Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Dave Hodge: Toronto Mike'd #191

Episode Date: September 7, 2016

Mike chats with TSN's Dave Hodge about his years at Hockey Night in Canada, the pen flip, his work on TSN's The Reporters and his hope he'll never be labelled a homer.

Welcome to episode 191 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. I'm Mike from TorontoMic.com and joining me this week is sports broadcaster Dave Hodge. Welcome Dave. Thank you Mike. It's taken a while to get me here. You've been very persistent. I can explain why it's taken that long, if you wish. Yeah, go ahead. By the way, persistent is the nice word for it. Some call it annoying, but I'm glad you called it persistent.

No, they're very different for me, and I'm sticking with persistent. We'll find out how annoying you are in the next little hour or so. But no, I thought it would only be proper to be here and know whether I was talking about my career in the past, i.e. I had retired, or I was looking ahead to what is left of my career in the future. And it took most of the summer to determine that, no, I am not retired or retiring, but I will continue to work, presumably at TSN, for the foreseeable future, let's say a year or two. And so I'm happy to report that. a year or two. And so I'm happy to report that. Others who have urged me to step aside because it's time may not be so happy, but that had to be worked out and it didn't make any sense for

me to come and have you ask me, so how long are you going to work? Or how long have you worked? And how long do you intend to work? And not be able to answer that. I can answer the question I have worked for in this business one way or the other, well, radio and television, for 50 years. So that round number suggested to some that maybe it was time to leave, but I'm going to leave on a different number early in the 50s, but not with a zero at the end. Well, I, for one, am happy to hear that you're not hanging up the headphones. More Dave Hodges, I think good for the entire country, to be quite honest. So I'm glad you're not here to announce your retirement. No, the, you know, the criterion was, can I be better than I have been? And I always think that tomorrow can produce something better than yesterday from me and I

still think that and that's to be determined by by me and by others but I do look forward to to doing more good work and maybe maybe who knows some of my best work lies ahead that's the intention you know a lot of people know you as a hawk sorry as a sports guy but I've been told you're quite the fan of music. Yes, you might say that. I spend a lot of time at concerts, listening to music, researching music, talking to musicians when I'm not watching hockey, baseball, football, basketball, etc. And one or the latter is work,

although the best kind of work I could ever imagine. But the other is fun, and we all need something apart from work to keep us interested and keep us alert. And music has done that. It keeps me younger than my years, I think quite a bit younger, because I'm not one that needs to hear the hits of the 70s or the 80s or the 90s. Much like my own work, I think that the best music is the music that I'm going to hear this week and next rather than last year

and the last decade. So in liking the music that's being made today by younger people, presumably, I find that it adds youth to my outlook too. Of course, I'm playing a song from the 90s, as you tell me. That's as current as it gets if we're talking about music today. Do you consider yourself a fan of the Tragically Hip? Absolutely. I can't tell you the year that I saw my first hip show. I would count the number of hip shows in my life at about, well, 20, maybe a little more. Saw two of the recent tour. Know the guys, I say reasonably well you know a few better than others but I spent time with all of them and they are all and you're gonna

hear me say this if we continue to talk music they're all terrific terrific people I I'm sure there are music people that I wouldn't like to meet or whose company I wouldn't enjoy but I haven't like to meet or whose company I wouldn't enjoy, but I haven't met those people yet. Tragically Hip, Blue Rodeo, you know, Joel Plaskett, on and on and on, all good friends and all terrific people. And while I really enjoy getting out to hear them, I enjoy just as much, if not more, being in their company and talking about music or as their wish often is talking about sports we can we can play both sides of the of the line in that respect and so I spent a lot of time like that. So listening to the new up-and-coming Canadian

bands is is there ever going to be another T tragically hip will there ever be a band that sort of encompasses from you know coast to coast gourd was like this country's poet laureate uh will there ever be another i don't think it's fair to the tragically hip to to look now or maybe ever at at their successors but i will tell you that the band that in the last couple of years has made strides in that direction, and though the comparisons differ, the more you talk about the two bands, I would say Arkells is the candidate. Let's put it that way.

Yeah, actually, I knew you were going to say the Arkells. For some reason, I was going there too. And uh one of the guys in the arkells is helping my buddy uh drummer for our lady peace no longer drummer for our lady peace but uh he's got a podcast with jonathan torrence called the taggart and torrence yes yeah and one of the arkells guys is the the back end guy who puts that together for them so they're just a tie it all up in a nice yeah no they're hard-working generous really focused great performance on stage the records are great the songs are are in many ways unique Max Kerman is and that comparison I think can be made, is a front man of the sort that Gord Downie is. And again, there are obviously differences, but Max commands the stage like few others that I've seen in this country or maybe anywhere.

And so as we talk about this, I will be seeing Arkells on Friday night at Jackson Triggs Winery. And I very much look forward to, I called it my dream bill in November. Don't test me on the dates. Early November when Arkells are playing two sold-out nights at Massey Hall. And Frank Turner, I don't know if you know Frank Turner. Yeah, he's a... He's a Brit. Frank Turner and the Sleeping Souls.

Okay. Do I have that right? Anyway, Frank is, he's as powerful an act, I would say, punk, folk, rock. His fans in the British Isles are, they follow him everywhere, but his fans in Canada and particularly Toronto, he loves playing Toronto,

and Frank Turner opening for Arkells would be just about the best thing to see these days. And that's a great venue too. That's a fantastic venue. I know the guys in Arkells, they're businessmen, but they also know that, I mean, the most money to be made is not at Massey Hall because it's an expensive place to play. But if you like music and you like music history and you want to say, I have done that, one of the things that you will want to have done is play Massey Hall. Not everybody gets the chance, but when they were asked if they would, they said yes. And I think they're looking forward to it.

And I know their fans are incredibly excited about seeing them there. Their latest record at a release party at the Mod Club recently, brought all those fans out, and I was fortunate enough and privileged, really, to be asked by the band to introduce them that night, and that was the very first public proclamation of the Massey Hall dates, so the crowd went nuts when I said, you know, you're seeing them for free here, this is great, and it's going to cost money, but guess what? You're going to be paying to go to Massey Hall to see them.

Cool. How do you consume new music in 2016? Like, like, is this through a streaming services? Like what is the... No, I'm, I'm, I'm old fashioned. I, I need, I need a disc in my hand and I need a, obviously a player to, uh, to use as well. But I don't have a piece of music in my, in my collection that isn't on disc. I've got, you know, iPods and, you know, phones and iPads and that kind of stuff,

but everything can be located on the disc. And I've got far too many CDs to tell you an accurate number because it embarrasses me how many I have. And then they cost money. I don't get them for free. So I download from iTunes. to tell you an accurate number because it embarrasses me how many I have. And they cost money. I don't get them for free. So I download from iTunes. There's a plug for you, and I hope they never stop providing that.

There were rumors that maybe they were getting out of that business. That would cripple me, but I guess I've got enough to keep me going if that ever happened. And if I were forced to switch to a streaming service, I guess I would. But at this point, I'm a holdout. And you know what? I like the idea of the physical. Now, I'm a guy. I'm an MP3 guy.

But I do miss the days. I used to alphabeticalize my CDs. There was something about being able to touch it. I just kind of miss those days. That's just part of me being old-fashioned. I mean, as much as I can say I try to be as modern in my thinking and my ways as I can, there are some parts of me that, yeah, are going to tell you how old I am and how stubborn I am. Everybody wants to know, well, what about your vinyl collection? Well, my vinyl collection used to be as big as my CD collection is now, but I outgrew it, or it outgrew me, and it

wasn't in great shape from moves and floods and one thing and another, so I destroyed vinyl that would now be considered invaluable. And I look and I see people purchasing vinyl and I go, you know, I did that once and I envy you because it's great and I understand the appeal now, but that passed me by and once I moved to CD I did make a resolution that this would be it. I don't know how many formats are going to come after this, but this is it for me because I got too many of these things now to switch to anything else. Now throughout this chat, I'm going to sprinkle in some Twitter questions.

I opened up, I asked people on Twitter if they had any questions, and the first one is from Chris Black. He wants to know how many stages you've stood on with a Canadian band and sang along with them. He says he's seen a few, Elliot Brood for once. By the way, what was the

bridge? This song, The Bridge from Elliot Brood, is still on my biking playlist. I love that song so much. It's such an incredible song. Well, yes, that's one, Elliot Brood. And I wouldn't be here able to count the number of bands. I obviously introduced more bands than I have sung with.

