Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Bob Weeks: Toronto Mike'd #681

Episode Date: July 8, 2020

Mike chats with TSN's Bob Weeks about his time working at the Ontario Place Forum. Oh yeah, and he's also covered golf and curling for decades.

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from Pumpkins After Dark. I'm Mike from Toronto Mike dot com and joining me this week

making his Toronto Mike debut I'm Mike from TorontoMike.com and joining me this week, making his Toronto Mike debut, is TSN's Bob Weeks. Or as he told me, I'm allowed to call him Weeksy. That's right. That's it. Now, Bob, is there any chance I can get the mic? A little closer. Yeah, or you can even adjust it.

Like it's on the swing boom here. Yeah, here we are. I think I should know something about this, right? No, you're used to those good TSN mics. I'm used to having someone do it for you. Those mics pick you up from like 100 meters away. But yeah, my mics, you got to be right on these things. But honestly, what a pleasure it is to meet you.

Yeah, and you too. I'm a big fan. I've listened to lots of them. I mean, you are, as I was saying before, you're prolific, so it's tough to listen to them all. But I go through all the archives, and I pick ones that I like. Yeah, you cherry pick, right? Yeah, well, I try to listen to most of them, but sometimes you can't listen to them.

I can't listen to them all. I just don't have as much time. But I was listening to Kim Mitchell this week, and I listened to some of the guys that I know, like Dave Perkins or James Duthie or Gord Depp, who's not really a friend, but his actual, I guess I should open this one. I don't know if I call her his first wife or his ex-wife, but anyway. Oh, from the band?

No, his real-life ex-wife is a really, really good friend of mine. So I met Gord a few times. So I listened to him. And yeah, there's always some good ones out there. So you've got a real eclectic mix, wide variety of people. Oh, thank you. I mean, I'm thinking of Gord. Gord might be aging in reverse possibly because I know he's older than me

because I'm in like high school and I was in grade school watching his videos. He's got to be older than me. But now he's younger than me because I'm in high school. I was in grade school watching his videos. He's got to be older than me. But now he's younger than me. Imagine how that happens. How does that happen? Kim Mitchell was only Monday, so I'm impressed how current you are. There you go. Most people haven't got to Monday's episode yet.

Did you see Max Webster back in the day? Yeah, they were at my high school. Grew up in that era when they played all the high schools around, so I was at Richview. We saw lots of bands in that era. Like, I saw Rush play at Etobicoke Collegiate. That was pretty cool. Okay, that's amazing. Yeah, yeah.

That's amazing, because, I mean, we never had bands come into my high school. We had DJs, but not bands. I feel like this is an era that disappeared by the time I got to high school. So, Alex Lifeson, who I got to know because he's a big golfer. That's how I know all these people. He told me the story that when the drinking age went from 21 to 19 or to 18, first of all, then a lot of the high school gigs disappeared. Like they all went into the bars. So that was kind of that era. So I was actually right on the cusp.

So I was actually 18 years old, but the drinking age was 19, and I was still legal. There was this one crossover year. Gotcha. Okay, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Just because I hear, I did hear, like, when I said,

okay, Kim Mitchell's coming on, like, I was introduced to Kim Mitchell with Gopher Soda. Okay, so that's my introduction. No, Max Webster, yeah, he was big. He was big. That's what everyone used to say, right? Well, that was my introduction. No, Max Webster, yeah, he was big. He was big. That's what everyone used to say, right? Well, that was my mom. I started with this anecdote, and I think it fell a bit flat.

And it was one of those moments where, oh, here's my first time ever talking to Kim Mitchell. And I opened with the, my mom said, oh, I love her. And I was like, please laugh. Because it's Zoom, right? He's not here. So it's like, I was, please laugh at that. And he sort of gave me a courtesy chuckle.

Well, there's lots of people who always said that, you know, Max Repster, which one's Max? Which one is Max? Anyway, there was a lot of good bands

back in those days, Foot in Cold Water, Flood, Lighthouse, they all played the high school circuit. Oh man, those are good. What about like April Wine?

April Wine, Stampeders. Oh yeah. So there's lots of, Stampederseters wouldn't play i didn't play my high school but i know someone that said they did play their high school so lots of cool bands like that was good so you mentioned alex leifson he golfs uh and i could you name any of the other canadian rockers who loved to golf because we always think of we always think of in america we always think alice cooper we know he loves to go who are the canadian rockers who love to golf? Tom Cochran, and he's a really good golfer.

Like, he's played in the Ontario Amateur, I think. I bet you're going to tell me he's going to play in the big leagues. Yeah, right. I should have done that. Darn, missed the joke. Come on, Bob. This is Matrona Mike. You've got to bring your A game here.

This isn't TSN. Come on. So he's probably the most notable. We just did we just did a big zoom uh surprise birthday party for mike weir he turned 50 and we brought tom on and he was a big fan um i'm trying to think who else would be alice cooper i played with alice down in florida that was that was cool he's a and he's a really good golfer and on the first tee he hit a drive like just smoked it down the middle of the fairway and he turned around he walks back

to me with his driver in his hand, and he shakes the driver and he says, let's see Marilyn Manson do that. It was a good story. I love Alice Cooper. I grew up, and shout out to my buddy Joe, who just returned from a year, they backpacked around the world for a year, and they were on their way to Vietnam in like March, when suddenly all the borders closed up and they were on their way to vietnam in like march when suddenly all the

borders closed up and they found themselves so they but they they camped out basically they they stayed in thailand for three months and then they they just came back wow like so shout out to joe but joe uh introduced me to the alice cooper's greatest hits okay and we're going back i think about i got introduced to it like an 88 or 87 or something. And I loved every song, you know, elected, uh,

under my wheels, like the whole thing, uh, schools out the whole thing. Uh, and 18, like I loved, I,

so I listened to so much of that, like vintage Alice Cooper. And just to tie it back to Kim Mitchell really quickly here. So Kim Mitchell's in a band called Max Webster. So some people think he's people think his name is Max. He's Max Webster. Alice Cooper was in a band called Alice Cooper. What? Yes.

So the band's name is Alice Cooper. His name wasn't Alice Cooper. The band's name is Alice Cooper. And when he went solo he decided that probably for the same reasons he would just assume the name Alice Cooper which was the band's name so he told me one more great story he said that and just talking about generations so he was he was

living in arizona and he was coaching his kids uh baseball team and the kid i don't i think there was a fairly large gap between him and and his son like in terms of ages but uh he said all the kids were staying the first practice all the kids were standing around looking at him and looking at him, and they said to the son, they said, we didn't know your dad was on Wayne's World. We're not worthy. Yeah, exactly. That's great, that's great.

Okay, so I'm trying to think if I know of any rockers who like the golf, but you might, oh, what about, who's the guy, Rick Emmett? Yeah, Rick Emmett. I haven't seen him for a long time on the golf course. You see these guys at the celebrity tournaments and some of those things. Celine Dion. I think Rick might have health issues, maybe.

I don't know any more detail, but I think that might explain maybe why he's on the course these days. But did you just, were you just, I mean, Ann Murray. Ann Murray's a good golfer. Very good golfer. Did you just say Celine Dion? Celine Dion's a big golfer. Really?

She was on TV commercials for Callaway back in the day. They sponsored all these sort of non-golfers, and Alice Cooper was one of them as well, actually. But yeah, Celine Dion's a big golfer. She actually owns a golf course in Montreal. And a smoked meat. She owns the smoked, what's that place called? I should know this.

The famous Montreal smoked meat. She owns that? Yeah, I think she bought it. I think I'm here to educate you, Weeksy. Come on. She's not eating much of that smoked meat, judging by the picture. She's so skinny. No, I don't think she eats her own dog food, as they say. But

Bob, honestly, what a pleasure. I followed you on Twitter. And it's funny that I follow you on Twitter and I enjoy your work. I gotta confess off the top that I don't watch any curling. And the only golf I'll watch is if you tell me on a Sunday, you tell me maybe a Tiger Woods is in contention on a Sunday in a major. Right. Not right now.

I'm going to make a point. I'm going to tune in and see what's going on. Or for example, you mentioned Mike Weir, like that Mike Weir is in contention on a Sunday. Oh, I'm in like, I'm going to,

I want to see this history happening but that's me and my golf consumption, just warning you that's fine I'm sure people who come on this show you sort of get penciled in or slotted into one spot, everyone when they see me for the first time

oh let's talk about golf or let's talk about curling and stuff and there's always more to you to everybody than those kind of things but that's what I like about what you do is you bring out other parts of stuff while still keeping their major focus, obviously. Well, Bob, it's early still. I'll be the judge of whether there's more to you than golf. Yeah, that's right.

I'll let you know in an hour here. I saw a tweet from you, since we're going to only talk about music on this episode. Well, when Dave Hodger, Brunt, or whatever comes over, I just want to talk music with these guys. So I think a ghost just closed the gate there. So I should tell people who are not watching on Periscope that Bob is, you're a first. This is a groundbreaking moment.

