Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Al Strachan: Toronto Mike'd #793

Episode Date: February 1, 2021

Mike chats with Al Strachan about his years on Hockey Night in Canada's Hot Stove, his relationships with Brian Burke, Don Cherry, Ron MacLean, John Shannon, Mike Milbury, Christie Blatchford, John Davidson, Bruce Arthur and more.

Welcome to episode 793 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times and brewing amazing beer. CDN Technologies, your outsourced IT department Contact Barb today at Barb at CDNTechnologies.com Palma Pasta Enjoy the taste of fresh homemade Italian pasta and entrees From Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville

StickerU.com Create custom stickers, labels, tattoos and decals for your home and your business. Ridley Funeral Home. Pillars of the community since 1921. And Mimico Mike. Learn more at realestatelove.ca. I'm Mike from torontomike.com and joining me this week is Al Strachan welcome Al oh how you doing I always like to be on the shows that are sponsored by breweries

I feel more at home that way well in the good old days when my guests actually made the trek to my home studio everyone left with a 8 pack of fresh beer from Great Lakes. So do you mean my address then? Well, whereabouts do we find you today? Where are you?

No, you can't send beer. I'm in Florida. Oh, you're in Florida. OK. I thought maybe I might be in New Brunswick or something. We can make something happen there. But no, it's so tough to get back there. We came to Florida, but boy, the restrictions now on getting back mean we're going to have to stay here a little while, but there are worse places to be.

What is the temperature right now in Florida? Probably about 75 or something. What's the temperature? Just a little over 70 because it's early in the morning. It'll go up to mid-70s. That's Fahrenheit. I don't speak metric. See, I'm trying to do the translation in my head to bring it up. Well, if it's 70, you multiply it by 2 is 140. Take away 10%, right? Leaves 156. And then you divide it in half. It's warm.

Yeah. It's not warm here. So you're in a good spot there. Now, right off the top, Al, the book is entitled Hockey's Hot Stove, The Untold Stories of the Original Insiders. I've read it. I thoroughly enjoyed it because I love learning how the sausage is made. I just love it, and there's some great stories in there.

And we're going to talk about this book, but I thought right off the top, if you wouldn't mind telling us, how did you end up in the sports writing business? Mostly because I didn't speak French at the time. I was working in Windsor, Ontario. I got on the University of Windsor. I was working on the student newspaper and got a job at the Windsor Star. And I was a business writer, which meant I could go over to Detroit and get brand new cars from the automakers over there and drive them around for a week and then do car reviews,

which is pretty good. But the publisher was a really good guy and a good man to work for. And that's not always the case, because they seem to think that you're their servant, not their employees, some of them. And he went to the Montreal Gazette. And so I said, well, can I go to the Montreal Gazette? And one of the reasons that made him a good publisher was the fact that he wouldn't interfere with his underlings. And he said, well, I'm not going to tell them who to hire, but I'll give you a good recommendation if you apply. So I applied and I went there and they said, can you speak French? I said, no, not too much, a little bit. But they said, well, if you can't speak French, you have to go into sports

then. So that's how I became in sports. So did you have a passion for sports before that moment? Oh, yeah. I was an avid, avid Detroit Tigers fan. We used to have passes for the Tigers at the Windsor Star. And I probably went to about half their game. I lived right at the end of the Ambassador Bridge, right near the university, if anybody knows Windsor, California Avenue. And I could leave at 22 and be there for the opening pitch over the bridge, down over to Tiger Stadium, up the ramp and watch the games. So I used to go to a lot of games and I listened to the other ones on radio. I got into trouble sometimes by skipping people's weddings so that I could listen to the ball game outside and things like that. I was an avid baseball fan

and to a degree hockey as well, but the problem there was we didn't get as many hockey games that we were to like because the Red Wings had the capability to black out the Leafs and used to like uh big uh michigan uh basketball fan and uh so yeah and and the lions i still have a piece of the lions goalpost when the fans that tore it down i think it was probably the last game they won right right that's a yeah there's a troubled franchise, if you will. But we'll get to that.

There's another one in this town that we'll get to shortly. But now, what brings you to Toronto? Because you worked at Globe and Mail and, of course, The Sun. But what brings you to Toronto? It's the pinnacle, isn't it? I mean, if you're going to be in the sports media in Toronto and you're going to be at the top, you pretty well have to be in Toronto. So there wasn't much doubt about that. If you look at all the people in the Hockey Hall

of Fame, so-called, which I think is really stupid to put media people in the Hall of Fame anyway, people don't care about that. And rightly so. But anyway, they do put them there. And all you have to do to get in the Hall of Fame basically is work in Toronto for six years and they'll do it to you. That's all. Okay. That's the prerequisite there. Now, okay. So let's cut it that's all okay that's the the prerequisite there now okay so let's let's cut to the chase here and get to the uh satellite hot stove now uh what's the origin so basically give us the origin story like like like how does hot stove come to be on cbc's hockey night in canada and how does uh how does yourself become a part of it well john shannon put it all together i had tremendous admiration for john shannon he's the best TV person I've ever met. And my opinion is shared by the people who run the Olympics because every four years they would try, because he was good, he'd already been fired by CBC once.

So when they had a change of management there, the guy who was going to make the choice said, I'm not interviewing Shannon. There's no way he's a bad tempered guy and he causes trouble and everything. And somebody else, I think I forget who it was, but Shannon would know, said, no, you got to give him an interview. And Shannon went in there with no notes and just talked for three or more hours on what hockey night needed to be. And they were so blown away that they hired him. And among the ideas he had was make it a double header. You're on at eight o'clock now and you're on for three hours. And after that, you got Juliet or something. And I forget what was on before, but it was equally bad. And so he said, put a game starts at seven in the east, another one at 10 in the west. You have a double header. We'll put it all together. And it turned out that that six hours of programming there became the CBC's prime

moneymaker. They made more than half of their advertising revenue for the week in those six hours. And so that was a brilliant idea. And then he figured, well, you've got to make sure that people are watching if you want ad revenue. And right now we've got people shooting at styrofoam pucks and old people who retired from the game 40 years ago staggering around the ice and these various gimmicks that they do. So we need a show in the second period intermission. We got Don in the first, we need something in the second. And so he came up with the idea of Hotstone, which at the time was revolutionary.

Now everybody sits back and looks at the ESPN, all those other things, sees those little boxes. You probably even got two of them on this thing, I suppose, or whatever. Well, in those days, you couldn't do that. And so John got it done. And it was very difficult technologically, because you're putting together somebody in New York. I was usually in Toronto, but not always. I could be somewhere else. Ron was in Toronto, invariably, sometimes in Montreal, sometimes Western Canada, and who knows what else, and put together these box thingies.

And it was successful. People got the idea, which is what John wanted them to get, that they were sitting in on a barroom conversation, sort of. Here's these four, whatever you might want to call them, talking about hockey. And I can listen in. And, you know, they talk over each other once in a while, just like they would if we were all in a bar together. And they're pretty uninhibited.