But yeah, I've sung with a few, if you can call it that. I mean, I pretend I'm singing or I'm on stage and I'm near a microphone or, you know, but basically I'm a sucker for an invitation to, would you like to come and join? Usually it's, you know, an encore, it's, you know, the final song or whatever. And I'm not the only one that's been invited on stage, but will never say no i mean absolutely never there's a guy uh the the most prominent singing uh part that i that i have had is uh with a friend of mine and a terrific rock and roll old-time folk rock greenwich Village type guy named Willie Nile. And I don't know if you know Willie. But Willie is, I highly recommend it if you're into this kind of music.

Willie is famous for a bunch of reasons. One, that he's a friend of more famous musicians than I could name here. But, you know, ask him to contact Bruce Springsteen if you're standing next to Willie and he'll pull out the phone and call Bruce. And Pete Townsend and, you know, the list goes on and on. Used to live across the street from Patti Smith, down the street from Bob Dylan. Anyway, Willie and I struck up a friendship. Willie's almost my age, shall we say.

And one night he said, how would you like to come and sing at the end of the show? And told me the name of the song, which was One Guitar, which I knew very well, but I said, I'll brush up. And so I've done One Guitar with Willie Nile a few times. And the funniest part of the story is that a week after I did it the first time, Willie was at a benefit and Bruce Springsteen was appearing as well. And Willie sang one guitar or introduced one guitar and said, there's a friend of mine backstage that's going to come and help me sing this, and out walks Bruce Springsteen. There's a video.

You can check it out. It's Willie Nile, one guitar. Bruce Springsteen will do it for you. And that was a week after I had sung the same song with Willie and I texted him and said, you know, I saw the video, very impressive. I said, your backup singer wasn't quite up to par. And he said, no, but you got to go with what you got. So yeah, that's a long version of, and there's a wonderful picture that was taken by a professional photographer, Willie's girlfriend, in fact, of the moment Willie and I sharing the same stage and same microphone. That was at the Horseshoe Tavern, and I cherish the photo greatly.

It's a wonderful shot, even if I wasn't in it. Those checkerboard floors. This is another Twitter question from Michael Moniz. Moniz, I think that's how you't in it. Those checkerboard floors. This is another Twitter question from Michael Monez. Monez, I think that's how you'd say it. So he wants to know how it felt when you heard your name in the Rio Statics Ballad of Wendell Clark, parts one and two. Hey, let's play it for everybody if they're not familiar.

First of all, it's a fantastic tune anyway, which you should know, but here you go. Yeah. so there you go he's saying uh well i heard wendell talking to dave hodge last night and he said that he was confident and keen, and he said that Jacques Plante didn't die so all of us could glide. He said that hard work is the ethic of the free. How does that sound being part of Canadian music history there? Well, it's my favorite song that includes my name in the lyrics because you can guess the rest of the sentence.

It is the only one that I know of. And so, sure, it was brought to my attention. I didn't hear it first. That might have floored me. But somebody said, you know the real statics? Yes. You're a fan? Yes.

The Ballad of Wendell Clark? Okay, I'm vaguely familiar with it, but maybe I need to listen to it again? Yeah, you should listen to it again. And so ever since, it's, and it's been, I mean, I've been at shows, and that's been a trivia question for somebody to, you know, name the song that included my name in the lyrics. And the Ballad of Wendell Clark wins, and a lot of hands go up, so good for the R statics for for uh

popularizing that and I guess it didn't hurt me either the video for that song uh has a lot of like old old school Etobicoke locations like the old mill donuts which hasn't been old mill donuts in forever but I went to school uh Michael Power which was like Islington and Bloor it's gone from there now but old mill donuts was kind of down the street like uh I think Islington and Bloor. It's gone from there now. But Old Mill Donuts was kind of down the street, like I think Islington and Dundas area. And yeah, it shows up in the video for Ballad of Wendell Clark. And I'm actually, right now, I just got sent like an advanced book,

Wendell's new book. It's called Bleeding Blue, and I'm actually just kind of plowing through it now. But I'm a big Wendell Clark fan, so that song is fantastic. We're crawling towards a sports question. Well, let's talk about quickly the beer in front of you. So you're taking that six-pack home with you. I don't know if you've ever tried Great Lakes beer, but I think you'll be happy.

I'll try one at a time, and I'll let you know. And if anyone wants to help crowdfund this podcast, it's patreon.com slash Toronto Mike. There's big orange buttons on torontomike.com if you just click through and you can give what you wish. But I actually, this week, because I only have a couple of weeks left, I'd rather you gave the money to pledge my Terry Fox run. So if you go to torontomike.com,

I have a big button at the top that says Terry Fox run. That is September 18th. I'm running it at High Park with the family. So give what you can to the Terry Fox Foundation instead of the Patreon account this week. All right, my friend. Yeah, let's talk a little. You don't mind if we talk a little sports media in our time together? No ground rules.

I have preferences, and you probably know one or two of them, but ask me anything and I'll answer anything and try not to get us in trouble. So tell me how you, because you were play-by-play announcer for the Sabres before Rick Jenneret, who like a legendary Rick Jenneret, who's still doing it over there. So how did you end up with that gig? I worked at CFRB, and I was, you know, I was a sportscaster, liked hockey, loved hockey, had done some junior hockey broadcasting in Chatham, but wasn't a play-by-play broadcaster in any sense of the word.

And a fella called me and said he worked, sort of worked with the Sabres, and the Sabres were launching their first season and wanted to televise some games, though I think the first year, I think the number was 15, and they were all but one, road games. So these plans were in the works. There was only one problem.

They didn't have anybody in Buffalo at the time. And please, I'm not, you know, no aspersions on the talent in Buffalo, but at the time anyway, in 1970, they did not have anyone or didn't think they had anyone capable of broadcasting play-by-play of NHL games. So my name was brought to the Buffalo people and they said, what have you done? And I said, well, not a whole lot. Do you have any tapes? No, but I'll mock up a tape for you if you want. You can hear the way it's going to sound. And are you available to do it? Well, CFRB said, yeah, we'll give you time off to fly to the game and do it and come back because they were, as I said, all but one road game. And I had a part-time job doing the Sabres broadcast, telecast. The radio announcer at

the time was Ted Darling, now the late Ted Darling. And basically what happened after year one was that Ted, who worked directly for the Sabres, I worked for WKBW-TV, Ted was told by the Sabres that he would also be the television announcer and not just radio because their own announcer should be doing TV and be replaced on radio. Well, WKBW said, we kind of like the guy we had, the guy from Toronto. So there was a bit of a power struggle over who would do year two. And actually, the Sabres got immigration involved and said, we have a New York State resident, although not a native, who's ready to do our games. And we don't really think we need to bring somebody across the border.

And before the fight, if I can call it that, got any more heated, I got a call from Hockey Night in Canada to say, would you audition for the job of host? And I said, well, I just finished telling some people in Buffalo I wasn't a play-by-play guy and I guess I could consider myself a host, but of Hockey Night in Canada, my goodness, at the age of 26 I was, I'm not sure I'm ready for that. So maybe not. And they said, well, think about it again. I thought about it again.

I went to the audition. I got the job, and suddenly Buffalo didn't seem to matter much anymore whether that fight was still on. So that was the, and there were very few people around. One very good friend of mine in Buffalo who we became friends because he stopped me at the Horseshoe Tavern, in fact, and said, weren't you the original play-by-play guy of the Buffalo Sabres?

And I said, you win a prize. You ought to win a prize, and I'm not sure what it is. And we're very good friends to this day. But not very many others would have any idea that that occurred. In fact, the Sabres, when they conducted their 40th anniversary, just about everybody was invited back. And I'm not complaining because I don't honestly think they knew or had any records of who did that very first year,

those select 15 road games. Had someone told them and they decided not to invite me, I might have been annoyed, but that's one of those things. Buried deep in history. Okay, before we get to hockey night in Canada, which you hosted, yeah, from 1971 to 87,

let's, I can't say Rick Jenner, it's name without playing at least one of his calls. Okay. So, so this is the guy who takes over for you doing the Sabres broadcasts. He's still there. Let's hear one of his most famous calls.

He gets tripped up, gets it to May and over the line. Here's May going in on goal. He shoots. He scores! of his most famous calls. Redmayne wins it in overtime. The Sabres bomb out onto the ice to bomb Redmayne. Buffalo sweeps the ground. I'm sure you would have called it the exact same way. No, my favorite play-by-play people would be more textbook than that. But how can you not enjoy that? Anybody that unique?

I mean, I've compared Rick in the past to the late Harry Carey, who was, if you didn't like the team he was brought, in the end it was the Cubs, obviously, but he probably wasn't your favorite. But you couldn't not listen to Harry Carey, and it's the same with Rick. And because when something happens on the ice and needs to be described in his own manner, you immediately need to pay even closer attention because you know what's coming. And he never disappoints. Yeah. And you left.

So, I mean, obviously, you were out in Buffalo, but you were in at Hockey Night in Canada, uh, where you worked with people like Howie Meeker and, uh, some guy named Don Cherry. So tell me what it was like working with Howie Meeker. Well, Howie was, uh, was his own guy. He knew exactly what he wanted to do, what he wanted to say, what he wanted to talk about. He had a very definite agenda and you weren't probably going to get in his way, but he was cooperative in television terms. But the hockey he wanted to talk about was the hockey that he knew. And he was very definite about pointing out, he was sometimes probably too critical. The funniest thing, I mean, he always thought that the length of a player's sticks was wrong, usually too long.

That guy needs a shorter stick. And he would get on and on and on about that to the point where it got a little repetitive. Howie, we know what you feel. We could probably move on to something else. But there was a ceremony and cars came out on the ice one night and the back door of a limo and a kid in a Leaf uniform came out with skates on and a stick and a helmet and everything else took a few turns around the ice. It must have been the son of somebody who was being honored. I can't remember the details.

Anyway, we were live on the air. It was during an intermission. And, oh, isn't this cute? And Howie, but that kid has a stick that's way too big for him. Like he couldn't even stop himself there and just say, you know, what a wonderful moment for this fine young boy and his father or grandfather or whatever it was. No, no, he had to point out. And it was only Howie who would have been looking for it.

So yeah, Howie is, you know, still going strong. So love him and enjoyed all the time, especially when the seafood would arrive from, you know, packed in ice salmon from the East Coast and lobster. I don't know how many lobster feasts we had, cracking open the box and saying, you know, we got to get at this right away. He was a great friend, is a great friend that way too.

What was Don Cherry like when he first arrived at the CBC? Different than now. Well, he was looking at a, I don't know if he was looking at a new career. I mean, he was looking at new work, let's put it that way. Whether he envisioned what his broadcasting career has become, I'm not certain. But I'm going to guess that he took it in stages. So he wanted, much like Howie,

wanted to talk about certain things. I was probably a little more forceful in saying, Don, I think Coach's Corner needs to be your view on the biggest stories of the week. The trades, the suspensions, the injuries, the hat tricks, the quirky stuff, the coach firing, all that stuff. I mean, we need to hear what our coach, the boss of Coach's Corner, has to say about all of this. And Don very often would prefer to talk about a fight in the Eastern League or somebody who, you know, appeared to break his leg in the first period and came back in the third period and played a couple of shifts

and showed great courage. All interesting stuff, more interesting to Don maybe than to me or, I thought, the audience who read the headlines and said, yeah, but take us behind those headlines and tell us what the coach thinks of them. Today, they can do what they want there, and Don certainly does what he wants, but my preference is to hear Don talking about headline material as opposed to, you know, back page material, let's say it that way. Now, I know you value a correct enunciator, so Don Cherry doesn't, I feel it's almost intentional, I think it's part of his shtick or whatever to butcher the enunciation of different names.

You may be right. I wouldn't go so far as to accuse him of that, but I guess the best story, and this was early on, we were talking about those were the glory days of the islanders, and Clark Gilly's name would come up quite often, and Don would call him Gillis regularly. And there were other Gillises around. I mean, there was Mike Gillis, but this was Clark Gillies.

And I would point out to Don that his name was Gillies, not Gillis. And Don said, Gillies, Gillis, what's the difference? And I said, well, there's probably a difference to his mother and his father and his brothers, sisters, friends who might like to hear him called Clark Gillies. So next time, let's try and do it correctly. Why not be right? Why not be correct? Well, he went to the executive producer of the show, Ralph Mellenby, and said, do I have to do this? Do I have to?

Well, we had a little meeting, and yeah, Don, try to be correct, but yeah, it is kind of your shtick to play around with the names if you want. So I had no idea when the name came up next what it would be, but I said, what do you think about the big left winger? And the story about Clark Gillies was always, you know, don't bother him. If he's not having a good game, leave him alone. Let the bear lie asleep. And so what do you think of Gillies' game? Is it just leave him alone because he's not doing much?

I'll tell you that Gillis guy. So I lost that battle. Nowadays, I think you're probably right. Let's put it this way. I don't think he tries too hard to be correct. And maybe he tries a little bit to be incorrect. That's what it seems. I mean, I always think like Patrick Waugh, like, you know, it was always Roy, you know, it had to be Roy. It's just, it's just, you don't even get him started

on Jeremy Yager, which he's had to say for like 25 years now. You know, not to fight this battle all over again, but saying Patrick Roy instead of Patrick Roy offends more people than Patrick Roy. Right. And in the 1972 Summit Series, Foster Hewitt, a beloved pioneer, Hall of Famer, what can you say that's bad about Foster Hewitt,

enraged French Canadians from coast to coast by saying Cornoyer instead of Cornoyer. Not a big difference, but a significant difference to the people who speak French in this country. And Foster was really grilled and tried his best to get it right, but it kept coming out cornoille. Don never, in my mind, suffered the same kind of criticism because nobody thought Foster was playing around with names or shrugging his shoulders and not caring. I mean, he thought he was doing his best to get it right. So I guess Don gets some kind of license for just being Don Cherry

and for people realizing that it's not just one name. It's a bunch of names, and it's going to keep happening. Right. It must have had you cringing, though. Well, no, it wasn't the most. Yeah, you're right. Spelling is more important than pronunciation. If I see a spelling mistake, I'm sorry, but I can't sit there and just ignore it. And a lot of people have probably wondered to themselves and sometimes aloud,

really there are more important things. And my answer is, no, there's nothing more important than getting things right. And if we see a mistake and decide not to correct it, that's really wrong. So I will always try to spell words correctly myself. And if I see a word on the screen that everybody else is going to see that's spelled incorrectly, I'm going to try hard to get it off the screen. What I've noticed in the new Twitterverse is that a lot of people have difficulty with their, their, their, and your, your.

So more than I ever would have imagined get those confused. Don't we get that pounded into our head in primary school, like the difference between the there, there, and the there? Yes and no. You tell me what the Twitter rules are, I'll tell you how many others are broken. No, I think it's laziness. And I think people, they should think twice about the fact that a whole lot of people are reading this or potentially will see it. And it's like the old lesson that I learned in school. Any letter that you write, certainly a letter, you know, a job

possibility. If you're applying for a job or you're looking for a reference or anything like that, I mean, do not have a spelling mistake in it because that person will open it up and that's the first reaction that they might get. Boy, this person can't spell. But that was one recipient of a letter that would be reading it. Now, thousands, goodness knows how many, are seeing all those mistakes. And I would guess you'd try hard not to make the mistakes, except that time is of the essence. And some people are tweeting all the time. And if they stopped and made sure that everything was spelled correctly, they wouldn't have any other time in the day.

That's right. Let's talk briefly about what happened on March 14th, 1987. And we'll just touch upon this, whatever you're comfortable with. I know you've been asked about this day like probably a million times, and you're probably sick of talking about it.

