Stephen Brunt’s ‘Made in the Hammer’ Docuseries Brings the Heart of Hamilton and the Tiger-Cats to the Screen

Beneath—but not very far beneath—that erudite and professional demeanour which befits one of the best all-round sports journalists this country has ever read and heard, is Stephen Brunt the Hamiltonian.

The Stephen Brunt who was taken to his first Tiger-Cat game as a four-year-old in the early 1960s, instantly becoming a lifelong Cat Crazy. The Stephen Brunt whose mother “absolutely hated Mike O’Shea when he left Hamilton for the Argonauts. This stuff runs that deep.”

Understand that the Stephen Brunt of 2025 has reaped the rewards of an elite career as the national columnist with the Globe and Mail and Sportsnet.ca, an award-winning broadcaster and podcaster, a celebrated documentary writer and producer, and author of numerous best-selling books.

“So now I can do only the things I want to do,” says the 66-year-old maestro of description.

And one of the things he most wanted to do was a thorough deep-diving project on the Tiger-Cats.

The result is Made in the Hammer: Inside the 2025 Tiger-Cats, powered by Porter Airlines a four-part documentary series that will chronicle the journey of this entire season, with all its ups and downs, beauty marks and warts, buttressed insider knowledge and video that is unavailable anywhere else. It is a Hamilton Tiger-Cats project co-produced by Brunt and Taylor Iannarilli, the Ticats’ Content and Creative Director. Brunt wrote the script and is the narrator.

HAMILTON, ON: Members of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats boarding their Porter Airlines flight to Calgary to face the Calgary Stampeders on June 7, 2025. (Screenshot from Made in the Hammer: Episode 1 powered by Porter Airlines courtesy of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats/Ticats.ca)

The first episode—Made In the Hammer—drops publicly on the Ticats YouTube channel on August 14, and takes the viewer from the numerous changes made in the off-season, both on and outside of the playing roster,  through training camp and through the third match of the season when the Ticats won their first game—their first of six wins in a row—to put the anchor of bad-start pasts behind them.

It opens with what is essentially a love letter: lyrically linking the Ticats to the civic pulse of a gritty town “that has always seen itself mirrored with the rough, tough teams that wear black and gold and ply their trade within sight of the factory smokestacks.”

Brunt’s deft prose and familiar authoritative voice combined with Iannarilli’s unerring eye for detail, angle, accompanying historical footage and visual metaphors, create a compelling 31 minutes of art…and reality.

“You’re trying to tell the story of a season, with enormous access,” Brunt says, “It’s not ‘Hard Knocks’ [HBO’s NFL series] but there is going to be some pretty raw stuff in there, in the dressing room and on the sidelines. You’re going to hear these guys sounding like they really do and you’re going to feel some of the emotion within the team.

“I think the idea setting out is that this is a team which hasn’t won in a long time; they’ve gotten off to a terrible start the last few years; you have a new general manager coming in; you’ve got a bunch of new coaches and new players coming in. It felt like there was a lot at stake right off the hop. You had to get this season off to a good start. You needed some belief. So, there was a fairly strong story line to start with.”

And it has only got stronger, as seen through various eyes in the first episode: long-time fans who, like Brunt, were introduced to Ticat games by previous generations of their families and now carry their own torch; coaches; general manager Ted Goveia; and several players. The first episode followed resurgent quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell, defensive back Jonathan Moxey, and rookie linebacker Devin Veresuk, the Cats’ top draft choice in May, who wasn’t expected to play regularly until the second half of the season—if he was expected to start at all this year.

“You’re looking for narrative lines through a season,” Brunt says. “You’ve got a room full of guys and everyone always sees the quarterback but on the field they kind of all blur into one. The idea is to tell some human narratives through the course of a season, however it plays out.

“The plan is to continue player storylines, but not the same guys necessarily every episode and also some fan storylines. I’m not sure how that’s going to evolve but that’s part of the idea in bringing in longtime fans of the team and explaining what it means to them. Have them experience, celebrate or suffer through the season, depending upon what kind of season it’s going to be.”

“The game’s a game but it’s a vehicle to celebrate you and your family and your friends and your history and your town.”

