Earl Zukerman: An all-round good sport

Earl "the Pearl" Zukerman probably spends too much time at work. As Communications and Publications Officer for the Department of Athletics, he puts out press releases, prepares line-up cards for upcoming games, publishes the weekly athletics newsletter, the Mini-Bugle, develops story ideas for journalists and sends information pre- and post-game to local and national media. He also attends Redmen and Martlet matches and is McGill's unofficial sports historian.

He admits that his work week sometimes runs to six or seven days, but says, "The hours never really bother me. I've always been a hardworking person. I don't look at my watch. I just keep going until a project is finished."

He ought to get out of the office, get away more, you suggest. Until he tells you about his recent trips. The latest was a tour of Slovakia with the Redmen hockey team. He arrived back in Montreal on the last plane allowed to land at Dorval on day two of the ice storm. He got home to find his power out, his house freezing and trees strewn across his driveway. The trip before that was to Atlanta for the Olympics. "The night we arrived, the bomb went off," says Zukerman.

Perhaps some hobbies, then.

Says Zukerman, "My hobby is almost my job, I suppose. I really love what I do." He does have a book collection on -- what else -- sports. And he plans to write one of his own on the history of hockey. It's a work that's been in progress for some time.

"I started working on it in the summers when I was a McGill student (BA'80 in sociology). It's all researched, just not written. It's pretty close to being a manuscript. I need a summer to finish it and find a publisher."

The Pearl says one of the things that keeps him working so hard is the knowledge that if he stops recording data about McGill varsity games, there is no one else who will do it.

"The continuity will be lost," he says. "As I've been researching the history of McGill sports, I've found incredible records from the turn of the century, but not from the '60s and '70s. Everyone cared about the war and not about sports and I haven't been able to find any records, which seems a shame."

As an undergraduate, Zukerman says he wasn't very interested in McGill sports, either. "I was a big fan of the Expos and the Canadiens. It wasn't until I answered an ad for a part-time job keeping statistics for the hockey team in my last year that I began to get interested in amateur sports. Now I find professional sports boring. These kids play with such intensity and for the love of the game. That's what makes it so entertaining to watch."

Over the years, Zukerman's job grew from hockey stats to all sports information and his position became full time in 1990. And if the Pearl does work a little harder than he should, his diligence and professionalism are recognized and appreciated. Global TV sports reporter Paul Graif is one ardent fan.

"No one is better than Earl. I can't say enough about him. He's the best sports information officer I've ever dealt with -- hands down. His overall knowledge is amazing. I wish other schools had someone that good."

Diana Grier Ayton

I arrived here in the middle of the ice storm. I've never seen anything like this in a city. I couldn't live here for the rest of my life.


Eduardo Valdes, an exchange student from Mexico City who will be spending six months at McGill studying chemical engineering, quoted in the Gazette.

The hippest university president in Canada might well be the University of Western Ontario's Paul Davenport.

A former McGill economics professor and vice-principal (planning), Davenport is a big-time jazz aficionado. He's been using that expertise to good effect as a regular guest on his university's student-run radio station, CHRW.

Dubbed "Dr. Paul" by radio host Barney Boothe, Davenport appears on Boothe's show Barney's Room, once a month, where he spins stories about his idols Thelonius Monk, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and other jazz giants.

CHRW news and sports director Mike Mitchell came up with the idea of having the president contribute to Boothe's show after reading a review Davenport once wrote of Oscar Peterson's rendition of the music from Porgy and Bess.

"I probably began listening to jazz records when I was six or seven," says Davenport. When he was 14, he played piano in a jazz combo in his native New Jersey, but says, "I was by far the weakest musician."

Davenport's favorite jazz was created between the late 1940s and the early 1960s. "I think baseball was never better than it was in the '50s. I think rock n' roll was never better than it was in the '60s. And I do think jazz hit a kind of high point in the era of Monk."

Source: Sandra Coulson, London Free Press

The worst thing was losing water on Friday. I thought, "Now this is the end of civilization."


McGill News editor Janice Paskey in an interview with the Reporter.

A new Internet service is promising customers access to some of the finest medical minds in North America -- for a price. Anybody with a nagging pain or a suspicious growth can contact the MediXperts website and arrange for the medical specialist of their choice to prepare a written summary analyzing their condition. The cost for such a consultation would be $195 (U.S.).

Among the doctors who are part of the MediXperts team is Dr. Michel Bazinet, one of Canada's top experts on prostate cancer and, until he resigned recently, a McGill oncology professor.

"Ideally, we'd like to see 100 experts [join MediXperts] in the next six months," Bazinet told The Toronto Star. "The Internet is growing at a very high rate and there is going to be a demand for this service."

Although Canadians have free access to medical care, Bazinet says it can often take months before someone can see a specialist. With MediXperts, patients get a response within five days.

"I don't think it's a cheap service," added Bazinet, "but we have world-class physicians and they need to be compensated for their time." Among the doctors working with MediXperts are McGill urology professor Dr. Gerald Brock and Dr. Jean-François Yale from McGill's Nutrition and Food Science Centre.

Dr. John Gray, president of the Ontario Medical Association, has reservations about the new service. "I worry about the false sense of security that patients might get. Patients might rely on advice they get over the Internet without being examined or having their history properly evaluated by a physician."

The MediXperts website and each specialist's report includes a disclaimer indicating that the service's doctors aren't providing medical opinions and that the reports are meant to "educate" rather than treat users. "There is no patient-doctor relationship with this service," said Bazinet.

Dr. Margaret Somerville, from the McGill Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law, doesn't buy that position. "You can't disclaim liability for negligence in medicine. You cannot simply opt yourself out of all legal implications."

According to Somerville, MediXperts "raises a whole lot of new areas of ethical and legal concern."

Source: Leslie Papp, The Toronto Star

We should foster diversity. If I had money, I'd invest in airtight stoves right now.


Architecture professor Pieter Sijpkes in an interview with The Toronto Star. Sijpkes believes the storm has taught us that it's folly to rely on a single source for all our electrical and heating needs.