Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Gord Stellick Returns: Toronto Mike'd #532

Episode Date: October 28, 2019

Mike catches up with Gord Stellick about all things Gord.

Welcome to episode 532 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, StickerU.com, Brian Master from KW Realty, Capadia LLP, CPAs and pumpkins after dark I'm Mike from torontomike.com and joining me this week is former general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs and that's how you'll be billed

for the rest of the week well it could be worse yeah no it's fine gourd, stellic you can cut the stellic-tricity in here with a knife Yeah, no, it's fine. Gourd. Stelic. You can cut the stelic-tricity in here with a knife. Well, I hope we have some stelic-tricity. I'm looking forward to chatting and rehashing and spinning old, new, and current yarns.

And that's rehashing. You're not going to smoke any hash in here. Definitely not. Definitely not. I'm not sure about all the laws, but definitely not. No. It's a good question. Like, that's legal, right? It's legal. Hash? All cannabis, yeah. Like, it's because that's cannabis.

I'm not afraid of the question. Don't get me wrong. I'm just, I'm not up on it. Okay. I'm not up on it either. I don't smoke anything, but... So just for the record, just so we're clear, Gord is not smoking a bowl of hash in my basement. No, but you know, back when I was GM or working with the Leafs, it was amazing that you'd go down and about a third of the team smoked

cigarettes, like hard to believe, like, you know, just nowadays with nutrition and sports science and all those things that you would go down and yeah. And so that was a, it was a different era. Well, I know when I was growing up, they used to say, oh, you know, Guy Lafleur smokes during the intermission. And I remember even at the time thinking that, oh, that's not a good idea for a hockey fan. Yes, yes, that's right, that's right.

I remember going to Maple Leaf Gardens as a boy. I remember maybe there was a teacher on staff with my mom who had seasons tickets. It was the first row of the Grays. So he would, for crappy teams like the Minnesota North stars or like crappy. And back then like Detroit Red Wings. So basically when Edmund came to town, he wasn't giving up the tickets,

but he would sell tickets for like lesser bands, like other Norris, basically other Norris division teams or whatever on week nights. So we would go like once or twice a year, I would get to go to the first row of the grays. And I still remember the smell of the marijuana when I was walking to Maple Leaf Gardens, like along, I guess, Long Carlton or...

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, well, no, it's funny. We had a neighbor named Mr. Bussey, who was a teacher, a principal, and he divvied up his gray tickets. And that was my first, like, buying a couple of gray seat tickets

to go to a Leaf game. And I would, you get out of College Station, there's the hot chestnuts yes and then you go inside and i get there right for the warm-up and the lights would go on i'd sit there just loving it soaking it all in but i remember more the cigarette smoke like you'd go up the aisle to the grays and you'd play first of all you'd be playing with those little hockey sticks that would break on you had a picture stapled on them and you know and you'd be playing and that would break in like one second flap but the cigarette smoke back when you could smoke was overwhelming do you remember when you could no longer smoke in maple leaf gardens like do you yeah i know i do because it it it was funny smoking just went out of being out of vogue

like overnight you know from all of a sudden just smoking in offices to being out in the shipping docks that's where you see them all the time. And then just from smoke, like if you sat quite often at a concert, never mind the marijuana smoke, but the cigarette smoke would be in your clothes. So it was really welcome, whatever the year was that it ended. And same thing on airplanes. Right, because I don't have any memories of smoking on air. Well, I didn't have a lot of flights as a kid, but I don't remember any, I don't remember smoking in Maple Leaf Gardens, like at least not in the stands.

Maybe they had a special room, right? Well, no, but yeah, you just could smoke in the hallways and stuff like that for a while. Yeah, people did not smoke in the stands. Man. For the record. We've come a long way, yeah. And no hash either in Maple Leaf Gardens.

Not sold at concessions. Okay, so Gord Stelic is joining me. And for the long, by the way, I told my wife, I said, Gord Stelic's coming over. And in her mind, I guess she was thinking Tom Selic. So it was a funny moment where we, you know, she thought Tom Selic, who apparently she's not that familiar with

because she thought Tom Selic might be coming over to do Toronto Mike. That would be amazing, right? I mean, no disrespect to you. Well know you're my tom selick met him once he um he he ted danson and michael and steven gutenberg were doing three men and a baby leonard nimoy uh directed that yeah okay so and they were at a leaf game and we went and gave them sweaters and they were all really nice guys and And then of all things, Ted Danson was in at CHFI doing something and Don Landry,

myself got him to come over because he used to, he is all the ocean awareness and all that he does, you know, like environmental stuff. And anyway, it turned out that was the only hockey game he'd been to. I said, I thought he was a big sports fan.

He said, no, that was the only game, that game at Maple Leaf gardens he ever went to. But I can remember being in Portland and booking at the Memorial Cup and booking a squash court somewhere. And the person said, Selleck?

I said, no, no, Selleck. Oh, still not that bad, you know? But anyway, that's when he was in his heyday. Oh, yeah, yeah. And he had the mustache and everything. And height. Magnum P.I. was a big bloody deal. Big deal. BFD as the kids say. It was a big bloody deal Big deal

BFD is the kid's name It was a great show Sure Back when there weren't 8,000 channels And Ted Danson I mean was and is a big deal Like he's still He does on this show called The Good Place

And he appears on like Curb Your Enthusiasm Like he's still making some great television I don't know what Tom's up to Well the Curb Tom's got that police show The Blue Bloods or whatever it is Oh I didn't know what Tom's up to. Well, Tom's got that police show, The Blue Bloods or whatever it is. Oh, I didn't know. I might have a touch.

It's like he's the patriarch of a police family. So he's got that show. But yeah, that Curb Your Enthusiasm, when everyone thought he was split from Mary Steenburgen. Yes. That was smart. That was it. Apparently they're happy as anything,

but they came back for eight episodes and that was a storyline. Yeah, because Larry was like, oh they're happy as anything, but they came back for eight episodes and that was a storyline. Yeah, because Larry was like, oh yeah, I remember now, Mary and Mary's mom and Larry David would go shopping when they were shy. I'm trying to remember now. That show makes me laugh, but okay.

So my wife, disappointing, I guess, that it's not Tom Selleck, but I think Gord Stelk is a more interesting guest, to be honest. I appreciate her candor. And Corey Mintz, I just want that it's not Tom Selleck, but I think Gord Stelkis is a more interesting guest, to be honest. I appreciate her candor. And Corey Mintz, I just want to say hi to Corey. Corey was actually scheduled for today.

He recently had a baby, like two weeks ago, and he bit off more than he could chew, as new parents do, and they're actually now in Winnipeg with some family helping them out with the new baby, and that's why he's not on the show. So, thank you for pinch-hitting for Corey Mintz. No problem. Thank you, new baby. And that's why he's not on the show. So thank you for pinch hitting for Corey Mintz. No problem.

Thank you, Gord. And this is key because this gentleman is such a big fan of Gord Stelic. I want to say happy 50th birthday to Murray. I was at his birthday party Friday night. Murray's a good boy. He was very excited to hear Gord Stelic was coming over. So happy 50th, Murray.

I echo that sentiment for sure. For sure. You going to sing for him? No, that was not part of the deal. Yeah, good. And while I'm getting some housekeeping out of the way, the Royal Pains, who played the first three Toronto Mike listener experiences,

Al from the Royal Pains is actually actively looking, putting together his best of Toronto Mike'd episodes 251 through 500. He's actively working on that. He's going to deliver the top 20 moments shortly. But Al is also the lead singer of the Royal Pains. They played their first ever concert in New Toronto. That's the neighborhood we're in now. And I attended it on Friday and they were fantastic.

I got a shout out. They played some Danko Jones and dedicated it to the show. And I also want to say hi to Toronto Mike listeners I met at this event. Moose Grumpy, Basement Dweller,

Michael Lang. See, they're all crazy names and then Michael Lang's a real name. James Edgar, Lieve Fumka, her husband Juan, and then, of course, Al from the Royal Pains. So I had a great time at the Royal Pains gig on Friday night. Gordie would have loved it.

They covered, like, just great cover band. I also like the neighborhood here. I like the whole sense about there's not franchises and the real sense of community. So I'll take your word on the music but uh i know we've had some baseball games down here with my son uh years ago or just whatever some neat little ballparks here so i like the community it's a that's very kind words now i think i'll stay i was considering moving but okay well there you go i'm not a real estate

agent either so we're fine we will hear from. Maybe we'll do it real quick since you mentioned real estate. Brian Master is a real estate agent, and I just wrote about this on Toronto Mic. Sorry, on Toronto Mic. This is Toronto Mic. The apostrophe D is for the podcast. And Brian has a message for us all. By the way, what radio station did you listen to

as a young man, as a kid? Well, MusicWise Chum and then 680, right? They would have been the two. So 1050 Chum. Okay, Gord, this is your orders next time you have a long commute or you have some time on your hands.

I did an episode a couple of weeks ago with a guy named Doug Thompson who was like... Do you know the name? Yeah, thompson really well he worked with telemedia he was buddies with john candy and he did the coast to coast shows and he yeah just sort of the there's so so many of these neat guys in radio that i never was really totally sure what they did oh he's like an imaging guy i want to well now he's an imaging i think he's like he's a put together yeah like imaging and different kind of specials and stuff. So I can't let you keep those.

Yeah. Don't worry. No, no, but, but, you know, I'll go down the rabbit hole sometime and look at the history of six 80 and

look at the history of chum and remember jungle Jay Nelson and, you know, all these kinds of guys from, you know, growing up. I remember Landecker has landed a two year experiment on six 80 and, uh, you know,

on and on that way. So, uh, and then you tried like the sports thing there wasn't i wish there was an all sports station when i was a kid yeah because you i could remember like after leaf games the phone-in show with dick bettos would be that'd be about all you'd get a bill stevenson it was an older crowd cfrb so i didn't really listen to those sports updates but that's uh that's the way it went there There was no all sports thing. These are great.

So those are, yeah, some chum charts. So where was I going with that? Yeah, so Doug Thompson came in. He has a website called chumtribute.com, I think. And it's like, he's basically trying to, you know, make sure we don't forget this amazing history as a top 40 station that chum is at 1050. So many of them died young.

I mean, I think there was a lot of working hard and playing hard in the industry back in those days. Right. And then we lost Tom Rivers, for example. Tom Rivers, who I actually remember listening to on CFTR. That's at 680. Tom Rivers would be 680, sure. Right.

But he left Chum. He was a morning show guy at 1050 Chum after Jungle J, I believe. Jungle J Nelson. In like 1980. he left uh chum he was a morning show guy at 10 50 chum after uh jungle jay i believe jungle jay nelson in like 1980 then then tom rivers comes back to chum because he was on chum previously but then he's a morning show on chum and then he quits i think and goes to 680 but okay where am i going with this except that you gourd need to listen to this uh tribute to chum episode i did with doug because we played like 22 vintage clips and we he gave us the history of the station like you'll love this thing so absolutely you got some homework here but on chum fm so not

on 10 50 chum but on chum fm there was a great dj named uh brian master well brian master is now a great real estate sales representative we're talking the same brian master that was on chfi then that's the same guy he uh he did our. He was the, yeah, he did our wedding in 1995 at King Valley. So Brian Master, I knew well enough. And my wife, Lisa, worked at Rogers way back when. So she knew Brian Master better. So he actually did the music at our wedding. What a small world, Ed.

I know. We're about to hear his voice. And here's Brian. Hi, it's Brian Master, sales representative with Keller Williams to Realty Solutions Brokerage. I like working by referral. I love working with people, finding out what they need and where they want to go. So every month I put out an item of value called the Client Appreciation Program. And this is really great material.

It's all about, well, for one thing, the way the real estate market is, but other things like, well, this month is how to turn your home into a smart home. We've also had things about how to throw a party on a budget, some travel tips. It's really great stuff. And it comes out once a month called the Client Appreciation Program. I'd love to get you on it. It's easy to do. Send me an email to

letsgetyouhomeatkw.com. And I'll send that out once a month via snail mail and follow it up with an email that's something related to the item of value. You can't miss. It's great information. It's something you can share with your friends. I'm Brian Master, sales representative with Keller Williams Realty Solutions Brokerage. Thrilled to be on Toronto Mic'd. And he did the Stellic wedding. That's correct, yeah. Amazing. And we're still married.

So he did a good job. Yeah. So there is no curse on hiring Brian Master to emcee your wedding there. Okay, fantastic. Now, I do need one more piece of housekeeping is that the last episode of Toronto Mic'd was with Humble and Fred. And it has generated a lot of

controversy, possibly. Like, there's been a lot of discussion about this episode. It's not your... Yeah, I did not hear the episode, but I'm aware it's like somebody walked out, or somebody stormed out, or you cut somebody off, or something like that. Something happened. So I'm just here to tell you, to make sure everybody knows

that, you know, how... Humble and fred people think humble and fred were pissed off about this question i played at the end and they may not have loved the question it was awkward the question but they weren't pissed off about that they were pissed they were each pissed off about something different so i'm just here to let the uh listenership know that we're fine you know we have a brunch date coming up howard's actually coming back on thursday to kick out the jams. Fred and I talked for a good half an hour after that episode. And, you know, I listened back, like, you know, to hear.

And it's a fascinating little episode. I would say it's, maybe I should not have played that question at the end. I still stand by my, you know, right to play it. I felt it was a fair question, but that's all up for debate but as the the the fact the real talk if you will like the the the candid discussions about streaming and how the radio is today and the different things we talked about the podcast humble and fred's podcast uh it was really a frank and very interesting discussion like this is two hours of very compelling content and i urge people to check it out. And again, we're fine.