But we're just going to address it. So basically, maybe I'll play the clip, but maybe you can just set it up really quickly. What was happening? The Flames were playing the Leafs, and it ended early, and then they switched over to the Flyers and Canadians, which was for the third period, and I guess it was going to overtime. Tell me, so tell me what, before I play the clip, set it up here,

and then we'll talk about it briefly. Well, it shouldn't surprise you that, in my mind, live television and the broadcast of a game should probably start at the beginning and end at the end and not sooner. Certainly, if you have people watching a game, although they didn't see the Philly-Montreal game across the network in its entirety, if they see it tied up and they're ready for overtime and then you tell them you're not going to be able to show overtime because, sorry, we have to leave, it's 11 o'clock at night. And the reason for leaving the game in midstream, as it were, was that the New Democratic Party of Ontario

had just announced a new leader. And the rest of the country actually saw the Flintstones. Really? You should know. I did not know. So it wasn't all that important for anybody other than Ontario, and the people in the rest of the country made their feelings known that this was a decision that almighty Toronto, or Ontario anyway,

central Canada was making for itself itself and never mind anybody else. But earlier in the day the CBC had done the same thing to a curling match that was an important playoff match at the Briar. A couple of rocks to go. Sorry we have to leave. I was watching with Bob Cole and Bob gets angry at the best of times. Newfoundland was playing BC. I was living in Vancouver at the time,

so I had interest in the BC rink. He had interest in the Newfoundland rink, and we didn't see the match conclude on TV. So that was frustrating enough. The same thing happened later at night in the hockey broadcast and hockey night in Canada. And what I did was express frustration, I guess is the best way to put it, that this was happening again. I didn't think it should ever happen. I really hoped from that day on that it would never happen again. And I think it happens far less, um, ever since because people realize how basically dumb it was, uh,

at the time for a network to do this and just shrug its shoulders and say, you know, this is, this is our policy. This is what we do. Um, that's, that's a longer version that I'd intended, but, um, yeah, it was live television. Sometimes you don't have a chance to gather yourself. And at the moment, I was told, you know, I was asking a question on camera, in fact, can we go back?

Can we end in a commercial? Can we go back and see the end of the game? No, sign off. And I said what I said after hearing that. Okay, let's play the short clip of it happening on March 14th, 1987. And then I have a brief clip. Ron McLean was here a couple of months ago

sitting in that chair. And he talks about being in the room when this happened. And there's a short clip of him. And then I have a couple of Twitter questions about it. You know what? I did open up the Twitter. What questions do you have for Dave Hodge? And a high percentage of the questions

were about the pen flip, but like in awe of this moment which uh for some reason resonates to this day well I'll explain why why I think that is but um go ahead and let's let's hear the let's hear the clips now uh Montreal and the Philadelphia Flyers are currently playing overtime. And are we able to go there or not? We are not able to go there. That's the way things go today in sports and this network. And the Flyers and the Canadians have us in suspense and will remain that way until we can find out somehow who won this game or who's responsible for the way we do things here.

Good night for Hockey Night in Canada. who won this game or who's responsible for the way we do things here. Good night for Hockey Night in Canada. Now, before I play the Ron McLean clip, you can't see that. This is a podcast, but you flip your pen. It's pen or pencil? Is it a pen? It was a pen, yes. You flip your pen in the air. Let's hear Ron McLean briefly here.

And I was there. I was at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. I was in what we call the client room, Mike, just around the corner from the studio. I watched the whole... Doug Sellers, God love him, is no longer with us. Doug died at 50 playing hockey down in California. But Doug was the point person who was having to say to Dave, Dave said, don't put me on. Please just go off the air and make it look like some kind of a mistake that we were cut off. But let's not have Hockey Night in Canada tarnished with the same brush that already the curling producers and people are.

So he was begging Doug not to put him on camera. And Doug was saying, Dave, you know, you're our guy. You have to make this somehow palatable for the viewer and sort of get us off the hook here. It is bonus coverage. It wasn't like they watched the Flyers Canadians all night. Right. And he just, yeah, it was a good

Like a last straw type of. Amazing thing to watch. It was the last straw. He, he, like Dave would be better to explain that. Yeah, I gotta get him in here. I think he was just tired and, and he, he, he felt, I mean, he, he was entirely right,

of course. And that's, that's what made Dave great. You know, he was always going to be the journalist first and foremost. So, but it was, it was a crazy scene. So then, uh, it happens just, I just was standing right outside the door where he delivered that little monologue. And then he comes roaring into the room where I am and he grabs his coat off the, you know, I'm sick of these guys making me look like an idiot. And, uh, and, uh, then somebody grabbed him. I forget who, and says, Dave, it's okay, we'll go back to the Harbour Castle Hotel,

which was a Hilton in those days, a Westin now, and we went, and I'll never forget this, Harry Neal and I drove in one car, and Dave Hodge went down in another, and there was probably about five or six of us at the little bar at the Harbour Castle, and Harry Neal at one point turned to me while we were having our beer, and he said, Ron, you should work on your relationship with Don Cherry. He says, that I think is going to be your ticket.

Does Ron have it right there? Yeah, well, that's another way of saying, I think this guy over here is getting fired and you're getting his job. So, um, um, which Ron kind of already had sort of, but, um, yeah, that's, uh, that's the way it went. I'm not, I'm not sure. I'm not sure I said much after I picked up my coat other than I probably had a look on my face that knew I wasn't going to be back in that, in that studio again, although that that's, that was still to be determined. I mean, I played out in the next few days with basically CBC said, you know, we're not happy with what you did. And I said, well, that's, you know, that's up to you. But I

said, I hope you've taken some kind of stock of the viewer's reaction because they, I told you, Mike, earlier before we started that I probably should want to talk about this because it may have been in some ways my finest moment. It's the only moment I can think of that has never been criticized by anybody who was watching except the powers that be at the CBC. And why would any viewer sit there and go, oh, this is okay, we don't mind this,

let's see the Flintstones, or let's see who the new NDP leader was. I'm not suggesting that wasn't important, but all things in due time. And when you're doing live sports, some things, other things have to wait. So it was, in the end, it was the CBC saying, you know, we'll fly you back and you come and see the head of sports and some other executives at the CBC and you apologize for what you did. And we'll go back to where we started. And I said, I have absolutely nothing to apologize for. Again, ask the viewers if they need my apology and I'll apologize to them. But I said,

I don't think you'll find one that is demanding that. So basically, I said, I refuse to apologize. And they said, well, you're suspended. And I said, when am I going to work next? And they said, we're not sure. And I said, well, if you're not sure when I'm working next, and I'm not sure when I'm working next, I will take this opportunity to decide that I have been fired. And there was another network covering NHL games at the time. And five minutes later, I had a job with them so not to say I was real pleased at leaving hockey night in Canada but

16 years was a long time I enjoyed all of it and um well somebody said hey you could still be there today I went I think that would be difficult that is really really overstaying your welcome. I mean, I'm 25 years now at TSN, and that seems like a long time, especially when I put it next to the 16 years at HockeyNet. I'm really happy and proud of the different things I've done, and I really do say that every change has been positive. I know it's an old cliche, you know, one door closes and another opens, but I think that that's helped keep me alert and alive and fresh and interested. And I've done various things at TSN, obviously. You don't need to be changing employers to change

tasks. And I need to be kept fresh. Well well brian this kind of answers brian carstairs a twitter question uh he wants to know if you regret flipping the pencil in the air which is actually a pen but uh or has it worked out for the best yeah no i and i would never say i regret anything that I did on the air, live, because if you're going to second guess stuff that you do in that situation, you'll drive yourself crazy. You have to realize that you're there, the microphone is on, the cameras are on, everything's hot. You say what you say. Obviously, I would hope I never swear. But if that happened, I would be entirely at fault. And, you know, I wouldn't blame anybody else. I think I'm responsible for everything I do. And no, I don't regret for a minute what I did, because I was being myself. I was reacting to the very frustration that I had

that I knew or sensed that the viewers would have too, especially because we'd all had it, those who were watching the curling earlier in the day. And if this had been the only example of that on that day, maybe I wouldn't have reacted quite the same. But I reacted the way I reacted, and you can't take it back I dropped my iPhone on the floor a brand new one the other day

and it didn't have a case on it yet to protect it and boy I swore that day but that was entirely my fault and what are you going to do? Tor Habsfan sounds like an oxymoron but it's not Tor Habsfan on Twitter asks are youoron but it's not Tor Habsfan on Twitter asks

are you surprised that people still talk about the pen flip and that to many it's one of the great moments in sports broadcasting? I don't know that it's that I wouldn't thank you but I don't really think it qualifies as far as that goes I mean it's

a moment that proves that live television can produce almost anything of an unexpected variety, and that's why I love, love, love, love anything I do. It needs to be live if at all possible. So the reporters on TSN at times needs to be taped just for logistical purposes and in the studio scheduling purposes.

But I'm always fighting to be live because you're better that way. The show has a greater energy. And you can react, you know, at a moment's notice to some news that might be breaking in the middle of the show. So I'm always wanting to be live and I'll never regret anything that happens to me that happens live. I've had lights go out in the studio. What do you do then? Well, you go to commercial or you make a joke that the world's ending and I'm right where I'd want to be if that's happening, sitting in a TV studio.

