Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Bob McKenzie: Toronto Mike'd #227

Episode Date: March 28, 2017

Mike chats with TSN hockey insider Bob McKenzie about his career in sports broadcasting, having a son working for the competition, appearing on Howard Stern, his Bob Cast and when he'll retire.

Welcome to episode 227 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a local independent brewery producing fresh craft beer. And propertyinthesix.com, Toronto real estate done right. I'm Mike from torontomike.com and joining me this week is TSN Hockey Insider, Bob McKenzie. Welcome, Bob. Good to be here. How many episodes did you say? 227. That's pretty impressive. I waited till 227 to call in the Hockey Insider. You know, 227 seemed right for you. But thanks for doing this, man. It's great to meet you. Yeah, you too. Right off the top, I got a question about your name really quick.

Sure. Take off, eh? I'm in the Canadian corner of the Great White North, and look at this. I'm Bob McKenzie, and this is my brother Doug, and this is Doug's new beer bottle. Oh, take off, eh? So let me know, when did it happen? I guess this is the late 70s.

Is that when Bob and Doug... I think so. I can't remember exactly, but that seems about right. It was certainly big in the early 80s too when their album came out. I can remember that. Because actually, I think I want to say that I think I actually called into Chum FM back in the old days in a contest and I won an autographed copy

of The Great White North by Bob and Doug McKenzie. And that's crazy because Rick Moranis was on the air, I think, Chum FM. I've had Ingrid Schumacher on this show. Yeah. And she trained him on Chum. Yeah, absolutely. And it's funny. I ran into, I ran into, I'm trying to remember who, wait a second. Did I run into Dave Thomas? Yeah, it was Dave Thomas that I ran into. This would have been probably well into the 90s. And I was coming out of LAX and and i ran into him and i said hey and he he i think

he was vaguely aware of who i was and i i just said hey thanks a lot hey and and then he goes he goes don't blame me he goes i was doug that's right i find it like it's always interesting you have a name and it's because greg brady's a good example greg brady's been on the show and he's just he's born Greg Brady. And then when he's a little baby or something, the show launches and suddenly Greg Brady is somebody else. That's got to be a strange. Yeah, it's there was a long phase of time where, you know, it even happens now a little bit. Not that much. Right. Because most of today's generation is outgrowing it.

But some some do. And you know what? I never, I don't mind. I certainly don't mind it now. I probably got tired of it for a period of time. And like people would say, hey, Bob, take off, eh? And I'd say, oh, yeah, I've never heard that before. And here's another fun fact I learned about you. Later in this episode, we're going to talk about you and Howard Stern.

But I heard that you saw so Rush Rush is the band that appears on Take Off right Take Off, Do the Great White North and you saw them in high school. High school at Woburn Collegiate yeah I mean I want to say it was my unless my I'm 60 years old now so I always question everything that I attribute to my memory but my my recollection of it is that the very first high school dance I went to at Woburn Collegiate in the fall, it would have been probably October, November of 1970, was Rush. And it's been all downhill since then. Pretty much. That's amazing. They were called Rush back then too? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That's amazing. And one more thing before we do our deep dive. So

I'm going to do a couple of quick sponsor mentions and then we're going to dive in here. But really quick, do you realize as per the Toronto Star, Canada's largest newspaper, you're now on the platonic ideal of podcasts. This is the quote attributed to Toronto Mike in a recent Toronto Star article about podcasting. This article actually talks about your podcast as well, which we'll discuss. But this here is the platonic ideal of podcasts. I just felt you should be aware. I'm not even sure what that means, but it sounds really impressive. I'm working on the bumper stickers right now.

I'm glad we're platonic. That's right. We are platonic. All right, everybody listening. If you go to patreon.com slash Toronto Mike to give what you can, you can help crowdfund this passion project so we can have interesting long form discussions with people like Bob McKenzie.

Bob, you've got some beer in front of you. Speaking of Bob and Doug McKenzie. That's from Great Lakes Beer. Well, I appreciate that. Take that home and enjoy. Great Lakes Brewery is a local craft brewery. And yeah, if you want more, let me know. They'd love to have Hockey Insiders get drunk.

And also, everybody knows from the last episode that we have a new sponsor here. Brian Gerstein is a real estate sales representative of PSR Brokerage. So if everybody listening goes to propertyinthesix.com and contact Brian, he passed on a really good tip today, which is basically that the Toronto property prices

have risen 19%. And what he's suggesting, like that's faster than anywhere in the world. It's ahead of Sydney, Australia, and Vancouver. Vancouver's at 14%. So what he's suggesting is that people cash out right now while the market is red hot and move to Moncton. You ever been to Moncton, Bob?

Yes, I have been to Moncton. Not a lot, but I've been there before. I visited Moncton for the first time last August with the family. It's great there. And that's one of the top 10 most affordable housing markets in the world, believe it or not. So contact Brian at propertyinthesix.com and tell him Mike sent you. Toronto Mike sent you. All right, Bob. We're going to start with a question

that kind of sets things up nicely. This is from Daryl Samuels on Twitter. But he wants to know, how did you start in the NHL writing business before the hockey news? He wants some tips, if you can, for aspiring writers. Well, I'm not sure I have tips because I started so long ago. The universe and the industry was so much different than it is now. But I can only say for myself, I probably only ever aspired to be a hockey writer. probably only ever aspired to be a hockey writer. And so I went to Ryerson and the journalism program there and quasi graduated. I was one credit short, but I ended up getting it later down the road. I'm not sure why, but I felt the need to finish unfinished business. And, you know, I was fortunate enough to get a job right out of school, which a lot of people can't

do now, and worked at the Sous Star and Sous Saint-Marie. And anyways, one thing led to another. So that was the path that, you know, I'm on television now, I'm in the broadcasting world. I never in a million years ever thought or set out to be anything other than a guy that worked for a newspaper covering hockey games. So that was sort of my chosen career path. As for advice for people today, I tell people it's the best of times and it's the worst of times. And it's mostly the worst of times

because there's just no jobs. I mean, it's crazy. Every day, really good people in both the print and the broadcast industry. The universe is just getting smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller. And it's frightening to see where it's going. So it's the worst time ever to want to say, I want to get into broadcasting. I want to get into media.

But it's also, in a way, kind of the best time because when I graduated from school, you had to be hired by a newspaper or a broadcast outlet in order to work. And there are all sorts of self-made stories now where people have started a blog or started a podcast or just done something on their own and their work speaks for itself. And somehow they've gone from virtually nothing to picking up momentum and become a viable entity and get hired or turn what was sort of a passion into a business. And I can think of lots and lots and lots of people. And there's lots of people working for NHL teams now that started out as

statistical bloggers and analytics guys. And now they work in the National Hockey League. And that was all starting. So it's never been easier to put your work out there because the Internet makes things so accessible. But, of course, it's never been worse because there's no money for most people. And there are so many experienced people who are good at their job that are already out on the streets not working in the business anymore.

No, I agree completely. It is, like you said, the jobs are drying up. This is bad news. But the fact that you can actually self-publish, and you have enterprises that can compete with mainstream media, like The Athletic I'm thinking of, this is something that you can do in this day and age.

And people are going to listen to us right now having a conversation. 20 years ago, I'd be, what, putting this on a cassette tape and selling it, I think, at the corner of Yonge and Dundas. So we'd have much less reach. Do you mind if I ask you, I'm going to play a little clip of you and Mike Milbury. And then I got a question about Mike here. She's not been an NHL general manager. I wish I had done that. Skipped right to the

president. So that's you ripping Mike Milbury. Do you have any favorite Mike Milbury stories? No, I get along really well with Mike. I know he's one of those guys in broadcasting who a lot of people like to dislike, whatever.

But no, you know what? I always found Mike fascinating. The story I always tell about Mike like to dislike, whatever. But no, you know what? I always found Mike fascinating. The story I always tell about Mike is you can think whatever you want about Mike Milbury, but understand one thing about Mike Milbury. And he's got the biggest set of balls, and I don't mean that literally

because I wouldn't know that, but he's got an unbelievable set of balls on him. Because back in the day, he took on Alan Eagleson long before it was fashionable to take on Alan Eagleson. And to go to a Players Association meeting and have Alan Eagleson running the show

and Mike Milbury, this fresh-faced kid out of Colgate, an American in a Canadian game who would put his hand up in these meetings of hundreds of players and start asking really hard questions and be shouted down by Eagleson and other players. And obviously, over the course of time,

he was proven to be correct on Alan Eagleson and that more people should have been asking the questions. So you can say whatever you want. You can dislike his opinion. You can dislike how he presents it. And feel free to disagree with him on all those levels. But also understand that he took a stand that was incredibly brave at the time in a culture when you were basically instructed not to speak out.