It's clear that there's no script for this show. And we're finding out things that we never found out before because we went through the firing of John Ziegler. John Ziegler and if I'd have read the papers every day you would have seen that people were hopscotching each other or leapfrogging each other rather with developments in the firing of John Ziegler story the only mention that ever appeared on hockey night in Canada was when Ziegler showed up at a game in the finals and on the air they said oh there's John Ziegler he's in a bit of heat at the moment and that was the end of it and so Shannon said well look we got these Sunday papers one of which was the Globe and Mail, whom I was working at the time with these notes columns,

with all these little bits of information. We don't have any of that on Hockey Night in Canada. So let's set this up. So that's how that started. So, and that's 1994 when the hot stove sort of makes its debut on Hockey Night in Canada. Now, yeah, well, I warned you, I read the book. Okay, good. Now, you mentioned in this book that it was,

I assumed it was live and it sounds like it was sometimes live, but sometimes it was pre-taped in the afternoon. Yeah, it was taped in the afternoon when John Davidson had a Rangers game in the evening. And then we taped it. And that made it still pretty good because it was what they call live to tape. We didn't go back very often. The only time we went back and I mentioned in this book, and I'm not denigrating a friend here, Eric, the hot check, and we laugh about it now. And he knows it's true and admits it had a tendency to go on a little bit. And I mean, you got eight minutes and four people,

you can't go on. And you'd ask Eric and Eric, and sometimes we had to stop it. And John's famous line was, Eric, I just asked you the time. I didn't ask you to build me a watch. Just tell me the basics here. And so, but that was about the only time we ever went back for things. Other than that, John put up with whatever stupid things we said. So what's your preference, live or tape, live to tape in the afternoon? Probably live. But you do have that feeling of security with the afternoon taping. Safety net. You know that if you say something

really really stupid you can get back but i mentioned the one incident in the show when uh the uh ottawa senators defeated the new jersey devils who were the runaway leaders and everybody's pick to go to the stanley cup finals that year and we did a quick sort of show after that because it was such a big upset and Ottawa beat him. And they were muttering about what Lemaire would do next. Would he increase the defensive responsibilities? Would he insist on new players? And I said, he'll quit.

And as soon as I said that, I thought, oh. If that had been taped, I would have said, wait a minute, let's start over. I'm not going to say this. But as it happened, Lemaire did quit about four days later. If that had been taped, I would have said, wait a minute, let's start over. I'm not going to say this. But as it happened, LeMary did quit about four days later. So you live by the sword, you die by the sword, right? That's no safety net. It can go either way.

Perfect. Yeah, it takes out some of the, I think the, what would you call it? The highly active part of the show if you're live because people do tend to be a little bit scared and so after later on then they started to go live and strangely enough the primary reason was because of technology which causes so many problems in their life when they brought in hd they could you get a much better picture but it's harder to coordinate the sound and you'll often see that today. So you'll see these interviews on TV and the guy will ask somebody in the location something. And then there's. Oh, yeah, because it takes the time.

So we couldn't do a show with four people and that kind of time lag. So we had to put it into Toronto and that really defeated the first. It's no longer satellite hot stove. If you got four guys sitting around the desk, is it, you know, or on bar stools, which was more appropriate. Now I'm going to ask you about a few, few names you've already dropped in this, this episode. What was it like working with John Davidson?

JD is one of the nicest people I've ever met. He knows what he's doing. He's a lot of fun. So he's, he's not one of those who you feel like you're around Mother Teresa or something. You've got to be very careful. But he doesn't hold any grudges to anyone. And he laughs. Everybody in hockey knows JD. He is what they call a lifer. He was in junior hockey.

He was playing junior hockey when the arena burned down and they had to leave because it was on fire out west somewhere and uh and he played for uh st louis of course and uh because sam didn't want him to go to uh sam pollock the gm of the of the canadians didn't want him to go to boston so he made a trade to give st louis a higher pick than boston so that they would take john davidson before the bruins could get him he's more worried about give St. Louis a higher pick than Boston so that they would take John Davidson before the Bruins could get him. He's more worried about the Bruins having a goalie than St. Louis. And then, of course, he ended up with the Rangers. Now he's been a general manager and now he's the president of the New York Rangers.

He's back there. So and he lives in New York and he knew everybody as well. And he knew especially what was going on in the United States. And he had good contacts in Gary's office. I had some. I mean, my relationship with Gary, I presented as being a bit strained just because it works better that way. But Gary and I got along okay. We always spoke.

And he knew that I disagreed with him on a number of points. And then I took the player's side in disagreements. Obviously, he didn't. But he was okay. But anyway, John got along with him a lot better than I did. So he was very good to work with. Now, a gentleman who had his own share of run-ins with Gary Bettman. Talk to me about working with Ron McLean, particularly with regards to the hot stove.

me about working with Ron McLean, particularly with regards to the hot stove. Ron just sort of got harder and harder to deal with as it went on. Ron was plucked out of Red Deer, Alberta, where he was doing weather by John Shatton, and he put him on. And of course, he was an overnight star instantly, partly because of Don Cherry, but also because he's a very good announcer and he has a great wit and he can think on his feet and he was very clever and he could handle Don. And, excuse me, he knew the job, but he was supposed to be a traffic cop. And when he started, that's what the analogy was. So you just direct the things. You don't actually drive your own car. And that's what John wanted him to be. And that's what, when John Shannon was there, he kept reminding him, you don't get involved in these things.

You just steer these other people. You're here all night. They're only here for eight minutes. Let them do what they're supposed to be doing. And so he did. But then when John left, then Ron assumed more and more responsibilities for himself. And not only on our show, because there was sort of a void at the top, because there was nobody who was going to replace John at that time, Ron started assuming directorial duties and

deciding when we would go where, not just in Hot Stove, but for the whole show and how it would progress and who would do what to whom and so on and so forth and uh as a result just sort of became um you know more more self-centered a little bit a little bit more dictatorial and and we always got along well on the set as far as i knew but he would do things just to screw us up intentionally and i've mentioned them in this book and in other books you know he'd say JD you start with LA and then Huey you come on with Vancouver and Eric you do Calgary and Al you bring in Montreal and we'll go in that order and I say okay and so well here we are with Hot Stove Al what's happening in Nashville and there's one of them that's still it's still up on YouTube where he goes to me right off the bat. And I said, what, you're starting with me? Because he wasn't supposed to start

with me. But he used to do that sort of thing, I think, just to sort of keep us on our toes and show who was boss and that sort of thing. So you think that was intentional, not a, like just a natural mistake? It was definitely intentional. He's a smart guy. And you know, there's no doubt that was intentional. And it used to do it not just to me, but to the others. And what may not have been as intentional, but just was an indication of the way he became was that we would tell him before the show, sometimes quickly in the earlier days, we didn't have much time if we're all on remote. We would just, he'd say, what do you guys got? And we quickly, we'd give it to him. We only had two and three minutes between us all. And he'd say, okay, here's how it's going to go.

But then later on when they were doing the live ones, he had plenty of time. We would, we would tell him about six o'clock what was on the list because we were all in the studio anyway. And we would have a meeting up in Shirely Najak's office and give him the list of things. And, you know, Eric, especially because Eric was no doubt the hardest worker of the group. The rest of us can't really be accused of working too hard. Eric would have a whole list of things and he researched them and done a lot of work and could entail every aspect of it bit by bit. And he'd say to Ron, this is really important. This is my best bit. And then with about eight seconds to go, Ron would say, Eric, what was that stuff you had about?

You know, and it used to infuriate Eric because he'd worked so hard to have some. We all usually had stuff left over that Ron never got to often because he perpetuated his own little ideas of what should be in that show. Interesting. Okay, this opens up a whole bunch of questions here. Now, you mentioned... More to get me in trouble now. Oh, you wrote the book. I feel like you did it to yourself here.

I don't think I went to that depth in the book, though. So you're getting further insight on top of the regular insight. Oh, good. That's good. I like that. Shorali Najak, who's actually been over, and he's been on the show, in the book though so you're getting in further insight on top of the regular insight oh good that's good i like that uh shirali najak who's actually been over and he's been on the show so i've had shirali's been sorry did he insult you no he was very pleasant with me but oh i guess maybe he didn't like you then oh that's right because i did yes there's a lot of that fun banter in the book yeah maybe that's true uh He probably did. I'm just kidding. If he doesn't know you, he won't start you. Once he gets to know you, he's vicious.

