designer, so I am working on (learning about) marketing, distribution and pricing.
What has been the most enjoyable part of this entire journey from the conception of the idea until now?
The fun of going on the road cannot be matched. Every fan who does it can tell you how uniquely enjoyable it is to see a different rink and city and share the voyage with the players. I was incredibly privileged to be allowed to talk hockey and life deep into the night with club insiders and players at this time in the AIHL’s evolution. It was worth every cent it cost me, a really memorable adventure.
And I do feel the book will be of benefit to hockey; I feel it gives something back, which is rewarding. Writing is very solitary and insular at times, so it is enjoyable feeling that this tome might increase awareness of Australian hockey, and help celebrate worthy people and a great competition.
What have been some of the challenges that you've come up against throughout writing and now marketing the book?
I wanted a publisher to take on this project, but I left it too late to approach them, so that was a pretty big mistake off the top! It means I am doing all the jobs many people usually share on a book project, so the writing is just one element of the project.
The toughest thing during the year was making sure I got enough out of each weekend and each week’s interviews. I struggled to have enough time, and I got pretty buggered towards the end of the season. I guessed I felt a little like what the players and coaches with full-time jobs must feel - the advent of the finals gave me a fillip and I went hard in the last half of August to hopefully get enough good material.
The challenge now is to work out how to best reach all the people who might be interested in the book. It’s easier with a ‘How-To’ non-fiction book - you just target people clearly interested in the topic at hand. This book should be of interest to not just hockey fans, but general sports fans and maybe some of the wider public, if I can learn how to get word-of-mouth working. I will need the help of the hockey community to make this a success. The challenge is to balance exposure without performing overkill, which is really hard to balance, but all the feedback has been positive so far.
You quit your job with The Age to pursue the book. How hard was the decision to make this leap? And what have you gained/lost by making this decision?
The decision was pretty easy really. I learnt a hell of a lot working at Fairfax, but after 11 years I was tired and running on the spot; online is demanding, at least with my slightly compulsive nature, and there’s only so much of it you can do. My only dream has been to be my own boss as a writer, and the redundancy afforded me an opportunity to give that a go, so I had no choice, unless I had been lying to myself all those years about what I wanted. As I thought, it’s the company of good people at The Age I miss, but not too much else; I was ready to do my own thing long ago.
What new and/or surprising things did you discover throughout the process?
I was shocked by how strongly I responded to the community of Australian hockey: I hadn’t known I had a hankering for something different. Maybe it had been too long since I played sport myself. Maybe I was sick of the cynicism and seriousness of pro sport, I’m not sure. But the delight of Australian hockey grew stronger the more involved in it I became. The dedication of everyone involved and their love of the game was inspiring and kept me going whenever I felt tired. And hockey itself is a mesmerising thing to watch, a renewing reward in itself. Outside myself, I suppose the point of view of imports put our hockey into relief. None of them had ever seen such primitive rinks! None had ever played at rinks with nets surrounding the boards instead of ‘glass’, for example.
Is this your first book - if so how did you find the process, was it what you expected? If not your first, how did this differ from your other experiences?
I co-wrote a fan’s diary of an AFL season with my mate Matthew O’Connor back in 1995. And I wrote and illustrated my first novel Suburban Tours over five years whilst working at The Age, printing in 2009. I had written a lot under extreme deadline pressure with The Age, priceless training, so there weren’t too many surprises in the note-gathering/writing phase. But being publisher as well as writer makes it a very big, long process. I have been going flat-out every day since I left The Age, 30 September 2014 - and I had done a lot of writing before that. There are so many aspects to the job of producing a professionally presented publication. The biggest difference this time is that I have paid for professional editing and designers to do their thing with the book, an essential decision, money well spent.
Why will people want to read your book? Ice hockey is pretty niche so what will readers get out of it?