The other part people don't realize about a guy like Mike Milbury is you play as many years as he did in the National Hockey League. And, you know, one time when he was working with us at TSN, we asked him about his injuries, and we drew a stick man on a whiteboard. And we said, go through from top to bottom and draw a line out and mark every significant injury you had. And he did it because he, he, you know,

he's got tough knees and he walks around and you've got a bit of a gate to him. And, and it was absolutely incredible. The physical toll playing in the national hockey league takes on a body and, and for him to elaborate it on, on a whiteboard like that, I was, I was really taken aback by it. It made me realize what a sacrifice it can be for a lot of players to play in the National Hockey League. So I've got a lot of respect for Mike Milbury.

Another comment came in when I announced you were coming on the show. I'll read it. He went to Rye High with a friend of mine, met him a few times in the late 70s. Both were obsessed with hockey. Another buddy coached one of his sons in hockey out in Whitby. Says Bob was a good hockey parent 95% of the time.

Some other prominent hockey dads, not so much. If you have a kid in hockey, boy or girl, his book Hockey Dad is well worth the time to read. Any tips, real quick tips for... I'm a house league hockey dad, so that's a completely different kettle of fish.

That's where I started. Because I have to say, there's no angry parents. No. Have a good time. Yeah, absolutely. And obviously, as you go up the ladder in the various levels,

A, double A, triple A, you know, it can get a little crazy. And, you know, I got probably obsessed with a lot of things and did some stupid stuff along the way. That's why I wrote the book, I guess. But I think too, you know, in relative terms, I think by the time you finish the book, you realize that our family was relatively normal. And we had most of the right values most of the time, but a lot of people don't. And so I don't know.

I'm not very good at giving advice. I, you know, other than, you know, probably the biggest message in that book, and I talk about it at the end because I had a son, Sean, who had concussion issues and had to quit playing competitive hockey at age 14, which is a really difficult thing for a teenager because you lose your peer group. You lose your identity. You know, when you play contact sports, hockey in the winter, lacrosse in the summer, and suddenly you no longer can be part of those teams, it's a shock to the system. So, and my son Mike went through a lot of injuries and as do any kids that play sports,

contact sports. And so my advice to parents basically is, listen, as upset as you might be with the ice time or mad at the coach for this or mad at the coach for that, if when the game is over, your kid, you ask them, hey, you feel good? You're healthy? Yes. Then you're all good because you get another chance to go out and do it the next day out. You mentioned it began for you in Sault Ste. Marie. Is that right? Your professional writing career? Yeah, I guess so. My first summer job between second year Ryerson and third year Ryerson was at the Sault Star in the news department. I did two weeks of sports, but it was in the news department. And then when I graduated, I was able to get on full-time immediately with the Sue Star. I had a choice when I was graduating Ryerson to take a summer job at the Hamilton Spectator

or to take a full-time job at the Sue Star and I chose the latter. And did you that's where you how you ended up at the Hockey News because I think most people come to know Bob McKenzie, what, nine years as editor-in-chief of the Hockey News, is that right? The economy in the Sioux at that time wasn't great. And I got married basically right out of school in 1979. So my wife Cindy and I, we moved to Sioux St. Marie. She really wasn't able to get work there. And so we ended up coming back to Toronto. And I didn't have a full-time job. I was working part-time at the Globe and Mail. I was working three shifts a week on the rewrite desk,

doing some freelance writing for the Globe and Mail and picking up some other freelance on the side. And she was able to get a full-time job at Phillips Electronics in Scarborough. So we figured we were ahead of the game that way. But within a year of me being back, I was able to secure the job as editor-in-chief of the Hockey News.

Cool. And at the time, did you think you had reached the pinnacle? Pretty much, yeah. They told me when they hired me, I had a $25,000 salary. I got hired, my first day was June 1st, 1982, and I was 25 years old at the time. And they told me that I'd be making $25,000, and I came home and told my wife we were rich.

You know what? In 82, that was kind of rich. It was decent money, yeah. It's not even that awful for your first gig today, actually, but that's pretty cool. And after the Hockey News, you're covering hockey as a hockey columnist. You end up at the aforementioned Toronto Star,

which has great taste in podcasts, by the way. So how did that change come about? Well, I really enjoyed my time at the Hockey News. And it was quite an all-encompassing job as editor-in-chief. What it started to become was it started to become more and more a business job and less and less an editorial job, which was fine. And I thought seriously about kind of going down the business road, which would have opened doors maybe as a publisher and those sorts of things. And then I started to think about what I really wanted to do. Andockey News, I was writing less and less about hockey, watching less hockey, and more concerned about managing a staff and worried about production schedules and learning about printing and a lot of technical things. So I kind of decided that it was time for me to stop being a manager and time to be a player, if you want to use a hockey

analogy, just wake up in the morning and be more responsible for myself. Now I should point out that there was a catalyst that the Toronto Star was looking for hockey columnists for the longest time. And in fact, Phil Bingley, who was the sports editor at the time, had actually called me at the hockey news and said, do you have any names that would recommend? So I'd say, well, talk to this guy or talk to that guy. And I gave him some references as to people I thought might be good. And for whatever reason, a year or more went by and they hadn't found anybody. So I was at the Hockey News one day and they called me into the office and they said, well, by the way, your car allowance that you've been getting for the last little while that's

been not taxable is now going to be taxed. And I'm like, well, that's going to seriously cut into my, my income. And they said, yeah. And I go, is there not any way around this? They said, no, that's just the way it is. And I got pissed off. And so I went back to my office and I closed the door and I thought about it for a few minutes and I just didn't like the way it was handled. So I picked just out of curiosity, I picked up the phone and I called Phil Bingley and I said,

have you filled that hockey columnist job yet? And he says, no. And he goes, do you have somebody? And I said, I might. And he goes, who? I said, me.

And one thing led to another and that's how I left the Hockey News and went to the Toronto Star. So don't piss off Bob McKenzie because he'll take action. You got to be careful there. Wait, so give me,

I'm just trying to understand, is this a pre-Damien Cox era? I'm trying to place. Damien was, he was a beat reporter, like I think he covered the Leafs and other general stuff in sports. And so they hadn't, yeah. So Damien would have been much earlier in his career

and they were looking for somebody that had been around them, I guess, for more years. For Damien at the Star, we call that the mullet years, I think is how we refer to Damien's tenure at the Star. Damien, by the way, on Primetime Sports, remarked that Milt Dunnell told him, so Milt Dunnell told Damien Cox that the best comparison, if you wanted to compare Bill Berilko to a leaf that we all have seen, he said was John Cordick. Okay, this is so, I don't know if you, I know you didn't see Bill Berilko play. I had Kevin Shea on, and I told him that, and he was dumbfounded. He couldn't believe that that was the comparison Milt Dunnell. Yeah, I wouldn't have, again, not having seen Bill Berlico, I wouldn't know.

I would have thought more along the lines like Bobby Bond or. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like we're hoping, you know, maybe the legend has, you know, the legend. And thanks to the hip and everything, it's, you know, we've got him elevated. But I thought that was interesting that, you know, John Cordick was the comparison. By the way, what was it like, Milt Dunnell-like? Was he a mentor of sorts? Yeah, I didn't, you know, I would say,

first off, Milt was an unbelievable gentleman. Like, he just, and I was in awe of him and Jim Proudfoot and Frank Orr and all the guys because, as I said, I grew up wanting to be a hockey writer. I had a scrapbook from the 1967 playoffs and I had the scrapbook because I was obviously, I grew up a Leaf fan but I also was always sort of enamored of of the bylines were Ed Burnett and Frank Orr and Jim Proudfoot and

Milt Donnell and and the columns that they wrote so to get an opportunity to go to the the Toronto Star and the funny thing is even before I went to the Star as, as the hockey columnist, while I was in Ryerson, I freelanced at the Toronto star. And I did a lot of weekend work and a lot of things where I would go in. And I, and I, again, I, that's where I got to see all those names that I just mentioned. They would also, you know, so I was, I was pretty much in awe of that. And Jim Proudfoot, Chester, as we knew him back then, he was, he was absolutely terrific and, and Milt as well.

And you spent six years at Toronto Star. So it's one young street, by the way, the fun, another fun fact, my wife works at one young street, so I'm there all the time, but not for the Toronto Star. But, so we all know you today as the hockey insider at TSN. So how do you end up at TSN? Well, that's a good question. I was at the Hockey News, and the Hockey News decided that they entered into an agreement with TSN

to do a half-hour magazine show called the Hockey News Television Edition. And so we, as part of that deal, they said, you know, our editor-in-chief, Bob McKenzie, you have to have him on for 60 seconds or 90 seconds to do what's happening in the was the host of the Hockey News television edition. And TSN would produce it. And, you know, it was an arrangement with the Hockey News. So that's basically where it started.

And I want to say that was, it was either during the 86-87 season or the 87-88 season. Probably 87-88. So that was when I first started to do stuff. And, and then once I started to do that with them, then they would say, Oh, we need somebody to talk about this for sports desk, which was the forerunner of sports center, or they had NHL games at the time. They would say, could you come in and do a post game show or whatever? And so it little by little incrementally, whatever. And so it little by little incrementally, I'm not sure how long the hockey news television edition lasted, but, um, um, that sort of was the launching pad for me. And incrementally, I got more and more and more. And to the point where it got, I would say for the 1990s,

and this was also another reason why I left the hockey news to go to the star. It would be easier for me to be a player as opposed to a manager if I was just playing. So I've got all these business responsibilities at the hockey news that are keeping me from being in on all the news that I should be in on that could be helping me do more television. So it was in the 1990s though i would it was parallel i had a basically almost a full-time job at tsn and a full-time job at a newspaper either the hockey news or the toronto star man today we know you uh i'm going to use a quote from the tsn website unparalleled contacts this is how bob mckenzie has unparalleled in fact right now i'm going to tell everybody i can see you checking your phone.

That's a BlackBerry. Is that a BlackBerry? That's a BlackBerry. That's good. And so people are wondering, like, other than when you're sleeping, how long will you go without checking it? Like, do you need to constantly check it?

Yeah, much to the chagrin of my wife, I've pretty much got it going all the time. Feel free. I know we're not live, but feel free to break something if you want. No, I'm not going to break something, but I am going to tweet something in a minute. I'm not finished composing it yet, but we can do two things at the same time.

We should be able to multitask. When you have Bob McKenzie on, you have to expect that's going to happen. But my question about the unparalleled contacts is, how does that happen? How do you become the authority? It's just time? Just time, yeah. If you put in enough time in anything, people get to know you. They get to trust you.

time. Yeah. If you put in enough time in anything, people get to know you, they get to trust you. You know, yeah, you have, you have, you know, success, you have failure, you have fights, you, you know, you just get to know people. And, and over the course of time, you know, people like to talk. Do you ever have, like, do you ever like, you know, suddenly you send like a bottle of champagne to some guy's house? Do you ever grease the wheels? No, not really. No, I wouldn't say that. I might buy them lunch. And I guess at some point you realize, and I know you do,

but do you ever reflect on the fact that you have become the hockey news authority in a country where hockey is religion? Yeah, it's kind of weird. I don't really think about it too much, but the whole phenomena, I never really said. I, I don't really think about it too much, but, um, you know, the, the whole phenomena, I never really set out. I just wanted to be a hockey writer.

I just wanted to, to go watch hockey games for free and get paid to write about it. That's amazing. Do people, uh, there's like an urban legend out there that players on like, I don't know, on the draft deadline day,

players will text you to find out where they're going. Is there any truth to these, um, there's, there's some conversation now and again, but that, that whole part of it's overblown. line day, players will text you to find out where they're going. Is there any truth to these? There's some conversation now and again, but that whole part of it's overblown. But, you know, lots of players have found out they've been traded or, you know, on Twitter now, that whole phenomena, social media has kind of really changed the way the game is played. How many phones in a calendar year, how many phones will you go through? One, it can't last you a year.

Oh, yeah. I generally two or three years sometimes. That's normal. Yeah, I guess so. And then I had a really good run there for a while. I think like I went about three years with the same phone. And then I got one. I got a new one. And then like six months later, something happened to it.

And I had to think. I don't think it matters how much you use it. It's just whether you get a good one or a bad one. But I must have the – the reason I have a BlackBerry is because I need the hard keyboard. Sure. You know, I know on an iPhone you can still type in people. But there are occasions, not that often, there are occasions where in a really tight quarters,

be it on a plane, a bus, a helicopter, whatever, where I need to bang out a 750-word or 1,000-word story, and I can type that really fast with my thumbs on a hard keyboard of a BlackBerry and would not be able to do it nearly as fast on a virtual keyboard on any other phone. Now I do, but I'm usually not ever separated from my iPad either. So I've got the best of both worlds. All right. That makes sense to me. A question from FakeBobbyDuff on Twitter. FakeBobbyDuff says, what do you think of the whole rush to be first in sports media these days?

Yeah, it's always existed, I guess. I'm not as sure it's as prevalent as people think now. Of course, we want to be first. You want to be right more than you want to be first. You don't want to be first and get it wrong. The The nature of the beast though is sometimes in this business, you make mistakes. And so, you know, if I've been wrong on something, it wasn't because I was rushing to get it first. It was because I got misled or I made a mistake or something else. So, you know, I want to be first with news. But even today, the nature of the beast is being first now is not the same as it used to be. When you were in the old newspaper world and nobody used a website to break news and there was no Twitter,

like if you had a scoop in the newspaper, that was a hell of a scoop. And it was yours for 24 hours, right? Yeah, it was because, you know, when I worked at the Toronto Star, I would a scoop in the newspaper, that was a hell of a scoop. And it was yours for 24 hours, right? Yeah, it was. Because when I worked at the Toronto Star, I would get up in the morning and literally go out and go grab the Toronto Sun out of a Toronto Sun box and go to the store and grab a globe of mail and look to make sure that Scotty Morrison or Al Strachan didn't beat me on something. Right. And that was how you found out whether or not, you know, if the Globe had something, you would find out because the Bulldog edition of the Globe used to come out at 10, 11 at night. By midnight, CP would have it. Your newspaper, the Star, if they saw, if it was really big, you know,

they'd call you and say, hey, the Globe's saying this. And then you'd have to try and chase it. But as you say, once the deadline was over and the paper was on the street, there was no way of updating it. And nowadays, like if you tweet something first, which happens often, well, the other guys are, yeah, maybe less, right? Yeah, exactly. And absolutely. And, you know, it's a major victory now if you get something five minutes before the team releases it. Which, so it's, you know, they're mostly hollow victories.

But I think what you wanted, what I, I know what I want to do. I don't want to be first and have everybody pat me on the back and say, oh, congratulations, you were first. Because as they say, so many people are first on so many things and there's so much information out there. You just want to be consistent and you want to create a reputation where, you know, people can count on you for what they're looking for. And that, you know, if there's news to be had that you're going to have it, or if you don't have it, that you'll get it fairly quickly after somebody else has got it. So that's all I really try to do. You just try to be the source for all things hockey.

Let me take you back to 1992 for a moment, because I got a lot of questions about this. And, you know, people, you read about it here and there, but it's hard to find details. But what happened with you and Phil Esposito back in 1992? I charged him with assault. So tell me, what I know is that it happened after a 5-3 loss in Toronto to the Tampa Bay Lightning. And you tell me, but some scuffle ensues. He was upset with you, I guess.

Yeah, he was. I was up in the press box covering the game. The game was over. I filed whatever I was going to file. I didn't need to go to the Tampa Bay dressing room, but Basil McRae, who I'd covered in junior hockey, he played in London Knights, he'd broken his leg earlier in the week,

and I was going to maybe write something about it down the road, but I A, wanted to see how he was and B, wanted to get his phone number. So his pal Rob Ramage, I think he was probably the captain of the Lightning at the time. I thought I'd go down and talk to Rob and Rob could give me Basil's number and that would be that. So I went into the room after the game and I talked to Rob Ramage and I was standing talking to him and then Phil saw me and right away he started yelling at me, get out of the room. And I was a little miffed because I wasn't aware that Phil was specifically mad at me for something.

I knew that he probably was because I wrote a column after the lightning were awarded to the Japanese owners with Phil Esposito as the front man. And I wrote a column for the hockey news that said time for a confession. I think out Espos a lousy GM. And it was basically saying, I wrote that I, as a kid growing up in Canada in the 1960s and seventies, absolutely love Phil Esposito.

He was a hockey hero. What he did in the 72 series and the seminal moment in vancouver when he when he unloaded on the fans for booing them and uh and all that so i basically made it a note to phil esposito the hockey player but i basically said but as an as a coach as an executive as a guy who owned the two greyhounds and almost tried to sell the greyhounds out from underneath the city of Sioux St. Marie and ran into these problems with the New York Rangers, I'm not sure he'd be the best guy to run a team. So I basically said that. So I knew Phil would probably not be happy about that. But there was also a phenomenon at the time where everybody

who, especially in Toronto, the Japanese ownership, there was a lot of mocking of the Tampa Bay Lightning when they came into the National Hockey League. And I didn't actually do that, but a lot of people did. And anyways, one thing led to another. Phil had it in his mind that basically anything that had been negatively written about him since he took over in Tampa and since Tampa was granted the franchise was probably my fault. And that I was sort of the face of the Toronto media, the Canadian media that was giving them a rough ride. So in any case, he, he bellowed that he wanted me out of the room and I said, I'm not leaving. And you know, he, then he tried to physically get me out and he gave me a shot

with the heel of his hand hit me in the the sort of the jaw on the neck knocked me backwards I was almost fell over but I managed to get myself and he was coming back for more and I was getting up and anyways one thing and Rob Ramage and a bunch of the guys grabbed him and and Rob's Rob asked very nicely if I would leave the room and I said sure Rob since you asked so nicely if I would leave the room. And I said, sure, Rob, since you asked so nicely. So I left and then I went back and I tried to make things better with Phil. And he was really mad.

And outside the dressing room, in front of a whole bunch of people, we had kind of an FU. And he basically, I said, you know, I came back to try and sort this out, but you don't want to. I said, I should probably charge you with assault. And he goes, go ahead.

You know, you can't do anything to me. And I said, okay, we'll see about that. So I walked around the corner and dialed 911 and called the Toronto police and charged him with assault. Wow. And then we got to fast forward a little bit. By the way, actually, the kicker to the story. Yeah, yeah, please. Me and Phil are fine now.

It was one of those things that happened. And I got a letter of apology and the charges were dropped. And that was that. There were leaked emails. Okay. So there were emails, Colin Campbell, for example, and one of the emails. So there's a few where you're mentioned in these emails. This is like, these emails are from 2009, I think, early 2009. So the one that I'm asking you about is a leaked email that shows you lobbying to suspend Corey Perry. So my question to you is, is that, in your opinion, going too far in your role as an insider? I wasn't lobbying in my mind.

First thing about the emails, and hey, listen, if you use company email, there's a perception that that's on the record and it should never be. When you have a conversation, whether it's email or whatever, you never think it's going to be made public, which is fine. And so they came out and I basically fell on my sword on that one and said, hey, listen, it's on me. I was writing it on a company email. Therefore, it's my responsibility and I got to own it. But here's my perspective on it. that I treated email the same way most people treat BBM, texting, whatever way you choose to communicate with the people in your sphere of influence. I'll even go so far as to call them friends. I got lots of coaches, lots of managers, lots of scouts, lots of players, lots of league

executives, lots of people at the PA who you have multiple conversations. And I used to get up in the morning and I, and, and keep in mind, we didn't have Twitter back then. Right. I don't think, or maybe we, it would have been in its infancy. It wasn't way, but even so, um, and, and texting wasn't as big then as email was. Email was the, the most common form of communication. And I would have multiple, what I would call conversations, dialogues going on. So when you think of email, you

think of it as a very, most people think of it as a very formal process. So Bob McKenzie of TSN talking to Colin Campbell of the National Hockey League, that somehow was formalized. In my mind, it wasn't formalized. It was back and forth. Yeah, like a text. It was like, you know, or a telephone conversation that's happening here. Right.

And I've been around this game long enough that when I talk to people, I mean, it's not I have a question for you. The question is this. What is your answer? You know, we're bullshitting back and forth. And, you know, you can find emails where I'd say, are you guys fucking crazy? I can't believe you did this or I can't believe you did that. So anyways, long story short, yes, I wrote all that stuff.

I don't believe that you could possibly understand the context. So you said I was lobbying for Corey Perry. I told him, I said, I wasn't lobbying. I was giving him my opinion. My opinion was I thought Corey Perry deserved to be suspended for that. Now, I, and one of the follow-up emails, and this is the one where people say you were lobbying, are you sure you can't suspend Corey Perry? And if you look in the email, I can remember this pretty vividly. Yeah. There's, I used, and I'm not proud to admit that I use emojis.

And there were no emojis back then. They were the homemade emojis. Yeah, the happy face. Of Semi Cole. I gave him the winky face. I still use those. I gave him the winky face because one thing I know about Cole and Campbell is he's not going to listen to me. I was, that was, that was a joke. Are you sure you can? And he, he,

he made a response. Yeah. I'll talk to my guys about it again, but when they make up their mind, they're not, they're not listening to what I'm, what I'm saying. People think that's the case. I've had all sorts of general managers think that if we go on television and say this, it's the other way around. We're more likely to go on television and say this, it's the other way around. We're more likely to go on television and talk about an impending suspension

if we think we know the league is going to suspend the guy. So anyways, it is what it is. And you live with the consequences of your action. And you learned a good lesson, I'm sure. The same lesson I think our friend Nick Kiprios learned about how to DM, I think, those fuckers at tsn pardon my french uh let's talk about the the day the deal was announced okay and maybe you heard

it coming i want to hear but uh the big rogers deal from a couple years ago a 12-year deal for the nhl rights just uh some i'll read somebody else's words uh would it it would also it would be cool to have you pull the curtain on the huddle when TSN hockey guys found out Rodgers picked up the hockey rights. Also would be cool... Okay, we'll leave the next one. Let's talk about that. What was your reaction and the

reaction at TSN when Rodgers signed that big deal with the NHL? Well, it's funny because that was a story that I actually broke. I remember the day very well and the range of emotion because I was driving from my home to Sudbury for a game between the Russian touring team

and the Ontario Hockey League stars in preparation for the World Juniors, the Subway Super Series, they called it. Right. So I'm on my way to Sudbury, and there was a story that morning in either the Sports Business Journal or Wall Street. I think it was Sports Business Journal. Basically saying that the NHL deal is almost done

and that it's going to be a hodgepodge, that CBC is going to lose some games, probably the TSN that there was talk that TSN was going to get the second game of the double header and on Saturday night and more, more playoffs, deeper into the playoffs, more games, um, that Rogers was going to get a Sunday night package. Um, the TSN was going to get its midweek package back so that everybody was going to get a Sunday night package. The TSN was going to get its midweek package back. So that everybody was going to get a little something. And so I can remember driving and talking to some of the guys on the phone

and saying, I don't think I want to work Saturday night. The late game. If we get the late game on Saturday night, Jesus Christ. Because we used to jokingly refer to TSN, and we still do to some degree, as the Monday to Friday network. Because for us, it's one of the only places where you could work in hockey. And for the most part, it's a Monday to Friday job. Where in terms of physically being in the studio, there was not a lot of programming that we had on Saturday and Sunday. And, uh, and that was a good thing. And so we went from, and then it was that afternoon, I got

sort of a whisper that not only was it going to be a hodgepodge of this, that, and everything else, it was going to be a 12 year deal all to Rogers and that we, and that we'd be out of the thing entirely. And so I worked diligently to confirm that, and I tweeted out the news before anybody else. And so, you know, it wasn't fun, and it was interesting, and there were interesting days and weeks right after that. You know, I won't kid anybody. It was upsetting at the time.

But what a lot of people don't understand is we never had Saturday night hockey. We didn't lose that. What we lost was the national package midweek and the ability to do playoff games, especially in the first and

second round. Right. That's what we lost. So, you know, some people said it must really bug you on Saturday night when... No, because I do the same thing on Saturday night now that I always did. I watch Hockey Night in Canada and watch it in my boxers with the rum and Coke

and that's great and I'm fine with that. There are times of the year where it becomes harder and you feel a little more irrelevant, but you take steps to do what you have to do and you just play the cards that are dealt you. Now, I'm a Leaf fan, so I still see, you know, you still have your regional package.

I know you have the Senators too, right? There's still regional packages. So we still see hockey on TSN. Yep. Regionally, the Ottawa market, the Toronto market, the Winnipeg market. But yeah, we're not on, I'm not on national television as often as I used to be doing NHL games. I've had your colleague, James Duthie on this show, and I spoke to him about this, but I want to hear from you. One of the big announcements that came shortly after the big Rogers deal is that you guys were re-upping, if you will, with TSN. There was speculation maybe

you'd be seduced by Rogers. So my first question is, were you seduced by Rogers and why did you stick with TSN? I can tell you this, that I can honestly say the entire time I've worked at TSN, I've never had any other rival network or outlet offer me or talk to me about a job. No poaching attempts? Apparently not. I must be very good at my job. And the decision to stick with TSN, is that a loyalty thing?

Because, I mean, you'll be retired, but this deal's 12 years. That's a long deal. And I just wondered why did you stick with TSN? Well, as I said, nobody called. Nobody called. But aside from that, TSN gave me my opportunity

to become who I am and what I am. And it's a great place to work. And you work, in my mind, with great people. I mean, you know, again, I'm not throwing shade at anybody when I say this, but I think James Duthie's the best host and maybe one of the best broadcasters, period, in Canada. And to work with Darren Dreger and Pierre Lebrun and the guys that we do the insider stuff with,

to be on the panels with the guys that I've been on the panels with. When I, you know, trade deadline day and free agency day, the two days of the year when, you know, when every viewer has a legitimate choice to make as to who they watch. Um, when those days are over, you know, I feel real good about the group that I work with and the day that we put in and, uh, and it's all good. On those days that you just described where you're on equal footing with Rogers, uh, James said that you guys win those days in the ratings. James said that you guys win those days in the ratings so how does it feel to beat Rogers

on let's say trade deadline day like how does that feel is that important to you? I never worry about the ratings to be honest obviously if we were getting killed I guess but my attitude is I got a job to do you try to do it to the best of your ability.

I try to be a stoic and not worry about the things that I don't have control over. And not to go all Belichick on you, but, you know, do your job. And if you do your job and follow, you know, the process, not to go all Nick Saban on you, but, you know, if you do those things, then you should get rewarded. But if you don't, that's fine, too. But yeah, so I just enjoy working with the people that I work with. And they're, hey, there are lots of great people at Rogers and everywhere else. My son works at Rogers. Right. Well, we're going to get to that because that's interesting, too, that your son works for the rivals, if you will. But on the trade deadline deadline day when you win why do you think it is that more viewers are

choosing tsn for their deadline day coverage than sports like what do you think the reason is um no idea you'd have to ask them i think it might have something to do with you that's just me speculating well i i thank you for that um and i'm flattered that you would say that. But whether it's James or Darren Dreger or Pierre Lebrun, Ray Ferraro, I mean, the list goes on and on. Jeff O'Neill, Aaron Ward. We've got tremendous people behind the scenes. Steve Dryden, aka the quiz master. I just really like our like our group and um you know i'm when i was younger i might we've always been competitive and when i was younger and and i think this is the i'm i'm i'm friends with nick caprio so i'm friends with elliot friedman um i get along well with all those

guys i think the rivalry probably used to be a lot more intense than it is now. But we're still competitive. I mean, you know, that's the nature of the beast. But, you know, I just really, really enjoy working at TSN. I just really, really enjoy working with the people that I work with. I noticed that when I have those Sportsnet guys on, they all say very nice things about the TSN guys. And when I have the TSN guys, they say great things about the Sportsnet. I think some of us, you know, watching at home,

envision like that Anchorman scene or something. Like you guys are going to go and battle or whatever. But it's not like that, right? You just happen to work for... No, it used to be probably... There was a period of time when it probably was like that. Is that when Vic Router would throw it down or back? No, no, no.

But no, there was probably a little more, I don't know. I want to say that at some point in time, there was probably more tension when we were in the same room. And it's gone. I think what happens is over the course of time, you just kind of grow up and you recognize they got a job to do. We got a job to do. Some days we win, some days they win. I mean, as I

always tell everybody, there's plenty of news for everybody. That's right. I have to go around. Last June 29th, you tweeted, I'll quote your tweet, Stephen Stamkos is staying in TB, Tampa Bay. So my question is, at the time you tweeted that, did you have any clue that would be the third biggest hockey story of the day? Number three? Yeah. Some people, you had the Subban trade obviously and the Taylor Hall trade. Um, so yeah, that was, uh, that was quite a remarkable day and, uh, it, uh, it was fun. It was, it was crazy. Do you remember anything similar to that ever before? I mean, you've had deadline days where lots of stuff happened, but those three...

Not three of that magnitude all within... Some people want to say it was 20 minutes, and technically it was, but it really sort of unfolded in real time over a couple hours. Right. What a day. And then you want that to be the new normal, and then you need a new fix. It gets tough.

But I always thought Stamp goes with Stain and Tampa Bay for what it fix. It gets tough. But I always thought Stamkos was staying in Tampa Bay for what it's worth. By the way, I promised myself I wouldn't ask you any actual hockey questions because we know where to go to hear all that. We want to hear about you and these stories. But is John Tavares going to end up at Toronto Maple Leaf? No, I don't think so. I don't know where he'll end up. Excellent chance he could stay on the island, but I think they need to answer some questions there. I mean, what building are they going to play out of? Who's

the coach going to be? Who's going to oversee the hockey ops? Uh, there's a lot of uncertainty surrounding, um, the Islanders longer term. And if, if John Tavares is going to re-up in with the Islanders, which he may very well do for another eight years. I'm sure he wants answers to those questions before he commits. Man, he's a good one. Is he ever. Yeah. The Mike Babcock signing with Toronto.

So, A, were you surprised? Because I know I heard from you about him going to, either staying in Detroit or going to Edmonton was how I tell me. No, I had him going to, I thought he was going to Buffalo. Buffalo, okay. I thought I'm going to Buffalo and I had him not going to Toronto. And that's when we jokingly refer to that as getting radioed sometimes. We do a lot of radio interviews and when you do radio interviews, you get asked your opinions.

And I expressed an opinion that he wouldn't go to Toronto and people took it as a report. So then they said, well, Bob McKenzie incorrectly reported. Well, I incorrectly said, I didn't think he'd go to Toronto and people took it as a report. So then they said, well, Bob McKenzie incorrectly reported. Well, I incorrectly said, I didn't think he'd go to Toronto. And I didn't think he was going to Toronto. I think he changed his mind. And I think Mike actually basically admitted as much after the fact that there were a lot of family considerations

why he decided not to go to the Buffalo Sabres. I'm going to play a little clip, really brief clip from Jay and Dan back when they were on clip, really brief clip from Jay and Dan back when they were on TSN. Let's hear Jay and Dan here. Andy, he's on Twitter now, I guess. That's right, Mamba Tweets. What was his tweet?

He sent one tweet and Kate McKenna said that he already has 350,000 followers. Who is he, Bob McKenzie? Hey, we've got our last wake-up calls. Let's talk about Twitter for a moment. You use Twitter all the time. This is

the new normal in the sports media business. I love Twitter for its real-time connection. I love it that I can hear directly from Bob McKenzie in real time. I think the President of the United States likes Twitter as well. Apparently. Okay. You've surpassed, this is on May 7th

2015, a couple years almost, you surpassed a million followers on Twitter. How does a hockey insider in Canada surpass a million followers? That's amazing. Was that just because people want to hear accurate

reporting instantly or was this an effort by TSN? Yeah, I'm not sure how many hundreds of thousands of those are porn bots, but quite a few, I'm sure. But I think it's up to 1.5 million now. But Twitter's a blessing and it's a curse. It's completely revolutionized the way that we do our job. But at its very core, it's how you choose to use it. And for me, and I've probably run hot and cold on this in terms of having the discipline to do it,

but what it really boils down to for me is it's the most exceptional news feed you could possibly imagine. So if you follow the right people, you can get real-time updates on all 30 teams in the National Hockey League, their practices, somebody blocks a shot in practice, they just went to the dressing room, is he back?

Well, yesterday with the goaltender, Anderson, it was real, the guys were at the game, yeah, real-time updates, like, oh, he's on the ice now, good news. He left early, bad news, like you have the whole world in real-time. And that's, you know, in the newsgathering operation the whole world in real time. And that's, you know, in the news gathering operation,

that's incredible to have. Because I can remember in the old days, I mean, you had to pick up the phone and call around to all these reporters in other towns, and that's how people got their notebooks done. They basically traded information. And now everything's right there. Now that's, as I say, it's a blessing, but it's also a curse because there's just too much information. How do you pair that information down to a workable amount? And then, you know, I also like to call it a

collective that if you're getting all this wonderful information for free right to your phone, then you've got to contribute to it, to that news cooperative. And so that's what I basically do. But then, you know, you can, you can choose your level of involvement, you know, how much you interact with fans, how much you don't, how much personal stuff you put on as opposed to just reporting. And I've run the gamut on that, you know, telling people what I had for lunch versus going weeks at a time, not tweeting anything at all. You know, and it's funny because the expectation is that, well, Twitter's your job. So sometimes, like I had a bit of a weekend getaway. I went to Turks and Caicos, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, came back yesterday. And so the Sidney Crosby busting up Mathot's finger.

Right. And, you know, I'm in Turks and Caicos, or I'm on my way to Turks and Caicos, and I can see these people shouting at me on Twitter, you haven't talked about Crosby Mathot. It's a conspiracy. You're in Crosby's back pocket. No, I'm on a plane to Turks and Caicos,

and I choose not to talk about this today. It's not my job every minute of every day to give you everything that you want for free and for you to yell at me when you don't get it. I'm surprised you check your mentions. I do and I don't. Sometimes I go days or weeks at a time without checking them. There's sometimes when I like to look through them.