It's all right, though. You get vicious back to him and he doesn't take offense. And you mentioned Coach's Corner briefly, so I got a few Coach's Corner questions. But one is, is it true, well, you wrote in the book, but tell us about how Shorali Najak banned you from talking to Don Cherry? Yeah, well, Don and I have political views that are not dissimilar, shall we say.

And so I would sometimes go into the room. There's a little room there where Don and Ron set the sort of a green room type of thing. And there's a table there where they can put their drinks. Not that any of them drink anything alcoholic before the game game but coffees and water and stuff like that and there's a coat rack where don can hang his jacket because he only wears those flowery upholstery jackets for the actual show and uh sits around in his shirt and suspenders the rest of the time and uh and there's a notebook for ron and uh there's a little monitor on the table that shows the scores out of town and stuff like that and and those guys sit in there and usually most people don't bother to

go in there not that they would tell you to get out but most people feel that's their little inner sanctum so we'll leave them alone but of course I used to go in there and I would go in especially before the games I've known Don since 1974 75 somewhere in there I think and we went on vacation together for a week in England because he's a fan of British naval history and I know a little bit about it so I was able to shepherd him around in in London and Portsmouth and places like that so So I've known Don for a long, long time. So I would go in there, and then we'd talk about what had happened in Ottawa during the week. And we're not talking about the hockey senators here.

We're talking about what the government had done. And that would get Don riled up a little bit. And their feeling was that when I went in there and talked about political issues with Don, that he would get riled up and he was still riled up when the first intermission started and it would reflect in his views of whatever he was talking about that night. So they told me, stay out of there.

You're not allowed to go in there. And they knew I was in there and knew what I was saying because McLean is always wired from about three in the afternoon. He's got a cordless mic that he's wearing so they can hear it. And so Don's always with him and there you go. So yeah, you were riling up Don Cherry and you know when he's riled up for his

spot on Coach's Corner, that's when trouble happens, right? That's when he... Yeah, that's when trouble happens. Wow. Okay. Now Don was very vocal about this, and there's a wide-held belief that Coach's Corner was the most watched part of a Hockey Night in Canada telecast. Like this legend, if you will, is in the zeitgeist.

It's not a legend. So is that true? I'm curious, because which show got the higher ratings, Hot Stove or Don Cherry's Coach's Corner? Usually it was Don, but once in a while it was us. They were very, very close. It was not uncommon, I'll say this much,

for the two intermission shows to outdraw the game itself. But people used to love those intermissions and they were able to do it in 15-minute segments. So they know who's watching what. And, you know to it's just common sense look at the don cherry intro when it was there then there was an ad then there was don

throw an octopi around or something then there was another ad and then don would come like who has two ads who has an ad before their intro and it's because they could sell that time it was very high price because they knew that that time it was very high price because they knew that that's when everybody was watching and i think we had a couple of those as well that both of those shows were very popular and once in a while we outdrew don but you know it didn't really matter because uh we're all in the same boat have you had any conversations with don since uh poppy gate or whatever we've called it? Sure. Yeah. I've had more than Ron McLean, I'll tell you that.

So is it fair to say you and Ron don't chat anymore? Yeah, absolutely. He refuses to call me back. You might have noted that there's not a lot of offering from Ron in the book, and it's not my fault. I called him three times, at least, maybe four, but definitely three, and asked him to call me back. And he did not on any of those occasions. And when I got fired the time before, I called the people I was working with and either talked to them or asked them to call me back. And they did. And Ron didn't. Okay. But Don and you still chat on the phone now and then? Is that? But Don and you still chat on the phone now and then?

Yeah, sure. Yeah. I mean, he's at home in Mississauga, and he has his own podcast to rival yours. So I hear. It's good. It's a different kind of thing, but it's homey. You know what I mean? It's sort of like you're in the Cherry family kitchen, and he's on there with his son, Tim, who's a nice guy

and who has always helped his father along. They're a very close family. And back in the days when Ron and Don rather would say something outrageous and he'd get home and Rose would be sitting there like this, Rose, his wife, he knew he'd do that, you know, and he had to placate Rose from time to time. And Rose was a lovely girl, but she's dead now. But even those days, Don was always Don. And after that trip that I mentioned to England, he did say to Rose, and not many people would probably say this to their wives, he said, no, Rose, we had a lovely honeymoon, but I have to say this was the best week of my life. And Rose would just roll her head on, you know, and, but they very, very much loved each other.

And they were, they were a very good couple. And she was very good to them. And now Tim has sort of taken over that role a little bit just to guide him along here and there and when John Shannon was running hockey night Don John would do it John would go to his house if there was something really dangerous something that might start a significant conflagration he would go to Don's house on on Thursday or Friday or whatever and talk it over and then McLean to his credit used to call Don sometimes in the morning and Kathy Broderick who is the one who

digs out all the stuff for him, all the clips and everything would talk to him every Saturday morning without exception. Yeah, I like how in the book you gave a load of credit to Kathy Broderick because that's not a name I think load of credit to Kathy Broderick, because that's not a name, I think. Nobody knows the name Kathy Broderick. No, they might recognize Don saying Kathy did this, but he doesn't always use her last name. Yeah, but Kathy is one of those people who makes sure it's all there and does it very well. And she was brought in by John Shannon as well. She had worked for Molestar, if you remember Molestar.

Yes, I do. Used to have the rights at one time. That's mentioned in the book. That was a very strange situation with CBC and Molestar. But most of the Molestar people didn't come over, but Kathy did because Kathy was so important, and she's still there to this day. In fact, she's so good, they may get rid of her.

Yeah, we'll touch on that in a moment. That's funny. Don Cherry's got his podcast now, of course, and John Shannon is co-hosting a Bob McCowan podcast. Yeah, he is, I guess. I haven't heard that one. There's limits to how many of those you can listen to. Yeah, he is. And the thing with John, he got fired because he was too good. They brought in Nancy Lee, who I, you know, document her rise to fame pretty much in the book.

And it wasn't really on the basis of her knowledge of televising hockey that she got to be the head of cbc sports and john had his ways of doing it and she wanted to do it differently her primary role was to increase the or her primarily aim was to increase the role of women in uh in sports that was she made that clear and she spelled it out so um she don john shannon had other ideas like putting together a good hockey telecast for instance and so they parted ways and then john then went to run leafs tv and you know he's still the best tv person and then he went to uh i guess it's force net isn't it yeah he went to sports net yeah all. All these different formations. But yeah, and was on the other side of the camera.

And I said, you know, what are you doing there? You should be running that show. I know who's running that show. And, you know, you should be doing it. He said, well, you know, he said, I don't have the pressure on this side. And I don't mind doing it and that sort of stuff. So they still should get him to run it.

Now. So Nancy, I think this goes back to 2000, but Nancy Lee, just to run down a few names. So fire John Shannon, fired Chris Cuthbert, fired.

Yeah. Yeah. Brian Williams. He didn't renew John Shannon. I don't think she actually fired him. The other ones she fired, I believe. Yeah.

So Cuthbert, who's now back, you know, number one, a or one B, depending where you put Jim Houston. Very good people. Yeah, and Brian Williams, of course, a legend. And again, Ron McLean, but undid that one.