The quality of the book will determine whether people want to read it, because outside the hockey community, I am totally reliant on leveraging word of mouth, which means there must be something about this story which goes beyond hockey. I believe it does that by concentrating on the ideas and values and stories of the AIHL’s people, especially its coaches. Just as those coaches say success is about more than championships, this book has to be about more than who wins and loses or the 2014 season. If it succeeds it will offer an insight into grassroots sport; the role of language in male bonding; the subtleties of teaching; honesty in personal transformation; and the eternal clash between visionary optimists and realist pessimists. And I think, like the AIHL, Reality Check is fun!
What inspired your love of ice hockey, how long have you been following it, what is the thing you like most about it?
My parents were both Canadian, my dad played, and I played until I was 15. I didn’t really come back at any level until 2010, until my brother took me to that fateful game at the Icehouse. As soon as I saw the sport in person again, played at such a good level, my fascination began re-growing, and it’s still building. I now keep tabs on the NHL, but I am far from an expert on it.
I love the speed and grace of hockey, how it moves as fast, or faster than you think. There’s a unique satisfaction in its movement. If you love Aussie rules footy, which I do, I find it hard to believe you would not like hockey. It features exquisite skill executed under fierce physical pressure, just like footy. And all that happens right in front of you. Then there’s the approachability of the whole scene here, completely at odds with professional sports. Players, fans and administrators mingle. Hockey is tough, beautiful, intimate and scintillating!
What is its point of difference in comparison to other sports?
Hockey goals are hard to come by, but not as hard as soccer, and scoring chances come far more often. The build-up to a potential scoring play is briefer than other sports. It’s an invasion sport on fast-forward, all the strategies and moves enacted so rapidly that attack turns into defence into attack in a matter of seconds. If the game starts flowing up and back, each team rushing at each other alternately, it just has more action than any other sport.
How do you think you'll feel when the book is released? And how do you feel now that it's in the designer's hands and you're closer to the release than ever?
A friend took me out for dinner the other night to congratulate me on writing the book. But as a self-publisher, I have not relaxed for a second since I left The Age in September. There is proofing and printing to arrange, distribution, websites, social media, marketing ... when you take on all the jobs a publishing house takes care of, you are working full time even long after the book is released. I cannot afford to relax at all, really. But I suspect once the launch is over, I will feel some relief and satisfaction. And maybe when the first box of books arrives, and they are perfect (!)
In any case, it is fun every day working with this material.
What is the future of ice hockey in Australia?
That is also a big question the book tries to address. It has unprecedented media access and sponsorship, has grown tremendously throughout its existence and especially in the past four years and could be poised on the brink of emergence from the Australian sporting underground. But for reasons the book investigates, it faces huge obstacles it may never overcome. I don’t sit on the fence in the book and give my verdict based on my four years of reporting, but I hope reading it allows readers to make up their own minds about whether they agree with the dreamers or the pessimists.
- QUESTIONS FROM ANDREW MCMURTRY, AIHL WEBSITE EDITOR, AND CLAIRE SIRACUSA, THEAGE.COM.AU
At face value, Reality Check traces the 2014 season of the Australian Ice Hockey League in a pretty linear fashion - it is written in a diary entry style. So all the news touch points of the season are there. But I was less interested in results than introducing the reader to the players, administrators and volunteers who make it unique. The book is really about the people putting on the show, passionate amateurs creating an increasingly professional product. We follow what happens on the ice, and give the finals due attention, but the book is more about how a completely amateur national league of a minor sport keeps growing and attracting professionals from overseas. And why they do it, what dreams and values motivate their dedication.
What inspired you to write it?
I had fallen back in love with hockey after seeing an AIHL game in 2010 at the newly opened Icehouse in Melbourne. It was the best hockey I had seen in Australia by a long margin and I started reporting on if for theage.com.au, feeling it was a competition many more people would enjoy once they knew about it. The more I learned about the league, the more I wanted to see all of its rinks. Once the idea to travel to each of the rinks lodged in my brain, it seemed obvious I should write about it in more than just web articles.
