Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Jeff Simmons: Toronto Mike'd #426

Episode Date: January 29, 2019

Mike chats with Jeff Simmons about Canadian sports media, why he left the industry, and his dad, Steve Simmons of The Toronto Sun.

Welcome to episode 426 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Propertyinthe6.com, ATM Canada, Palma Pasta, Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair and our newest sponsor Buckle that's B-U-K-L I'm Mike from TorontoMike.com and joining me is Jeff Simmons

How's it going? Welcome Jeff I wasn't sure how to bill you but we'll get to that because you're like a private citizen now. Like we don't own you anymore. I know. You might be hard.

You might be hard. Usually I'm like, oh, you're in the public. You belong to us. But I'm not so sure. You're like a civilian. But we'll get to that. But thanks for coming because we got dumped on yesterday and there's a lot of snow out there. How was the drive for you?

I'm lucky we waited until now to do it because they've plowed it pretty well. Until my street. Until your street. Your street, I was shaking all over the place. I thought I might not make it in. How do you think I feel? I can't make it out.

That's the thing. I know. So if you're on main streets, like Lakeshore, for example, you're okay, right? Because they plowed it and they salted it. It's fine. Yeah, no, the Lakeshore is great all the way up here. And then I turn onto your street and I almost hit three cars. And you're not kidding. And one of them was mine. You would have had a lawsuit on your hands. Could have been ugly. Yeah, I don't know if I would have made it on the pod today. Actually, I might have thanked you. I'm looking for a reason to write that off. But actually,

I just remember normally what I'm saying there is accurate. But today my wife took a snow day. You would have hit her car. That's the one we have to keep. So you would have been in trouble. Yeah. And you would have probably heard about that more than I would. This is Jeff guy. And why did he smash my car up? I always think of that. You're younger than I am, guy and why did he smash my car up i always think of that you're younger than i am obviously but um like i was a big happy days fan and one of my favorite episodes as a kid was the smash up derby episodes like they'd get in these old clunkers and they just like you ever seen a smash up derby no it's like no is it like bumper cars it's kind of like bumper guys but it's like they just drive into each other these like these shitty old cars and they just smashper Guys. But it's like they just drive into each other, these shitty old cars,

and they just smash into each other. And it's amazing to watch. Anyway, if you ever want to catch up on your happy days. And I think there was an episode where Penny... Crap, everybody's yelling at me now. Penny Descalero or something. I can't remember her name. But she got hurt in one of the smash-up derbies.

It was like a big-time scary moment for me. It's a little before my time. A lot before your time. So you made it in. That's you and Wilner made it in the snowstorms. You're both of my good books. Yeah, Wilner drove through this last night. Yeah, but he's like a West End guy. But you're like in the middle. You're a downtown guy. Yeah. No, it was easy for me. It's like a 15, 20-minute drive. On the worst of times. And today is the worst of times.

Exactly. And I got to get a new shovel. You know those ergonomic shovels that have the bend in the handle so you don't break your back? That's what I need to buy. It's not a bad investment. I'm the last guy you should ask about shoveling. I'm a total princess. You would never see me shoveling.

Is that right? I would pay someone to shovel. I was going to ask you to help me out after this recording. Now I might not. Yeah, yeah. I'll meet you there. Let me get my car first. Before we dive in, man, the Leafs actually made a trade.

This is exciting. The Leafs don't do that every day. But we added, do you have any, I know that you, we're going to get to this, but you're a sports media person who left the industry, right? Correct, correct. So can you still have an opinion on the Jake Muzzin trade? I have opinions on everything, especially sports opinions. Let's hear your Jake Muzzin take here. It's not an exciting take, but I think it was a really smart trade.

A lot of people at first thought they might have overpaid. But watching the Leafs, it was just so obvious they were overplaying Ron Hainsey. And Ron Hainsey's speed was just such an issue in the playoffs last year. And I think the best part of this trade is this pushes Hainsey down to a role he's probably better suited to play on the third line. And now you have a guy who can play a lot of minutes with Riley who can play the penalty kill and if they play Boston in the playoffs a penalty killer like this is really important so I know the price is steep for some but it's a move they just had to

make they need better skating defensemen and for me the best part of is now you don't have to sign Jake Gardner which was a big fear of mine and I can't stand Jake Gardner. I know some of the numbers like him a lot more than I do. Now you have a contract that basically prevents that. So to me, that's the best part of the deal. That's a pretty reasonable tempered take. Have you considered a career in sports media? I don't think my takes are hot enough. Eric Corrine says he invented that hot take.

Is that true? Do you know? Corrine grew up not too far from where I did. It must be true. He's probably not lying. Mark Hebbshire is a friend of mine. I know Mark Hebbshire. And when I told him Jeff Simmons was coming on the show, he lit up.

I saw this true delight in his face. And he said, I hope I got it right. This will be terrible if I don't have the detail right. But his grandfather and your grandfather, he says, were best buds. Do you know anything about this? Yeah. Hep C has been telling me that since I was a kid. And I think they grew up in a similar area, middle of Toronto.