You got to, you know, you got to think on your feet and live television makes you and helps you do that. Last question on this topic. And then, as you mentioned, right away, you're scooped up by Canwest Global to host their NHL coverage. But so before we get to that, Richard just wants to know if you kept the pen that you flipped. But I'm going to say no, you didn't keep that pen. Well, no, there's an interesting story to that. I was asked on the plane back to Vancouver the next day by people who had seen it, do you still have the pen?

And I said yes. And they said, could we have it? And I said, maybe I should hold on to it. I didn't have any real value. I've had to think on my feet and say, do I want to keep it or do I not? And a gentleman from a hotel chain in Vancouver, in Vancouver, based in Vancouver, said we could auction that pen for charity. And I said, that sounds to me like an interesting idea. So the pen wound up in the Pan Pacific Hotel's possession. They auctioned it at charity, and the bidder donated it back to the hotel where it could be framed and shown in the lobby.

I'm sure it's not there now. But for a while, it had its place of prominence. The people could see it and read a small inscription. And I thought, yeah, why shouldn't the pen get its own dose of fame? Yeah, that's funny. Okay, now, so before we get to Ken West Global, because I totally, we didn't mention this, but it should be noted that you were doing Argos Games radio broadcasts,

like from 74 to 80, sounds about right? About right, yes. And a quick question from Twitter. His name, he goes by the name Toronto Boris. I think he stole that from me, Toronto Mike, but that's okay. Ask about what should the Argos do to change or alter their current strategy

to regain a larger foothold in the Toronto market? So I think he's a big Argos fan who's a bit concerned about the turnout at BMO. I don't know that the Argos by themselves can do anything other than try to be as good a team on the field as possible, try to make the game day experience as good as it can be. I'm not sure I shouldn't comment on the tailgating

because I haven't been there. Obviously, the idea is a good one. Whether it's pulled off properly, I'm not sure. the tailgating, because I haven't been there. Obviously, the idea is a good one. Whether it's pulled off properly, I'm not sure. The marketing of the team, the publicity that the Argos generate, they do their best. I'm sure they do their best, and I'm not sure their best is good enough because, in my mind, where the Argos used to be huge news with anything that they did I mean I can remember on the radio if the Argos cut a player it would be the lead item

almost invariably they you know they've cut this fullback from Rutgers and you know they've signed somebody from Ohio State that would shock the young people listening. It would be shocked because right now anything they do, it would have to be even getting a top name like Ricky Ray as a quarterback. That might break the news, but it's still going to be like number four or five. Anything that the Argos did to their roster, are they keeping a Canadian wide receiver? Are they using an import? But they had 50,000 people at the games,

at the Canadian National Exhibition, Exhibition Stadium, to watch a horrible team. I mean, the years that I did the games, you got, you had to, had to, you got the chance to broadcast playoff games, whether or not your team, so-called, whether the Argos were in the playoff game or not. So I did every playoff game for semifinal and final in the East and some Grey Cups during

that time. Only once did I do an Argos play-by-play playoff game. And the fact that it was only one means they lost it. Because if they'd won it, there'd be another one that year. So they weren't a good team'd be another one that year. So they weren't a good team, but they still sold out. If there were 50,000 people, I'm telling you, 30,000 of them had radios sitting in the stands hanging on every word, not mine but more Mel Profitt, who was as revered and as popular a color commentator of sports in this city as anybody I can remember.

Mel was obviously a very popular player. Hollywood good looks, you know, 6'5", flowing blonde hair, California beach guy, and had opinions that came from anywhere and everywhere. and had opinions that came from anywhere and everywhere, and people just had to hear what Mel was saying about games, such as the Argos, Mel decided one day must have drawn their game plan on the head of a pin. And his other great, great line was, in those days when you cut, when you cut, you know, five players and brought in five new ones, uh, and juggled your roster like that,

they would call it an airlift. I guess maybe they still do. I don't know. But that was the, that was the term Argo airlift. And the Argos didn't like the fact that, um, that it was being described as an airlift. And they said, no, no, this is selective recruiting. And Mel said, if that's selective recruiting, so was World War II conscription.

That's a great line. And he had opinions like that that the Argos generally didn't like, but there was no bigger Argo fan than Mel Profitt. In fact, I had to tell him, Mel, it is not we, it is they. Right. We're talking about the Toronto Argonauts. I know you played for them, but you don't play for them anymore. So when he was fired, the only case I could make for Mel,

or the best one, was you're firing the biggest fan you got. And I'm not sure that's wise, especially as popular as he was. I had them talked into backtracking and keeping them on, but Mel was the kind of guy when, you know, you only fire him once. I'm out of here. If they didn't like me the first time, you're not going to talk them into liking me again. So that led to Pete Martin, who was a great partner for a lot of years. And I'm not sure anybody could have followed Mel, but in my mind, Pete was the perfect replacement. Okay, so I got Mark Hebbshire from Sportsline, he tells me that you were, it was Harold Ballard who had you fired from your gig at Global.

Is that how, would you agree with him? Is he right? I hadn't heard this before. As far as I know, yeah, at least it was, or others in the Leafs organization deciding to blame Harold and Harold being happy to take the credit. Harold wasn't well at the time, so I always wondered whether he really cared enough about things like this.

He was fighting for his life, really. But he was ultimately responsible, I guess. And I did commentaries at the time, and the Leafs were horrible. Again, I do think I hexed some of these Toronto teams that I followed around for all the years. I shouldn't take credit, but it has been put on me that maybe I had something to do with it. Anyway, I did a commentary, again, live. Maybe I had something to do with it. Anyway, I did a commentary again live, and I said, you know, in the past however many years,

the Leafs have had this many goalies, this number of captains, this number of coaches, this number of general managers, and the number of owners was one. And I signed off. And that obviously, without needing to say any more, could be perceived as a criticism of the one owner who supervised all of those other changes in a losing organization. So yeah, I was told my services there were no longer required, and that was the end of that. I had a contract, I sued, and eventually there was a settlement.

I sued, and eventually there was a settlement. Too bad, because I remember those Leafs teams of the mid to late 80s, and they were awful, awful teams. Again, the viewer, in my mind, and this sounds kind of corny, that you're there for the viewer, but I never thought I was there for the team that I happened to be covering. I wasn't there for the sponsor. I was happy the team existed. I was happy there were advertisers to put the broadcast on the air. But the minute, in my mind anyway, the minute I thought the viewer wasn't of utmost importance, then I'm not doing my job the way I think I should be doing it.

So if you have me there and you're employing me to talk about the Leafs, to analyze them, to try to tell the viewers what's going on in the organization, what's the worst part of it that leads to the losing record and what might happen to make the team better, and to solicit those ideas from others that I worked with, then that's what I had to do. And if I had insights that I thought were productive, then I had to voice them. Because to sit there and go, well, maybe I shouldn't say that is to say, well, if you're at home and you see somebody on the air, uh, trying to tell, uh, his version of what's going, going wrong, and he's not really saying much, then you don't

respect that person and you're not, you're not really being served the way you think you should be. So at all times, yeah, if I, if I know something, if I think I know something, if I have an opinion, then that's what I'm there to do is express it. And sure, I'm sure there's teams to this day and certainly along the way that wish I didn't take that approach. And I was called on the carpet a few times, and don't you realize that if this team wins, things are better for you. And I said, of course.

But you must realize that with all of these losses, if I hang my head and I perform on TV as badly as you're performing on the ice, I don't have a job. You know, you're firing coaches because the team is that bad. There are going to be announcers fired if they sort of take the same approach. So I have to worry about making as good a telecast as I can, regardless of the team's record. And if that means there are things that I say that bother you, then this gets a little cheeky, but win more games. Now, for the sake of time, I'm going to kind of bump us up to the TSNs,

the reporters, which I want to talk about. But in the interim, you do a lot of different things. I mean, you're on the Canadian Football Network. You're doing Minnesota North Star television broadcasts. There's some Canucks activity on BCTV. Like you're back, you know, hosting NHL entry drafts. Like you're, you're, you're back, uh, you know, hosting NHL entry drafts.

Like you're doing lots of things, but you end up at TSN in 1992. And if it's okay with you, as I introduced the reporters, I'm going to play like a brief clip of Steve Simmons, who was on here recently talking about the reporters. And we'll talk about that, that great show. It was great.