So that was the famous or the infamous fired Ron McLean, but undid it. Yeah, that was interesting, wasn't it? It took about two days and it was on the front page of all the newspapers. You remember newspapers? Of course. It was on the front page of those and there was a great uproar and they had to take him back. And Don was on the list. Don was going as soon as his contract expired too if she'd had her way. But she didn't have her way with regard to that. his contract to expire too if she'd had her way. Wow. But she didn't have her way with regard to that.

No, no, she didn't. Now, a couple of names of people I mentioned in the book, I just want to shout out because I've become quite friendly with them on this podcast, but David Schultz. So Dave Schultz is a one and done guy, right? So what happened with his one that made him done? Well, Schultz and I are good friends, and we have each stayed at each other's house on vacations and stuff like that. He came to my house in St. Andrews for a while and I stayed at his place in Prince Edward Island for a while.

And of course, we worked together for a long time, which means we also drank together a lot after the games and things like that. So Schultz is a good person. One of those people I insult regularly and some people get upset on Twitter because I'm insulting him. But Schultz doesn't get upset. He just insults me in return. That's that. And yeah, he disputes this. But I've been told,

and I thought this was the case and others tell me this is the case, that he went on and took too long and went on and on. And that was his one chance and that he didn't go back. And so much so that I believe Ron McClain even made a remark about it the next week saying something to the effect of, well, we haven't got much time.

Dave Schultz took it off with a reference to the previous show. So, yeah, Schultz, he had his chance. But, you know, he wasn't the only one. A lot of people came in. A lot of people were given chances to make a name for themselves and be on that show regularly. But it was supposed to be a meritocracy and talking too long was not a merit. and talking too long was not a merit. Well, let me ask you about a guy who never... So Dave Schultz, to his credit, he got the one and then he was done. But this name popped up in your book and he's been on this program several times, but sort of a polarizing figure, not unlike yourself, actually, but Damien Cox. So why was Damien Cox never on Hot Stove?

He didn't know enough. You had to be in contact with the game, and Damien didn't have the contacts. That was one of the reasons. The other was that they already had somebody from Toronto, and they were sensitive to the accusations of being too Toronto-centric. That was another factor. And what could he offer that wasn't already there? to the accusations of being too Toronto-centric. That was another factor.

And what could he offer that wasn't already there? Okay, now here's a gentleman. Here's the guy, after all, who did the story saying that Pat Burns was dead when he wasn't. That is true. Red Fisher. You wrote everybody hated Red Fisher. Well, not me personally. I said they had the vote every summer. They would vote as to who was coming back and who wasn't. And everybody who voted hated Red Fisher.

They said that he did not add. And I did not have a vote. I wasn't part of that management group. And John Shannon says that was the only time that he overruled that group because he said, no, Red's coming back. John has a tremendous sense of hockey history, heritage, that sort of thing. Even the hot stove name goes back to the radio days with Foster Hewitt before television and things like that. And he just felt that as the senior hockey writer in Canada, just felt that as the senior hockey writer in Canada, who had a Professional Hockey Writers Association card number one, and that number has now been retired by the Professional Hockey Writers Association in deference to Red and in memory of him. And so he brought him back. But

Red had the, what would you call it, image of being curmudgeonly on television. Not that he was totally alone in that, mind you. But he just sort of upset people sometimes. He was very down. And I believe on one show, J.D. referred to him as one of two sports, right. You know, the grumpy old men thing. And, uh, Well from the Muppet show? No, not Statler and Waldorf. No, there was a movie, was it?

Right. Right. Right. The old man or something. I think it was George Burns and Jack Lavin or something. Anyway. Oh, the guy from the odd couple. It was, uh, Yeah. Well but one of them was really grumpy i guess it wasn't it wasn't felix or oscar either i don't think but anyway he referred to him as one of these grumpy old men you have to if you do it oh walter mathau it was walter mathau right yeah okay mathau and lemon i think are the grumpy old men

yeah okay okay if you decide you're gonna do a movie, don't call me. Okay. I don't know that much about movies, but anyway, it got so that JD did. And, and, you know, he wasn't fun to watch. Like I was sort of curmudgeonly as well. And, but sort of fun to watch, I think. And that would make smart ass remarks and red didn't, it was all just about, you know, well, how much money you make, J.D., and stuff like that. And so he got his shows simply because John decreed it, but it wasn't because he was terribly popular.

But I'll tell you another story that is not in the book, and I don't know that I told that many people, actually. When I was working in Montreal, is not in the book and I don't know that I told that many people actually when I was working in Montreal um my elder son was born in 1978 and uh that night the uh Canadians were in the playoffs it was April of 17th against the Detroit Red Wings and uh my son had been born earlier in the day and I went down there to the game at the forum. And I was talking to Red, as I always did, because we were good friends. And I said, you know, my son was born, and here's a cigar and stuff like that, you know.

He said, well, let me tell you something. He said, spend time with that boy. He said, I've got two children, and I didn't spend time with them and I put the job first and I always have regretted it. So don't put the job before the family because the people at the job don't give a shit. And, and I've always remembered that. And I've never ever written it anywhere because I think that, you know, it might've embarrassed Red if he was still around,

but since he isn't and since his wife isn't anymore, I guess I can tell that story. But Red and I used to be quite close. Yeah. And then it seemed he got jealous of me because Shannon was putting me on the show instead of him. And so he started saying things about me that weren't quite true. And I didn't say anything to him about it, but we just sort of drifted apart. So it was never any shouting match with Red or anything like that, but we just did drift apart. Would you mind sharing a little,

while we're in this mode here, sharing a bit about Christy Blatchford? Because I know you were close with Christy and you actually lived in her house. But if you don't mind, because we lost Christy Blatchford, because I know you were close with Christy and you actually lived in her house, but if you don't mind, because we lost Christy far too soon, and I'd love to hear your perspective on her. Well, what kind of language do you accept on this show?

You can curse, you can swear, anything you like. All right. Christy got a book, well-deserved National Book Award for her book about the 15 days, it's called. And each day chronicled the death of a Canadian soldier, at least one Canadian soldier in Afghanistan. And it is a magnificent book. It won the Governor General's Award, as it should.

And they had a little sort of a celebration for it down at one of the local bars there behind the King Edward. And Christy was going to go up and give a speech. What do you think the over under is on how long this speech will go before she says, fuck, we figured 10 words. We figured she didn't make it to five five I'm so fucking glad to be here she said and she was she was hilarious and she had um just a total irreverence for everything she would upset people but her heart was always in the right place she was a member and she told me to be a member and I always did what I was told of the uh I don't know what it's called but it's down on University Avenue the royal canadian military society or something and these people get together then they're all military people

and uh it's a it's a worthwhile place but it you know it can be a little bit stuffy and they invited blatch to speak and there were some people there know, retired generals and brigadiers and so on and older people with their wives and they're all dressed to the hilt. And they go up there and Blatch is being introduced by this guy who's a bit tall. And so she goes up there and she gets to my, she said, I got to lower this a bit. And then she's fiddling around with it. And she's got the bike like this. And she says, you'll have to excuse me. It's a long time since I had anything shaped like this this close to my mouth and apparently there was a lot of distress there were suggestions that she should be thrown

out other people liked it and stuff like that but she was a very warm-hearted person I lived with her totally platonically for uh three or four years I don't know they all run together and uh she I said well what do you want for rent you're not gonna pay any fucking rent I said well I'll pay no fuck off I'm not gonna charge your rent so it's okay so I lived there so then the deal was that she could write whatever she wanted to write about me. And sometimes that got abused a bit. I think there's an excerpt in the book where she's making fun of my clothing, among other things. But anyway, I did live there. And we would go to dinner together very, very often because Blatch was not a good cook, to put it mildly. And there were a lot of nice restaurants around there.