And yeah, I've known Hep C for years. His face is still at this bar I go to on College Street. I've heard of this because somebody tweeted a photo of like there's like a petition or something. Yeah it's called Hurricanes in Toronto. It's one of the few good sports bars in Toronto.

That's another issue I have but that's for another day. I was there recently watching I think it was a Leaf or Raptor game. You look at the corner and you see a picture of like Hebsey from the 80s. I sent it to him. Because he had the earring and he had that, I won't call it a mullet, but it's mullet-esque

kind of. He had a good head. He still got his hair. Yeah, so I've got a lot of weird connections to people. Can you tell me? You said you were going to save that for another day, but this is the day, man. Yeah, that's true. This is the day for all your takes.

Who else are you connected to? So as you and I assume most of your listeners know, I grew up in the sports industry. My dad's been writing The Toronto Sun. Your dad is Steve Simmons of The Toronto Sun. Yes, yes. So I had a very unique childhood compared to probably most of the people my age

who are in the sports industry. I used to travel a little bit with the Leafs and when they're in the playoffs back in the day where you could probably talk to the players and they didn't realize who I was. Like I was 1993 when the Leafs

were playing the Red Wings. Me and my mom went down to Detroit and back when I was in 1993 when the Leafs were playing the Red Wings. Me and my mom went down to Detroit. And back when I was a cute little kid, when I was six, so this is a long time ago, obviously. Not so cute anymore. You just dated yourself, man. We can do the math now. Exactly.

Exactly. I remember all, like, the Leafs were taking me around. Like, I was, they must have liked. Dave Ellett was like. Dave Anderchuk and Stefan Lefebvre like tried to bring me on the Leafs bus and Pat Burns yelled at me get this effing kid off the bus okay can I swear on this is that allowed yeah you're allowed to swear okay get this fucking kid off the bus I was six years old and then I remember another time I was staying with the Leafs

and it was in Buffalo and I had this little book. I was getting all their autographs and I was going around the room and I see Matt Sundin and I was like, whatever your old kid, Matt Sundin is the idol. And I go up to Matt Sundin with my little book and he's like, sorry, I can't talk right now. I have someone to talk to. And he get this. He tried to use my dad as an excuse to not talk to me. He's like, talk to me. Because he didn't know, right? Yeah, he's like, I got to talk to this guy. I'm busy. And it happens to be my dad. So he had this red look on his face.

That story's better if he says something like, I got to speak to this asshole here. We have other ones like that. I saw you tell me, you told a great story about somebody said something.

So that was. The dressing room story? So I have a couple of those. Okay. Do you know grade nine, bring your kid to work day? Of course, yeah. So obviously my mom's a nurse. My dad's a sports writer.

I choose my dad. Right. And I go into the Leafs practice. He introduces me to the PR guy. I think I met John Liu that day. He was like the friendliest guy back then. And I go into the dressing room. Yeah.

And I was with a friend. Me and my friend are like most excited kids in the world. And the first thing we see is Darcy Tucker, Shane Corson. And they turn and they see my dad and they say, get this fucking asshole out of the room. I'm dying of laughter. This is because I don't know. I've never seen anyone do this before

other than me or my mom or my brother. And that's the first thing I see going into a Leafs dressing room. And I remember a rash from Danny when I told that sort of joke. He's like, that's when you knew

you wanted to get into sports when you see that. That's a tremendous story. Take your kid to work day. Is your brother younger or older than you? He's younger. He's actually,

he's still in the sports industry he does a bunch of different jobs he he's a tsn he's does pr stuff with the leafs on game day he does some cfl stuff so okay we're all wrapped in so again i was gonna save the uh your dad is steve simmons stuff for later but there's you know it's too interesting a a tidbit to kind of hold on to. We're going to dive more deep later. So Hebsey's grandfather and your grandfather were best buds. That's kind of cool.

But I do have a note from your father, Steve Simmons. He wants me to ask you why you don't make your bed. That's your dad. He wants to know why you don't make your bed. I was just with him in Florida. I make my bed right before I go to bed. So, okay. And then when you wake up, you leave it messy until you go back to bed?

Correct. Yes. If I was living with a woman, I would understand the value because she wants a clean little room. For me, I'm very practical. When the bed needs to be used, I will make it. Until then, I don't care. I'll throw my clothes on there. I'll use my laptop on there. I'll watch TV. Why make it if I'm just going to mess it up again? And the reason you make it, if I'm reading you, because I'm the same way,

the reason you make it before you go to bed is for comfort reasons, right? Exactly. Exactly. I'm very practical. You'll see the more you hear from me. But to me, I don't see the point of making it until I need to use it. The word I'd use is you're pragmatic. Yeah. Okay. That's fair. That's fair. There's no shame in that. Of all the questions he had, I'm surprised that that's... That's the only Steve Simmons... That's the only question I have from your dad is

ask him why he doesn't... We're arguing all the time. And I'm surprised that was all he came up with. All right. We're going to talk more about your dad very shortly. Let me give you some gifts because you made it out here in a snowstorm, even though, according to you, it was easy until you got to my street, and then it became a pain in the ass. My kids got hockey tonight, and I'm now wondering if I'm going to be able to get out of this street. I hope the plows get here at some point.