We're not mad at each other. There's no fight here. Just sorry to disappoint everybody. Well, that's good to know. That's good to know. A little bit of an update here. Brian Angus writes in to say, when he found out Gord Stelic was returning to Toronto Mike,

he says, say hi to my old pal for me, Brian Angus. He was called Mumbles. Maybe he still is called Mumbles. He didn't really mumble either. I don't know why he was called Mumbles, but he was our morning show producer on Landry and Stelic, and he produced Pat Mars to me for that. And I know he does some golf aficionados,

so that's good to hear. You sit here and you reflect, and you realize how many great people you've come in contact with. But like, I think everybody out there, you kind of go, wow, it's been a long time. You know,

someone you saw every day, you haven't really seen for a decade. So it's possible. Brian is looking at you right now because we're on Periscope here. So he might be okay. And then right after that, someone, uh,

Elisa Hogan writes in to say basically she wants me to say hi to you as well she says me too hi to gourd and mumbles well so timing wise with mumbles so lisa hogan was head of promotions or like yeah she was head of promotions back in the old holly street days so we moved from holly street in 2002 to the big rogers empire and on top of doing an excellent job that way when you had a fan slow pitch team like you know slow pitch it's not a sexist thing but you want to try to find females that are good players i was i've been i lived that life for like 15 years okay so you know they're they're hard to find quite often they just are yeah and she was she was one of those that was phenomenal

so she was a big asset when you went in a any kind of co-ed tournament lisa was one of our stars so i wish her all the best tell me your so i played a lot of slow pitch and the holy grail for a slow pitch team in my opinion is a female who could pitch like because you know you always you're right and this is good i don't want i don't mean this to sound sexist as i play it in my head i'm wondering how can you say that? Except the fact was in our, for our team, uh,

the guys were tremendous fielders and, uh, great hitters. And the, the women were less so, and you'd have to kind of put them somewhere, like maybe put them at third. Cause you had to,

I think I can't remember how we had to have four or something. And you had, maybe there's a Rover and third, you kind of try to hide them. Maybe one was a catcher, for example. But if you could get a female pitcher, it would be, that was always like a big deal.

We had a co-ed slow pitch team with Toronto Sports and Social Club that included different, Elliot Friedman was a regular. Eric Smith was a regular. We had Dave Coteau was now our program director, was a regular. And over the years,

Damien Cox would fill in from time to time. And we did it about 15 years. And to your point, like it would be neat. You know, I don't see many women's or girls' baseball teams. I see a lot of hockey teams. I even know someone that was, she was a great flag football player, like great on a women's team that way. So you're right.

So you kind of think when you had someone that could hit her field, it was a huge, huge bonus. And you didn't want to lose them. You're almost like, can we pay you to play? Because it really made a big difference. And what diamonds

did you guys play at? Do you remember any of your frequent spots? Well, you'd move all over the place, but sometimes it'd be fun when we were down at Lakeshore. You know, what do you call it? Coronation Park.

Oh, yeah. Near Tip Top Taylor's there. Yeah, Tip Top Taylor Building right by the X. Yes. Boy, when we started, at lakeshore you know what do you call coronation park oh yeah your tip-top tailor's there right by the x yes uh boy when we started you could park right there on the lakeshore then it became a you'd see cars circling around circling around trying to get a parking spot right uh we'd play at what where george vanu secondary school was where the peanut plaza was where i went to school they call it they call it oriole now whatever so that was one of the places and you just and then different places and someone like Denlo Estates, they had one tucked in there in Don Mills. And I think some of them eventually said, wait a sec, these diamonds aren't used to by anybody, but they were supposed to be used by 10 year old kids. So adults are

hitting balls in the backyards of, uh, and, uh, of different neighboring houses. So those diamonds got eliminated. Right. What position did you play? Well, I was a senior member of the team and I would play third base, the hot corner, because it would be less flexibility that way. And I would come to bat and I think I led the league in singles. And I hate to say it,

but I would aim a ground ball towards a weak fielder and that's what I would do. And I would quite often get on, I would get on a lot, but I didn't get any, any power that way. So anyway, it was a fun run and we go out afterwards and, and it was a good time. Absolutely. Sounds amazing. Now, okay. So that was Lisa and that was Brian. And I want to let people know that you have been on Toronto Mike before. So we're not going to do the typical deep dive where we go like chronologically through your illustrious career and we touch on everything.

We did that already. And I want people to go back and listen to episode 324 if they want to hear that. And here's the description I wrote at the time. Mike chats with Gord Stelic about his years working for Harold Ballard, being the youngest GM in NHL history. Is that still true? You're still the youngest GM? I consider it.

I'm younger than Kyle Dubas when he took over the job, and I, John Chayka, at 28, became the youngest GM, but it's with the Arizona Coyotes, so I don't count it. Because it's not, there's not the same kind of pressure, but I guess factually

he has eliminated me. So you've left, you're no longer in the Guinness Book of World Records. If I was in it, I wouldn't be, but I'm still going to wear that handle because it was the Leafs. I would too. You're right. This is a real hockey team.

Okay. His transition to broadcasting, the fan 1430 and 590, and what he's up to now. That episode, by the way, was two hours and 21 minutes. So that's a pretty long episode of Trent Lake. So you did well. So thanks for... That's good.

Well, it went a lot of different places. I mean, you dug up an old clip of Harold Ballard and I chuckled listening to the clip because as he talked about something that...

And I got the date right when he was doing it. We were in Edmonton or something. And I said to you, he's BSing about... He talked about some players coming or whatever said and uh you know he understood about getting the headlines and you know the whole thing about how to use this media god social media wise i don't know he'd be he'd be something else but uh anyway

it was a fun it was a fun couple hours well i'm gonna make sure we do more ballard talk today because i am maybe because that's when i got into the leafs is when uh you know ballard and king clancy were in the uh what do they call it in the bunker the bunker right like that's when like the aforementioned front row of grays where i would get to my first leaf games to watch i don't know the leaves get beat by the minnesota north stars or something yes you would always see king clancy and i still have memories to this day of there would be like a big argos versus uh tycats game coming up and we would hear like argo suck kind of something to that effect argo suck or something and i still remember uh why we're in toronto at a leaf game and everything's like anti-Argo, and then being told that Ballard owned the Ticats as well. Yeah, well, there's two parts to that.

One is, and you kind of miss it was, it was the worst. This had nothing to do with Ballard owning the Ticats, but it would be when the Leaf game sucked. Then all of a sudden you'd hear from nowhere that Argo's. I remember that. It just would get like a chuckle. It was just weird. And then some people would pick like a chuckle it was just weird it would just and then some people would pick it up and it was just you know there was no entertainment on a

scoreboard whatever so right that would be one about the play on the field then when ballard uh owned the tycats which by the way he lost a lot he put a lot of money into it i understand why don crump later became commissioner of the cfl because he was the money guy that got ballard to to blow money there while he pinched pennies when we're running the truck working the toronto maple leafs but so one before a great cup game and it had been the great cup game the tie cats won and he said to me like the like the office was so small so leafs are playing i don't know say we're playing boston on a saturday night and then he goes gordy uh hey make up some things for the sign board like you know to piss

the crowd off about you know tycat stuff so i i just quickly thought of some and i i and you know they actually weren't bad like one i just talked about hamilton tycat souvenirs available at all concession stands then the next flash was argo souvenirs question mark then call acme storage whatever just anyway and then i know one was our goes then the next was no good you know i mean we're talking whatever and then one i just threw up uh toronto uh or gray cup prediction and i put a stupid number up like hamilton 42 i can't remember where they played but say edmonton 14 anyway they they won it and monday dick bettos goes and harold ballard he had to score almost right well that was, that was my stupid thing I put up

to follow through what he wanted to do. And it worked. Like the crowd would get a chuckle out of it. You know, they would boo. But it would be one of those kind of funny things at the game that worked. Man, what an age that was. So we'll do more Ballard talk for sure later.

Now, what was this? Oh, yeah. So that episode you came, so this is your second visit. The first time it was April 2018 and you were wearing a jacket. So I always take a photo of the guest. Yeah. And we took a photo together. In fact, forever when people Google your name, I'm sure they'll end up seeing that photo.

But you were wearing a photo and I had multiple comments at the time, but I just got another one from Gary Sunshine. If that is his real name, it sounds Gary Sunshine. Does that sound like a fake name or what? But he says, he wants to know if the coat was the real deal or just a replica, but that was not as fun as the original comments I had.

They said it was, the people were comparing it to George Costanza's Gore-Tex. Yeah. The bubble, the bubble boy, the bubble coat a little bit, not the bubble boy, but yeah.

Yeah. They're different. I got something. I got something different today because I don't think that's a totally inaccurate assessment. It was really cold that day. Like it was April, but it was cold for April. And so it was a good cold. It kept me warm regardless of fashion taste.

Is it Gore-Tex? Yes, Gore-Tex. Okay. Yes. Okay, so then fine. So that's in my head, right? And then we're getting ready to record, and you have your,

we'll talk about it in a moment, but you have your frozen lasagna here. And then I look at the lasagna, and I see you also have George Costanza's wallet. Yeah. Okay, you can hold it up for Periscope. Sure. People listening in their cars.

Well, Lisa gave it to me as a gift. And she's got good taste, even though I get killed on it all the time. It's a big wallet. It's a big wallet. It's a big wallet. And I carry money too. Right. I'm a cash guy.

Right. So the fattest wallet I've seen in quite some time. Thank you. The Gore-Tex jacket. I just wondered if you had any other, share any other attributes with George Costanza. No, I'm not going to start a contest. Because George worked for the Yankees

and you worked for the Leafs. You know, that's true. And it's funny. And I I'm not going to start a contest. Because George worked for the Yankees and you worked for the Leafs. You know, that's true. And it's funny. And I remember he's talking to Jerry about, you know, before he ever worked for the Yankees and he said, you know, maybe he could manage a team or maybe he could do color commentary. And it's funny because I ended up,

I was fortunate to do both those things. So maybe I'm one step above George Costanza. Just this morning. We're still in morning. Let me check the clock step above George Costanza. Just this morning. We're still in morning. Let me check the clock. Yeah, we're still in the morning. We're in morning and it is morning. And I always remember you as a color guy for like Bowen doing play-by-play.

Got great 1991 to 1995. I mean, that was just a great run to be doing color on radio. And also not every game was available on TV during the regular season. So, you know, radio, the, the,

the games had a, a sort of a, a bigger pop to them. And I remember, uh, last time you were on, I played the down goes Brown clip in honor of down goes Brown. And I played the down go run and you're,

you're, you chime in with the, uh, TKO, right? Yes. Now that made me think of the fact that when, I mean, Hepsey's been on a bunch of times,

but one time I did play, there's the famous Felix Potvin versus Ron Hextall fight. Yeah. And he's doing color for Bowen, and he's chiming in on that big fight, which is kind of an epic moment. And so I was thinking, it's kind of neat that today I'll be visited

by a couple of guys who did color for Bowen, play-by well because he did for a couple years too i can't get it for two years after me then jim ralph has done it since then but it's but you know for a play-by-play guy you're taught to let him do his play-by-play so i was really caught up in the moment about uh you know it was it was it was robbie brown or sylvan lefebvre that knocked him down and and robbie brown's become a real good media guy. We have him on quite often. He's out in Edmonton and chuckles about that. And I just got, you know, and Joey used to call fights too.

You can see that. Like he called boxing. And so I just go TKO, like kind of. And Ken Dryden talks about, you know, Al Michaels, The Great Call. Do you believe in miracles? Of course. Well, before, as they count down, Ken Dryden's doing color. Who would think of ken dryden being a color guy but he's the color guy with abc and he just says it's over before but a quiet comment just before al michaels epic do you

believe in miracles so i'm kind of like the ken what ken dryden did to al michaels right i chime in with joe bowen on down goes brown in that clip, which I won't play again, but I played it that time, but I think Bowen knocks off his headset. Is that right? Like he's so, is there a moment where he knocks off his headset? You can hear a bit of a...

Well, you wouldn't have to knock it. You just nudge it. So I don't quite remember that, but I don't doubt it. It would happen from time to time. It's wonderful when you get that excited and invested in a game. You know, you're a homer when you're doing the Leaf game, so you are, but then the game's that good and invested in a game it's you know you're you're a homer when you're

doing the leaf game so that you you are but then the game's that good and it's that intense and and as much as fighting is diminishing and i and i don't disagree with that like i think but the fights were neat like the physicality got everyone pretty jacked up during the actual that's it especially uh when you're at the game it's true like we think now like oh it's so barbaric or whatever can you believe it and you know we know so much about cte and everything but that got everybody out of their seat like i don't know what that says if that's like the roman gladiators or something like that but we we were all out of our seat when uh when i don't know bob probert and wendell clark yeah. Well, it's funny. A great memory is when the Leafs in 1986 beat the Chicago Blackhawks in the first round of the playoffs,

like the heavily favored Chicago Blackhawks. And swept them, right? And swept them. It was the best three out of five. And what happened was so many people didn't, so many Garden subscribers didn't pick up their tickets for the playoffs because the Leafs, they had no chance. So that one home game, game game three it was just a great

it was just a jacked up crowd because all these people that could never get great tickets got them and then Wendell there's that picture of Wendell celebrating a goal with blood still on his sweater yes and my beloved mom Rhoda who is uh turning 90 next March and my uh amazing and my aunt Peggy who's gonna be 94 they were at that game and we always kid about what other game could get Rhoda and Peggy joining in the chant of C chord sucks because the crowd yeah because Al Seager was on Chicago then and just

the place was just like it was it was like the Roman Coliseum you know that that kind of environment man those are the days now is that the last best of five NHL had the net yeah the next year it went to four to seven you know just Man, those are the days. Now, is that the last best of five NHL had? Yeah, the next year it went to four out of seven. You know, just like with the Jays always get ripped off because it was the first time it was a four out of seven

when the Kansas City Royals came to town and beat them in the same time era, 85. Al Oliver could have been a hero. He was so close. Yeah. Hit a hell of an ALCS. But yeah, George, you have F and Brett, as we say around here.

