Reporting from a new perspective: Mike Davies
Mike Davies is a Peterborough native and lifelong fan of the Peterborough Petes, who attended his first game at the Memorial Centre alongside his father in 1975. His passion for the sport that was ignited from moments like the 1979 Memorial Cup, has translated into a 29-year career as a reporter for the Peterborough Examiner, 26 of which he held as the paper’s Sports Director covering the Peterborough Petes.
“In 1978, 79, and 80 the team went to the Memorial Cup and won their only Memorial Cup in 79. I was 11, 12, and 13 years old in those three years. When you are a young kid and a hockey fan those are the years where you are the biggest fan you will ever be in your life. There is nothing in the world that matters as much to a young boy then hockey at that stage of their life”
“To be a Petes fan at that age, and for the Petes to be as successful as they were those three years, it leaves an impression on you.”
Davies attended Trent University studying English and Philosophy, but was unsure what career path he would find himself taking. While studying at Trent, Davies worked as a statistician for the Peterborough Petes for three years. Through his role with the Petes, Davies met reporter Mike Brophy and took great interest in his career.
During his time as a statistician, the OHL released a monthly publication called OHL News. Davies jumped on the opportunity to continue learning and volunteered as a writer for the Petes segment. Additionally, Davies began freelancing and taking on the stories Brophy didn’t have time for, gradually building a portfolio of clippings. Soon after, Davies met with Ed Arnold, the manager of the Peterborough Examiner at the time, to apply for a job as a reporter.
“Going to university, I knew I had always been able to write. I knew that I had that skill, I just didn’t necessarily know that was going to be a career path.”
“I think he [Arnold] saw something in me that reminded him of himself, not necessarily having a lot of experience but knowing the city and having the desire to do something. So he took a chance on me and it worked out.”
A big stick tap to Mike Davies! The @PtboExaminer Sports Director and Petes beat reporter was the well-deserved recipient of the “Spirit of Trent Award” at Head of the Trent this weekend. Mike has been relentlessly covering the squad since the early ’90s. #ptbo https://t.co/sXEBILY9le pic.twitter.com/znSo7vDcMR
— Peterborough Petes (@PetesOHLhockey) October 7, 2019
In 1995, three years after taking the job, Davies began to cover the Petes as Sports Director with the Examiner. The 1995-96 Petes season was marked by an OHL Championship and saw Peterborough host the Memorial Cup.
“You can imagine, being someone who grew up in Peterborough and it being the first and only time that the Petes ever hosted the memorial cup, also the first year you are covering the team, it just felt like a dream job the way everything lined up.”
Davies was one of few OHL reporters who would travel with his team on away games, during a time before Wi-Fi was readily available in arenas and busses.
“Things really changed during that time. That is what sticks out during my time travelling with the team. When I first was writing reports there was no wifi and no internet. I had a computer that had the old-fashioned modem that you plugged into a phone, and it made all that horrible screeching noise when it connected to the other computer back at the Examiner. It would send the story that way. So when I was on the road, what I had to do was as soon as the game was over I had about half an hour from the end of the game to when the bus would be ready to leave. I had to run down to the dressing room, get some quotes, run back up to the press box, type in the quotes, finish the story, send it to them, pack everything up, rush down to the bus and hope that they hadn’t left me behind. I never got left behind, fortunately, but from the moment the game ended it was like a sprint every time.”
In 2001, Davies’ career was reassessed as a disease diagnosed as a child began to affect his lifestyle. Davies was born with a condition referred to as Retinitis Pigmentosa. The optical condition is one you are born with but typically does not affect people until mid-life. For Davies, this was the case, he grew up playing several sports including baseball and hockey and his vision was never affected. Davies got a job, went to school, got a driver’s licence, and the condition was still of no concern.
In his late twenties to early thirties, Davies began experiencing some visual difficulties and decided to bring attention to the matter to his employers. Today, Davies has less than 10% vision and is considered legally blind.
“I decided I should not drive anymore and that was a key moment at work where I had to tell my boss what was going on.”
“The company [The Examiner] was very supportive and started paying for cabs for me to get to and from assignments. I remember at the time Arnold said to me ‘when it gets really bad and you have trouble seeing the games, you will have to let us know because we will have to find something else for you to do.’ That wasn’t really a thing I wanted to hear because this is what I enjoyed doing. I thought well, I don’t want to give up doing this, I want to do this until I retire.”
Since then, Davies has been adapting his ways of reporting and writing, to accommodate the needs of his visual impairment. For example, Davies started noticing he couldn’t see the puck, jersey names and jersey numbers, to accommodate, Davies simply just asks whoever is around him to clarify.
“If there is something that happened during a game and I wasn’t quite sure what happened for example on the winning goal, then I would go interview the guy who scored the goal and ask him what happened. That person didn’t even necessarily have to know that it was because I couldn’t tell. It was just a normal question he would be asked. You find these little ways of adapting.”
When Davies began having troubles identifying names and jerseys he adapted his method again. With the help of a portable radio and broadcasted games, Davies listens along to the game to gather names, numbers, and specific information he can’t see on the ice.
“I was always still able to do the job even though it was getting harder and harder to see what was happening and I thought to myself, well as long as I can write a story and a reader can tell that I am not having any difficulty, as long as it is not affecting the quality of my story, then I thought I am just going to keep doing it until somebody tells me I can’t.”
One of the best in the biz! RT @RobSnoekLIVE: Look how hard Mike Davies is working on his Petes’ story for the Examiner pic.twitter.com/9h3npQ4Q
— Mike Farwell (@farwell_ohl) February 2, 2013
Today, Davies has 44 years of knowledge from watching and covering the mighty maroon and white under his belt, an amount of knowledge few can rival.
“I don’t think there are probably too many people that know the history of the team as well as I do – there are some – but from the fact of at about age nine I started following the team to now my job, I have gotten to know more about the history of the Petes before day one. More than anything understanding what the Petes have meant to the community, having seen when they have success and won championships and how that can ripple through the community and really be such an exciting time for everybody and see how the community gets behind it,
Even among a pandemic, Davies’ maintains a passion for the Petes and reporting Peterborough sports news, and is eager to get back to the rink.
“What the pandemic has really illustrated for me, is just how much work has become a social thing. When you go to games or events, you meet the people in the sports world, the Petes world, the Lakers world, and the Soccer world. They are all people who all share the same passion as you, sports is the underlying connection. So you all have a bond with people on that level and as you get to know them over the years from interviewing them, time and time again, you get to know them pretty well. That is probably the thing I have enjoyed the most, are the social network that reporting opens up and all these people you get to know and share that common bond with.”
Want to hear more like this? Click here to learn more about Petes GM Mike Oke and managing the maroon and white.