We're very low on the priority list here. That's how it works. But I'm going to give you a six-pack of fresh craft beer from Great Lakes Brewery. Awesome. I've seen these beers before. They're tasty. Have you ever had a Great Lakes beer?

I've had one of these before. Only one? Only one of these before, but. Only one. Okay. Well, you're going to. Only one of the individual cans. Definitely not only one beer.

Right. The, do you remember which one you have? No. No, I don't. Canuck Pale Ale maybe? That's the staple.

I think it was the Canuck Pale Ale. Cause you know what we say, it's Canuck O'Clock. So I think, I hope I got at least one. I think I can, there's probably at least one Canuck Pale Ale in there. What do you got there?

There's the, the barrel session one there. Yeah, barrel series. And then you got, I know there's an Over My Dad body in there. Okay, there's a pompous ass. I think you're supposed to pass it on to your dad. That could be me the more you get to know me. All right. Well, your dad's been over twice.

So this is your debut. So I'm still feeling it. I guess, so no Canuck Pale Ale. No, no. What's this one? Yeah, here we go. Okay, good. So it's Canuck O so I'm still feeling it. I guess, so no Canuck Pale Ale. Is that what's that? No, no. It's the one, the second one. What's this one? Yeah, here we go.

Okay, good. So it's Canuck O'Clock for you there, but there's also a, you got my favorite, the Octopus Wants to Fight. Enjoy your Great Lakes beer. They're a fiercely independent craft brewery located here in Etobicoke. 99.99% of all Great Lakes beer remains here in Ontario.

You know it's fresh. It's brewed for you, Ontario. And what do you pair with this beer? You need a nice meat lasagna from Palma Pasta. Try to lift that. Let me see how strong you are. We're not joking around here, right? Jeez, this thing is huge.

You know, you can get pretty strong. I think Wilner has a bad back, and I had to carry his to the car. No joke. Got to get him a backpack. You know, the Blue Jays have all those little backpacks. Yeah, he needs something. Yeah, what's the Mr. Submarine bags? Yeah, yeah, the giveaway day.

Of course. I'm a Catelli Batman myself. That was my day. And then they had the... Wait, Mr. Sub did the bags. Who did the seat cushions for Exhibition? I know you're a little younger, but who did the seat cushions? Wasn wait, Mr. Sub did the bags. Who did the seat cushions for exhibition? I know you're a little younger, but who did the seat cushions? Wasn't that Mr. Sub?

I had one of those. It might have been Mr. So one of our cousins actually invented Mr. Sub. You're bearing the lead here. That's amazing. My late uncle, he passed away in the 90s. He worked at the first ever Mr. Sub. And if you've ever seen a picture of my dad

when he worked in Calgary, he was a big dude. And I remember when he moved out to Calgary, he tells this story all the time. The inventor, who I believe lives on an island now, I haven't seen him since I was like 12 years old, gave my dad like hundreds of sub coupons. And it would explain his physique in those years very well.

The great story that comes out of his Calgary years is that he fired Howard Berger. I learned that on your show. I did not. David Schultz is the first guy to spill that story. So Schultz, he's a friend of the show. And I know Schultz worked with your dad in Calgary. Yeah.

So he comes on. He tells the story. I can't believe my ears. It's just too good to be true, this story, this convergence of Toronto sports media personalities and that your dad gets...

And I don't think he meant... He was very clear. He didn't want to get Howard Berger fired, but he got him fired. And I think I revisited the story when Berger was on. And then, of course,

when your dad was on, I needed the details. So it's kind of amazing what was going on in Calgary back then. Yeah. And a lot of course, when your dad was on, I needed the details. So it's kind of amazing what was going on in Calgary back then. Yeah. And a lot of those guys are still working. Duhatrick was on Hockey Night in Canada for a bit.

Schultz's Twitter is hilarious if you know him at all. You know, he did stand-up at the... So we have these Toronto Mike listener experiences. TMLX2, which Wilner was at, because we talked about it on yesterday's program. But Gare Joyce and David

Schultz did stand-up at the Great Lakes Brewery. So Gare, I used to sit beside two deaths away from Gare in Sportsnet when he was first starting out with the comedy. And he used to give me his material all day. Some of it would hit. I assume he's gone a lot better since then.

He's doing comedy with a guy I grew up with actually now. Okay, who? No, you don't know him. He's one of our closer family friends. So it's just funny seeing those names together. Just small world. You don't want to give him any press here. Because I mean, even if I don't know him,

now I know him if you tell me his name. Okay, this guy, Jacob Balsham. There you go. I need to know these names. Yeah, Gare can't pronounce his name properly. But Gare used to just give us his material during the workday. And some of it was pretty good. It's just if you know Gare, it's a very unique sense of comedy.

