Interview with Terry Frei
Eurolanche brings you an interview with Denver Post's Terry Frei, one of the topics being his upcoming book.You’re covering various sports and you’re also an author of many sports books. How is it even possible to cover all this at once? What’s your favorite sport and why?
My father was a prominent U.S. football coach, at both the college and NFL level, so I grew up in and around that sport. My best sport as a participant was baseball. I watched and enjoyed hockey, but did not play it. My first major newspaper beat, as a very young man, was covering the old Colorado Rockies for five seasons, and I had a lot of fun and it was great training. So I have to say I find covering them all refreshing, and have enjoyed not being locked into a role as a specialist only. I think that enables me to write for a general audience, not JUST hockey-first fans. My books -- this is my eighth, the first with a collaborator -- are of varied subject matter, too, but generally involve football and history linked. My best, though, is Olympic Affair, which revolves around the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and the romance between German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl and American decathlon gold medalist Glenn Morris. I invite your readers to check out my work at www.terryfrei.com.
You can order the newest Frei's book about the Avalanche via Eurolanche Fan Club at this link.
What are the most memorable moments for you from your Avalanche hockey coverage?
Two of them: One, Joe Sakic's handoff with the Stanley Cup to Ray Bourque. The second was unfortunate – the entire Todd Bertuzzi/Steve Moore mess.
Who is your all-time favorite Avalanche player to do an interview with?
Ville Nieminen. He made me laugh and he laughed at himself.
On the other hand, which player wasn't really talkative?
Alexei Gusarov used to pretend to not be able to speak or understand English. We all knew he could and did, but it was in good humor and not mean-spirited.
You followed the previous season on more than hundred percent because you were working on the book. I guess it was more of special season than the last one, wasn’t it?
It was different because much of the time I was around the Avalanche was on my own time, not while on the newspaper job. But I wasn't around all the time, and Adrian was our eyes and ears in many of the situations.
You can order the newest Frei's book about the Avalanche via Eurolanche Fan Club at this link.
If you compare the previous season with the last ones from 2-6 years ago, what were the biggest changes in the organization from your point of view and your work? I mean communication, players etc.
Patrick Roy's coaching and poise, despite some blowups. The maturation of the young talent. The combination made for a better team.
Can you reveal the most interesting part of the upcoming book? Any part, for the fans to be hungrier for?
I've thought a lot about that. I expect what will happen is that a part or two that Adrian and I consider simply our speaking with candor, and not a big deal, will strike some folks as surprising. In several places, we go into the first person voice in "Notebooks" and we are blunt in our opinions, even about our own profession and the media. But we work in what is supposed to be the marketplace of ideas, and we are respectful, so I don't think it will be taken wrong. I also have to say that if anyone is looking for us prying into private lives, we didn't stoop that low. We might have sold more books, but that wouldn't be right.
What’s the most memorable moment from the time you were writing the book?
I always enjoyed getting Adrian's emails with his passages and seeing what he had said, and then putting it into the master manuscript. We truly shared the writing responsibility on this, and in looking at the proofs, there were moments I honestly couldn't remember if I wrote that or Adrian did. I suspect he will be the same.
The interview was conducted by Eurolanche's David Púchovský.
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Michal Hezely, Slovakia, hezely@eurolanche.com
26/10/2014 - 13:00
