Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Jay Onrait: Toronto Mike'd #260

Episode Date: August 30, 2017

Mike chats with Jay about why he left TSN for Fox Sports, what went wrong there, why he's returned with Dan O'Toole and what the hell happened with that MuchMoreMusic show.

Welcome to episode 260 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a local independent brewery producing fresh craft beer. And propertyinthesix.com, Toronto real estate done right. I'm Mike from torontomike.com and joining me this week is broadcaster Jay Onright. Welcome back. You pronounced that correctly. I'm very impressed. Because the T should be silent, right? That's a French thing? It is a French name. It's actually spelled incorrectly. We don't have to go into it,

but it's supposed to be spelled R-A-E-T with two dots over the E. I think it's supposed to be R-A-E-T. Do you know what those two dots are called? That's not the R-A-E-T. I think that's exactly what it is. Is that what it is? Yeah. I only know that because I was a big Motley Crue fan.

Me too. Dr. Feelgood, but before that, the Home Sweet Home album, what was that one called? That was Theater of Pain. That's the first one. I popped my peas there, Mikey. No, pop away. That's like a... Only one guest ever has not popped their peas.

That was Erin Davis, because she had this angle she had perfected where she could not pop a pea. Radio legend, right? I mean, it makes perfect sense that she would understand those angles. Jay, I got a song for you. Let's listen. Okay, let's do it. Gabe Kaplan. Is Gabe still with us

or has he passed away? Good question. He spent a lot of his last 10 to 15 years playing poker. You'd always see him on the TSN poker shows and they'd have celebrities play poker like that one

Tilly girl who would have her boobs out. Jennifer Tilly. Jennifer Tilly, right? She'd have her boobs out at the table. Terrific strategy. Gabe was like basically a pro poker player for us. If younger people don't know, Gabe Kaplan played

Mr. Cotter in Welcome Back, Cotter. Great show from the 70s. And John Travolta was on it. Do you remember the Simpsons episode where John Travolta was at Itchy and Scratchy Land

working there and then somebody said, oh, look, it's a John Travolta impersonator. And then John Travolta says, no, it looks like John Travolta. And then John goes, yeah, looks like.

And that was like a month before Pulp Fiction came out, which, by the way, is my favorite movie of all time. I saw that you have a poster here. Yes. So it's the real deal. You can... Where did you first see Pulp Fiction?

I'm going to say I probably first saw it at the Humber Odeon at Jane and Bloor. Okay. I like that being very specific. And I went and bought tickets to see it. IMAX presentation at the Ontario Place Cinesphere later that year. Okay, but the first one was the Humber and Bloor one. I saw it for sure. I was going to Ryerson at the time. I for sure saw it.

I don't think the theater exists anymore, but it was a cineplex Odeon. I'm going to say somewhere near Church and like the Esplanade, kind of that area. Now there are the Rainbow Cinemas are still around there, maybe. I don't know if they're still around near St. Lawrence Market, but it was kind of in that area. And I remember going, I remember the scene,

we're not, the movie's what, 30 years old? We're not giving spoilers? You could spoil Pulp Fiction. The scene at the end when John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson, you realize they're in the diner where the movie started. I will always remember this. The theater was packed because by then

the hype was real. And the entire theater upon realizing that Quentin Tarantino had done that started spontaneously applauding. I'd never seen that for a film before or since.

I've seen theaters break out laughing like Borat at the Scotiabank Theatre near 299 Queen which I never forget the laughter of that film like the whole theater just like in tears. I've never seen a theater breaking a spontaneous applause at a script point. You and I, you have a wiki page. Do you know that? A Wikipedia page. And your birth year is on that Wikipedia page. Right. So I can tell you, we were born in the same calendar year.

Right. We're 74 babies. And we're the same age when Pulp Fiction comes out, which is like 20, I want to say. Like 20? Yeah, that's right. So it's like, I don't know. I'm sure you had the same reaction. But to me, it was like, holy smokes, what did I just see?

Like, this is amazing. Yeah. Well, it was very clear. Like, Reservoir Dogs had come out. So you knew he was a talent. And it was like holy smokes what did i just see like this is amazing yeah well it was very clear like reservoir dogs had come out so you knew he was a talent and it was a great film but yeah pulp fiction was totally different and then travolta you know he was couldn't have been lower than low at the time that's my point on the simpsons reference they make the joke because travolta was like look who's talking was like the best he had for a long time that's right but literally like months after that episode airs,

he's the biggest thing in Hollywood. Absolutely. He was back in a huge way. And then he did all those John Woo movies, Face Off, which still to this day, man, if you do nothing else today, go to Netflix or go wherever you get your movies now and just rent Face Off,

crack a couple of Great Lakes brews and just watch. That movie is so absurd, and the acting is so over the top. God, I love it so much. I could watch it 10 times a year. Face Off, John Woo. Have you seen it? I want to know if it holds up,

because when I first saw it, I was like, what effects? It doesn't. It didn't hold up then. It doesn't hold up now. It just entertains you immensely at the absurdity of this film. And Nicolas Cage is always good.

The two of them together were great. No, it was great. I gotta ask you, where the heck is Dan? Just so you know, I went to great efforts to get this. See, I'm pointing to this new boomer. The idea was to have it set up for Jay and Dan. They're coming

back. This is a big deal. You guys deserve your own swing boom arms. We really blew it by not having Dan here. No, Dan blew it. Dan now lives, I'm not going to say the name of the town, but he lives in a town far, far east of the city. Every time we return to Canada,

he wants to go further and further east. That's Oshawa. You don't have to say anymore. That's Oshawa. He did live in Oshawa. He did live in Oshawa. He did live in Oshawa. He went further east than Oshawa? Oh, way further.

Oh, Oshawa is like downtown Toronto where Dan is now. So, yeah. So, he... And, you know, he's got family responsibilities. So, you're stuck with me today. But I will say he is a fan.

He wanted me to say hi. Is he a fan? Yeah. Because on Twitter, I feel I have a relationship with you. Yes, we do. He wanted me to say hi. Is he a fan? Yeah. Because on Twitter, I feel I have a relationship with you. Yes, we do. Yeah. But nothing with Dan. It's like an echo chamber.

Yeah, but Dan's like a beautiful woman that you have to woo. I'm easy. I'll jump into bed with you right away. That's what I'm looking for, to be honest. So people can't see us. But you brought a Dan substitute. There's a gentleman with you. He's got like a mean look.

He's watching me closely, makes sure my questions are fair and balanced. Yeah. Your name is Zach, right? Zach Fairbrother, our TSN PR star, like just like emerging star. I wanted to bring like the young talent along. But my question is, is he here as your like driver? No, we have a driver.

We have a separate driver. No, you don't. Yes, we do. She's waiting outside. So you guys... What's her name? Andrea? Audrey?

No, you don't. I can't remember. This is a huge bit because you could bring her in. No, there's no one outside. We can bring her in. We can bring her down. You can't take Jay seriously.

Listen, Bell Media doesn't mess around, Mike. Bell Media doesn't mess around. A driver showed up. Lovely lady showed up at my door at queen and at college in ozington this morning and picked us up and drove us down here that's that's amazing yeah you're right and by the way i've seen your ads you mentioned i think all the marketing budget right now is being pumped into the jay and dan enterprise yeah and Dan enterprise. Because we had no marketing for the previous 15 years at Bell,

so we're just making up for it. You're like the prodigal son. Now upon your return, it's like, we had them, we lost them, but now we appreciate them. What's funny about this business, and I say this to young people all the time, if you

are from Toronto, and I'm sure most of your listeners are, and you want to become an on-air broadcaster, you have to get the hell out of Toronto. You have to leave for several reasons. Number one, you will absolutely make more money in the long run if you leave, and even the threat

Keith Pelley, the legendary broadcast executive Keith Pelley, was great at finding the perfect time to get the fuck out of there. He's golfing in England or something. He's the commissioner of the European PGA Tour. Do you think that Keith left Rogers because he was about to get more money? He knows when to get out. And I think if you're a young broadcaster,

it's such an advantage to get out and see. Zach and I were talking about this on the way over here. See a bit of the country. Get some perspective on this entire country, because this country is like six countries. It's so different from coast to coast. You're right. And it's good to get that perspective before coming back to Toronto, where we all want to live and raise our families, because this is the best city in the country. So your appearance here on Toronto Mic, Jay, this is your dream realized.

