How a one-person shop in Nova Scotia became the primary storyteller for an entire athletic department

October 8, 2026

In Wolfville, Nova Scotia, if Chris Cameron doesn’t write the story, there’s a good chance nobody does.

That’s not a complaint. Or an indictment about his workload. It’s simply a description of the media landscape he works in. Across much of Canadian university sport, local outlets that once staffed games have thinned out or disappeared, and the athletic communications office has absorbed a role that in the United States is usually shared with newspapers, beat writers, or larger college sports media.

“Canadian athletic communications is unique in the way that we really are the primary people that are telling our athletes’ stories, and have been for a while,” said Cameron, who runs communications for Acadia University Athletics. “There’s a lot of schools where there’s limited media coverage. So we really are the ones who tell our athletes’ stories.”

One person. Eleven varsity programs. An audience that shows up passionately but in smaller numbers than a comparable American school would draw.

The stakes of falling behind are different when you’re the only one covering the beat.

Who: Acadia University
Nickname: Axemen and Axewomen
Division: U SPORTS
Conference: Atlantic University Sport (AUS)
Sports Sponsored: 9 teams
Location: Wolfville, Nova Scotia
FanWord Partner Since: October 2024 (FanWord’s first Canadian partner)
Fun Fact: Acadia’s varsity programs have won more conference and national championships than any other AUS institution.

Challenge: One person and a full weekend

Cameron’s week has a shape to it, but most of it is spent getting ahead of the weekend.

Mondays go to Athletes of the Week and whatever the previous weekend left unfinished. Things like results, stats, and the loose ends. Midweek is getting rosters together, webcast preparation, and whatever feature work he can fit around it. Then Friday arrives, and games run through Sunday.

The squeeze is in the resources and he’s clear about where his resources sit relative to the schools that the Axemen and Axewomen compete against.

“The hardest part of a solo communications operation is trying to keep up with people in other departments or other schools that maybe have more resources,” Cameron said. “The biggest thing for me is trying to do as much as I can in less time.”

Game recaps have to go out. Stats have to be posted. But for the work that doesn’t have a deadline? Things like athlete features about an incoming recruit, seniors in their final season, or the player coming back from injury are the pieces that slip when time is tight.

“Wanting to be able to tell those stories is something I want to do but don’t always have capacity,” he said.

Solution: Ten minutes from final whistle to published

Cameron’s game recap process may be the tightest amongst FanWord‘s roster of partners. It’s something he says was very intentional.

Box score comes out of Presto and goes into FanWord Assist, where he’s already configured the output format for each team. He runs it, reviews it, and then copies it to the site. Most nights the recap is live within ten minutes of the final whistle.

“The majority of the time, I get what I need and then adjust accordingly very quickly,” he said. “From a generic Friday night basketball game in the middle of the season, it hits all the points I wanted to hit without me needing to add any extra details myself.”

What’s notable is the editorial reasoning behind the speed. Cameron watches his own web traffic, and he knows where recaps rank.

“People are looking for schedules, they’re looking for stats, they’re looking for standings, they’re looking for our rosters,” he said. “The general game recap is not the highest-read thing on our website. So getting those done efficiently is very important.”

Knowing where recaps rank also shapes how he spends his own writing time. FanWord Assist carries the week-to-week volume, and any story he wants to write himself is still his to write. The draft is a starting point, and how much he leans on it is always his call.

And the engine behind that starting point just got a major upgrade.

Bonus: The stories that would have gone untold

56 features in under two years is a heavy storytelling load for a department of one, but it also provides the clearest answer to what the time saved from recaps went to.

Cameron uses FanWord’s Online Interviews to collect responses from athletes across every stage of a career — the recruit arriving in the fall, the veteran returning from injury, the graduating senior with four years to reflect on. Athletes answer on their own schedule via audio, video, or text. He reviews and shapes from there, with the responses and the photos they’ve chosen all sitting in the same place.

“Being able to capture that all through different forms and then being able to review it quickly is very important,” he said.

For a program whose stories reach the public only if the athletic department publishes them, that capacity is vital. Cameron frames the audience relationship as the thing worth protecting.

“Our fan bases are very passionate,” he said. “It’s a very niche market that we try and grow. And the way to do that is through something like FanWord, where we can tell our stories, resonate with the community, and have those human interest stories that tell people why our student-athletes and our teams are so important in their communities.”

Result: 268 hours saved and a reasonable bedtime

Acadia has saved 268 hours across its FanWord partnership, producing 131 game recaps, 191 player bios, and 56 feature stories.

Cameron spends part of that recovered time on visual storytelling, pushing video and photos from games out while the result is still fresh. He spends the rest of it at home.

“FanWord Assist has helped me get out of the office as soon as possible at the end of a game night,” he said, citing a young family as the reason it quite literally hits home.

He’s candid with peers about the adjustment period. Asked what he’d say to another solo SID weighing whether to add anything else to an overloaded operation, his answer starts with a diagnosis as opposed to a pitch.

“The biggest thing I would say to somebody that’s skeptical is just asking yourself if you’re feeling burnt out, if you’re trying to do more but feeling like you’re drowning or like you’re missing things,” Cameron said. “With anything there’s a slight learning curve, there’s a way to figure out how to incorporate it into your daily workflow. But from my perspective, absolutely give it a try.”

What the tool bought him, in his own accounting, is a redistribution of effort.

“It allows me to put the energy that normally would have gone into recaps elsewhere,” he said, “So I’m able to focus on other things but still maintain that level of coverage that we want and we need.”

Acadia also holds a distinction in FanWord’s history as the platform’s first Canadian partner. Cameron signed on before any other U SPORTS program had, which meant there was no peer north of the border to call for a reference. His department has since become that reference, and other Canadian schools have come to FanWord after seeing what Acadia has built.

LEARN MORE: See how FanWord helps Canadian colleges produce content more effectively.

Behind every program is a story worth telling

In a lot of places, the communications office is the only media outlet an athletic department has. The stories get told there or they don’t get told at all.

Athletics communicators at every level are doing more with less.

FanWord Assist is built for the people holding up that responsibility — with sport-specific game recaps for 20 sports, XML and non-XML website player bios, award nominations, news and feature story tools, online interviews, and storytelling tools made for college athletics.

From Division I departments to small college programs and Canadian college programs like Acadia, the time savings add up.

And the stories are better for it.

See what FanWord can do for your communications team: 
➡️ Request a demo using the contact form below
➡️ Reach out to our CEO directly to talk through your team’s workflow
➡️ Case Studies: Florida Southern — Tulsa — Illinois Tech — Hamline — KCKCC — Stetson — Northwestern College — American Rivers Conference