How have you found the book writing process for Reality Check?
It’s been exhausting but fun! I started interviewing players and administrators in the summer of 2013. Then I attended training and took three trips each interstate with the Mustangs and Ice, whilst conducting phone interviews with folk from all the clubs during the week. On the road, I was taking photos and making notes incessantly, except when in the company of the players and staff. I would sit up talking hockey and life with them, sometimes until pretty late, then get back to my accommodation and desperately try to capture the most salient and amusing things that had been said in notes. There is a mix of observational pieces and material sourced from formal interviews in the finished product.
Throughout the season, I was still writing an article a week about the league in my own time at home, so I had to try to cram writing about those trips on whatever nights were spare. Luckily, I took leave on most Mondays after most road trips, so I got as much as possible down while it was fresh in my mind. I would write 5000 words on most of those days off.
After I finished at The Age at the end of September, I was writing and editing flat out all day every day. The book has since been professionally edited and is now in the hands of a professional designer, so I am working on (learning about) marketing, distribution and pricing.
What has been the most enjoyable part of this entire journey from the conception of the idea until now?
The fun of going on the road cannot be matched. Every fan who does it can tell you how uniquely enjoyable it is to see a different rink and city and share the voyage with the players. I was incredibly privileged to be allowed to talk hockey and life deep into the night with club insiders and players at this time in the AIHL’s evolution. It was worth every cent it cost me, a really memorable adventure.
And I do feel the book will be of benefit to hockey; I feel it gives something back, which is rewarding. Writing is very solitary and insular at times, so it is enjoyable feeling that this tome might increase awareness of Australian hockey, and help celebrate worthy people and a great competition.
What have been some of the challenges that you've come up against throughout writing and now marketing the book?
I wanted a publisher to take on this project, but I left it too late to approach them, so that was a pretty big mistake off the top! It means I am doing all the jobs many people usually share on a book project, so the writing is just one element of the project.
The toughest thing during the year was making sure I got enough out of each weekend and each week’s interviews. I struggled to have enough time, and I got pretty buggered towards the end of the season. I guessed I felt a little like what the players and coaches with full-time jobs must feel - the advent of the finals gave me a fillip and I went hard in the last half of August to hopefully get enough good material.
The challenge now is to work out how to best reach all the people who might be interested in the book. It’s easier with a ‘How-To’ non-fiction book - you just target people clearly interested in the topic at hand. This book should be of interest to not just hockey fans, but general sports fans and maybe some of the wider public, if I can learn how to get word-of-mouth working. I will need the help of the hockey community to make this a success. The challenge is to balance exposure without performing overkill, which is really hard to balance, but all the feedback has been positive so far.
You quit your job with The Age to pursue the book. How hard was the decision to make this leap? And what have you gained/lost by making this decision?
The decision was pretty easy really. I learnt a hell of a lot working at Fairfax, but after 11 years I was tired and running on the spot; online is demanding, at least with my slightly compulsive nature, and there’s only so much of it you can do. My only dream has been to be my own boss as a writer, and the redundancy afforded me an opportunity to give that a go, so I had no choice, unless I had been lying to myself all those years about what I wanted. As I thought, it’s the company of good people at The Age I miss, but not too much else; I was ready to do my own thing long ago.
What new and/or surprising things did you discover throughout the process?
I was shocked by how strongly I responded to the community of Australian hockey: I hadn’t known I had a hankering for something different. Maybe it had been too long since I played sport myself. Maybe I was sick of the cynicism and seriousness of pro sport, I’m not sure. But the delight of Australian hockey grew stronger the more involved in it I became. The dedication of everyone involved and their love of the game was inspiring and kept me going whenever I felt tired. And hockey itself is a mesmerising thing to watch, a renewing reward in itself. Outside myself, I suppose the point of view of imports put our hockey into relief. None of them had ever seen such primitive rinks! None had ever played at rinks with nets surrounding the boards instead of ‘glass’, for example.
