RONNIE SHUKER + VASS BEDNAR

House of Crouse

On the Saturday November 30, 2024 edition of The Richard Crouse Show we meet Ronnie Shuker, author, editor, freelance writer, and an editor-at-large for The Hockey News. He has traveled to places such as North Korea, Chernobyl, Transnistria, and the Himalayas, where he took part in the Guinness World Record for the highest altitude hockey game ever played. He stayed closer to home for his new book, “The Country and the Game: 30,000 Miles of Hockey Stories.” In the waning days of the pandemic, sportswriter Ronnie Shuker stuffed his skates, sticks, and backpack into his faithful automobile, Gumpy, named for legendary goaltender Gump Worsley, and set off on a 30,000-mile, coast-to-coast-to-coast investigation of the many ways hockey touches the lives of Canadians. Then, we’ll meet Vass Bednar is the executive director of McMaster University’s Master of Public Policy in Digital Society program, a contributing columnist to The Globe and Mail, and the host of its podcast Lately. Today we talk about her new book “The Big Fix,” co-authored with Denise Hearn. The book examines how corporate concentration is growing across many industries, leading to higher prices for consumers, lower worker’s wages, more inequality, fewer startups, less innovation, and lower growth and productivity.