Okay, I got to ask you about something, but I got a great song. In fact, let me just set this up by saying, for a long time I've been looking for the source material for the song I'm about to play. And 1236's Mark Weisblot received a tip that it's a piece of stock music. And Ian Grant, you know,

the name Ian Grant. So Ian Grant tipped off Mark who tipped me off. And now I will play the source, uh, of the song that everybody listening will know. And then I'm going to ask you about this. So it's not porno music like some people thought it was. This would be awful porno music, I think.

It's just a piece of stock footage that's been around a long time. Okay, so... Mike Gregotsky, listener of Toronto Mic'd, writes in... If there's still time to get a question into Gord Stelic, good news, Mike, we got it under the wire here. Can you ask him, as if I wasn't going to ask anyways, can you ask him how it was decided that he would be the last host of Primetime Sports? Thank you. Please tell us what was your role in the very final episode,

which was only very recently, of Primetime Sports. Yeah, a couple of weeks ago on a Friday. And I, you know, I wish I had a great answer about it. Jeff Blair had been filling in and now Jeff's gone to his new regular spot. And I take it just that Jeff was going to be off that Friday. I mean, otherwise it would have been Jeff's show because he's been Bob's fill-in for a while. I was Bob's fill-in years ago.

So I got asked a few weeks before, and I was really honored. I was really honored, and I think with Dave Cadeau and Ryan Fabro and Jason Rosand, who are kind of the three guys that run the station, I think there was a bit of that historical contact in it about me doing it. So yeah, I was just really pleased. I, but so I just, I got asked out of nowhere and I take a Jeff Blair couldn't do it and they

thought I was the next guy. Cause there was a connect there. Yeah, for sure. It was an inspired choice as they say. Was there a round table? This is a Friday, right? So do you remember the final roundtable? So there was a roundtable, Stephen Brunt, Michael Grange, and Elliot Friedman. Excellent. And it was really, really good. And, you know, there's a bit of a difference there because I think Stephen Brunt's had his ups and downs with Bob along the years as Damian Wood.

Well-documented on Toronto Mike. Yeah. You know, just that, whereas Michael Grange just holds Bob in incredibly high esteem and mentioned that he was on Bob's final show, which had been a few months earlier. And then Elliot, there's just no better guy than Elliot Friedman about things. So it just brought a lot of perspective. And we forgot, Elliot brought up that Dan Schulman hosted it for a couple of years. Yep. With Jim Hunt. And so when Bob was doing the morning shows. So it was neat and it was weird to hear that music one last time.

Well, you get to hear it again on Toronto Mic today. It's like the Hockey Night in Canada theme, kind of. Yeah, I know. It's iconic. Like when you hear this, you're expecting to hear a certain voice. How far does it go? So we still have a minute left in this thing. I don't know if they ever played it to the

end on. Well, that wouldn't be a very good show if you started getting out or getting out that early because you're out of content. But okay, so Michael

Grange, Elliot Friedman, and Stephen Brunt, Gord Stelic, and Stephen Brunt. You know what else they all have in common besides working at Sportsnet on Five Night?

They're all guests of Toronto Mic'd. Oh, okay. So that's probably, yeah. That would have been my second guess. Okay, good. Actually, I'm now thinking of all four. All four were excellent episodes, not a dog in the bunch there.

Oh, good. And I mentioned Dan Shulman. I know he's a guest of Toronto Mic'd. Yeah, Dan was great. And he did, you know, I mentioned off the top, like, do you have 90 minutes? Maybe I said that before I pressed record. And you said, yeah, you got time for 90 minutes.

He didn't. So he said he had an hour. I think I stole an extra 15 out of him or whatever. He wasn't going to the dentist. His dad is a dentist. That's right. Yeah. That's why you're an excellent analyst there.

His dad would have, you know, when you did the radio show back in its day in the fan, and I remember Dan kidded that his dad would listen to it while he was working on people's teeth. So, you know, because he loved listening to obviously Dan and that. They're kind of kidded about how did the patients find it that they're, you know, that they're getting their teeth done and you're hearing primetime sports in the background or whatever. And my mom, it was the best. Like, you like you think about it like how old are your kids uh 17 15 5 and 3 okay so down the road one of them say is whatever age but has a three-hour radio show every day like wouldn't that be cool yeah like you could just say hey you know they don't call a lot i

don't call but i can turn it on and get 10 minutes of Tim or Shelly or whatever. Yeah. And my mom would have these like headphones and she's not a huge sports fan, but it just, she just would know I'm okay. And she'd like to sort of go in and out and listen from time to time. Absolutely.

Often like my daughter, my 15 year old daughter loves podcasts and I'll be like, oh, have you ever listened to a Toronto Mike episode? And she'd be like, no, I don't listen to Toronto Mike. Then I kept saying, you know, if you had a podcast, even if it was about something I had no interest in, I'd listen now and then just to hear your voice broadcasting somewhere. Yeah. Trying to apply the pressure, try to shame them. I'm like,

who do I need to have on my show? And she'll name some YouTuber I haven't heard of. And I'll be like, okay, I got to get that person on my show to make my daughter happy. Okay. Now okay now before I leave and I know I ran out of theme there because it only goes for about four minutes but primetime sports uh what are your thoughts what are your thoughts on the uh I mean this was an institution on Toronto sports radio primetime sports well it was there before there was sports radio it kind of was you know, so I got to say, I didn't listen to it a lot initially in the 80s because I was working, you know, whatever. But I appreciated the show.

I was on as a guest a couple of times as general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs. It was Bob McCown with Bill Waters. And then there was, just when I was in limbo, meaning unemployed, after I came back from my stint with the New York Rangers, I was doing some media stuff. Just things were coming up. That ringside show that I did through Pyman Productions

that went on TSN. With Rick Hodge. With Rick Hodge, who's a great friend still. I know you've had Hodge on. Love Hodge. And then one time I got to fill in two weeks for Bill Waters. So I did primetime sports for two weeks with Bob. And I got to tell you, that was a real nurturing two weeks for me.

And I think they liked what they heard too as well. This was before it was an all-sports station. So that kind of got me a little more inside the whole fan, telemedia milieu back then. So you were an FOB. An FOB is a friend of Bob. I don't know if a friend of Bob. i don't know what a friend of bob is uh so he was always fine with me you know so um and i i loved so was about eight years 1996 2004 before i went to the morning show i was the permanent

fill-in so i would get the start of the year whatever whatever weeks Bob was on vacation, I would mark those down. And I wouldn't take vacation then. I also got an extra 200 bucks a show. So it was another grand a week, you know, a little thing. So nice. But I just, the chance to do it, it was just so,

so I'd do the big show from one to four. And I got to fill in with Pat Marsden when the other guy was away, whether it was John Derringer or Don Landry later. And then I got to fill in for Bob. So it was a neat run that way doing primetime sports. And have you heard from Bob since he left primetime sports?

I never heard from Bob when he was there. Like he had a couple of social things way back when, and I guess I kind of, I wouldn't say fell out of a circle. I don't mean it that way at all. Just there wasn't, hey, I never socialized with him either. He probably made more of an effort than I did. I did have one good golf memory, just a charity thing just before, about say three years ago.

So that was enjoyable. You know, it was kind of weird that when I got, I always use the word rinsed. Rinsed is just a nice word. Same result, you're out of work. But that morning in 2010, when they changed things, especially me. So, you know, but I know Bob had his fingerprints on it.

Not that he was out to get me by any stretch of the imagination, but, you know, they were trying new things. And because he told a few people, George Strombolopoulos was going to take over the morning show. Andrew Crystal was going to be after that. And then Strombo didn't come and so andrew crystal ended up being the guy for a brief period of time with the morning show so i i know they i know that bob had a lot of

clout and i think he kind of said i want the batting order changed up so um so i was always aware of that but he's always always fine fine with me or fine to me personally. In an alternate, I wish I could go into an alternate dimension and hear and see, how would the Strombo morning show have played out? That's a great question. I don't know.

See, Mike, the thing is, Strombo's a guy at the fan. Strombo started off the fan. He was a board op who just had great people skills and everyone loved him. And that, and that's part of been his success. And again, with his hosting on hockey night in Canada,

the, the, the part, like there's this thing about the young, sexy, attractive guy or girl, you know, but will they bring any more listeners or viewers?

That always remains to be the question, but the idea kind of thinking, okay, we got got x whatever we have on the fan at that point we got it and this was kind of the when they brought derringer in all those years ago like but but we'll get these other people and that's that's an imperfect science because the toronto maple leafs or the toronto blue jays or the toronto raptors winning will bring more people than somebody else you know you want good content you want good talent good hosts but it's not that easy as in any station people just coming over now of course he uh when he was at the fan back in the whatever that was

early 90s uh he did the the overnight show the game i don't think it lasted too long but he was with jeff merrick i'm trying to think was it uh was jim richards a part of that show no bob mackowitz jr jim richards did his own thing and macko senior was the program director and jeff and he and you said jeff merrick right jeff merrick okay so and so it was kind of a bone the day and then they're all talented guys but because the dad was a program director so they got to this friday show they could just go on right like be like howard stern they could do like six hours or whatever they wanted so So they all cut their teeth that way. Maybe Friedman was an intern maybe at this point?

Elliot was an intern. I was kidding Elliot the other day about his first headline was because you think back then, Rob Longley wrote for the Toronto Sun, Chris Zeljkovic for the, before that it was Tom McKee for the Toronto Star. And then whether it was Bill Houston and later Bruce Dobig.

And like they wrote serious media columns and what bugged me was management read them that's what pissed me off like it's one thing about you know so you're giving these guys all kinds of power so you really liked if you got a if you got a positive mention in one of those things and one of Elliot's first was that in Rob Longley Friedman suspended five days and he got into a thing he late. He was interning for Derringer and he got there late. And I mean, here's Elliot, who's a media giant.

At that point, he's just a kid. And whoever makes the headlines chooses to put the headline like, you know, Friedman suspended for five days. You know, people wonder why, like Toronto Mike and the guys at Toronto Sports Media and stuff have to, you know,

write about this stuff. Because back when we grew up, the newspapers had people covering the sports media. Yeah, oh my goodness. And it's all gone. Yeah, that's exactly it. And like, it was a couple of decades and people like that stuff.

Like, you know, I did a fun book called Stel Electricity after I got rinsed. And I just sort of threw a bunch of stories out there. You don't make money on books, but I just threw all these kind of stories. And the publisher said, you know, Karen Milner, really, really neat lady. And she actually got the book I did with Damian Cox on the 60-17, which was like a real book. But she said, like, I did a media chapter.

She goes, man, this is great. Like, people would like, you know, more of that, just some of the, you know, insides of some of the, some of the sports media components. Without a doubt. Like I, I look at the analytics for my, my little blog, for example. And when I write,

if I write about, I don't know, and you name it like, uh, Brady out, MacArthur in on fan 590 morning show, people are Googling that stuff. Like this is the stuff that people Google.

And then they end up, you know, they're reading a comment and it just sort of fuels itself but there's definitely just by the way a quick uh kind of a semi-promo but it relates is that i've recently spent a lot of time with peter gross and john gallagher and we just recorded in fact i have to do some work on this this afternoon but there's five more episodes of gallagher and gross save the world ready to drop are you excited stellic about this you excited i Stelic, about this? Are you excited?

I would consider that a full promo, not a semi-promo, first of all. John Gallagher lives near Safari Bar on Avenue Road. He lives like about five houses away from it. Not that I guess... He might live in the bar. Well, and so he lives in the hood. And when you say those names, they're both icons.

Like they really are. Like, I mean, whether you listen to them a lot or watch them a lot or didn't, like, you know those names they're they're they're both icons like they they really are like i mean whether you listen to them a lot or watch them a lot or didn't like you know those names and i was glad that they gave that peter gross got a job at the end at 680 doing sportscasts and in the mornings right and he he would he would rollerblade to work at like four in the morning and and not a young guy i mean i'm not either but not a young guy. I mean, I'm not either, but not a young guy. Rollerblade back and forth, good on him staying in shape. And, you know, I just thought, I thought it was neat out of respect for when he, when like all of us,

we were sort of looming larger to a degree in the media world or the media world was just looming larger. So I bring this up to say that we just recorded these five episodes and I was, I sit where I am here, except I stay muted. I try not to talk. You can probably hear me cackling in the background of their funny, which is often, but Gallagher's dis dislike his,

his almost, I guess I want to call it hate, but that's a really strong word for, you know, Zeljkovic in Houston, for example, because, uh,

he remembers words they wrote about his, uh, he had the TSN show for a little bit and they, uh, and so you can see it. I'm, he'll be sitting where you for a little bit. And so you can see it. He'll be sitting where you are now and I'll be looking at his eyes and he'll be going off about things

that Zeljkovic or Houston wrote about back in like, I don't know, 20 years ago or whatever. And he's still angry. Like this is the power you mentioned. Yeah, you take it personally. And his TSN show, part of it was the Jays actually were on a good run then it might have been the year that you know believe it or not the only only good season the jays had between joe

carter's walk-off home run in 2015 was when tim johnson was the manager that one year right and i think that was the year so he was getting really good numbers because it was coming after jay's games uh his show gallagher right i actually did it once I got a call like you emailed me on Friday that they needed a guest like I was I was filling in hosting primetime sports so they a guest had pooched on them to do the Gallagher show like my show so I went right down to Gretzky's where they filmed it right after whatever and so they just created a show around me even though I hadn't been the anticipated guest that night for the Gallagher show. You're like the Swiss Army knife. Tony Randall on Letterman.

