Hazel Mae2026HarperCollins Canada
The sports broadcaster's memoir, named for the line she signs off with on air. It runs from Bohol to Toronto, out to years in American sports media, and home again to the Blue Jays' field.
The core idea
Before I Let You Go is the memoir of Hazel Mae, the Toronto Blue Jays field reporter for Sportsnet, published by HarperCollins Canada under its Collins imprint on November 10, 2026. The title is her on-air sign-off. Born in Bohol in the Philippines, she moved to Canada and grew up in Toronto in a family of sports fans, and coverage of the book credits her father with shaping her love of sports. After York University and Rogers Sportsnet she worked in American sports media, at NESN from 2004 to 2008 and at MLB Network from 2008 to 2011, before Sportsnet Connected from 2011 to 2015 and the Blue Jays beat. Since 2022 she has also worked on TBS baseball coverage. The publisher says the book runs from her childhood and the move to Canada, through her years in US sports media, to the return home to cover the Blue Jays and the celebrations on the field after games. She also reflects on the challenges she faced as a Filipino woman in an industry traditionally dominated by white men. She received the Jack Graney Award in 2025 and the Gordon Sinclair Award at the 2026 Canadian Screen Awards.
Read as HourLife reads it, the story the coverage sketches has a familiar shape: a love handed down at home, a career built in rooms where she often did not look like anyone else, years away, and a return to the place it started. Over all of it sits the sign-off, a short line said at the end of a broadcast that has become the name of the book.
Coverage of the book credits her father with her love of sports, in a Toronto family of fans gathered round a small TV.
She reflects on the challenges she faced as a Filipino woman in an industry traditionally dominated by white men.
The publisher follows her from the Philippines to Canada, into US sports media and home to cover the Toronto Blue Jays.
Interactive · HourLife's exercise
The book is named for a sign-off. Most of us end things by trailing off. Pick a moment, fill in three short prompts, and the writer sets your closing line on a broadcast lower third you can copy and use.
1 · Pick the moment
2 · Fill the prompts
3 · On air
Nothing here leaves your browser. Your draft is kept in this browser's storage so it is here when you come back, and Clear removes it. The prompts and starter lines are HourLife's; they are not quotations from the book.
Concept anatomy
A broadcast runs to a rundown, the sheet that lists every segment in order. Here is her career set out as one, from the public record and the coverage of the book. The shape the publisher describes is plain on it: leave, learn, come home.
Dates are given only where the public record gives them. The grouping into home, away and back is HourLife's, and the rundown is not the book's table of contents.
Community insights
01HourLife takeaway
Coverage of the memoir says Mae's father shaped her love of sports, and that she grew up in Toronto in a family of fans gathered around a small TV. HourLife's reading: the passions that last often begin as company. Someone let you sit beside them while they cared about something, and you started to care too.
02HourLife takeaway
In interviews about the book, Mae reflects on the challenges she faced as a Filipino woman in an industry traditionally dominated by white men. HourLife's takeaway is not that the strain is a gift. It is that naming it plainly is part of the work, and that the person at the edge of the room often sees what everyone in the middle has stopped noticing.
03HourLife takeaway
The book takes its title from Mae's on-air sign-off, Before I let you go. A sign-off tells people the segment is closing, gives them one last thing to hold and promises a next time. Most of us end conversations, meetings and weeks by trailing off. A line you choose on purpose turns the ending into part of the message.
04HourLife takeaway
The publisher traces a road from the Philippines to Canada, out to years in US sports media, and back to Toronto to cover the Blue Jays. HourLife's takeaway: leaving is not always a break with where you started. Time away can be how you earn the skills and the nerve to return to the place you first loved and do the work there.
05HourLife takeaway
Mae's path runs through Rogers Sportsnet, NESN, MLB Network, Sportsnet Connected, TBS and the Blue Jays field beat. The craft stayed the same while the role kept changing. Staying with something for decades rarely means doing the same job; it means being willing to learn the next version of it.
06HourLife takeaway
Among the things the publisher says the book covers are the celebrations on the field after games, Gatorade showers included. HourLife's takeaway: the moment after the win is when people remember who was there. Stay for it, mark it and let the joy count before the next game starts.
07HourLife takeaway
Mae received the Jack Graney Award in 2025, and CBC reported that she was the second woman to receive it. In 2026 she received the Gordon Sinclair Award at the Canadian Screen Awards. Awards arrive on one night, but they usually stand for years of work that nobody was watching.
Action steps
HourLife's suggestions, drawn from the themes above. They are not steps the book prescribes.
Use the sign-off writer on this page to draft one line for the end of your week. Keep it short enough to say out loud without notes.
Think of who first sat you down in front of a game, a book, a kitchen or a song. Call them this week and tell them what it turned into.
Keep a note with the date, the room, what you noticed from where you stood and what helped. Patterns show up after a few entries.
List every role you have held, in order. Mark the moves that took you away and the ones that brought you back, and see what each one taught you.
Pick a team, a city, a craft or a person you left behind. Write down what you could bring back to it now that you could not bring then.
Before a meeting or a call, write one good question the way a field reporter would before stepping up to a player. Ask it, and listen to the whole answer.
End the last meeting or message of each week with your sign-off line instead of letting it trail away.
Once a month, watch a game, a match or a show with someone you love, on one screen, with phones put away.
When your team wraps something, stop for a minute and mark it out loud before anyone opens the next task.
Thank the room, name the next time, then go. A good ending is something you can practise.HourLife note after Hazel Mae
Pick setup actions and daily habits from Before I Let You Go: My Life in Broadcasting, Baseball, and Beyond, choose a start date, and download a printable checklist with real calendar pages.
Before I Let You Go is the memoir of Hazel Mae, the Toronto Blue Jays field reporter for Sportsnet, published by HarperCollins Canada under its Collins imprint on November 10, 2026. The title is her on-air sign-off. Born in Bohol in the Philippines, she moved to Canada and grew up in Toronto in a family of sports fans, and coverage of the book credits her father with shaping her love of sports. After York...
HourLife’s key takeaways include: A love of the game is often handed down, one shared broadcast at a time. Being the only one who looks like you in the room is a real cost, and it also gives you a view the room lacks. How you end is part of what you said.
It's a strong pick for readers exploring Career Direction and Resilience & Mental Strength. HourLife distills its core idea into key insights and practical actions worth trying.
Write your own sign-off line — Use the sign-off writer on this page to draft one line for the end of your week. Keep it short enough to say out loud without notes.
About five minutes. The HourLife summary distills Before I Let You Go: My Life in Broadcasting, Baseball, and Beyond into its core idea, 7 community insights, and 9 practical actions you can apply right away.
One idea from one book and one small habit from another, every week or once a month, on the day and around the hour you pick, where you are. Nothing else, and one link stops it.
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The core idea, key takeaways, and how to apply Before I Let You Go: My Life in Broadcasting, Baseball, and Beyond, as one clean, readable page.
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