Let me just tell you, you're following in the footsteps of Brian Williams, Dave Hodge, Bob McKenzie, James Duthie, Vic Rauter, make the final, Gino Retta, without mustache. All of those were good, except Duthie. All of those were really good. Except Duffy and his wobble boots. And Rod Smith. Yeah, maybe my favorite of all.

Nicest, most professional person. Best voice in the history of Canadian sports broadcasting, I think. Sometimes I'm watching TV and an ad will come on. I think it was for Kelsey's or something. And I'll tweet at Rod and I'll be like, that's your voice, right? Then he'll be like, yep, that's me. He's the voiceover man. He's the voiceover God. Yeah. All of those guys, amazing. Brian Williams must have been a treat. Was that like a seven, eight hour pod?

Look, I think he, unlike you, sorry, Zach, I have to say this, but unlike you, he said, take as much time as you need. I didn't didn't get this whole, like, you got an hour, and then Zach's going to put the heavy on you. So I will start speaking at twice my normal speed, because I have 90 minutes of content to jam into here. Did you and Dave just talk about music the whole time? I didn't get to hear that one. A lot of music talk.

A lot of music talk. Dave is the reason Brian came on, because apparently they're close buddies. Yes. We go to brunch and stuff. And I invited Brian. By the way, I invited Dutchie, and he ignored me completely.

I just wanted, I couldn't even get a no out of the guy. He's working out, buddy. Is that right? He's got three or four workouts a day he's got to hit. Holy smokes. Oh, my goodness. So, anyway, Dave Hodge,

I think Brian phoned Dave and said, hey, who's this Toronto Mike guy who wants me to come in his basement for a couple hours? Am I going to be... I was kind of surprised because I wasn't sure if Dave enjoyed himself because he kind of holds the cards close to his chest. But Dave gave glowing reviews

to Brian and said, you've got to do this. He does his homework. It's a great time. And then Brian said... And Brian phoned me every week leading up to his appearance just to confirm the date and time. That's Brian. It was amazing. Yeah, that's hey, Zach, right? That's Brian. It was amazing.

And then the day of, hi, it's Brian Williams. Brian Williams. Which I got used to. I actually got used to getting a phone call from Brian Williams. That's fun. Which I could tell my mom. I'm like, hey, you know, I got another call from Brian Williams. And she's like, oh, my son is what a wonderful development.

Brian Williams, in all seriousness, has been so supportive of Dan and I. And Dave too. Dave has always been great. But Dave and I just talk about music every time we hang out. Yeah, we did a lot of music talk. He's in the mosh pit with the 20-year-old. One of my favorite memories of the early aughts in Toronto when I was single and going out a lot

was I'd go to a concert. I like to go to concerts. I'd go to a concert. I like to go to concerts. I'd go to a concert at Lee's Palace, and I'd just get like a tap on the shoulder, and it'd be Dave standing behind me on like a milk crate at Lee's Palace so he could see over everybody wearing like a hat, like a ball cap. Yeah, and we'd be like watching Stephen Malkmus or something like that. That's fantastic.

By the way, yesterday they announced the ACC will become the Scotiabank Arena. And I don't understand why couldn't Bell Media chime in? Why couldn't it be the Jay and Dan Arena? Zach, do you have any insight into this? Great question. I mean, I think it still can be. We just have to talk to the Scotiabank people. We can call it whatever we want, right?

Yeah. 800 mil. That's an incredible number. Naming rights were like, what were they, like a million, two million a year? Like, it seemed like five, 10 years ago, like 40 million a year. It's incredible. Well, I can tell you, Air Canada paid 30 million for 20 years.

That's amazing. What a deal. Yeah, now it's 800 million for these 20 years. But all the big banks, they've got that scratch. But you'd think they already got that theater you mentioned. Do they need more? Yeah, why do you need more than the theater at Queen and John? With the escalator that's always broken, right?

That's right. That's right. The world's longest escalator never works. That's right. Like the one at Spadina Station we used to have. Remember that? Did you go surfing on that when you were young? No.

Well, I didn't grow up here. Oh, right. I mean, I came here to go to Ryerson University. I like to emphasize the university at the end. Because you're my age, right? So it was a polytechnical institute. But right before I went there, it was a university by the time I got there. And I was the first of the four-year radio and television arts people.

So previously, everything was three years. And once they went to a university designation, they said, okay, you've got to make everything four years. So it was the first of the four years. So my fourth year, we did nothing. They said, well, we'll have it figured out by the fourth year. I did nothing. I was at TSN the whole year working behind the scenes there.

I went to U of T, and we used to stick our noses in the air and call it Rye High. Well, everyone at Ryerson, you know, it's sort of an only we can make fun of ourselves thing. We all call it Rye High as well, or DeVryerson. Alright, let's get a little business done and dive in here. So, firstly, everyone listening, I urge

you to go to patreon.com slash Toronto Mike. Jay, put away your wallet. You can do it later. It's okay. But give what you can a dollar a month. Zach has my wallet. Zach has your wallet. You can do it later. It's okay. But give what you can, a dollar a month. Zach has my wallet. Zach has your wallet. Your driver's got it.

And give what you can. But what I'm doing this week and next week only is I'm actually saying, hey, before you give me that money, which I need desperately, please give it to the Terry Fox Foundation because I'm running on September 17th

at High Park. I'm running in the Terry Fox run. So if you go to torontomike.com and click the button at the top for Terry Fox Run, you can give your money there. You even get a tax receipt if you do that. I don't give a tax receipt when you give it to patreon.com slash torontomike, but Terry Fox Foundation does. So give your money to Terry. When I hear these controversies on the radio and television about how we shouldn't be naming things after John A. MacDonald and all foundation does. So give your money to Terry. When I hear these controversies on the radio and television about how we shouldn't be naming things after John A. McDonald and all these things, my only thought is name everything after Terry Fox. Everything. Yeah. Name everything after Terry Fox or Dan O'Toole. Just split it.

But not until he appears on this show. Okay. Fair enough. And then we can do that. Beer. You great lakes beer that six pack is going home with you amazing this is great thank you my friend i'm so excited i love beer um our our podcast the jnm podcast is now sponsored by a beer company i can't mention them because it's not great lakes brew you can because because they're like a independent craft brewery that's local they don't really compete with the big guys like You're going to mention a big name here. Coors.

Go ahead. Yeah, Coors Light. That's a Molson Coors conglomerate. They own everything else except Great Lakes. Sam Elliott owns that company. Do his voice? Can you do it? No one can do that voice.

The banquet beer. Apparently, I was talking to someone from Coors last week, and they were like, he costs so much money. I'm like, yeah, he's Sam fucking Elliott. Of course he costs a lot of money. They set up this kind of setup in his house, like basically a voiceover studio in his house, so he doesn't have to drive down from his Hollywood Hills mansion

to some voiceover booth to do all those commercials. Yeah, he's Sam Elliott. He's in Rod Smith territory when it comes to voiceover. By the way, what do you think of the setup? You made comments before I pressed record. I lost them. I think I love it. First of all, I love that you have a bed right by... My oldest sleeps there. Oh, really? Okay.

I thought maybe this was like if you had people down here you wanted to seduce. You're like, well, there's a bed right here. We just had a terrific conversation, Brian Williams. Maybe you'd like to come snuggle. I did think about it with Brian. And Bob, too. I thought about it with Bob.

Yeah, Bob is snuggly. That's funny. Yeah, I only laugh because of my... There's another guest coming later today, and I was thinking, but I'm going to leave that alone. Okay. So, yeah, the beer is yours, but you need a pint glass to drink that in. So, there is a propertyinthesix.com. You just bought in Toronto, right?

I did. I bought right at the peak, Mike. This is a very Toronto conversation. So we found out we were coming to TSN on a Thursday in March, and by Monday we had purchased a home. Now, I came back in April to close the house. It was, I believe, April 19th. And the next day, Kathleen Wynne and John Tory had their housing crisis meeting.

And I said, well, I'm sure it's nothing. And then the market stagnated for the entire summer. It seems to be kind of bouncing back. I don't worry about it too much. I'm sure it's all going to be fine. Well, if anyone's worried about that, they need to meet with Brian, but I'm going to let Brian explain why and what's in it for you. Here you go, Brian. Brian Gerstein here, proud sponsor of Toronto Mike and sales representative with PSR,

Toronto's premier full service real estate brokerage with extensive experience in new condominium sales. Do you want to get my property in the six.com pint glass along with a six pack of Great Lakes for free? Just call me at 416-873-0292 for a professional real estate consultation at our King West or Annex office. Thank you, Brian. You integrate the ads

very seamlessly. I like it. And it's in real time. People think there's some editing, but that's a lot of work editing. I don't deal with that. Just throw it in there. Yeah, no, that's a good strategy.

Well, you're going to hear, I have a few Jay Unright clips coming up that I'm going to just drop in here. Although now, starting now, because we begin our deep dive now. It begins now. I'm going to cram two hours of content in like 40 minutes. Let's do it. So talk double speed. I will do it. Alright, you mentioned Rai Hai.

Well, first of all, where are you from exactly? I'm from a very small town in the prairies in Alberta, specifically called Athabasca. Is that anywhere near Edmonton? It's an hour and a half north of Edmonton. Monica, who you just met, is from Edmonton. Oh, really? She went to U of A.

Well, I went to U of A for two years. She's a lot younger than you, though. Oh, a lot younger than me. Well, seven years. Nice work, man. I only know that because you were born the same year as me, so it's top of mind. My wife is a lot younger. She's a lot younger.

Well, you've got a young wife too, right? Yeah, she's younger. She's also seven years younger. We have a few. Maybe we'll talk offline. Wait, did you also lose all your money in a divorce previously? Yes, I did. Oh, really?

Okay. All right, awesome. But the difference is that you have no kids from first marriage. That's correct. See, I have two kids from first marriage. Oh, yes, that's right. Because I follow you on Twitter and you're talking about it. That must be interesting. There right. Awesome. But the difference is you have no kids from first marriage. That's correct. See, I have two kids from first marriage. Oh, yes. That's right. Because I follow you on Twitter and you're talking about it.

That must be interesting. There's four kids. Two I have all the time. You met them upstairs. Yeah. They're very cute. Two I have half the time. And that's the toughest part of divorce.

I mean, other than losing all your money. Yeah. But you avoided that emotional tough part by not having a child. No, you're right. And I mean, not to make light of divorce, obviously, but it was certainly way easier for me in that sense, because we did not have children and we were able to go our separate ways, her with all the money and me with the couch. And it was fine. We moved on. But yeah, I'm impressed with the way you've seamlessly blended.

Do the kids all get along? That was okay. So now I've been married like three years or something. I'm trying to do the math. But so when I did introduce my two children to my future wife, Monica, that was the most like, I was like, this is everything. And it was so perfect.

Like as if I had designed it this way, like they, like the relationship between my two oldest and Monica is amazing. That's so cool. Especially my daughter, but my son's a teenage son so he's a typical kid but my 13 year old daughter loves monica and they they went and got their manicures last week while i was camping with my oldest like it couldn't be better well who doesn't

like albertans other than torontonians you know what i've been edmonton once uh just once just once because she had a wedding her brother got married, and I couldn't find a lot. I really enjoyed, I went to Calgary and then I drove to Edmonton, so I went through Banff, and that was amazing. Beautiful. Yeah. But Edmonton itself, a little underwhelming. Well, I mean,

it's like Monica should be showing you the spots to go. You know, those cities, Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, they're not, if you go by yourself and you just drive through, you're like, well. Like, you have to meet someone from that city. Right.

And they have to take you to places. Well, I went to, what, White Road? Am I getting that right? White Ave. White Ave. Yeah. And it was described to me as the Queen Street of Edmonton. Right.

Cool. And, you know, I know the Queen Street of Toronto quite well. Right. The cool... Yeah, I got a mini-ears from it. And, you know, I know the Queen Street of Toronto quite well, so it was like, okay. Well, I mean, again, it's a smaller city than Toronto. I mean, I don't know if White Ave's as cool as it used to be. Everything seems to be moving downtown there

with the new arena and all that, and all the restaurants are downtown. Like, if someone said, well, where should I go in Edmonton? I'd say, go downtown. Like, White Ave... Well, I went to... There's a City Hall thing, and they were playing Goonies there, and everyone had their chairs.

Oh, that's fun. Yeah. And people were playing chess with giant chess pieces. Yeah, that seems cool. City of nerds. I just realized I don't have enough time to tell you about my trip to Edmonton. Okay. All right.

So tell me this. So in 96, you said you were at TSN for your last year of Ryerson. So tell me, how did you get into TSNSN and what did you do when you first did there? Like everything, I lucked out because in Edmonton, I had worked for Global in Edmonton as basically a volunteer. I was going to U of A and I, at night, would volunteer in the newsroom at Global in Edmonton. So they let me put a little demo tape together. It's so bad. I still have it.

in Edmonton. So they let me put a little demo tape together. It's so bad. I still have it. And I had enough kind of experience doing that kind of stuff that I was able to get an internship at TSN in my first year of Ryerson. And I stuck around TSN. And as I said, Ryerson at that time, that fourth year, I did nothing. So I was literally working as a freelancer at TSN behind the scenes four out of five days a week, my final year at Ryerson. So being at Ryerson, then they, you know, speaking of Rod Smith, like I would tag along with Rod down to Maple Leaf Gardens and he'd let me do, you know, I'd bring out my two international clothiers jackets

and I would do stand-ups. And by the time I was done at Ryerson, I had a professionally shot by TSN camera guys demo tape, which was incredible. And that led to my first job in Saskatoon, which is a great city to go hang in. Where my first wife is from. No way. You love those prairie girls. Prairie girls are the best. I always say, prairie girls, there's something special about them.

And yesterday I recorded with Larry Fedorek, longtime radio vet, and we kicked out the jams. One day you got to come back and kick out the jams, by the way. But we'll talk about that later because I have one of your jams. I'll come back anytime. Okay, see you tomorrow. But anyway, Larry and I talked about Saskatoon. He was living near there for quite a long time. But you were sports director at CFSK.

Because the theory was. So that was when Sportsnet started. because the theory was, so that was when Sportsnet started. And all of a sudden, all these guys, Roger Millions, Peter Labardius, guys like that who had been in Saskatoon for 10 years and probably thought, well, I'll just hang in Saskatoon because it's a great city to live. Suddenly they were being offered jobs in Toronto. And so all these small prairie towns were without sportscasters.

I just lucked into the perfect time to get into the business. And so she made me sports director simply because she thought if I make him sports director, maybe he'll stick around. I was there for a year. I was there for one year. But it was a great year. I still have lots of friends in Saskatoon from that year. That was a great time. So periodically you're running back to Saskatoon.

Oh, hey, guess who, man? Great track. Chad Allen had a stroke. Anyway, that's a sad bit of the guess who. Oh, hey, guess who, man? Great track. Chad Allen had a stroke. Anyway, that's a sad bit of the guess who. Oh, like recently? Yeah, in the last few days. Oh, I didn't even read that. Oh, that's sad. But he's alive,

I should point out. Yeah. You don't like to get strokes. Okay, tell me though, you parlayed the Saskatoon success to a gig in the Great Winnipeg. Is that right? Yeah. And then I, it was weird. I just thought I want to try something other than sports just to see if I like it.

I, you know, like I love sports, obviously. I've been a sportscaster all my life, but I love other stuff too. And, you know, like you, I like music. I like movies. So I just thought, well, so the A channels were starting out there, which were the city TVs of the West. I thought, well, so the A channels were starting out there, which were the city TVs of the West. And there was one starting in Winnipeg,

and they had an opening for the breakfast television host. And it was called The Big Breakfast. It was called The Big Breakfast, yeah. And I had just been to the UK, and they had a show there on Channel 4 in the UK called The Big Breakfast with Denise Van Outen, who used to go with the guy from Jamiroquai, and Johnny Vaughn. And I remember watching it when I was over there, and I was like, this seems like the most fun show to do ever.

It was just two of them gabbing all morning, having fun. So anyway, they start the big breakfast in the peg. I throw in a tape just on a whim. It was a stand-up comedy tape. I'd done amateur stand-up at the Laugh Resort when it was still on Lombard in the old fire hall. And they liked it, and I got the job. And I was there for two years.

I've got to say, Winnipeg, great town. Had so much fun there. You know, the Jets were long gone. The city didn't really care. It's a very artsy city. Obviously, you know, we talked about the Guess Who. Lots of great Canadian bands and musicians, Neil Young, have come from there, the Weaker Thans, etc., etc.

So, yeah, I really enjoyed my time there, to be honest. I enjoyed it so much that I met my first wife there, and I kind of was like, I guess I'm living in Winnipeg forever. You could be Winnipeg Jay. I was pretty content. The real estate was cheap. It was good living. Bands

came through. It was a good time. But then you got a call, right? You got an offer you couldn't refuse? What got you out of Winnipeg? Rick Briggs Jude, who's a long time for lots of people in the business who listen to podcasts know who Rick is. He produced lots of TV and Canadian sports TV. Called me, said, we're starting the NHL network. We're partnering with the NHL.

This was TSN. Partnering with the NHL. We're doing the NHL network. We're partnering with the NHL. This was TSN. Partnering with the NHL. We're doing the NHL network. We're starting it in like a month. Will you come out and be a host? And at that point, I was like, yeah, I'm ready to come out and do it again. And I like the idea of easing back into sports again by only doing hockey because I was like, this will be great.

I'll just do hockey for a year. And it was fun because I got to work with Mike Keenan and Dave Reed who just won a Stanley Cup with the Avalanche, this is, you know, this will be great. I'll just do hockey for a year. And it was fun because I got to work with like Mike Keenan and Dave Reed had just won a Stanley Cup of the Avalanche, just retired, came and worked with us. It was a really enjoyable year. Cassie Campbell was with us that year. Yeah, it was, it was a good way to get back into it. But I did that for a year. And then that following summer, there was some, you know, it was typical, like any job, a lot of people taking vacation. And Marc Millier, who now runs TSN, was in charge of production at that time. And he said, I got some vacation shifts on SportsCenter. You want to do them? I'm like, yeah, man, I'm around. Like I was literally doing nothing, like the hockey season was over. And that's kind of how

it all started. I started doing SportsCenter, and I had good chemistry with everybody. And then a year later, I started working with Dan, and I kind of had the best chemistry. And really quickly back in Winnipeg, during the big breakfast, I had done the show with a news anchor whom I won't name, and she and I just did not get along. And it translated on air. Like it actually on air, people could see us not getting along and then behind the scenes we'd have to shoot promos and we wouldn't speak and i remember

the whole thing was the most awful experience i'd ever had in my life like we all don't get around there's certain co-workers we all don't get along with but you usually don't have to go on television and pretend to like them that's the that's the trick of television and i remember saying myself after that happened uh i will never if I don't get along with someone, I'll always try to find something about them I like. I'll never get myself in this situation again. So when I started working with Dan, and we had similar senses of humor,

similar ideas about how a show should be done, and just sort of similar ideas about everything, I was like, you know, this is a good thing. We've got to hold on to this. We've got to make this work, and we've got to turn this into something. But it was a very gradual thing. People think we started doing Bobrovsky jokes

and kooky stuff overnight. If you watch the first few shows that we did, it was very straightforward. We looked like we were 12. It wasn't as crazy as people think it was, but what we did was sort of gradually push the envelope a bit. They told us to push it back. And we found this kind of happy medium, I think, between, you know, actual information and a little bit of fun that I

think still exists to this day. And now when we do the show, it's just sort of seamless. We know exactly this kind of show that we would want to watch and that's the kind of show we do. It's fair to say Dan O'Toole was your second wife. Yeah, yeah, it is fair to say. But he's the one who wants the most money, out of all of them,

out of all the wives. He wants the most cash. All right, while you sip your beverage there, I'm going to play a couple of clips. I know people know Jay and Dan on SportsCenter, but let's hear

a little bit. We are two hours into our show. Wrong clip. Wow. Pretend you didn't hear that, people. If I edited it, I'd take that out, but I'm not going to edit that. If the thrashers move to Winnipeg, and they't call them the jets oh made me so mad you're really

you uh this is a i will be upset then it's really i will lose it burr under your saddle i will lose it uh we've got the latest jets news coming up lose it i would have lost it. It was so dumb. It was so short-sighted. It was like the Hamilton Tiger Cats hiring Art Bryles. It was like, everybody get in a room and talk about this. The Jets are going to come back. The team is going to come back, and you're going to call them the Manitoba Moose. Right.

Just think about it logically. And to Mark Chipman's credit, he did. He heard it, right? Just like the Hamilton Tiger Cats did. They heard what was going on. So I give people credit like that. If you make a mistake... Like you could be initially,

you could be a little tone deaf, if you will. Right. And then over time, the right people, the right message to you, then you can see the light, if you will. Right. Over time, the right people, the right message to you, then you can see the light, if you will. Yeah. Not everyone has to be Trump. We don't use the T word on this program.

Oh, sorry. Okay. So chemistry with Dan O'Toole was fantastic. A couple more, and then I want to know what helped shape your sense of humor. Because dare I say, I find you to be a very funny mofo. Can I say that? Thanks, man. You're a funny mofo.

Thanks. And I like funny. This is an important quality to me. I mean, I find you to be a very funny mofo. Can I say that? Thanks, man. You're a funny mofo. Thanks. And I like funny. This is an important quality to me. I mean, why not, right? There's a bedroom corner. I was going to say, I feel like I'm being seduced. Let's hear another Jay Onright clip here. I can't believe the Miami Heat lost again on Tuesday night.

I hope they don't cry again. I hope I don't cry. Oh, no. No, no, no, no. Don't, don't, don't do it. They just wanted the chance to play together. It's true.

They're friends. They're friends and they wanted to play together. Some good stuff right there. The music really sells that. I learned that early in the podcast. You know, the right Welcome Back Cotter theme song really makes the episode.

It's true. It's true. Music adds to everything. So tell me, what shaped your form of humor, if you will? Who are the comedic icons that you emulate? When I was super young, growing up in Athabasca, SCTV was on CBC I think Friday nights.

I was allowed to stay up and watch it. That was absolutely massive. That Bob and Doug McKenzie album I played over and over. I think it came out in maybe 81 or 82 or something. So I would have been 6, 7, 8. I don't know. Anyway, I remember listening to it

constantly. I loved it. And just SCTV in general, all those, think of that murderer's row of talent on that show. It's really extraordinary. And they did all their best work in Edmonton. That can't be true. It is, because they shot it in Edmonton for the

third, fourth, and fifth seasons, or third and fourth seasons. I did not know that. So Dr. Charles Allard, who owned the station that Global Edmonton still exists in, for some reason built a big, beautiful studio next to the station. I think he thought he might have needed more space that he didn't need. Anyway, he basically said to them, I'm sort of paraphrasing this a little bit, but he basically said to them, if you want to shoot the show out here, like I've got the studio, and they did, and it was cheap to do it. So they lived at the Westin, which still is there in Edmonton, and they did their best work. The best episodes of SCTV were shot in Edmonton.

So yeah, that was a total huge influence on me. And then I talk about it all the time, but David Letterman, the original Letterman late night show was like a million other people my age was a massive, massive influence. That was my show. I'm glad you mentioned Letterman because he's back in the news because he's got a Netflix thing he's doing.

Netflix show. Yeah. I mean, I think he's just bored at home. I heard him on Stern. I don't know if you heard the Stern interview. Yeah, amazing. Fantastic. Well, Stern does a great interview.

Next to Toronto Mike, it's the best interview you're going to get. Stern's changed from this off-the-wall morning guy. Yeah, show me your boobs. Show me your boobs. Where are the lesbians? To a terrific celebrity interviewer. What I try to emulate from him is

he has a way of kind of getting you comfy and then asking the tough question in a way where it doesn't seem aggressive. Like it seems kind of... But also he has the thing, you know, if you're Howard Stern, like Neil Young said it when he was on, he was like, oh, I've been dreading this. Like, you know, you're getting those questions, but somehow from him, you accept it, right? You accept that you're going to get it.

That's right, right. That's what I said. He has license to be that way where others don't. That's right. That's right. Where Zach and I were talking about that as Andrea drove us over here in our Bell company car

that Mike's going to ask us the tough questions. We've got to be ready. He's going to soften me up by taking me over to the bed. This whole half an hour was just to chill you out, relax you, and then bang, bang, bang. And now here they come. And bang, bang, bang. We've got the bed nearby. Oh my goodness.

That's where I play the porno music. Things take an awkward turn. There was a show here. You were not raised here. You only came here for university at Ryerson. But there was a show called The Sunday Funnies, which not Dave Hodge, but Rick Hodge hosted on Chum FM. So you'll find

a lot of guys my age who were raised in Toronto. It was Sunday night, obviously, the Sunday night funnies, and they would play clips from George Carlin, and you'd get fantastic stand-up comedy packaged together by Rick Hodge. And to me, that was such a big influence over my sense of humor was this show, the Sunday funnies. But this is my... Enough about me, because they didn't have that in wherever you were from in Alberta. I feel like I'd watch it now. Oh, it's on your radio. You can watch it if you want.

Oh, it was a radio show. Yeah, it was on Chum FM. Oh, wow. Okay. That sounds cool. Sunday Nights, Sunday Night Funnies. Anyway, you did something else. While you were with Diane O'Toole on SportsCenter and kind of growing your legion of fans, you went off and did something for much more music

we need to talk about, okay? Oh, yeah, yeah. See, I told you the tough questions are coming now. Oh, man, that was a tough one. Okay, no one remembers this, so I have to play a clip to remind people, and then we have to talk about this. Every Friday, MTV's One Girl, Five Gays

tackles the tough issues. This week, prostitution. Has anyone ever offered you something for sex? Can't say that I have, which is almost upsetting. Like, I almost now wish that, like, come on. I was offered $500 for a guy to eat my poom poom.

That's actually a good price for poom poom. When you have to pose 20 different questions every week, there's a chance you're going to run out of things to ask. Describe the smell

of the deodorant the guy on your left is wearing. Oh. You're like, oh my God. Oh. That's definitely

the old spice. It's just like 100% right. Can't wait for next week when the questions are going to range from who has the oldest shoes to how many fingers am I holding up behind my back. Just for the record, I smell like aqua velva and pepper spray. I personally found that funny, but I think I was the only one. Tell me what that was.

Like, that's much more music. It was like, yeah. what that was like that's much more music it was like uh yeah and so it was it was us getting caught between two regime changes at bell media it was the end of the yvonne fitzon era uh which was a glorious uh money spending throw everything at the wall and see what sticks era in the beginning of the corporate bell era so um, you know, we basically, what we were trying to do was the Canadian soup. I always loved the soup with Joel McHale, especially in the early years.

It was a funny show. He was great on it. And at that time in the early aughts, you know, there started to be, you know, Canada's Canadian Idol and Canada's Got Talent. And basically we were doing all these shows. HGTV was doing all these shows. Food Network Canada was

doing so to me I was like why don't we do the Soup Canada and I literally said let's just call it the Soup Canada right right and because E I believe Bell owned the rights to E up here so I said surely this will make sense and they'll love the idea and for whatever reason they decided no let's just do something let's take all I call it the week Was, which is fine, I guess. And then they gave us one writer and a crew. They just didn't give us a lot to work with. And the problem was, in the States,

the rules are that they could show clips to a million different networks as long as they kept them under a certain length of time. For us, Global said no. All the other networks said no. And CTV, most of the shows on CTV said no as well. Like basically, we went in thinking,

well, at the very least, if we have nothing else, we'll have all these CTV shows to skew. And then like the president of CTV News was like, you're not getting, like we had all this great Canada AM stuff. She's like, we're not letting you have that. We're not letting you have any of it. So by the time we actually went to tape the show, we had nothing.

We had one girl, five gays. That's what we had. And God bless Aaliyah Jasmine, you know, for letting us just go to town on that show. But oh my God, it was a funny show. You know what? I have to say, like listening back, it wasn't that bad. No, honestly, I was braced because I don't i have to confess i don't remember this at the time no one does i mean no one does it's not a good title i know you say it's not a bad

title i've been you know i got the clip i put this in my notes yesterday and i still can never remember that name the week that was yeah i never liked the title like i said i i said we're the canadian soup why don't we call ourselves that? Anyway, it was an interesting experience. But that clip I'm listening to, I thought you were funny. It seemed fine. Yeah, like for all our limitations, if you watch the show now, I'm not embarrassed by it or anything.

It was totally viable. It was just, like I said, no one wanted to help out. We were caught in between regimes. And in this country, there are three networks or maybe four. And if you're not sort of... If you're not in with the right people at the right time, it's just not going to work.

That's at a time when much more music... Is that around anymore? Is it still there? Zach, you're PR. You should know this. He doesn't think so. Zach, you need to know these things. Why do I think it's now a food channel? Oh, my goodness. Well, at that time, the aughts,

they were trying to imitate VH1. Yes. That's right. So you kind of come in there. You killed the network, didn't you? I murdered it. The week that was killed Much More Music. It did.

It did. No, it didn't because no one knew it was there. That was the other thing. Like, even on Much More Music, they didn't tell people that the show was on Much More Music. That's funny. I will say this. That was the final nail in poor Moses' grave in his coffin,

and he's not even dead. Yeah, but Moses was long gone by that point. It was a true Fetsan era. And that was a good era, by the way. I mean, those are the glory days. Looking back. Those are the glory days, man. a true fits on yeah you know era and that was a good era by the way i mean that was that was those are the glory looking back looking back days man so the week that was how long did that last four episodes four glorious episodes i believe i still have them yeah we'll have to i should upload them because that's the only clip i could find yeah i should upload them on uh well i won't and don't

read the comments do me a favor promise me there't do it. And don't read the comments. Do me a favor. Promise me. There's looking in the eyes. Don't read the comments on that YouTube. Oh, I never read the comments ever. They don't... There must... Is it five girls, one gay or five gays, one girl? I think it's one girl, five gays. The fan base from that show is sharing that video on YouTube and they do not like... They don't like me.

...you making fun of their show. And that's fair. I mean, they might have a point. All right. Oh, we got a burn here. Okay. So tell me briefly, quickly, tell me a little bit about working the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Oh, it was awesome.

Man, what a great... You know, the whole... They did such a good job of that Olympics. The city itself. It was so contained in the downtown. Obviously, everything, you know, ending it on Sidney Crosby scoring the winning goal. And, you know, that's a... You crosby scoring the winning goal and can't you know that's a you couldn't really write a better script you couldn't and in fact uh that's how much uh

money uh bell media put into this uh because uh they they did write the script and it came like we had the most gold medals right it was amazing and the golden goal like it was the perfect and the woman won uh the hockey as well that's right it was perfect and they weren't weren't really expected to and yeah it was uh it was just an amazing experience and again sometimes things just happen by chance like that got thrown together like two months that morning show two months before it happened i think what they had originally planned and i don't know for sure i think they're just going to put canada am on and then i think they realized you know well we'll throw jay on because he's a sportscaster and maybe he can kind of have fun with it. And it kind of turned into something else completely that probably should have continued

afterward. I'm not really sure why it didn't, because it was really a great time. And working with Bev was great. Like she was like, and still is, just this super professional person who gets along with everybody. Sort of a, if you could point out a person to your son or daughter and say, be like this person in any workplace situation, I'd say Bev Thompson is the person. Yes, Beverly Thompson. And so you were, Macy, you also co-hosted daily live editions of SportsCenter from London alongside O'Toole. This is in 2012 Summer Olympics. Man, that was a good time.

And that was weird because we'd done this morning show in Vancouver and then I kind of thought, well, it was so successful. I've never gotten greater feedback for anything ever. Because we were reaching a female audience doing that show and they liked it.

So then I thought... Because even females like funny. I learned this. You wouldn't think so. But it wasn't just funny. Bev and I had good chemistry and it was a fun show and it made sense so when we went to london you know i was kind of like all right well i'll just wait for the call and then there was no call like it was like they just forgot about it in two years so so then they sent dan and i over to to do the show and actually it ended up being an amazing time too we got to do a lot of fun stuff and did the show from Trafalgar Square.