In case of emergency, break glass and Tony Randall came out. I remember that. That's right. That's right. That's funny. So yeah, Gallagher was unhappy with things. William Houston and Chris Zeljkovic wrote about that Gallagher show on TSN for, you know, some years ago.

Because they did have power. They did have power because the bosses were reading. And now the bosses are reading Toronto Mic'd and listening to Toronto Mic'd. So now I have all the power. Well, and the thing I love about the media mic is, because being on the other side in management, I would get a kick about it that I'd say a lot of media people, I'm not talking about those two. I'm just saying in general, can dish it out, but can't take it.

Right? I've noticed this. Because like we have the power of this Sure. Can dish it out, but can't take it. Right? I've noticed this. Because, like, we have the power of this microphone to do it, and then you can't take it. And I always thought that was crap. Like, you know, hey, and whatever someone says. I remember Mike Hogan had Terry Bradshaw on. What a great get he would have been.

What a great get. So say it was a long time ago. He's got him on as a guest on his show on The Fan. Right. And Hoagie brought up about, like terry had said something about some quarterback right you know like he would he's and so yeah and terry just kind of when he's starting to like make noises and and and so and so mike goes what's your reaction he goes you know like okay you know gordon stellick he shouldn't care what terry bradshaw says okay like really don't don't we're like you know you

got a football team whatever you, you got a fan. And it's true. Like, Terry Bradshaw was just kind of saying, like, why would he give a crap what I'm saying? Like, I'm an analyst. I'm doing what I'm doing. Like, let's just leave it at that. Relax and chill. And that really is the way it should be.

Right, right. Now, when I did, you mentioned this came together quickly on Friday, but I tweeted that Gord's coming back Monday. And then somebody named Sam was tweeting pictures this came together quickly on Friday, but I tweeted that Gord's coming back Monday. And then somebody named Sam was tweeting pictures at me that were like really great old photos of you and Harold Ballard. There was one with you, Harold Ballard, and Harold's, he said it was Harold's dog walker. Like, I don't know if this means anything to you. What, does he have the picture? I mean, Tommy was the dog walker. Okay, well, there's a guy and I think he had a mustache and kind of like black hair. Well, that'd be him. Okay, so it was, yeah. He had a name, but he loved was the dog walker. Okay, well, there's a guy, and I think he had a mustache and kind of like black hair.

Well, that'd be him. Okay, so it was, yeah. He had a name, but he loved being the dog walker. I'm sure he had a name, but he was the dog walker. And anyway, and there was another one. It was actually, you weren't in this one, but it was Harold Ballard on the ice with, I think, Tom Fergus. It looked like Tom Fergus to me. I was a big Fergus fan.

Oh, yeah. Anyways, it was just great to see these uh these old old vintage uh photos from back in the days so so sam thanks for those photos do you know the same the name uh simon dingley yeah okay like simon sick was was 640 then it was cbc now and uh you know i would consider him a good friend even though we do nothing socially but i i've respected what he's done and yeah so what simon got simon writes in to say many many years ago, I was with CKO Radio. Yep. Gord was doing communications with the Leafs.

I called asking for an interview of notorious owner, Harold Ballard. Gord said he would call me back. He did 30 minutes later. No interview because, quote, Mr. Ballard was having a temper tantrum, quote. So did you, I guess I know we talked a lot about this last time, but I can't get enough of this.

Like, was a lot of this babysitting, this cantankerous, unpredictable owner? Like, I mean, how do you focus on hockey business when you're sort of, part of your job is to, yeah. I'll get off my phone, but just so, Brendan Shanahan sent me that. He said it's by Kyle Dubas' office. He sent me that a few months ago.

Okay, there, that's a young, yeah, well, you've only aged a few years since then. Yeah, so that was, you used to get the bunch of microphones, right? You had the bed of microphones and all that stuff, so that's when I was. So you know what I'm looking at now is, what's that called, what do you put on the mics flash yeah mic flashes okay so everyone tried to get their tsn's in there uh 47 which is cfmt if i'm correct cfrb is in there and i see cko is in the

oh and cfto of course and there's 1050 chum oh and there's there's chch 11 so yeah that's a great photo so anyway so so it's by kyle dubas's office last night so brendan we're just we i sort of texted back and forth from time not a lot just time to time but it's nice he mentioned that point being about uh harold ballard i called him mr ballard so i'll call him mr ballard and it was uh i don't i wouldn't call it babysitting i wouldn't call it babysitting it was just uh uh and if he had a temper tantrum if that's what i said to simon it would be more he'd be you know piss something about the media and just or whatever would wouldn't like it was hit or miss about the mood right so they knew to call he

lived there and if the word was yes you could get this great content which is what you wanted and other times he would just disappear or just not be in the mood for it so when i say maybe a question handling him would be the kind of word you know not not so much bait you didn't babysit him but just handling things and and i i just i got i got to figure him out as much as anybody could figure him out about who he liked what he didn't like and he got to trust me with those kind of things so i sort of became on top of the hockey growing in the hockey operations field but yeah a lot a lot his gatekeeper about things, but I would make a point of getting back to the media and being upfront and try to be efficient and, and, uh, and trying to help. So I'm glad I got back to him. I wasn't glad it wasn't one of those stories that I asked

and he never got back. No, you got back to him 30 minutes later. Uh, Dave Carson, uh, threw in a joke. So I thought I'd give like i said i tried it if it's fair i'll read anything that you submit for a guest if i deem it unfair obviously it's going to go on the cutting room floor but dave carson says so gourd was essentially babysitting for a volatile old geezer with a spray on tan and orange hair long before trump so there's a a good zinger there from dave dave carson here. So here's a really generic question, but it might lead to an interesting answer, which is DarkDudgy, that's his name on Twitter, DarkDudgy.

What's the craziest thing he ever saw or heard Harold Ballard do? A little open. Craziest thing? Like, I don't know what... All of it? Yeah, I don't know what, you know, like crazy means in so many ways about uh i try to you know like it was uh i i guess the one people talk about just when

i got started is you you people uh remember that uh he always believed that having the names on the back of the jerseys would affect program sales like program sales. So the league did put a bylaw in that you had to have it done. And finally, it was the first game on the road. I just started working with the Leafs then. So we had the dark blue names on dark blue colors. So you couldn't see them. So a lot was made of that. And there was good humor about that.

And John Ziegler, the president then said okay didn't i won't find you this time but a reminder it's got to be contrasting colors so what he did the next game it was at home and he had them in contrasting colors but he had the first names so tiger would pass to daryl would pass to borya would pass to ian and bob sedgwick was a legal counsel then he said you know what he's going to fine you 10 grand or 25 grand this time so he didn't go through with it so I mean there are always these kinds of things that he was thinking about because it was just as important that everyone knew he owned the Maple Leafs like it was as important that he got front page of the paper that his latest stunt was up

there and you know what have you so he had a lot of those kinds of things that if you want page 20 uh you'll get page 20 if you want to work to get page one you'll get page one you and i were chatting about 10 50 chum and the doug thompson episode i did a couple of weeks ago and we talked in that episode it came up about you know of course the beatles came to town and harold ballard owned the gardens and And I guess the Beatles signed up to do a show at the gardens and Ballard promoted it as a two shows, like an afternoon show and a night show. And I don't know if I have this detail, right, but he turned up the heat and he turned off the water maybe. So that, go ahead. Yeah. I love this one. I love this this one so it's about the beatles now

he didn't own the he didn't own the gardens he was with stafford smith they were the major holders of maple leaf gardens limited but he was looking at bringing attractions here so the beatles were the biggest thing going right and so they were doing one show at the gardens he sold tickets for two without clearing it with the beatles so when the beatles arrived they based that brian epstein their manager basically said okay we'll do two shows. So say it was four o'clock and nine o'clock. They were only on stage

for like 45 minutes. Like, so, so that people like this and the part is, Harold liked this as well about his legacy. They said he,

what did he do? He turned the water fountains off and he only sold large pops. Right. Well, first of all, you have to get a large, right,

go ahead. Okay. There was only one size. Okay. There was go ahead. Okay, there was only one size. Okay. There was. There was only one size. And they had cellophane on top of them, some of them, when they sold the pop, right?

When did you drink out of a water fountain at Maple Leaf Gardens? Never. Yeah, I know. So when did you like, so... But did he turn up the heat? No, he didn't turn up the heat at all. Like, whatever.

There was no air conditioning in the building. So it was hot because there's no air conditioning in the building so it's it was hot because there's no air conditioning in the building some it's more they said he turned off the air conditioning because it was in the summer you're right there was no air conditioning so but but he loved that crap so people just said like what what an sob and what an operator whatever he never did any of those things but he actually liked the story better so he just let it ride let it run as it did. Yeah, I was going to say, Gordon, never let the facts get in the way of a good story. No, but like who's ever,

whoever drank from a water fountain in Maple Leaf Gardens? You know, they got bad memories of the troughs and the men's washrooms, you know, and stuff like that. Oh yeah. Yeah. We're all traumatized from that.

Nobody drank from a water. I wouldn't even know where to find a water fountain in Maple Leaf Gardens. I, cause you can't turn, it would be against, I wouldn't even know where to find a water fountain in Maple Leaf Gardens. Because you can't turn, it would be against, I'm sure even back then, it would be against a health rule to turn off the taps in a bathroom, right? Because you've got to be able to wash your hands.

That's a health and safety issue, I'm sure. Even back then. I guess people would be turn on the tap and stick their mouth under that, but they'd end up with many terrible diseases. Yeah, I never saw one person do that either. Ask if you were at Maple Leaf Gardens, wash them,

and saw somebody sticking their mouth under the tap to get some water. I doubt it. Okay, now I have a six-pack of fresh craft beer for you, Gord, courtesy of Great Lakes Brewery. You got a six-pack last time you were here. Yes, really enjoyed it. Good. Yes. In related news, Troy Birch,

Troy Birch actually works at Great Lakes Brewery. Troy is a great guy and he chimes in with a question. What is his favorite menu item and beer at Stack Restaurant at Young and Lawrence? Yeah, geez, Stack Restaurant. We got some, we're really fortunate in the hood. I go there a decent amount it's it's one of those smoked meat places so um i love smoked meat places so i i'm gonna

say mix it up a ton but i like uh so i like like either the reuben sandwich or else i'll like the uh the whatever the beef whatever they call the beef thing and they'll make a uh a plate out of it and you get some you get some like a corned beef uh no like what do you call it brisket beef brisket beef brisket so i like that yeah i'm a carnivore that way so that'd be one of them and and the guy and the guy uh what's the beer he always gives me um they have different draft beers i don't now i know you say I want the truth. It may not be a Great Lakes beer. But Troy is hoping it's a Great Lakes beer, but I do want the truth from you.

Well, I let them, I trust what they give me. Is Lug not a Great Lakes beer? No. Okay, then I don't, then that might be one of them. No, but they mix it up for me because I trust them. So obviously, Troy, obviously they must serve Great Lakes at a stack restaurant. They do.

No, I've had it there. I'm trying to remember the different beers that they give me. Here you got a, this is, you know, I'm sure they would probably serve you a pompous ass

to try to give you a hint as to what they're trying to do, Gord. But yeah, that's a Canuck Pale Ale. You'd love that too. It's a Gordy. Actually, that guy's name is Gord.

So this guy here, his name is Gord Levesque. You're a Gord. I was thinking a lot of, I've had a lot of Gords and I is Gord. So this guy here, his name is Gord Levesque. You're a Gord. I was thinking a lot of, I've had a lot of Gords. I love Gord. All the Gords are cool people. I'm just throwing it out there. Gord Johnston's coming on.

Gord Johnston's coming on the show. When I, as I said, when I started working for the Leafs, I did the travel for them. And yeah, they have this stack. And so you'd phone down to particularly the States and they'd say, what's your name? Or take message Gord Stelic and spell it. I'd spell my last name.

They'd go, no, your first name. Because Gord was a real uncommon name. And Jerry Howard said that when he came up to Toronto. He never met a Gord in his life. It's funny. Yeah. But they knew Gord in Lightfoot, surely. Number one hit in 74.

Well, another Canadian in that, and Gordon Red Berenson, and Robert Gordon Orr in that. But it is a... I wonder what the youngest Gord is out there. It's similar. I had a guy named Gary Topp on the show last week, and Gary Topp is a legendary concert promoter,

maybe a cross-pass with him at some point. But he... We were talking about how Gord... Not Gord. I'm talking about Gary. Yeah. Gary was really popular in the 50s and 60s and there was Gary Cooper and a lot of people were naming

their kid Gary and then it slowly declined and today there's virtually like no Garys being born. Like it's similar to Gord. Unless you're naming your kid after Gord Downie maybe. Yeah, I wonder what the youngest Gord is in our area. And we're not talking middle names because a lot of times that middle name will be like

oh Grandpa Gord or something like that. Yeah, attribute to the parent or grandparent. I agreed. Right. So let us know, please, on Twitter or send me a note if you know a baby Gord. We need to know where the baby Gords are. Okay, so thank you, Troy Birch.