But honestly, I mean, you don't have, you know, there's, again, it goes back to, there's only so much time and, and I'm, I'm getting better and better at, at disciplining myself to, to not let Twitter run me. You know, I run Twitter and, and, but it Twitter, but it's a constant battle. I can't, I've got, I don't know, 7,000 followers or something, so I'm just in my head extrapolating. If I had 1.5 million, I think that I'd have to like, that mentions tab, I'd have to ignore that. That would be impossible. I can't imagine how many mentions you get on a typical day.

Well, literally hundreds and sometimes thousands. Right, depends what's going on, right? And depends what you've tweeted and what the response to it is. But, you know, it's funny because sometimes your mentions give you a really good idea to do something. Sometimes there's a nugget of information in there. I've broken a trade because of a mention. Oh, wow. You know, from, you know, I want to say Dallas, I guess,

was trading Michael Ryder. I didn't know that, but some pal of Michael Ryder's in Newfoundland. Wow. Tweeted at me, hey, you might want to check. My buddy Ryder's been traded by Dallas. There you go. And so, you know, I'm looking at it and I go, okay,

I'll check that one out. And so I checked it out and it turned out to be true and broke the trade. So, you know, it's, but, you know, I mean, you could wade through 10 feet of crap and never come up with anything.

Will you block somebody who... I used to. I haven't blocked anybody for years. There are some polarizing guys. Damien Cox I always think about because for some reason he seems to be a polarizing guy. Some people love him,

some people hate him. And I'm sure he's blocking many people every single day. What's your blocking policy? Don't do it anymore because what I realized is that you're giving that person too much of your

time to even block them. I mean, if I look at my mentions and even if there's something particularly heinous, I'll just go, if I don't absorb it, it didn't happen. I just move on and don't give that person

the satisfaction of being blocked. Because sometimes you block people. Sometimes you block people and then they screen cap, I just got blocked by Bob McKenzie. And you've given them what they wanted, which is the attention. So I just, you know what, it's... Or you can mute them, I guess.

Exactly. I don't even, yeah. I've had to mute a bunch of my followers. Not my followers. People you follow. People that I follow simply because there's too much going on. And because, especially in the last couple of years with Trump. Oh, yeah, the political stuff.

Just the political stuff and the level of social discourse, which I have no problem with anybody doing whatever they want with their Twitter feed. It's their Twitter feed. And I used to fight with people on Twitter a long time ago. I haven't done it for a long time. But they'd say, write a blog. If you put 10 tweets in a row about something, write a blog. No, buzz off.

I'll do whatever I want. Right. And this is my feed. If you don't like it, there's the unfollow button, hit it. But I don't even get involved in that anymore. So I would never tell people that I follow,

Oh, you're doing too much political stuff. I would just say, you know what? You know, nine out of their 10 tweets now aren't about what I, what I want to hear. So I'll just hit mute.

Gotcha. And I, I see, I follow 600 people or something along those lines. And I, about six months or nine months ago, probably in the height of the Trump campaign, I went through and I muted probably about 200 of them because it's, you know, it's just, and I didn't mute everybody that does political stuff or social discourse or whatever because I want some of that in my feed. I just don't want reams and reams and reams of it because I've got to try to sort through

the hockey information. Reminds me of like, so I follow, let's say I follow 30 hockey analysts like yourself, okay? When something happens, I can now expect 30 tweets. It hockey analysts like yourself, okay? When something happens, I can now expect 30 tweets. It'll be like bang, bang, bang, bang. They all report the exact same thing. Absolutely.

Well, especially people who quote tweet a game. Right. Who tweet a game. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so it's like, you know, guy blocks a shot and he leaves the game. So they'll say, Toronto Mike left the game. Toronto Mike left the game. And there'll be like 20 or 30 in a row.

And one time I did do a screen cap of like 20 tweets that basically said Toronto Mike left the game. And then I asked the question, did Toronto Mike leave the game? And then that's just, 10 minutes later, he'll be back. It was like an equipment malfunction or, did Toronto Mike leave the game? And the message is, 10 minutes later, he'll be back. It was like an equipment malfunction or something. Toronto Mike's back. And then you've got to update everybody. But that's one last question on the Twitter,

and then I'll go really fast because I know you get an appointment. But on the Twitter, so if you have 1.5 million followers, what are the chances you will either retweet or tweet a link to this episode of Toronto Mike? Oh, I'll definitely do it. That's amazing. 1.5 million. Okay. what are the chances you will either retweet or tweet a link to this episode of Toronto Mic'd? Oh, I'll definitely do it.

That's amazing. 1.5 million. Okay. I'll warn the server people to get ready for that. See, sometimes that's a problem because not to talk in the third person, but we jokingly refer to that as the Bobby bump. People will say, can you give me the Bobby bump? I have 227 episodes. I'm due for a Bobby Bump, I think.

But a lot of times, especially some guy set up a website or whatever and then says, can you help me out here? And I'm like, yeah, sure, I'll give you. Here's a guy who started a website. Give it a look. And so we do. And then all of a sudden, it's like the site crashes. And there's a whole bunch of people saying,

I went to it, but it's crashed. Bandwidth exceeded. I've seen that before. All right. Because I mentioned Jay and Dan when I played that clip. So they're coming back to TSN this fall. They're coming on this show, which is exciting for me to have them come in here.

That's why I have the extra mic. And my question is, what are they doing for TSN? Do you know what they're doing? You know what? I don't really know, to be honest. We're glad to have them back. I'm just curious. Yeah, absolutely.

I think it's like an hour-long show, and I'm pretty sure it's at night. I don't know the exact time, 11, midnight, 1. I don't know. But, yeah, they're going to do, it's a highlight show, so it's whatever's happened that night in all the various sports, but obviously with Jay and Dan. A variety highlight show, maybe.

Variety highlight show, exactly. And along with SportsCenter, it'll be on in the morning loop. Awesome. Depending on the channel, we've got five of them, I guess. You know, people can't see me, although I do want a picture with you after this, so they'll see it there.

But I'm wearing my... The T-shirt I bought at the last hip show I saw, which was the middle of the three shows they did in Toronto. This is All Tore Up from In Violet Light,

and I am playing it because this is the song I hear when I listen to the TSN Hockey Bobcast. Correct. Tell me about, see, now guys like me in our basement, nobody's like me. We got our podcast going, and then Bob McKenzie comes in and says, I want a piece of this action.

That's right. Tell me about the Bobcast. Yeah, I don't know. I was this summer. I was at the cottage, and I haven't really had time to get into the whole podcast thing, listening to it or the thought of ever doing one. And this summer, I had some time and I was noodling around on my iPad,

and I really like the comedian Bill Burr. I think he's a funny guy, and I noticed that he had a podcast, so I thought I'd give this a shot. So I started listening to his podcast. He has one come out Monday, one come out Thursday. And his is really sort of down and dirty. It's just him. He very rarely does guests. And it's just him at his house and he's just riffing on whatever. And then that's usually the first half of it. And then the second half, he takes listener emails and answers questions or whatever. And in his own inimitable fashion. So I listened to it and I found it really entertaining. And so I started thinking about it.

And then I think I listened to Kornheiser and Bill Simmons' podcast. And not regularly, but I listened to them a little bit. And I go, it's kind of a cool medium. And it's fun and I was thinking about ways to your point when we talked about when we lost the rights what are the things you need to do to stay relevant and cutting edge and and you know varied and and it's another way to disseminate information and information and entertainment emphasis on information.

So I started thinking, you know, I don't really have time to do a podcast, but it will kind of be fun. Like I kind of, I like that idea of just sort of, you know, if I'm interested in the run-of-the-mill bullshit that Bill Burr experiences every week, well, then maybe somebody would be interested in my run-of-the-mill bullshit too. So I thought, maybe I'll give it a try. But see, I didn't want to get into guests because now you're somebody else's. You've got to do it when they're available.

And technology, you've got to have a phone line hooked up to wherever you are and stuff. And I thought, worst case scenario, if I have to, I could probably do this thing into my iPad and email chunks of audio to TSN and strip it all together and turn it around real quick. So anyways, and as I say, my shtick, if you want to call it shtick, is information. I'm supposed to know what's going on or have a perspective on what's going on. So I thought if people want to ask questions, I'll try to give them answers. But I don't want it just to be about hockey. I want to have some fun with it. So anyways, that's kind of how the whole thing was born. And I only do it every other Friday. And we'll see where it goes from here. And I'm not even sure how I'm going to do it in the playoffs or if I'm going to do it in the playoffs. And I've got to do one in the next day or two here. But it's fun. I've kind of enjoyed it.

