Reading, writing and hockey came together in a happy confluence at the Timmins Public Library on Saturday with two guest authors, Kevin Sylvester and David Skuy, showcasing their sports-themed books.
The authors were originally invited to attend the Mushkegowuk Cup Hockey Tournament to talk to the hockey players and young fans about the importance of reading and writing.
Feather Maracle, a librarian with the Timmins Public Library, made arrangements to invite Skuy and Sylvester to the library to spread the message about the importance of hockey, writing and reading.
The Mushkegowuk Cup is an annual hockey tournament held in Timmins by eight Cree First Nations belonging to the Mushkegowuk Tribal Council.
On Friday, Sylvester was at the Mount Joy Arena and Skuy was at the Archie Dillion Sportsplex to talk to the young hockey players and fans about reading, writing and hockey.
“Sports is meant to be fun,” Sylvester said prior to his presentation at TPL. “It’s is not something serious like cancer research. It is hockey.”
“I like to point out that athletes are human and they do dumb things sometimes,” He added.
Kevin Sylvester is an illustrator, writer and broadcaster based in Toronto, but originally from Youngstown, New York.
He served as a sportscaster with the CBC and still appears as a fill-in host from time to time.
He left in 2007 to focus on writing books.
His book, Gold Medal for Weird, won the 2009 Silver Birch Award for Non-Fiction.
In 2012 he won the Silver Birch for Don’t Touch That Toad.
He has also written two other sports books - The Sports Hall of Weird and Basebalogy.
The Sports Hall of Weird is nominated for an award from Forest of Reading, a recreational reading club established by the Ontario Library Association.
Sylvester, who has been involved with sports his entire life, is fascinated by the weird and whacky side of sports.
When talking to children, Sylvester stresses the importance of curiosity in expanding knowledge.
“Don’t limit your self to one thing,” he said.
David Skuy, who also hails from Toronto, has written two series of sports-oriented books.
Rocket Blues and Last Shot feature a talented hockey player named Bryan “Rocket” Rockwood.
The series features Bryan, first as a young hockey player and later as a teenager trying out for a major junior league team.
Skuy recently completed the third book about Bryan as a pro hockey player.
“I try to create authentic characters that readers can identify with,” said Skuy. “Sometimes they do stupid things, like dropping their gloves to fight and they their actions may even cause their team to lose a game.”
I want to depict the reality of what of children in sports is all about.
The idea of inviting the two authors to Timmins originated at a meeting of the Ontario Library Association meeting in 2015.
David Skuy played hockey and other sports as a youth and later stayed connected with sports and taking his daughter and son to their hockey and soccer games.
Skuy has also written two books for young adults on soccer themes - Striker and The Beautiful Game.
Skuy started writing books for adults but switched to writing children’s books and young adult novels to encourage his own son to read.
“Once you reach the age 7 and 8, there aren’t many books for boys to read,” he noted.
Though he is not an expert, Skuy noted girls read more than boys.
Before a group of boys and girls sitting on the floor of the children’s section, Kevin Sylvester regaled the youngsters with his cartoon drawings and showed them how to draw a dragon and an evil robot penguin.
Then he asked for ideas from the audience - a hockey-playing bear eating a fish, Barbie, and a snake were requested by the children.
David explained how he created the Bryan Rockwood character and how he writes out his story by cursive handwriting, showing the children the notebook containing the first draft of Rocket Blues.
The main character in Rocket Blues was a young boy who gets cut from his team because he was too small.
The most important aspect of any book is the main character, Skuy explained.
One young boy stretched out his hand to say he had read the book and really liked it.
For more on authors David Skuy and Kevin Sylvester, visit the following websites:
