Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Howard Berger: Toronto Mike'd #232

Episode Date: April 18, 2017

Mike chats with Howard Berger about his 23 years at The Fan 590, the blog he started the day he was fired, and whether he'll ever work in the MSM again.

Welcome to episode 232 of Toronto Mike's, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a local independent brewery producing fresh craft beer. And propertyinthesix.com, Toronto real estate done right. I'm Mike from torontomike.com and joining me this week is Howard Berger. Welcome Howard. 232. So how many people said no before today's session? You know because I actually have the evidence that I invited you years ago. I did. September 2014. I actually went back.

I'm ashamed to say I still have the emails. But I did go back, and it was in September 2014, so I probably would have been show 190 or something. But I ignored it for some reason. It's not like me, and I apologize. I should point out, so I emailed you years ago, and I didn't hear back at all so then I figured, oh,

Howard doesn't want to do this. I just moved on. I'm used to being ignored and then I thought, the Leafs are back in the playoffs and I'm reading your stuff online. I almost said Burger Bites but it's not Burger Bites.

That's Twitter now. Tell me the name of the URL of your blog. online, I almost said Burger Bites, but it's not Burger Bites. That's Twitter now. That's right, right. So tell me the name of the URL of your blog. Betweentheposts, all one word,.ca. And you see, I had it, you're right, it was known as BurgerBites.ca for a number of years, and then some wise man said to me, if your blog does well, which thankfully it has, and you want to sell it one day, you don't want the name Burger on it because someone can put their own name on it. So I switched to BetweenThePosts.ca.

And the flip side, Mike, to me not responding in September 2014 is A, the Leafs are in the playoffs, and B, we have two and a half more years of stuff to talk about. Well, you know, the timing could not be better. This is, in fact, I know we had a... I knew this was going to happen. I knew, yeah, that's right, that's right. I know we had a seven-game series of Boston, and I do remember that.

I have vague memories. That was fake. It was after a 48-game season. You're right, right, right. So, really, this is the... If you're going to have Howard Berger on your podcast, this is the day. We won game three in overtime.

Were you at the Air Canada Centre last night? I was not. And what is your position with the team? My position? Did I say we? Yes. I don't apologize for that. It's the Toronto's team.

I'm a Torontonian. But you're talking to a former reporter. Right. But I am not. My ears are sensitive to we and yay and unfortunate and positive and negative and stuff like that. But as people know, I am not a journalist. I am a fan. I don't know about that.

I've heard some of your questions. I ask good questions. That notion is pending today's questions, but I've heard your questions. They're pretty good. But we are up two to one against the President's Trophy winner. We are. They are. So tell me, I read your blog today,

and you basically said we're going to win this series. Well, I don't know that anyone else has been stupid enough to say it, either on the air or in print, but I look at the first three games of the series, Mike, that either the Leafs or Washington could be leading three games to nothing right now because all three went into overtime. But every time the Leafs have taken a punch and you think, okay, the better team is going to start to prevail, they get off the canvas.

And you take a bad penalty, and it's okay, try and stop us now. You take a two-man disadvantage for a full two minutes, try and stop us now. You take a two-man disadvantage for a full two minutes, try and stop us now. You allow the first two goals in your home arena in the first five minutes of game three, try and stop us now. Nothing is stopping the Maple Leafs. The Leafs are moving at the same rate of speed in all three games, and they're prevailing right now, two to1. If they continue to move at the same rate of speed in the next part of the series, I'd like to find someone that can justify Toronto losing three of the next four games.

Other than the disparity between the Leafs and Washington in the standings during the regular season, that doesn't make any sense based on what I have seen. And again, Mike, notwithstanding the fact that all three games have gone to overtime. This is not in any way a runaway on either side, needless to say. But I think the Leafs have controlled

the vast majority of play in this series. I think the Washington Capitals understand that and it's freaking the hell out of them and their fans. And I think, and I said it before endearingly, I think the Leaf players are too dumb to know what's going on here. I don't even know what they're doing there. It's like a bunch of kids playing street hockey,

having fun. All the pressure, the anvil is on the back of the other guys. And this is the worst thing that could happen to Washington, what's happened right now. And you pointed out in your blog today that the last time the Leafs had the first three games go to OT, that was the Borilco,

the Bill Borilco series, right? That was the last time that as had the first three games go to OT, that was the Borilko, the Bill Borilko series, right? That was the last time that a best-of-seven series, you're right, where the first three games went to overtime. In that series in 1951, all five games, it was the Stanley Cup final against Montreal, all five games went to overtime. Borilko scored the famous winner, him flying through the air, which spawned Gore Downey's 50-mission cap,

the monster hit from the tragically hip, hit from the tragically hip, and I was subsequently learned online last night that the last time the Maple Leafs went to overtime in their first three games of a

playoff year was back in 1933 against Boston. You were at that series. Well, I was a kid. But no, the situation there was it was a semifinal as opposed to the final. There were only two playoff rounds. And that's a very famous series as well because the longest game in Leafs history was played during that series.

A player named Kenny Doherty scored in the fifth overtime or something. But yeah, that's 65 years ago was the last time the Maple Leafs went to overtime in the first three games of the playoffs. Of course, they've only made the playoffs three or four times since. But it's still quite a stat. You mentioned it, but when we were down, I think we were down 3-1 last night. I'm going to say we. I don't care, Howard. I'm used to you already.

You've got your Leaf Leaf Stanley Cup banner here. You're we the North banner. Born and raised in Toronto. I apologize. What's missing here? Go Argos or something? Anyway, go ahead. That's true.

I am missing my Argos. Yes. My Rocket Ishmael pennant. Coldest game I ever covered. Is that right? 91 Grey Cup in Winnipeg. Oh, I'm still cold thinking about it. Is that the one where the fan ran on the field?

No, that's when Rocket Ismail ran a kickoff back for a touchdown and somebody threw a frozen beer can and just missed him in the end zone. But I was standing, just very quickly, I was standing in the middle of the field, the old Winnipeg Stadium. It was called Canada Inn Stadium before the Bombers moved to the university where they play now. And I was standing there, and for one of the only times in the history of Winnipeg

there was no wind. It was dead silent, dead still. And I'm standing in the middle of the field about two and a half hours before the game, and I'm talking to my producer, Chris Clark, who worked for many years with me at the radio station, and I'm dying because he's playing commercial after commercial. I'm about to go on the air.

My mouth can't move anymore. It was the coldest I've ever been. It was about minus 30. How they played that game, if you have a chance to see a replay of it or videos of it, to this day, I don't know how they played that game. Wow. Yeah, I remember watching it live, but luckily I was warm in my living room. No warmth.

Okay, so we are down 3-1, and then the two... 2-0, truth. Yes, but at this point, there's the five on three for two minutes. And first of all, man, at that moment, you're like, okay, Washington's going to play like Washington, and this was due to happen. We won our game. I was calling this Caps in five. That was my big prediction when this series started. I said our game. I was calling this caps in five.

That was my big prediction when this series started. I said six, and I'm not even a we. That's right. And I don't think there is a pundit who picked the Leafs to win this series. I haven't heard of one. But wow, when we killed off that five on three for two minutes, it's like, is this really happening?

You have that moment of like... But the Leafs didn't kill off the five-on-three. Washington did. That was the microcosm of the Washington Capitals in the Stanley Cup playoffs. There was no form to that power play. There was no urgency to that power play. It was all about trying to feed Ovi

at the top of the circle. There was no surprise. There was no movement. They threw the puck around, I said in my blog today, like a swarm of drunken sailors. There was nothing to that power play other than getting the puck to Ovechkin. Well, the guys in blue aren't stupid.

They know that he's the one guy they're trying to get it to. Turns out he did have two shots. One he fanned on, and the other one, if he was wearing magnifying glasses, he couldn't have hit Freddie Anderson more square in the logo than he did. And that was it. And that was a microcosm of what we've seen in the Ovechkin era from the Washington Capitals.

And from that point on, even though it had to go to overtime, the Maple Leafs controlled that game emotionally. They controlled it speed-wise. And you just knew, well, you didn't know because in overtime anything can happen. But that was a game the Leafs should have won in regulation because they controlled the play. So what's up with that?

Why is Ovechkin, and it's this entire team really, why are they so effective in the regular season and they continually disappoint in the playoffs? Like, what's that about? You know, if I knew that, you know how much money I would make? I would be down there. Brian McClellan and I would be meeting every day. Ted Leonsis and I would be having caucuses every day.

I don't know what it is. Something is missing. It's not a talent issue. I remember Alex Ovechkin. It's still one of the most, maybe the most incredible atmospheres I've ever been a part of in an arena was the Canada-Russia round-robin game in Vancouver in the 2010 Olympics. The noise, and I'm not, you know, sometimes, you know, radio guys exaggerating,

come on, but you know, sometimes, you know, we tend to extrapolate or exaggerate, whatever word you want to use. Anybody who was in the arena that night will tell you the noise started during the warmup. It didn't dissipate during the intermissions. It was like this constant din. And of course, Canada won that game, I think seven to three handedly. Yeah. And everybody thought,

well, the U S is the big, you know, the big rivalry. Now Canada beat the U S on the Crosby golden goal and everything. Right. And Canada had played the U S in the 96 world cup, but there still is nothing,

nothing like Canada versus Russia. And Ovechkin, he was nowhere to be found during that game. I don't know what it is, but there's a chemistry issue at the top of that roster, and I'm saying this now, and four or five days from now,

they could be replaying this. Washington can win three in a row and the Leafs can be in summer. I don't think it's going to happen. But between Backstrom, between Ovechkin, between Carl Alstner, who I think is a hell of a defenseman,

individually, they've got it going. Collectively, forget it. I mean, this team just can't get it done. It makes a mockery of the 82-game schedule. I don't think this series will go more than six games. I think now the Leafs, after last night's game, and not just because they're up 2-1, but the way they've controlled the play, the way they've, nothing has bothered them

in terms of what Washington does, going up 2-0, winning the first game in overtime. And they're just, the resiliency, losing defensemen, having to play Martin Marincin. I mean, it doesn't matter. Everyone is stepping up. Credit to Mike Babcock, but more of a credit to the guys on the ice.

I think this series is over in six at the most. And when we win this series, it's fair to say this is the, by far... I'm feeding big time. I'm just so, I could spend 90 minutes having you tell me how the Leafs are definitely going to win this series. This will be the longest podcast ever here.

I've got to balance things out, yeah. I will just say that, by far, that's the biggest upset in Maple Leafs history, right? In terms of regular season point differential. Well, so what's the point differential was from 95 to 118. So that's 23 points. I'd have to look it up. I'm not sure.

Off the top, I don't know. What about Chicago and Toronto in 67? There was quite a point differential there with the Leafs beat not only Chicago, Toronto, but Toronto and Montreal. And last time they won the Stanley Cup. No, no, I can tell you for a fact right now because I wrote about it the other day. The first round in 1986,

it was a best of five series against the Chicago Blackhawks who had Denny Savard, Al Secord, Steve Larmer, Doug Wilson, the GM of the San Jose Sharks, played on defense. And the Hawks finished 29 points ahead of the Leafs that year and Toronto swept them. I remember that series very well. Yes.

That's the biggest point differential that the Leafs have won a series in. They won two games at the old Chicago Stadium. They were fairly close, a two-goal win and a one-goal win, and then they came back and just smoked them. I can still close my eyes and feel that game at Maple Leaf Gardens. They beat the Hawks 7-2 and Wendell went crazy and Russ Cortnall and Dau and Vive and Tommy Fergus and all those

guys who, one of the great collection of young forwards like today in Leafs history or modern Leafs history, but they didn't have any coaching. God rest John Brophy's soul. He was hardly a scientific coach. They had no defensive acumen whatsoever and their goaltending as a result was weak. But once they got the puck beyond center ice, they were dynamite. So they swept the Hawks in that series. It was a 29-point differential.

And we pushed St. Louis to seven games, I think. That was a seven-game series that the Leafs lost at the old St. Louis Arena in game seven. And then the following year, which I've written about and posted some old scrapbook photos in my blog, the last week or so, the Leafs defeated St. Louis in the first round.

Remember Brad Smith? Remember Motor City Smitty? Of course. Scoring on a breakaway in Game 6 at Maple Leaf Gardens. He didn't score many goals. And then they went into Detroit and won the first two games of the conference semifinal at Joe Lewis Arena, pummeled the Red Wings 7-2 in the second game, came back, lost game three at Maple Leaf Gardens, won game four on an overtime goal by a player named Mike Allison, a slow skater but a pretty good guy around the net,

up three games to one. Looks like they're going to face Wayne Gretzky and the Oilers in the Stanley Cup semifinals. games to one. Looks like they're going to face Wayne Gretzky and the Oilers in the Stanley Cup semifinals. And maybe fortunately for them, they then went into the famed Toronto collapse and lost three in a row and were shut out in two of the three games. But, you know, so there were some moments in the worst decade of the franchise, which was the 1980s, undoubtedly. There were a few moments, and one of them, as we sort of get off topic here, was that 29-point, that upset over the Chicago Blackhawks in 86. Man.

Yeah. And what do you think, real quickly, before we go into the life and times of Howard Berger, the highly anticipated- Let's just keep talking about the Leafs. Dart guy. Yeah, we'll get back to that. Dart guy. Like, okay, so dart guy-

Now, why is he called that? Because he's got a root in his mouth? Yeah. Is that why? Apparently, we call that a dart, and because he call that a dart. Oh, that's a dart? Yeah. I'm looking on his forehead for holes or something. He's bleeding.

I'm not a dart guy. I've heard. I mean, I listen to Jonathan Torrens and Jeremy Taggart have a podcast, and they're always calling it a dart. And I know Jay and Dan always called it a dart. I don't think it's big in Toronto. We used to call it a root. Okay, a root.

Yeah, no. So, dart. I mean, in Toronto, I don't think. I never smoked, so I was never in that. Or a doobie, depending on your preference. It depends think it's big in Toronto. We used to call it a root. Okay, a root. In Toronto, I never smoked, so I was never in that. Or a doobie, depending on your preference. It depends on what's in that. But a root generally. So what do you think of this? We take a guy and we make him kind of

our mascot of sorts, this guy. We're 2-0 with him in attendance, so they'll keep sending him until we lose. Find another person on Earth that looks like him. It all due respect. I mean, that's what a mascot is. Someone who looks like no one else on the planet. And he's well-spoken.

I heard him talking. He's surprisingly articulate. Yeah, no, no. I mean, you think right away, you look at a guy with a beard and all that, you think, you know, one and one is 11, right? But no, no, he can speak, and God bless him. And I think, you know, the one thing about hockey now

and about sports in general, it's all about political correctness. The personalities of the athletes are suppressed. Most of them aren't allowed, certainly under, and I think he's a great guy and a good GM, but around, you know, Lou Lamorello, you can't even wear a beard. Although he's changed that rule. Well, maybe. But Matt Martin still looks like, I mean,

he looks like Matt Martin's brother. I mean, they expect to see his hair down to his shoulders. But, you know, the personalities are suppressed so much. So if there's a way of bringing out some form of personality in the game, maybe they have to go to the stands to do it. I'm all for it. Now, I noticed that they gave him the ticket, MLSC, but I noticed he's lost the dart.

So I'm guessing they said, okay, this is all good, but we don't want to look like we're supporting smoking here. Well, not only that, he may not be able to afford smoking. You're saying they gave him the ticket. Who knows? Maybe they gave him the ticket for $350 in return. Whatever. But, you know, it's a nice little side story.

And it's not the story. If the Leafs were down three games to nothing right now, you know, the lead story in the paper would be, you know, dart guy showing on scoreboard in first period, but that's, it's just a supplement right now. That's right.

That's right. Everyone listening, I encourage you to go to patreon.com slash Toronto Mike and help crowdfund, uh, this passion project. So we can have more interesting deep dive discussions with people like Howard Berger. If you, uh, can't remember that URL, patreon.com slash Toronto Mike, get your butts to torontomike.com and click the big orange button on the side and you'll go straight there.