By the way, Stack Restaurant actually chimed in and said, we love Gord. And that Troy guy is all right, too. So Stack loves your... They should love me. And okay, while I'm talking Great Lakes, I actually had another note from a guy named Mike Lackey.

He's actually works at Great Lakes as well. He's the chief beer master. I don't know what the full title is, but he's a big deal in the tasty beers they have there. But he says, does he, that's you Gord, does he remember a hacky sack contest he ran as a promo i may have

or may not have won the title it's been all downhill since that moment does this ring a bell so i used to do those fan remotes you know i was a mercenary so you got extra money and i can remember it was a clothing store on young just north of like north of, north of Steeles. And whoever was there that morning. So when I say you did the remote, so you're there for four hours, and you had two cut-ins and go, of course, I like for sports, you know, the Fan 590. I'm at Toronto Mike. And today we've got, you know, like, beer on sale or whatever.

Right. And for whatever the owner had, a hacky sack wanted to do it. I didn't even know what it was. So, yeah. And it wasn't like, don't don't be wrong nobody ever nobody ever like tore down the doors to get to where our remotes were at but yeah so we had a hacky sack competition and i think maybe we gave out jay's tickets for it i'm not sure but yeah that's that's the one and only time okay he says he won that thing so congratulations amazing i remember everything but i can't remember

who exactly won but i remember just being happy if anybody was going to try it because it was something it was something that certainly wasn't in the mainstream and uh i think someone on twitter pointed out it's not called hacky sack uh crap uh not football, but foot sack or something? Like there's some proper term for this. I will defer to anybody else on that. I just put my time in and got a check. Here's another gourd. I don't think he's a baby though,

but the gourdster says he was the youngest GM and also the youngest to have hip surgery. How's the hip holding out? I had a hip replacement in 2001. And I remember talking to people like Pat Quinn and Mike Wadsworth. They both unfortunately passed away. And other people, I'd even got a call out of the blue

from Bobby Orr once. Because Don Cherry, because Bobby Orr was very nervous about any kind of surgery. And so when Don Cherry mentioned, I'd had my hip replaced. Like Bobby Orr just phoned anybody that had. He was looking at a knee replacement. So what a neat thing to get a call from Bobby Orr on a Sunday morning. And I can't believe how fortunate I've been.

So it's 18 years. They say it's supposed to be about shelf life, about 15. But my doctor, Dr. alan gross at mount sinai hospital one thing he said was uh when you take the first x-ray like say six weeks in or after you could almost tell there what kind of mesh it's had or not he said you had a real good meshing of whatever needs to mesh now since then they've upped the procedure they've even improved the procedure more 18 like like by a ton right yeah and um if i get another replacement i will at some point but i have to i'll have to have the old way that it was done you know but now

they just do a completely different way it's just it's it's i wish everything in life was like this that you went in and got fixed and you came out and you felt as great as i felt then and as i feel now were you able to play slow pitch post-surgery like uh yeah i i you know what i got it done december 21st or december 5th excuse me and uh i was leery when you because you don't want to screw it up right right and then you get going and you're good as long as you don't do anything stupid you know so i i was the next summer able able to do i took it easy uh speed was never my forte anyway right but i i was just amazed and i'm telling you mike how you like i can always remember mike wadsworth saying you can't believe you won't believe no pain and you have all this

you know arthritic pain before and before and the hip is not a sexy limp or an athletic looking limp. It's more of a waddle when your hip's bugging you. Like a penguin or something. Yeah, it is. And then all of a sudden to be rid of all that

is a very, very fortunate. Well, I'm happy to hear that. That's great news. That's great news. Now, this gentleman's name is Andy and Andy says, regarding Gord Stella coming on Toronto Mike, he says,

he's the reason I know who Don Biggs is ask Gord why the AHL gets little to no coverage these days do you know first of all yeah who's Don Biggs Donny Biggs I think it was Hershey was his big spot but anyway we're going back to that ringside TV show

so yeah with Rick Hodge I used to watch the show and well and back then it was a half hour weekly magazine show and we did 26 weeks a year. And I got to tell you again with Hodge, it was just, and God rest his soul. This guy named Rick Pyman, Pyman productions, like a small studio. And when TSN got on the air, they needed some of that cheap Canadian content, right? Like, I mean, Brad Diamond's a good friend.

Brad's done that forever. That motoring show. Brad's done that forever, that motoring show. He's done that forever. So through Rick Pyman, we had this half-hour show, and every Monday morning, it would be, because I was doing the big show on The Fan, which is on from one to four, and Haji was doing Roger, Rick, and Marilyn on Chum FM.

So I would get to Pyman Productions in Streetsville really early and figure everything out. Then we'd wait for rick to come because then i'd have to go at a certain time to hustle back for my show right and rick would just get there and doing mornings later on i realized how long a day he'd already had he would just kind of go okay where do you want to go and i'd just go about different stuff and then he would get me there it was great so don biggs tim tookie, Mitch Lamoureux, Steve Tejera, Sam St. Laurent, Jody Gage, like there were these guys that just really were large in the American

Hockey League and got little or no time in the NHL. And they always, they really appreciated and valued ringside exposure. So I always, I always liked that when someone said that, whether it's just a viewer watching or i can remember wendell clark's mom i was doing radio then and they were allowed on the team bus and elma clark just said well they're scored we watch ringside all the time you know so back in saskatchewan they'd be watching it because their son carrie would be playing and right other friends so it was really really neat i mean now now you can get anything that's the part like as you know

that's why you're doing this. That's what's changed. But I mean, back then, it was just like a half-hour magazine show every week. Wow, amazing. Also amazing, by the way, is the Italian food you get at Palma Pasta. See that segue, Gord? That's very smooth. That's become natural. I had to work on that 532 episodes.

You are a carnivore. I heard you mentioned it earlier. So there's a meat, frozen meat lasagna. This will be well used. And I actually look forward. I actually anticipate now my guests will always send me a note or a tweet to say that's the best lasagna you can buy. A lot of people will be like, oh, my mother-in-law homemade makes the best lasagna. But if you are going to buy your lasagna, like not make it from scratch or whatever, you cannot do better than Palma Pasta.

Why would you make it from scratch anymore? Like they're so, they are so good. Like I, you know, it's ridiculous. Remember stuff that was frozen used to be like Swanson TV dinners were about it. Yeah. And after that you. And it was garbage really. Like, yeah, well, just like with the hip surgery, they've come a long way.

They have, yes. Frozen foods and hips. And of course they have it. If you go to the, this is, I know, yeah, I've already promoted, I've already a long way. They have, yes. Frozen foods and hips. And of course, they have it. If you go to the... I know, I've already promoted, I've already done my allotment of promotions, but I have an event. I have one more. I have an event on

December 7th in Mississauga. It's at Palmas Kitchen. Palmas Kitchen is going to host TMLX5. I urge all listeners and yourself, Gord, and everybody to come for this experience at noon because there's going to be some free food and drink

and good times. But also, I'm recording an episode and people will pop on the mic and we'll catch up. Nice. Yeah, it'll be really cool. So, December 7th at noon,

make sure you've got it in your calendar to come to Palma's Kitchen. Now, Palma Pasta has four locations in Mississauga and Oakville. Don't go to the wrong one. We're at Palma's Kitchen.

Go to palmapasta.com for the address. It's near Mavis and Burnham Thorpe. And you get a hot table, and you got the retail store. It's 10,000 square feet, new space. And it's amazing. So thank you, Palma Pasta, for giving Gord the best lasagna he's going to have in his life. Thank you. Absolutely.

Harold. Harold's. Absolutely. Harold. Harold's a buddy. I need to declare that. So he's not just a random Twitter guy sending me a question. But actually, Harold, I used to play box. We called it box. Sometimes we called it wall ball. Back in the junction when I was like a teenager, we used to get together and play this

baseball against the box on the wall. Wall ball, whatever. And we had a mutual friend named Joe. So hello to Joe, who's actually backpacking around the world with his family. I think he's in Peru right now. So Joe, I hope you're having a good time.

I'm following on social media, but Harold, who's a great guy himself. He says, and by the way, I asked Harold at a party at Joe's house before he left. I said, Harold,

what's your favorite episode of Toronto Mike? Because he listens. He said the Gord Stelic episode. That's not a lie. Wow. His favorite episode is the Gord Stelic episode because he's in love with the Harold Ballard stories and stuff. So Harold writes, ask him if he knows Buds Rick Sutcliffe. So Buds is in quotes.

Buds, I guess, is his nickname because there's a picture named Rick Sutcliffe. Anyway, and would like to share any stories. Buds shared some amazing Leaf stories from Rick rick vive oh he wants to know yeah from rick vive to 2010 leaves he worked for molson's brewery uh as a liaison with the leaves from the 70s until his passing in 2010 so do you know this name buds rick suck cliff yeah buds are buddy buddy and uh he was uh like a smallish british accent and uh just you know when i say he was a rounder i say in a positive way because there used to be just guys that could get her that were rounders because you could sneak into practices and stuff and you

know just there's sort of some hangers on that just never made sense right so rick um i don't know how he originally developed a relationship but molson respected that he had that relationship so basically they they used him because they were like a major sponsor and that so they used him to help take care of the players what they may want but then also he met he coached the slow pitch team and it was serious back then you think about all these nhl teams had slow pitch teams and and it was serious, serious slow pitch. And he would go nuts. He was like Earl Weaver.

He was this regular good guy, but Buddy Buddy would be a little bit like Earl Weaver out there. He was very competitive, very fiery, and took it seriously. And so he was a really good guy. And it was a fun era. Like Ricky Vibe would score 50 goals. Imagine Austin Matthews and Mitch Marner playing slow pitch, pitch you could go down to coronation park i can't imagine it you know and and there they'd be and and maybe they'd be taking on like a team that

scott stevens on or some other nhl or some other teams so uh so that's it so i remember buddy buddy fondly okay so thanks harold for that and uh thanks gordon for those uh those memories now paul henderson it's not the's not the Paul Henderson you think it is. It's a different Paul Henderson. I'm sure there's a lot of Paul Hendersons out there. Is this the sailing guy, the Olympic guy? I don't know which Paul Henderson this is, except I'm pretty sure he's not the Foster Hewitt.

Henderson has scored for Canada, Paul Henderson. Oh, maybe it is. Maybe I shouldn't say that. Has he ever been approached about getting back to the big show or would he do it? Uh, I do it in a heartbeat. You know,

I, I always thought I had one more kick at it too. And it's funny talking to guys that, uh, were my colleagues way back when. Uh, so in saying that, as some people may be,

may be rolling their eyes and I'd go, I understand my time has come and gone. Although, it's funny, media in some other sports has been a way to get back or get into the management side. So you never know. Like Phil Jackson, that's what he was doing when he was doing radio, and then he became a coach of the Chicago Bulls and on and on. But when I first got fired by the New York Rangers

afterwards so there was an adjustment period and a couple of opportunities did come up and I was back in Toronto where I wanted to be and you know I was getting established on the on the media side so there wasn't it just wasn't the right kind of fit so i'm very fortunate because this worked out i had 17 years doing a phone uh doing a show on the fan and i'm still enjoying things and very much gainfully employed and around the toronto maple how about we do that uh because we should have done this earlier this is a terrible job i've done hosting the show can you tell us where like tell us what you do actively now where do we hear you now so So two things. So one is with, and when I got fired by the fan or rinsed in 2010, I will say Don Collins, who's the guy that rinsed me,

did say like, hey, if we ever get the Leafs, I'd want you back as my guy. And he was true to his word. So I'm back and I've been doing it. So in and around anything, a Leaf insider and anything around the Toronto Maple Leaf broadcast on the fan, I'm involved. I do a little bit of stuff with Sportsnet, like Hockey Central at noon, appearances and that. I don't do much TV anymore. But four years ago, Nelson Millman, who was our program director and a great guy and a really great friend took over at Sirius XM,

the NHL network. And this is my fifth year now hosting the morning show there. And so I get up early and they're still, they got really good studios down by Liberty village. Yes. I've been there. Cause I was on the Todd Shapiro show a couple of times. there you go.

Yeah. So 7am till 10am Eastern time. And I really enjoy the mix because that one's like like the satellite radio listeners are different most of them are american they don't get good hockey stations down there so by and large but you know they really like hockey because they're paying for the service right so so that's what we get and all 31 teams are equal like a florida arizona game is as important as a Toronto-Montreal game, where when you're doing things on the fan,

the Toronto-Montreal game is the be-all and end-all. So that is what I'm doing right now in a summer of a lot of professional bloodletting in my business. I'm very, very fortunate. That's a great opportunity for me to ask you a question from somebody I've got to know quite well lately, but I've been knowing him sort of as a, as DJ Schwarma. Okay. So DJ Schwarma was actually spinning songs at the party for Marty, which was a thing we did at the opera house for Martin Streak. I guess we're going

back a couple of months now, but I got to know him and he did, he dropped by here to check out some podcasting stuff because this gentleman I'm about to read a question from is now producing podcasts for The Athletic. And his name is Jeff Domet. I know Jeff, sure. Jeff wants me to ask you why you eat sushi with a fork. So first of all, when I got, again, I keep going back to when I got fired by the fan in 2010.