Um, yeah. And TSN, speaking of TSN, so you, the reporters with Dave Hodge, speaking to Ron McLean, he was in here recently and I,

we, we replayed the, the pen flip and I said, you know, we talk about the bat flip all the time where I want a t-shirt with the pen flip, the Dave Hodge pen flip. But what was it?

What's it like a reporters? I feel every Sunday or not Sunday anymore, it's now Mondays, like the dumbest kid in the class. I have Dave Hodge sitting on one side of me, and Dave Hodge, I won't say that he's brilliant, but he is so smart, and he is so focused and intelligent and on point. And his expectation of you is to be that way. And I've got Michael Farber sitting in the seat beside me, former Montreal Gazette columnist, former Sports Illustrated writer,

who if he's not the smartest guy in the business, I don't know who is. The words, every show I'm in, the words that come out of his mouth, I have to go home and then look them up. And beside him is Bruce Arthur, who might be as smart, if not smarter, than the other two guys. Every show I'm in, the words that come out of his mouth, I have to go home and then look them up. And beside him is Bruce Arthur, who might be as smart, if not smarter, than the other two guys.

And there's me sitting there, and I'm there, I think, because I'm emotional, and I'll argue with them, and I always have a different point of view, and I have a perspective, and I know my sports. And so it's a wonderful group to work with. And I'm proud as heck to have been 14 years doing this show. And I think I'm the only surviving from the original panel.

The original panel was Stephen Brunt and Damian Cox, who have since moved on to other places. But, you know, it's a real treat of a show to do. TSN has been great to us. They bring us on when trade deadline's happening. They bring us on when July 1st for free agency day. And they let us explore things that otherwise don't get explored on either TSN or Sportsnet or the radio stations really in any depth. And that's what I love about doing the show. First of all, he could have just called you brilliant.

You notice how he pulled that back? He was going to call you brilliant. He pulled that back. That's fine. I'm not sure that applies to me either. The other adjectives, you know, focused and on point and all of that. I'll take credit for that. But no, I don't think what we do is brilliant or some of the writing that those guys do could be brilliant.

Anyway, he's quite right that we have a high standard of how we do things. And I used to watch way back when the reporters on ESPN and TSN actually called me to a meeting and said, we think we're going to do our own version of the reporters. And I said, well, I think that's a good idea. I'm a big fan of the show and especially at the time of Sunday morning television, there wasn't a whole lot else, although I did love to watch and still do the news magazines on the U.S. networks. And they said, well, we're going to, you know, Stephen and Damien and Steve Simmons are, you know, we're thinking of as a reporter, but we can't, do you have any idea who might be a good host? thinking of as a reporter, but we can't, we, do you have any idea who might be a good host? And I said, well, I could give you a few names. And they said, well, we're really stuck. I said, well, maybe I'll just give you one. Well, what, who? I said, me. You, you would be interested in doing that? I said, absolutely. I said, I was a big fan of the, of the ESPN show and I'd love a

chance to, to do our own version and, um version and try some different things and obviously make it much more Canadianized. The ESPN show was still on TSN at the time so we could have them back to back or do it as you wish. So yeah, it was a terrific idea by me to have me as the host. So you are brilliant, come on. Well, they didn't say no. And all these years later, that's my suppertime meal. The reporters keeps me going. And we've had bumps along the way.

I think in many ways we wish we were still a Sunday show, but this industry is undergoing There's still a Sunday show, but this industry is undergoing lots of changes for lots of reasons, and a lot of them are in the financial column. So it was getting too expensive and too cumbersome to do the show on Sunday, and the show was actually probably going to end unless we found a solution to move it to Monday. So we're still on, and that's the good part. A lot of our Sunday audience wishes we were still back on Sunday, but as I explained at the time, the Sunday morning thing made you look ahead to the final round of the Masters

or the U.S. Open tennis or whatever else was going on, and obviously there's a lot more going on Sunday mornings than ever was the case before. And Monday gives us a chance to react to all of that that happened a day earlier. And so there's a lot more material for us this way than there was. And there's a lot of news being made on Mondays as the week starts. Not much news was ever made on Sunday mornings, although I guess the biggest scoop we ever had, not a scoop, but the biggest bulletin that we ever had in the middle of a show

was Dion Phaneuf's trade to the Leafs. And there were a couple of others. Ken Hitchcock was fired by Philly, maybe, on a Sunday morning. So things happen, but not as much as happens on Mondays. I think The Reporters is a fantastic show, because I like it when you kind of drill a little, give us a little depth, you know, give us a little real meat. And it could, you know, it could be in many people's minds an hour.

We've talked about that from time to time. The network hasn't bitten down and said, yeah, let's do an hour. But I think we could. There's an argument that the pace of the show is better shorter and that we might well drag at an hour, but that's not the most important thing going. Keep us on the air for 30 minutes is the way to go. When I had Steve Simmons coming over, I got so many notes, emails and tweets and comments. Basically, oh, I love your show, but I'm going to opt out of that one.

I can't stand that guy. For some reason, except for Marty York, I think Steve Simmons was the guest that sort of had the most... People just don't... Some people, a lot of people love Steve Simmons. I happen to like Steve Simmons quite a bit, and I love his notes column in The Sun, and I read him quite a bit.

But some people just can't stand the guy. I think he works well in The Reporters, too, for maybe that very reason that he's an emotional guy. Well, he's opinionated and he is fearless. Just the last reporter show we did, I think, his thumbs script comment was critical of Brooke Henderson for the way she dealt with the media

and, you know, in certain situations, I think both at the Rio Olympics and also at the Canadian Open in Alberta. Now, there aren't many Canadian athletes more popular today than Brooke Henderson or more successful. So it takes guts. And she's 18. It takes guts to say anything that could be perceived as critical of Brooke Henderson.

But Steve knew what he was talking about. He'd been there. He'd seen it. He thought it was important. He wishes she behaved differently and hopes that she will behave differently. Now, how important that is to anybody else, do they care?

I don't know, but this is what he's there for and this is what we're all there for. If we see something that attracts our attention, positive or negative, and we think it's worthwhile to say, then we say it. So good for Steve, and I think that's what people both like and don't like about him. I think they watch our show because in many cases they don't like Steve Simmons. That attracts them because how's he going to make me mad today?

Right, like the Howard Stern effect. At least he's not, you know, you can find Bland elsewhere. We want to see what this guy says, what he's prepared to say. How brave is he to criticize? What's he going to say about Phil Kessel this time? Well, and he and he take anybody on and that's fine. And he, and he'll, you know, he'll walk into the office of, of John Gibbons or, or Mike Babcock or, you know, Masai Ujiri, anybody that he has criticized in print and ask them to

their face for their reaction to what he said. Do you have an update on this thing I wrote about? Well, yeah, I didn't like what you wrote. Well, I'm here to have you tell me why and further inform me if I need more facts. I don't know a lot of people who are willing and able to do that. Dave Perkins I respect greatly. And in his days at the Toronto Star, he was always there to back up anything he wrote in print and have the person whom he criticized feel free to criticize him.

He took it all, and you give it give it you take it all of that stuff. I'm not sure I'm not sure there are that many of those kinds of people around in our business anymore but Steve is one of them. I don't think you can get away with it too often in this business today. Yeah you're right though there's not a lot of guys left to kind of tell it like it is even if it's unpopular. Well and I mean I've seen a lot of you know in 50 though. There's not a lot of guys left to kind of tell it like it is, even if it's unpopular. Well, and I mean, I've seen a lot of, you know, in 50 years, obviously, I've seen a lot of things change. When I first started, maybe the worst thing you could call me was a homer. And everybody that I worked with in those days just would do anything to avoid being called a homer. There are, for better or worse, lots of homers now.

I don't think the audience minds that much, certainly not as much as I thought they did back then. And I think there are, I'll say Joe Bowen wouldn't mind being called a homer. He's proud of it. Yeah, holy mackerel, he's proud of that. This is what I do. I don't apologize for a minute. Bless you, boys. Yeah, he's proud of it. Yeah, holy mackerel, he's proud of that. This is what I do. I don't apologize for a minute. Bless you, boys.

Yeah, he's over the top. This is it. That would never be me, but I can recognize the fact that I think things have changed. Now there's lots of money to be made, more money to be made as a, shall we say, team spokesman. Back in those days, you know, there were broadcasters slash journalists and there were team public relations guys.