So a dollar a month, two dollars a month. Give what you can. Keep it going. Howard, you have a case of beer in front of you. Yeah. That's courtesy of Great Lakes Brewery, who I would rather call Great Lakes Beer because I'm not sure how to say brewery. It's a tough word.

You got to do it quickly. But you're taking that home with you. Thank you. And a local flavor, Queen Elizabeth Boulevard in Etobicoke, where we're sitting right now. Very nice. Yeah, yeah. They're south on, yeah, right. They're near Royal York. Who had the one beer though? Well, here's the thing.

It's a six-pack that's now a five-pack. There's a pint glass there as well. Oh, I see. That has to go in with the beers. Right, because I didn't want you to have, you only have two hands and you have your camera with you. And my friend Brian Gerstein. So do you know Brian?

I know Brian. He went to a game with him last year, and he's a real estate guy. But why is his card in the pint glass here? What a small world. These small world stories, I never stopped. I doubt anybody listening, except for Brian, would be all that interested.

I'm just curious. So Brian is a sponsor of this podcast. Oh, okay. And on that glass, you'll see it says propertyinthesix.com. Oh, okay. That is anybody looking to buy and sell in the GTA should visit that website and contact Brian. Brian, as you know, is a real estate agent.

Yeah, nice collaboration between the two of you then. Good. Right, so you can drink your Great Lakes beer in the Brian Gerstein glass. I still want to know who had the sixth beer. Was it you? Actually, I can give you the sixth beer. It's actually over there in the corner.

I'm whining, aren't I? I can give it to you. I'll stop whining. Listen, you deserve six beers. You ignored my email. I don't think I've had six in my life. The guys that are listening now, if guys like Dave Schultz or Kenny Campbell,

Kevin McGran, any of these guys that are listening now, they're laughing because you're giving a beer to Howard Berger is like giving a steak dinner to a baby. I'm not much of a drinker. Schultz will come over and take them off your hands. Schultz will be finished them by now. But I will get through them eventually. They'll go to use, I promise.

Here's a tip from Brian. So every episode, I'm going to read a very quick tip. It's such a crazy real estate market right now in Toronto. Things are moving very quickly. Brian says, before you list, you need a home inspection to get top dollar for your home. So Brian provides this free service for all his listings.

So you're wondering, why bother getting... A home inspection for free? I remember that costing a few dollars. Yeah, I mean, I did too. I think I spent $500, I think, at least. It was worth it. Give you a nice booklet and everything after, but it was not free, I guarantee you. But he does that because in a seller's market, this is a seller's market, you want as many

people as possible to see your home. And buyer home inspections take about three hours, and that time is better spent showing your home to more potential buyers. So Brian, who's with PSR Brokerage, like I said, he covers that for you, and he gets you top dollar for your home. And he's a good man. It's amazing. So he took you to a hockey, like he just said, hey, let's go to a Leaf game. I don't remember if he called me up or if he emailed me. He has and I'm grateful for it, but he has long been a listener

when I was at the fan. He follows my blog and we stay in touch on Facebook occasionally. And he called me up or emailed me at the beginning of last season, Babcock's first year. It was on Halloween, actually. They played the Penguins. It was when Kessel came back for the first time.

Cool. And he has beautiful seats. He's never taken me to a game. I'm starting to wonder. He's going to take me as well. But please. I may be getting him in trouble here. I'm just telling you the story as it happened.

But anyway, he has beautiful seats right in the end, about 12 or 15 rows from the glass. Wow. Behind the net, the Leafs defend for two periods. And yeah, I had a wonderful time with him. He's a great guy. And yeah, if you're looking for that type of service, I would highly recommend it.

I'm glad. Brian, he's a good man. I'm glad you told me this. I had no idea he had season tickets at the ACC. Well, I don't know if they're season tickets. Maybe he just bought them for that game. Yeah, I'm going to find out, then. I'll promise you that.

He better sell a house if he did, because they weren't cheap seats. But I had a good time with him. All right, we're going to dive in here. You mentioned David Schultz. And I have a story. Not on purpose. I want to start with a story that Steve, it's a very brief, less than 90 seconds. And then I'll tell you a Schultz story later.

Okay, good, good. He's been on the show a couple of times. I'm a big David Schultz fan. Steve Simmons. Do you know this guy, Steve Simmons? You heard of this guy? Never heard of him. Steve?

He has a story he told on this podcast. Is he in the rock group Kiss? That's right. Oh, no, that's the other Simmons. Different Simmons. Let's listen here for 90 seconds, Steve Simmons, and then we're going to hear your side of things. And Howard Berger was the only of a staff of, I don't know, eight or nine. He was the only young guy, I would say, that had gumption

and that had real go-getter sort of mentality at the time. And I thought, you know, he's the guy we're going to nourish and he's the guy we're going to build with. What happened was I had assigned him one day to do something, a story on a swimmer. And instead of doing the story on a swimmer, he went to the Stampeders Eskimos football game and wrote something on that, which wasn't assigned. And I thought, I'm going to take the opportunity here and I'm going to send a memo to him about when you're given these kinds of assignments, you have to take them seriously. All it was to do was to get him on track.

It wasn't to do anything else. But at that time we were ordered by our bosses that if you send a memo to someone on staff, you send a copy to us. So I did what I was supposed to do. I sent the memo to Howard. I sent a copy on to my editor in chief. The editor in chief calls me on the phone and says, you got a fired burger. I said, why? He said, because insubordination. I said, no, this is not what this is about. This isn't about insubordination.

This is about me trying to sort of hone in a guy who's got all kinds of ambition, but you got to have some direction. That's all it was. I was trying, and I'm not a whole lot older than Howard, frankly, at the time, or even trying, and I'm not a whole lot older than Howard, frankly, at the time, or even now, but I'm trying to... You're probably the same age difference now.

I'm trying to sort of get somewhere. Well, he went in that afternoon, and he fired him. So that was Steve Simmons on this podcast, and he tells that story. Let's hear your side of it. Well, I've learned something

because to this day, I still don't know exactly what happened. I will say this. If I was given an assignment and I didn't do it, I deserved to be fired. Unquestionably. Do you remember being assigned

on swimming and going? No, I do not remember that whatsoever. I can't imagine doing that now, then, or if I'm lucky to live to 90. But it doesn't mean it didn't happen. It's just so against my DNA that I would be amazed if that's actually what happened. Here's my side of the story. Yes, please. I covered in the off season, when I got to Calgary,

they were called the Calgary Wranglers at the story. Yes, please. I covered in the off season. And when I got to Calgary, I covered the, they were called the Calgary Wranglers at the time. Mike Vernon was their goalie, went on to win a Stanley Cup in Calgary, Detroit. Now they're the Calgary Hitmen. It was Western Junior Hockey League team, went to the semifinals or something that year. And after the season, I began covering the local golf beat in Calgary, which I really enjoyed because it was, you know, a tight-knit community, all nice people, all golfing people are nice. And we did not, I'm just trying to think, no, I had a day off on a Sunday. This was in early July. The Alberta Open or something like that, the Professional Golf Championship of Alberta was being held that weekend in medicine hat okay i had and it was on the thursday the friday saturday and sunday like all golf tournaments there's a four-round tournament the final was on sunday i had that day off so i i go to medicine

hat i think i went friday i came home it's a two-hour drive i went on saturday and came home the calgary herald the broadsheet, the competitor, had a fellow named John Down, a great guy. I don't know if he still works there, if he's still alive. I haven't heard from him in years. But John was their golf writer. We got along great. And I said to myself on the way home Saturday,

I said, this is awful. I can take another day off. I mean, I can't let John have the run of the place during the final round tomorrow. I'm going to go back. I didn't even tell Steve. This is my day off, so I'll go back. You know, I can't, you know, I just, I couldn't do it.

I didn't want, you know, from a competitive standpoint, it wasn't the right time to have a day off. He'll give me a day off later. If it's two months later, it doesn't matter. Got in the car Sunday, went back to Medicine Hat, covered the final round, came home, and I don't know if someone at the, I still hadn't told Steve, who was the sports editor at the time, Simmons.

He was my boss, my immediate boss. I still hadn't told him. But maybe someone on the desk at the paper had called him and said, you know, Howard went and covered the final round, even though it was his day off today. I get a phone call in my apartment from Steve that night, and he, well, you know, I didn't do it so he would praise me, but it was nice to hear from the boss.

Thank you, Howard. You really went the extra mile. I was very, you know, very gratified by what he said at the beginning there about how I was kind of a go-getter. Yeah, I had my foot in the door, and just like years later at the fan, it was the same thing. He gives me this wonderful telephone call. I go to bed that night.

I wake up the next morning. I go into the paper, which was right downtown, uh, at the time in downtown Calgary. Now it's up on the, on the trail, uh, northeast of the city. Um, and I get to, in the old days that we had, you know, bunks, mail slots, and I get to my bunk and there is a, a little slip of paper there. It says, please see me, Les. Lester Pyatt was the editor-in-chief. He was Steve's boss, as Steve mentioned in the thing. So if you're in my position, and your immediate boss has called you and thanked you and, you know, up and down for what you did,

and then you see a note from the editor-in-chief, who only was complimentary toward me. He would come over, and the same thing Steve said, we love what you're doing, and all that. And I was in heaven at that place. Everybody seemed to enjoy what I was doing. And you move from Toronto to Calgary, you're 22 years old. I mean, you want that to happen.

So I walk into Les Payette's office. And if you're me, what are you thinking? Yeah, you're going to get a raise, maybe. Well, at least he's going to say, hey, good work. You know, you went through a lot. Good initiative. Good initiative. That's all, right?

That's what I figured. I walked in there. He says, close the door. Close the door. Sat down. He says, Howard, we have to let you go. At first, I thought he was joking. Right.

You know, Les was, in the end, I didn't think he was a great guy, but he seemed like go. At first, I thought he was joking. Right. You know, in the end, I didn't think he was a great guy, but he seemed like a pretty good guy. I thought he was joking. He says, no, no, we have to let you go. I said, what are you talking about? What have I done? I had no warning. No one said anything to me.

Now, Steve is telling you this story. God is my witness. I don't remember anything about that. If that was the case, then everything that happened after that, as I said, was justified. Anyway, he lets me go. At that moment, I thought my life was over. It was the worst moment of my life at that time. I'd moved out to Calgary at my own expense.

Again, I was 22 years old. I'd never lived out of my parents' home at that time. So here's where I'm a little skeptical about Steve's version. Not because it's Steve, but because, as Steve will remember, just prior to that, the Calgary Sun had, I believe, lost two wrongful dismissal lawsuits. Okay? And that wasn't my first thought when I was let go again, I thought, you know,

well, that's it. They may as well, you know, it's all over. My career's done. Everything's over. But as I settled down and I spoke to a lawyer back here in Toronto, he was also aware of this situation of the Calgary Sun. He said to me, Howard, come home for a few days. I'll never forget the words, get unpissed off. And he says, we'll move forward after that. Coles Notes version, I went up to see the publisher of the newspaper, a fellow named Hartley Stewart. No one called him Hartley except his wife. He was Mr. Stewart.

He was everyone's big boss at that time. And I was told to ask for a certain figure. And if I was told no, then it would be okay. We'll see you in court. You know, things come in threes, right? Went up there and I'm not pounding my chest here because I was scared. I didn't know anything about this.

This is all told to me by a lawyer. But I think if I recall, a long time ago, 35 years ago, I think the figure was $4,000 because I'd moved out there on my own expense. And now I had to move back essentially on my own expense. And $4,000 in 1982 is a little bit more than $4,000 is today. But I remember going up to Mr. Steward's office and sitting there and he says, well, what do you want? And, uh, you have to picture this. Okay. And again, I'm not exaggerating. You know in the movies, sometimes when a guy takes a slug or a swig of a drink,

and someone says something, and he spits it out all over the table? Yes. Hartley Stewart had a Coke. I don't know if anything else was in there, but he had a Coke, okay? He asked me what I want, sort of haughtily took a swig, okay? And of course, in the situation where I was sitting, it was much lower than him, asked me what I want, sort of haughtily took a swig, okay? And of course, he was in those, you know, the situation where I was sitting,

it was much lower than him at his desk. You know, he was the big boss and he knew it. I said, I'd like $4,000. He spit that coke up all over his desk. I will never forget that. It went all over the paper, all over the desk. I wish I'd had a video camera with me. And he, you know, and at this point, I'm not afraid anymore, right?

I got to get my money. And if not, I've got the, you know, the, take him to court as the backup. He says, you pisher, you little SOB, get your ass out of here. You'll get $400. You'll be lucky. I just got up. I said, I called him Hartley. Hartley said, I'll be leaving here on Monday. I will check in my bunk on Monday. If there was not a check in there for $4,000 on Monday, I will see you in court. Make the long

story short. There was a check for $4,000 and they knew, you know, and they just knew it was not. Now, again, I didn't know anything about this Steve story. This is again, why I'm a little bit skeptical here now. Otherwise they would have said, okay, we will't know anything about this Steve story. This is, again, why I'm a little bit skeptical here now. Otherwise, they would have said, okay, we will see you in court because you didn't do an assignment. Maybe I am a journalist, the way I've dug up this. Well, I'm just saying. And who knows if anybody's even interested in this. But maybe they would have said, you skipped an assignment and went to a football game.

I did go to a football game and I wrote a story. But to my recollection, it wouldn't be to the exclusion of something else that was assigned. And anyway, so I got the money, and that was the end of it. But what turned out to be what seemed like the worst day of my life actually was a blessing in disguise. Came back to Toronto, got my contacts going, and eventually had a pretty good radio career. But I enjoyed working for Steve. Steve is still a good friend. He's a wonderful guy.

David Schultz worked at the paper at that time. Yeah, let's hear the Schultz story. This is a completely different thing. That's okay. All right. Schultz knows exactly what this story is. Well, I told you before, I'm not much of a drinker, okay? And as such, while I always got along with the writers,

you know, I wasn't always, you know, I wasn't going out with them all the time. And you have to understand that a, I did every trip, you know, the writers would split it three different ways. I did every single trip, you know, so you, you, you're, if you're going to go to, you know, 41 road games, I figure, you know, getting into your forties and whatnot, you got to rest a little bit. Okay. You're going to, you know, you're halfway through the season, you're going to be bagged. Right. And what I would do, and at that time I was also writing for the national post. I was writing their game stories cause they didn't send anyone on the road. So I would quickly go to the dressing rooms afterward. I would send something very quickly

to the radio station, a voicer. I would go in and rewrite for the National Post. Then I would go back to the hotel, put together my reports for the morning sportscast the following day. And by the time you're ready to, you know, you've packed all that up, it's 1.30, 2 o'clock in the morning. Even those guys are probably back from the bar at that time. So they used to say, well, why don't you ever join us?

Well, you know, if I could have split myself in half, maybe I would have. Anyway, we're in Raleigh, North Carolina during the 2002 Stanley Cup semifinals. The Maple Leafs are playing the Carolina Hurricanes. That's the last time they went that far to the Final Four, if you will. And we're all staying at that Embassy Suites off the highway.

I can still see it on Harrison Road in Raleigh, near the airport. And I get a call in my room one late afternoon. It was a day between games from David Schultz. And he's like, hey, hey, old pal, Howie, how you doing, right? And I'm thinking, David has never talked to me like this. I mean, he's not nasty to me, but I'm not in Dave's circle. What's happening, Howie? Everything good? Listen, why don't you join us for supper tonight?

I said, yeah, you know, that would be nice. Where are you guys going? Oh, we're going to this steakhouse somewhere in Raleigh. You know, Zeisberger's going to be there, and maybe Damien Cox was on that trip, and whoever else was on the trip. Maybe Joe Bowen was there. But all the newspaper guys, everybody's going to be there. I said, sure, I'd love to. And he goes, you have a rental car, right? I said, yeah. So do you mind if a couple of us come with you?

I said, sure. Schmuck that I am, I'm thinking, you know, I just say, how nice, Dave's invited me for dinner. Well, of course he invited me for dinner because he knew, as they all did, that one amongst us was going to be able to drive after dinner. Oh, right. You're the designated driver.

So he doesn't say to me, you know, I know you don't drink a lot. We might have a little bit too much in order to get back into a car. It's difficult to get a cab on the outskirts of Raleigh. Would you join us and have dinner? And can you be kind of our designated driver? Well, no. He makes it sound like suddenly I'm like a blood brother, like the best friend in the history of the world. Idiot that I am. I didn't figure it out until about halfway to the restaurant. I figured, hey, how nice. Dave wants me to go for dinner. Anyway, I get there, and to this day, I just remember shaking my head.

I didn't say anything. I just shook my head at David, and he had that little shishir grin on his face. And as planned, I didn't drink much. They had a little more than I did. And yes, a bunch of them staggered into my car afterward, and we went back to the hotel. Oh, man. That's a sad story, actually. I feel bad for you.

Oh, don't feel bad. They used you for your sobriety, which I think is a sports writer trick. What are you going to do? What are you going to do? You know, one of us has to be sober. Before we get you to CJCL, I have a question on Twitter from Phil Kitchen, who is a diehard CFL fan. He just wanted me to ask you about your time covering the CFL.

So when in your career, like I don't remember, you weren't doing the Argos beat, right? Is it Calgary? Well, in my early years at the radio station, which was in 1988, I started there as a general reporter. Right. And I was fortunate before I started on hockey full time to be assigned the big playoff sporting events in Toronto. Okay. So I was at the 1989 American League Championship Series

between the Blue Jays and Oakland. I went to Oakland. I was at the 1991 ALCS Toronto and Minnesota, covered both World Series years in the playoffs, ALCS and the World Series in 92 and 93. And also, as I mentioned earlier, if the Argonauts got to the Grey Cup, I covered the Grey Cup in 1991, and I also covered other Grey Cup games not involved in the Argos.

My first year in 88 at the old Lansdowne Park in Ottawa was Matt Dunnigan in BC against Winnipeg. 89 was the first game at Skydome, as it was called, at Saskatchewan and Hamilton, that terrific 48-44 game or whatever. 1990, I did not go to the game. I think it was in Winnipeg. 91, rather in Vancouver.

I think Winnipeg won it. 91, I went to Winnipeg. As I said, it was the coldest three days of my life. Jim Hunt, the late Jim Hunt and I, went to Winnipeg on part of the radio station. 92, the Grey Cup was here again. Doug Flutie won it with the Calgary Stampeders. Didn't go in 93. And in 94, the last Grey Cup that I covered prior to hockey was in Vancouver

when the Baltimore team played Vancouver, played the BC Lions and lost. So I would get these assignments, the big assignments, I was very fortunate, prior to starting on hockey full-time, which began in the lockout-shortened campaign of 1994-95. So yes, I was able to cover the CFL, which I loved and still do. First season tickets I ever had were for the Argonauts at the old C&E Stadium where they have the track around the field and the old 12,000-seat bleacher. Dad bought them, I think, in 1971 when Joe Theismann played.

And that's when they filled the place, right? Oh, yeah, they got 33,000 every game. Leo Cahill was the coach, and he's not been well recently, living in Atlanta. So that was the Leafs you grew up on, but that team was the first team that I went to every game because you couldn't go to every Leaf game. It was impossible.

So I love the CFL. And to this day, I will tell... I'm sorry, the fellow's name? Phil Kitchen. Phil, I will tell you, and I'll say to you as well, Mike, I have no emotional attachment anymore to the Leafs or the Blue Jays. I mean, they're just, you could not do your job. I write about them and speak about them passionately because it's my job and it comes naturally. But whether they win, lose, that doesn't matter. That went away about the first

half year that I started covering the team. The only team, when it loses, it still bothers me, is the Argonauts. It's because I don't cover them that much and because it goes back to my days when they would torture the living hell out of me back in the 1970s. I mean, I have Crohn's disease, which is inflammatory bowel disease. They say it's brought on by stress. I was thinking of suing the Argonauts. I'm positive the Argonauts gave me Crohn's disease in the 1970s. They might be able to give you $4,000 if you... I live in the city.

But they just tortured me. So when they finally won the Grey Cup for the first time in my life, I was in Vancouver in 1983. I was working part-time for the magazine that put out the CFL programs at each game. And I was in Vancouver for that game. And I couldn't believe it. I remember Ralph Sazio was the CFL Hall of Fame executive, was the general manager of the Argonauts. He had been the GM and coach of the Tiger Cats right throughout the 60s and 70s.

And it's like, you know, it'd be like somebody from Montreal becoming the coach of the Leafs. You know what I mean? It was just the number one rivalry. And I'm down toward the dressing rooms afterward. I've got a media pass on. So I'm, I'm supposed to show some decorum. I'll never forget going up and hugging Ralph

Sazio and thanking him. And he hugged me, I guess, cause he was so happy. And you said we won. And that's why you was so happy. And you said, we won. And that's why you said, we won. I probably said, we, us, whatever. I hugged Ralph Cezio, and he hugged me back. And I remember walking out of the stadium that night, Mike, and I'm thinking to myself,

I've just watched the Argonauts win the freaking Grey Cup live and in person. And then I said to myself, why do I have to be here? Dead quiet. You could have shot a cannon through downtown Vancouver because the home team, the BC Lions, had just lost. Meanwhile, back in Toronto, they've stopped traffic on every street.

Well, that's where I wanted to be, with all these people marching up and down Yonge Street with their Argo banners. So it was good and bad. It was wonderful to be there, but then after the game, I was in the wrong city. So CFL's always been a passion. Tell me this.

Will the Argos ever be as relevant again in this city? Well, ever is a long time. Sure. First of all, you can't put a product on the field like they did last year. They just can't get away with it. I don't know that you can get away with that in any CFL market right now, but if there's indifference on the field, there's

going to be way more than indifference, you know, among the followers. Put a competitive team on the field, people will at least watch on television. I guarantee you, people will talk about it. I remember the two best Argonaut teams of my lifetime were when Doug Flutie in 1996 and 97. The 1997 Argonaut team went 15 and three and won its games by an average of 18 points, an average of 18 points. I remember having pinball Clemens in the studio with me at the fan one day. And before we went on the air, I said to him, this is about 98, 99 or so. I said, Michael, I said, that must have been the greatest time of your life, playing for those two teams, you know, and winning all those games

and the greatest quarterback in the history of the league. He said to me, you know what, Howard, it really wasn't. At first I thought he was joking. I said, well, why do you say that? And he said, because nobody else had a chance, which is true. No one had a chance against those teams. So the competitive aspect wasn't there. You know, Ken Dryden used to tell me when he was GM of the Leafs and we would talk when we weren't bickering at one another, he would say, you know, back in the day, I'd play goal for the Montreal Canadiens. We'd go play the

Kansas City Scouts or the California Seals or the Colorado Rockies, and we're the Canadians. Well, you could loaf around for 58 minutes, play two good minutes at the end of the game and win. This was kind of what the Argonauts were, not that they only played two good minutes. They were so much better than the next team. And so Mike Clemens said, no, no, it wasn't the best time. I like 91 better, where we had to fight and scrap and win the Grey Cup. I liked other years better than that. I thought it was kind of odd, but even in those years, they weren't filling the dome. They weren't

coming close to filling the dome. So I'm not saying only a competitive team, that's all you need, but minimally you need a team that people won't be embarrassed about, which most Argonaut fans were unjustifiably last season. You'd think, though, that your first year at BMO Field, because you're right, the dome was

never a good fit. It's so cavernous and large, you know, so they move you to BMO Field where it looked much better, first of all, on TV. And I understand, I haven't been to a game yet, but it is a better atmosphere. Oh, it's wonderful. It's better than the old CNE Stadium.

And they've got an upper deck on the east side. And you sit in that upper deck and you're hanging right over the field. I mean, there's no reason not to go to a game other than the fact that you weren't entertained last year. Gotcha. It was, in many ways, a waste of money. You only went because you wanted to see the stadium.

Right. And maybe the Argonauts could sell that for one year. Well, they didn't. I think they sold it for one game, maybe. I'm just saying, euphemphemistically sell it for a season. But now, Jim Barker, I had very, very mixed feelings when he was let go because Jim Barker is one of the nicest people

I've ever dealt with in sports. But he made that trade. He traded what turned out to be the number one draft pick this year for Drew Willey, who may or may not be a backup quarterback on most teams. And I said in my blog, it'd be the equivalent of the Leafs trading their first pick last season

while they were plummeting to 30th place and someone else getting Austin Matthews. It was sort of that equivalent. And why did he make that trade? Well, because the Argonauts allowed Zach Kolaros to walk away to the Hamilton Tiger Cats. They allowed Trevor Harris to walk away to the Ottawa Red Blacks, both within their division, neither of whom are likely to be Hall of Fame quarterbacks, but certainly better than anything the Argonauts had last year

after Ricky Ray was injured again. And so he, out of desperation, because of those terrible moves, they had to make this awful trade. That's a firing offense, as far as I'm concerned from a general manager's point of view. Who's the player? They've changed and they've brought in these

two guys that did very well together in Montreal, Jim Popp and Mark Trestman. I think Trestman's an excellent CFL coach, and I think this team will get phenomenally better. I hope so. I'd like them to become like... I want to hear the buzz again for the Argos. It feels like it's been too long. It has been long.

But of course, you have to remember also that when the Argonauts were at their height back in the late 60s, in my lifetime anyway, in the late 60s and early 70s, there was no Blue Jays. It was a two-sport town. It was the Argonauts during the fall and the summer, and it was the Leafs after that.

And so it was, you know, you didn't have all of the entertainment options you have now. It was a different era back then. That said, I still think there's a place for Canadian football in Toronto. But again, the product has to be reasonable, and it was not reasonable a year ago. Now, at CJCL 1430, is that where you became producer of Primetime Sports? When I started in 1988, that's exactly what we were called. We called the station AM 1430. The format was called Music of Your Life.

We used to joke it was Music of Your Grandfather's Life or Music of Your Demise or whatever. But it was music from the 50s, sometimes a little bit of big band stuff, and it did well. It really did well. It had obviously a demographic that is older than you generally want to sell to people nowadays, but it did well. There were a lot of people listening, and then at night during the summer, we would go to Blue Jays baseball at 7 o'clock or

6.30, and in the winter, we had the Leafs. So we'd go to Maple Leafs hockey. And so I think you can probably put two and two together and wonder why, you know, after 7 o'clock became the sports time for listeners on that station. Well, I remember after the Blue Jay game

with Tom and Jerry, you had Scott Ferguson would do the post game. Would do Jay's talk. And prior to the games or on nights when there was no baseball or hockey, Bob McCowan would do talking of sports, which was again, a call-in show back in the day. And so I'll tell you what happened.

In 1988, the broadcasting rights for the Blue Jays were up for bids again. And it was a monstrously lucrative product back then because the team was building toward, you know, teasing the hell out of the fans, losing the ALCS or blowing a six-game or five-game lead in the final week of the 1987 season. But bottom line is, you know,

the Blue Jays had supplanted even the Leafs for popularity at that time. They were the number one team. You turned on our radio station in the years, my early years, it could be in the middle of the night in the summer or in the middle of winter, they talked Blue Jays. Leafs were secondary.

This was a baseball town for a number of years. So the broadcast rights were coming up for renewal. Our radio station, which at the time was called CKFH, FH standing for Foster Hewitt, who started the radio station back, I think, in 1954. The network was called Hupex. Hugh for Hewitt. I forget what the pex was for. But anyway, it was called the Hupex Sports Network. Tom Cheek and the late early Wynn, Gus Wynn, the great former Cleveland pitcher. He did the color commentary for the first two or three years because he was off the wall. He couldn't speak English, but he was off the wall.

And anyway, so in 1988, the broadcast rights are coming up. The Blue Jays go to CJCL, which has changed from CKFH. I don't know, a long time ago, I knew why they switched the call letters, but they went to management and said, look, we'd like to stay with you if you come up with a competitive offer, because standard broadcasting, which is CFRB, which is now Talk 1010,

or News Talk 1010, they were into it big, and one or two others were going for it as well. Everybody knew this was just a license to print money. But the Blue Jays said, look, we would like to stay with you. We've been with you since the beginning. If you have a competitive offer, chances are we'll stay with you. But this is what we need. We need more of a sports presence on your station. It can't just be the game. And then it's, you know, a morning show that has nothing to do with sports.

Keith Rich was the morning show guy when I started. Keith was a legend in the city at the time, but he wasn't a sports guy. We need more of a sports presence. So one of the things they wanted to find was a gopher that would run around with the mic flash to all these news conferences, not necessarily ask any questions, but just hold the mic flash so you could see it on television. They hired me for a hundred and what, 225 a week or something in early 1988. And they apologized. I remember Doug Ackerst was the general manager at the time. And he brought me in one day. He says, look, I'm so sorry. I can't pay you more than this rate. That was a freelance salary. He goes, so he says, look, just come in two, three times a week.

Like, don't extend yourself. I mean, he was embarrassed to be paying me that kind of money. Of course, I'm 29 years old at the time. As soon as I had my one toe in the door there, I'd get in at 9 in the morning. I wouldn't leave until 11 o'clock at night. If a guy wanted a coffee, that's fine. If a guy wanted me to hold the bathroom stall open for him.

That's the gumption that Steve Simmons saw. If a guy wanted me to hold the bathroom stall open for him, I did that.ption that Steve Simmons saw. If the guy wanted me to hold the bathroom stall open for him, I did that. Whatever they wanted. And I said to Doug, I said, Doug, you pay me what you feel you can pay me. Allow me to decide how many hours I want to spend in here. Shook hands, walked out.

Well, I did that for about a year, and then I realized, look, I've got to pay rent. Went back in to see him about a year later, holding my breath, dying inside, because Doug didn't throw, he threw nickels around like manhole covers, as they say. One of the greatest guys I've ever known. But he lasted in the business for that long because he was sharp with a penny. So I walked in there one day about a year later. I said, Doug, the worst thing that could possibly happen is for me to have to resign or quit from the radio station.

But I can't continue to work for this amount. I'm barely able to pay my rent. Gave me a raise to, I think, $600 a week on the spot and said, you're going to be with us a long time. Anyway, that was at the beginning. And so what happened was, okay, they brought me in to hold the microphone flash and they decided, okay, well, we need more of a sports presence, you know, at night. And so they started something. I still have a newspaper ad at home was called sports heaven at seven.

It was actually kind of a catchy title. Alan Davis, who now is the program director at WGR, the all sports radio station in Buffalo, the home of the bills and the sabers. Alan is actually the guy that hired me. And he's the guy that they put in charge of this sports presence in the evenings. So it started with Bob being, Bob actually left for a while and then came back.

And he started doing his talk show a little bit more frequently. And then we started hearing about the concept potentially of going all-sports one day. And then we started hearing about the concept potentially of going all sports one day. Like not Friday or Saturday, but somewhere down the line. And I was really lucky, fortunate to be a part of all this. They would call me in when they had all these meetings. And they said, one of the things we want to try and do is start a sports magazine show.

This is sometime around, I would say, early 1989. I started there in May 88. This is January, February 1989. And so throughout that summer of 1989, you remember the girl Nancy Newman? Yes. Who worked here in Toronto. the girl Nancy Newman, who worked here in Toronto. CNN? Went to CNN. She was hired by CNN when CNN had a sports wing. I do remember Nancy. And Nancy, I think, then went to YES,

the entertainment sports network in New York that does the Yankees. Right. Well, Nancy was just working, I think, on Scarborough Cable or something like that. And she wasn't Newman, right? That's a fake name? Yeah, that was her working, I think, on Scarborough Cable or something like that. And she wasn't Newman, right? That's a fake name. Yeah, that was her stage name or whatever. But so Nancy would come into the radio station. I don't remember how they saw her.