That was a great experience as well. That was a nicely run Olympics as well. Then we went to Sochi with Fox in 2014. And we had no rights to shoot anything, right? We were with Fox, and NBC has everything down there. So we could get into the venues. We had credentials. At least we could watch the events,

but you can't shoot anything. You can't shoot anything. So our actual location was outside the Olympic Park. We could get Olympians to come over, but Olympians are, you know, they're going,

they're competing. They're doing a million interviews with NBC. They're on the Today Show the next morning. Not as easy to get them to come over. And they're having a lot of sex,

right? They're doing it. Lots of condoms. Tinder was huge. It was just emerging. And they're having a lot of sex, right? They're doing it. Lots of condoms. Tinder was huge. It was just emerging. So, yeah, it was... But again, to go to Russia and just live there for three weeks

and just really... And we were living in a... We'd rented this entire hotel and all the people had been brought in from Siberia, I'm not even joking, to work at this hotel for three weeks. And they were just the sweetest, you know, when I think of Russian people and if I have a, you know, a weird sort of perception of the Russians because of Putin, I just think back to those three weeks,

those people and how sweet and wonderful they were. Certainly not like an open book with their hearts and minds, you know, they're guarded. They're guarded people, the Russians, right? But by the end, I felt like we got to know these ones really well, and I just had a great time there. I would never trade that experience. We were raised with the two Russians we knew, Yakov Shmirnov and Nikolai Volkov.

Right, right. And Tretyak. And Tretyak. He was before our time, sort of. But yeah, we knew of Tretyak. And then the guy, Yeltsin, Boris Yeltsin. Right, right. That's another big one. And Gorbachev with the thing on his head. That's right.

He had the birthmark. May 3rd, 2013, TSN announces that you and Dan O'Toole are leaving SportsCenter for broadcast opportunities on U.S. television. Yeah. The newly formed Fox Sports 1 in Los Angeles. Alright, I got a few questions. A lot of promise. So your last day at Sports

Center was June 28, 2013. Right. For some reason we announced we were leaving when, what did you say? May 3rd. For some reason we stayed for six more weeks. Of all the decisions we made in our lives, that was the dumbest one. Was it?

Because I thought it was like a Peter Mansbridge thing where you can have a long goodbye. Why? Why not say you're leaving one week and then leave a week later and then take five weeks off? Because TSN knows more eyeballs. No, I know TSN knew that, but we quit.

I'm putting it on us. I'm not putting it on TSN. I'm saying we should have said we quit. Right. If you want us to work two more weeks, we will. But then we're leaving. That's what we should have done, Mike. That's what we'll do when we quit this time.

All right. The obvious question. We have to do it. I'm going to find out some details, see whether you should do that or not. Okay. Obviously, you went for the money. Can you put that on the record? No, not at all.

Okay. For the money. Can you put that on the record? No, not at all. Tell me why you quit this wonderful gig in Canada on TSN for an opportunity at Fox Sports 1. Because the very simple answer is, I knew if I was 80 years old and someone said to me, oh, when you were 38 years old,

you could have moved to Los Angeles for four years, made incredible money, and tried something different, and you didn't do it. Like, you still could have come back, which I obviously ended up doing. Right. So it made no sense to not go. Like, it was like, I literally said to my wife when we were going, I said, this could be a total disaster. And it was. But it won't matter because we'll still live in LA for four years and it'll be great. We'll have a good time.

And it was. We had a great, great time living down there. Work-wise, it was up and down. But living in that city, awesome. Okay, back to the money really briefly here. It was huge. It was great. But I don't know.

I never worked in broadcasting, Zach. Can you believe that? Never worked in the media for a media company. But I can imagine that this would be a massive raise for you two to go relocate to LA.

Yeah, it was. It was, yeah. No, I mean, that was a big part of it, for sure. I mean... Did you bring a T4 I could look at?

Can you give us a... No, no. I never... That's one thing about Canadian broadcasting. Nobody talks money. Do you notice that?... No, no. That's one thing about Canadian broadcasting. Nobody talks money. Do you notice that? Or maybe they do? No. In fact, I would never be so rude

to ask. But nobody talks about it. Part of the problem is there's two... I'm talking specifically sports media. There's two giant phones. Duffy won't shut up about it. He was showing me his T4. Well, I know. Duffy's making big scratch. I mean, and he deserves

it, by the way. There's two phone companies controlling all the sports media. That's right. So it's collusion, basically. So no one talks about money that much up here. That's just the way it is. It's the way it's always been. I once wrote an entry about collusion between Fan 590 and TSN 1050

because there's not a lot of, like, you'd think there'd be some bodies going back and forth somewhere in the history of these stations, and it really never happens. Yeah, but I kind of, what really happens between the two phone companies is that, and this is understandable, by the way. I'm not

criticizing anybody in this. Zach is getting very uncomfortable right now. He just shifted. You might leave him for a couple minutes. Zach just shifted in his chair. I saw that. No, no, I'm not saying anything bad about anybody. This is a fact.

And by the way, I would do it the same way if I was running, you know, Rogers Sports or if I was running Bell Sports, I would do it the same way. If I wanted to go after somebody, say I'm working for Bell

as an executive and I want to go after someone at Rogers, well, I know that because there's only me and them competing, that if I offer something massive to someone at Rogers, Bella's going to match it or vice versa.

That's why there's never been that much hopping back and forth unless one of those companies gets all the hockey rights and happens to want a hockey host really badly. That'll never happen. And happens to want a hockey host really badly, then suddenly someone might have some leverage and make money that he or she deserves. But I'm not mentioning any names.

No, don't worry. And there's an episode of Toronto Mic'd about that, if you can find it. Now, you said Fox. So you debut on Fox Sports Live August 17, 2013. And the final episode was only recently. It was February 22, 2017. So that's like four years. Yeah, four years.

So what went wrong at Fox? Well, lots of things. First of all, I remember when Sportsnet launched in 98. And, you know, so now you could make the argument that they're doing great. Well, that took, what, 20 years?

And they had to spend massive gobs of money to get these rights. Exactly. So my point is, that was a 20-year process for them to figure it out. Fox, we were there for the first four. So it would be like being at Sportsnet for the first four years. If you remember the first four years of Sportsnet, eh. So that's basically what happened. We were there at the beginning, and it's always going to be rough at the beginning. And then the other thing that happened was there was a regime change. I'm talking about regime changes a lot,

but it does matter in this business a lot, a lot. So we got hired by a regime at Fox that started up the network and had a vision for the network. Two years later, they were replaced. And the person they were replaced with we actually got along with just fine but he had a totally different vision of what sports TV

is and was, we're talking about Jamie Horowitz now, had a totally different idea of what sports TV is and not something that Dan and I kind of really are into once he came in it was kind of doomed we knew it if anything we owe him because he paid us for two more years and allowed us to live there and hang out and we actually the last two years were the most

fun years because he kind of said just do what you want um unfortunately he did not promote the show or we were kind of the the stepchild of the network at that point the redheaded stepchild we were the redheaded stepchild of the network but you know what it was still fun like again i don't look like you know regrets but god no are you making gobs again, I don't look at it... Like, you had no regrets. Oh, God, no. Are you kidding? You made gobs of money for four years to live in LA. The only regret I would have is if I hadn't done it. Right.

Like, there's zero, zero regrets. It was a terrific time. We met amazing people, and we had a blast. You know, unfortunately, going back to the very beginning, when they launched, the original version of the show made zero sense. It was essentially, it was almost like off the record and SportsCenter

mashed together in a three-hour show. So it was Carissa Thompson, who's an amazing broadcaster with a slew of ex-athletes on one side of the studio and Dan and I doing highlights on the other for three hours. So even if you liked Dan and I, even if you saw one of these ads in the States and said, oh, go check out those Canadians,

you might turn on Fox Sports 1 and not see us for 10, 15 minutes. So as we both know, in this day and age of everyone having short attention spans, that's just not going to fly. So the concept of the show made zero sense. The network itself didn't have enough

live rights. It had some good stuff. It had Major League Baseball playoffs. And some car racing. And NASCAR, had UFC. The stuff they had was good. They just didn't have enough of it. They didn't have enough inventory.