And in today's world, a lot of the broadcasters slash journalists might as well be called team spokesmen. And whether that would bother them if you identified them, some would probably say, no, that's not me. I think, you know, they'd probably be wrong. And others would say, yeah, yeah, I accept the way things are, and, you know, I have a job. I love to do it.

And if this is what the job entails. I think there's still audience members, I would hope anyway, who say to themselves, I'll decide who I cheer for and why I cheer for them. I don't need anybody on the television to lead my cheers. But then there are others who welcome the chance to say, we love, I won't use names, but we love listening to so-and-so and so-and-so because he loves the Leafs, Blue Jays, Argos, Raptors, or whatever as much as I do. And, you know, we're all in this together. That's fine. I'm not nearly as critical of Homerism as I used to be, but I am very definitely aware of the fact that I never want to be called that.

Part of the problem, if you will, is that TSN is owned by Bell and Sportsnet is owned by Rogers, and Rogers owns the Jays and Bell owns the Argos, and they both own the Leafs and the Raptors and the Marlies and TFC. So essentially all of the pro teams we have are owned by Bell or Rodgers or both. So, I mean, when the Rodgers Sportsnet airs every single Blue Jays game, which they do,

and yeah, there's a clear bias. It's not very well hidden that they're pro Blue Jays. You can hear it in what Pat Tabler says or Buck Martinez or Hazel May or whatever. But their paycheck is coming from the same place that Batista's paycheck is coming from. How can you get objectivity and can you even be a non-Homer in this new landscape, this new media landscape?

Is it possible? Oh, it's possible. Well, if you're Don Cherry, well, Don Cherry's actually a big, well, he's a big Leafs fan, but there seems to be certain people who can say stuff and get away with it. But those are the people who have decided that that's the way they want or need to do the job. And sure, you can do it. You may get fired. You may get criticized.

You may not be terribly popular with the team. But I've done it all my life, and I'm still working, and you can fire me again tomorrow. And if that's the reason I'm being fired, I'm not going to regret one minute what led to my firing. I think it's entirely possible. And, and I think the better course is to try it that way. But I also, as I say, I understand people who, who think that it's easier or it's preferable for them for whatever reason to, to look on the bright side of anything that happens with, with the team that they do. But a broadcast that never criticizes anything is not one that I want to hear. I mean, I won't get into too much detail

about the Blue Jays broadcast, but the other night there was a two-hopper into the third baseman of the Houston Astros, I believe, a two-hopper by Donaldson into this Alex Bregman's glove, as clear an error as you will ever see in a baseball game. If you've never seen a baseball game and somebody tries to explain the game as you're watching it, you will say, well, I guess that would be an example of an error.

Base hit. Like hometown scoring. And all I need is one announcer on that broadcast to say, Josh Donaldson just got the cheapest hit he's ever going to get in his life. Right, right. Because that's an error. But, you know, when you're not even prepared to criticize the hometown scorer, it's, yeah, that broadcast at that moment was empty for me,

and I need more than that. Not too long ago, when Cito Gassett was back for his second tour of duty managing the Jays, Mike Wilner criticized, I think the way he used the bullpen or something, and he's been on the show a few times and I've asked him straight out. They didn't tell him why but right away he's given a suspension.

To me if you work there's only so many media jobs and you want to feed your family and work in the media. There's not a lot of jobs out there. You're working for Balor Rogers or maybe you'll get a job but there's not too many jobs. Essentially you learn quickly to self-censor. It's not about getting a memo from the boss that says, don't criticize Blue Jay manager decisions. No, it's about what they'll all collectively, if they can't, unless their name is Greg Zahn, they'll collectively self-censor because they'd

like to keep their jobs and they don't want to have to find another one because there's not many like it in this country. Well, there's always one more. Um, you know, if you want to accept a suspension, that's, that's your choice. Um, but you suspend me, uh, I'm quitting and I'm finding another, for that, you know, for that reason, sorry. Um, you know, I'm I'm here to criticize whatever I think needs to be criticized. And as long as I can back it up, I mean, that's the key. Well, that's integrity. Well, integrity and credibility are, you know, if I can achieve two things in my career and somebody can use the words integrity and credibility to apply to me, then I've done really all I set out to do and the rest is gravy. You can't, I don't think you shouldn't, criticize without any basis for that criticism because you don't like the way the guy combs his hair.

Therefore, he shouldn't be starting at shortstop or something like that. But if you have reason to point things out that amount to criticism, then the idea that maybe you're going to be suspended or fired and you shouldn't say it is completely at odds with the reason that you're in this business in the first place. So if that's the way you're going to react, then find another job in the beginning. And I'm like, really, what are you afraid of? You know, name me the job. I did Hockey Night in Canada.

You know, name me the job. I did Hockey Night in Canada. I don't think there was or is or ever will be, as long as the show continues in its form, a better or more prominent job for a sportscaster. I had it. I lost it. You know, was I going to, well, was I going to get on a plane and fly back to the CBC, walk into somebody's office and say, I'm really sorry for what I did? No. You know, it's just a job. Yeah, it's a good one,

but there are other good ones. Other networks aren't as many now as there were before as the industry shrinks. I can understand somebody saying, boy, I better not flap my wings too wildly or, you know, I won't be able to work here anymore and I can't work at the other place anymore and there only are two places. But, you know, at the end of the day, you have to, that's my least favorite cliche. How could I use that? When all is said and done, if you can look yourself in the mirror and say, I did what I thought was right and I didn't make factual errors, I didn't use sloppy work, I was always prepared, I knew what I intended to do and I did it, then the results after that are what they are. And I just, you know, I think that needs to be part of this business because if it vanishes, then we don't have anything close to what I thought I was entering.

You must know Stephen Brunt quite well from his time at The Reporters. Oh, sure. And he's a great, great writer, Many years. Earlier this year, he hosted, he put, I don't know if he was the host, definitely the voice, he put together, I think they called it a documentary, but it was basically a piece on Mark Shapiro.

I don't know if you caught it. Yes. I felt like you were tarnishing the integrity of somebody that you have on your roster of reporters who had a lot of currency when it comes to the two words you used, integrity and, in the other word, which is credibility. That's the word. It felt like that was a shill PR piece that don't taint his good name, that property of yours, Stephen Bruntunt with putting him on that i didn't think it

was a smart move by rogers or steven brunt to to do that well i don't i'm not sure steven had um had a lot of choice in the matter i mean if if they're coming to you and saying you're our you know you're our guy for things like this you you you are um you're you're best able to to write and voice this and research it. And I understand that. I mean, he's on their payroll, and he's a highly qualified, popular guy, very successful. You know, in one sense,

why would you look beyond a person of that caliber to do anything? You know, you tap him on the shoulder, you're saying, oh, this must be important. Would Stephen have preferred not to do it? I honestly didn't talk to him about it. I don't think that's a conversation I want to have or maybe he would want to have with me. But saying all of this, it doesn't mean that, you know,

you have to find the worst kind of low level flack in the building because it's a piece about Mark Shapiro. Whether the piece would have been different if someone had done it with a different approach than Stephen took? Yeah, perhaps. And the need to, you know, to introduce Mark Shapiro to the audience and to personalize him more than just the name, however it is pronounced, is important.

I mean, the guy's, you know, he's a leading executive of a very popular team, and he's important to everything that goes on with the Blue Jays. So it's not like you're going to put him over in the corner and say, sorry, we can't talk to you or feature you on TV because it might tarnish the reputation of the person that we assign to this. But, yeah, there's, you know, and hey, somebody else

on a different network, I'm not saying ours, could decide to go up one side of Mark Shapiro and down the other. And that's a different, that's a different feature. And it's one that I wouldn't expect Rogers to do. Something, a little bit of this and a little bit of that, it would probably be my, my choice. And honestly, I'm not familiar enough with the approach Stephen took. But I'm guessing he wasn't gushing for five minutes or however long it took for Mark Shapiro. And you know what?

I haven't made up my mind about Mark Shapiro and the organization that he's helped build since he got here, the changes that he's made, the players that have moved on and have been signed and traded for, I think the jury's still very much out. Obviously, there's some successes, and there's some other moves that probably haven't worked out, but that would be the case under any leadership.

I think the guy, from the start, I thought he, like anybody else, deserved a break. And let's see what he's all about before we criticize him. He was moving in and taking the place of very popular people. And it's only natural that he would have to prove himself. And he's in the process of trying to do that. And I don't think my verdict certainly hasn't been rendered yet. Did the Red Sox win last night?