You are the first, first-time guest to visit the Backyard Studio. I'm pretty, pretty, pretty impressive studio here, too. I had to wear sunglasses for the first 10 minutes now the sun's got up under the tree yeah it's gorgeous it's thank you it's um i think you're maybe the fourth or fifth actual this might be the fifth visitor to the backyard studio but all previous visitors had been here before like so uh you i'm meeting you for the first time in the backyard studio so i think that's uh and you got to turn around your great

lakes so the label is on camera there we go yeah great lakes by the way shout out to great lakes my favorite beer and i'm not just saying that i've had this for a long time i'm i know the uh the family that owns the company and um the bullets yeah exactly they're great people and my my favorite beer though they stopped making it a few years ago devil's pale ale that was my favorite and they once in a while they bring it they out. They do bring it out. It's like, what do they call that? They have that collection that... Project X or whatever. Yeah, something like that.

Yeah, I'm trying to remember the name. But yes, and it's one of those, and it comes out. Right now, I'm drinking Hazy Mama or Haze Mama. That's good. Okay, I just had, on my birthday, I enjoyed a... And yeah, Haze Mama, that's the newest beer that's become a year-round beer at Great Lakes.

Okay. So I cracked open An Octopus Wants to Fight yesterday during the wrestling podcast and that's a year-round beer. So yeah, some of their beers you can get year-round and some come once in a while. But they deliver, which is the best part.

So have you taken advantage of that? I have. Like I know just yesterday somebody was messaging me on Twitter about, let's go to the patio, the Great Lakes patio. And I can just, just as of this moment, and we got to timestamp this because everything changes so quickly, but whatever this is, July 8th maybe? Yep. Okay.

So as of this moment, the Great Lakes Brewery patio actually is not open. You can go there and order it like curbside and in five minutes, they'll bring you your beer. And you no longer have to buy the cases. Like for during COVID, they were just, you know, you couldn't mix and match. But now you can actually mix and match again. So it's very convenient to go take it home and enjoy it on your own patio or wherever. But I'll let you know, I'll let everybody know when that Great Lakes patio opens. I think they want to get it right.

Yeah, there's no rush. No rush. I got a patio right here. So that's a great story about Great Lakes. They've been fantastic sponsors of the program. Peter Bullitt has been over to kick out the jams. Has he? If you want to listen to Peter Bullitt kick out the jams.

I'll check that one out. Check it out. Do you like Pitbull? Yeah, yeah, for sure. I like everything. Okay, well, you're going to enjoy that episode for sure. And normal times, I'd have a lasagna for you from Palma Pasta. I got to get those deliveries rescheduled, but everything shut down in mid-March.

And I know I'm teasing you here, but I do owe you a delicious lasagna from Palma Pasta. They're in Mississauga and Oakville, and they're fantastic. And, Bob, you got to do this as soon as you get home. You're lucky I'm not making you pull out your iPhone right now and do it in front of me. But garbageday.com slash Toronto Mike. Sign up for the free notification, a curbside pickup notification. Is it garbage day?

Is it recycling day? Is it yard waste pickup? Is this a statutory holiday? Did it get moved? It takes the guesswork out of it all so it's fantastic it's free garbage day.com slash toronto mike i saw a tweet from you bob uh this morning i think about the ontario place forum the uh i think you were you were asking about and i replied to it that my first ever concert was at the ontario place forum it was chalk circle oh wow remember chalk circle no i don't

remember them uh april fool was like the big hit but uh good can con band in the mid 80s if you will they would be up for casby awards yeah yeah back in the day canadian artists selected by you. They weren't called, they were called UNOs. That's right. I remember the UNO thing. Which I think David Marsden

gave birth to the UNOs and then they changed the name to CASBs. But tell me about, like share with me if you don't mind. I love hearing about the old Ontario Place Forum. So I worked at Ontario Place for four summers

while I was going through university. And I mean, what wasn't to like 600 university students plowed down there. We had some good times. And the first three years, I was in what they called hosting. So hosting had a rotation where you'd work in a cinesphere or you'd work kind of giving directions out. But one of the big things was that you got to be sort of standing on the stage at the forum. On the stage? Yeah, you got to be sort of standing on the stage at the forum. On the stage? Yeah, you stood there as you were, I mean, I don't know if you were like security or whatever,

but you were dressed in this little blazer and you'd work on the floor there on the stage. And so you got to see all these acts that as a 18, 19, 20 year old, you probably wouldn't go to see. Right, like Birding Cummings or something. Yeah, or like the Jazz Festival. Like I met Oscar Peterson and I'll never forget this one night, Oscar Peterson came in, goes out, no, sorry,

Dizzy Gillespie came in first. Wow. Played a set. Yeah. Disappeared into the tunnel and went back to his room. Then Oscar Peterson came out next and he played for like an hour

and then right after that, all of a sudden the tunnel right where I was standing gets a light and there's Dizzy and he's walking out and Oscar and him played for

another hour together and let me guess you're a teenager right yeah you probably don't appreciate this and then you're probably pinching yourself now that you you were witness to such a kind of i kind of that's what kind of made me fall in love with uh with jazz and i did the um the next year when oscar came i read everything after that i became a big oscar peterson fan and i was so nervous i got to hand him his backstage pass and everything. And I think he sensed I was pretty nervous. So he was very nice. He said a few nice words to me.

But so, I mean, there was people like that. There was Johnny Cash, Peter Frampton. I mean, you could go three nights in a row and see, one night you'd see the Toronto Symphony. The next night you'd see James Brown. And the third night you'd see Nana Muscuri. Yeah, okay. And don't forget, this was all free.

Like, you paid to get into Ontario Place, and then it was just first come, first serve. And that's, of course, the rotating stage, right? Yeah, and that was the story with Daryl Hall and John Oates. This was a great one. So Daryl Hall gets this weird motion sickness, and I guess there must be other rotating stages in the world, but wherever they play, they can't rotate the whole concert

because he gets motion sickness. So they would do four songs, and then they would rotate, and then they would do four songs, and they would rotate. And even when they were doing that small quarter turn, all the people in the band were going, come on, Daryl, throw up, throw up. Oh, my God. We're not very friendly,

but it was kind of a cool experience to get down on the floor and see some of these acts. Yeah, and you look at some of those names you dropped there, and these are such big names. And you're right, this was a free show once you got into Ontario plays. So, amazing. Good Nana Muscuri story for you.

Tell me, only because, just a quick, Nana Muscuri is uh she's not a friend of the show by the way she's still she's still alive first of all and she's still touring i mean i'm not doing covid but she was still she's like in her mid-80s wow she's still active but we had a sponsor covid actually unfortunately got in the way but for two years in a row we had a seasonal sponsor on this show uh and it was called camp turnusel oh yeah and there's a french camps and great sponsor and man covid messed with those plans. But, oh, COVID's screwing everything up.

We'll talk about that. But then we would play as the, every time we talked about them, we played Le Tournesol, which is a song by Nana Muscari. So let me hear the Nana Muscari question. So she came out and she was high maintenance, shall we say. So she came out for her sound check in the afternoon and all of a sudden she sort of stops in the middle of a song and she

walks over and she calls me over. I happened to be standing there and she said, could you tell the planes to stop flying for an hour? These are the planes at the Toronto Island Airport. I said, I don't think we can do that. I'll check, but I don't think we can do that. But anyway, it didn't happen

Miss Muscari has a request yeah exactly I think she's Greek but a lot of people think she's Canadian I think she spent a lot of time in Toronto but I think a lot of people are under the impression that Nana Muscari is like a Canadian but she's definitely not Canadian

but yeah it's a funny story so I do miss it like I know, the Budweiser stage, you got to spend big bucks and get a ticket. It's a whole different kettle of fish. But that Ontario Place Forum was really kind of cool. It was a cool, it was a cool time, cool spot to be down there. I don't know what's going on with Ontario Place,

are they going to build condos or what's going on down there? But yeah, it was fun place to work for four years as a student. Please tell me they won't build condos because I've been, what I've been enjoying as a bike ride is I bike to Trillium Park

it's called. It's kind of the new development. So you go to Trillium and you go in through Trillium Park, which is like, I would say that's on the east side of Ontario Place. But then you can bike through Ontario Place. And I like to bike through Ontario Place. Yeah, the whole thing. You can bike through the whole thing. And then come back out Trillium Park and then get onto the waterfront trail there.

I hope they kind of do what they did with Trillium Park and just extend that. Like it's beautiful. Yeah, that'd be great. Give it back to the people here. For sure. That'd be great. I run down there all the time. I didn't know you could run down through Ontario Place.

So that's great. Yeah, the gate's wide open there. You can totally do that. So we'll meet up there. You know, Ben Rayner, who was on the show fairly recently in the backyard, he's got like a secret beach, he me in ontario place like something that he and i said oh ben i said like do we because i know there's a lot of beaches in toronto uh that get tested every day and they put it online and you can see how clean the water is like marie curtis and sunny side etc but uh here i speak as a west ender

name dropping all the west end beaches like not you know not in the beaches there. But he's got friends on the inside who tell him that they test it. They just don't put it on the website. It's like a secret safe Toronto beach. Well, there used to be a place, an Ontario place. It was out kind of at the far West End. They built this thing that looked like silos. They're still there, I'm sure. And there was kind of an area back there that was fairly remote.