Maybe they saw her on the cable station, said she would come in. And throughout that entire summer, we were doing sort of little pilots or little hits. Bob McCallum would come in at night, and we would work on this. And the show didn't have a name at that time. And I just remember walking in one day and finding out it was going to be called Primetime Sports, and I thought that was a hell of a moniker. We put out all kinds of things, you know, Sports Night Tonight,

you know, 7 p.m., whatever, 7pm, whatever, you know, nothing was as good as primetime sports. So by this time in the fall of 1989, the program director, another wonderful guy, a fellow by the name of Larry Green. And Larry was my immediate boss. And I was doing at the time as along with my reporting, I was doing the Saturday and Sunday morning sportscasts. So I would come in and I would do a five-minute sportscast starting at 8 o'clock every hour until 1 p.m. It was just great experience. And one day Larry called me in and he said,

I'm looking for a producer. Do you know anybody out there? I mean, you're the sports guy. Do you know anybody out there? I mean, you're the sports guy. Do you know anybody who might be interested in doing this? And I took a breath and I said, yeah, the guy that's sitting in this room with you right now. And I guess Larry didn't expect that. He goes, really, you would like to do that?

And I said, I would love to do it. I mean, to be at the ground, you know, on the ground breaking a thing like this, I mean, you could tell with Bob's talent that something was going to happen with that program. And Bill Waters worked with him for the first few years. And so about a week later, they gave me the job. Another raise took me off weekends, which I enjoyed doing, but you didn't have a weekend. You know, you had to be in the station at eight o'clock in the morning or seven in the morning on Saturdays and Sundays. You couldn't go out and gallivant all hours of the night. And so I got off that gig. And yes, I was the, for the first two

and a half years, I was the producer of Primetime Sports. And it was a wonderful time. It was a 50-minute program. It began at 6.10, only locally on our station. It wasn't across a network at that time. Began at 6.10. There were four segments, and it ended at 7 o'clock. And if there wasn't a live guest, then I would have taped an interview during the day that they would run. Tom Cheek, God rest his soul, or Jerry Howarth would provide something from the Blue Jays. Joe Bowen or someone else, Gordy Stelic, was the GM of the Leafs, and then he came back to us, I think. But someone would provide something from the Leafs,

and we'd put it together every day, and it worked. It worked well with the advertising community. It worked well with listenership. And then I think in the second or third year, we went network. We went right across the country. It was the Telemedia Sports Network. Telemedia Sports Network, yeah. I still can hear it in my head.

And that lasted until about 1994 or so, at which point I started on hockey. Okay, on Twitter, Brian says, Ask Howard if he has any McCowan stories, since he no longer works with him and can tell all. So you got any good Bobcat stories for us that you can finally share? Bob and I were never close.

I think Bob looked at me as someone who was a little too big for his britches, but I think that served the show well because, you know, listen, Bob was a guy and probably still is today. And once in a while you had to say, no, no, this is the way it's going to be. You know, he pushed back at you.

And I'm not criticizing him because he's the best that there ever has been in this country at what he does. Maybe on either side of the border, who knows? The man's in his 60s and he's still going strong and he could keep going so i have nothing but the uh the greatest amount of respect for him but we butted heads you know we had the same personality uh but in the end we both wanted the the same thing we wanted this show to be immaculate which it turned out to be and i'll say something about bob and i don't know if people know this about him.

Those in the industry do. Bob was into a whole bunch of different things back then. He was selling wine. I remember he was selling, he lived just a block from the radio station, which was on Holly Street near Yonge and Eglinton. You could walk in two minutes to the station. But I remember going over there and one-on-one, Bob and I were always great. When it wasn't anything to do with the business, I would go over there sometimes and sit with him. I remember

he was selling sports cards at one point. He had a whole basement full of, you know, hockey and baseball cards. So Bob had other, and he still does, he had other entrepreneurial interests. So a lot of times if the show started at 6 10, he would come in at 6.09.45 when the music was on and sit down. He would look at the lineup sheet before he turned the microphone on, and away we would go. Needless to say, if he wasn't paying attention to what was happening during the day, whether there was a big story or not, he had to be briefed, okay? But the thing with Bob, and I would assume it's the same way today, if need be, we would go to a commercial break. It'd be a 90-second, two-minute spot set. I would press the button on the other side of the glass, and I would give Bob the Coles Notes version of what was happening. I'm not saying he didn't know any of the stories. I mean, once in a while,

he would say, well, you know, I didn't follow this today. Tell me about it. Okay. I would give him a 35, a 40 second summary. He would turn that microphone on, Mike, to this day. But back then you would have no idea that he didn't study that thing from nine o'clock in the morning till five o'clock at night. He could pull it off incredibly. You'd think that he was the world's biggest expert on whatever that topic was. I used to sit with Rob Cowan. Rob was a longtime friend of mine, and he was the board operator at that time. He also hosted a show on the station. We would just look at each other and shake our heads.

We didn't have to say anything. I mean, you would just listen to McCowan, and you would think, if you're a listener, that he's been studying up on this all day long. He is the number one expert on this topic, as I said. That was the incredible part of Bob McCallan, and one of the reasons why he is what he is. The Rob you mentioned, was that Miles Long, or is that a different Rob? Oh, you mentioned... Rob Callan. Okay, okay. No, C-O-W-A. Okay, gotcha. Rob Callan was a guy that also worked at the station. I think he did the afternoon show in the Music of Your Life format. And he also operated the board during Primetime Sports.

So I would sit on the table next to him. I would operate the phones if we were doing a call-in show. Or I would be there to assist Bob if he needed it with the next segment. And we would just shake our heads like no one on earth could do that. You put me in that studio with 30 seconds. I'm fumbling around and I'm throwing to commercials. That was his gift, yeah. Which he probably still is. Now, I'm not saying

he isn't knowledgeable, but I'm just saying no one could pull it off like he could. Okay, so when I refer to Miles Long, I think that was the name I think of Aaron Davis' husband. Maybe. Aaron Davis' husband is a Rob, and he was working at this time, around this time, he's working on that Bobcat.

Aaron Davis, I forget. He's so long ago. Miles Long, I thought, was a very cool stage name. It was Miles Goodwin. He was with April Wine. Miles Gorel was an offensive lineman in the Canadian Football League.

I don't remember the other one. That's funny. By the way, you mentioned Bill Waters. So last week, I had Bill Hayes on. Right. And we were chatting. He worked with Bill Waters at 640 doing Leafs.

Billy Hayes and I worked together at the fan. Right. So are you still in touch with, I guess I'm trying to find out what's Bill up to these days. Bill and I, I saw him at a Leaf game this year and we chatted briefly.

For those that are unaware, Bill Hayes is Brian Hayes' father. Brian Hayes does the afternoon drive shift on TSN 1050. Exceptionally good broadcaster. You knew right away when he was on 640 that he was going to be a star. And Bill Hayes is the brother of

John Derringer, who also did the morning show with Pat Marsden at our place for many years. Derringer being his stage name. His actual name is John Hayes and he is Brian Hayes' uncle. So anyway, Bill is John's brother and Bill was Mr. Fillon. He was just Mr. Utility Man. Whatever time of day somebody needed a host, if someone was ill or if someone was off on a vacation, Billy Hayes would come in and he would just pull it off. I used to love working with Bill

because he was an easy guy to talk to, an easy guy to work with. He was knowledgeable. And then I think he worked a little bit with the TSN 1050 group at the beginning. And I'm not 100% sure what he's doing now. Oh, the team? Is that the team? No, no, the actual TSN. The current group. I think he was there with his son for a while, maybe again filling in, which he may still do on occasion.

But a wonderful guy. One of my best friends in the business. Cool. Okay, so at some point, 1430 becomes five. Actually, at some point, CJCL, of course, becomes the fan. Well, the call letters still are CJCL. Yes, forever.

But no one calls it by that anymore. Right, sort of like CFNY. Now it's all Edge 102, whatever. So the fan, 143030 becomes all sports in Canada. And you're there, of course, already. And then it moves to 590, which is a much better signal. Yeah. At that time, the 1430, it's still a weak signal.

On the outskirts of the city, you couldn't get it. I don't have enough expertise in terms of why signals are stronger than others. But toward the left end of the dial on the AM frequency, those are the stronger signals. So 590 was the old CKEY, the old news station. And whatever happened back then with that company, well, that frequency became available. You had to apply for it through the CRTC,

and we did get that. so we moved from 1430 to 590 i want to say in 93 or 94 in and around that time because i remember driving a car a white company car with the fan 1430 logo on it and so it had to be 92 when we became all sports. So it was probably 93 or 94 we got the better signal and have been on 590 ever since. I'm at university when you go to 590. So it's definitely, it's either 93, 94, 95.

You would know better than I would. One of those years for sure. And I'm going to play a clip here. So at that time a bunch of interesting people kind of emerged at the Fan 590. People like Jeff Merrick and George Strombolopoulos and a guy named Elliot Friedman. But it's very interesting. I had Elliot on this show, and he tells a story of basically how he got his job at the Fan.

And Howard, you need to hear this. This is Elliot Friedman talking about how he ended up at the Fan. My father had a contact at the fan and he kept on saying to me, why don't I get you to meet this person? And I was like, no, no, I'm going to do this myself. I'm not doing this with any contacts. Like just, I tell people now, don't be that stupid. Like if somebody can help you open up a door. Grease the wheels a bit.

Don't be an idiot like I was and waste eight months of your life. So finally, my dad contacted that person. Also, I wrote to Dan Schulman and just asked if I could talk to him. And between those two guys, they kind of helped open up the door for me, and that was April 1994. Did we get to reveal the first guy's name? It was actually Howard Berger's dad. Okay, I got you.

Howard Berger and Howard Berger's father. Okay, I got you. Howard Berger and Howard Berger's father and my father know each other. Okay. But I didn't want to do it that way. So I sat there and I was struggling and finally the door opened and I took advantage. So Elliot Friedman,

he got his break because of your relationship with his father and your father. What I remember, and again, it's a long time ago, Elliot also knew a cousin of mine who was a peer of his in terms of age, and she mentioned something about this Elliot Friedman character. He came into the radio station. I didn't know whether it was before or after he met with Dan Schulman, who was working with us at that time, but all I remember is talking to him,

and I mean, you knew right away, as soon as he opened his mouth, you knew this guy had something. All I remember, and I didn't plan on doing it, I thought I was just going to talk to this guy, you know, find out. He asked me a few questions, like a college kid would ask me questions. All those years, they would say, can I come over? I'm doing a school project. Can I talk to you? It was the same type of a thing. But I said, hang on a second here. Scott Metcalf was my immediate supervisor.

He is, to this day, the news director of 680 News, which is the sister station at Rogers on the fan 590, or Sportsnet 590 now. And Scott was in that day. And I said, just wait here for a minute, Elliot. I went in to see Scott. There's nobody with him in the office. I said, look, I've got a guy here. I didn't plan on doing this. I've never done this before. His name is Elliot. I just spoke to him. I mean, I don't know if you guys are looking for anything, but we can always use part-time help. Would you mind seeing this guy for a minute? He says, yeah, bring him in. Scott was a great guy. Next thing I knew, Elliot had a job. Now, did I spark that? I don't know. I mean, Elliot, you know, he started there and, you know, I'm

still choking on the dust and he left all of us in his wake. You know, I mean, and rightfully so. But I just remember going, it's the only time in my life I've ever done that. I've gone in and said, you know, I'm so impressed by this guy. I don't want him to let him get away. Would you talk to him, Scott? He said he would. You're batting 1,000, Howard. That's pretty good.

One time, and look what happened. Oh, that was it. Dan Shulman. Yes. Did you know what Dan would become? Now that Vince Scully's retired, he's the best in the business. I didn't know what Dan would become until I heard him host one night. Gotcha.

Dan started with us. He was working up in Barrie. And most people that are, you know, if you're aware of Dan Shulman, you know that he took actuarial sciences at the University of Western Ontario. Dan is brilliant. He could have been a wonderful actuary, but he was bored stiff. He wanted to get into sports. He wanted to go to the toy store like I was all those years. Dan started doing some part-time work,

I think up at CKBB, the old AM station in Barrie. And Larry Green, who I mentioned to you earlier, was the guy that gave me the producer's job at the beginning of primetime sports. Larry calls me in one day and he says, no, he took me into the studio. Okay. And, uh, it's one of the recording studios. He says, listen, I want you to listen to this guy do a sports update. You know, he sent me a, like a demo tape and tell me what you think. Well, I almost laughed Larry out of the studio. I said, why are you making me listen to that?

I mean, a deaf person would know that you can't put something like that on the air in Toronto. Dan couldn't, I mean, he had no inflection in his voice. He could read, but there was no, like, it didn't work. Was it like his monotone? Is that the, or was it just flat? It was just, he, you could tell that when he was doing this demo, he was nervous.

Okay, yeah. So it just sounded like a nervous guy with a deep, monotone voice. Could still kill him for that voice. There's no way. I'm surprised that they could put him on the air and bury. I said to him, Larry,

there's got to be a better option somewhere than him. And he says, well, no, I'm going to hire him. So he hires him. He puts Dan on the air, and Dan did some updates. Well, he didn't sound a hell of a lot better on his updates when he was on our radio station. I didn't say anything more to Larry. I welcomed Dan. We'd be part of the group now, you know, but then someone made the decision, maybe Alan Davis, because we were doing something called national sports radio at night. It was on the network, on the telemedia sports network.

I think it was in the days when, it was after primetime sports. There were no games. The Leafs weren't playing or something. They would do seven or eight, four or five hours of sports talk. And Alan, I think, was the guy that said, Dan, I want you to be a host, okay?

I remember this like yesterday. I was in San Francisco covering a Leafs-San Jose Sharks game at the old Cow Palace in Daly City, south of San Francisco. That's where the Sharks played for the first two years, the old barn in San Francisco. It was an afternoon game in the Sharks' first season. I remember the Sharks beat the Leafs, which they didn't beat many teams back then.

And that night, I was going to fly to Los Angeles because the Leafs were playing the Kings in L.A. the following night. My wife, my ex-wife now, was with me on that trip. And we were in the airport in San Francisco waiting for the evening flight, because it was an afternoon game, the Sharks-Leafs game, waiting for an evening flight down the coast. And I had been asked by the producer, will you come on during National

Sports Radio and talk with Dan Schulman about the game that day? I had done a post-game show, a call-in show from the Cow Palace that afternoon after the Leafs game. And Dan, I think, you know, was working at that time too. But, you know, he was just basically throwing it to me and, you know, we would take calls. Well, that night, while I was on hold on a payphone at San Francisco International Airport, as Dan is getting ready to bring me on the air to talk about that afternoon's Leaf game, he goes on a preamble about something else. And my jaw dropped. Because he just, like, this wasn't the same guy that couldn't put three words together on a sports cast. This was a different guy. This was his calling. And I listened to him

and went on the air with him. And that was my first impression. And then I would say about two weeks later, I went to Alan Davis. I said, Alan, I hope you don't get used to this guy because we ain't going to have him very long. He's not long not long for this place and of course not long after that uh espn radio started calling him on weekends he would fly to bristol connecticut where their studio is and he would host espn the radio show and come back to toronto on monday and work with us and of course in 1995 he ended up getting the TSN Blue Jays gig with Buck Martinez. You will never find a more natural sportscasting person than Dan Schulman. Forget the voice. Forget the knowledge.

The man is like, well, what can I say about him? That hasn't been said. I actually think he's the best. I think he's the best in the business. There's nothing negative about him. And when he comes on to the Blue Jays telecasts now, I don't want to be harsh here, but he holds... Buck doesn't listen to this show, so it's okay.

No, no, no. Buck and Pat work for the Blue Jays. They work for Rogers. Sure. They're company men, like most play-by-play broadcasters are, most team broadcasters. In my opinion, to my ear, they go a little overboard. They lionize these players as if they're the greatest at their position in the history of the game.

Now, again, that's sort of part of the gig. And when the two of them are together, one doesn't stop the other from doing that. And occasionally, it gets in the way. I'll give you an example if you want. There was a game last weekend. Marco, was it Estrada or was it, I'm just trying to think, one of the two pitchers. I think it was Estrada that was pitching or Sanchez.