And when the NBA contract was up before we started, there was a lot of speculation that Fox was either going to get it or at least get a night, even one night of NBA. But to borrow a basketball phrase, ESPN and TNT boxed out Fox and took it all back, spending, again, massive, massive amounts of money that they probably regret spending now. But they did it. And because of that, Fox Sports 1 never really got off the ground. Will it happen? Hard to say. I mean, sports TV is obviously changing and stuff, but it's different now.

And now that Jamie's gone, it's hard to know where the direction of that now is. Wait, the regime changed. The previous regime that hired you, right? Yeah. They were looking for Jay and Dan, the Canadian Sports Centre. Yeah, and that was the problem,

is that we didn't really do it. Like, Dan always says it. No one really said, what do you guys want to do here they just said we want to throw you on this show with all these other people that's stupid to me like you don't why would you hire you want you you bought this yeah you paid big money for this yeah and then you changed that exactly that's exactly what happened and which is stupid it is stupid i should be running that network yeah well you it would have been it would have worked out a

little bit better i mean the thing is even if we had been able to do what we wanted to do, though, Mike, to be honest with you, there's no guarantee. In fact, it probably wouldn't have worked anyway because it was hard to find the channel. We were on 1420 on Time Warner. We were on 500 on DirecTV. And again, the way people consume media now, we're lucky in this country that TSN's been on the same spots for a long time, right? And we know where we are because it's familiar to people. But to ask people to

now in this day and age find a new channel with not a lot of good live content on it, it's asking a lot, man, no matter how good the programming is. I never got to see your Fox show, but I did pull a very, very short clip, okay? So this is the first show, I think. Thanks for watching

Squat Sports, Fox Sports Live. I didn't even know we were coming on TV. That was a total surprise. So you caught us there. Got us off guard, America. Jay and Dan, we're an acquired taste given our sardonic nature and show within a show ethos. I don't even know what ethos means.

See, right off the bat, we should have known this was going to be an interesting story. No, I do like that sardonic nature. I like when I laugh at my own clips.

I think this should have just been me playing clips of you and you reacting to your laughing at your own jokes. I believe, now that I'm

remembering it, Mike, I believe that was a, because they'd done reviews about us. And I think someone had written their Sardonic Hedgehog show in the Nisho Ethos. And I was like, they get us. They get us. Actually, that was the funniest part.

The critics down there loved us. The critics down there, for the first time in our lives, we were critical darlings. And that's like a good thing on the indie film circuit. Or you always have the stand-up comic. And he's a comics comic. Right. The people don't want to watch him. People don't want to see him.

The comics love this guy. Never going to be on a sitcom, but the other comics think he's the best thing ever. That was us in the States, basically. Oh, that's hilarious. By the way, I was once in a Toronto Star article called The Platonic Ideal of Podcasts. Oh, okay. Just so you know. So I should start talking about it.

That's not bad. Not bad. Zach just gave me the 10-minute warning when I have a half an hour left. I'm going to have to really burn, but let's play that clip I almost played accidentally earlier in the program of some exciting news. We are two hours into our show and still nothing.

Just had a couple of deals late last night. I'm going to San Jose. Gord, you got something? James, we do have something. Bob McKenzie, the insider. Yes. First big news of the day, a major acquisition. Actually make that a major reacquisition.

TSN is proud to announce that Jay Onright and Dan O'Toole are returning to the TSN fold, a.k.a. Jay and Dan. So happy to welcome them back to TSN. Weren't they on waivers? Jay's welcome to come up to the cottage, my cottage, anytime, Dan. We're still not sure on.

Wow. Blockbuster deal. And by the way, that is an actual fact. Dan is not invited to Bob's cottage. Neither am I. I asked Bob to his face, can I come to the cottage? Apparently it's more like a compound.

But you've been there? No, I've never been. Oh, so he was joking. come to the cottage? Apparently, it's more like a compound. But you've been there? No, I've never been. Oh, so he was joking. I think the invite's there, but that seems too far to drive. He's got the best gig. I think July 1 happens. He works hard that day. You don't. There's no Bob McKenzie until the season

starts. Oh, yeah. No, he's... Well, you check his Instagram account. It's all docs and wine consumption. Oh, he's a lucky bastard. So we got to move here to the fact that you guys, I don't know if anyone has heard this yet, but Jay and Dan are coming back to TSN. I should let you tell me about it, but it's got a lot of sponsors tied to it. I don't know if the name is like Tim Hortons Presents. Welcome to the new era of sports media. Yeah, it's, well, Tim Hortons is our title sponsor.

The show is called SportsCenter with Jay and Dan, so they just tacked our names onto it. It's going to be and feel, hopefully, very familiar to everybody. We're not changing that much. We've added a couple of interesting things, I think. People like our podcast a lot, and we always were trying to figure out a way to integrate our podcast-y feel into the television shows. So we're going to have a couple of chat segments in which we do that.

And then we're also going to do some interviews because at Fox, on our show, we did a ton of interviews with a ton of interesting people, and we liked it. So we're going to do that, but we're still doing a ton of highlights too because we like highlights. I know people think they can get them on their phones, but I still like watching them on a show. Here's what you add. We can get highlights on our phone, but what we can't get on our phone

is your sardonic wit. That's right. And show within a show ethos. Right. And I have to say, it really does. You get a highlight. That's great.

But when you have sort of that back and forth with you and Dan, that's what we're tuning in for. Yeah, it's fun. You know, you feel like you're part of something. All my favorite shows, including the old Letterman show, you felt like you were part of something cool. Larry, Bud Millman. That's right.

It was fantastic. Yeah, all the, you know, Chris Elliott, the man under the stairs and all that. You're like, yeah, I'm watching something cool here, and I have to keep watching it. And so, yeah. So the show will start on Labor Day, midnight on Labor Day, and continue mornings. Most people in Toronto see us in the morning because we're on at midnight here.

So you will be able to see us in the morning. So yeah, they call it a loop, I guess. Yeah, the morning. It airs weeknights at midnight Eastern. Yeah. And then the next following morning is the loop. I'm reading the press release. Are you happy?

Zach probably wrote that. Maybe. Yeah. There's an extensive advertising campaign. You should know. You're on like a union station. You're taking over a union station. Yeah, that's pretty crazy.

Is that legal, Zach? Yeah. I don't know. You mentioned Tim Hortons. So talk to Tim Hortons and see if they want to sponsor this podcast. It's a good idea. I think so, too. Tell Coors I'm not interested.

Not interested. I've got to be a sponsor. Great Lakes Brewery all the way. Unlike you, I'm sticking with the independent little guy. I get it. Yeah, I get it. I sold out years and years ago. Podcast, real quick.

Does every broadcaster need a podcast? Your podcast is great, but Bob McKenzie's got one now. James Duffy. Yeah, James is doing one now. James Duffy. What about the guys like me in our basements just trying to score some real talk? Is there still room for us on the podcast, Lance? I think this has filled a very nice niche

in this business, Mike. I mean that as a sincere compliment. Yeah. Well, I just find that people speak to you a bit more frankly than maybe they would if they were talking to one of, you know. Phone companies? Right, one of the phone companies. Or cable companies?

Yeah. And I can speak to both. Yeah. Like, I can talk to the Rogers guy one week. Yeah, well, that's true. That's your advantage. That is the other thing. Like, we're not even allowed to mention.

That's what I found weird in the States. Like, we could mention, like, ESPN people on the show and stuff. And I used to be like, well, up there, like we were told not even to, we couldn't even mention anybody. It's sort of like you have that instinct

from that probably being programmed that way like when we were talking about Great Lakes Beer and you were very nicely not going to mention your beer sponsor because it's a competitor

of Great Lakes Beer. Maybe that's been ingrained. Yeah, you can't mention another coffee. It's Tim Hortons or nothing. It's been programmed. Well, can I mention someone that works for the other phone company? Yeah.

Nick Kiprios. Okay, so I can mention him on here, but I couldn't do that on the show. But he sent a tweet this morning, and it just said, thanks. It was like a public tweet. And I thought, man, Kipper's the best, right? Those fuckers at TSN? Yeah. I can censor that, Zach, don't worry.