But again, it's also, you know, it chews up a lot of time too. And James Duthie has a, by the way, that story, the Rubber Boots story. Yeah, that's pretty funny. Because I know he told it on the Dan podcast, but I made him tell it here because I wanted it i wanted it on my podcast too it's fantastic story if nobody's if you haven't heard the james duffy uh rubber boot story listen to his episode on shawn and mike but he's got a podcast too right so is there any uh any competition there is no we joked we joked about that and i've actually appeared on

his already and uh and uh he does his he tries to do his every week, although he went to Turks and Caicos for a week too, so he didn't do a podcast that week. But no, he wants to, and again, I think it's, James wants it to be fun and informative and entertaining, but, you know, he's going to have a lot of non-hockey people. He's going to have a lot of entertainment people. He already has the guys from Goon, Jay Baruchel, and the various actors.

And so, yeah, just a little variety and, you know, put more stuff out there and sub to people if they have time to listen. Well, you're preaching to the choir here. I mean, I've been helping out with podcasts for over a decade now, but this podcast is almost five years old and 227 episodes. And I love it. Like, I love it. It's like Netflix for audio and you can, you can follow the people you like and down, you know, you subscribe syndicated. It's so easy to. See, I got to, I, this is advancing my retirement

plans because there's so much stuff I want to listen to. And, and, you know, like I, I discovered I was listening to Howard Stern recently and he was, did an interview with lance armstrong and lance armstrong was promoting his forward the forward podcast and i didn't even know he had it so i listened to a couple of lance armstrongs and i really enjoy that podcast and there's a whole bunch i got to get caught up on you know who hates podcasts though who howard stern yeah

he does and that bugs me because i he seems that this whole idea like that well you're not really broadcasting well what he's saying is that there's a lot of people who pretend to be because their numbers are so meager that, yeah, you're podcasting. But if you only have like seven people that listen to it, you know, are you really? And, you know, the ultimate goal is to make money at something or to whatever. But it's different for everybody. I mean, I'm assuming this isn't your full-time job. No, it's not. The beer guys are nice to me, but not that nice to me.

Exactly. Exactly. So there's different reasons for doing everything. Now, you mentioned Howard Stern. I'm a big fan. Actually, before I heard Howard Stern, I watched Private Parts, the movie. And this was my introduction to Howard Stern. And I heard Howard Stern, I watched Private Parts, the movie. And this was my introduction to Howard Stern. And I love Howard Stern.

But I'm going to play a clip of you on the wrap-up show with Bubba Booey. So let's hear this here. And Hein, hit him in the Hein. And speaking of the opposite weather-wise, our guest today is a huge Howard Stern fan. Now, all of you hockey fans out there, which is me, Jim McClure, Al Ragone, and maybe a few others will certainly know this gentleman. But he is the hockey insider. I'm thrilled to have him here. Bob McKenzie, welcome to the Howard Stern Wrap-Up Show.

Thrilled to be here. It's a bucket list thing for me. Now, some of my friends tell me I need a better bucket list. But no offense, guys. But, no, this is awesome. Listen every day, and it's great to be here. Very cool. Yeah. I've done it twice. I did it a couple of weeks ago and did it a year ago and I really

enjoy it. It's, you know, years and years and years ago, I used to drive myself crazy. I would listen to sports radio all the time. And I mostly did it because they would do updates every 15 or 20 minutes or every half hour. And I was always consumed with this, what's going on? What am I missing? There's something going on and I don't know what it is.

So I've got to be listening to the news. The 2020 updates. I remember those. I even have that jingle stuck in my head. Exactly. So I'd be listening to that and then I would listen to sports radio, but it used to drive me crazy. I'd hear people talking on sports radio and, and, you know, they'd be talking about something in hockey and I'm, and they'd be saying, well, this is, this is true. And that's true. And I'm like, no, that's not true. That's not true. And I would get frustrated and say, you know, so I kind of got into this mode where I was, it was almost information overload. I was like so consumed with knowing everything that was going on that it was like it wasn't organized in my own mind.

So I stopped listening to sports radio and I started just listening to music. sports radio and I started just listening to music and so and and having satellite radio was great because I could choose any different kind of music and and then that kind of evolved into listening to Howard Stern because now I'm listening to talk radio but it's not about hockey right it's not about sports and and I find that that was really a relaxing way to go to work as opposed to, I'd sometimes arrive at work almost frantic, you know, frenzied because of everything I'd heard on the way in and all this stuff bouncing around in my head. And now I, you know, I put, whether it's Howard Stern or music,

whatever the case may be, I make sure my ride to work is really enjoyable. And then I get to work and now it's time to work. And like I said, I listen to Howard Stern too and I listen to your two appearances I've heard and the first one though we learn about your first concert was Led Zeppelin.

And this was the first song they played. So yeah, we come to you for hockey insight but I like the flavor that surrounds the hockey talk, stuff like that. That's the stuff I dig. Yeah, absolutely. Led Zeppelin Maple Leaf Gardens. I want to say September, it was either 4th or 5th, I'm not sure.

It might be the 5th. 1971. It was the Labor Day weekend before grade 10. Me and my pal Ron Walker were sitting on the curb in our homes in Scarborough. Just outside our homes in Scarborough, and we were having a Lola. Do you know what a Lola is? No. It was a pyramid-shaped, frozen, flavored ice.

Okay. Yeah, okay. And you would rip the top off. Yes, I can see it. And then you had this frozen chunk of ice, a big triangle pyramid shape, and you would kind of pop it out, and you just sort of chew. Also a Filipino grandmother, by the way. There you go.

Just a little fun fact here. Also a kink song. That's right, that's right. But, yeah, and then he said, hey, I think Led Zeppelin's at Maple Leaf Gardens tonight. And I said, really? And he goes, do you want to go? And I go, yeah, sure.

I'll ask my parents. We were in grade, starting grade 10. So, you know, Scarberia and parents say, yeah, just be careful. Yeah, yeah, nice. So we took the Macau and 16 bus and down to the Warden Subway Station. Warden Subway to Yonge. Yonge line down to College Carlton. And got off and walked up, didn't have tickets naive, walked up and said

do you have any tickets for the show? And they said yeah, we've got obstructed greens or grays, $4.50 Wow! And so we sat in the first row of the greens and we couldn't quite see all of John Bonham's drum kit and him because the

speakers were stacked up along the side. It's not like when you go to a concert now where everything's suspended for you. They had all the speakers lined up beside the band on the stage. But yeah, and Robert Plant was I remember clearly, he was wearing a denim vest, no shirt. Looked like brand new white running

shoes. Might have been Jags at the time and Immigrant Song, first song, because they were just getting, that would have been the tour to launch the Led Zeppelin III. Three, and it's funny, you start big. So the first high school band is Rush, and the first, you know,

most people have an embarrassing first concert. Yeah, I know, so many people are like, I got a really bad one. That's right. Let's talk about your son. I know you have a Mike and a Sean, but if you don't mind, we're going to talk about Sean for a moment

because it's interesting to me that Sean McKenzie is on Rogers Sportsnet. And it's into, maybe you know this, but Marilyn Dennis, longtime like Bell Media person, her son is on Rogers, right? Adam Wilde.

So it's interesting how they're, so how does it come to be that he ends up at the competition? That's a good question. He went to College of Sports Media, Jim Van Horn, and the guys there were his instructors. Faisal Kamisa was on my last episode. He went there and he was mentored by Jim Van Horn.

He's fantastic. The 1050 rock jock. Oh, absolutely. Fantastic. So actually, if anyone was listening to the last episode, we do dive into this College of Sports Media and he did mention your son was there. Yeah. Yep.

So he went to that and he'd been at Fanshawe College before that, but he didn't like Fanshawe. And so he ended up going to the College of Sports Media, really enjoyed it and came out and was obviously looking for work. And he did work at tsn for a number of years i mean he he worked in the archiving department he um worked summers and had part-time job there and he he did non it wasn't on camera reporting they would send him with a camera you know to argo practice or tycats or whatever news events or whatever and he'd ask questions but he wasn't actually on air,

but he was collecting sound and, and doing all that sort of stuff. And then he ended up, um, he got a pretty good gig for, uh, for a period of time at, in Barrie at the CTV affiliate in Barrie and worked there for, you know, X number, I think it was for a couple of months. And there was a full-time job coming up there for that job, but he applied for it and he didn't get it. And not long after that,

he was fortunate enough to get hired by, let me get my, okay, we're CP24, so it used to be a city news channel that was like CP24, which was a constant news loop yeah but on city or whatever i remember yeah so so like there's city tv and then there was city news right which is like cp24 yes so anyways that's where he started doing sports updates on and and doing that and then that led to um a little more and more and then they offered him a job to go to Winnipeg and be the bureau guy for Rogers Sportsnet in Winnipeg.

