Splashy new book zeroes in on legendary rowing coach Mike Spracklen’s contentious time in Canada

With words by Postmedia sports columnist Ed Willes and photos from former rower Kevin Light, The Eight is a glossy look back in time.

Published Apr 15, 2026  •  6 minute read

Canada's Adam Kreek walks out of the water with his gold medal as his teammates celebrate after the men's eight rowing competition at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. Supplied photo

In The Eight, former Postmedia sports columnist Ed Willes peels back the curtain — and the scab — that covered a chapter in Canadian rowing history so transformative that even a decade later the men’s program takes on more water than medals because of it.

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It’s essentially the story of Mike Spracklen, a polarizing figure who coached the Canadian men’s eights to Olympic gold in 1992 and 2008, separated by stints with the national teams of Great Britain and the U.S.

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But the words and images combine to produce much more than a mere biography of the man. It’s the story of the Canadian athletes who cracked under the strain and rebuilt themselves under Spracklen’s unrelenting training regimen at Elk Lake on Vancouver Island, B.C.

It would also have been the story of the athletes who essentially sent the divisive Spracklen packing in 2012, but the perceived leaders of the mutiny — pairs team members Scott Frandsen and Dave Calder — declined to speak to Willes.

The longtime newspaper scribe and author of four other non-fiction sports tomes made sure to get most of the other major players on record, and their recollections guide the compelling narrative through its timeline, always pointed toward the 2008 Olympic final in Beijing, the race that once more confirmed both Spracklen’s genius and the athletes’ painful, unwavering commitment to team and personal excellence.

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“His goal was to create an environment where he could change athletes as quickly and deftly as possible,” gold medal rower Adam Kreek says of Spracklen in the book’s introduction. “He knew if you push someone to their limits physically, emotionally and psychologically, when their stores are at their lowest, the change will stick.

“Everyone has a breaking point and a different reaction to the breaking point. But you will have a breaking point if you’re in the Spracklen world, and if you come out the other side, you’ll have results.”

Canadian Olympic Gold medalist Rower Adam Kreek. Kevin Light Photography

Willes’s co-creator on the project was rower turned professional photographer Kevin Light, one of the nine men in the boat — eight oarsmen and a coxswain — on that glorious day in the summer of 2008. He pointed a camera at the sport he loved and his gripping images open the proverbial window into the soul of the men whose stories lend the glossy, coffee-table book its character.

“I think it’s a unique project because it’s the marriage of words and pictures, and at such an intimate level,” Willes said in late March. “Kevin’s got his camera there and he’s shooting guys after they work out, literally puking over the sides of the boat. It is so raw and visceral, and that’s what attracted me, the values these guys represent: The work, the self-sacrifice, the loyalty, and they all do this knowing there is no hope of a payday at the other end. They’re going to get a couple of trinkets and they’ll have their gold medal and that’s a great thing. 

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“But for the most part, we write about professional athletes who are very well compensated for what they do. These guys are doing it for other reasons. I just find that so compelling. And I think we’ve kind of lost touch with that. I hope people can connect with those values because to me they really are universal and they’re really at the core of sports and the things we love about sports in the first place.”

Will people who aren’t rowing fans enjoy the book?

If you do not love rowing, if you have never seen rowing in person or on TV, if you had no idea it was an Olympic sport, you will still find a way to enjoy this book, which is available via pre-sale at theeightbook.com, a website that went live April 15 with four excerpts.

Willes draws you in with the easy touch that served him so well during a 38-year career that began with the Medicine Hat News, included the Regina Leader-Post and Winnipeg Sun, and concluded with the dream job: Lead columnist at the Vancouver Province, a 22-year gig in his hometown that took him into retirement in 2020.

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Willes first dipped a toe into the rowing world at Sydney 2000, where he covered one heat race. After that introduction, he was the dedicated rowing writer for Postmedia and Canwest, its previous corporate identity, at Athens 2004, Beijing 2008, London 2012 and Rio 2016.

That considerable experience gave Willes the insight, interest, access and contacts to write The Eight. He had already scribbled The Rebel League: The short and unruly life of the World Hockey Association; Gretzky to Lemieux: The story of the 1987 Canada Cup; End Zones and Border Wars: The era of American expansion in the Canadian Football League; and Never Boring: The up and down history of the Vancouver Canucks.

Canadian Olympic rowing team during the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. Kevin Light Photo

Those books were all about professional sport, but Willes had a zest for Olympic sport and a special interest in the men and women on Canada’s national rowing teams. He covered the 2008 gold medal, the 2012 silver medal and Spracklen’s subsequent ouster, and the need for a more complete telling of the story had occupied a space in the back of his mind ever since.

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But he wasn’t sure it was a book until, after talking over the project with a potential publisher, he called 2008 gold medalist Ben Rutledge.

“I called and he chuckled and said, ‘you’re not going to believe this, but in three weeks there’s a Spracklen reunion at Elk Lake. So why don’t you come down for that?'” Willes said.

What’s more, it turned out Light had been involved in a previous attempt to document the Spracklen mystique and his computer held a cache of videotaped interviews, about 100 hours worth, with many of the major players.

Willes learned about the interviews when he ran into Light and other former rowers at the reunion.

“Most of them still remembered me from my time covering them,” Willes said. “I said, ‘if I do a book, would you cooperate?’ And for the most part, it was an enthusiastic yes. So I just started poking away at it. First order of business was going back and transcribing all the interviews, and that kind of gave me a base from which to launch my own interviews.

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“And the deeper I got into it, I just found the story so rich, and the buy-in was so complete from their point of view, I just thought it was a really worthwhile project.”

What did Spracklen have to say?

Of course, he needed Spracklen’s side of the story, which grew out of two or three Zoom calls, Willes at his home in North Vancouver, Spracklen at his in Marlow, England.

“You need the voice for authenticity, but I think it would have worked just fine (without Spracklen) because the people who rowed for him were just painfully honest, and they weren’t all blind followers; they recognized his faults,” said Willes. “He was going to be their route to the Olympic podium, and that required complete buy-in on their part, and that was kind of the deal they made with him and he made with them.

“When I was covering it in real time, the only question I had was this guy wins, why are you getting rid of him? And then you get deeper into the program, deeper in the deal he made with his athletes, how he was able to reach them, how he was able to develop them. The stories are crazy.”

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Though Light reached out to Frandsen and Calder for their accounts, they chose not to participate.

“I understand (why they wouldn’t talk), but my conscience is clear on this,” Willes said. “I thought I bent over backwards to be fair with them, at the same time pointing out the reality of the situation that they drummed Spracklen out and Canadian men’s rowing hasn’t won a (expletive) thing since.

“But again, that’s such a compelling part of the story, this program that breeds loyalty and brotherhood and camaraderie and all those qualities we love about sports, yet there was this kind of betrayal at the heart of it that again makes the story all that much richer.”

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