Book Review: Anchorboy
I recently decided to take a break from my heavy reading of Captain Underpants, Super Diaper Baby and anything from the overwhelming series of Richard Scary novels. I switched things up by reading Jay Onrait's first (hopefully not his last) book, entitled 'Anchorboy'.
*Check out my Twitter Conversation with Jay Below!
I only became a fan of Jay Onrait a couple of years ago. I wish my long distance love affair would have started with Jay and his on-air-significant-other, Dan O'Toole much, much longer ago than that. The two of them change up the mundane, straight to the point, repetitive, boring sports broadcasting. As Jay talks about in his book, and any fan of TSN's SportCentre knows, he and O'Toole left TSN to find warmer, more polluted skies and a chance to do even more of their own style with FOX in the US of A. Thus leaving a gap decent sports TV journalism in Canada.
Jay's book is incredibly honest. From continuously talking about his on-going laziness, to a few stories of his emergency needs for vomit or feces to leave his body, Jay doesn't leave a lot out of his finest moments in life.
Jay has even made appearances on Big Bang Theory
Being an avid sports fan and former fan or TSN's Sportcentre (it's just not the same anymore, but James Duthie is a close second with his hockey stories), I loved seeing behind the door on what it's like to be a sports journalist in Canada. Though Jay jokes about most things that's happened in his life, he also has some moments of encouragement and inspiration. Jay has a tenacity to want to produce shows that he can be proud of, shows that are from his sense of humour and creativity, and his zany personality that make sports broadcasting more interesting and funny to watch. Heck I'll even watch YouTube clips of Jay and Dan reporting on games that months old, simply because they are that funny.
Anchorboy is a light read, funny from beginning to end, all about a Canadian boy with a big dream that takes on the world and comes out on top... until he gets into trouble with a roller blading gang on Venice beach. I totally recommend Anchorboy and I know any other Canadian sports fan out there will enjoy it as well.
*I am a little disappointed there were no pictures included in this book. No awkward toilet pictures, or family photos of Jay working on some prairie farm or Jay attempting to play basketball. Next book perhaps!?
Now enjoy some Bobrovksy!
What made doing this review even more awesome, was having Jay Onrait respond to it, almost right after I posted the link on Twitter. I was pretty stoked to get his feedback on my feedback of his book!