Iannarilli, who started with the Ticats in 2014, then spent several years in with Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, and its four teams before returning to Hamilton two years ago, credits the entire Ticat creative and video team for the documentary’s textured artistry and illustrative ‘B-rolls’ (clips which illuminate the narration).

“This is something I’ve wanted to do forever, telling that behind-the-scenes story of a team through a whole season, especially in the CFL and especially here where it just means so much more,” Iannarilli says. “Fans, players, employees, we all feel it.

“The vehicle is really Brunt. He’s our narrator, he’s our storyteller and an editor’s best friend because when I have two sections I can’t make flow together, I have this storyteller and voice that can help me fill those gaps.

“The story isn’t just from a coaches’ and players’ perspective but from the fans’ perspective as well because that’s what makes sports. You can give all the stats in the world, how much money’s involved, but once you start seeing and hearing from the people who are impacted by the team … that’s where the weight is added. The importance of the stories.

“There’s an honesty to it. When we were considering it I said I don’t want to do a propaganda piece. There will be points maybe we don’t want to show but we show them. An obvious one would be ‘Why does it matter so much in Hamilton?’ and part of that is we haven’t won in over 25 years.’ It’s not that we haven’t made it to the Grey Cup. My first year was 2014—the Speedy B Grey Cup –and it ripped my heart out but it also made it so special: when it does happen here, when the ‘Cats win the Grey Cup, it will be a countrywide event.”

HAMILTON: (From left to right) CFL Wide receivers Jevoni Robinson #84 and Shemar Bridges #17, running back Treshaun Ward #39, linebacker Brian Cole II #41, defensive back Jonathan Moxey #6 and linebacker Ray Wilborn #0 of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats standing at the sidelines during the Canadian national anthem at the Friday, June 27th home game against the Montreal Alouettes at Hamilton Stadium in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The Tiger-Cats beat the Alouettes 35-17 (Screenshot from Made in the Hammer: Episode 1 powered by Porter Airlines courtesy of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats/Ticats.ca)

Brunt says there has been “lots of grist for the mill. This has not been exactly an uneventful season so far” and that the Veresuk storyline—graduating to starting middle linebacker for the third game of the season, which was the club’s first win, and punctuating that by leading the team in tackles and making a critical interception which he ran in for a touchdown in his first pro start—“fell into our laps.” And Iannarilli’s staff punctuated it by getting the Veresuk family’s reaction on tape.

In all story-telling, dramatic tension comes from facing up to all the hard, sometimes sad, elements as well as the uplifting and happy ones. It was impossible to avoid dealing with the spring’s revelation that Ted Goveia had contracted a serious form of cancer.

But it had to be addressed without exploiting the situation and in a manner which, Iannarilli points out, fit with Goveia’s wishes. He praises Goveia and Orlondo Steinauer for their time and forthrightness.

“The challenge becomes dealing with it,” Brunt says. “You can’t pretend it’s not there. It’s not just hanging over the Ticats, it’s hanging over the whole league.  You understand how much people like this guy and respect him. There are so many happy elements to the story: a Burlington guy comes back to run the hometown team, a big opportunity.  He’s had a bunch of success in his career but this is a chance to put his own stamp on it and does it, and then comes this absolutely crushing news. It shows you the human beings in the room too, doesn’t it? They’re not robots.

“The scene (after the first win of the season)  in the dressing room where Scott Milanovich  gives him the game ball and then Ted presents it to Veresuk, the guy he just drafted?  It was unbelievable.

“It just melts you.”

Matt Afinec, the Ticats’ longtime COO and president of business operations, calls Iannarilli  “a special talent” whose potential was obvious even back when he started in an entry-level position, and says the organization has done several projects with Brunt, dating back to when the new stadium opened and is “fortunate that we have someone of his calibre and scale to genuinely have a passion for the team and an understanding of the city. There’s an authenticity to when he’s talking about the Ticats, when he’s talking about the city. You know that he knows what he’s talking about.”

Afinec sets the documentary into a larger context of the Tiger-Cats’ gradual progression in how it presents its varied assets, both on and off the field.