It's three days ago. It's a long time when you get into my age. Well, Buck and Pat spent the first three innings showing graphs. And if you're a first-time or a novice baseball viewer, you have to be saying to yourself, this pitcher is the greatest pitcher in the history of the game because they pointed out all of the things that he does well. He's got this pitch going, and he's got the great sinker ball,

and he's got the great two-seam this, and the, you know, the great two seam this and, you know, with runners in scoring position. And, you know, all of it was true. They were backing it up with statistics. Right. Well, what happened later is that, let's say it was Estrada and may have been Sanchez, gave up three home runs in the next inning and a half or the next two innings. Okay. or the next two innings, okay? So if you're not someone who watches every game,

you have to be saying to yourself, what's happened here? This guy that can't do anything wrong has suddenly given up three home runs in a very short span of time. Where they lose me on the broadcast is there suddenly the silence is deafening. Okay. All you hear from Buck and Pat is maybe, yeah, he's had a bit of a rough time.

They end up talking about the other team. Oh, the Orioles are hitting great today. And they hit a lot of home runs. But the analysis, which was really spot on, although one-sided initially, stops dead. There's no more analysis. You got to tell us. You don't have to rip the guy. You have to tell us why things have gone south.

There's a reason. You both played the game. They're as knowledgeable as any broadcasters in the business. When they played, they were the two of the nicest ballplayers you'd ever deal with. Buck and Pat both played for the Blue Jays. Martinez before him. But suddenly, there's the silence.

And that's where I think suddenly there's the silence. And that's where I think they let down the viewer. And it's not an ability issue. It's not an issue of knowledge. I don't know what the quote-unquote rules are in terms of their superiors, because, again, it's all cross-pollination. Rogers owns the Blue Jays. It owns the radio and TV station. They pay Buck and Pat.

So suddenly there's this dearth of analysis and it's very obvious. When Dan is with them, all they do is analyze and Dan takes the lead. And Dan, because he's not a team broadcaster, stays more down the middle. He keeps them in line. It's not like he, you know, he has to whip them or anybody keeps them in line and it's a much better broadcast. Not because Buck can't call a game as well as Dan, maybe nobody can call a game as well as Dan, but they just don't go there where they should go. Even, even if they have to tiptoe a little bit, when Dan is there, he keeps them in line. I find a little, it's not as one-sided a broadcast. And I almost find that Buck and Pat feel they've got a certain standard to maintain when Dan is in the booth.

And I'll say something for Buck, and you asked Dan Schulman this. Maybe he's told you this already. Nobody vouched for Dan more than Buck Martinez to get that TSN job in the mid-90s. Dan had never done TV. And that was to replace Jim Hewson, right? Jimmy Hewson went to hockey again.

Right. And Brian Williams was doing it for a little bit on CBC as well. But Dan had never worked on TV, and Buck had TV experience and could very easily have said to the uppity-ups, look,

he's a good kid and all that, maybe somewhere down the line, but not now. He went to the wall for Dan Schulman, so Buck's no dummy. He knows broadcasting. He knows a good voice. He knows a smart guy when he sees it. I just find that it's a little bit

too slanted at times. Well, I hear this a lot. And it doesn't have to be. I'll tell you what. It took a long time to learn this, Mike. It took a long time for me to learn this. I'm not thumping my chest. I was fortunate enough to cover

the Maple Leafs primarily at a time when we had no affiliation to the team. We didn't have broadcast rights. We didn't have any cross-pollination in terms of ownership. And I was told by Nelson Millman, just go out there. Leave me alone. Do your job. be Howard Berger, and if I don't like something, I'll let you know. But we weren't beholden to...

So there were no rules. Well, it wasn't such a rule. It just was, you know, and I tried to cover the team like a newspaper reporter. You know, radio was always known as, you know, yay team, we're the rights holder. Well, I said, well, if I'm going to be a reporter, my heroes weren't radio guys.

My heroes were guys like Jim Proudfoot, and, you know, I had, well, if I'm going to be a reporter, my heroes weren't radio guys. My heroes were guys like Jim Proudfoot. And, you know, I had TV heroes like Brian Williams. Brian was the first television sportscaster in this country. And he was local in Toronto to be a tell it like it is guy. I mean, he didn't hold back anything. Brian is my absolute hero of all time in terms of that. To this day, one of the greatest... His hero is Howard Cosell. Well, maybe it is. Cosell had more of a shtick than Williams. Williams doesn't have a shtick. He's just a straightforward...

Fresh in my mind. I should point out, because he was here two weeks ago, I think, so I got the whole Howard Cosell... Brian started in Barrie, also at a local radio station. The first time I ever saw Brian was after the Canada-Russia series in 1972. I was 13 or 14 years old. And he did a series with Paul Henderson, who scored the winning goal, the former Leaf, and did a series with him.

And then all of a sudden, he's in Toronto. And during some of those good Leaf years, when they had Daryl Sittler and Lanny McDonald and Boreas Salming and Mike Palmitier, Tiger Williams, in the mid to late 70s, Brian was doing the supper hour sports on CBLT, the local CBC station here. And I mean, he became a legend. He became a legend because he's a natural number one, but because he didn't hold back. He told it like it is. Didn't rip anybody, but neither did he hold back. If there was something to be said critically, he said it. And I remember thinking to myself, I'm never going to be Brian Williams, but if I ever get a chance to cover the team, I'm going to cover the team like that,

like a newspaper guy does. No, good for you. So that was sort of my way of going about it. And, you know, I don't even know why we're talking about this. What was your question initially here? But that was sort of the way it all came about. Well, I think we just got here because it just came from, we talked about Shulman being great.

So Shulman is a guy that, I mean, again, as soon as you heard him, and I guess when it comes to Buck Martinez, I don't want to sound like I'm being overly critical of Buck because we know who he works for. We know who signs his check. He knows who signs his check. The fact is, I want him to go. But he was a great, and still is probably, he was a great judge of talent. He went to the wall for Dan Shulman in 95, and as it turns out, rightfully so. Now, this is a topic that comes up quite a bit on the show,

which is the fact is Rogers Sportsnet is owned by the same company that owns the Blue Jays, and you talked about the cross-pollination and everything. But when Buck calls a home run by Jose Bautista, he doesn't call it the same as he'll call a home run by Mark Timo. Neither does any home team broadcaster. Yes, exactly. So the fact is why would we, and I don't

think there's any complaints about that. I don't think anybody at home wishes, I think people like it. Everybody watching Roger's Sportsnet, not everybody, most people watching Roger's Sportsnet are Jays fans. Listen, if Buck Martinez is sitting here and he wants to argue with me, all he has to do is show me numbers. Maybe not prior to July 29th, 2015, but since Troy Tulewitzki, since David Price, since Ben Revere, since Alex Anthopoulos made those moves that put the team into contention and traded for Josh Donaldson from Oakland prior to that season.

The Jays are getting numbers like they did in their early years, back when they were a contender and building up to their consecutive World Series. So again, easy for me to sit and criticize. The only time, and maybe most people don't listen to the game analytically like I do. I mean, I was in the business for so many years and had to fight at times to be neutral, for lack of a better term, because again, radio wasn't known for that, okay? I was encouraged to be that way. And in fact, if I ever started getting quote unquote soft on the team,

that's when Nelson did say something. He'd call me and kick me in the ass and say, go be Howard Berger. I'm not paying you to do that. But the bottom line is, the only time I find that it's over the top is, again, when suddenly there is something that wasn't expected based on initial analysis has gone wrong, and then there's just a complete, not silence, obviously they're talking, but they're not balancing or counterbalancing what they said earlier. And Mike, again, one thing that I learned, and it took me a while,

God knows it took me a while. Whether you're a team broadcaster, whether you're doing what you and I are doing right now, whether you're a reporter, whether you're talking to your wife or your son or daughter at home, you can make any point you want on any subject as forcefully as you want, and you can do it without sounding offensive. And it took me a long time to figure that out. I was, Hey, I'm the leaf reporter,

you know, in my early years. And you know, I am going to, you know, I was dealing with strong personalities. God rest his soul, the late Pat Burns. And then we had pat quinn god rest his soul and we had ronnie wilson who everybody remembers that crazy thing between he and i we get along great now do you

so i had to uh no but i'm saying i had to uh i felt like i had to stand up to these guys or i'd get trampled but it also got me into some bad habits because I went overboard. And it took me a lot of years to realize that you can make any point you want, and you can make it accurately and forcefully without being offensive. A person may not agree with it, and the person you're talking about will probably take it somewhat personally. We're all human beings, but you're not ripping a person. And as you make a point, you always have some form of factual information to back it up. It took me a long time, believe me, to learn how to do that. And so I say the same thing. I say, you know, Buck Martinez, Pat Tabler, whoever is calling a

home team broadcast, don't just stop analyzing. You don't have to rip the guy. You don't have to be the bad company guy. Inform us. Give us the benefit of your knowledge. We know why he should have been pitching maybe a perfect game. If he continues pitching that, there's no questions to be asked.

If it suddenly goes the other way, tell us why. Give us some theories. That's the part where they lose me a little bit. And I will tell you the number one professional in terms of, and I've written about this, in terms of calling a scoring play by the opposition is Joe Bowen. Joe Bowen is the number one pro to my ears that I've heard.

A lot of these guys, you know, you listen to, and we get them on the sports pack, you see out-of-town games on TV, you listen to them online, you know, the home team scores, he scores, right? The other day, he scores. Right.

You know, there's no, you can understand why you're not happy about it, but there's no professional sound to the goal. Joe Bowen, I was riding in the car, I wrote about this in my blog when Joe called his 3,000th game last month. My son is 20 years old, Shane. He goes to the University of Guelph.

He's a virulently fan. He's like I was when I was his age, okay, but multiply it by five. We're driving along the 407, the toll road here in the north part of the city, and the Leafs are playing Winnipeg at the Air Canada Centre. This is sometime in late March.

And the Leafs are winning 1-0. We have the radio on in the background, just loud enough to hear what's going on, but Shane and I are talking about what's going on in school or whatever, and suddenly we hear, scores! Right?

Shane throws his hands up in the air. Yeah, it's exciting. He's like, hey, the Leafs scored again. Winnipeg, Patrick Laine had scored. But because Joe was such a professional, and, you know, in his, as part of being a pro, knows that you've got to, you know,

put some emphasis into a puck going into the net, whether it's your team or the other team. I mean, Shane did not know who scored that goal. And that's just one example. But Joe, you listen to Joe call an opposition goal. Of course, it's not going to be like he called like last night when Bozak scored. Or Kasperi Kapanen's goal the other day.

Of course, I mean, everybody's going to, you know, touch them all, Joe, right? I mean, Tom Chico, I tell you a story about Tom, how disappointed he was after the first World Series in Atlanta with his call, which was no poetic justice to it at all. We wrote a book after the First World Series. I wrote Tom Cheek's autobiography with him.

And if you listen to that call, I was standing right behind him in the old Fulton County Stadium in Atlanta. Scott Ferguson was right next to me. Tom and Jerry were in front of me. Otis Nixon, who was missing last week in Florida, they found him safe. Anyway, Otis Nixon bunts the ball to Mike Timlin, who's the relief pitcher on the mound. Timlin turns, throws

it to Joe Carter. Carter starts leaping up and down. They all come off the first Canadian team to ever win the World Series. Well, Tom just said, you know, Timlin to Carter and the Blue Jays win it. The Blue Jays are World Series champions. I mean, exactly what was happening, but no poetic justice to it at all.

On TV, Sean McDonough, who now does Monday night football, I believe, on ESPN, or Sunday night football. Anyway, Sean was working for CBS at the time. I got to know him during those World Series. And Sean was calling the game from Atlanta that night on national television in the U.S. And he said something like, you know, the World Series flag flies north of the border for the first time or something like that. But anyway, there was some poetic justice to his call.

I'm sure he planned on it. You know what I mean? Anyway, Tom, you know, I could have written half the book about how disappointed he was in this very bland call of the Blue Jays winning their first World Series. Well, of course, what happens a year later? Joe Carter hits the home run, and the iconic baseball call, maybe professional sports call in the history of our country, touch them all, Joe, you'll never hit a bigger home run. I remember seeing him after that and thinking, did you plan that?

He says, no. He says, I didn't plan that any more than I had planned to be so boring after the first broadcast, but it felt so good for him. And I remember the story behind it. It felt so good for him. What a great call. Because he was muddled, I guess, they were all there, and he wanted to make sure he touched the bags. You've got to make sure you touch them all.

You can hear it, and they play it all the time now, and I just remember, I love Tom, I just remember feeling so happy for him because he carried that, I don't think anybody else worried about it, but he carried that baggage with him for the whole year. He wrote about it in the book, and then suddenly he came up with this iconic call. to him. I think it was a mistake personally taking him off TV. There's nothing against the Rogers guys. I like them all. They're all friends. They all do a great job. But Joe had a connection. He had a, there was an intimacy with Joe Bowen. He's the voice of the Leafs. The only guy that did it longer than him was Foster Hewitt to this day. And so I think there was something was lost in the, I guess,

that intrinsic feeling between broadcaster and fan when he was sent back to radio. But he is a professional's pro in every way, and it comes out the most in his call of an opposition goal. And I really respect him for that. And again, I say that is not something that should be impossible for any professional team broadcaster. is not something that should be impossible for any professional team broadcaster.

And, and this is not, again, I don't want this to be seen as a, a Buck and Pat, you know, criticism of them because they are good. As I said,

they've seen, they've forgotten more about baseball than I'll ever know. They played the game, but I just think sometimes they tend to do things to their own detriment, let's say. I don't like when Buck talks to the ball. It makes my skin crawl. He says, get up, ball. Yep, that's what I mean when he doesn't call the home runs this way.

Get up, ball. Now, everybody has sort of a signature. You know, Joe Bowen has Holy Mackinac. Jerry Howard says, there she goes. You know, everybody has the Yankees. What does he always say? Michael Kay, when a home run is hit everybody sort of has their signature

but I haven't heard anybody say gee that's really clever when Buck talks to the baseball I don't like it I know Steve Simmons wrote about it once saying what I would say Buck's a great guy enjoyed dealing with him as a player

good broadcaster why is he kind of doing that to himself? But as I say, the Rogers people can turn around and say, Howard, look at our numbers. Before we leave the fan, I need to ask you about somebody who was on the fan for many years, and I want to know if you're still in touch with him, and you can give us an update on him.

But I'm talking about Stormin Norman Rumak. How's Norm doing? I ran into Norm in a restaurant here in town last summer. I haven't seen Norm in a while. And Norm and I worked together for a lot of years. I had a lot of great times with him in his Hammerhead Alert days. Absolutely.

God's team in the NHL and Wendell Clark and Darcy Tucker and Shane Corson and all the guys he used to love so much. I mean, you know, Norm was a guy that, Wendell Clark and Darcy Tucker and Shane Corson and all the guys he used to love so much. I mean, you know, Norm was a guy that, he was the first guy on the all-sports format that drew that emotional audience toward him. And no one expected that. Norm had never done a radio show. He was a producer for CTV, the morning show.

Remember Dan Matheson used to do Canada AM. And why do I remember this? Because I was covering the Blue Jays in Oakland in 1989. We're in Oakland after game one with a three hour time difference. Norm is staying at the hotel where I'm at at Oakland. At that point I just knew Norm to say hello. He calls me up in the middle of the night after I finished my work. He says, would you come on live with Dan Matheson on Canada AM? I says, of course, Canada AM, wow. He goes, yeah, but we're doing it live, so we need you to call us at 3.30 in the morning. I said, oh my God. And then, you know, the next day you got to cover

another game and, you know, I'm not going to get any rest. So I said, all right, I'll do it. And you know, it turns out later on that, you on that the smart people, about 30 other people out there from Toronto told Norm no. Anyway, I said, okay. And I remember sitting on the top of the third base dugout. I don't know. I think it's, no, it's the Oakland, the A's home dugout, sitting on the dugout and looking back toward the stands. And there was a camera there. And I'll never forget how embarrassed I was when I got home and my mom, God rest her soul. She taped the thing for me, the segment. Well, they had cleaned the dugout, you know, after the game, I guess with a hose and it was wet.