She lived right down near Spadina and College, that area there. So over in the Annex and up one way, and then the other way into the Kensington Market there. So we would go out for dinner a lot. And when you go for dinner with people regularly, and the wine flows and stuff like that, you get to know each other very well. She was a very, very kind hearted person, but really, really tough.

You couldn't push her around. She was strong willed and she was, to my mind, the ideal person for the job that she had. And she loved Canada as well. She loved the military she loved hockey her father uh up in Ruin-Noranda which we always used to call Roin just to annoy her her father up in Roin had a arena that he was the janitor of he didn't own it and so she grew up in a hockey rink more or less and she knew the game she'd been if not the first certainly among the very first female sports columnists because she had covered the Leafs and everything and you know

there was in those days uh prohibition on women in the dressing rooms and and there was an implicit prohibition on the part of the media or the press that they didn't want women around and anybody who expressed that view to Blatchery told to fuck right off and she would get on with her job and did a very good job at it but she was she was driven and um you know she it was uh that's I think what eventually led to her death she she was always trying to prove herself and I kept saying to Blatch settle down for fuck's sake you know you're old enough you can relax now and take it easy but no no she'd have to get up early on a Saturday morning go jogging in the blizzard and everything like that and eventually she started to get pains in her leg and being Blatch she just thought she would ignore that and go on with it

go on with it until she finally couldn't walk and And by that time, the cancer had set in. And that was, you know, she drove herself like that. And, you know, I miss her very much. I used to talk to her a lot about a lot of things. Probably knows more about me than some people that I've lived with non-platonically. But, you know, it was sad, very sad. I'm sorry for your loss, man. That's sad. But sounds like you had a great relationship with Christy while she was here. I should have written notes right from the day I started, because it would have made a great book, you know, like Living with Christy. It was, you know, oh, you fucked up the television.

I hadn't fucked up the television. Well, you had it last. I said, well, so what? I turned it off. You fucked it up. So here, let me see. Go, get away. Fuck off.

Go away. So now I'm like, well, maybe you should try this. Fuck off. Don't stand over there and tell me what to do. Come here. You know, that's really. And this thing went on, you know. But she was fun, were we were very close uh when i tweeted that you were coming on the program i opened it up for listeners who wanted

to submit questions for al strachan and by the way strachan al i are you sure it's not al strong like we haven't been saying this wrong all these years you're sure it's strachan well strachan is a scottish name it's scott. Well, Strahan is a Scottish name. It's Scots Giac. And it should actually, it should be pronounced like you're clearing your throat. You know, Strahan, that sort of thing, which nobody ever does. So certain segments of the family, in a rather sensible, to my mind, intention to escape Scotland, went down to England. And when it went down to England, the ones who went down there, it sort of got softened and strong.

We're not going to say strong. We will say strong. And the ones who came right from Scotland is Strachan. So it's all from the same area in northeast Scotland. But some pronounce it Strachan and some pronounce it Strachan.

And I just do what my parents did. No, it makes sense to me. Makes sense to me. So I opened it up for questions and so a bunch on the same theme here, but Tim Phelan on Twitter says, for Al, what can you tell us about the infamous Brian Burke military fight? Well, I can tell you that they were going from Greece to Latvia. I can't tell you enough because nobody in the Toronto media has had enough guts to ask him. And maybe he might have answered some of the missing answers if given the chance. I tend to doubt it.

But people were allowed onto that flight with no security. People came onto that flight with drinks in their hands, which is not normally done in flights. The intention was that a number of retired hockey people and hockey management, as in the case of Bert, would go over and visit our troops and just a little bit of R&R type of thing, boost their morale and bring them close to home and all that sort of thing. And they'd done these in Afghanistan. They'd been wildly successful when people like Gila Fleur and that one showed up. And Burke, to his credit, had been on a number of them and was quick to come forward and say that he would do it.

But there was no security they got on. Somebody, allegedly one of the higher-ups, came on with a bottle of Johnny Walker. Now, was that Burt? I don't know. May have been. May not. Some were already drunk when they got on the plane.

Was that Burt? Those reports say he and Tiger Williams were already feeling the effects. But again, we don't know. You know, maybe it's not. So don't take my word for it. Just look up the stuff. It ended with two people who they, who Frank Magazine, not Frank Magazine, said were Burke and Tiger Williams pissed themselves because they were so drunk and they had to put plastic sheets on the seats for the remainder of the flight before it came back to Canada because of the military jet to replace the seats and that sort of thing. But again, these are the reports and nobody will ask

Burke about it. There was definitely residue from someone who has that smokeless tobacco and spits in a cup and left that around. That is against all the rules of military flights, but somebody was doing it. And we know that Burke has that habit. Was that Burke? I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. They received what was referred to as excessive preferential treatment in the report that was subsequently done.

Tiger was charged. Apparently, there were female flight attendants, at least one, and someone decided that her buttocks could be fumbled, or fondled rather, not fumbled. And Tiger was charged with that. The reports are that Brian Burke was the seatmate, And Tiger was charged with that. The reports are that Brian Burke was the seatmate,

but I've never seen anyone suggest that Burke was involved in the sexual aspect of it all, even places like Frank. But there was definitely heavy partying and drinking, and so much so that the flight attendants had refused to ever do one again, had to be flown back to Canada at the taxpayer's expense. And the whole program, which used to send, as I say, these retired hockey people to our soldiers overseas, has been canceled. Now, there's no love lost between you and Brian Burke. I do know that in his new book, Brian calls you, I don't have the exact quote, but essentially the worst of the worst.

It won't be complimentary. But then again, you know, you can, I haven't read the book. I wouldn't give him the 20 bucks or whatever it charged. I'd read it, I guess, if somebody gave it to me, but I'm certainly not going to buy it. But Steve Simmons did a full column that I saw on the internet pointing out how totally inaccurate it was. Now, Jerry, another listener of the program, says, I remember when Berkey called out Strachan on the hot stove about trading Brendan Morrison. And then Jerry wrote, Strachan got nailed. What was that story? Did you remember that one? Well, that was the one I mentioned in the book. Yeah, I think I did.

What happened was that, you know, you go around, you talk to people all week long. And a general manager in the East said that it was his understanding that Burke was offering Brandon Morrison. And a general manager in the West said the same thing. Now, these two GMs are good friends of mine still, I guess. One of them not that long ago said the next time he's in Florida for the meeting, he said, we'll get together and I'll buy the first 48 beers. And after that, you're on your own. And I have a suspicion, knowing the way that these people think, that I did get set up. That would be their type of humor because they know that it would upset Burke, who they all hate.

I mean, you know, I shouldn't say they all hate. That's a very strong word. But Burke is not highly regarded or wasn't then among other general managers. Now he isn't a general manager. And by the way, with regard to that military flight, by the way, it may be worthwhile noting that two months, I think, after that, he left the Calgary Flames now I think there's any coincidence there or not do people walk out on the the job of president of a NHL team to just go and and be another talking head on Sportsnet or are they asked to leave I don't know I'm just saying that some people have noted that but anyway I think I did get set up on that one I mentioned in the book and so I said it so Burke went ballistic on the thing and but what I actually said was get set up on that one. I mentioned it in the book, and so I said it. So Burke went ballistic on the thing.

But what I actually said was that people are saying that Morrison is available, which was true. People were saying that. But, of course, what they had told me apparently wasn't the truth. So, you know, when you do all those shows, there's going to be times when you're wrong. And I was apparently wrong on that one. Although, you know, who knows?

