Scott Oake tells tales for a dwelling.
From the Olympic Video games to the Stanley Cup finals, the veteran sports activities broadcaster has witnessed crowning achievements and crushing disappointments. Emotion-packed moments that keep on with followers and viewers.
These tales of success, failure, triumph and heartbreak have by no means been his personal. He is merely a conduit.
The story Oake tells in his ebook printed this week — “For the Love of a Son: A Memoir of Habit, Loss, and Hope” — was the hardest to share.
“Very troublesome,” Oake stated in an interview. “Very, very troublesome.”
Bruce Oake died in 2011 at age 25 from an unintentional drug overdose after a years-long battle with the scourge of drug habit.
Scott Oake, a longtime “Hockey Evening in Canada” persona, particulars his son’s life and dying, a devastated household’s ache, and the choice to inform Bruce’s story with the aim of serving to others.
“Bruce’s life and his battle are specified by chronological order,” Oake stated. “Very troublesome to inform.”
Inform it, nevertheless, is precisely what Oake has achieved. There was no different manner.
“You’ve got selections once you lose a baby,” he defined. “Our alternative was to provide voice to our grief in hopes what occurred to us would not occur to a different household.”
Oake and his late spouse, Anne, began to share Bruce’s story. It was a graphic presentation. Nothing was neglected. The ebook isn’t any completely different.
That features the uncooked, gritty particulars. However it’s additionally the story of a Winnipeg boy and his household. Bruce had mates. He had goals. There have been good occasions with youthful brother Darcy, achievements that made his mother and father proud, summers on the cottage. All cruelly taken.
“There was at all times a bunch of individuals wanting to inform us their tales of family members struggling,” Oake stated. “That was our impetus to proceed.”
The plan was to boost cash for a non-profit residential therapy facility in Winnipeg after seeing the choices out there throughout Bruce’s struggles.
“If we did not have the braveness to speak about Bruce in public,” Oake stated, “we would by no means get wherever.”
That is what the Bruce Oake Restoration Centre required.
Scott Oake quipped his and Anne’s best ability in in search of monetary help via a basis of their son’s honour was “having lunch and asking for cash.”
The lengthy street noticed 9 separate municipal votes — “Fairly positive that is a civic file,” Oake mused — and loads of neighborhood criticism.
That pushback, together with the media protection, helped their trigger.
“Each time we have been within the information individuals rallied,” Oake stated. “It was value it … as robust because it appeared on the time.”
The 50-bed, all-male facility opened in Might 2021. Bruce’s ashes sit in an urn positioned within the constructing’s entryway — to honour a son and clarify what’s at stake.
Oake visits the centre usually and speaks with members within the 16-week program, though he has nothing to do with its day-to-day working.
“I am sensible sufficient to not inject myself into the method,” he joked. “If I did, it might be closed in every week.”
The aim is to not solely assist individuals with substance use issues but additionally educate the broader inhabitants.
“Habit does not discriminate,” Oake stated. “It might come for anyone, no matter socio-economic class. It’s a illness. People who find themselves addicts deserve an opportunity to get wholesome, to get their lives again.”
Anne Oake is not right here to see the fruits of their labour. The centre’s matriarch, as Oake calls her, died of an sickness shortly after it opened.
Fundraising for the Anne Oake Household Restoration Centre, a facility for girls in Winnipeg, is already midway to its $25-million goal.
“A dagger that she’s not right here,” Oake stated. “However her spirit endures.”
Scott Oake was amongst 88 individuals appointed to the Order of Canada final month.
“Builders of hope for a greater future,” Gov. Gen. Mary Simon stated in a press release. “They broaden the realm of potentialities and encourage others to proceed pushing its boundaries.”
Oake stated Bruce and Anne, whereas proud, would in all probability be laughing.
“The very first thing they’d assume is, ‘Why cannot you simply shut up?'” he stated earlier than turning severe. “I want I by no means needed to reply that query. I want they have been right here.”
Oake has a quiet phrase for Bruce each time he walks previous his son’s urn. He’ll do the identical with Anne on the new facility, however added playfully: “I need to watch out individuals do not assume this entire factor is an Oake mausoleum mission.”
Scott Oake did not need to grow to be an writer. He would have most well-liked to remain in his lane, persevering with to inform athlete tales.
Life had different plans.
“A child like every other,” Oake stated of Bruce. “He had targets, goals, may have been something. He bought sick. He tried onerous, it claimed his life.
“However his journey was about greater than habit.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first printed Jan. 21, 2025.
“For the Love of a Son: A Memoir of Habit, Loss, and Hope.” Scott Oake with Michael Hingston. Simon & Schuster, 237 pages, $26.99.
Joshua Clipperton, The Canadian Press
