The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
'First jobs are often rocky and this was no exception,' he says. 'The station manager liked the sound of our demo reels but did not expect to see a couple of long-haired individuals who were every bit as interested in partying as we were in working at the station. I lasted six months at the station before we came to a mutual understanding that the working relationship wasn't working.' A little older and a little wiser, Nystrom applied at a number of smaller and medium-sized radio stations before receiving a job offer from his hometown CFAR. ' This was a much better job experience,' he says. 'Over the next three years, I tried my hand at everything from hockey colour commentator on Bomber broadcasts to music director and the morning show.' By 1980, Nystrom was ready to climb up the broadcasting totem pole, so he relocated to Toronto to produce the late-night shift at CHUM AM. From there, he worked at a couple of other radio stations before landing a position as managing editor of a digital media enterprise. New phenomenon As Nystrom's career progressed, a new phenomenon was sweeping Canada. The Sports Network, TSN, was rapidly building an audience as one of Canada's first specialty cable channels. In 1989, five years after its debut, TSN branched out beyond television. In what he calls a 'lucky break,' Nystrom was hired to write and produce hourly updates for TSN Radio. He shared his workplace with the TSN television people, including the sports anchors who would visit his tiny radio booth to read the hourly updates. 'This is where I met people like John Wells, Jim Van Horne, Michael Landsberg and Gord Miller, who weren't thrilled with taking time off their television duties,' Nystrom recalls. 'But this fell under (their) 'other duties as required.'' It was a hectic job. On many occasions, the radio updates were nearly missed because the anchors were too busy with their television updates. A year of this was enough for TSN, which opted to hire separate producer-announcers for the radio updates. Nystrom, who admits he 'never had the big, booming pipes for major-market radio,' took a junior role on the TV side of TSN. He started as a production assistant in on-air promotions, working his way up to producer-director, a position he still holds _ and relishes. Nystrom helps write and produce TSN's in-house commercials. He does everything from promos for upcoming CFL games to ads touting the network's nightly SportsCentre program. 'On the big scale, we come up with concepts and major campaigns that involve setting up shoots and hours of editing,' explains Nystrom. It's a decidedly fun job that gets Nystrom's creative juices flowing. He recalls the 'complete adrenaline rush' of TSN's popular 'This is my SportsCentre' ads, which saw him work with hockey stars like Sidney Crosby and baseball's Justin Morneau. See 'Coa..' on pg. 8