So he did that and he wasn't there very long and they brought him back to Toronto for the summer. And then he ended up getting shifted to Ottawa and he was in Ottawa for a while. And then he got shifted from Ottawa to Toronto. And now he does news, covers the Leafs for Rogers Sportsnet and is in, is in part of the, the rotation for ringside reporters for Hockey Night in Canada.

Very cool. He's doing very well and I'm very proud of him and it's all cool. When you, and I'll ask you a little bit here about retirement. So, but when you do retire, do you take your Rolodex and pass it on to Sean? Because then the conflict of interest is gone, right? Yeah, well, we got different jobs too. I mean, he's a reporter, but a different type of reporter. You know, he's not looking to break news on the front lines every day.

Not that he wouldn't if he didn't have some, but, you know, his is more along the lines of going to practice and seeing what's going on. So his is less about the, he's not covering the NHL at large on an everyday basis. He's got a very specific assignment when he goes to a Leaf practice or a Raptor practice or a Jays game or whatever the case may be. But we don't know what the future entails. We don't know where he'll end up. He could be an heir apparent. By the way, so tell me about, do you have plans to retire? I remember hearing something, but so what are the plans?

Plan one, 60 years old now. And, uh, I've got, I think three years left on my contract. And when that's up, I, I, I don't want to, I'll be 64 at that time. Um, when the contract expires. And so, because I'll be 61 this summer. So three more full seasons after this one, doing exactly what I'm doing, all things being equal. And then I don't want to be 24-7, all-consuming, life-consuming, which this job is, outside of the nine weeks I take off in the summer. life-consuming, which this job is, outside of the nine weeks I take off in the summer. And so, you know, where we go from there after that, we'll see. You know, I'm open to, you know, doing some things like World Juniors or things that have a start and a stop time, as opposed to when you wake up in the morning, you're on the clock basically until you go to bed at night,

and that's seven days a week, 43 weeks of the year. You know, I've been doing this a long time and there's other things that I want to do and I don't have time to do them right now. If you get the itch to do a podcast with somebody, you're always welcome here. I just want you to know. I appreciate that.

You can use my equipment and you can even ask me to be quiet so it's your podcast. I'd be happy to have you, to host you for that. Now, we don't have a lot of time, so is it okay if I just, I'm going to rapid fire some questions from Twitter. Okay. And I use a small font, so I'm getting old.

My eyes are getting old. T.Tony, he asks, what is his take on the attitude of some pros who like the you never played the game angle when it comes to analytics? some pros who like the you never played the game angle when it comes to analytics well the analytics thing is for me it's a tired argument it's here it's going to stay it's not the answer to everything um it's it's not the uh it's not useless more information's better information and um so i i just i think it's up to each individual to decide how much they use it,

how much they don't use it, but the fact of the matter is organizations are using it all over the place but for me, I don't, you know, I'm aware of it and I try to be aware of it and I try to be respectful of it but for me, it's not the way I watch a game. Chris Ward asks,

how many times will the current future commissioner give Austin Matthews the Stanley Cup? He says his over under is 1.5 times. Wow. That's a, I don't, I don't ever make predictions, but, um, I think, you know, I could envision a day where, um, Austin Matthews lifts the Stanley Cup. Bless you, Bob. That's all we need to hear. Some hope. Exactly. That's where we're going here.

And maybe, I mean, I've never been alive for a Stanley Cup. I've never been alive for a Stanley Cup final featuring the Toronto Maple Leafs. So I would love to be able to sit down with my four kids and watch Austin Matthews hoist the cup. That's my hope and dream there. Ryan Laurie asks, my four kids and watch Austin Matthews hoist the cup. That's my, uh, my hope and dream there. Uh, Ryan Laurie asks if he could redraw the map of where NHL teams were and how many there were,

what would his NHL look like? So if you, if you, I don't know, that's a strange question, but if you could, uh, like, would you redraw the map? Well, I guess a lot of people always say, how about contraction? You know, instead of 31 teams, wouldn't this be better if it was 24 or wouldn't it? And I guess you could make that case, but you know what? I think, I think there's plenty enough talent to, to sustain 30, 31 teams, um, make, make it 32, you know, 33, I don't know. But I guess to a lot of people, they want to hear, you know, take the team out of the Sun Belt. I don't have a problem with teams being in the Sun Belt and they are where they are. And the only criteria for me as to whether a team is viable or not is how deep are the owner's pockets and how long is he prepared to lose money. And remember, Arizona gave us Austin Matthews,

so it's not all bad. Exactly. Andy, on that note, Andy asks about Quebec City. How does Quebec City fit the expansion relocation picture and what's their best route to a team? I think it's probably more likely

as a relocation, but there really hasn't been any relocation in the NHL for a while. Obviously, Atlanta to Winnipeg. And for there to be relocation, the equation needs to be a market that the National Hockey League feels like they don't have any hope of surviving in.

That is, that there's not an owner there who's prepared to take over the team. And that, I think, was the way they viewed Atlanta, as opposed to Phoenix, which they think continues to be a viable market. I don't know if that's going to turn out to be the case, and we'll find out soon enough, I mean, whether ownership steps up, another ownership group steps up at some point, or they get their arena built. I like this one from Shane Smith.

Why did he write that fateful article in 1993 saying Gretzky is done, which inspired Wayne to crush the Leafs in game six and seven? See, the hilarious thing about that is, again, like the Phil Esposito article I talked about earlier where I take this ode to Phil and then say, but you know what? His record isn't great.

I also did this ode to Gretzky that was like so utterly respectful about, listen, I'm not saying this guy's done. I'm not saying this guy's no good. What I'm saying is, if he doesn't get better in a hurry, if he doesn't play better in a hurry, the Kings are going to lose because he's not playing as well as he can. And that's what that was. Now, the great piece about that is that Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun wrote the same column the same night and day that I wrote mine. Everybody talks about mine.

His was not so respectful. He basically wrote a column that suggested Gretzky's done. I thought he said Gretzky was eating too many hot dogs. Is that what I heard from Stevenson? No, no. And his was much more pointed in terms of Gretzky not having delivered in the first five games of that series. And it's funny how everything goes.

I mean, you know, the Kerry Fraser call in game six and, you know, and Wayne got to write, you know, the finishing chapter there in game seven, which he said was this greatest single hockey game he ever played. And I often get credited for inspiring that but what happens if if gretzky does get kicked out of the game in overtime and wendell gets the fourth goal of the game and the leafs win that and go on and you know oh wow that's my alternate

history there uh josh says on twitter how momentous a decision was it when he finally changed his hair from a center part? Yeah, that was, I've had many incarnations of the hairdo. You know, yeah, it, you know what, it just started, what happened was I started to go a little gray right at the front where I was parting it. and it was just time to get with the times. Philip Parkinson, and I know we got to go, I'm going to go real fast here. Philip Parkinson, what are his thoughts on the Tragically Hip coming out with unreleased new material after last summer's tour? Oh, I love everything the Hip does and I've been fortunate enough to get to know the guys a little bit and to get

to know Gore Downie maybe a little better than the rest of the guys. It's hard to put into words. Sometimes, you know, a band just speaks to you, and I always felt that way from the very first time I saw The Hip at the concert hall, right before Road Apples was coming out. I want to say it was 91, but I can't remember exactly. It was a hot, hot night at the concert hall and it was riveting. It was riveting. And, uh, I got to meet the guys and that was the first time I got to meet them. And, uh, he kind of hit it off with Gord and, um, you know, I think of him often.

How many times have you seen the hip? I don't know. My kids have seen him more than I have because so many times I have to work. They always play on July 1st. I always work on July 1st. But I always try to see them in Toronto. I've seen them in Toronto. I've seen them in London.

I've seen them in a bunch of places. I saw them at Salt Lake City in the Winter Olympics and what have you. So, yeah, whenever I can. And, you know, I didn't go crazy on the last tour. You know, I thought about going to Kingston. And then I thought, no, you know what? That's for their close friends and family. And I went to the third of the three Toronto shows. So they added that one late.

Okay. So I thought I was going to the last Toronto show because I had the second one. And then, surprise, a third show. And I'm like, oh, and I couldn't get tickets. I tried to get tickets to that one too.

Yeah, so I went to the third one. Good for you. Good for you. Last question's from me. Have I earned an invitation to the cottage? Don't know yet. Not many people get

an invitation to the cottage. Oh, that's all right. But you and, when you do Jay and Dan, you and Dan can commiserate on that. Oh, at least I'm in good company. And that brings us to the end of our 227th show. You can follow me on Twitter at Toronto Mike

and Bob is at TSN Bob McKenzie. And our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. See you all next week. And our guest next week, by the way, is TSN broadcaster, Brian Williams.