And as students, you know, one thing leads to another. They called it Pecker I'm sure. And there was kind of an area back there that was fairly remote, and as students, you know, one thing leads to another. They called it Pecker Point. I don't know, am I allowed to say that? But anyway. Of course, this is CRTC has no gist, and I'm pretty sure you can say Pecker Point on TSN. Probably, yeah, you're right. Maybe that's the same beach, anyway.

Well, maybe not on a golf. They're very conservative on these golf broadcasts, you know. I'd have to whisper on golf broadcasts. Would you have to whisper on golf broadcasts. Would you mind doing the rest of the show like that? What's that called? ASMR or whatever? Yeah. Two-foot button.

So, okay. Bob, I was thinking, oh, Bob Weeks is coming on. I think of you as like a golf authority. I know that you're also a curling guy, but golf authority is my thoughts of Bob Weeks. And then I'm like, I've got to pull some golf songs. And I honestly couldn't think of one. Like, I could not think of a good golf song.

Do you know a good golf song? Well, I guess you could go to Kenny Loggins' I'm Alright from Caddyshack. Oh, yeah, I guess. It's a movie with golf in it. I don't know if that's a golf song, though. I don't know if there's really any. Kenny Loggins really was the king of those soundtrack jams back in the 80s. Like, he was responsible.

Yeah, he did a lot of them, didn't he? I hear in the background the garbage pickup, and my stuff is out there only because I did go to garbageday.com slash Toronto Mike and sign up. And I got my text notification last night at 7 o'clock, and I'm like, oh, I was hoping it was yard waste pickup because I have a bunch to go out. But nope, just good old recycling and perishables.

But okay, I digress. So you don't know offhand. I'm not missing any obvious golf songs. No, there's a curling song, The Weaker Thans. Tournament of Hearts. Yeah. Yes, it's very good. But I actually don't know any golf songs.

I can't think of anything. I'm going to get... Okay, well, someone tweet at us. I'll even check Twitter in like 20 minutes. And somebody tweet at us and let us know if we're missing out on a good golf song. Because I couldn't think of one. And I'm pretty good at this. Because that's my specialty, you know, coming up with these songs.

Yeah. All right, Bob, tell me, when was the last time you golfed? I golfed Monday night. I play, I've done a little thing. So normally, you know, I'm on the road all the time at this time of year. And I hardly get to golf at home. So being here has been kind of a benefit. I have an 88-year-old dad who he and I have a standing Monday afternoon

nine-hole match, and we go out and play. Nice. And I'm a member at Weston Golf Club here in Toronto, which I've been there for 48 years now. And, yeah, so it's been fun to kind of bond over our golf game. Who wins you you versus your dad uh if he has if we play like right handicap he can usually nip me because he gets a lot of shots and he doesn't like he just doesn't hit it far but he hit it just plops it down the

middle plops it down the middle and he's pretty good on the greens he's consistent yeah it's annoyingly annoyingly consistent i feel golf ruins a nice walk. That's a controversial statement I'm going to make right there. Okay, but tell me, I'm very interested, because I did a little homework and I see that you grew up in Montreal. I guess, when do you end up here? Give me a little bit of the bio. Also, you've got to focus on this fact about your great-grandfather and his Prince Edward Island connection,

because it's like you were destined to be our golf authority, I feel. I know. It's in your bloodline. So I was born in Montreal and moved to Toronto in 72. But our family is all originally from Prince Edward Island. I can go back six generations and um my great-grandfather my great-great-grandfather landed here my great-grandfather was a lawyer in in charlottetown one of the early lawyers and he was one of the founding members of

the first golf club in prince edward island then called the charlottetown golf club it's now called belvedere 1902 i think they started it at. Wow. And I didn't know that until I read it actually in a book that a friend of mine who was a history writer, he's passed now, but he wrote this whole sort of history of golf and he found this document that had his signature on it. It was pretty cool.

So that was a cool connection to PEI. We've always had a big family connection to Prince Edward Island. My grandfather left there in 1914 to go to the First World War, fought in both wars, was a career military guy, was actually the head of the Canadian Armed Forces in 1946, 47. He saw basically the demobilization, but he was in Vimy Ridge and Passchendaele and all those horrible battles.

Right. So I took my son when he finished university. We, as a trip, we went and did all the battlefield tour. And if your listeners have never done it, man, you should go and do that. Go to Vimy Ridge, see the monument, go to Juneau Beach. It's so emotional. Well, I mean, I think, okay, like, I'm going to name check him here. So Major General Ernest Jeffrey Weeks.

Yeah. And what, you know, what he sacrificed, like what he, the bravery and what he did for, you know, for his country. And all these people protesting, they won't wear a mask. Yeah, I know. It's, it was always, it's hard to, hard to connect, make those connections. I don't want to get too political. I, you know, it's just, but it's true. It's just, when you go back there and you go back to some of these cemeteries, especially,

and you see these thousands of gravestones from Canadians. And I do a little thing whenever I go back there, and you go back to some of these cemeteries especially, and you see these thousands of gravestones from Canadians. And I do a little thing whenever I go back. Now, I've gone back three times now. When I go to Prince Edward Island, I collect some of the rocks, the red soil, they have rocks. And I always look ahead of time. And you can research the soldiers. And I always go and put little bits of Prince Edward Island rock

on the soldiers' headstones that I know are from Prince Edward Island. So my little tribute to them. Very good, very nice. And yeah, honestly, you know, the sacrifices we're being asked to make compared to what we asked

of, you know, young men at that time. Wear a mask, man. Just like, unbelievable. Just wear a mask. Anyway, again, let's not, you know, and it's not even,

you know, you said I don't want to get too political, but I don't even think this conversation is political. No, it's not really. I think that's part of the problem is that we've made this political. Yeah, it's moral more than anything, right? It's called being, you know, being considerate of your fellow human being is how I look at it. But that's why we are in the backyard studio.

We're at beautiful ventilation, And I think we're about... I haven't even told the people we have... I did say we had an embedded journalist, right? But Mary is here. You're not on camera, but you can... If you scream really loud, do you want to scream a hello? Hello! You'll have to take our word for it that Mary...

Can I ask a question? Yeah, but I don't know how... You can ask, but yes. But they won't hear you, but you can yell it at me. I want to know what Alice Cooper wears on the golf course. Oh yeah, what does Alice Cooper wear on the golf course? He just wears like regular golf clothes. He's like a regular dude.

The story, you know, the story about him is that he was a raging alcoholic and he would go, and a lot of these, that's why a lot of musicians are golfers is because they don't do anything during the day. They sit around all day. So he would sit around all day and drink and he found he had to find some way to get out of it. And so he decided to take up golf and he became like obsessed with golf. And so he would play golf all day and then he would go and do his concert and go on to the next town. And I mean, it was funny. I was playing with him in Florida and he would tell me, oh yeah, all these different golf courses he'd played in Toronto.

He also was big in the pawn shops. He used to walk up the pawn shops on church, I think, right? And he used to go in there. He'd collect apparently yeah there are a bunch of pawn shops on church yeah yeah yeah but yeah that's he wore he looked like a regular dude which is kind of weird he didn't have the face paint on or didn't eat any pulling the heads off of bats or anything yeah i get the idea of alice i've never met the man but i get the idea he's very aware of like that's his character and his persona and that's like he's putting on a show yeah and he's going to assume the role of what you want you know expect alice cooper to be but in real life you know and it's interesting you talked about like replacing almost like okay so there's a a bad for you vice like an obsession that's like he's an alcoholic and

you can replace that with a good for you obsession. Yeah, right. Exactly. Exactly. It's a good trade. Healthy. Yeah. A good walk, not spoiled. Uh, I've never, I luckily I've never, uh, I've never been addicted to a substance, but I do have a mild obsession with cycling. Like where yesterday, my schedule was such a, this is such a, I need a little violin for this, uh, wine I'm doing here, some cheese with the wine. But, uh But I didn't have time in the schedule yesterday to get out for a bike ride. And I felt it last night. Like I felt like it didn't feel right.

And I was kind of a little, kind of a little tinge of grumpiness because I didn't get my ride in. I like that with my running. Same thing. If I don't get my run out, it just feels so different. And then my wife will say something like,

you're addicted or you're, and I'll be like, and I'll think like, well, if you're going to be addicted to something, like at least I'm not like on heroin here. I need another vein or whatever. So Bob, how do you, like maybe tell us how you end up as like a sports journalist. So I went to school in University of Windsor for communications, graduated from there. And the first job I had after school was actually, I worked for the Ontario Lottery Corporation.

And for two years, my job, believe it or not, was to give out the big winner's checks. Wow. Yeah, it was a cool job. Because everyone's happy to see you. Exactly. So they'd come in and you were basically a pr person so let's say fred and mary come in from timmons and they've won half a million dollars

my job was to phone and contact all the media in timmons just to let them know that there were winners right we had to kind of prove that people won and most of them were very very good one or two people were a little worried um we had the one big win back in the day it was a big win it was like just under 14 million dollars it was a couple from Brantford. And they came in, and it was like, this is the biggest thing. We had all the media from North America sitting in our front lobby waiting to see who was going to come through the door and collect the checks and stuff.