Maybe Burke was covering. I don't know. He didn't trade Brendan Morrison anyway. I know that. Shout out to Brian Ferguson, who's also listening. In fact, we already did this, Brian. But Brian said, please devote five minutes to his feud with Brian Burke on the hot stove, which I think we just did. But then Brian also says something very nice.

He says, please let him know I enjoyed his overnight talk show, Night Talk, he used to do on Montreal radio. Whoa, that's a throwback. That was one year between the time that I left the Montreal Gazette and joined the Globe and Mail. I went from Labor Day 1979 to almost Labor Day 1980. And I left the Gazette because we were having a dispute about who should do what and everything.

And I was the sports editor. And the radio station come and offered me this job. And they said, well, if you do this overnight talk show, then after a year, we'll give you a daytime talk show, which is a lot more lucrative. Of course, you make a lot of money with the ads and all that sort of thing when you do those. And the deal was no sports. We didn't talk about sports at all. We talked about politics and current events and scientific discoveries and technology and all that sort of stuff. discoveries and technology and all that sort of stuff. So yeah, I did that for one year. And the Globe and Mail and I had been going back and forth. And I had asked them at some point during

that year if there was a job open. They said there wasn't. And then they called me just after I'd started and said, you know, can you come? Well, no, not yet. And then in the middle of the job, I said, well, you know, I'm going to be finished in about four or five months. And they said, no. And then they called me back and they said, well, can you come for New York? You know?

And so I went down to the Globe and interviewed. And they said, well, we'd like you to be our hockey writer. I said, what? Like with the Leafs? And they said, yeah. I said, look, this is not a great job security aspect to this one. You've got Lawrence Martin, who's already been kicked out of the room, and they won't let him in. You've got Don Ramsey, who's been kicked out of the room, and they won't let him in. You got Don Ramsey who's being kicked out of the room and they won't let him

in. And the reason that you're looking for a hockey writer is because nobody from your paper can deal with the Leafs. I thought I don't want that job. So I was like, okay, well, see you later then. So I went back to Montreal and the next day the phone rang, they said, well, would you be a columnist? And I said, wow, I wasn't too sure about that because they had Alan Abel as the other columnist and Abel was just tremendous and still is whenever the mood strikes Alan is really weird and does a

lot of strange things when he decides he wants to write then he is still spectacular but other than that he goes hiking in the mountains and falls down hills and and goes swimming with the whales and stuff like that but anyway I didn't want to be adjacent to Alan Abel because he was so good. And so they said, well, don't worry about that. Just come along and just be a shit disturber and you won't be writing like Abel. You'll be doing a totally different thing.

And so I thought, well, I can do that. So I did. And I don't know if I mentioned in the book or not, but we used to have these pigeonholes with mail. And, you know, mine, the stuff would be bulging and coming out of it and everything falling onto the floor. And Abel, who was a far, far, far better writer, would have one lonely envelope maybe somebody might have sent.

Because people don't write and say, boy, I really enjoyed that. They write when you pissed them off. Oh, and you're rather good at that, right? You're a polarizing guy, so it gets people's attention. Corey is another listener who wrote in and said, Al, I liked that you took the player side. A different perspective was needed. Did Mike Milbury beat you with a shoe after you roasted him

for being a bad gm while you were both on the panel oh milbury was good there is a whole chapter in the book about our relationship and i've known mike since uh what was it 1974 no 76 anyway back in the 70s anyway when he was still a player and playing for team usa in the canada, commonly known as team useless. And, uh, so we had a small run in at that stage and, uh, but he he's fine, you know, and, and, you know, he only ever hit the guy once with the shoe. They do a loop thing that looks like he's doing it again and again, but he only ever hit him once. And the story is in there. Mike talks about it. hit him once and the story is in there mike talks about it he was downstairs he's gonna have a beer with with jerry chevers and uh he he left and then heard about the fuss and came running out and went

up the stairs so he said you know he didn't go over the glass or anything like that like people suggest he just came out and went up the little stairs there and took this guy's shoe off and hit him once with it that's's all. It's memorable. Well, Corey also adds on that the second intermission has sucked since you left and they should bring you back to shake up their afternoon tea talk style headline segment, as he refers to it. Well, here, so let's, I can maybe do a couple more hot stove and then get you out of there and then ask you what you think now. But great question from Jamal, which i've got to ask you about jamal says ask al about his raptors takes

saying they were dragging the leafs and mlse down and his thoughts about that since they're more profitable this is again jamal talking they're more profitable than the leafs uh have a younger fan base and an online presence that's massive. Well, I read a lot of columns and that one was one of about 2000 or something. So I don't remember it verbatim, but it seems to me the sense of that column was that they should get rid of the Raptors and devote their attention to the Leafs. And then the Leafs would become a dominant team. So I think probably the column was pretty accurate.

I hadn't noticed the Leafs winning a lot of Stanley Cups. And as for his claim that the Raptors make more money than the Leafs, I doubt that very much. And I just, I lost interest in NBA basketball years ago. I think it's one of the most boring sports ever. It's all situational. You know what I mean? Like if you look at the basketball

highlights you're watching espn tsn whatever and they're doing so they'll show that's on some guy shoots it from the last area code and it goes swish some guy runs up the middle and jams it down somebody else throws one up and somebody puts it in that's it and then they'll show two different teams somebody will chew around there somebody around the middle so the highlights are always the same there's three highlights in nba and they're all the same the uniforms change but they're all the same and so there it's it's situational it's like watching swimming or a horse race or something you say is this are they going to overtake him is he going to catch up that sort of thing it's not wow that's a beautiful play like you know like you have in

hockey or football where a guy makes a diving catch or a hockey guy goes through three or four people. No, it's, and sometimes this important play is a guy standing 10 feet from an empty basket that he can almost reach with other people who can't defend going, boom. Oh, well, now he's got another. Boom. Well, will he get the thing? So NBA basketball to me just became really boring and my understanding of the ratings in the nba is that it's dropping substantially and even that one play that everybody talks about has been such a tremendous play you

have to worry about the officiating in the nba as well you know they've had some guy just got out of jail didn't he the guy was fixing games the referee i think he just got out all right yeah of course anyway uh the officiating leaves a lot to be desired and that one play there we talked about kawaii leonard where he runs around yeah kawaii leonard yeah okay well look at that play count how many times he dribbles like four count the number of steps, 14. Now, how do you dribble four times in 14 steps and not be called for traveling? Can I tell you how that works? What a moment.

So, you know, I just can't bring myself to watch NBA basketball of any sort. I like the March Madness. I watch that. And especially if Michiganigan or michigan state are in so even though i was a great michigan wolverines fan if they weren't around i used to root for michigan state just because i lived in windsor and so you know i watched them when magic was there playing for him and stuff like that and the guy from windsor was on that team that's a double dipping there i don't know if we can allow that one, but Okay. Yeah, well. He was born in Big Beaver by the borderline He started playing hockey by the time he was nine

His dad took the hose and froze the backyard Little Buddy dreamed he was Rocket Richard He grew up big and he grew up tough He saw himself scoring for the Wins or Canucks But he wasn't that good with a puck But his real talent was beating people out We will return to our conversation with Al Strachan in just a moment. But this is an exciting announcement.

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Chef's kiss. Shout out to Palma Pasta. And now, let's return to my conversation with Al Strachan. In his final season, on his final night, Buddy and a thin ghoul were pegged for a fight. Thirty seconds left, and the puck took a roll. And suddenly, Buddy had a shot on goal. All right, I've got to ask you about Scott Moore.