I like it. He did a whole bunch of Steve Bannon stuff. And if you go, there is an episode of Toronto Mike's where I actually literally just played the stand-up routine that he delivered at TMLX2. So dig that one up. But he took a shot at Wilner that night. So Wilner was there. Even though there was a Jays game going on, Wilner's there. And I think the joke, I'm going to hopefully not butcher it,

but it was something like, nice to see Mike Wilner out. I guess he's no longer doing the Herb. He did some kind of a weight loss program ads. I guess he's no longer doing the weight loss ads. I think that was the shot. But then he turned his attention to Dave Hodge and went at him pretty hard. So, yeah, so Gare Joyce and David Schultz.

And yeah, your dad, I can't remember how we got here, but it's always fun to talk about Burger in Calgary and your dad getting him fired. Okay, so you got the beer. You got the lasagna. I urge people to visit Palma Pasta. It's the best fresh pasta and Italian food in Mississauga.

Go to palmapasta.com to find out the locations. The new location is the Palma's Kitchen. It's near Mavis and Burnhamthorpe, and it kicks ass. Like, it's fantastic. They got a hot table there. You can get, it's like a retail store. They got seating. You can grab a cappuccino, espresso, whatever,

have a slice of pizza. Just amazing. So check out the new Palma's Kitchen, palmapasta.com. That is yours. If your car needs work, this is a really cool new service from the newest sponsor, Buckle. B-U-K-L.

Go to bukl.co. Enter your car's make and model and year, what service you need for your car. You get instant quotes from shops in your area. Then you can book the appointment online, bring your car in, get it serviced, and just drive away. You're automatically charged because it's seamless. It kicks ass too. Bukl.co. All right, Jeffrey.

AL.CO. All right, Jeffrey. I'm going to, since we already talked about the Jake Muzzin trade, before we dive into what happened with you and sports media and your dad and stuff, I'm going to ask you about another sporting event that's taking place. But I'm not going to ask you shit. I apologize for swearing. You told me it was a swearing podcast, so I've been doing it now.

But we're going to let Brian Gerstein ask you you so this is a question from brian gerstein he's a real estate sales representative with psr brokerage property in the six dot com hf brian gerstein here sales representative with psr brokerage and proud sponsor of toronto mic call or text me at 416-873-0292 if you're looking at getting your home ready for the spring market. The early listers will sell quicker and for more money, so let's get started. Jeff, how crazy is it that we had both AFC and NFC championship games go to overtime? And because Dee Ford of the Chiefs lined up offside and the Zebras blew the pass interference call on the Rams, the real Super Bowl we should be watching is the Chiefs lined up offside and the Zebras blew the pass interference call on the Rams, the real Super Bowl we should be watching is the Chiefs-Saints. But it's not what we got.

How do you see the big game going and who do you like? Personally, I'm tired of seeing Tom Brady and the Patriots again, so I'm rooting for the Rams. What's your Super Bowl prediction? I definitely agree that the Saints should be in the Super Bowl prediction? I definitely agree that the Saints should be in the Super Bowl. And the Chiefs stuff was self-inflicted, so it's hard to say they are deserving. But I can't stand... I'm a Seahawks fan.

I'm a pretty intense Seahawks fan. If you follow me on Twitter, you can tell that. I'm a little biased there. So the Rams are this new up and coming team. They have this hot new coach. Everyone just raves about them. So I'm just inclined to root against them. And obviously it's the worst case scenario that the team against them is

New England. So gut feeling, I still like New England. I'm probably, I'm not really rooting for anyone. So this isn't biased because I like most people. I'd like to see someone else win. But at the end of the day for me, I'm

rooting for New England simply just if Brady wins another one. I don't really think the story of the narrative changes. If the Rams win, I'd have to hear a year's story about how smart this coach is. And to Jared Goff, who I really don't think is that good. I just think he's a product of an amazing situation. He's better than I initially thought. I'll give him that. So I, who I really don't think is that good. I just think he's a product of an amazing situation.

He's better than I initially thought. I'll give him that. So I'm hoping that they don't win just purely out of principle as a Seahawks fan. But I think the Rams are the team that could beat them just based on what gives Brady trouble historically, and that's pressure up the middle. If you're an outside rush team, which San Diego,

or the Chargers and the Chiefs were, Brady just doesn't have trouble with those teams. It's always been the guys up the middle, and they have those two monsters. So my gut is still New England, which is two weeks to prepare. I think you can beat them. But again, if you're cheering against New England, the Rams are a team that can definitely give them trouble. Is football your favorite sport to follow?

