Local author Chris Dooley has written a book entitled A Hero’s Journey: Beyond Little Norway and Olympia Sports Camp. He is taking the lessons of The Hero’s Journey, Joseph Campbell’s 1990 book, and applying them now to local Burlington heroes. The term “hero” refers to anyone who has gone through a journey to make a life for themselves and uses their skills, experience, and talents to impact others and ultimately make the world a better place.
The hero’s journey calls for everyone to be a hero in their own journey. Any journey is filled with successes and lessons, and these also help define our character — and often reveal character. The person we become on our journey is far more important than any destination.
This edition of “A Hero’s Journey” looks at a man who many people know or have seen many times on the tube, especially people who follow the news on CHCH TV — Al Sweeney. Like the journeys of any one of us, there is so much more to the journalistic, personal, and professional journey of Al Sweeney than meets the eye at first glance.
Al Sweeney’s journey, the path of the man we see on TV every night, is an inspiring story of a journalist who felt throughout his life and career that breadth of experience and depth of knowledge would make him a better journalist. He has always loved the search for knowledge, so he could bring that experiential perspective to his daily work.
In looking at a career that spans over 40 years, that has taken Al from Flin Flon, Manitoba, to Victoria, B.C., from Newfoundland to Toronto, and then to Hamilton, it is telling that on the CHCH website, Al says that his greatest accomplishment was raising his four sons. The website doesn’t mention that he did so as a single parent. Anyone who knows the television and radio industry knows how challenging that must have been.
But here’s where the journey starts: Al was born in England and the family moved to Canada when Al was 6 years old. His father was a Canadian soldier stationed in England and his Scottish mom became a war-time bride. The family lived in London until they emigrated to Canada. They moved a lot when Al was young, which in hindsight, gave Al a good sense for handling change and the challenges that would earmark his professional career. All that moving as a child also prepared him for life as a journalist, where parallel and promotional moves are part of the journey.
The family moves eventually brought them to St. Boniface, Manitoba, where Al spent his teenage years. He was a self-described disaster as a high school student and he moved away from home to northern Manitoba when he was 17, without a high school diploma. He got involved in radio in Flin Flon, mainly doing reporting and news writing. He especially loved being involved with the broadcasts of Hockey Night in Flin Flon. Amazingly, this high school dropout felt that he was actually pretty good at this media thing, and he applied himself to learning everything he could and taking on bigger challenges.
His career saw him work as a reporter, writer, producer, and editor, and it took him from Manitoba to Vancouver, Victoria, Newfoundland, and various stations in southern Ontario. He worked for The Canadian Press, CTV National News, and CBC Radio and Television. He worked for CTV in Toronto for 15 years before moving to CHCH in Hamilton in 2001. These various locations and challenges allowed Al to grow as a journalist and as a person, allowing him experiences that would broaden his knowledge base, making him better at his job. Added to this is that while working full-time and raising four boys, this high school dropout took university courses one at a time and eventually earned a degree.
All of that and we haven’t come to the real heroic part, when Al felt his path needed a change. Change takes courage and it is the start of growth. A turning point. A new journey.
Al worked for CHCH from 2001 to 2014, and he was getting a sense that under successive new ownership groups, it just wasn’t a great place to be. The job was telling him it was time for him to try something else, and it was time to move on.
Al’s turning point decision involved something he had been covering and fascinated by throughout his career: criminal law. This high school “disaster” had earlier got his BA from the University of Waterloo and now he was going to law school to become a lawyer. This at a time when a lot of us are slowing down and looking to eventual retirement, not ramping up for a three-year journey in law school.
That decision to leave CHCH? Turned out that Al was a bit of a prophet, as the new owners laid off a total of 96 people right before Christmas in 2015, including most of the on-air personalities. If Al had stayed at CHCH, he probably would have been among those let go. We can control our journeys.
Al finished his law degree through York University and worked as criminal lawyer for about a year, when something called COVID changed the world and changed Al’s perspective.
The courts shut down for more than six months in 2020–2021 and to help make ends meet, Al worked from home writing wills and dealing with estate issues. After more than a year of doing that, and with his lawyer’s certification dues needing to be paid, Al again changed course and decided that the emotional charge that he got from reporting the news was far more gratifying than dealing with the criminal justice system. At around the same time, he learned that CHCH was indeed looking for part-time reporters and he jumped at the chance to return to the television side of things.
The creativity, adrenaline rush, and sense of teamwork were the basics of the journalistic life that brought Al back. Al is officially part-time but is now on a full-time contract until the end of the year. The next steps are uncertain but a career at the highest levels of journalism in this country has taught Al to take life as it comes. A lesson for us all.
The sense of satisfaction he feels working again for CHCH has brought Al full circle. His days now are getting his assignment in the morning, working as part of a team on the story all day, and then presenting it to the public at 6 p.m. He loves it.
There is a societal scorecard that may say that leaving CHCH and spending three years getting a law degree only to practice law for a short time before returning to CHCH may be seen as a waste, but the true hero’s journey calls for us to take on challenges and opportunities for growth. Following the path of an experienced journalist like Al Sweeney shows a deeper understanding of what learning is all about. Al sensed a need to grow, and he leaped into law school. The process of earning his second degree and seeing the justice system from another perspective allows him to impact the viewer at a deeper level. This alone shows the value of growth and the value of having the courage to take what life brings you. Then there is that leap back to CHCH to do what he does best and enjoys most. Now that’s a hero’s journey.
A Hero’s Journey: Beyond Little Norway and Olympia Sports Camp is available at A Different Drummer Books at 513 Locust St. You can also check out our website at aherosjourney.ca.