So, in fact, maybe this will be sort of the end of Al Strachan on the hot stove there. But you wrote a book called Why the Leaves Suck and How They Can Be Fixed. That was a book you wrote. Share with us why you think that book led to the end of your term there in 2010 at Hot Stove. Well, the day it came out, I had it down at the show at the CBC. And then we went to that bar in the arena afterwards. And I was there with Glenn Healy and I think it was Jim Hewson. And I had the book, and Moore was there. He came over to the table, uninvited, of course, and was showing it to Healy. And Healy just opened it and looked at the first part of it, which is Ricky Lee trying to teach the trap, which was... And Healy says, that's exactly right. He's, I was there for that. That was absolutely hilarious, you know? And so he passes it over to Scott Moore and he says,

you got a CBC logo on that. So I don't have anything to do with the cover. You know, I said, anyway, you should be glad you're getting promotion. And I, you know, I thought that would be, you know, I'm taking this kind of lightly. I didn't think anybody could possibly be concerned about this. So a couple of days later, I got the call that I was suspended indefinitely because of misuse of the CBC logo. And so the lawyers for the publishing company, HarperCollins, quickly fixed that up.

They recalled all the books and put a sticker over that so that you couldn't see it. Like, what's wrong with it anyway you know but anyway uh so that was fixed but do you think scott moore was just looking for a reason like and that you gave him that's what he told people you know because one of the things is you always get to hear everything there's no secrets you know what goes on at the hall of fame even though that's supposed to be the most secretive thing you hear what goes on in the board rooms you hear what goes on in the dressing rooms and he told friends he said I got him on a technicality was the phrase that he used actually and uh because when he did finally get in touch with me

again after 10 days he alleged he was in Asia or something so I couldn't make it back for the following week um he just said well we're not having you back anyway I said well I've got nothing to do with the cover like authors don't do covers i didn't even do the title right and uh no so we're not having you back and uh i suspect that that had to do with the involvement of burke interesting interesting so they fire close friends so they fire you gets burke gets um close friends so they fire you gets burke gets um exposed shall we say in that book for about 20 pages right yeah 2010 okay the interesting but you know it says on there and how they can be fixed they followed that exactly what i said how they can be fixed that's what they did said you know just you look at your assets what what are your assets what have you got that other

people don't that you can utilize? And in the Leafs' case, money. They're the richest team in the league. So you can only spend so much on players. Spend it everywhere else. Make the players comfortable. Get scouts all over the world. Get the nicest hotel.

All these things. And bring in a huge staff to do all these things. They're numerologists and six general managers. And they did it all. As to whether it worked, you have to figure that out for yourself. There's definitely skill on this team, which is something we don't often have here in Toronto. Yeah, the Shanna plan, I guess, is what we're calling that.

So Scott Moore, again, no love lost there with Scott Moore. It sounds like you guys had a tumultuous relationship and he found a reason to get rid of you and fire you in 2010. Well, according to Shirley Najak, he didn't want me in the first place. I'm not sure what I ever did to him to initiate it other than be a friend of Burke's or not a friend of Burke's. But Shirley Najak was the one who said, you know, this show is sort of dying a slow death here.

We got to bring somebody in to liven it up. And that was my job to come in and liven it up, which I did for a while. So in 2010, when you let go, you moved to New Brunswick. Is that right? That's when you move out east? No, not quite. I had moved there in 2005, actually, planning for retirement. And that's why I was living at Blatch's place.

Gotcha. I don't know the proper name, but my partner, shall we say, Lucy, who I've lived with now for 23 years or so, went to New Brunswick and took care of the house. We went together and I would often go right after the show and rush out to the airport. I had a very close friend of mine, Dave Carter in Toronto, who would wait for me outside, drive me to the airport. I get the last plane to St. John, New Brunswick, and then stay there for the weekend and come back on Tuesday afternoon because I was doing shows at the score. So we bought that house in 2005, actually. To remind everybody, the book is called Hockey's Hot Stove, colon, The Untold Stories of the Original Insiders,

and chock full of insight. It's just, I love how, like I said, I like to see how the sausage is made, and this is fantastic. So Al here, you've been amazing. I'm just going to close with a few rapid fire questions from just to mop up the listener questions. Cause they love to hear that. Can I interject something first? These things always remind me of a good line. One of the greatest lines of Roger Nielsen, seeing as the one you use there, there was going to be a hearing in the NHL office. And he said, there are two things in this world you do not want to know. What goes into sausages and what goes on in the NHL office.

Anyway, go ahead. I was reminded of that. Well, here's something from the book first. This is actually from my question. Cause I think it would be interesting for listeners who also like to know, I guess I always used to say how the sausage was made and then people say, oh, that's really gross. And I changed it to how the cake is baked. But I noticed today I reverted back to the old way I used to say it. But how close, Al, was Hockey Night in Canada to moving to CTV in 1988?

Very, very close. And there's a whole chapter in that book. I don't really want to go into it in depth too long, only because it's about a five minute story. But they were very, very close to going to CTV. And if you believe the CBC people, they didn't know about it until they read about it in the Globe and Mail. Wow. That'll be interesting. People can read more about that in the book for sure. Sean wants me to ask you about the Dan Maloney incident at the Gardens in 1984. Yeah, that was, boy, getting me to go back to these things now.

Dan Maloney blocked me from going in the room, I think. It's so long. I'm not trying to be evasive here. I just don't really remember. But Dan Maloney and I subsequently became good friends. But Maloney, I believe, was an assistant coach at the time. And it was one of those times when we'd been barred from the Leafs dressing room and we had to go to the rink and buy tickets. And of course, that meant we were up in the greens because that was the only thing available.

So we'd shut up in the greens and take notes and then run downstairs and get a couple of quotes from other writers who were allowed in, go next door to the Carlton Inn and write our stories there because we weren't allowed in the press box either. And I think what he's alluding to is I think Maloney blocked me from going into the room at one point, but it was never really very physical that I remember. Okay, it's interesting.

I don't think I want to fight Dan Maloney. Well, I co-host a sports podcast with Mark Hebbshire called Hebbsy on Sports. And when Dan Maloney passed, Hebbsy shared this, like it's just a frightening story about the physical intimidation of Dan Maloney. And Hepsey lived in fear for a while. Like, Dan, it sounds like Dan had issues in that regard. Well, I guess if you pay attention, he was an enforcer in hockey. Now you mention, see, every time people mention these things, it always reminds me of something.

When you mentioned Mark Hepser, he is the guy that I i refer to not by name uh in the milbury section when somebody once asked the question we were in the island they might have been the playoffs or something and he asked a question of milbury and milbury said some village is missing its idiot his response to hebscher so um anyway yeah I don't really remember anything more intimidating than anything else. There were other people, if you go throughout the years, then there are always people

who are not going to like what you say, but not much physical, mostly verbal. All right, The Deer Cop, that's what he calls himself on Twitter. The Deer Cop says, wants me to ask you, Al, what did you think of Marty York as a journalist? Marty had some problems.

I have to be careful what I say about that one. Ask me over a beer and I'll tell you that one. I can't tell you that one in a public conference. That's fair. Fair enough. I can't rough you up because it's on Zoom. Okay. All right. Here's the last one. Everybody wants me to ask you about it. Well, Brad has a nice word.