But it was pretty cool. And then I transitioned to doing the, do you remember the Wintario TV show? I remember Wintario Lottery. So there was a lottery, and for about, I don't know, I want to say about eight or nine years, they took it on a road, and they would go to all these little towns. Like they would go to Kappa Skacing. Is it on Global?

Yeah, exactly. I do have memories of this. Faye Dance and Fred Davis. And so I was a little segment producer. So I would go about three weeks ahead to Kappa Skacing and do two little profiles. One was on somebody who'd received a grant, which was like usually the arena or the swimming pool or something. And then you'd do something on the town itself.

And, you know, this is beautiful Kappa Skacing, a tourist mecca. Oh, it's like hometown hockey, but for... For lottery. Lotteries. Exactly. Anyway, after that, I transitioned to working for a magazine at the time. It was called Score Golf. I love to write and like to write these long-form stories,

which were great back in those days, back in the late 80s. Does Score Golf magazine still exist? It does. It's just called Score Golf now because they, I don't know how much longer it's going to exist. I shouldn't say that, but I hope it keeps going. I'll edit that out. Yeah, no, it's fine.

It's, you know, it's, I think it's no big surprise. Like sports magazines in this country are tough, but they just came out with one. They've got a second one I know still going. And so I worked there for about, well, up until five years ago. So whatever that is, 87 to then. But I also had an association with tsn starting at about 1999 or so we had a weekly show on there oh wait tell me tell me about that like because obviously that's i primarily say you do i guess you do uh ads and stuff so i don't i

mentioned i don't watch a lot of golf but i'll see you on like ads. You don't have to watch a lot of golf to see the ads there. So about, uh, three or four years ago, I started working with, uh, two companies. One is Asante,

which is a financial, um, wealth company. And they, we sort of connected, um, beautiful golf courses with their product. So it's,

you tour around. Cause only rich people golf. Well, that's it. Rich, rich or older people, right? Who's, because only rich people go. Well, that's it. Richer older people, right? Who's their target market? It's pretty good.

Which flows into the next one, which is perfect, which is just for men. So hence why at 60 years old, my hair is still black, because I'm not only an endorser, I'm a product user. Is that right? Okay, because it looks natural to me, but just be glad you have hair. Yeah. To me, that's the

big win for you there. So they have, we do different ads on that. Last year we did fitness, this year we're doing some golf tips. So those ones actually haven't started airing this year, which I'm not sure when they're going to start airing, but the other ones are omnipresent. But I feel this is really good for you, Bob, because you've aligned, your personal

brand is aligned with wealth. I feel like that's a smart move. Yeah, if only I could make it wealth work worthwhile no it's good it's all good all right so how do you get is it like is it because you are uh you know doing all that work at score golf magazine that uh you be you get hooked up with tsn like yeah so we did a um we had a weekly tv show from scoreGolf that aired on TSN. And in some kind of weird negotiation deal, instead of us buying the time to be on TSN, we had to pay some. They got to use me as the golf guy, their golf guy. So I was their golf guy before I was actually on staff there.

That's exciting, like to be, you know, the Sports Network's golf guy. I feel like this is a, where else are you going to go in this country? That's a king of the mountain. It's kind of cool when you compare it to the hockey guys, cause there's like 40 of them, you know, there's Bob and Frank and Darren and there's a lot of hockey guys.

Yeah. There's less golf guys. There's just me. And Mark's a keynote who does a little bit of stuff as well, but he's kind of all over the different places, but yeah, it's been, it's been,

it's been a good run and really just been the right guy at the right time in the right place because kind of locked into the Tiger era and then now we've got Brooke Henderson and Mike Weir. And I mean, there's all sorts of great moments for Canadian golf, which is good. Yeah, I'm going to,

you're going to have to give me a thorough update on the, although of course I am aware of Brooke Henderson because I'm, you know, I co-host the sports podcast, know i do that's right once a week i do hear a lot and he's uh he loves his golf and i i do hear a lot of golf hebsy hebsy man so hebsy hebsy actually when we first started doing this tv show hebsy was our host or i think it was for one year which uh score golf oh i i did not i don You'll have to ask him about that next time. Did he delete that from his bio? Probably wasn't a memorable moment.

I don't know. It was called, back then it was called Scores Golf World. And Hebsey and we had a golf pro by the name of Ben Kern. And they kind of hosted it. That's, I know that Hebsey loves his golf. He has a sponsor of his program is Crosswinds. Oh, wow. Yeah, golf course.

And that's like in the Niagara escarpment there.s. Oh, wow. Yeah, golf course. That's like in the Niagara escarpment there. Burlington, I think. Yeah, somewhere out that way. I've noticed, not that I golf, but he's never invited me. What says that? He keeps inviting Greg Brady, and he keeps making sure I know. Oh, yeah, Greg and I, we're going to the Crosswinds today.

Do you need a caddy? Well, that's a funny story about Hep C there. Okay, so you're in at TSN. I see you did some other stuff here, though, that you're also heavily involved with curling. So I find this an interesting combo. Like, where does the curling come from? It goes in your blood, but where does this curling come from? My dad was a big curler and growing up and so he kind of got me into it and he actually worked in germany for a year on a on a

we're working for a german company and he curled over there when curling was kind of in its in its infancy and he actually won the german curling championship i was going to go to the world championships but they banned him because he was a canadian so another team got to go and then subsequently they changed the world rules so you could have people from other countries as long as they were residents. So he got me into curling. And then I was actually a pretty decent curler.

I curled with some guys who had been world champs and things like that. But I wasn't good enough. So I realized if I was going to stick with this, why not make some money by writing about it? So I got lucky. I joined a little curling newspaper called the Ontario Curling Report. And then Dave Langford from the Globe and Mail hired me to be the weekly curling columnist at the Globe,

which I did for 25 years, which is remarkable now to think about it. Yeah, I mean, that's it. Like you're all over the place here because you're you're, you're the golf guy on TSN. You're the globe and male curling guy. Like these are some pretty big, uh, you know, what do you call that?

Headlines here. Platform. Yeah. It's, it's kind of weird. I mean, someone always used to joke is with you, uh,

you only cover sports where men wear slacks, which was golf and curling, but there weren't a lot of, um, you know, it was, it wasn't a crowded place like like like covering hockey would be or covering baseball or covering one of those major sports so you become

the for lack of a better term i guess one of the big fish in the little ponds i feel like that's a smart move uh absolutely now the uh 2009 i saw that the National Post did a big list of the most influential people in Canadian golf, and you're like number six, and you're the top media guy. You're a BFD. I guess so. You have to say it to the camera. I'm a BFD.

I'm a BFD. Yeah, I don't know. There's a lot of people who are important in golf. I don't really think of myself that way. I just like to think that I report on the game and I cover the game and I cover game from the pro levels down to recreational golf. Like this COVID era, we've been doing a lot of stuff on how to play protocols of golf and things like that.

But people always say, oh, thank you for your contribution to golf. And I say, well, I don't really think I've kind of purposely gone out there to try and help golf. I've just done my job. You are a golf ambassador, except the role. Yeah, okay. Yeah, they need more ambassadors. All right, so back to curling just for a moment.

I'm naturally curious, like Toronto, for example. So you live in Toronto. I live in Toronto. Is there a lot of curling happening in Toronto? I'm curious. A lot more than you'd think. Up until about four years ago, I think there were 27 curling clubs in the Toronto area,

and a few of them have closed. There was a big one out by not far from here, around Shuraway, that had 16 sheets. It was called Humber Highland. It's gone. Avonlea out in the east end had 16 sheets. It's gone. A lot of the golf clubs now, mine included, Weston, are closing up.

But there's still probably a good dozen curling clubs. And the ones that are left are going strong. There's a great club down Queen and Broadview called the Royal Canadian Curling Club, which gives it a fancy name, but it's not a fancy place. It's got to be rich to play there, too. No, it's kind of dumpy. It's not a fancy place. It's got to be rich to play there, too.

No, it's kind of dumpy. And, you know, the biggest supporter in that facility, they have these really avid gay curling leagues, and they go unbelievably deep in terms of number of draws they have. Like, there's hundreds of people who curl there. Okay. Oakville Curling Club. I had no idea. Yeah, Oakville Curling Club keeps their curling going all summer long.

They've got curling going on there now, and a lot of teams come in and train there uh is curling uh suspended right now still due to covid because unlike golf i guess uh you have to do this indoors yeah so they kind of ended up the season ended at the right time when the covid hit and right now they're trying to sort of figure out if they can get themselves back into action it's an olymp sport, and this year is kind of an important year for the top teams to qualify. So they've kind of come out with some new rules, but no one's sure if they're going to be accepted

because it's an indoor sport, and you're, you know, I don't know if you can play a lot of stuff indoors and in groups of teams of four and still make it safe. I'm going to embarrass you a little bit here. I have just a little laundry list of like Bob Weeks, I don't know what you call these, awards recognitions. So you ready? This is going to be tough for you here.

Okay. So the camera's on you, just so you know. All right, so in 2009, you were made an Honorary Life Member of the Ontario Curling Association. Is that a big deal? I'm pleading some ignorance here. It's a nice honor.

