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Scott Oake Book Launch

Tuesday Jan 21 2025 7:00 pm, Winnipeg, Grant Park in the Atrium | Streaming on YouTube
NOTE: This event has already taken place. Please visit this page to see our upcoming events.

Join Scott Oake for the public launch of For the Love of a Son: A Memoir of Addiction, Loss, and Hope (Simon & Schuster Canada) featuring a conversation hosted by Shelagh Rogers followed by a book signing.

This event will be hosted live in the Atrium of McNally Robinson Booksellers, Grant Park and also available as a YouTube stream.

The loss of Scott Oake's son, Bruce Oake, to an accidental overdose was a loss that could have broken a man, a marriage, a family—but Scott, Anne, and their younger son, Darcy, instead turned the worst day of their lives into a way to help the thousands of Canadians struggling with addiction. After nearly a decade of fundraising and battling red tape and political machinations they launched the Bruce Oake Recovery Centre, a free, revolutionary treatment centre staffed by addicts and alcoholics in recovery. For the Love of a Son is the story of a father’s unconditional love for his son. Above all, it’s the story of a young man who never got to grow up and a family who gives others the chance to find their way home.

Scott Oake is a Gemini Award–winning sportscaster for CBC Sports, Sportsnet, and Hockey Night in Canada. Raised in Sydney, Nova Scotia, he began his broadcasting career at Memorial University’s campus radio station before going on to work with CBC for five decades. Oake has covered Canada’s biggest sports moments, including the Olympics, Commonwealth Games, CFL football, in addition his long standing role as part of Hockey Night in Canada. He is included on the roll of honour of the Manitoba Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association and has been appointed a Member of the Order of Manitoba and a Member of the Order of Canada.

Like Scott Oake, Shelagh Rogers is a veteran broadcast-journalist. For 43 years, she made a home at CBC Radio. For the last 15 of those, she was the host and co-producer of The Next Chapter, devoted to writing in Canada. In June of 2023, she stepped down from the CBC to pursue other adventures. Over the decades she spent at the CBC, she worked in almost every department--except sports! Sports they leave to the professionals like Scott Oake. Shelagh has been an advocate for mental health awareness, accommodations and action. In 2008 she received a Transforming Lives Award from the Center for Addictions and Mental Health, and was named a National Champion of Mental Health. She has received the Hero Award from Moods Disorders Ontario and CMHA-BC's Mental Health Voices Award. In 2016, she was the inaugural winner of the Margaret Trudeau Award for mental health advocacy, for sharing the story of her long relationship with depression. She is thrilled to be back at McNally Robinson to speak with the legendary Scott Oake, a great storyteller, about his powerful book For The Love of a Son, and to honour Scott's son Bruce Oake who has inspired one of the most innovative and compassionate treatment centres in the country.

See:

For the Love of a Son

- Scott Oake

Trade paperback $26.99
Reader Reward Price: $24.29

#1 National Bestseller

From Hockey Night in Canada's Scott Oake, a raw and honest memoir about his son's struggle with opioid use and how he turned a father's worst nightmare into a second chance for others battling addiction.

A father's love. A devastating drug crisis. A stirring call to action.

When veteran broadcaster Scott Oake first held his infant son, Bruce, in his arms, he never imagined that Bruce would become a statistic in the losing battle to opioid abuse.

In those early days, Scott, a new father, watched Bruce with awe, marveling at the potential of his funny, charismatic boy. As Bruce got older, though, he struggled to fit in at school and began showing signs of having ADHD, including a streak of impulsiveness that often got him into trouble. Scott and his wife, Anne, did their best to support him, and for a time, he found community and belonging in boxing and local rap battles. But when Bruce was pulled into a world of drugs and gangs, Scott and Anne experienced a crash course in the reality of loving someone battling substance use disorder.

Then one quiet day in 2011, Scott got the phone call that every parent dreads: Bruce had accidentally overdosed. At just twenty-five, Scott's vibrant, creative, first-born son was gone forever.

It was a loss that could have broken a man, a marriage, a family--but Scott, Anne, and their younger son, Darcy, instead turned the worst day of their lives into a way to help the thousands of Canadians struggling with addiction. After nearly a decade of fundraising and battling red tape and political machinations they launched the Bruce Oake Recovery Centre, a free, revolutionary treatment centre staffed by addicts and alcoholics in recovery.

For the Love of a Son is the story of a father's unconditional love for his son. Above all, it's the story of a young man who never got to grow up and a family who gives others the chance to find their way home.