Brad says, always thought Al Strachan was kind of an... I said it was nice and I read it now. It's sort of nice in a backhanded way, but always thought Al Strachan was kind of... He'll be the first guy to call me that. That's right. Always thought Al Strachan was kind of an asshole when on hockey night in Canada,

but I actually missed his views on hockey when he left just a thought. So Brad wanted to put that on the public record. So thank you, Brad. But here, here's how we close because a lot of people ask questions about this and I'm naturally curious myself. What is it that Bruce Arthur has done to,

to upset you on Twitter? There seems to be a Twitter feud between you and Toronto Star writer Bruce Arthur. I stopped writing things. He's hopeless. He's obsessive. I think he should genuinely seek psychiatric help. He wants to tell everybody how to run their lives. If you don't run it the way he wants, he thinks you should be shot. I mean, whether you like or do not like Trump,

he had 74 million votes. And Trump or Arthur wants all those people to be eliminated from the face of the earth and driven into the sea. He's a strange person. He goes to a game and writes about politics. Remember when the Argos had a playoff game in Hamilton? He devoted his column to the fact that Doug Ford was there. He tells all the other newspapers how they should operate when his newspaper is being paid for by the liberal government and obviously shows that. So personally, I never met the man. And, you know, I know people say you hate him. I don't hate him. I just think that he is a pompous, arrogant person who has problems that border on megalomania. He thinks he runs the world and he wants to tell everybody about it.

And his own character isn't that good. and his own character isn't that good. If you remember, this is the guy who was at the National Post, and they sent him to the Olympics, showing that they were relying on him to do things, which he did. And then he came back, and they set him up to go and cover the playoffs for them. And when a newspaper decides that you're their lead playoff writer, I mean, they've got a lot of plans, and they've got things that are done done and they're hoping things, they have significant expectations. And he walked out on them after

a couple of games and went and joined the Toronto Star. So, you know, that sort of thing, when you want to tell everybody else how to live their life and I stop, every so often I stop responding to his more lunatic things. He believes in freedom of speech as long as you agree with him. And that's the only time. And I stop. And then I have all these people sending me, calling me. I say, Strack, what are you doing? You're leaving Bruce Arthur alone.

We love those things. Get back on him. Come on. It's the highlight of Twitter and everything. So I go and take a couple more shots at him. And then people say, why are you doing this? Are you nuts? Why don't you leave him alone?

So, you know, it goes up and down. But he's, you know, he's never broken a story in his life. So what qualifies him to tell everybody how to live their lives? He's a silver spoon socialist. Other than that. Other than that, you love him. Bruce Dobigan was on this program. And his politics came up like just you

know and again i even if we you and i have different uh you know political views it doesn't stop us from having like a really great hour conversation about your your work at hoggin and canada and your book and etc like i think we had a great hour here regardless of what you think of uh you know politically but when br Bruce Dobigan was on the program, he remarked on the show that he said like the sports media is extremely left of center. He says in their thoughts, uh,

and their beliefs. And, uh, he said there were like, he named three people he thought were on the right end of the spectrum. He said himself, Bruce Dobigan, Steve buffery of the Toronto sun and you Al Strachan. And these were the names that Bruce, uh, mentioned.ery of the Toronto Sun, and you, Al Strachan.

These were the names that Bruce mentioned. So I don't know. Apropos, nothing, just basically interesting that Bruce put you in the trifecta of people with conservative views. There'd probably be a few more than that. But I think if you look at all the media these days, it's very markedly left. And mostly because they're younger than I am, which doesn't make it very unique. And they grew up in a different era. And, you know, people suggest that because you're an old white man, your views are somehow tainted. But, you know, that strikes me as being something of an ad hominem argument and not terribly valid.

Bruce, I've seen Bruce. He comes here just over there, about, oh, say, three or four hundred yards down past the seventh hole. His father has had a place and his father died. And it now belongs to the estate of his father. And there's Bruce and his brother, Ian, who's a professor in PI. And they come down here and golf from time to time. And his, let's see now, his daughter is likely to be married to Eric, the hot chick's son. Wow. In the hockey family. I don't know if that was supposed to be married to Eric the Hot Chick's son. Wow. In the hockey family.

I don't know if that was supposed to be released. I got a call from Eric about that one. But anyway, nothing wrong with people getting married, I guess. And so, yeah, there's a lot of lefties. But the thing is, when we used to go to dinner after, and that's the one thing that I miss about the job. It's not really the job so much or meeting hockey players or pointing microphones and stuff. It's the camaraderie that existed around the sport and with the, what I would like to think is the upper level of the hockey writers, the people who travel with the teams, the people get away from their own

cities and are seen at all the all-star games and playoff games and that sort of thing. And we would go out for dinner, a large crowd of us. Most of us had a good time until, you know, maybe Schultz would pass out early. But other than that, we would sit around and I always used to instigate a rule. And that is the first time you bring up hockey, you buy a round. And the second time you bring up hockey, you buy the entire goddamn dinner because we're not here to talk about hockey. Hockey is our job and this is our life. So, you know, let's get on with our lives.

So we used to talk about a lot of things. And, yeah, we did have political arguments. So the way that I felt would. So, you know, people say, well, you're a Neanderthal. Well, we all have Neanderthal DNA, by the way. Some have more than others. And the Neanderthals were pretty good for about 100,000 years doing what they needed to do. And nobody bothered them. They were the more predominant of the homos

until homo sapiens learned how to imagine. Nobody had ever imagined before. The Neanderthals just wandered up and down. And homo sapiens, of which we are, and which wiped out the Neanderthals pretty well, learned to imagine. And if you learn to imagine, then what comes next? You learn how to lie

and so our whole race is uh dominant because of our ability to lie and be deceitful and all those kind of things so being the anathol is not too bad uh now as i look and last thing here because i want you to clarify this comment so i'm'm going to, I hope you can clearly tell us what you meant by this, because a few people, including Jay Bauer, 2424, pointed out this quote. They just said, he said, Bruce Arthur and African handball comments are on the interview question list, right? So just what does that mean, African handball? And then... It's a way, as I said, I'm an older person. You go back to the way that we spoke of things a long time ago,

and then there are all kinds of things that would today be considered racist or unacceptable. And, you know, you look at even certain book titles, you know, look at one by Joseph Conrad, look at one by Agatha Christie, look at one by Agatha Christie, and you'll find certain words that'll get you put in jail today. And so that was the way that it was referred to. We used to, I won't tell you what we called women's golf and sports writers are not terribly reverent people. So phrases like that were common use

with no intent to have the derision. It was just, that was what it was known as, you know. You don't use it anymore, obviously, because the world has changed. The book, if you were going to tell a listener now how they should get Hawkeye's Hot Stove, the untold Stories of the Original Insiders. Is there a preferred way to get it or just get it? I think you can order it on

Amazon. If they ever end the lockdown, you can walk down to the bookstore and get it. And I think you can probably order it direct from Simon & Schuster. I really don't know because I don't have any copies. The copies were delivered to my home in St. Andrews and I haven't been able to get there. I'm not going to pay to ship down 25 copies of a book with all that that entails in this day and age and trying to get across borders

and stuff. We've got to get you an e-book, an e-version. I think there is an e-version. There is an e-version available. Simon & Sch e-version yeah there is an e-version available and Simon & Schuster a very well known publisher I think they just got bought by Random House but anyway they're still very well known

and a historic publisher they have a website and you can order it through them or you can order it on Amazon like everybody orders everything these days and that brings us to the end of our 793rd show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike.

Al is at Winsford99. So W-I-N-S-F-O-R-D-99. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U. CDN Technologies, they're at CDN Technologies. Ridley Funeral Home is at Ridley FH.

And Mimico Mike is at Majeski Group Homes on Instagram. See you all next week. This podcast has been produced by TMDS and accelerated by Rome Phone. Rome Phone brings you the most reliable virtual phone service to run your business and protect your home number from unwanted calls. Visit RomePhone.ca to get started.