True North Volleyball Magazine

It started out in the early 1990s as V Canada, a humble newsprint publication dreamed up by Toronto boy Ted Graham. I contributed a feature on the beach volleyball scene in Grand Cayman (where I toiled as a reporter for a weekly newspaper) then accepted an offer to become editor of when I’d returned to Toronto. The timing couldn’t have been better. Soon a key investor named Paul Brownstein came on board and the mag was rebranded as True North Volleyball, a glossy and more sophisticated bi-monthly exploration of the blossoming Canadian volleyball scene. We grew the entity considerably and partnered with Volleyball Canada for even greater distribution reach. Then came the biggest breakthrough: press credentials for Ted and myself at the Atlanta Olympic Games in 1996, where the Canuck contingent included three beach volleyball pairs and our women’s indoor team. Just like that I was an accredited photographer with full access to all the indoor and beach volleyball events. Most of the Canadians did not make it into medal contention, with the historic exception of beach duo Mark Heese and John Child, who survived an early setback and took home the bronze medal. Even after all these years, I remember vividly the precise moment when I captured the podium photo that would grace the magazine cover (see below).