So I was sitting there for probably 10 minutes before I went, you know, Dan threw it to me and I did the interview with him and I was like, you know, it was like wearing a wet diaper or something. Right. So during this whole segment, I'm doing this and you can't see me, but I'm, I'm kind of shaking back and forth. I'm moving back and forth. It looks like I'm praying sort of, you know, and I didn't realize it at the time. I, the reason I was doing that is I guess I was so uncomfortable. Right. Well, I mean, I looked at it when I got home, I thought, Oh yeah, I'll never get a call from them again. But anyway, so Norm, that's how i got to know norm and then when he came in

he started doing a show with uh jimmy richards yeah who does the afternoon of the midday show news talk 10 10 it was called richards and rumak right um nothing against against jimmy he's an excellent broadcaster but they realized they didn't need him. They put Norm on the air by himself and let him go at it with his callers. So Norm, you know, at the beginning, he had that immediate affiliation with the audience. Late night vampire.

Late night vampire. I mean, he did a wonder. And again, sort of like Dan Shulman never having worked in TV and Buck Martinez vouching for him to get the TSN job. Well, Norm had never worked in radio in that capacity. So I guess the expectation was, well, he'll fill a few hours. He'll have Jimmy Richards in with him.

If he gets stuck, Jim can talk. And anyway, it turns out this guy, you know, Norm, he just built this audience right away. One of the worst days I ever spent at the radio station was the day that Norm got let go. It was about a year, year and a half before I was let go. So I would say probably sometime in early 2010. And it was also maybe the worst day of Nelson Millman's career at the radio station. Nelson was my boss for many years. He was the program director and he had to let someone go.

boss for many years. He was the program director and he had to let someone go. And it turned out that after meetings, it was norm. And I remember in those days you were given memos, you know, and nowadays everybody sends an email. There were memos in everybody's mail slot and you'd pull out the piece of paper. It said memorandum on it. And I remember Nelson's memo saying, we lost a bit of our soul yesterday. It's one of the toughest decisions I've ever made in my life. Let's just carry on and do the best we can. I think it really, really affected him. Norm is like me right now. You know, he's sort of out there and trying to capitalize on what he did all those years at the radio station.

I think he does an online sports show with someone. I can tell you what my update on Norm is. He's co-hosting a podcast that just started by Chris Zelkovich. Oh, is that right? Okay, good for him then. In fact, Chris has been on the show, and we're in discussions, if you will, about Chris and Norm coming in to talk about this new project. Oh, that would be great and good for Norm.

I mean, and, you know, he deserves to be, to have a spot in the industry still. One of my favorite guys. I just love Norm. He became a great friend. He's a bit older than me, not much. So, I mean, we're not exactly school peers or anything, but I got to know his family and his brothers. And that was, you know, I have to say, I'll be honest with you, I felt worse that day than the day I got let go.

Because the day I got let go, it was almost like a blessing for me. I mean, you could see it coming. It was a difficult time. But when Norm got let go, I mean, I just, it was like a shot to the gut. So when Norm was let go, was that before or after that one that took Barb DiGiulio, for example? Oh, no, no, Barb was actually let go after me. Was that after you? Yeah, that was after me.

Because you're 2011. No, no, Norm was the first of the originals to be let go. And then I remember being in Los Angeles covering the 2010 NHL draft and being in the hotel when Doug Faraway, who was the sports director at the time, my immediate supervisor called and said, we've had a bloodletting today, but you're okay. And that's when they let the morning show Gordy Stelic go and Don Landry and Mike Hogan, they let him go and a couple of producers. And I'm sitting there at 3000 miles away from home thinking, oh my God, you know, but he's anyway, you're safe for now. But as time went on, I could see the writing on the wall.

Anybody that had a senior salary not named Bob McCallum, their time was up. I just read that Mike Hogan will not be doing Argos games on the radio because they're going to simulcast the TV. That, to me, seems a little short-sighted, but what do I know? It's Bell's decision, and I have no idea what went into that. I know Mike is a terrific... Mike, I'll give you a quick Mike Hogan story. Sure.

1992, right after we become an all-sports station, they had the World Track and Field Championships here in Toronto at Sky Dome, or Rogers Centre now. And we had the broadcast rights for it. Well, what do I know about track and field? I mean, I used to go to the Toronto Maple Leaf, the Toronto Telegram or Toronto Star and Maple Leaf Indoor Games

and watch Marty LaCoury and some of the other great runners from the 60s, but I know nothing about track and field other than watching Ben Johnson and Carl Lewis and some of the great names back in the 80s at the Olympics and whatnot. Anyway, so Alan Davis says to me, Howard, go down to the Sky Dome with Mike Hogan and do four or five hours of the track meet. And I, yeah, all right.

But then I said to myself, you know what? I'm in the clear because it's Hogan. Hogan is like McAllen, right? He's a sponge, an absolute sponge. So he may not have known the first thing about track and field on Thursday. By Friday, he could have been in the broadcast booth with the late Don Whitman on CBC calling the Olympics. I mean, that's the way Mike was. So I did the best I could to prepare. I went over some notes, so at least I wouldn't sound like a total idiot. And yet, here I am marveling at this guy.

I didn't have to say much. Mike knew everything about everyone at that meet, as if that was his only job. And that's, again, the beauty of Mike Hogan. Some people like him, some people don't like him, some like his voice. Mike Hogan is as knowledgeable and he's as adaptable a sportscaster as anyone that I've worked with and an absolute sponge. So am I going to criticize Bell?

I don't know what the reason was. I'm sure it was something to do. I'm sure it's cost-cutting. Well, financially, yeah, financially. I wouldn't make the move, irrespective of money, I wouldn't have made that move because I think you should have a team broadcaster and there's no one better than Mike. But I'm speaking, obviously, out of only one side of my mouth

and I have nothing to do with the financial aspect of it. Some guy named Mark Hebbshire has a question for you. Oy, oy, oy, Marcus, my old traveling pal, my old running mate with the Leafs. Ask him about the time the Leafs beat Detroit in 93. We covered it. He got in Sports Illustrated. So how do you get enough in Sports Illustrated?

Because that was a great series. I was in the dressing room afterward. This is the night that Nikolai Borshevsky scored in overtime, redirecting Bob Rouse's shot in Game 7 at Joe Louis Arena to upset the Red Wings in 1993. And the Leafs then played St. Louis and then Los Angeles and almost made it to the cup final. That was the Doug Gilmore team, the Pat Burns team, the Wendell Clark team, Dave Andertruck, Felix Potvin. And Borshevsky, I got to know him a little bit afterward.

But at that time, he had just come over from the old Soviet Union. Right. Okay. Or Russia, as it was known at that time. He didn't speak any English. And he learned one word. He learned the word brutal. Okay.

That's all he knew. So I would go up to him sometimes afterward and we would do it as a joke. He didn't know it was a joke because he only knew this one word. And I would say to him, I put the mic in his face. I'd go, Nicky, what a great goal you scored tonight. You must feel fabulous. How do you feel? Brutal. That's the only word he knew. Nicky, you just won the, uh, the, the lotto six 49, uh, $10 million tonight. How do you feel? Brutal. That's the only word he knew. So, um, after the game that night, uh the game that night, maybe he hadn't, I don't remember who played for the team back then. There must have been another Russian on the team or somebody was translating for him.

So it worked out well. I had my microphone and I have it in a cluster of media. In those days, they didn't have podiums yet. You actually went into the dressing room and interviewed the player in the room. And unbeknownst to me, there was a photographer there from Sports Illustrated. And in the next issue of Sports Illustrated, the hockey writer, whoever it was at that time, did a story on the Leafs upset of the Red Wings. And there's a color photo of just the two of us, myself and Nicky Borshevsky. And I thought

Mark was going to say something about agony, agony. Mark and I were watching that series, and of course it went up and down and back and forth, and we were still maybe fans back then. It was only my first year covering the team full-time. I wasn't even covering the team full-time, and I remember sitting with Mark in the auxiliary press box in the corner at Joe Lewis Arena,

and every time the Red Wings would do something or the Leafs wouldn't do something, we'd look at each other and go, this is agony, agony. So Mark and I, he was working for Global still at that time. And then Mark, when the broadcast rights went from our radio station to Chorus, which was Talk 640, Mark in 96, 97 and 97, 98, I remember because it was the year my son was born, he did the color with Joe Bowen. So Mark and I hung out together on the road all the time. I was with Mark in Dallas when my mother died of cancer and he was a big help to me.

I had to get on a plane and come home. Mark and Bill Waters and everybody else went on the air from Madison Square Garden the night after my son was born. Elliot Friedman, who was working with us, I got on the phone and said, Elliot, I'm told I'm going to be a father tonight. You better go to New York for the game tomorrow

because they're playing the Rangers on a Friday night. Elliot went, and that night I wasn't listening, but I was told by everybody that everyone came on the radio and said, Howard's not here. His son was born. So Mark and I had some great times back then. Yeah, Hebsey's, he tells a great story too. So I've had him a few times because he's fantastic.

Justin has a question. How did you come to accumulate an unimaginably large museum-like memorabilia collection? Is it merely a hobby or do you actively trade and sell memorabilia as a side source of income? I don't anymore. But I, for whatever reason, as I went to Maple Leaf Games, as I went to Argonaut Games and Blue Jay Games and bought programs back in the late 60s, throughout the 70s and 80s,

I kept everything. And as time went on, I, you know, put everything together in its proper space. I've got a box of CFL programs, a couple boxes of old hockey programs, and then I would go to the collector's shows, the local collector's shows. And I would, you know, everybody wants to buy cards. Basically, they're card shows, but, you know, you can also find publication material there too. And that was always my big thing is to, you know, to buy programs and magazines.

So I would buy things, you know, from other arenas magazines. So I would, uh, I would buy things, uh, you know, from other arenas and all that. So yeah, I have a, a large collection when I started this blog and, uh, this little point and shoot camera that everybody thinks is, uh, you know, something that a Toronto star photographer would use. Um, so I, I, you know, the one unique aspect you need to kind of a little niche in your blog. What we all have, anybody that starts a blog, is our own opinion. Whether that opinion counts for anything, it depends on everybody else's point of view. Thankfully, gratefully, I was able to, you know, follow along the whatever name I'd made or whatever following I had at the fan with this blog. But as people that read it, like yourself, you'll know that one of the unique aspects

is there's always a historical bend to it. I'll write currently about the current team, but there'll always be something. Which I really enjoy. Yeah, and a lot of people do. It's probably skewed to a bit of an older audience, but I've got this massive collection and I love taking photos of it and putting it up on the blog. Very cool. Very cool.

And I realize now, for time purposes, I'm going to go a little quick. I want to, you know, you're going to leave the fan here. I got to get you, no offense, I got to get you fired from the fan. And I have some questions about Burger Bites and between the posts and here. So I'm going to rock and roll here,

if that's okay with you. Why, at the end of, you mentioned it was kind of a blessing when you got it on June 1st, 2011, after 23 years. But why did they first take you off road games? Is that the first sign that maybe you were winding it down? At the time, it was a real blow, a blow to my ego, a blow to my pride. Look, I had the best gig in the city.

Not so much toward the end, but back in the day when there was no internet yet, I was the guy was the guy, not because I'm Howard Berger. I just, I happened to be the person that was with the Leafs. No one, no matter who it would have been, you, you had a, an audience, an automatic audience because radio was the only place you could go for instant information or sometimes in my case, instant wrong information. But anyway, um, uh, and, and then what happened was after the lockout, the first lockout, actually the first work stoppage was 25 years ago this past week when the players went on strike at the season for a week, and then played the entire Stanley Cup tournament. But the first owner's lockout started in September 1994, and they saved it at the last minute, and a 48-game schedule, much like three or four years ago, was played between January and May of 1995.

The Leafs at the time were still in the Western Conference, and just like in 2013, you only played within your conference. So they were flying all over the place. You know, they had three trips to California, three trips out to Western Canada. They were going to, you know, Phoenix was in the league for the first time that year, Colorado. It was a very busy time. Well, I had written a few books for this company, including the book I wrote with Tom Cheek. It was a company called Warwick Publishing, which isn't around anymore. And I was in New York. I'd covered the longest I'd ever stayed up in my life, about 38 and a half hours or something like that, until that work situation

was settled between the owners and the players. Well, I'm still in New York, and I call up the editor, just on a whim. And I said, look, they're playing 48 games. It's going to be kind of a unique season. Gilmore's still part of the team. They're coming off. It turns out they weren't as good, but they're coming off going to the Stanley Cup semifinals two times in a row. Why don't I go on the road with the team

and write a book about being on the road with the Leafs? You know, at that time, I could still go on the bus with them. Occasionally, I could go on a charter flight with them. We had to work it out with Pat Burns, who was the coach, that there were some things, obviously, that I couldn't touch or say anything but anyway it all worked out, they paid for me to go on the road the radio station was happy because it had a reporter on the road

that somebody else was paying for and so it worked out very well well that summer of 1995 going into the 95-96 season by the grace of God, again you talk about having a break personally we lose the rights to chorus. All right. So chorus entertainment now takes over the Leafs broadcast rights. When I, uh, that lockout shortened season, we still had the rights.

I would go on and on the pregame show, I would do stuff on the post game show with Joe Bowen. Well, we lost the rights to 640. And so Doug Ackerst, who was the program, uh, the general manager called me in one day and said, you just keep doing what you're doing, and now we'll pay for it. And so that's kind of how the whole Leaf thing happened. And for 16 or 17 years, I was the guy. I went to every game. I didn't make every game.

One year, my mom died. One year, my son was born. I was sick only once. I got sick in Boston. I have Crohn's disease. I had a flare-up while we were in Boston in 2006. But by and large, I went to 95% of the Leaf Road games. And then I get a call. I remember it. I was in Los Angeles at my in-laws' place in the summer of 2009. I would spend most of my time, most of my summers in LA because I had, you know, most of the time,

I got six weeks off in the non-hockey season. And I got a, what I would do every year is I would wait for a seat sale on Air Canada. The schedule would come out. I would call Doug Faraway just as a courtesy and say, look, Doug, there's a fair sale out now. Can I start booking some early season flights? He'd say, go ahead. I probably didn't even have to call Doug, but I did as a, you know,

as a professional courtesy to my boss. Well, one day in that summer, I get an email from Doug saying, before you book anything, call me. Well, you know, and there was no, the funny thing is the playoff year of 2009. Okay. So 2008, 09 season in 2009, Pittsburgh won the Stanley cup over Detroit. Okay. It was Crosby's first of the two cups so far.

I get called in prior to the playoffs, and they used to send me on the road for the whole playoffs because they would have sponsored reports. So I remember covering the Ottawa Senators right through in 2007 when they went to all four of their series, and they played Anaheim in the Stanley Cup final. So I would go from series to series, but I would always cover a full series,

and then the next round, another full i would always cover a full series and then the next round another full series stay with a particular series in 2009 prior to the playoffs i got called in and either doug or nelson maybe both of them they said look at even if we get a sponsor this year i don't know if you're going to be able to go on the road you know and so it was the beginning of the anyway what turns out i got to get to this quickly yeah i did more traveling that year. I was all over the map. I started in Vancouver.

I went to Calgary. I went to Raleigh. I went to, I remember I went to three games, seven in a row. I did Washington and that was with Crosby beat the Capitals in Washington. Washington had the 121 point season, game seven in Washington. The next night, game seven, Carolina and Boston. And the next night, somewhere else. I was all over the map.

They'd never spent so much money in their life sending me on the road in the playoffs at a time when they told me they may not put me on the road at all. I went in afterwards to Nelson. Once the playoffs was over, I said, Nelson, you know what? I really want to thank you. I mean, you know, I'm sure you weren't doing it

as a favor to me. I hope I, you know, I earned sure you weren't doing it as a favor to me. I hope I, you know, I earned it, whatever, or I made it worthwhile. But, you know, thank you. I mean, you know that's what I like to do. And so he says, okay, no problem. He says, I don't see anything changing. I went out and I went on vacation.

