When the Game Changes: Losing My Mum and Finding Myself - Softcover

Osmak, Evanka

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1668057921 ISBN 13: 9781668057926

Verlag: Simon & Schuster, 2026

Inhaltsangabe

INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER

An engaging and deeply moving memoir from renowned Sportsnet anchor Evanka Osmak about finding a women’s hockey community just as she was losing her beloved mother to ALS.

When fan-favourite Sportsnet TV anchor Evanka Osmak was forty-one years old, she became a hockey player for the first time.

She had her dream job, a solid group of female friends, and a beautiful family; still, she realized she needed something outside of work that was just for her, particularly in the wake of a pandemic that caused all our worlds to shrink. That’s when she found Sister Sports, a local hockey league just for women. Evanka was used to reporting on hockey, so she knew the game inside and out—from the broadcast studio. But she’d never played before. And she wouldn’t realize until later how much this league would come to mean to her.

At the same time as she was falling in love with the game as a player, not just as a sports anchor, she received some devastating news: her beloved mother, Jeannie—her family’s rock—had been diagnosed with ALS.

As Evanka navigated her mother’s treatment and progressing illness, she found a sense of hope and community within her hockey team of adult women that helped her deal with the unthinkable.

When the Game Changes is a deeply affecting memoir that shows Jeannie’s care and influence throughout Evanka’s life, from her childhood through her lively early career, to finding herself in the co-anchor’s seat at Sportsnet. It’s the profound story of a daughter’s extraordinary love for her mom, and how a team of like-minded women provided solace at one of life’s most challenging times.

This is the story of how sports, family, and women’s community can get us through our darkest hours.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Evanka Osmak is a veteran anchor at Rogers Sportsnet. Before television, she studied civil engineering at Queens University. Her passion for sports and broadcasting landed her a job in Arizona and then eventually Sportsnet in Toronto in 2007. Evanka lives in Toronto with her husband and two children. 

Kristina Rutherford is a senior writer at Sportsnet, and in fifteen years there she has covered major events including the Stanley Cup Finals, the Olympic Games, the World Series, the Scotties Tournament of Hearts and the US Open Tennis championships. Kristina lives in Toronto with her partner, Adam, their two kids and their dog, Riggins.

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1. Forty-Year-Old Rookie Forty-Year-Old Rookie
Nerves. Glee. Pride. Embarrassment. Fear. Exhilaration. What the heck am I doing here?

I keep looking down at my gloves. Am I holding my stick properly? Do I have a good enough grip on my helmet? Because if I drop it, the last thing I need is more attention on me during the national anthem. I feel like everyone already knows I don’t belong.

I look to my right, and there’s Hockey Hall of Famer Lanny McDonald. Wendel Clark’s moustache catches my eye. I’m standing beside Olympic gold medallist Blayre Turnbull. How is she looking so casual? Though surely if anyone knows how to stand during the Canadian anthem, it’s an Olympic gold medallist. Is her hair in a ponytail or did she leave it down? I should have put mine up.

Across the ice, I see more familiar faces. There’s Darcy Tucker and Bobby Ryan. They know I’m nervous. They’re chuckling and grinning at me—not in a mean way, but in an “I’ve never seen her like this before!” and a “This will be fun!” kind of way. But… will it be fun?

Darcy and Bobby played in the National Hockey League. I can’t skate backward. I can stop… sort of, and only on one side. It’s not an immediate stop. It’s similar to when you’re driving and you approach a yellow light and slow down with caution. Not ideal when the game moves back and forth at lightning speed.

More than three thousand fans are in the stands watching. It’s January 20, 2023, and this is the Hockey Day in Canada alumni game in Owen Sound, Ontario, part of a weeklong celebration of the sport. Every Canadian team in the National Hockey League plays tomorrow, and all the action will air on the country’s number one sports television network, Sportsnet. More than 8 million people will take in the broadcast.

I’m used to being part of that broadcast, with a microphone clipped to me and a video camera on me while I fill sports fans in on what’s going on, or what’s coming up. I’m an anchor for Sportsnet, and it’s a job I love, one I’ve been doing for fifteen years. I help deliver the nightly sports news across the country, talk fans through highlights and lowlights. I interview athletes, coaches, general managers, and analysts. I tell fans what happened at sporting events.

I’m not used to being part of the sporting event, like I am today. And so I’m standing here, trying to look like a hockey player, and feeling like an absolute fraud. (That’s also how I feel writing this book. I’m not an author, but here I am trying to get over feeling like an absolute impostor.)

I started playing hockey a couple of years ago, at the age of forty-one. My five-year-old son, George, is probably better than I am. Please don’t tell him I said that.

What right do I have to be here with all these pros?

I glance down at my stick again. Why do I feel so awkward holding it when everyone else seems so natural, like that stick is an extension of their arm? Am I supposed to be looking somewhere other than at the players on the ice with me? Should I look up at the Canadian flag? Is it obvious that I’m not paying attention to the anthem?

I need to take some deep breaths. I’m trying to remind myself that this is just for fun. I won’t get fired for falling or laughed at for trying. But I’m still uncomfortable being so far out of my comfort zone.

And then, silence. The singer stops singing. The crowd claps and cheers. All the players across from me and beside me have dispersed.

So here we go. Game on?

Three shifts in, my linemate Wendel Clark threads me a pass. The Toronto Maple Leafs legend is determined to set me up for a goal, and he told me to stand in front of the net with my stick on the ice. He told me to be ready to snipe (that’s what we call scoring).

Clark fires the puck my way. I have a clear shot at the net if I can get a handle on it. My mind is racing as I get ready for the pass.

Don’t screw this up!

Should I try a one-timer? (No. Never.)

What if I fall while I’m shooting?

And seriously, the biggest question of all: How in the world did I get here?

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Simon & Schuster
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2026
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1668057921
• ISBN 13: 9781668057926
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 256
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV; info@simonandschuster.nl; ; Herculesplein 96; Utrecht; 3584 AA; Niederlande