And a year later. Rinsed. Rinsed. A year later,insed went rinsed a year later I'm you know wondering what I'm you know trying to get at it trying to get at it well Joel Darling was with Hockey Night in Canada and CBC and Jeff Domet was the guy who uh ran or produced and ran Hockey Night in Canada radio and I gotta say they threw me a big time lifeline like they got me back and and I had to also kind of prove again, I was a hockey expert because for 17 years I've been doing talk shows,

which you had to be up on the Jays and baseball and all these kinds of things. So, yeah, I didn't, uh, so down the food court there at the CBC building, I got sushi for lunch and I got the plastic fork and knife and I,

I, I'm not a chopstick guy so that's... No shame in that Jeff we shouldn't be shaming Gord for this No and I ate it even though he took pictures and derided me for it and he waited for this opportunity to make sure the masses know about your

faux pas. And if I have sushi next time you can see me do it again I will not change. You gotta own that that's good for you there. So thank you, Jeff. And actually, speaking of DJ Shwarma, he's going to,

I don't know if we're going to kick out, Jeff, we got to talk if you're kicking out the jams or if we're just chatting, but he's going to drop by. When you said Shwarma, I thought it was Jeff Domet because for like, he's got a history.

So he's got me about sushi, but he's got a history of some kind of Shwarma connection. Well, I asked him, why are you DJ Shwarma? And he says, this actually ties in nicely with the Humble and Fred episode we talked about,

but Humble Howard called him Shawarma because he's Lebanese. That's it. Like, there's no more to that story, really, except that he's of Lebanese descent, Jeff, and therefore Howard gave him the nickname Chicken Shawarma, I think. Okay.

And then they, I guess they nicely got rid of chicken at some point. So it's just like Ray Ferraro, they call chicken parm because that's what he ate before every game as a player, chicken parmesan. There you go. So there you go. Something Jeff has in common with Ray. Good to hear.

Now I have a question from a, speaking of Gary's are extinct, but this guy, again, not a baby, but Gary Gosnell says, does he keep in touch with old professional contacts slash partners, such as, and I'll go one by one so we can keep this easy. And then if you're enemies of this person now, we need the truth on that too. Real talk here, but Don Landry. Boy, people ask about Don Landry all the time.

And to answer your question, no. Personally, we didn't socialize a ton together, but we got along really well we hadn't you know we got along fine and you know different stages when you have young kids like I did and and and that so it was weird that he should be in this business Pat Marsh ended a great line about him just a talented guy funniest guy and he I know he's in Stratford and he had a show on london in the afternoons about four or five years ago and i thought this sounded perfect but i think it only lasted two or three months and i mean to his credit he's sort of been his own man that he he was a small town guy came and

kicked ass in toronto and uh just you know didn't doesn't spend money outlandishly and just decided that whatever, he does some work for Yahoo, you know, writes for Yahoo. No, until this season, I believe he was the PA announcer for Argo Games. Yeah, no, I heard that too, but that won't pay the bills.

No, I know what you mean. But I mean, yeah, he's got a passion for the Canadian Football League, passion for curling. So I've seen him do a bit more on Sportsnet that way. Yeah, and I think, yeah,

I think he wrote about, I think he might've been writing at on Sportsnet that way. Yeah, and I think he wrote about, I think he might have been writing at like CFL.ca. Yeah, and all good. So he's pieced something together and he'd got married shortly before our show ended and that. And they, like I said,

they live in Stratford. I do, like I mentioned, I'll write about things like Brady out, MacArthur in, like exciting things like that. And I will still get comments from people who say their favorite fan morning show is Landry and Stelic. Well, you know, I like that. And I will still get comments from people who say their favorite fan morning

show is Landry and Stelic. Well, you know, I appreciate that. And I, yeah, I really appreciate that. And I thought we really had,

you know, I don't mean to be, I thought we really had a good show. And I, I thought, I thought the moves were made before the appropriate time. And I think this whole strombo thing, am I getting the right?

Oh yeah. So that's kind of an interesting wrinkle because we all look back at this as andrew crystal being kind of a like kind of a mess like as host like i'm not no commentary on the man himself i've never met him but andrew crystal as morning show host on fan 590 i don't think i think everybody will say it was like a failed experiment but this whole strombo angle is interesting because it sounds like maybe you were rinsed for strombo and yes and so you weren't rinsed for crystal. No, even the,

so, and the, and Elsie, Don knew strombo better and strombo was talking to Don and said, yeah, they've talked to me, but I'm not going to do the morning show. So it made it stranger.

And I'll tell you, Mike, it was a weird, it's a funny thing. You're, you're, you know, we're fortunate because we get our ass kissed a lot,

you know, at times it's, it's nice. You know know it's nice when somebody like whatever job you have when someone says i really like what you did like you people would like that we're fortunate that way right and uh so it was a neat run and then all of a sudden when management change happened and nelson was out and you could smell it something was really off and uh that last week before we both got rinsed like they were going to de-emphasize but they were going through this phase again and one executive i'll use his name because he's retired now chuck mccoy he was a good guy he was a big fan of ours and then but then he expounded the corporate belief then that there

was no future in sports radio again they'd gone back i'd been through that once with telemedia and i can remember the last week we were told to get whatever that opp guy is on for weekend traffic like we're told to get him on like so they're gonna they were gonna bring all these different components in cam woolly is that his name cam was gone then so it was somebody else but but that kind of thing and i'm kind of going like this is weird and then it was the the big um what'd you call like the g7 thing downtown was right around then and we were told to direct people to 680 news 680 news and and then we got rinsed and then two months later keith pelly came in so all of a sudden whatever plans to de-emphasize

sports were in place that all changed and it came back and expanded once again. Is it just that you and Don were making those rockstar salaries? You were just too expensive? Too high price to talent? Well, you do make good money doing a morning show, so you do become a target.

But we certainly weren't making Macauan money or over the top. Well, who was making Macauan money? Macauan. And got treated very fairly, got paid off for the year like I was entitled to it over the top and who's making who is making mccowan money mccowan yeah you know and then and and got got got treated very fairly got paid off for the year like i was entitled to it but i never actually like i never actually left left left like i did have that terrible morning where your pass doesn't work anymore and your email's gone like it's a very dehumanizing does that

happen before they tell you like because the orders they're supposed to tell you and then yeah they tell you and then and then it goes later on. And then they were very good. Like I said, I kind of, like Don Collins was true to his word, so I kind of stayed in the mix anyway. But it's just because I wasn't expecting it that morning. Like it's just weird. The end of the show, so to talk about Don Landry,

like at the end of the show, we're told to go see Don Collins. And I kid about it because I'm older. I had to use the restroom. And then I came in and Landry was already on his way out. And we would have got fired together if I had a better bladder. That's a strange way to do it too. I don't think kids, I mean, not that you would, but theoretically that's a moment where, I don't know,

let's say Don sheds a tear. Like he's with a, like I just think that's an awkward thing to do, fired together. Well, just weird. And I thought I was going to stay i i really did i didn't you know don thought thought he was in trouble it wasn't any one guy's talent over the other but just anyway whatever and actually that guy brian angus mumbles he got let go that morning too about seven of us did yeah yeah that's that's terrible terrible but i'm gonna this name okay so that's don landry but there's a few more names but this one one I'm going to save to the end

because there's another question about him. But Sam Mitchell? Smich? Gee, Smich. You know, Sam Mitchell I don't think ever knew our names. Right. Which was funny. And I've run into a couple times at SiriusXM

because he's come in early in the morning to send something back for the NBA network. But this started as a regular hit from the raptor coach who wanted to i think he'd rather have put something up his nose than been on with us and it went very uneven the first time he was on and we were just going to flush it and then he came on and he kind of kid he goes oh yeah i just you guys need a big hug you're all upset or whatever and then i i'll give landry credit that he kind of his acerbic wit really really resonated for a couple of shows so we kind of had this this banter that went and jay triana was an assistant coach

back then and he said we knew sam never got up till 10 a.m in the morning so when he was on with you guys like you guys are always waking him up and we would pull over and listen uh we had we'd pull our cars over and listen to sam being on and it just it just ended up being this funny kind of thing that worked for whatever number of years well gary gosnell here he he says that the the uh these morning segments of sam with you and uh dawn were must listen he says so it worked well I would say, you know, Mike, like my years and even before Don, like that's weird. That probably is the number one must listen to regular

that was on. I don't know if it would have had legs for a long period of time, you know, but for a couple of years, it was dynamite. And once when Sam was, he was at the airport going back, the season was over and Jeff Sam at our op put together just a bunch of Sam Mitchell insults. And then he would do like the ringing of a boxing bell in between. And even Sam, when it ended was like chuckling on the phone.

Cause he had so many great insults that he threw at Don and I, you know, just along the way about, you know, things that it was just, it was funny. And that jeff of course he was a veto in woodbridge as i recall from my commute i'll tell you something uh jeff sammet and don landry are like like i still think there's something they could do involving that kind of humor and it's and and jeff sammet now hosts a hosts a show on canadas on Sirius XM and so he's wanted to be more of a legitimate on-air personality now for quite some time and he does a great job at it but I just I missed those bits but they took a lot of work to do but these guys had half the voices would be Jeff and half would

be Don none would be me sometimes they'd involve me in the bit because they but that they were they were a little bit too time consuming sometimes but man they they were some really talented guys jeff john ferguson jr jeff did oh my god like john ferguson jr and i i think that's one that probably got under john ferguson jr's skin and i think i could i know because i asked him about this uh he did a sleepy wilner mike will sleepy mike didn't like that okay that'd be, I don't, I just. Because I asked him, what did you think? And he did not like it.

I just, I don't know, they're just, I'm laughing at, they had so many good ones and Don did a great Jerry Howarth, but it'd be some of the more obscure ones they did as well

that were great. And again, Don Landry's been on this show, but I want to thank Don because when I had Brian Williams, for example, coming on, I'm all excited Brian's on.

I actually had Dan, I commissioned Dan, I didn't pay him any money or anything, but to create like a little bit off the top I played of, because he did a very good Brian Williams. Oh, he could do grapes. And Don Cherry. He would do, so Don Landry would do a great, he could do Coach's Corner mock-ups

of being both Brian Williams and Don Cherry. Yeah, you'd think there'd be an appetite for that somewhere. It's interesting. Well, it was, but also, it wasn't just the impressions. It was the content they did. There were some real funny, funny bits. Interesting how sometimes

there's these very talented people who just don't quite conform to what the cable companies are looking to package and serve up. It's interesting, interesting from my perspective anyways. Now, the name I left off of Gary's list there, because Chris in Toronto writes in, this is about you, Gord, interesting from my perspective anyways now the name i left off of gary's list there because chris

and toronto writes in any this is about you gourd anytime he and damien have done a show it has been hilarious and thoughts of bringing back the sunday morning trivia show or some sort of podcast question mark so maybe you could talk to us a little bit uh about uh damien cox and if you ever have have you ever considered uh like a gourd-stellic Damien Cox podcast or anything? Talk to us about Damien. Are you still friendly with Damien? Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Again, I don't see him a lot. You don't see a lot of people a lot anymore. And this was thrown together. The fan launched in 1993. And Damien and I thought we'd have big roles. We didn't. So I was just doing some little bit of stuff and Damian had a show on Sundays with Leo Cahill.

And then, and then after I started coming on with Damian and then when the football season ended, we just did nine till 12 Sunday mornings and it just worked. It was really fun. And Alan Davis, the program director, then gave us the Gordon Damien show that next summer. And it only lasted a year because the Toronto Star, it's hard to believe, whoever the editor was,

wanted Damien Cox and Mary Ormsby no longer to be, you know, full-time employees. And it would have been the greatest kind of promotion, right? No, in hindsight, that's a ridiculous decision. Yeah. So then it became the big show with myself and then Damien would be frequently on and then you know when I did the morning show if Landry was away I tried to get Damien on and and we we really I don't know why we worked and Tim McAuliffe you know both Tim and Sid are good friends and Tim just said that they kind of patterned their show off uh as kind

of a younger version a more contemporary version of what Damien and I attempted to do on air. And I consider that a big compliment. And it was fun because we were very different, which if you're too similar. You are different. But yeah, I think you worked very well together. But yeah, you're different. Yes, which is important. Someone said, you should do a show with your brother. My brother Bob's my best friend. It wouldn't be a good show. very well together but yeah you're different yes which is important like you know someone said you

should do a show with your brother my brother bob's my best friend it wouldn't be a good show like we're fun like i think we'd be funny and entertaining and but but it just we're too similar to whatever where damien it was great because we're both new in the business the station was new you could try things everyone supported you in a big way and uh and and it just was really neat and we were really fortunate but there was this chemistry with damien that was natural and i i can't explain why it just was damien cox is a friend of toronto mike and he sent in a note here so damien says uh ask him who really invented lunch down sorry yeah lunch bag let down and he put really in all capitals. Yeah, because it was Damien,

but Damien doesn't even remember that. I think I've reminded him throughout the years, kind of given him credit about lunch bag letdown. And then Ian Radar Cunningham, who was our op, did the cheesy sound effect that we were always going to get around to fixing and making better, but the cheesy crumpling of the bag sound effect

around lunch bag letdown just was the best so that was damien's idea we had a meeting at his house in ancaster todd macklin was our first producer and we just thought of these different ideas and one was this thing lunch bag letdown because we started at 12 noon then and we kind of did a fun thing like what's you know a letdown, and people would compete that way. And Damien also, because when he got, couldn't do the Gordon Damien show anymore, we brought him in. He came in on Fridays, and it was called The Cutting Edge. He hosted The Cutting Edge, which I claim the Friday roundtable

is the bastardized version of The Cutting Edge, because they stole it from me. And McCowan was doing a Monday roundtable, but not a Friday roundtable. tables the bastardized version of the cutting edge because they stole it from me and mccowan was doing a monday round table but not a friday round table so damien started doing more with primetime sports and left me in his wake and took the cutting edge with him so i give him credit for that have you ever considered uh doing a podcast of cox or something like that you know um yeah to answer your question i i mean you're you're the master of podcasts i am i'm the guru you are but everybody seems to have a podcast right everybody seems to have a podcast not

everyone but i know your point is uh valid no but yours is excellent there's some really good podcasts out there i'm just saying but like anything else uh the cream will rise to the top so yeah so i but you'd want to make sure you had the time and resources and effort to do it properly and maybe we still will because it was fun to do. You never know. And Damien, as I recall, is an Etobicoke guy now.