Yes. Okay, so we're tied right now, I guess, in the L.A.s. Deborah Walk wants to know if Jays are going to win it all this year. What does your crystal ball say? Well, if winning it all means the World Series, no. I think it's only logical that the Cubs win the World Series. Listen to me. They're due.

Listen to me. But if not now, never. So, yeah, I would think the Cubs are the best, the most balanced team, the team best capable of winning the World Series. But I can see them beating the Blue Jays in the World Series. I think the Blue Jays can win the American League, in the World Series. I think the Blue Jays can win the American League,

though any of five teams that qualify are probably capable of winning the American League. I would say Jays, probably Boston, Cleveland, assuming that Baltimore and Texas are going to be the other two teams, maybe in that order. Why would I not like Texas? I just don't think they have pitching. I know they have the best record in the American League, but you could get me talking all day about baseball, you know.

I love baseball. Do you know that? People see me as a hockey person, and I have to prove that that's's probably not my favorite sport and that sounds sacrilegious but hockey for all my years was probably more work than fun because not not that it wasn't fun work but it's what I did for a living and, I covered some baseball too, but I was able to be a baseball fan, certainly before the Blue Jays arrived, and not care who I cheered for or who knew who I cheered for. But I always had to try to prove that I didn't care who won hockey games because I didn't

think it was a real good idea that people identified me as a fan of this team or that team. But baseball, I could go home and go to a ball game or go and watch baseball on television and be a fan much more than a broadcaster. And I just, you know, I love the sport itself, and my kids played it more than any other sport, and I think I know more about baseball than any other sport. That will appeal to all the critics who don't think I know much about hockey.

But no, I probably know and understand baseball inside out more than hockey. Interesting. Now, second last question. Almost done here, but second last question is, the World Cup of Hockey is starting soon. Do you care? I'm trying to get into it, but to's to me, the, it's not like in the Olympics, for example, I'm really into Canada's games at the Olympics, like appointment viewing, clinging every moment. It seems big and like, I don't have that feeling for this world

cup. It feels a little manufactured to me. And they introduced a couple of teams that aren't even country. They're the young guns or whatever for North America and then the rest of Europe. Well, that's a, yeah, that's a one-time gimmick that if the World Cup survives, you're not going to have to worry about anymore. And as a gimmick, I suppose it works. We'll see. I think the World Cup has possibilities. And what probably has to happen is that the Olympics have to go away, as far as the NHL is concerned. As long as they both exist, the attitude will be much the way you've presented it, that, okay, the World Cup is a little brother to the big Olympic tournament that we all know and love.

In which you have to win, right? To me, with the Olympic tournament, we need to win gold. This matters. But if we didn't win this World Cup thing, I might shrug it off. Well, it wasn't the Olympics. However, you can never... You'll never lose a bet

by saying that international hockey at this level is going to be a flop or is going to be ignored. I know at the start people can say, I don't know if I can get into this or not. At the end, they're always into it. If it's Canada against Russia, the U.S., whatever.

So I'm not going to be the guy who's smarter than that and say that this time people are going to ignore the World Cup. And the World Cup, if it's done properly in the future, can be better than the Olympics in terms of the way the tournament is structured, how many teams are in it. I mean, a lot of Olympic hockey is pretty boring because you've got teams that don't belong there, or you've got teams that are mismatched and you know you're watching 15 to 1 games if you you know the world cup can be you invite who you want and it can be six teams it could be eight teams whatever but it's you know the best and it winds up taking the place

of the olympics and and being a better run tournament than the Olympics. A, you don't have the IOC to deal with. I think the NHL and the NHLPA are much better qualified to run a hockey tournament than the IOC because I've seen stuff at Olympic hockey tournaments that make me shake my head and go, you know, let's get past this and get on to quarterfinals and semifinals and, you know, games that really matter and formats and playoff designs that people can understand. So I'm not all that down on the World Cup. And let's see. Let's see how well it does, and let's see what happens to the Olympics.

As long as both exist, though, you're right. The Olympics are going to be the one that captures everybody's attention, the one you put it very well. Yeah, we have to win that. Yeah, we probably don't have to win this. It would be nice to win this. But no, there won't be any long investigation if Canada doesn't win its own World Cup.

And I say that to you, and then I realize if I know, I don't know, Saturday afternoon, Canada is playing, I don't know, we'll say Russia. Canada's playing Russia. Of course I'm going to try to watch that game. I want to see Sidney Crosby, and I want to watch, you know, Dowdy and everybody. Of course I'm going to watch.

But we'll see how it goes. Well, it's more than just watching exhibition hockey. The time of the year isn't ideal either. I mean, this is, you know, we're in a baseball pennant race. That's it. The NFL is starting and all of that. And in the future, if the NHL decides not to go to the Olympics and to make the World Cup its true world event,

then I would hope that it is conducted in the middle of the season. If the NHL was willing to break its schedule for the Olympics, it ought to be willing to do that for the World Cup as well. Right, because then they get the cashless checks themselves. Peter Mansbridge just announced, you know, he's ending, I guess he's going to go until July 1st, 2017. So he gave us a good 10-month heads up. So my question to you, Dave Hodges,

will you pull a man's bridge and sort of give us a heads up that you're retiring? Are you just going to one day just disappear from the airwaves? I don't know is the best. No, I think the victory tour, and I hear David Ortiz say he wishes he had not done it quite this way. Not that he hasn't had a successful season. It hasn't bothered him one bit.

Maybe he's tired down the stretch, and it's going to show up later in September in the playoffs. But he's worn out. All of this, I mean, the season is going to take its toll on a guy of that age. And everything else attached to the impending retirement, I think, has got him now realizing that he probably should have spent more time worrying about baseball and not about talking about retirement or doing retirement-type things. So it wouldn't appeal to me to announce it ahead of time or even maybe on the air. I don't know. I hate I don't know as an answer, but since I'm not there yet, I do not know. So yeah, you could either do the

Derek Jeter or you could do the Tim Duncan. So I like to think, you know, Tim Duncan is the cool way to go. But I just wondered if you'd give us all kind of a heads up that say goodbye. No, well, it's going to be, you know, probably going to be evident. I do not plan to be there forever. So you could probably guess that guess that uh take it put a pin in a date a couple years from now and you might have a heads up you like lowest of the low absolutely speaking of 90s he was on the show very recently great convo love that band yeah um i you can't probably name me a band that i don't know or like um but you could try that too what about ubiquitous synergy seeker would you listen to a band like that or is it

too did i uss no see look i did it you did it i did it by the way it's been an absolute pleasure uh walking down memory lane and talking about sports media today with you. That was amazing, so thank you for doing this. Well, and the music part that you started with was an ideal way to get us going. I'm going to put the Ballad of Wendell Clark back on my iPod for my next ride. And that brings us to the end of our 191st show. You can follow me on Twitter at Toronto Mike and Dave

is at TSN Dave Hodge. How often do you tweet by the way? Not very often I noticed. I go in fits and starts. My only rule is I need to be inspired

if that's the word. And if it doesn't pass that test, usually I'll say, you know, do I need to do this? If the answer is yes, I'll write it. But I can go for long periods of time and do nothing, and that's just, that's a sort of a silent protest against all that I don't like about Twitter.

I have a request. What if you did more music tweets, like bands you just discovered or songs you discovered linked to the YouTube? I would follow you just for the music. I do a little bit of that now. I guess I just don't think that TSN's Twitter account with my name on it is quite meant to be focused on music and not sports. Maybe I do, yeah.

If I had two different accounts, I could be two different people. Two different personas. No, I have a love-hate with Twitter, and when I see stuff I don't like, I say, if I was in a room with some of these people, I would leave. So when I'm not tweeting, that's what I'm doing. I'm leaving the room. That's a good idea. Oh, and our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. So when I'm not tweeting, that's what I'm doing. I'm leaving the room. That's a good idea.

Oh, and our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. See you all next week when my guest will be Ann Mruskowski, which is easier to say than spell. Thanks a lot. I wonder who Yeah, I wonder who Maybe the one who doesn't realize There's a thousand shades of gray Cause I know that's true

Yes I do I know it's true Yeah I know it's true How about you? Are they picking up trash And they're putting down ropes And they're brokering stocks

The class struggle explodes