“It’s consistent with what we want to challenge ourselves to be in this new age of emerging medias and content,” he says “we’re trying to build content experiences for our fans that are unique in our league and in the North American landscape. Things like starting our own audio network would be an example of us always trying to be not just on the cutting edge of production but also distribution. Providing that audio broadcast both live and on-demand, we were trailblazers in that; our in-stadium experiences—in-stadium is just a different form of content, it’s live content—are a commitment to being innovative and providing value to our fans everywhere.

“This new docuseries shows our willingness to allow fans behind the scenes to see how these stories emerge, how decisions are made. It’s a deeper view of the people involved in building our team, coaching our team, cheering for our team—giving the fan perspective and, obviously, the players themselves. I think it’s consistent with what we’re always trying to be which is at the cutting edge of creating and distributing great content.”

As the quarterback, Bo Levi Mitchell is obviously an important part of the story, but he’s also an interpreter of that story…and its backstory. And he delivers his observations with penetrating accuracy. At one point in Part One he refers to what is, essentially, the straightforward integrity of Ticat Nation, and of the entire city. Its blunt honesty, if you will.

“Ticats fans … bleed these colors, this team,” Mitchell says. “And the beautiful thing about it is that you have to embrace the fact that if you don’t play good, they’re going to let you know.  And if you play good they’re going to let you know.

“And that’s an amazing feeling because they should do that. For the players it’s fun, it’s exciting, it’s tough; but at the same time when you hear those roars, and you hear those cheers…..you know you’ve really earned it.”

Says Brunt: “Bo gets it. And I think that comes through in the piece. There’s kind of a level of…he’s engaged in this thing: it’s not just a gig, it’s not just a job.”

Adds Iannarilli: “Everyone we’ve interviewed was great … Bo was exceptional.”

HAMILTON, ON: Quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats speaks with the crew of Made in the Hammer docuseries, reflecting on the importance of the CFL franchise to the city of Hamilton and it’s residents (Screenshot from Made in the Hammer: Episode 1 powered by Porter Airlines courtesy of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats/Ticats.ca)

For Brunt, this docuseries is a labour of love, personal history and respect for the town which helped shape him. He regards Hamilton’s stadium—the old one and the new one—just as this corner does: de facto town squares where Hamilton feels Hamilton-y and where newcomers are brought for a sampling of what’s inside the guts of this city.

And when he looks into, or sits in, the pews of Hamilton Stadium does he cast an eye around and see himself?

“Oh yeah,” he says quickly.  “Because they all talk about first going with their parents: and I went with my mom, my dad, my grandparents. They’re not newbies, although there are also people in the stands who don’t have that history.

“But it’s the sense of connections; the purest form of people cheering for themselves; you’re cheering for your neighbours, you’re cheering for your community. The game’s a game but it’s a vehicle to celebrate you and your family and your friends and your history and your town. My town vs the other town; my street vs the other street, or whatever. That’s what drives that whole massive entertainment industry.

“In Hamilton it’s still kind of pure in a lot of ways; it still is about Us Against Them. I think in Toronto it’s not anymore, but in Hamilton you can still get people’s back up when you say ‘Argos’.”

“I’ve been going to Ticats games since I was four years old.  People are always asking me who my favourite NHL team is and I don’t have that kind allegiance to anybody in the NHL. When I was a kid it was all about the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and some junior hockey. We were a separate place, a separate town with a separate identity. The Ticats especially; you lived it and breathed it.

“I don’t think it’s ever completely gone away. I lived through those years when it looked like they weren’t going to survive; I really wondered at that point. And it’s kind of interesting to see people who come to Hamilton—there’s been so many people who’ve moved there, the Toronto-exile crowd—who kind of adopt that too. Who say, ‘well this is the Hamilton thing so I guess we’re going to get into this.’ But there’s still that kind of east-end core idea; that hasn’t changed. I don’t think that heart ever stopped beating.

“It’s amazing that the team hasn’t won a Grey Cup in 25 years and yet when things are going well you can still kind of sense it. We always used to say that you could tell whether the team won or lost by how people drove coming out of the stadium. If they won everyone would let pedestrians cross in front of them, if they lost the whole town went into a bad mood.  It’s not like that now, it’d be almost impossible to replicate that, but I’d love to see what it’d feel like for them to win the Cup in the 21^st Century.”

If they do, you can be certain that it will be artfully documented in Made In the Hammer.