Like, I believe he... Oh, yeah. He's very she-she. Yeah. Well, I don't think that thinks he's she-she. Oh, yeah. He's living the good life.

Yeah. He is. But hello, Damien, if you're listening. He's been on at least three times, and we've got to get him back for a fourth time. Well, now that he hears you're on a second time, he's going to try to one-up you

and make sure he stays ahead of you on that one. Mike Cohen. Okay, actually, before I read Mike Cohen's excellent question, let me give you some stickers. So I know you've been hankering for one of these, a Toronto Mike sticker of your very own Gord Stelic. I am out of those. You do?

Yeah. For your collection. That'll go on the back of your, I'll put it on the back of your car when we're done. Don't worry. After a photo. You got a bumper sticker too? Yeah.

Those are real popular nowadays. Well, I have a Toronto Mike sticker on the bumper of my car. I saw. Yes. Yes. I'm trying to bring it back. So I want to say thank you for the excellent partnership. Uh,

sticker you sticker you.com that's sticker. Y O U.com. You can basically upload, uh, if you have a logo, if you still have a electricity logo or whatever, you upload it to sticker you.com. You can have,

you can produce stickers or decals or buttons. I know not buttons. Uh, they're like badges. We're going to get one at TMLX5. I just have a bunch made for that. What else? Temporary tattoos. Things you

can stick. You can make one or as many as you like on demand. It's very cost effective and they're fantastic. They're good people there. They're also in Liberty Village. You could walk there from the SiriusXM building there. Thank you StickerU. You, Gord, enjoy your Strong Mike sticker. I will enjoy the stickers.

And Rupesh Kapadia, he's the rock star accountant who sees beyond the numbers. We've been playing a lot of clips. I have a whole bunch because we recorded answers to a bunch of listener questions. But people are like, Mike, how do we contact Rupesh? Because I keep saying, you know, I'll put you in touch with Rupesh because, of course, you could always write

me and then I'll put you in touch with Rupesh or you could DM me on Twitter at Toronto Mike, but you can also contact Rupesh Kapadia directly. And here's how. Rupesh, if someone's listening to us right now and wants to reach out, what is the best way to get a hold of you at Kapadia LLP CPAs? So the best way to get hold of me is my email, which is rupesh at kapadialp.com. We always offer free consultation, so that's not a problem. Once we get an email and we think that there is more involved, we'll definitely make sure that we request you to have a one-on-one consultation either by phone or in person, and we can then take it from there. And that's rupesh at kapadillp.com. That's exactly right.

By the way, that stock music for primetime sports I mentioned, I actually have the name if anyone's curious. It's called Speed Demons and it's by somebody named Simon Holland. So that is the primetime sports music we've been listening to for many, many years. But I guess we won't be hearing any more unless I keep playing it. Maybe I'll take it as my new theme song. Just play the Primetime Sports theme. Okay, Mike Cohen.

When Gord Stalick worked full-time on the Fan 590, what shift did he enjoy better? Mornings, 5.30 to 9, or his classic The Big Show time slot, 1 to 4? So, first of all, I better be careful here because I love what I do now. I love working around the Toronto Maple Leaf games and still being involved with the fan.

And actually, I really do that because that's my connect with fans is the hockey side. So back at it, the morning show was more lucrative to do and I worked with Don Landry, Jeff Samet, Brian Angus and others, but no question, the big show. I mean, it was 11 years. I just broke in. The station just started.

And you didn't have, Mike, the same pressure as the mornings. Like Bob had prime time to himself, the afternoons to himself. What I mean that it was a jungle out there that you knew everybody who was on in the mornings. And it's just so combative and so competitive and always a struggle in the mornings. Like the minutiae of everything is micromanaged. And I got to just 11 years. I do chats with Nelson Millman and some sound checks along the way and things like that.

But you got to do what you wanted to do. And there wasn't the same pressure those other other slots and i just got a really good feel for that three hours like i i just really did it was just a really good feel about the pace of the show and what worked what didn't work and you weren't getting up at four in the morning and you know things like that so the 11 years on the on the big show would be my favorite. By the way, that gentleman, Mike Cohen, who sent in that great question, he says his brother is David Cohen. Oh, yeah.

And he worked at the Fan 590. Yeah, I remember David. And David says hello to you, Gordon. Well, I say hello back to David. It's funny, you bring that up, then I go, well, okay, look at my producers at the Fan, or our producers, but at the fan the big show you've got todd macklin who's one of my best friends and he's at sportsnet now at the cubby

peter mcphee he's uh back got a good job in pei eric smith does play by play for the toronto raptors dave kudrow is my boss now at uh at the fan you know and just todd hayes did it he uh he carried on in management for a while greg sansoni who's now uh i guess i i guess todd macklin's greg sansoni's right hand guy in the corporate structure there so just some just some great name and working with barb de julio as well i mean that she was a staple of those shows so it was it was a lot of fun that way real neo he had a few questions i'm gonna just cherry pick uh because there's a lot here but one of them is uh he said someone said something about gourd and he paraphrases here never has someone done so much with so little and he wanted to know

if you remember who said that and he says i think it was meant as a compliment but he wants to know what you thought of that who are we talking about here? I've, uh, so, so actually, let me get this right here. So yeah, I've heard that. I've heard that. And it might've been Bruce Dobigin. Might've been.

He's turned a little cranky for what it's worth. Maybe he was always that way, but I just noticed it on Twitter now. But yeah. And, and, and again, I think,

I, I think, yeah, it was actually in a story where he ended up complimenting me I think that's a backhanded compliment though yeah someone done so much so little I had one when uh what did Chris Elkovich say about me once like he called me he called me an inning eater you know which which actually you make lots of money in baseball if you're an inning eater uh and then and then what did he say about meandering and something else and uh i i pretend so i pretended on air that i got this great compliment and then i looked up the

the word so then so zelkovich actually left me a voicemail said that was funny you know because uh uh so the other part about dobigin was that really bugged me was in 2010 again that focus point june 2010 when i got rinsed yeah and i said this to don collins when i was pretty upset and emotional and was unexpecting it but i was pissed that bruce dobegan had the goods and someone was leaking that crap to bruce dobegan and that's what really ticked me and that's what and that that's what had got landry myself nervous was he what what was his thing called truth or rumors or whatever rumors oh no it's william houston it was william houston rumors so anyway dobegan had taken over but he had the goods like someone was

leaking it and that all of a sudden was getting out that i was in trouble i really didn't know i was in trouble evidently i was in trouble yeah and uh there we go so never has someone done so much with so little kevin in alberta says uh hey ask Gord about a sports site he was involved in in 96. I forget the name of it, but it was fan related. They had a contest to pick winners of NHL games and I won two seats of Leafs tickets from them. They changed prizes after

that because I kept winning. So Kevin in Alberta was winning on some, maybe some fan website. By the way, 96, I was on the web in 96 and it was was that was early days for the worldwide web as we yeah i certainly wasn't on the web very much so i don't know what it would be if it's something on the fan i did something it was the infancy that i wrote some articles and i'm trying to remember what these guys called it they're really sharp guys and they went on

were successful doing other things but i would write an article and i geez the guy's name was danny brown but i don't remember what it was so uh i'm i'm glad you got the tickets i'm glad you won the tickets so congrats kevin in alberta good job uh craig mcleod says what's your favorite john brophy story do you have a favorite john brophy story that you can share i uh i did book called Hockey Heartaches and Hell, which is a great book now. It wasn't as good a book back in 1990. And I'm not saying that self-serving. I did it right after my Leaf experience.

And Jim O'Leary, who's an excellent writer, wrote it with me, did the writing. And the problem was when it came out, it was still too fresh, you know, like about Harold Ballard, John Broe, like these stories, you know, weren't that funny or as interesting to leaf fans so one chapter is on john brophy and when he died i i uh i did a story on sportsnet.ca and i got a lot from that and i just i love john brophy he could he coach in the nhl no no he um i wish everybody had his passion he was a smart guy

but i i i knew he was part of becoming general manager you know here he was harold's guy as the coach so i i'm trying to remember like there's like gosh we we everyone i'll get people on my radio shows and i'll look because you can do hockey db.com sure and if anyone almost so many guys like intersected with brof like just for a bit and you bring it up and and they would they would love those kind of stories and i i just um i'm god there's so many ones that are so like like funny about things and whatever but i i know just uh well mark osborne had one about just like he tells the one something about he's going he's going nuts on the team or whatever. And he just said, like, so the intermission.

And then he just said something about, you guys are playing like you're in the dark. So you guys sit in the dark. And then he turned the lights off and they're sitting in the dark. Like they're sitting in the dark. And then Borya said, Borya Saming said, turn the lights back on. So he told, I afraid he turned the lights on. Then all of all of a sudden broke because it turns the light off again so there's just sitting in the dark you know back now you go through videos you go all that stuff so yeah he

was uh uh he would be very reactive with work on today's team oh no wouldn't no and it wouldn't have worked really and you know those guys have a soft spot for both because they respected his passion but i mean it was like he was like he worked the teams way too hard and there was not a lot of, you know, like a lot of thought going in, strategy going into things about stuff. But I like Brophy. It was never dull with John Brophy. Al Grego, who, by the way, is the same Al

that was lead singer of the Royal Pains, which I spoke about off the top. Al Grego says he and Barb DiGiulio made a good team. How is his relationship with Barb? Phil, let's start with that. How is your relationship with Barb? Well, I think it would be good. Again, you know, I don't connect with her

or seen her for a while. And I love what she does on CFRB. You know, I like that she's got it. But it was, again she she was actually at the fan when it was cjcl before that and they kiddingly call it was music of your life right and they called it music of your dead wife that's what they kiddingly called it just in the sense that it wasn't you know the big band music wasn't uh contemporary anymore so so then she morphed in uh into sports and and really really did great and i loved her presence and her vitality and and just what she brought to the show and you know i

think uh so so then when we moved to the rogers building and this big building downtown and so she still did a segment with me and you know it still wasn't the same you know like it wasn't because she had other duties to do at 680 news and then when i moved to the morning show we we know we didn't have anything to do professionally so that was in 2004 so it's a long time but i i mean my understanding is she's doing great i i saw her actually ken daniels was in town so i saw her howard burger and greg Brady. I think it was two years ago. Three more Toronto Mike guests. So there we go.

All these. So has Barb done Toronto Mike? Yes. Yeah. So anyway, it's, yeah, you're the one, you're the best guy keeping in touch with everybody in the business. You really are. I'm the great unifier.

I bring you all together. Now, by the way, Ken Daniels was fantastic. He wrote a book called If These Walls Could Talk about the Red Wings. And on the cover, it's got you're hoisting the NHL. I mean, you got, I think, Steve Eisenman's holding the cup or something like that. And who is it at the Toronto Sun who just wrote it? Name of the Toronto, Ken Hornby. Lance Hornby.

Lance Hornby, yeah. It's Ken Hornby. Yeah, Ken Daniels, Lance Hornby. Lance Hornby wrote the Leafs version, and there's no cup on? Yeah, Ken Daniels, Lance Hornby. Lance Hornby wrote the Leafs version, and there's no cup on the cover of the Leafs version of If These Walls Could Talk. Yeah, it's not... Well, every city is doing one of these

If These Walls Could Talk, right? Every NHL city. But yes, there are cups, but they're just from before the Detroit's last four. Right. Okay, so Barb DiGiulio, yeah. I really, really like Barb, and we actually will...

Twitter sounds dirty if you say, yeah, Barb and I DM each other once in a while, but it's not dirty. We do. I'm friendly with Barb. I think she's fantastic. And I believe she actually listens. I'll bet you she's listening to us right now.

So hello, Barb. This question is not from me. It's from Al, but he wants to know, has she been blacklisted from sports media or was it her decision to get out and stay out? And I know you don't know because that's a Barb question and and you're gourd but i would say if i were to jump in there and say uh after many many years that the fan barb was let go that uh unfortunately from the fan and there's only two sports radio stations in the city like i think uh barb is

more than sports and she decided to talk about more than sports yeah i uh first of all i'm annoyed i didn't have a better john but like there's there's sometimes there's too many stories but there's ones you can't really tell either you know whatever i'll think of one later on anyway but in the sense of barb i i was a big booster and believer that there there could have should have been a bigger role for her in sports i don't mean necessarily with the radio stations i know once she had an audition with the TV station and she seemed perfect. Can I say that was sports line? Yeah.