Yeah, yeah. Growing up, I was big hockey, baseball. There was a period in college where I was a huge Raptor guy, big NBA guy. I used to bet a lot on basketball and follow basketball pretty hard. But Sunday football, since I can remember,

like 10, 12 years old, I've always, that sport has always jumped out to me just based on more following the league than just pure watching of it. I love the NFL. I love the draft. I love the offseason. And when I was

writing, and we'll get into that later, I did a lot of cool football stories. When that guy who made the pass interference play last week, Mikel Roby Coleman, I kept looking at him like, where do I know this guy from? And I Googled his name in Sportsnet.

And back in the Sportsnet magazine days, I was sent down to Buffalo, reluctantly sent down to Buffalo. It was like in the middle of November. They wanted me to do a story on something like, they were like four and eight, and they wanted me to do a story on their rookie class. I'm like, you know what, whatever, I'll go. And I was talking to all these rookies.

There was a quarterback. There was this guy, Kiko Alonso, who they voted for mayor. And one of the guys I talked to was Robert Woods, who's now in the Super Bowl. He's one of the Rams' best players. And I remember there was this young kid who was an undrafted player who was actually the one guy who was very excited to talk to me was Nickel Robey before he became Robey Coleman. Oddly oddly enough i ended up talking to him for like 20 minutes he was great and it's

funny enough i ended up talking to him and woods and these guys are now stars in the super bowl and stefan gilmore who i also talked to who was drafted the year before is now going to be covering robert woods the bills of all these guys so just it's just back. I was talking to all these guys for a story, and now the Bills have none of them, and they're in the Super Bowl. When you said you were big on the Raptors, what era was that? Was that the Chris Bosh era?

Yeah, the Chris Bosh, Brian Colangelo. I was watching a lot of basketball. I'm getting into it again this year. I didn't love the DeRozan era, even though he was a good player. I just had trouble watching him personally. So I've gone back into it this year, but this was the Chris Bosh.

I love the TJ Ford. Oh, wow. Don't mean to interrupt you there, Jeff. I was going to ask you a question about this guy, but yeah, you know, this is the season, I think for for raps if you're going to come back.

Like, let's see what happens with Kawhi. Sure. Hopefully he did not go outside yesterday. And it's funny. He's got these, what do they call them again? Load maintenance days or whatever. And it's like load management days. And they're like, nah, it's just they just don't want him to leave his condo like on these cool days and realize he's in Toronto.

I was just in Florida and he's a San Diego guy, which is probably my favorite American city. And if he looked outside yesterday, knowing where I just came from, I can picture him being so miserable. Man. This guy, Stephen Page, you know how you're connected to all these guys. How are you connected to Stephen Page, you know how you're connected to all these guys. How are you connected to Stephen Page? So Stephen Page's mom, Joanne, is my dad's first cousin. So I've known the Page family since I was like two. This was the first concert I ever went to.

I remember I had backstage passes through his mom and I saw Curtis Joseph. This was like 1997. So I was just in Florida. The Pages came to visit my parents. Stephen used to host this big family event for our whole family at his cottage.

So I've been at multiple Barenaked Ladies concerts. I grew up on this music. So that's why it kind of stopped me while we were going. Did you listen to, uh, the episode of Toronto Mike with,

um, Steven, uh, with Tyler Stewart? I heard clips of it. I heard that you asked him about something in the Phil Kessel story came up. Okay. I,

all I said was, uh, we were talking about the, uh, Juno's reunion last year. Yeah. And I, I asked the obvious question about like,

are you going to do anything else with Steven Page? And then because I said Steven Page, then at some point I just said to him, do you know which local sports media personalities related to Steven Page? And that was like a trigger for Tyler. And then, and Tyler, he listens. He could be listening now, just so you know.

But yeah, he went off on the Kessel hot dog story, which I do want to talk about it later. But I just wondered if you had heard that. What's it like when you hear, if you're listening to an episode of Toronto Mike and they're talking about Stephen Page, and next thing you know, the drummer for Barenaked Ladies is going off on your dad.

What's that like? It makes me laugh. Listen, me and my dad have a great relationship. I give him, I take jabs at him. I like when me or my brother makes fun of him. I get a little defensive when people, maybe just Twitter personalities or people I don't know make fun of him. But if it's someone like Tyler who's probably met him before,

that would make me laugh because at the end of the day, it's not serious. But yeah, at the end of the day, I don't take things too seriously unless when it's on Twitter, I get a little defensive, though. I'm not going to lie. Well, I will say that, as you might know, I survey the landscape. And I like to have interesting personalities over. I mentioned Wilner three times now because it was yesterday he came over. So he's top of mind.

But he's a guy where, when I'm having Mike Wilner on, I get notes and stuff about how I can't stand him. I'm going to skip it. He's a guy where like when I'm having Mike Wilner on, I get notes and stuff about how like I can't stand him. I'm going to skip it. People, he's a polarizing guy. People like him and I personally like him. Some people really hate him, but your dad's the same way.