Then I get this email from Doug Faraway when I'm in L.A. saying, call me before you start booking. Anyway, so at that time it was, we're not going to do 100% of the games. Maybe we'll do 80% of the games. I could see it coming. I get to Toronto and we go from 80% of the games to maybe 35 or 40% of the games. Then I remember I was driving. The Maple Leafs had a few days of training camp up in Huntsville

Ronnie Wilson was a coach at the time so I drove up to Huntsville, whatever it takes, three hours three and a half hours, and I came home they were up there for a couple of days and I'm driving home on the 400 or Highway 12 or whatever it is from the North Country and I get an email or a call from Doug Faraway saying, so it's gone from

90% of the games to maybe 40% of the games. Now the travel budget is $10,000. I mean, I wouldn't have told this story at the time, all these years later. The $10,000, okay, so I can get to three or four games or something during the whole season, or one road trip out west or something. I'm exaggerating.

But look, it was, from a professional standpoint, it was devastating for me. I'm not going to lie. Nothing lasts forever, but was from a professional standpoint, it was devastating for me. I'm not going to lie. You know, I, nothing lasts forever, but all of a sudden this very unique, you know, this, this privilege that I'd had for all these years was taken away from me. I didn't understand it because I thought if you're going to cut back on something, why is it Leafs in this town? Not that I wanted someone else to lose a job or anyone else to be in my

position, but at that time you're thinking more selfishly. Well, anyway, as time went on, uh, uh, I, with Nelson, I had nothing in writing. I never needed anything in writing. Nelson's handshake was good enough. Okay. I got my gas paid for back then in the city. I got my parking paid for. Um, I was, you know, for a while I had a completely free ride. I had a company car that was taken away, but anyway, they, they paid for the, my repairs and all that. You know, they, I had a completely free ride. I had a company car. That was taken away. But anyway, they paid for my repairs and all that. I had my own car. I had to buy my car. But they paid for the upkeep.

Well, the new regime came in and just took it away, which was their prerogative. I had nothing in writing. And they just said, no, we're not going to pay for those things anymore. You pay for them. So were they trying to get me to quit? Or were they just doing the good business, just following orders? I don't know. But anyway, one thing led to another. to get me to quit or were they just doing the good business, just following orders? I don't know.

But anyway, one thing led to another. The first year that I was there, the summer of 2010, Don Collins, who was the man that ultimately let me go, he was the program director that followed Nelson. Don is now in San Francisco. I have nothing against Don. He's a good guy and he does a good job. But he called me in and said, we're going to put you on the road in the playoffs. Again, this is 2010, but just in the area. So thankfully for me, the Montreal Canadiens made it to the semifinals that year, and I was able to cover the final game at the old Mellon Arena in Pittsburgh

when the Canadians knocked them off. But I was basically going between Ottawa and Montreal. I would rent a car in Montreal, go to the Canadiens game, drive to Ottawa, go to the Senators game, come back to Montreal, which I enjoyed, but it wasn't like the old days. Well, after that, it was all over. I mean, I just, there was no road games after that with the Leafs. And the hard part is I didn't have anything to do. I wasn't a host. Yeah, I could cover home games. I could cover practices, but what happens when the team goes away for five or six or eight days or something and yet I had to I was told from my superiors

you have to still be seen as working well what am I going to do and and they didn't have an answer for that so you remember Andrew Crystal Andrew of course for a while he was uh first in the morning show and then the afternoon show so I I figured, you know, I don't want to just cash in a paycheck. It doesn't sound bad right now, mind you, but I don't want to just cash in a paycheck. I want to try and earn myself. So I took it upon myself to go in to the studio with Andrew in the afternoons and we would do a couple of hours together. And it's a whole other story. I'll come back sometime.

Okay. Cause, cause he can be exhausting, right? I've dealt with him. He's a bit of a nutter. Am I allowed to say he's a bit of a nutter? Yeah. He's a whole other story. I'll come back sometime. Okay, because he can be exhausting, right? I've dealt with him. He's a bit of a nutter. Am I allowed to say he's a bit of a nutter? Yeah, he's a nice nut. Okay, let's put it that way. Harmless, we hope.

He was different. Eccentric. He was different. Is that a good word? But, you know, he had a shtick that worked very well, certainly out east for a lot of years. But he was a little bit difficult to work with, from my standpoint.

Not a bad guy, but professionally difficult to work with. And, you know, you could see what was happening. Then we had that bloodletting that I mentioned to you, and Hogan and the Morning Show guys, Landry and Stelik, were let go, and then another producer or something else was let go. So you could see that ultimately, and I started planning for it. I started looking around. I talked to Talk 640 about something there.

They really were, you know, Greg Brady was working for them at the time. Billy Waters was working for them. They wanted, they wanted me there, but there was no opening. You know, this is how are we going to do this? Okay. Don Collins got word of that. And maybe he was offended by that because I, you know, I was talking to the opposition while I was just looking out for myself. Anyway, as it turns out on this day that you mentioned, June 1st, 2011, I was just looking out for myself. Anyway, as it turns out on this day that you mentioned, June 1st, 2011, I was scheduled to cover an Argonauts practice that day. You know, again, you got to be seen working, you know, so that's fine. I love to cover football. And Doug Faraway sent me a note saying, before you go to the Argo practice, can you drop in?

And I said, you know what? I can't. I've got to take my daughter. My daughter, Lauren, had broken part of her wrist. And so I had to take her that day. We had an appointment up in Thornhill at a hospital to have her put a cast on. I said, I can't come in before. But I'll come in after the Argonaut practice. He said to me, well, when you're finished with your daughter, come in, I'll get someone else to cover the Argo practice.

I didn't know what he wanted at that time. I thought, you know, Doug always called me in to talk about this or talk about that. Anyway, so I took my daughter to the hospital, dropped her off, went down to the radio station. I'm not expecting anything at this particular moment, okay? And I sit down in Doug's office and he says, wait a minute, I got to go get Don,

which means he was going next door to get Don Collins to come in. I said, what do you mean you got to get Don? Since when do you need Don in one of our meetings? Still, it didn't dawn on me. That's how thick-headed I am. Because you were there 23 years. It just didn't dawn on me. I figured, okay, I've met with Don Collins

a number of times by himself. I probably met with Don and Doug a couple of times. I met with Doug by himself 10 million times. All right, but something was wrong. Normally, if I met with Don and Doug, well, when I walked into the office, they'd already be there together. One wouldn't have to go get the other. So, uh, Don came in and he's holding an envelope and, uh, and he said, uh, your services are no longer, uh, are no longer

required. And I am to this day embarrassed with my reaction because it had been building up for probably one or two years to the point, you know, first the travel was taken away than all the other, you know, the little things with the parking and all the little things they paid for. And then suddenly I was just doing nothing, which I hated. All right, just catching a check every two weeks. And so, you know, he says when I heard those words, he wanted to talk to me. He wanted me to go into his office and have a discussion and probably tell me here's why we're doing this, okay,

which I should have done, but I blew up. I said, I don't want to talk to you. I don't want to talk to you now. I went to the elevator. He's running after me. I said, Don, I told you I don't want to talk now. I don't want to say the wrong thing. I mean, I was really emotional, which it's not like me, okay? Maybe it was like me 25 years ago, but it's not like me back in that day. I was more of a measured person, and I was always a good employee, I think. Anyway, I kind of stormed out of there and went home, and as I'm driving home, the pall is lifting. I'm thinking, you know, I'm going to get a pretty good severance package. I've been there for all these years. Yeah, it's time to move on. You know, I didn't quit. Maybe they were trying to make me quit, so I'm going to get a severance package, and it wasn't the end of the world for me.

But the next day, here's a guy that's just fired me that we didn't see eye to eye professionally. I had nothing against Don Collins personally. I still don't. I phoned Don the next day, and I apologized. I'm not telling you that as, yay, Howard. I was so embarrassed with the way that I stomped out of the radio station that I phoned him, and I said, look, I'm not telling you that yay Howard I was so embarrassed with the way that I stomped out of the radio station

that I phoned him and I said look I'm sorry and he got this dead silence on the phone I don't think he expected that call and he says well I know you're not a big fan

of mine Howard and I said Don that has nothing to do with it and we've met a million times and we've talked about that it has nothing to do with it I just said it was to hear those words

after 23 years and to be fired without cause which I was I mean I wasn't fired to do with it. I just said it was, you know, to hear those words after 23 years and, you know, to be fired without cause, which I was, I mean, I wasn't fired as a result of not being able to do my job. It was tough, you know? So I didn't like the way I left the radio station. I called him, I called Doug Fairway. I apologize to Doug as well. And whenever Don and I saw each other the following year, I still did a lot of Leaf games for my blog. It was fine. To this day, I don't wish him ill will or anything. He came in there, not necessarily to program the radio station.

He came in as a corporate slasher. That's fine. I used to tell him all the time. Efficiency experts. But you used to work in Kitchener. I said, this is nothing. I used to tell him all the time when I disagree with him. Nothing personal.

You have a wife. You have a kid. You have a family. You used to work in Kitchener, you're getting paid a big raise to come to the big market here, and you're listening to the people above you. But you're certainly not helping my career. That was the way it was.

So why do you think it happened? Were you simply making too much money? I just don't think I had a role there anymore. I had a role when they were sending me to 41 road games and two months of playoffs. We never had any home playoff games. So they didn't replace, like what about, what did David Alter do? Wasn't he I think David followed me and did that

for a while until they realized they didn't want to do it again. I don't know. You know what? I'm going to tell you on the soul of every loved person in my life. If I've turned on the radio station more than half a dozen times since then,

not because I, oh, those sons of bitches or anything like that, you know, nothing like that. When you're involved so intimately for so many years and suddenly you're not involved, it just, you lose interest. I totally get that. You either do it 100% or you don't do it at all. I always say to people, you know, they'd say, you know,

when you're driving in your car today, someone would say to me, did you hear what so-and-so said? Did you hear what Hogan said? This is back in the day. Did you hear what McCowan said? And I'd say, you know what? I got to be honest. When I'm in the car a lot of the time, I play music.

You know? It's like the lawyer. The lawyer's in court all day long. He comes home at 6 o'clock at night, has dinner, puts his feet up. He's not watching Perry Mason reruns or Law & Order. The surgeon who spends all his time in the operating room for 12 hours doesn't come home and watch Dr. Oz. I mean, you want to get away from it, but people couldn't understand that

because my job was their variety, was their distraction. So it was hard for people to understand that you didn't want to talk about sports or hear it 24 hours a day. But you did something very interesting, which is that you started the aforementioned burgerbites.ca, which is your blog, and you continued, and I have some specific questions here, but you continued to follow the team on the road, right? Well, I couldn't have done so without the National Post at that time. I needed an affiliation. It would be nice. So you got a media pass, essentially.

Yeah, but it would be, well, not for the whole season, but for whatever games I would do, but it would be nice. They do it in baseball in the United States, because the same thing's happening in the U.S. If there's a baseball reporter from a newspaper that gets laid off or gets bought out, and he's covered the team for 40 years or 30 years,

almost always that person is still allowed to continue his career by himself through a blog or online. He continues to get a pass. That doesn't happen in hockey, certainly not in Toronto. I have never asked for it because I don't need it. And if I do need a pass for a game here or a game there, as Pat Park, my good friend was, who was the Leafs media relations director for years and years, as he did in that year of 2011, 12. And as Steve Keough, who is the director of media relations today, if I need a pass for a game or two, they're always there for me. I don't abuse that at all. And quite frankly, I don't have to be there that much anymore. But I figured if the blog is going to start, and you have to understand, I started that

blog on the evening of June 1st, 2011. Like out of sight, out of mind, right? In this business, it doesn't matter who you are, what you've done, what team you've covered. Once you're gone, you're gone. Right. So I got, and I just went on Google and I hit blog And I went on and I started a Google blog spot. It was called Burger Bites, B-Y-T-E-S, because bites is a sound bite from radio. So I figured that those two would go together.

Burger Bites is also a dog food, as you know. So I started the blog right away. And I talked about it with my wife at the time. I said, look, in any business, you have startup costs. I ended up getting a very good settlement from the fan. I had to fight for it a little bit, but I got a good settlement from Rogers. I also got a lump sum of money from whatever.

I was owed through company shares or whatever. So there was a fair amount of money there. And we said, okay, let's spend X amount of dollars. And I wanted to sort of continue to do what I was doing at the beginning of my blog, just sort of for the, for the continuation aspect for the, you know, to, to make it sound like, okay, I'm not in the radio anymore, but here, Howard Berger is still on the road. So I did probably half the road games in the 2011, 12 season, but it was very costly. I, I got, I had a sponsor in the playoffs that year and I went to

all 20 of the LA Kings games. That was the year they won the cup for the first time. They started in Vancouver, then they played St. Louis, and they played the Coyotes, and then they played New Jersey in the final. I went to all of their games, and it was a lot of money to spend, a hell of a lot of money to spend, but I still look back on it as a good investment in terms of that continuation

aspect. Okay. Now, there was a much publicized tax suit that came out of this, right? So the specifics were, okay, so you claimed business losses of like $26,000 plus or something in 2011. Well, I didn't. I didn't count. You're counting, right.

And then $37,000. Who happens to be my father, by the way. Oh, that's great. In 2012, like $37,000. And this was basically the cost of going to go to L.A. and go to the L.A. campaigns and things like that. Well, you couldn't claim everything. I mean, you could claim a certain amount of business costs. And we did.

And, you know, and the government of Canada did not agree that it should be that way. of Canada did not agree that it should be that way. And, uh, I went to court and presented my, uh, side of the story through my lawyer. The, uh, the queen was represented by someone on the crown, presented his side of the story. And the, uh, the judge, although he, uh, offered me a stern warning because I was not, uh, you know, I, I'm not Mr. Entrepreneur. All I ever did is just do what the fan told me to do. He says, you better have a better business plan than that. But he did end up siding with me and it saved me about $22,000. Okay, good. Yeah, you won that. So yeah, so you won the tax appeal. I didn't win it, my lawyer did. Your lawyer, right, okay. But it's like when the Leafs won, we won. But so the great question, and it was a great debate.

I remember having this debate because I have a blog too, but obviously your blog, it's whether should Burger Bites be considered a business or a personal hobby? This is like the crux of it all, I suppose. And of course, you saw Burger Bites as a business and their startup costs, where I saw TorontoMic.com as a personal hobby.

So I'm not entitled to claim losses on my hobby. That's not a business. But if you have a sponsor, doesn't that become a business then? Well, that's great. No, it got me thinking about lots of things. Yeah, you're right. Because you said, yeah. A hobby becomes a business when you start generating income.

As simple as that. It definitely gets a guy to thinking. So you win that appeal. But have you calmed down the spending since then? All I did is spend that year. That was it. That was it. I, and you know, the judge asked me in court, well, why did you, I told him, I said, I wanted to, like I told you, I said, I wanted that continuation aspect. It was like the startup cost of any business, but I knew I was only going to do it for that season, and then I was going to have to fall back on whatever name or reputation Howard Berger has. And so that was the plan from the beginning.

It wasn't, oh, I'll do this until I run out of money. I'm just going to do it for this one season. Hopefully there's enough viewership that I can move forward with it. And I have. Here we are, what, six years later almost. So do you still think of, it's not Burger Bites anymore. You know, you could have kept the old name and planted it to the new name.

And then guys like me. Well, it's still, my name is still on there. Because I told you, because of selling it one day, maybe taking the name Burger Bites. So between the posts.ca, do you still see it considered a business, or do you now look at it as a personal hobby while you wait for a gig? I have, right now it's almost irrelevant what I consider it, because I'm not claiming anything off of it. But it's more of an effort and more of a chore than I thought it would be.

