Conversations on The Road

Ferries plying the waters near Seattle handle about 24 million passenger trips each year — the ferry system provides both a commuter transit service and an adventurous outing. A voyage across the Puget Sound can offer spectacular views of the Seattle skyline to the east, wooded shorelines to the west, and an ever-changing interplay of light and color created by the skies and water. Around the Sound tower the Olympics Range, the rugged Cascades, and Mount Rainier.

It helps tie together an area of otherwise inaccessible islands, and helps define a sense of region and a sense of place.

Michael Diehl lives on Bainbridge Island, Washington, a ferry ride away from Seattle. He has created a book called “Crossings: On the Ferries of Puget Sound”. It chronicles  not just the experience of traveling on the ferries of the Sound, but also just what those ferries mean to the life and culture of the area.

The book weaves together factual information, images, and insights gathered during more than two years, presented in 304 pages with more than 375 original photographs.

Our guest talks about this central role for the ferries – how they matter and why.

 

 Puget Sound Ferries [19:37m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Minnesota, the State of Hockey, leads the nation in its devotion to Canada’s national game. Over 6400 players have played in the National Hockey League since its inception with the 1917-18 season. Minnesota outpaces Massachusetts and Michigan as the producer of American talent in the NHL. While much of that player development has taken place since the mid-1970s, the origins of this American hockey dominance can be traced to the 1890s. Minnesota was producing elite teams and players in the years before WWII.

 

 Minnesota Hockey [16:42m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The sons of Icelandic immigrants and friends since boyhood, the Winnipeg Falcons were a superbly talented team of just eight players who brought home Canada’s first Olympic gold medal in hockey in 1920. But before they became world champions, the Falcons endured years of prejudice on and off the ice.

They also fought for their country and were heroes during the First World War.

Our guest in this edition of “Journeys into Hockey” is author and renowned hockey historian Eric Zweig, who brings to life the fascinating story of the little team that wouldn’t quit.

 

 Winnipeg Jets [17:13m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Jeff Marcus goes all the way back to 1904, the date of the first openly professional hockey league, the International Hockey League.
He goes on to cover all the coaches in all of those early leagues including the Ontario Professional Hockey League, The Eastern Canada Hockey Association, the Pacific Coast Hockey Association, the Western Canada Hockey League and the National Hockey Association. Of course, that NHA would later be reformed into the National Hockey League.
Marcus moves away from all the obscure pro leagues that littered the 20th century but does focus on all WHA and NHL coaches, right up until the current day.

 

 Hockey Coaches [9:10m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

It was March 1965 when Clarence Campbell, president of the National Hockey League, emerged from a long board meeting and announced that the NHL would double in size beginning with the 1967-68 season. Fans loyal to the “Original Six” were furious. Owners were irate. In The Great Expansion: The Ultimate Risk that Changed the NHL Forever, hockey expert Alan Bass profiles the power brokers and provides an in-depth study of the decision and its revolutionary impact on the game.

Bass, a former hockey player and freelance sports writer, relies on thorough research, interviews, and first-person accounts in order to reach into the past and uncover the mystery of a behind-closed-doors decision that seemed improbable at the time. As he profiles the powerful owners, media moguls, and die-hard sportsmen involved in the politics and backroom dealings, Bass shares a never-before-seen glimpse into how the decision forever impacted professional hockey in North America.

The Great Expansion: The Ultimate Risk that Changed the NHL Forever is not only an important documentation of Clarence Campbell’s bold move of doubling the number of NHL franchises, but also provides an unforgettable look back into the history of pro hockey in North America.

 

 Great Expansion [22:24m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

(Rev.) Thomas Hooker was colonial leader of the 1600′s and founder of Hartford.

These days his name is also associated with beer – actually beers of the Thomas Hooker Brewing Company of Bloomfield.

First established over ten years ago as the brewing arm of the Trout     Brook Brew Pub, the company and its brands were purchased by the current     investor group in 2006. Precipitated by the closure of the adjacent brew     pub in mid-2003, Troutbrook Brewery became a manufacturing micro brewery     with a new focus on distribution.  The products were re-introduced to     the market as Thomas Hooker Ales & Lagers in August, 2003.

In this Journey into Beer, we speak with Thomas Hooker President Kurt Cameron about the beer, its connection to the state and what accounts for its appeal there and beyond.

As this segment was recorded around Super Bowl time, and this years participants were regional rivals to the South and North(Giants and Pats), we ask whether his customers and his state is made of New England Yankees or fans of the New York Yankees.

 

 Thomas Hooker Brewing of CT [13:00m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

There’s more to Nevada than one-armed bandits, cheap buffets, and Elvis impersonators. From ice ages to expeditions, Paiutes to pioneers, and dams to divorce seekers, our guest has written about the various sides of the Silver State.

Richard Mereno is the former publisher of Nevada Magazine and numerous books, including “A Short History of Carson City, Nevada (University of Nevada Press, 2011). He is also a winner of the 2007 Nevada Writers Hall of Fame Pen Award.

In his writings about Nevada (various books), Mereno has taken the time to discuss the various roadways and the Nevada towns that were and are inhabited. For example, his book about the Roadside History of Nevada divides into six chapters: Interstate 80 (The Emigrant Trail), Reno and the Lake Tahoe Area, US 50 (The Loneliest Road in America), US 95 and US 6 (The Silver Trails), US 93 (The Mormon Trail), and The Las Vegas Area.

In doing so, Moreno expands on all those little Nevada-shaped historical markers that line the desert highways of the state, And as one reviewer described it “recalls the hopes, dreams, faith, wins and losses of the pioneers that turned a desert wilderness into the typically rather dysfunctional Nevada experience of today”.

Says another reviewer about Moreno: “ (He) captures the best of what Nevada is all about”.  He shares some of that knowledge and passion with us in this “Journey into Nevada”.

 

 Nevada Beyond the Casino Strip [16:18m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download