Yeah. And I thought she was great. She, you know, you know, and, and, uh,

I thought she was great. And then, uh, so why she, why she left six 80 or, or excuse me, Rogers or why they rinsed her or mutually. Again,

I don't a hundred percent know because I was gone by then. Right. So she was still there when I got rinsed in or mutually again, I don't a hundred percent know because I was gone by then. Right. She was still there when I got rinsed in 2010. And, uh, so we're just like, yeah, we don't like,

we don't stay again actively in touch, but, uh, I I'm glad she's doing great. I'm still a huge fan of hers. It is interesting that she was the last, I would say, okay,

if you look at weekday lineups on the fan five 90, she was the last woman to have a regular spot until ashley docking yeah who was just hired this this year yeah and i uh with a tongue in my cheek this is a joke i almost i hate it when you have to tell someone it's a joke because it ruins a joke but i've been taking credit for that because uh she came on toronto mic and then i told her she should have a full-time job on the fan and it happened. So I've been jokingly taking credit for it. I just hope people know it.

My tongue's in my cheek. Okay. Well, you know, I like Ashley. I know Scott MacArthur really likes her too. So that's good. I mean, they're going to be an advocate for her. I know Sherry Ford does some work on the fan as well. So I'm big on Ashley as well, though.

Sherry Ford was traded for senil joshi this is a senil was on recently she told me like like uh i guess there was a weird time when ownership was changing okay and you know when uh i guess there's a weird time when yeah so senil was traded for sherry ford and then senil ended up in the sports net side where are the any i can't remember the details except that definitely there was a trade of some sorts with maybe CFTO

and TSN or something like that. Anyway. Something like that, sure. Something like that, sure. Sunil Joshi, you must have bumped into him

a few dozen times. Yeah, he was at our wedding too and again. With the Brine Master doing the... Yeah, Brine Master, Dan Schulman,

Damien Cox were all at our wedding and not that that's the be-all end, uh, yeah, Brian master, Dan Schulman, Damian Cox, we're all at our wedding. And not that that's the be all end all barometer, but it's, uh, again, like I used to see everybody on a daily basis, you know, and then just things change, right? You're a busy guy. Uh, you're always spending your time at the stack restaurant. So you don't have time. Well, by stack, but also when you're single, like, and I was single till I was 38 that, you know, just your times your own. And then all of a sudden, and then particularly when you have kids, asstack, but also when you're single, like, and I was single till I was 38, that, you know, just your time's your own.

And then all of a sudden, and then particularly when you have kids, as you know, things change rather dramatically about just being able to go anywhere on a whim. So true. So true. I love this question because I hope one day to get the same question. Brian Tanner says, ask him how he keeps that hairline so firmly intact. Ask him how he keeps that hairline so firmly intact. Now, for the record, because George Costanza, who we've compared you to because of your Gore-Tex jacket and your very thick wallet.

Yeah, my Costanza wallet. He famously, famously, on Steinfeld, he put on the piece, the hairpiece, and then I think it was Elaine threw it at a window. She hated it or whatever. So I don't know. Do they say it's your mother's father that determines that? Oh, because roger roderick montgomery died with a full head of hair apparently i came out to shoot with this hair i absolutely great hair one i'm i'm yeah it is great

hair fortunate and i'm eyeballing it here to make sure no yeah yeah yeah and you're in your early 80s is that right i kid i kid, I kid. But I wish I had, I hope I have hair like that. I mean, you've only got a couple of years on me, but. So it's, and yeah, and it's apparently turning a little bit white,

but I can't really see that. Yeah, no, I'm fortunate that way. And I'm glad, I'll use Damien as an example. So actually, so Damien's daughter, Megan, she'll hate this too but anyway now she works at sports that so when she was like two years old and we were like we were hanging with like again when the fan started and you know so you're hanging with damien and dan shulman like you

hung together like and i just remember his daughter said something dan shulman's wedding photo and said i like your hair better here you know know, just really because, so both Dan and Damien, you know, like Damien looks great with a shaved head. Bald and beautiful. No, but I mean, like it used to be do anything to cover up whatever, but so many people now,

that's just a great look. It's a great look. Shulman said it best. On my show, he said something, he said going bald was terrible, but being bald, he said, is amazing. but being bald he said is amazing so it's that process of getting there that's really the yeah but they look great i agree seriously i agree uh yeah and uh damien cox's daughter you mentioned she works at sports net uh i've been lucky enough

to have a communication with her via emails so when i saw she's great and i didn't put i didn't connect these dots i saw the last name cox but for some reason I wasn't thinking like that. And it was, uh, it was, uh, David Schultz of all people. I was at a Wolfpack rugby match with David Schultz and we were talking about some stuff.

And then he goes, uh, you know, that's a Damien's daughter. And then it was like a light went off in my head. I'm like, okay, it all connects now.

Okay. Uh, so thank you, Brian. Uh, yes, Gord has great hair. Russ Morgan just says,

uh, and I know I promised 90 minutes. I'm a little over time but i'm gonna go rapid fire now uh okay i have a lot of people who chimed in with questions about the current leafs and i'm actually not gonna do them because you do that for a living like you have other shows where you talk about the leaves so like this question about babcock making it to christmas i mean in 10 seconds well babby yes or no we'll buy babcock make it to christmas I mean, in 10 seconds, how about this? Yes or no? Will Babcock make it to Christmas? Yes. Yes. And with the Leafs,

the big picture thing is it's the playoffs. I mean, the Leafs are like a great regular season. Ask the Tampa Bay Lightning what that means if you get eliminated in four straight in the first round.

So the Leafs are one of those teams. There may be eight of them. I don't know what the number is, but really the whole definition is what happens in the playoffs. Now, if they don't make the playoffs, holy crap, but they should make the playoffs.

I expect them to make the playoffs. So there'll be ebbs and flows and hopefully learning things throughout the 82 game regular season. And everything that matters and everything that this team will be judged on happens in April and May and hopefully June. Yeah.

Okay. Unless they don't make the playoffs, then they will be judged on happens in April and May and hopefully June. Yeah. Okay. Unless they don't make the playoffs. Then they'll be judged too. Well, then Babcock's done like dinner. Yeah. For sure. Okay. Now, again, I'm skipping all the current.

So thank you, Marky, David, for your great question. And Patrick Mulholland, actually Patrick Mulholland does ask, it's not currently, he says, is there anything you would have changed about your time as Leafs GM if you could go back in a time machine and be Leafs GM again?

Is there anything you would do differently? Or, and this kind of ties into many people liking, they must not have heard your first episode where we killed this to death, but many people want to ask things about Cordic for Cortinal. Like that is probably, you said on your tombstone, that's probably going to be on your tombstone.

Well, I think I get to pick what goes on my tombstone, so it won't be. But you will be dead. We'll put on what we want. So the first thing first is leaving the Toronto, I did not get fired from the Toronto Maple Leafs or rinsed. Right. I left on my own volition and there were a lot of reasons and actually it worked out better for the team. And I'm glad I did. I'm proud of that.

It helped my profile. And so it was unfortunate it got to a place where I had to do that. But my regret would have been I had a great experience in New York, but I had some other hindsight, some other opportunities that I would have gone to because Neil Smith has gone through a horrible year personally. But professionally, if I have somebody who put the screws to me pretty good it would be him and it was a good life lesson that at least harold ballard was the boss and you knew it whatever and he came on you face on we all get experiences with somebody who that you

know who taught who encouraged you to go there i considered a friend and then really puts the screws to you anyway so be it so that was the only thing about that. But the other part is the Cordick for Cortinal trade is, again, I took the job with no false pretenses that John Brophy was going to be the head coach. That was the deal. And we drafted a guy named Ty Domi in the second round because he wanted some physical guys, which was a good guy to draft in that draft.

We had a team of eddie olchuk gary lehman vincent donfus daniel merwa um like a lot of skilled players right brof brof first of all went to war about borya soming and we got that straightened out and and he recognized that harold ballard didn't like him saying we got to get rid of borya soming and after that so and then the thing I take I'm pleased about is I did not grease the skids on Brof I got him a tough guy that he wanted and um and John Kordick if he wasn't so messed up actually had a decent kind of year there and he was a bona fide heavyweight when you needed when bona fide heavyweights were accepted in the nhl and toughness was huge but he was really

he was a really good guy but incredibly messed up so um let's face it our scouting stuff was not like it should have been up to date about what the what he was like at that point and anyway uh that's really about it so and russ cortnell was a guy that so i promised russ uh about i'd help him get out of there. And, but I realized that later on, Punch Imlach, when he traded Lanny McDonald, he traded him to Colorado, so you never saw him. Right. Russ was there at the Montreal Forum every Saturday, just looking perfect and playing well. So it's, it's, it's not as, anyway, you end up being too defensive about it. So I don't want to do that.

Well, it's just, you know, people, you know, we're many years out now and it's like mass. I want to say thanks to the question about, he wants to know what you were thinking and then Ringer, and you've explained that now with the brofie. Ringer wants to know why, and you've explained that now. But again, we did talk at depth about this. I know, because I was at the draft table

when an 18-year-old Russ Corton was drafted by the Leafs and the old phone and talking to his mom, his dad had taken his own life a few years earlier, and he'd been a Toronto Maple Leaf fan. So if there's a guy I liked, Russ was about as much of a guy I liked with the Toronto Maple Leafs as anybody, and I still get along with really, really well.

I got him away from Brofe. But anyway, we move on. So Midtown Gord, again again midtown gourd has questions about the current lineup but he wants to say thank you for his nickname so you've apparently that's right gave him the town gourd that's right and there was a question here i'm skipping ahead but uh there was a question about the regulars like do you remember the regulars who would call in like because i have regular this this person who sent in a really uh interesting comparison because i run this open mic on toronto mic.com and every friday there's an open mic and there are regulars like there's a cast of characters who come in and chime in and you had on your show

you would have regulars that yeah no it was it was neat you know and some and some some passed some passed away like raptorized john was a guy that then i we you know i was done by then i was gone from the station but his son sent a note that he had he had passed away and i i think it was great to share that with the listeners you know we had a guy named clifton and i got met him at the racetrack a couple of times and he go dr g and he'd come on about whatever and smart guy smart guy i really enjoyed his questions and you know i i like those regular callers that brought something and you know to the brought something to the day is that way and right and just calls have kind of changed that not enough people phone in anymore right you

know it used to be like you'd go hey first time caller that was considered you know a novel like something special when you got on the fan and then you started getting too many of the same and i i did find the four and i filled in on prime time if you took calls at four o'clock i i liked i liked those calls around then very interesting now i promise ali musa i would give uh him a shout out so hello to ali musa and maybe uh on our way out here i'll uh give you one more gift here now Now, do you, Gore, do you have any children? Yes, I do. How old are these children? 20 and 16.

Okay. So 16 is too old to go trick-or-treating, but not too old for Pumpkins After Dark. So I'm going to email you these PDF tickets. You're going to get free passes to Pumpkins After Dark. Pumpkins After Dark is 5,000 hand-carved pumpkins that illuminate the skies at Country Heritage Park in Milton, Ontario.

And this runs through November 3rd, so not much time left, actually. And you got the pumpkins illuminated, the 5,000 of those. You got 100 sculptures. You got sound. It's a really cool experience. If somebody wants to enjoy this experience

and save 10% right now, they can go to pumpkinsafterdark.com and use the promo code pumpkin Mike, but Gord, you're going to save a hundred percent. I'm going to send you some free passes and check it out. Everybody who's, I've been seeing reviews from people who I've sent and they all had a fantastic time. So thank you pumpkins after dark. Gord, I can't believe we just put this together friday because it's uh one of my very favorite episodes i had a tremendous time as i did the first time you came by so you're two for two well the chum chart too says here comes track eddie shack was number two these old things so

you gave me these old chum charts from doug didn't give them to you oh i guess i can only sell them to you they're valuable but uh bob mcadori is on that yeah you know something i uh i gotta say i got so much feedback from the last time first time i was on your show and i listened to i'm not a podcast aficionado but i listened to yours uh a number of them i should bring down this music this might be my favorite part of the episode and uh and so anyways so even though it was last minute it was great coming on and down road, we could figure a mix of the two. Because, yeah, last time, it was deep about one side of things. But I always keep perspective. I'm really fortunate. It's not brain surgery.

There's no heavy lifting. And I'm not splitting the atoms. So I just like talking to regular folk. And I think it's fair to say people like hearing you talk about stuff. Nobody is talking anything negative about Gord Stelic. I think you're admired and appreciated by the listenership. I hope I keep talking

stuff for a while, so I appreciate that very much, Mike. Me not talk good, but okay. And that brings us to the end of our 530 second show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Gord, are you at Gord Stelic? I'm at Gord Stelic.

You nailed that one. No one tried to take that one from you. Yeah, it was not gone. And I will not have my bubble jacket on later for the picture if you're doing another picture. I just love that you had the wallet and the jacket. That's amazing. And the, well, no, George had to buy that hairline.

Yours is natural. Yours is natural, right? You didn't get any surgery. Mine is natural, yes. You're my hero. I'm going to aim to be just the same way. Where are we at? Great Lakes Brewery or at Great Lakes Beer?

Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U. Brian Master, you email him at letsgetyouhome at kw.com to get on his mailing list. Gord, you should do that just to get a piece of snail mail from Brian Master every month. It's really cool. Capadia LLP is at Capadia LLP and Pumpkins After Dark are at PumpkinsAfterDark.com.

See you all next week. Yeah, the wind is cold But the smell of snow Wants me today And your smile is fine And it's just like mine And it won't go away Cause everything is rosy and gray.

Well, I've been told that there's a sucker born every day.