Is this your first book - if so how did you find the process, was it what you expected? If not your first, how did this differ from your other experiences?
I co-wrote a fan’s diary of an AFL season with my mate Matthew O’Connor back in 1995. And I wrote and illustrated my first novel Suburban Tours over five years whilst working at The Age, printing in 2009. I had written a lot under extreme deadline pressure with The Age, priceless training, so there weren’t too many surprises in the note-gathering/writing phase. But being publisher as well as writer makes it a very big, long process. I have been going flat-out every day since I left The Age, 30 September 2014 - and I had done a lot of writing before that. There are so many aspects to the job of producing a professionally presented publication. The biggest difference this time is that I have paid for professional editing and designers to do their thing with the book, an essential decision, money well spent.
Why will people want to read your book? Ice hockey is pretty niche so what will readers get out of it?
The quality of the book will determine whether people want to read it, because outside the hockey community, I am totally reliant on leveraging word of mouth, which means there must be something about this story which goes beyond hockey. I believe it does that by concentrating on the ideas and values and stories of the AIHL’s people, especially its coaches. Just as those coaches say success is about more than championships, this book has to be about more than who wins and loses or the 2014 season. If it succeeds it will offer an insight into grassroots sport; the role of language in male bonding; the subtleties of teaching; honesty in personal transformation; and the eternal clash between visionary optimists and realist pessimists. And I think, like the AIHL, Reality Check is fun!
What inspired your love of ice hockey, how long have you been following it, what is the thing you like most about it?
My parents were both Canadian, my dad played, and I played until I was 15. I didn’t really come back at any level until 2010, until my brother took me to that fateful game at the Icehouse. As soon as I saw the sport in person again, played at such a good level, my fascination began re-growing, and it’s still building. I now keep tabs on the NHL, but I am far from an expert on it.
I love the speed and grace of hockey, how it moves as fast, or faster than you think. There’s a unique satisfaction in its movement. If you love Aussie rules footy, which I do, I find it hard to believe you would not like hockey. It features exquisite skill executed under fierce physical pressure, just like footy. And all that happens right in front of you. Then there’s the approachability of the whole scene here, completely at odds with professional sports. Players, fans and administrators mingle. Hockey is tough, beautiful, intimate and scintillating!
What is its point of difference in comparison to other sports?
Hockey goals are hard to come by, but not as hard as soccer, and scoring chances come far more often. The build-up to a potential scoring play is briefer than other sports. It’s an invasion sport on fast-forward, all the strategies and moves enacted so rapidly that attack turns into defence into attack in a matter of seconds. If the game starts flowing up and back, each team rushing at each other alternately, it just has more action than any other sport.
How do you think you'll feel when the book is released? And how do you feel now that it's in the designer's hands and you're closer to the release than ever?
A friend took me out for dinner the other night to congratulate me on writing the book. But as a self-publisher, I have not relaxed for a second since I left The Age in September. There is proofing and printing to arrange, distribution, websites, social media, marketing ... when you take on all the jobs a publishing house takes care of, you are working full time even long after the book is released. I cannot afford to relax at all, really. But I suspect once the launch is over, I will feel some relief and satisfaction. And maybe when the first box of books arrives, and they are perfect (!)
In any case, it is fun every day working with this material.
What is the future of ice hockey in Australia?
That is also a big question the book tries to address. It has unprecedented media access and sponsorship, has grown tremendously throughout its existence and especially in the past four years and could be poised on the brink of emergence from the Australian sporting underground. But for reasons the book investigates, it faces huge obstacles it may never overcome. I don’t sit on the fence in the book and give my verdict based on my four years of reporting, but I hope reading it allows readers to make up their own minds about whether they agree with the dreamers or the pessimists.
- QUESTIONS FROM ANDREW MCMURTRY, AIHL WEBSITE EDITOR, AND CLAIRE SIRACUSA, THEAGE.COM.AU