I don't know if it's a big one. Okay, 2013, you're the recipient of the Golf Journalists Association of Canada Dick Grimm Award. That's a great name. Imagine your name is Dick Grimm. He was a very important guy in Canadian golf, and that's a cool award because that's voted on by kind of my peers. Yeah, that's for lifetime contributions to the game of golf. Okay, so congrats on that. And then you became the 67th person.

This is in May 2014. You became the 67th person to be inducted into the Ontario Golf Hall of Fame. That was nice. It was a sad day because my mother died the same day I was supposed to go in. That is sad. And so, obviously, I didn't go. Do I know, are there any FOTMs in that Ontario Golf Hall of Fame? Or are you the first one here?

Good question. I'll have to do a survey. Actually, there's a lot of people who reached out to me and knew I was coming on today. And so there's a lot of listeners. Oh, there's a lot of eyeballs on you and a lot of ears on you. Okay, good. We've got to get some good real talk later then.

What else? This is interesting. Maybe Buffery's in this one. I think he is. You're in the Etobicoke Sports Hall of Fame. That was a cool one. And it's a big night. I think he is. You're in the Etobicoke Sports Hall of Fame. That was a cool one. And it's a big, it's a big night.

They put on a big celebration. Like I, I was inducted the same night as Joey Votto. And we were back in this little room. Did he show up for the ceremony? Yeah. That's a big deal. But it was kind of funny because they sold,

there was like 500 people there and it was at the old mill. And Joey came into me and we sort of started chatting and he says, I had no idea this was like going to be like this. He was sort of dressed pretty casual for the night. But it was a good night. Jerry Howarth was an FOTM, was the emcee. Okay, there's another FOTM in the Etobicoke Hall of Fame. So there's at least three of you.

I have to do a little more homework. Buffery's in there. Buffery, Howarth, and... Gino Retta's in there. Gino Retta, okay. Yeah, he's an FOTM for sure. Yeah. The Joey Votto story there is amazing

because you should break it to Joey. They were all there to see you. Yeah. They weren't there to see Votto. Bob Weeks is getting inducted. Joey was very, very nice. He gave a really good speech. Old Mill's a nice venue too.

Not as nice as the place where his mom works. You know that she's a sommelier at the Via Allegro? I know nothing. She's like this wine expert at Via Allegro, which is the big Italian restaurant across from Shurway. Oh, I've got to plead complete ignorance. I only drink Great Lakes and eat at Palma Pasta. There you go.

Oh, man. Is Shurway open? I don't think so. I think the out, maybe if you have a... Yeah, because I went to the Indigo. I had to do a pickup think the out maybe if you have a yeah because i went to the indigo i had to do a pickup at the indigo and you get in it through the outside yeah okay i think if you have a door on the outside you can open that's another place where uh they no longer let me in sureway because my teeth my uh my my taxes like like they can see i don't make enough

money to get in there now because they've added the sacks and they had a high end isn't it it seems very different now that yeah Saks and who else is in there? Uh, there's, I can't remember these names cause I don't shop at these places, but a pretty high end. I think you have to be a golfer to get, to get in there. Oh, wow. Hold on. I'm not done with your, I got to get through your awards before we move on here. Um, you won something called the distinguished service award by golf Canada for outstanding contributions to the game of golf in Canada. That's amazing. Like, where do you have that award,

the Distinguished Service Award? Is that like a plaque? It is a plaque, actually. Is it hanging up somewhere? It's sitting, if you watch my hits on SportsCenter, it's part of my virtual office in the background. It's a very nice award as well. I got to start tuning in again to SportsCenter.

What else here? There's still more, unbelievably. So, oh, in 2016, you were inducted into the Canadian Curling Hall of Fame. Yes. That's a big deal. Builder category. Builder category. That's very.

You helped build the game of curling in this country. There you go. It was a nice night. Wow. And I'm not even done yet. I know you're very embarrassed here. But I can't tell if you're turning red because of embarrassment or if you're getting a sunburn in the backyard here. In 2016, you also were inducted into the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame. Oh, I said that one. Oh, I'm repeating myself. Okay. You received the George Cumming Distinguished Service Award from the PGA of Canada. And I learned through my extensive research, that's the association's most prestigious award. You're like the guy from, what's the movie?

The Christmas Story. You won a prestigious award. Yeah. I noticed there's a lot of distinguished in there and stuff in a lot of those awards. Yeah, it's, listen, it's really nice. I'm not worthy. I'm going to start doing the Alice Cooper thing.

I don't think Weeksy should be on this show. You should be, you know. It's really nice. And it's very nice to be recognized. And I still, in a lot of those cases I don't think Weeksy should be on this show. You should be, you know. It's really nice, and it's very nice to be recognized, and I still, in a lot of those cases, don't believe it. When I look at the list of the people in the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame, and then I see me, and I just, it doesn't compute.

Like, you know, Mike Weir and George Knutson and Sandra Post and Marlene Stree and all these people. Is Humble Howard in there? Not yet. Not yet. There's always hope. He asked me to put in his nomination. He really does want to Howard in there? Not yet. Not yet. There's always hope. He asked me to put in his nomination. He really does want to get in there. And we've got to get him in there and maybe Tom Cochran. Perfect.

That's what we should do. Do that. There's a gentleman who is a loyal listener, unlike yourself, Bob, who only cherry picks which episodes to listen to. I think Mike Rogowski listens to every single episode. So shout out to Mike, who I know for a fact is an avid curler, and his son even curls with him, I see on the social media. So Mike Gregoski writes, Looking forward to this episode, Mike.

Not every day you get a Curling Canada Hall of Fame member. That's true. You're my first one. Is Don Landry in there? No, not yet. One day, right? Because Landry's an FOTM. Yeah. Okay. My question for Bob is, so you're ready. One day, right? Okay, yeah. Because Landry's an FOTM. Yeah.

Okay. My question for Bob is, so you're ready. This is where it gets a little tough. Okay. Have you read the Curling Canada Return to Play Guide? And if you have, can you share your thoughts on it? I have. In fact, I just interviewed the guy who wrote it yesterday for a story that I'm going to do.

It's good. It's, you know, it's story that I'm going to do. It's good. It's basically what they're trying to do to make curling clubs. They're not talking so much about the competitive stuff, but the actual club level to see if you can go back and play. So it would be things like only having one sweeper and positioning people on the ice so they're six feet apart. It's a starting point, and it's going to be interesting to see what happens when you know curling clubs start to open up kind of around thanksgiving give

or take a couple of weeks depending on where you are so see where we are at that point and see what they go but i know there's a lot of curlers out there who are very anxious right now as to whether they're going to get to play this year yeah join the club yeah exactly literally join that club. No, there's a lot of, I mean, I got kids, young kids, and although my teenagers are working, actually, they're working with kids in sports. So they're actually, and they have a lot of rules.

And they wear this face shield. Like, they don't, yeah, they have a whole, it's quite a list of rules, of course. But for my six-year-old, he's in the Islington Soc islington soccer club but we don't even like i don't have a i don't they aren't yet sure like when and how and all that stuff yeah it's like everything and they were in they were in they were enrolled the nice things are the nice things i paid for all these camps back before covet and now slowly i'm getting these refunds so i feel like i've got a new stream of revenue like as these refunds come in and I'll be like, I'll get like a credit on my credit card,

I don't know, like for 300 bucks or something. And I'll be like, Oh, where's that from? And it'd be like, Oh, that's the refund from the camp they were supposed to be.

And I'm like, I like this. It's like, this is kind of neat. It's like your tax refund, right? Oh yeah, that's my money.

I forgot. Well, the best thing ever, Bob, I was, I was paying $2,000 a month for the two little ones for, uh, one of them is pre and afterschool care. And of them was pre- and after-school care,

and the other was pure daycare. And in March, that money stopped coming out of my account. Yeah. Like, I've never been richer. I haven't paid for my gym membership in months. Right. And you're in the best shape of your life. Exactly.

You run all day. It's on your shirt. That's it. Come on. I just quickly checked Twitter to see if anybody had tweeted a good golf uh song at us and nobody has so i'll do one more call here what's i don't i don't check email during the show mary you gotta tweet it at me at toronto mike and then

it'll come in my stream uh what is the golf song okay she's again uh mary and mary am i allowed to like how do i uh describe you you are uh an investigative journalist who wanted to see how the real talk is manufactured am i allowed to say where you worked or is that secret uh mary worked at ctv uh for many many many years and now she's applying for a job at tmds that's how tough that's how tough the industry is so it's tough industry keep your jobs industry media people yeah exactly all right so i'm gonna um that was about yeah it was great question mike grigotsky he's the uh the fotm with

the most curling experience i think uh what would you say i'm curious uh because i haven't golfed since lifetime gym uh michael power's lifetime gym in grade 11 because I haven't golfed since Lifetime Gym. Michael Power's Lifetime Gym in grade 11. We all golf. I golfed one time. Oshawa. GM sent me and my buddy Elvis on a trip to enjoy these new Chevrolet, these new cars. And basically, I golfed that day.