Yeah. And you've met him. He's so different than what people suspect him to be. He's a completely different person than he's portrayed on Twitter or even with some local media guys. And I bet Wilner, I don't know Wilner that well. I've dealt with him professionally

a few times in my Sportsnet days. He's a great guy. Yeah, he's a, but if you listen to Jay's talk and you hear this guy, you might think he's kind of a jerk, but he's not at all. It's just, that's his,

that's his, that's his show. He, like yourself, he's pragmatic. Yeah, very pragmatic. and my dad is just so different than he's perceived it makes me laugh just some of the things just sometimes you hear people call him a leaf homer or and or they say he like wants the leafs to fail and i'm with him all the time and he can't he watches every single leaf game and just the way he's perceived is so funny to me it's but i i my my thought on this and uh the term and this is going to come up later again this is all teasing this exciting episode we've barely begun here but uh uh scott

moore uh would refer to this type he calls it sand now he's not talking forget about what he said about your dad we'll get to that later. But when he's talking about Wilner, he refers to it as sandpaper. And I think basically, interesting is the word I would use. Like you could be like, oh, that's a great idea. Thank you so much.

And like, it's all kind of bland and boring. Or you could kind of take stands on things and challenge people and maybe not accept nonsense as, oh, that's a great opinion, but, you know, facts are facts. Like, facts can't be, they're either right or they're wrong. Facts. And I feel like if you're a bit, if you're sandpaper, you're interesting. And I'm personally interested in, more interested in, like, reading your work or listening to you. And it seems like there's this new movement out there where people don't want you to be

interesting. Do you feel any of this happening? Whereas like when you're interesting, they kind of want you to be fired. And, you know, there's a lot of guys on Twitter wanting your dad to get fired. Yeah. And I totally agree with that. I think the social media, especially Twitter, if you follow sports Twitter at all, it's definitely changed the way people report. It's changed the way people act. I think people want to win over that crowd. And it feels like a lot of just beat reporting now sounds more like team PR. And it does sound like more

promoting the players and promoting the positive, which is great in some regard. But the guys who are kind of opinionated and they go against the grain and they're controversial or the way they talk to fans, those guys are vilified. And I personally, I don't know, maybe it's just my personality. I resonate more with the guys like that. Like not, maybe not like the Stephen A. Smith guys who are purely playing a character and just yelling. Yeah. Marty York is a guy who I would say gone too far. He's an extreme. You don't want to be him, but you want

guys who are going to tell you what they think and you want guys who are going to give you something that people don't know. If it's just a bunch of Canadian press style stories, to me that doesn't get me excited. There's great room for that and there's great room for storytelling, but for me, I always grew up like well obviously i was a little biased in my house but i like the opinion

guys and those are the guys i was always interested in reading and that was what i always was kind of hoping to be in the sports media group and it seems like yeah it's gotten away from that now people are calling for firings and it's just here i can give you like a real recent case like an actual happening so i i I broke the story, I suppose you could say, that Damien Cox was let go. Your dad and Damien Cox, they may never,

they may not get along. They may, I don't know what their relationship is like, but they are associated with each other because one was at the sun forever and one was at the star forever. So they're always kind of

tied together. And they're both polarizing guys. Like Cox is in that Wilner Simmons group or whatever of polarizing people sandpaper i'll say but cox uh i i just tweeted out that he was no longer at sports net you should see some of the replies like dancing on the grave like it's christmas came early that was a big one how many times did i see oh christmas has come early because this guy lost his job? Yeah, and that stuff bothers me. And you don't have to like him or anyone of that ilk. And I have disagreements with so many people. I'm not in media anymore, but I follow it. I still love it.

And I definitely disagree with a ton of stuff. And I'll be the first to tell you stuff I disagree with, but I don't want anyone to lose their job. It's so hard in this industry to find jobs and find good jobs. And the fact that people are celebrating people getting fired, I don't think they understand that. And that's part of the social media problem I mentioned earlier.

And yeah, I have no time for that stuff. On the good side is that everybody has a voice now, but on the bad side, everybody has a voice now. Yeah. The mute button is great, man. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I agree.

And again, we talked about Sandpaper and Wilner was basically told like he was too polarizing to be a play-by-play guy and they were working on that. And although he couldn't actually comment on this yesterday, he had to be careful, itby-play guy, and they were working on that. And although he couldn't actually comment on this yesterday, he had to be careful,

it seems that they're bringing over Scott McArthur to be the Jay's Talk guy. Like, Wilner's not going to do Jay's Talk anymore, which will make a lot of people happy, which will, apparently, that'll be good for Wilner, who wants to do play-by-play anyways. But anyway, this aside, it seems like Wilner was too polarizing to kind of do both those things.