But what I've done, when I became between the post.ca, I refreshed the website. So it's a totally different look. And now I'm in the midst of it. Boy, it's a long process because, you know, the web people I work with, they're good, but I'm not their only client. Okay. And so now I've got what ad space would look like. And I've had lots of expressions of interest, but I'm putting together a business plan. People are saying, what are your costs? Okay.

People are coming to me. This is what's encouraging about it. Okay. They're coming to me and saying, we want to advertise in your blog. One of which is a former Leafs player. I'll mention him if and when he comes aboard. My problem is, again, I'm not a businessman.

I'm just not a businessman. I'm just not a businessman. I, I, I sort of ashamed to say that, but look what I did all those years. I was Howard Berger who was sent on the road by the fan 590. Right. Execute that part of your job. We'll look after it. No shame in that. I'm as lousy a business guy as you are.

I'm not, I'm not, I don't have a lot of business acumen. So it's taken a while with with the help of other people, to really put together a business plan. And I've always looked at my blog as something that would be an adjunct to generating income somewhere. It would be wonderful if I could live off of it, but not many people live off a blog. Perhaps you're able to do so with this podcast you have, or to help you anyway.

But it's very difficult. There's a lot of competition out there. But I'm very, very encouraged now that I've really gotten into finally putting together this business plan with the way it would look with, you know, the background ads and with sidebar ads. And so I'm looking to fill that and hopefully will in the next few months. Will you ever work in the mainstream media again? Don't ask me. Don't ask me.

Are you surprised at all that 1050 TSN didn't pounce on you? Nothing. Nelson Millman will tell you, as I will tell you here, once you have worked five years in radio, and it doesn't matter what you are. It doesn't matter if you're a reporter, an anchor, a host, a general manager, program director. Once you've got about four or five years under your belt, the word surprise leaves your vocabulary. There's nothing surprises you anymore. Am I surprised?

I don't know. I'm disappointed a little bit. I think i've got a lot to offer still maybe people think i'm too expensive because i have all this experience i don't know i have no idea i'm not sitting looking at my blackberry which i still have waiting for it to phone but sometimes i wonder you know i think that there's something that i have that i believe I can offer others. I certainly follow the team still. I write about the team currently. I'm not 98 years old.

I do have the ability to go back in time and to talk about stories from back then and maybe draw the parallels I do on my blog. And that, I think, is a good thing, not a bad thing. And yet there aren't many job openings out there. You know, the host's jobs are filled. I was never a full-time host in radio. I was a reporter. So I don't know.

I really don't spend a lot of time thinking about it anymore. I have to generate what I can by myself. If someone wants to pick up the phone and call me i'll be all ears simple as that you call and you talk first but uh i i don't know what the answer is i'm not the only person that didn't get back in uh i feel very good for the people that did like barb to julio i feel barb was my best friend in the business when we worked together as i said i feel great for mike hogan all the people that got back in you know god bless them bless them. They, they deserve to be in the business. Um, do I deserve to be in the business? It's not up to me. It's up to someone else to make that call. Like, let's say, so David Alter,

who came after you, and then he was let go by the fan. He actually, he got another gig and then they fired him because it's the whole industry. He went to the national post. Right. And they got rid of the whole sports. After about three months, they told him sayonara, which was terrible. Where he is now is he's writing for The Athletic. Yeah, yeah. But so have you, and I happen to have a couple of guys from The Athletic. We're in here, James Myrtle and Sean Fitzgerald. But you're, like, people, and it's not just people.

I'm an old guy, sure, but guys my age and younger and older, you're the Leafs guy we listened to throughout the 90s and beyond. Michael, I thank you for that, but I can't answer any questions. You have to ask the others. Clearly, there's no one banging down the door right now. They know I'm available. They know where I am. I'd like to think they know what I can offer.

And at this time, I can only assume it's not enough. This is already the longest episode of Toronto Mic'd ever. And I'm sorry for that. I think I told you 90 minutes. The only other episode that exceeded two hours was Bob Elliott, by the way. Oh, well, Bob can tell stories. He could come do another two hours. Absolutely.

And again, this is the part that, you know, if I'm going to thump my chest a little bit, I am a good storyteller. You know, Don Collins, one of the things that mystified me when he became program director, he once said to me, don't tell stories, just talk. Don't go back to the past and bring stuff back. And I looked at him like he was from Mars. I said, you know, the biggest reaction I get from people

is when I do tell stories. I think that's terrible advice. And I've never been in the industry. I thought it was the worst advice I ever got on radio. But that's the one thing I can do. And it's not, you know, if that's all you. I thought it was the worst advice I ever got on radio. But that's the one thing I can do. And it's not, you know, if that's all you can do is talk about the past, then you have no chance. But

if you read my blog, I think I can not only write currently about the Leafs, but somewhat accurately as well. This is a question I thought of when I... And I wasn't going to ask it. And now I am because I feel comfortable with you. So we'll see how this goes.

Here, there's my brain. I feel comfortable with you. I can tell you to go screw. You'll tell me to get an F off if you don't like the question. But I consider you a polarizing figure. Like when I said Howard Berger was coming on, a lot of people are excited to hear from you and want to hear from you again.

And some people aren't as excited to hear from you. Well, why do you think that was? Okay, so let me finish this thought. I hope I didn't as excited to hear from you. Well, why do you think that was? Okay. Okay, so let me finish this thought. I hope I didn't ramble too much. But then I thought to myself, I've done 231 episodes. I've had a few other guests come on that were also polarizing, and I had similar feedback, okay? I'm going to name them now, okay?

So I had Steve Simmons on. We talked about him. The most widely read sports columnist in the country, no matter what people say. I can't tell you the emails I got from listeners who listen to every episode. And just to let me know, I won't be listening to this one.

It's not just the Kesselman. And of course, what that means is as soon as it's up, they're listening to it and listening to it again a second time. That's the thing about the internet. There's this catharsis where people say, I will never hear you, I'll never listen to you again,

I'll never read you again, until your column comes out the next morning and they're waiting by the newspaper box. Mike Wilner, who must be having a difficult time right now in Jay's talk with that start, but Mike Wilner, I had very similar feedback.

If they offered me Wilner's job today, I would say no. I don't know how he does it. See, I think Hebsey wants it, and I think Hebsey needs to check his head. Hebsey could do it. Yeah. So, okay, so to recap, so I have this feedback with you. I had it with Steve Simmons.

I had it with Mike Willner, and I had it with Marty York. Yeah. Okay? And Marty York, I do actually get it with Marty York, because he seems to go out of his way right now to be polarizing. Anyway, so Marty York, I sort of get it. And I'm taking all this in. I've had 231 people like yourself in this basement, from Brian Williams to Bob

McKenzie to Ron McClain, whatever. But those are the people that I got the whole, like, I can't listen to that guy. I hate him, okay? So I'm going to throw this out here. I have no idea. But is it possible there's any anti-Semitism at work? Is that possible? Well, you're talking about four Jewish people.

Yeah. That's not, I don't know. So all four are... That's not the first thing that would come to mind for me. No. But neither is it something that I would dismiss. Much like Cito Gaston could not dismiss criticism of him when he was winning World Series,

being partially motivated by race. He was a black man. Or Obama. I'm just saying. I used to say sometimes, Cito's crazy. What do you mean? Why would people think about that? And then someone said to me, well, you didn't grow up in the South, in the United States back in the 50s and 60s.

Who were you? How could you possibly even comment on that? So I don't know. I mean, the only common thread there among the four people you mentioned is we're of the Jewish faith. Is that part of it? I'd like to think not. Steve Simmons has done a pretty good job.

Heb sure has done a nice job for himself. Marty York was one of the best reporters and most renowned reporters in his days with the Globe and Mail. I had a pretty good 23-year run at the fan. So, I mean, it'll be pretty hard for me to stand in front of a judge and say, you know what, they don't give Jewish people

a chance in this business. It's just interesting that all four have this common denominator, if you will. Well, but you know what it is? Yeah. And I could never win as a reporter covering the Leafs, particularly once the internet era came and the chat rooms and stuff like that.

And the Ron Wilson stuff gets played. Not only that, but even before that. People are very offended when they read someone in a position of authority give their opinion. Whoever these people are online, these anonymous people, they can give their opinion on everything, including what type of a person you are, but they're offended somehow when the people being paid to cover the team offer an opinion, particularly if it's a critical opinion and something that they don't agree with.

I got that all the time. I got, you're a bum, you don't know anything, all the way to a couple of times people wishing cancer on me. I mean, you wouldn't believe some of the stuff you would see. Okay. So I was a, uh, you know, I was a bum. I was a horrible person because, you know, I covered the Leafs a lot of times when they won too. I covered the Gilmore era. I covered the Pat Quinn era. But then in the final years when they never made the playoffs, well, what is it going to say that they're great? They were out of, they were terrible teams. So I, you know, I told it like it is, at least I tried to. to. And the people didn't like this. They all agreed with it, but they didn't like that someone else was saying it.

Then, if over a period of a couple days or a couple of blogs, I was perceived as being soft on the team, holy mackerel, the emails. What's the matter with you? We count on you to be a voice for the fans. We count on you to stand up and, you know, to stand up in the dressing room. So you could never win. You were either a patsy or you were this moron that just was this anti-Leaf guy. There was never anything

in between. If you want to avoid being a polarizing figure in media, don't have an opinion. Simple as that. Just don't talk with opinion. I spoke with opinion because that was my, I was sort of, I had a slant toward that anyway, and that's what my bosses wanted. I was told, this is sports radio, be opinionated. But you can't be opinionated and not take all kinds of heck in this day and age of the internet. So that's, I mean, that's what I look at as a compliment, to be honest with you. I didn't like all the things. I didn't like being told, I wish you have cancer.

I mean, it's ridiculous. Okay, that's one extreme. But, you know, that just came with the territory. It never bothered me. And I looked at it as long as they spelling burger with an E and not a U, hey, you know, I'm doing my job. And I only went there because I have a friend of, you know, a Jewish friend, if you

will, who has said... You have two Jewish friends now. He has two now. Who said he's noticed lately more anti-Semitism. And in my head, I'm not even conscious of this anti-Semitism. And he was telling me that he's noticed it's sort of more public now and out there

and I'm like just... As a Jewish person, I can't see it. I don't look for it. I certainly would never fall back on that for my inability, whatever word you want to use to get back into the business. Why are you damned if you do, damned if you don't, where others get away with that?

What do you mean damned? Well, you said that you're either too soft on the team or too hard. Because you have an opinion. If you have an opinion, and the team isn't playing well, and you're telling it like it is and you're being accurate, what you're saying turns out to be what happens, which, you know, it was a lot of the time.

That's the way it was. It wasn't hard to be able to predict what the Leafs weren't going to be able to do. Well, they didn't want to hear that because they knew that to be the truth. They wanted to be able to say that themselves to each other and honestly on their chat rooms they didn't want the guy being paid to be able to say it who everybody knows on the radio okay so once in a while you wouldn't plan on it maybe they'd win three or four games in a row and so you would have to say something i mean justifiably positive about the team i'd'd get emails. Again, like I told you, from the same people that were wishing me death

are now saying, what does it matter with you? We count on you to stand up to the team and don't go soft. So like I said, if you have an opinion, that's what's going to happen in this day and age. It was much easier, much less of a hassle, and it depends, again, on how much you pay attention to it, but it was much easier in the pre-Internet days, you know,

to deal with that because there weren't as many voices out there. You mentioned your Crohn's disease. How's your health these days? Fine, thank you. Now, that could change in two minutes after I leave here, but I haven't had any major problems. I told you it was in November 2006. Very quickly, when I covered the team in major problems. I told you it was in November 2006. Very quickly, when I covered the team in Boston, the Leafs in Boston, I used to always stay at Logan Airport because in those days, and as it is today, you'd get under the, it's called the Big Dig in Boston.

It's a tunnel you'd go on and you'd come up on the highway and the first exit was the TD Garden. And so it was so easy, whether you could stay in Copley Square or some other place in Boston, you could see the TD Garden, but it would take, because of the crazy, Boston's on a grid, it's all roundabouts, it would take you 20 hours to get there. So I always stayed at the airport. There's one time in 2006, I have no idea to this day, why I decided I was going to stay in South Boston, okay? I decided I'm going to stay at a Hampton Inn and Suites. I always was a Hilton guy, and that's Hampton's part of it. I'm going to stay at a Hampton Inn in Suites. I always was a Hilton guy and that's Hampton's part of it. I'm going to stay at a Hampton Inn in South Boston. It looked like a nicer neighborhood. Maybe we were there for an extra day. I don't know what it was.

I get there and I got there the night before the game and the morning of the game, I remember John Ferguson came up to me, gave me a little bit of a scoop. He said to me, I've signed a contract extension with the team. Didn't mean much because I let him go not long after that. But he said, and I remember getting a bit of a story that day. And then I went to cover the game that night. And out of nowhere, and this is what happens with an inflammatory bowel disease, whether it's Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis, out of nowhere you start getting these terrible stomach.

I couldn't go to the bathroom. The whole works. I knew something was up. I couldn't understand why because it, out of nowhere you start getting these terrible stomach... I couldn't go to the bathroom, the whole works. I knew something was up. I couldn't understand why because it came out of nowhere. And I went back to the hotel afterward. I did my work. And you're trying to deny that you've got to go to a hospital. You don't want to go. You're saying, okay, it'll go away.

Maybe you ate something wrong. Maybe you got gas. Whatever. Tried to deny it. And then after a while I realized, well, this is a flare-up. I've got gas, whatever. Tried to, you know, deny it. And then after a while I realized, well, this is a flare up. I've got to get help. Well, this one time, Mike, that I don't stay at the airport, this hotel is right across the street from the Boston Medical Center. Oh, wow. The one time, all the years that I did not stay at Logan Airport at the Hilton or the embassy

suites at Logan Airport, I stayed in right across from the Boston Medical Center. I went down to the lobby at about 1.30 in the morning. I said to the lady at the front desk, I said, I'm in room whatever. I got to go across to the hospital. Don't give my room away. I don't know when I'm going to be back. And I ran across, it was pouring rain, I remember. And I was admitted to the hospital. I spent the weekend there and they did what they had to do to make me feel better. The hotel was great. It packed up my bag and sent all my bag to the hospital. And I went home and I ended up having surgery. I used to have to have surgery for Crohn's disease back in that day because once every eight or nine years,

I could go into the hospital and be covered from the insurance in the United States. If something happened again two weeks later, I wasn't covered because it was a pre-existing condition. So as soon as that happened, I said, I can't let it happen again. I won't be able to travel. So I had surgery and they do what is known as a bowel resection. They go in, they cut you from top to bottom.

They take out the little part of the small intestine that is affected by Crohn's disease. They resect or join the healthy parts together, and away you go. And so I ended up missing about five or six weeks of that season and got back. I remember I went to Dallas for the NHL All-Star Game in early 2007. That's the only time that it interrupted, you know, how lucky I am that it interrupted my hockey travel. And I've been fine ever since. You know, relatively fine. I have a day here, a day there,

but I've not been in the hospital since that time. Well, I'm glad you're feeling good. What haven't we touched on? I know, I was going to say, what's your favorite burger in the city? Jay Guest wants to know. Where's the best burger in Toronto? No one's going to listen to this whole podcast.

I hope they do. I hope they do, too. Maybe I'll break it up into like a cereal-like, you know, six-part episode. Howard being let go. Howard not getting back in. Everything's in this episode. The four Jews.

Whatever you want. Anti-Semitism rampant in sports media. Dave Schultz pretending he's Howard Berger's friend. You can do anything you want. And he's pretending he's Louis C.K., too. He's doing the stand-up now. I like Dave. He's a good man.

And that brings us to the end of our 230-second show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Howard is at Burger Bites. And our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer and PropertyInTheSix.com, who took Howard to a Leaf game, and they're going to take me to a Leaf game. That's at Brian... Oh, I'm in trouble now.

At Brian Gerstein. See you all next week. Smile you out, check ass, just come in. Ah, where you been? Because everything is kind of rosy and green. Yeah, the wind is cold, but the snow, it's cold. It warms me today. And your smile is fine, and it's just like mine.