Wow. Yeah, I know. So twice I've golfed in my life. That's a true story. but what are the best golf courses firstly in Canada what are the best golf courses in Canada well you know it's such a subjective thing

for me I love there's these two courses out in Cape Breton Cabot Links and Cabot Cliffs I've heard of these yes and a good buddy of mine was one of the guys basically the guy who started the whole project and it's just taken off. Now they're struggling a bit because I think 60% of their

play is from the U.S. But these are unbelievable. Right on the ocean. You'll never find pieces of property like this. I did that drive once. The Cabot Trail, yeah. The Cabot Trail. Unbelievable. So that's where the golf course really starts right near the end of the right near the end of it.

Bing Crosby. I said good golf song. There's a Bing Crosby song about golf. All right. Straight down the middle. Straight down the middle. Okay, thank you. Mary, you know, if you need a job as a, I guess,

a real-time investigative producer for this program, I actually could use one. But thank you. So, yeah, so Bing Crosby is a golf song. So that's good. And then I loved going out to the Rockies. There's Jasper. Jasper Park Lodge is one of my favorite golf courses. But there's Greek golf everywhere.

Okay, what about GTA? Or what about Toronto? And I don't know, you might have certain biases or something because you're a member somewhere or maybe I don't know, but could you objectively, or I guess it would always be subjectively, pick one golf course in Toronto that you think might be the very best? Probably the best golf course in Toronto is one called the National.

It's up in Woodbridge. It is certainly the toughest golf course in Canada. If you talk to all the PGA Tour pros, the Canadians, you ask them, they'll say the National. St. George's is great. Rosedale's a nice golf course. Scarborough is a great golf course. It's a pretty good golf city.

And the other part of it is we've got a good municipal golf network here. That's where I started my golf career, working at Scarlet Woods. Oh, I know it, yeah. Yeah, Jane and Eglinton. I know it well, yeah. And me and Jennifer Kiesmat have back and forth on, she wants to get rid of some of the city courses, and I always tell her why not.

And so it's a cool network there. And everyone sort of thinks of golf as being this rich person's sport, and it's deserved in some cases. But those are the places where people go to learn and go to start. Okay, let's say I don't own clubs, and let's say I want to do 18 holes at Scarlet Woods. That's what it's called, Scarlet Woods? Which I've biked by 100 times,

but I've never been on the course. How much money does that cost me? So you could probably rent a set of clubs for $30 and the green fee would be probably $40. So it's not cheap. That sounds reasonable, but if you could borrow someone's clubs, now you've got it down to $40.

Yeah, and don't forget, that's for four hours. So I always compare kids, nobody complains about how expensive hockey is, except I mean, some at the, uh, GTHL level. the good kids.

Yeah. But if you just want to go and start, start playing hockey, you're going to buy all that equipment and you're going to get what? 30 minutes on the ice. This way you get probably the same and you get four hours and you can play every day if you want. Yeah.

That sounds reasonable to me. If you said it was 40 bucks, you're going to, you get 18 holes and yeah, that sounds pretty reasonable. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So $40, you get 18 holes in. Yeah, that sounds pretty reasonable to me. Okay. So it's not just for rich people anymore. It's good to hear that.

Dale is a listener of the program, wants to know, in your opinion, this is a big one. I hope Weirzy isn't watching. This is a tough one. Who's the greatest Canadian golfer of all time? That's the question from Dale. Wow. I would say it's Mike Weir.

Not Tom Cochran. Not Tom Cochran. Not Humble Howard. I would say it's probably Mike Weir. And I'm probably a little biased because he and my eras kind of overlapped. I mean, I've followed him since he was an amateur right through now.

Brooke Henderson is one more. She's won more tournaments than Mike. And then there's another guy by the name of Mo Norman. Okay, so he also adds in. He says, tell him, that's you, Bob, tell him that I played a round of golf with the great Mo Norman in the early 70s and I had a blast.

Wow. So Mo was this kind of odd individual. Never really fit in socially. And there's some discrepancies as to what his issue was. Was he autistic or did he have a brain injury or things like that? But he could hit a ball as pure as anybody. And he would stand on the range at Glen Abbey during the Canadian Open and people would, all the pros, the players,

would come over and just marvel at this guy and watch him. He wouldn't play in a tournament, but he would do that. Tiger Woods has said there's only three people who ever owned their own golf swing, and that's him, Ben Hogan guy and watch him. He wouldn't play in a tournament, but he would do that. Tiger Woods has said there's only three people who ever owned their own golf swing, and that's him, Ben Hogan, and Mo Norman. Wow. Pretty cool. I got to meet, he's long dead, obviously,

but I need to meet this guy. He sounds like an interesting fellow and a great name too, Mo Norman. Yeah, it's an awesome name. He's a cool guy. So can we talk a little bit here, maybe at this point, about who are the up-and-coming Canadian golfers

that the casual fan or the non-fan really needs to be aware of? Go ahead. I was going to say beyond Brooke Henderson, but you can give her some praise too. She's already come up and arrived. You know, there's always enough young guys coming up, and it's always a big step to get to that big tour.

Right now we've got probably the best group of Canadians on the PGA Tour that we've ever had, the most, that are the most talented. We've always had like two guys, one or two guys. Now we've got six. There's this week at the tournament, as we're taping this, there's six Canadians playing. Okay, name them for me. Adam Hadwin, Corey Connors, Mackenzie Hughes, Nick Taylor, David Hearn, and Roger Sloan.

And they're all bonafide PGA Tour professionals. Any one of those. Three of them are inside the top 100 in the world right now. The fourth one is 101 or 102, which is the first time we've ever had that many inside that number. Well, when you say a name like Roger Sloan, I think you're naming like soap opera actors. Yeah, I know. That's quite the name. Roger Sloan, right?

Sloan Ranger. That's his nickname. I like that. Great band too Roger Sloan, I think you're naming soap opera actors. Yeah, I know. That's quite the name. Sloan Ranger, that's his nickname. I like that. Great band too, Sloan. Shout out to NFOTM. I'm going to get back to some music talk here. But those guys are all bonafide players and below them, there's another guy named Taylor Pendrith, Adam Svensson.

I got a question about Taylor. Sean O'Rourke who's a listener says, does Taylor Pendrith have the game to be the next great Canadian to emerge on the PGA Tour? Oh yeah, for sure. Taylor is playing on what's called the Corn Fairy Tour, which is one step below the PGA Tour. He's had some injury problems

or he'd probably be on the PGA Tour right now but definitely can make it to the PGA Tour and should make it to the PGA Tour. Hebsey's very big on Mackenzie Hughes, for what it's worth. Yeah. He's big. Is he from Dundas, Ontario?

He is, yeah, Dundas, Ontario. I think Hebsey used to live in Dundas, Ontario. His mom's a frontline nurse down in Hamilton, actually, right now. So, shout-out to his mom. Shout-out, yeah. Shout-out to Mackenzie Hughes' mom, for sure. All the frontline workers. Scott M,

and this is an interesting question, like, Scott M just wants to know, what should he look for in golf lessons? So, well, it's interesting. Like, you gotta find the right teacher, and that's the thing you should look at. You should interview the person who's gonna teach you. I don't know how accomplished a golfer he is, but make sure that you can

communicate with that teacher, because it's not so much what they're he is, but make sure that you can communicate with that teacher because it's not so much what they're telling you, but how they're telling you about it. And I think that's a big mistake that a lot of people make. They just say, oh, I'm just going to go with this guy. But you got to make sure you get someone who you can connect with mentally, physically, all that kind of stuff. On the Fan 590, I used to listen to a lot of the Fan 590.

Less so now, but I used to listen a lot. And tell me about Fairways. Yeah. So Fairways was a golf show. I was trying to think last night if I did it for 19 years or 29 years. I can't remember. I think it's 19 years. There's a big difference between those numbers.

I know. What a life you live. Every Saturday morning from 7 to 8, from basically Easter to Thanksgiving. And it started. So the fan went on the air, I want to say the fall of 93, because I think they were in the Blue Jays' pennant, right? Well, it depends. Is that right?

Okay, I always get confused because it starts at 1430. Yeah. But I feel like that's, isn't that when they switched to 590? Or am I wrong? Maybe you're right. You must be right. I remember it came on at one of the Blue Jays playoff runs in the fall.

I remember it started, switched over in the fall. And then in the spring, that next spring we started and I started working with a guy named Bob Durant who was the morning news guy, Monday to Friday. And he was, he didn't know a lot about golf, but he liked golf. And I'll never forget the, I didn't know, I mean, I didn't know radio.

And so the first show we were doing, it was a guy named Alan Davis, who was the program director who put it all together. Nelson Millman was there at the same time. That's an FOTM. Yeah. And, uh, and so we get on the Saturday morning, we're sitting there in front of the mics. It's like one minute to seven o'clock before we're going to go. And there's commercials playing and Bob's in the background going, and all of a sudden there's an ad on, and the ad happened to be for Trojan condoms.

He's clearing his throat, and 10 seconds to go, he looks over at me, and he goes, you know, I've never worn a condom. Click, we're live. That's a fun fact. Yeah. I didn't know what to say. We're live now, and I'm just like stunned at what he's just said to me. It's just such a, that's such a, you might not know this about me, Bob, but I've never worn a condom. Anyway, so we went on for there.

