Checking In with Will Brodie

Looking back at 2014, it was an AIHL season without parallel in the relatively short history of the competition. The on-ice action was outstanding, but the drama off the ice was just as fascinating. It was a season that crowds grew, interest was at an all-time high and two competition newbies made their mark on the league.

All the while, many looked forward to Will Brodie’s weekly piece in The Age, one of league’s first tastes of regular mainstream media coverage as it spread across the Fairfax network, including the Sydney Morning Herald, the Canberra Times and the Brisbane Times. However, Brodie decided to move on from The Age at the end of September to take on the ambitious project of writing his first book, Reality Check: Travels in the Australian Ice Hockey League.

Having travelled with the Melbourne Ice and Melbourne Mustangs throughout the season to attend every rink, Brodie has been on an exhaustive mission to cover the most dramatic year in the history of the AIHL.

“It’s been exhausting but fun,” Brodie said. “I started interviewing players and administrators in the summer of 2013. Then I attended training and took three trips each interstate with the Mustangs and Ice, whilst conducting phone interviews with folk from all the non-Victorian clubs during the week. On the road, I was taking photos and making notes incessantly, except when in the company of the players and staff. I would sit up talking hockey and life with them, sometimes until pretty late, then get back to my accommodation and desperately try to capture the most salient and amusing things that had been said in notes. There is a mix of observational pieces and material sourced from formal interviews in the finished product.

“Throughout the season, I was still writing an article a week about the league in my own time at home, so I had to try to cram writing about those trips on whatever nights were spare. Luckily, I took leave on Mondays after most road trips, so I got as much as possible down while it was fresh in my mind. I would write 5000 words on most of those days off.”

Since Brodie left The Age, he has been working solely on the book, writing and editing as a full-time job every day. While many people would see leaving steady work and a steady pay check as a difficult choice, Brodie said it was an easy decision to follow his dream.

“I learnt a hell of a lot working at Fairfax, but after 11 years I was tired and running on the spot,” he said. “Online is demanding - at least with my slightly compulsive nature - and there’s only so much of it you can do. My only dream has been to be my own boss as a writer, and the redundancy afforded me an opportunity to give that a go, so I had no choice, unless I had been lying to myself all those years about what I wanted.

“I haven’t made a cent in four months, so that’s obviously a source of anxiety, but I have loved every minute of being in control of my days. Obviously I have lost the camaraderie of the newsroom and the thrill of the chase when you have a big story on the go, but to be honest, I was never really a hardcore newshound or adrenaline junkie, and I had surprised myself with having decent reflexes in breaking news. As I thought, it’s the company of good people at The Age I miss, but not too much else; I was ready to do my own thing long ago.”

At the time of writing this piece, Reality Check was at 121,707 words. Brodie also collated thousands of photos which he has narrowed down to 300 candidates for the book. He said his aim was to “create a book as readable as possible, even for people who don’t usually read books”.

“At face value, Reality Check traces the 2014 season of the Australian Ice Hockey League in a pretty linear fashion - it is written in a diary entry style,” Brodie said. “So all the news touch points of the season are there: CBR Brave’s birth; Ice Dogs strife; import goalie debates; the Adelaide bus crash; the international series; the Delly Celly etc.

“But I was less interested in scores and results than introducing the reader to the players, administrators and volunteers who make the league unique. Reality Check is really about the people putting on the show, passionate amateurs creating an increasingly professional product. We follow what happens on the ice, and give the Finals due attention, but the book is more a portrait of how a completely amateur national league of a minor sport keeps growing and attracting professionals from overseas. And why they do it, what dreams and values motivate their dedication.”

Currently the book is with the designers who will are working to produce the final product, so Brodie’s attention has shifted to the marketing, distribution and pricing of the book, which is a big challenge for a self-published author.

“I wanted a publisher to take on this project, but I left it too late to approach them, so that was a pretty big mistake off the top,” Brodie said. “It means I am doing all the jobs many people usually share on a book project, so the writing is just one element of the project.

“The toughest thing during the year was making sure I got enough out of each weekend and each week’s interviews. I struggled to have enough time, and I got pretty buggered towards the end of the season. I guess I felt a little like what the players and coaches with full-time jobs must feel - the advent of the Finals gave me a fillip and I went hard in the last half of August to hopefully get enough good material.

“The challenge now is to work out how to best reach all the people who might be interested in the book. It’s easier with a ‘How-To’ non-fiction book - you just target people clearly interested in the topic at hand. This book should be of interest to not just hockey fans, but general sports fans and maybe some of the wider public, if I can learn how to get word-of-mouth working. I will need the help of the hockey community to make this a success. The challenge is to balance exposure without performing overkill, which is really hard to balance, but all the feedback has been positive so far.”

Despite the challenges, Brodie said that there have been plenty of positives. 

“The fun of going on the road cannot be matched,” he said. “Every fan who does it can tell you how uniquely enjoyable it is to see a different rink and city and share the voyage with the players. I was incredibly privileged to be allowed to talk hockey and life deep into the night with club insiders and players at this time in the AIHL’s evolution. It was worth every cent it cost me, a really memorable adventure.

“And I do feel the book will be of benefit to hockey; I feel it gives something back, which is rewarding. Writing is very solitary and insular at times, so it is enjoyable feeling that this tome might increase awareness of Australian hockey, and help celebrate worthy people and a great competition.”

Although the release of Reality Check is getting closer and closer, Brodie is still finding it difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel. It’s been a long road since the conception of idea but Brodie still has his focus firmly on all the jobs he still has to complete.

“A friend took me out for dinner the other night to congratulate me on writing the book,” Brodie said. “But as a self-publisher, I have not relaxed for a second since I left The Age in September. There is proofing and printing to arrange, distribution, websites, social media, marketing ... when you take on all the jobs a publishing house takes care of, you are working full time even long after the book is released. I cannot afford to relax at all, really. But I suspect once the launch is over, I will feel some relief and satisfaction. And maybe when the first box of books arrives, and they are perfect! In any case, it is fun every day working with this material.”

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Reality Check: Travels in the Australian Ice Hockey League will be released this year in hard copy with e-books to potentially follow in the future. Continue to follow Will Brodie and Reality Check at his website WillBrodie.com [Hyperlinked] and the Reality Check Facebook Page [Hyperlinked].

From next week, the AIHL.com will be publishing extracts from the draft that didn’t make the final version.