So it's kind of speaks to the, I don't, I really like MacArthur. I listened to, I'm in my car a lot, one to four. Yeah. And my new job,

we'll get into after also, but yes. So I listened to a lot of Scott's show recently. I think TSN radio is better than people give it credit for, by the way. And I think he's really good. I think he's got a lot of potential in that

job he really knows baseball but wilner is an interesting guy because you bring up that and i think one of the problems that happens a lot and when i read that scott moore interview with you or listen to it i can't remember he mentioned that will he kind of pigeonholed wilner as just purely what you said before and i think one of the problems that happens there and maybe across the industry is that people get pigeonholed for being too good at something and they're not allowed to grow. And I think that's a huge problem. And I saw with me,

and so that brought back a lot of memories of working in the Scott Moore era. And now I don't want to take the thing like I'm taking shots at him because I really had good relationship with him. We talked, we talked a lot at company events, and I have no problem with him. But just hearing that and seeing Willner come on and maybe say that to you, I think that's a big problem.

Okay, let's get to that then. But first... All right, Jeff, you're a young man, so I brought down this number here. On this day, this exact day, 10 years ago, the number one song on the Billboard Hot 100 was this. Jeff, is that you dancing over there? No. I have a bizarre relationship with this song. Oh, tell me.

Was this 2008 you said? No, because 10 years ago, 2009. 2009. So 10 years ago, I was still in university. I know I'm giving away my age here. And I was working. I was trying to get into sports, which again, we'll talk about. And I ended up with some weird jobs. I did some football writing for University of Guelph. And I did a stats job for the Guelph Storm in the OHL. And this song used to play every single home game and it drove a lot of us crazy in the press box and this was i think this was either their goal song or between periods song so that brought back

some like weird ptsd when this popped up so this is of course just dance by lady gaga featuring colby odonis who i don't think i've heard from since. I've never heard that name. Apparently, Colby O'Donis is on this track. So, yeah, this was everywhere. I remember, like, yeah, 10 years ago, it was everywhere. But it was, I got to say, it's a pop song, but it's a good pop song. Like, it's a... It's good if you don't hear it every period like I did in those years. It sounds like cruel and unusual punishment.

It's like the Leafs' new gold song. Oh, they're doing Hall & Oates, right? Yeah. That's an interesting choice for the kids today. Not a bad song, but a horrible goal song. If you could pick the goal song, though, what would you pick? Because I think the gold standard might be Chelsea Dagger when the Blackhawks were using that.

Yeah, I like the Jock Jam style tunes. Those aren't great songs, but those are the kind of songs that get me fired up at a game. Would you go with like a 2 Unlimited? Yeah, something like that.

Something from like NHL 94. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I always thought No One Knows by... I got this song in my head. This guy must be the Colby guy

singing right now. That's Colby. Oh, don't. If you're ever curious. Queens of the Stone Age. Yeah, okay. Like... Yeah, like...

The Marilyn Manson intro was great back in the Quinn era. Or like a David Bowie Heroes or something. Yeah, something more of a pump-up song. You don't need to go like EDM for the young guys because most of the guys at the Leaf games are wealthier than that.

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You get $10 instantly in Paytm cash. You can use that towards another bill payment or a reward purchase so just remember promo code toronto mic when you make your first bill payment with pay t m all right let's we know you're raised in like a sports media household with your dad being steve simmons but what it was So what makes you want to get into sports media back in the day? So I went to school for business. And I was growing up the way I did, being like traveling on the road and seeing your dad go to every Olympics, every Super Bowl. It's hard not to think, I want that life.

And as a kid, your parents pushed you to become a lawyer. And they say they want something where your income will be a lot more stable, security will be stable. And you listen to them. But then you see your dad traveling with the Leafs in the playoffs or the Blue Jays or the Raptors. And it's like, yeah, yeah, whatever. I'm not studying my LSATs. I'm going to try to do the sports thing. So coming out of school, I had no clue what I wanted to do.

And back then it was the recession. So jobs were few and far between. And so I ended up getting like a summer job with TSN. At the time, I was planning to study my real estate license, just make some money in the short term, figure it out. What were you doing at TSN? I ended up in this awesome summer job. It was called the Archives Division.

And there are some full-time guys who are still there. They're awesome guys. And we basically put together videos of highlights from the night before. So if they needed shows, highlights for like

their sports center, their top 10, or whatever, the shows, they're archived into their system. So I get this job. My brother had done it

the year before and it's like an all-star lineup of like kids' sons from TSN. So Chris Cuthbert's kid was there, Justin. He now works at Yahoo. The two McKenzie kids, Bob's kids, Sean's on TV for every Leaf game.

Right. And a couple other guys. I think Rod Smith's son's done it a couple times. So those were the summer students. They're full-time guys. And that was the job of my life. I'm sitting there getting paid for the first time to make sports videos and then like the football season comes around i become like the football video guy it sounds amazing so i'll do it greatest boss there like gave us like

flexibility with our schedules he like it's kind of guy who go back for you and like so i'm making money for the first time doing sports videos so i I'm like, all right, I'm screwing my real estate license. I'm going to try to do out the sports thing. Next thing I know, I'm just starting to figure out what's available at TSM, thinking maybe I can get a career here. And I get an email from, at the time, a guy who was running the Sportsnet website, Pat Greer. And Greer, I think, now works at CBC Sports.