I think Bob hosted for two years. And then Scott Metcalf, who I don't know if he's an FOTM, but he is. Not yet. He should be, though. He's a salt of the earth. This guy is one of my all-time favorite people to work with he is such a pro and such a nice guy and such a funny guy so then he and i hosted it for the next run and we had a guy named brian angus who was our producer who kind of sat in and he was the producer of the uh the morning show right they call them mumbles that's right yeah i i only know him on

twitter i remember yeah but uh I know of him for sure. And again, I used to listen to a lot of fan 590s, so I know the name Mumbles. He probably worked with some FOTMs like Don Landry and Gord Stelic. Yeah. You know, I think when he was there, it was like Pat Marsden.

Derringer. Derringer, yeah. Right. Because when, yes, right. Because when Derringer left, that's when Landry took over with Marsden. Yeah, exactly. derringer left that's when landry uh took over that's right yeah exactly derringer was holly that's right oh man i think what is it uh nelson millman once basically because you know he had the the strike right there was the the

baseball strike in 94 and he credits uh mars did with saving the station really yeah he's uh yeah i pray praise from caesar as you go. As I once heard on The Simpsons. But okay. So, is that a real expression? I only know that expression from The Simpsons.

Praise from Caesar. Sounds good. And you're okay over there? I see you're sweating over there. Yeah, no, it's good. I gotta get an umbrella, right? No, no, it's fine. It's hot.

It's, I mean, basically in the shade. It's just hot out today. I heard on the news this, I was listening to CBC Radio 1, and they said last night, it never got below 23 degrees

last night. So this is like, so far, this is the hottest day of the year. But they also said we've had more days, like we're in early July. We've had more days above 30 this year than we had last year. Do you think Al Gore was on to something maybe? That's an inconvenient truth. Now, see, again, the things we never should have politicized.

We never should have politicized the climate emergency, which I have a big episode on this next week with Dr. Diane Sachs, who is the Environment Commissioner. I saw that coming up, yeah. We just moved it to Friday, but I'm going to bike the studio to her backyard and we're going to do it there. But she was, the Kathleenathleen winn government uh

she was the first environment commissioner ontario ever had because that that government recognized we have a climate emergency and it's literally now and ever like we either act you know this is not we're not joking around here and then the progressive conservative party won a majority and i think maybe day one they they said goodbye to the Environment Commissioner. So we don't have one anymore, but now we're getting political here. Dofo, he was a local boy when I was growing up. Gino Retta coached him in football, maybe?

Or maybe it's his brother. I can't remember. Doug used to hang out in James Gardens and sell things to people. I won't go beyond that. What things was he selling? Stuff that used to be illegal in James Gardens and sell things to people. I won't go beyond that. What things was he selling? Stuff that used to be illegal that's now legal? Well, that's been well documented.

And I read about that. Yeah. And James Gardens, I'm going to say, a great bike ride. And I know we kind of live close together. But if you do the waterfront trail to the Humber Bay Bridge, and then you take the Humber Trail to James Gardens, and then on your way back, though, you don't go the same way back because you've got to mix it up a bit.

Go up the St. Mark's Hill, which gives you a little hill, and take a net to High Park, and take High Park South, go through the park, which is a great ride, you're going through High Park, and then you connect back onto the waterfront trail and head west from there. We do some running routes through there. I have a running route, West Toronto

Pacers. Shout out to the Pacers. So the Pacers, when we go around something like that as well not quite that far sometimes but well it's easier to bike it yeah my buddy marks hill is pretty tough to run up i've done it though yeah and for i i still remember when my oldest daughter was able the first time she biked up it without having to stop and walk her bike up was a big moment yeah for sure yeah you made it up the St. Mark's Hill. It's tough for those, especially those bikes that only have the one gear. You've got to be able to change up the gear.

I can imagine. Shout out to St. Mark's Hill. Okay, you also wrote a bunch of books. So I just want to shout out these books. You wrote, I don't know, there's lots of them here, but The World's Greatest Golf Courses. Yeah, that was like a coffee table book. The Briar, A History of Canada's Most Celebrated Curling Championship.

Yeah, The History of the Briar, which is in need of redoing. A book I should read. There's two volumes. I need to read it right away. Curling for Dummies. That's the only one that I still get money from. I wrote it probably 20 years ago, and I get this little royalty check every time there's an Olympics, basically, because all these Americans buy it.

That's right. Probably because these guys are like, you need cover curling it's like what do i start oh yeah get the curling for dummies paul gross told me that when he made men with brooms that was his guide he used that oh that's funny uh that's got the great uh silver road uh which is a tragically hip with sarah harmer that's right beautiful song on that soundtrack i think the song is a lot better than the movie. The hip were in there as a curling team. There's a hip cameo in there. Absolutely. In fact, a little promo for, what is this today?

I'm losing track of days. Yesterday, I actually asked my wife, I said, is it Monday? And I meant it. I thought it was Monday. And she's like, yeah. She goes, yes. She goes, oh no, it's Tuesday. And I was like, where did Monday go?

And of course, Monday, I mean, that's the difference between a guest being on zoom and in person like i forgot kim mitchell happened because it was zoom right but when kim mitchell comes over it's like it's a day it's a day like i know forever like you know i you know but it's like that's the difference between zoom and in person so i'll never forget your your visit here because you came in person here okay so uh curling for Dummies. Hurry Hard, the Russ Howard story. You know Russ Howard? I know of him. He's a famous curler, so basically I wrote his biography with him.

Curling, etc. That's just a little fun kind of something you put on the back of the bathroom toilet. You can flip through it, start it anywhere. Sean O'Rourke wants to know, would you agree that Mike Weir is due for a renaissance on the Champions Tour?

Yeah, so Mike turned 50 in May, May 12th, and he is going to play on the tour for 50 and older guys. They call it the Mulligan Tour or the Roundbelly Tour. And yeah, his game, he's in a really, he's gone through a lot of injuries. He's gotten some personal stuff with a bad divorce. And he's found a new lady in his life. He's in a really good spot in his world right now. And I think happy guy, happy wife, happy life. So I think he's in a good spot.

Good for Weirzy. Yeah. You got to do that. Like it's Weaksy, it's Weirzy. You got to do that, right? Add the Y at the end of it. I was at a press conference in the U.S. one time. And Mike came in and some guy asked him, some U.S. one time, and Mike came in, and some guy asked him,

some U.S. guy said to Mike, he says, why do they call you a weirzy? And then he looked around, and he said, well, because, you know, everybody in Canada, like, that's weaksy, and that's perky, and it just went around the room. It's a hockey thing, right? Yeah, I think so.

It's a hockey thing. Last but not least, this is Sean's last but not least. I'm not quite done with you yet. I've got to ask you about a Dave Perkins story before we go. Sean O'Rourke says, if you replace James Duthie, Bob, so you replace James Duthie, do you and O-Dog beat Dubas and Jerry D in a golf match? Probably not.

Maybe. That's interesting. Duthie is probably a little better golfer than I am right now. Oh, is that right? Yeah. He's been, he's been like crazy avid taking lessons and doing stuff like,

like really trying. He's a sweetheart, right? Like, uh, I mean, I've only met him the one time, but,

uh, yeah, I work with him. I don't know how many times a year, but we're, we're, I would like to say we're good friends. We golf a bunch of times together,

but he is the nicest guy, the most genuine guy, and to me, probably the most talented guy at TSN, most talented person at TSN, I think. He can do anything. Well, he is the only guy Rogers tapped on the shoulder when they got the hockey deal. He's the only guy they actually went to and said,

we'd like you to become the new host of Hockey Night in Canada. And my understanding on that story is, he said only if you bring the rest of the team, and they said no, and he said, well, then, sorry, I don't come. I think he said you've got to bring Weeksy, too. That's the one good thing we have against Sportsnet is they don't have a lot of golf, that's for sure. That's true. Yeah, yeah.

TSN's your home of golf. And football. If you want to watch football, you're going to watch TSN. And they've got the NFL deal too, right? That's right. A lot of football going on on TSN. So James Duffy, he's a sweetheart. Do you want to just take a moment and shout out any other TSN sweethearts?

You know, I've honestly not met a bad person or worked with a bad person at TSN. You know, the golf crew, you know, Mark Sacchino is not a TSN person, but he's on TSN a lot. We host a show called Golf Talk Canada and a radio show, Golf Talk Canada. Jamie Rydell has been my longtime producer in golf, Mike Kaczynski.

But, you know, the on-air people are so much fun, and a lot of them are good golfers and avid golfers. All the gals like Natasha and Kara and Lindsay and Laura, they're all good golfers. Okay, so why don't you want a fun Laura fact? Yeah. Her dad lives across the street. Really? Is that where she grew up?

No. Okay. No. She grew up, no. He's on a second marriage, like some of us. Some of us have more than that. Yeah. So, I mean, when she came over, Laura Dyken, she was like literally, I think she was visiting

her brother's birthday or something. She was visiting her dad and made the long trek across the street to appear on Toronto Mike. So, shout out to Roman, my neighbor. Well, yeah. Shout out to Laura as well, but yeah,

they're all avid golfers. And then, you know, you get all the hockey guys and I don't, I don't see a lot of the hockey guys that often you run across them once in a while. Cause my hours are mostly during the day and they, those guys tend to come in a little more in the evenings,

but I mean, Rod Smith and I don't know, I could go on Kara. There's a voice for you. Rod Smith. It's unbelievable. You know, here's. Kara? There's a voice for you, Rod Smith. Unbelievable. You know, here's a fact, fun fact. Love it.