Yeah, he either tweets that or he tweets just thanks when he's meaning to send that as a direct message. I like Kimber, though. He's a good guy. We got to burn. So your podcast, by the way,

friend of my show, I love his show, Taggart and Torrance. Taggart's a big part of your podcast. Yeah, good guy. And that'll remain true. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know,

this is one of the other great things. We kept the podcast going down in the States because we wanted that, you know, this is one of the other great things. We kept the podcast going down in the States because we wanted that, you know, people couldn't see the TV show, which in some ways we were happy about at certain points. But we wanted people to be able to still see us and hear us. And so we did the podcast down there and it turned into something altogether even better. It was, we had a new cast of characters, including our sound engineer, who is the sound engineer for Guns N' Roses on the Use Your Illusion albums, Jim Mitchell.

And he turned into a hugely popular character on the podcast. So Jim, Engineer Jim, will be back on our podcast. Our podcast definitely is not a sports podcast. And it just evolved that way because we just sort of felt like there was enough of that out there. That was covered, and we might as well just let our true personalities come out. That's great. There's a tweet from

Dean Blundell. He says, Awesome! Sports media in this country needs an enema. So he's glad you're back. Dean wanted me to pass that on. That's nice of him. It's cool. We're just kind of doing things the way we've always done them,

which is to not do any prep. You did a ton of prep for this show. I'm really impressed. Yeah, but I'm only going to get half of it done. Let's fire through it. Let's do it. Okay, let's do rapid fire. This is from Twitter.

Well, firstly, I'm just going to say in passing, you won a Gemini Award. Where is that Gemini Award today? I actually used to have it in the office at Fox, but it is right above my fireplace in my new house at College in Ossington. I'm going to come by and say hi to you tomorrow. Yeah, it's a blunt object I can hit people with. In 2011, you won Best Sportscaster for your work on SportsCenter.

Did Dan O'Toole also win that, or are you the only one? Because that would hurt Dan's feelings. It seemed like it did a little bit. Was he upset for a while? That changed our relationship forever. I bet you would. Yeah, it changed our relationship. But the best part is, that night,

TSN scheduled me to work. So I had to go to the Gemini Awards that evening. And then I was at the awards, and my boss looked over at me like, are you... Like I had won the award. He was sitting in front of me, and he looked over and he was like,

so when are you heading in? So that sums up Canadian sports media. That's Canadian television in a nutshell. When Roger Ebert won a Pulitzer, amazing. Siskel never got over that. You could see that. You could see that. He was always jealous of that.

But Roger Ebert was probably a better writer. Oh, without a doubt. Siskel needed to accept that. Without a doubt. All right, rapid fire questions. Go as fast as you can answering these. Douglas asks, what was going through your mind when Andy Roddick was smoking tennis balls at you?

That was one of our most enjoyable... One of the best things about going to the States was meeting someone like Andy Roddick, who as an athlete I didn't like and thought was too petulant. Wasn't McEnroe charming petulant, just too petulant?

And meeting him and finding him to not only be a terrific person, but actually a good friend. And then we let him hit us with tennis balls. I got to tell you, man, this is years after he retired. Like he was casually hitting the balls, but they were just flying off that racket. It was a really special thing. Don't do that with Milos.

I hear he can smoke a ball. Derek asks, you have to do this one really quick. It's a big question. But what are the biggest differences from working at a U.S. sports network versus TSN? There aren't... Actually, they're pretty similar. Just the behind-the-scenes money is bigger.

Like, so we will have a smaller crew on this show compared to... Though, by the end of the Fox run, we had a pretty small crew. Actually, to be honest, there aren't that many differences at all. Really, none at all. When we started,

we had like an almost outrageous crew, like a film set um we had wardrobe we had hair and makeup well this is like when rogers got the hockey deal and everything was like like lasers and robots and it was like whatever and then they after a couple years they realized they've definitely dialed that back yeah andy asks what if anything did you learn in la that you'll be applying to tSN? I think I'm just more mellow about everything now. I used to get maybe worked up about stuff that I don't really understand why I got worked up about before. In the end, you have to understand that you're working.

Look at what we're doing right here, Mike. These are the things we do. This is real talk. Right? I mean, this is pretty good. We have it pretty good. So maybe I'm just more casual about stuff. Joe wants to know,

what's the biggest difference between Canada and America? One thing I definitely learned is that Americans are nice. They're nicer than we give them credit for. Especially Californians. They were super welcoming. I really enjoyed living there. The fruit is better. There's just no question.

When people tell me Ontario strawberries are as good as... That's just a bunch of bullshit. That's just a bunch of fucking bullshit, Mike. They're not. That's real talk. By the way, Joe, thank you for using the hashtag Real Talk. Jay and Dan's podcast can't use that hashtag. That's mine.

Don't leave that one for me. The hashtag Real Talk is mine. You take it. That's yours. Steven says, Can you ask them about how to monetize a podcast in Canada? Seems you can do that in the US, but more difficult in Canada.

Can I just say before you answer? Yeah. If your podcast was standalone, you'd be starving, right? Like it's because it's an extension of your television show. I was just going to say, I saw that question. I was because I,

you know, it was on my mentions too. And I said, I want to ask you that question. I feel like you're better qualified to answer that question. I don't have a on my mentions too and I said I want to ask you that question I feel like you're better qualified true I don't have a television show right right but you're obviously making a go of this and making somewhat of a living but I'm not making a living at all like right if I were actually having to rely on if you were relying on this it wouldn't work I

we'd be under a bridge and I think that's still the thing about podcasts that makes no sense because obviously your podcast is popular you should be able to do this for a living at this point and if you're not then that's the that to me is the fault of monetizing podcasts zach just gave me the finger i know which finger was that okay all right because we have to kick out a jam real quick okay well okay last question i'm gonna cherry pick uh okay andrew stokely who's a good friend of mine yes he says ask what a small world. I know. He helped me buy all this gear.

Oh, perfect. And he came over and put it together. Such a nerd. Yeah, he's a buddy of mine. And his wife has access to these, I want to call it, I can still call it ACC, right? Yes, it is. Access to these like fourth row seats at the ACC from her employer. Oh.

I benefited from this a few times. That's the best reason to be friends with Andy Stokely. Yeah, absolutely. What was his question? Favorite labby. So you were his lab partner? He was our labby. I always remember Andrew wore a San Jose Sharks jersey

like maybe 362 of the 365 days a year. And then there was a Jay Muna and oh, I can't believe I can't... I'm forgetting. I'm blanking on the third one. the 365 days a year. And then there was a Jaymuna and... Oh, I can't believe I can't... I'm forgetting. I'm blanking on the third one. I'll edit it in later. Okay. Anyway, Andrew, you're...

Andrew, you're my favorite labby. Andrew, he remembers you. That's the most important thing. All right. You're going to come back to kick out the jams, but you did tell me your favorite song of all time. Let's hear a bit of it and tell us why you love it boy boy

now in the street there is violence If I wasn't getting the finger, I'd play a lot more of this. Man, it sounds so good in the headphones. It holds up, right? Oh, man, does it ever. It's like back and forth. He mixed it beautifully. Eddie Grant, Electric Avenue. The reason I picked this is because

I always remember, speaking of Saskatoon, my grandparents lived there. I heard this on the radio, loved it, probably eight years old. I said to my dad, can we go buy it at the store? My poor dad has to go into this record store, like a Sam, the record man in Saskatoon, and say,

do you have the tape that has Electric avenue on it like that's my dad right like just that's perfect couldn't care less but he's like all right i'll get i'll get it for you if you shut up so i love that and i love this track yeah great track dude welcome back welcome back to canada really fun really fun I would love to come back and kick out the gins well now you have to because I recorded that

I have on record oh perfect there it is that's a legal legal document the only question is can we get the driver again can we get

oh yeah what's your name and that brings us to the end of our 260th show you can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Jay is at Jay on right.

You nailed that. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. And propertyinthesix.com is at Brian Gerstein. See you all next week. Well, I want to take a streetcar downtown Read Andrew Miller and wander around And drink some Guinness from a tin