His dad landed on D-Day on Juneau Beach. There you go. And some people won't wear a mask. Exactly right. Exactly right. I'm getting angry. I'm getting angry over here. Okay.

Getting very angry. Very interesting. I think there's a story. Okay. Getting very angry. Very interesting. I think there's a story. Actually, before the story, let me just shout out a returning sponsor. I have an ant running on my MacBook Pro here. Don't. Was it a Simpsons app? Yes.

Remember the ants messed up when Homer went into space? Do you remember this? He was an astronaut. And speaking of music, and I get a feeling he'd be a good golfer too. He's got that golf vibe to him. James Taylor, is he a good golfer? Oh, yeah, I don't know about that.

I don't know. I just get a golf vibe from the guy. That's right. I remember that episode. Yeah, he was singing Fire and Rain or something, but the ants were messing with the electronics, and it might be happening to Toronto Mike today. It all comes back to the Simpsons.

But okay, this is only July. It's a 30-degree day in July, so you're probably not thinking about Halloween right now, but it's going to come, and you're going to realize, as it approaches, you're going to realize, oh, this Halloween's different. This isn't the Halloween we've always had. And I don't know what the rules will be,

but there's not going to be a vaccine by Halloween. So what will Halloween look like for the kids during COVID-19? It's going to look different. But I'm excited to tell everybody that Pumpkins After Dark, they have an 88-acre farm in scenic Country Heritage Park in Milton.

And that's a two and a half kilometer driving route where basically you'll be able to, it'll be completely contactless. You buy your ticket online. It gets scanned through the window of your car and you drive this route. And I mean, they were describing it to me. They got a 7,000 pumpkins that are lit in the night sky,

150 jack-o'-lantern sculptures. There's a 40 foot tower, a 50 foot long drive-through tunnel. There's these sculptures that are 60 feet wide and 20 feet tall. I mean, I'll have more details on, you know, how you can save money on tickets because you listen to Toronto Mike, but I'm just excited that they've adapted to the new reality and there's still going to be kind of something exciting for the kids, like at Halloween. Awesome. So it'll be a drive-thru event. And again, more details will come soon.

And I just want to let everybody know, if you have any questions at all about GTA real estate, maybe you're looking to buy and or sell in the next six months, or just any questions about how things are operating right now, a great guy to talk to is Austin Keitner. In fact, in our hood, they're very active, the Keitner group. And you can text Toronto Mike to 59559 to engage Austin. Just like a bat symbol in the sky.

And then even have a phone call or a Zoom call. And Austin's a great guy. And chat him up. And, you know, no obligations there. Just have a conversation with Austin and that'll make you a good, a good FOTM. Okay. So Dave Perkins has been on the show a couple of times. That's, he was great both times. He's great. Do you do a Dave Perkins impression? No, I can't do it. I've spent a lot of time with Dave on the golf circuit because he was big in the

golf and, uh, he's one of my favorite guys. I miss him tremendously out there. He's such a good guy. golf and he's one of my favorite guys I miss him tremendously out there he's such a good guy his second appearance uh I have you know sometimes I have the I realize I have great power like yeah TSN's this big conglomerate right they can't they can't just do anything like there's like that's a that's a juggernaut sports and that's a big juggernaut but Toronto Mike like if I had an idea right now I could like do it this afternoon like right so I was on a bike ride and I was thinking oh I really love Perkins. I like his voice on the mic and I love his baseball stories. I love it.

And I'm like, similarly, I had the same experience when Bob Elliott was on the program and the same thing. I loved his voice and I loved his baseball stories. And I had this moment of like, would they come on together? Like what could I like,

you know, pre COVID times. I'm like, I could set up two microphones. Could I? And it took a lot of like logistically to plan it and like, you know, pre-COVID times, I'm like, I could set up two microphones. And it took a lot of like logistically to plan it. But they did it. So they both came over, Bob Elliott and Dave Perkins. And I, you know, next to the Bob Weeks appearances,

it might be my favorite episode of all time. Like these guys just for two hours, it was just unbelievable. Unbelievable. And I, you know, get notes from people like steve simmons who's like uh the boys of summer that was the best two hours like it's just just great accolades from all the place and it's all them i don't get any credit all i did was have the idea and make it happen which is kind of cool so uh dave perkins uh his first appearance he starts telling a story and i will just name the principles and then we'll see whether you'll share it or not, because I happen to know the story, but it's your story to tell.

But the story involves future FOTM Rod Black, who was booked at some point and then had to do before COVID, and then he's getting, so we're going to get Rod Black on the show. But it involves Dave Perkins. I think, I don't know if it involves Dave Perkins. You'll tell me, but it definitely involves the man who touched them all. Yes, I know the story. Okay, so let me shut up and see what you'll share about all this.

So when you go to the Masters, like Augusta is a small town. It's like 200,000 people, and then you bring 40 or 50,000 people in. There's just not enough hotels. There's not enough of anything, really. So we rent houses, and people in Augusta lease you their houses, and then they take off and go to Disney World or whatever, and the schools are all shut down that week. It's a really well-run organization, the way they do it all.

So we rented this house, and we always had the TSN house, and all of us are living in there, producers, cameramen, on-air people. And that year I was working with Rod Black. So I know Rod takes a lot of hits on Twitter. That guy is so talented. He takes hits, and I'm not in this club, but there's a CFL contingent who don't love how he calls a game. Is that possible?

I'll tell you, he is a savant in the way he can do things and how he can crush uh notes and information and remember everything i mean his head's spinning 100 miles an hour all the time but he pulls out the right guy's name and the right words i have having worked with him for a number of years i'm very very impressed and he's so much fun to be on the road with he is like the most fun guy so for a couple of years he was doing in addition to doing tsn stuff he was calling uh chicago cubs baseball i didn't know that yeah and his color guy was joe carter so they became buddies and and rod's rolodex do they still have rolodexes his uh his phone list is is so deep with people like like

we were walking along one time going out for dinner on the road, and all of a sudden Charles Barkley calls him, just wants to chat. That kind of stuff happens all the time. So anyway, we're in the house, and late at night, go to bed, and I wake up in the morning, and I come downstairs, and there's somebody sleeping on the couch. And I'm always the first guy up in our house. So I always go and make the coffee and I'm just an early riser.

And I look over on the couch and I see this guy and I go, oh, that's Joe Carter. And I found out later that he and another buddy had just showed up to Augusta and figured, oh, we'll just get a hotel room and not knowing what was going on. So they called Rod and they showed up at 2 a.m. And so he's on the couch. hotel room and not knowing what was going on so they called rod and they showed up at 2 a.m and so he's on the couch but the position he's in he kind of has his hands like some guys sleep like this hands kind of down his pants kind of he's sitting there sleeping and so i kind of didn't know what to say or do i mean he's still sleeping so i go in and i start making the coffee and all

of a sudden he kind of walks around the corner and i just said to him hey joe touch them all and that's kind of the genesis of that story of joe carter so after i after i stopped recording with perkins because he teased the story and then he said oh it's weeks he's story to tell i can't tell it or whatever and then and then i i stopped recording and then he told me the story and i took a mental note uh get weeks in the program to tell his touch him touch him all sorry anyway joe is good about it no that that's great that's fantastic here's just one follow-up yeah i was gonna say before i uh play some lowest of the low speaking uh yeah i would just one follow-up to that story is that Joe Carter ended up leaving us. He baked, in this house we had, he baked us a pecan pie and left it for us as a gift. So there's Joe Carter, the cook.

He baked it. He baked it himself. Is it a mix or something, or he didn't buy it? I don't think so, unless the shell might have been. But no, it was homemade. You could tell, unless he bought it from someone. That's amazing. I know.

I was saying, who's had a pecan pie from Joe Carter? Oh, that's very, it's a nice touch. That's a nice personal touch here. So, Bob, this is your first appearance on Toronto Mic'd. I'm glad we could do it in person instead of on Zoom. You were great. Would you consider returning? Maybe kick out the jams or something?

I'd love to kick out the jams. Am I an official FOTM now, right? Let me go to the board. Yes! Okay, yeah, that'd be great. I'd love to. Let the record show. Week.

See is now an FOTM. Thanks for doing this buddy. That was amazing. Thank you, Michael. And that brings us to the end of our 681st show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto,

Mike, Bob, are you at TSN Bob weeks? Bob weeks. Oh my God. I got it. Oh my God. I'm going Toronto Mike. Bob, are you at TSN Bob Weeks? Bob Weeks TSN. Oh, my God. I got it. Oh, my God.

I'm going to fire Mary, my research assistant. She said TSN Bob Weeks. It's Bob Weeks TSN. That's it. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery, and Bob's a big fan, at Great Lakes Beer, Palma Pasta, they're at Palma Pasta. Sticker U, they're at Sticker U. The Keitner Group are at The Keitner Group. Pumpkins After Dark, they're at stickeru the Keitner group are at the Keitner

group pumpkins after dark they're at pumpkins dark and garbage day are at garbage day dot com

slash Toronto Mike 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.