And they needed someone to do website editing for nights and weekends, and I was going to get more money and maybe something that was more... So I'm like, okay, we'll put this real estate thing on hold for now, and I'll see what happens. And this was a big deal

because my dad was doing the reporters at TSN, the brothers TSN. And Sportsnet at this point, this is pre-Scott moore era so this is scott moore did a great job there in terms of like what sports net was when i started they were like clear second fiddle like they this was a big step down from the tsn eyes but it was just a way better opportunity for me so when i told them i was going to sports net the faces i got were pretty severe and like a lot of young guys were doing that just because of

opportunity but this was 2010, and those years Sportsnet was clearly second fiddle. They didn't have... They didn't have any of the properties, right? No, no. They didn't even have a baseball writer in those days. If you can imagine that. Shy wasn't there yet.

They didn't have... Their website was just like... What year did Rodgers buy the Jays? Do you know? I guess, yeah. But they didn't have, everyone was kind of, their website was just like. What year did Rogers buy the Jays? Do you know? It was, I guess, yeah. Late, like mid to late 2000, like 2008 range, somewhere in there.

Okay, okay. So the Rogers owned the Jays in those days, but Sportsnet was just like a joke. But like it was just, TSN was so far ahead in those years. Right. And so I go there and I work these nights and weekends for a year and next thing we know this new boss gets hired when the scott moore era comes in and one of their first things is they make me a full-time writer nice and i have no writing background they like my sports knowledge i have a lot of i have a very strong sports knowledge compared to a lot of the

guys there because i grew up around it and I was obsessed with it all throughout my life. That helps. It does. And so they make me a full-time writer and I do that for like a year. This was like, I do that for two years. And again, this is like the job of my life. I'm writing sports articles. They're sending me to cover some football games and the Bills series.

I did a lot of, and then the next thing, Sportsnet website combines with Sportsnet magazine. And now they're trying to turn me into a magazine writer so that's just like another promotion i get by accident i it was just purely a numbers game they need to assign me and now i'm a magazine writer with zero feature writing background i'm probably the only one on staff without a journalism degree and so i'm doing this for a couple of years. And then the NHL thing happens. And Sportsnet buys the NHL rights. And so they needed a team of writers to cover the NHL from the desk.

So you're essentially doing all night shifts and writing billion hockey stories just for quick content. And did that for two years. Not my favorite job for, I didn't love the day-to-day grind of the NHL. I don't want to get into that too much, but, and then you're saving that for your book. Yeah.

I'll say that. I didn't, I found the NHL to be boring on a day-to-day basis. I love watching the Leafs. I love watching the playoffs, but I found like the news cycle of the NHL to be very uninteresting. And the stuff they talk about on the radio,

just compared to other sports, really didn't do it for me. I found the personalities to be awful. And I just found the stuff that got people excited. It's not exciting like insurance or whatever. No, no, no, no. But the Phoenix Coyotes saga was big in those years. Oh, the silly stuff.

Yeah, it was just like i like gary bedman would go on the radio and i'd have to turn this into a story and it was just like yeah so giving up my saturday nights every other week to do that and just regurgitating what don cherry said that didn't excite me so once like the magazine and the website kind of merged i was kind of caught in no man's land. And that's when I was like... So I had all these different kinds of jobs for someone with no journalism degree.

It's kind of funny when you look back. You were at Sportsnet for at least six years, right? Yeah, yeah. I was there from 2010 till the end of 2016. All right, I need to know. So that's six years at Sportsnet. And of course, your dad was doing stuff on TSN. But does being the son of Steve Simmons help you in this regard or hinder you?

Is that a helpful thing or does it get used against you? I think a little of both, to be honest. It's a crappy answer to your question. No, but I thought it might be a bit of both. So yeah. Well, there was a lot of people, I don't know, on Twitter I got this a lot, which questioned me about nepotism.

And you hear my last name, and it's funny, I ended up leaving the company my dad works for, go to a company that would probably never hire my dad, and then I get accused of nepotism. So that always made me laugh. Do you think that Sean McKenzie gets the same thing? I can guarantee you he does. And he did the same thing.

I worked with him in TSN. We weren't that close. We were on different shifts. But Bob basically built TSN to what it is today. And the fact that he had to leave there to go off in his own was pretty telling to me. Do you think he... I mean, we can't read his mind i gotta get out of here but do you think he uh he thought that that would uh would get rid of the nepotism

charge it's because when you're in the same organization where your dad is such a big deal like then nepotism you're going to hear it all over the place but you went to sports net and sean mckenzie went to sports, you'd think that would calm such cries because you're in a whole different organization. You would think so, but it's an industry where jobs are so few and far between that no matter what, someone's going to be either jealous

or they're going to think they're better than you. And I'm not saying people weren't better than me because I was definitely not the best at all those jobs I mentioned. So, yeah, I get what Sean did. I think he wanted to make it on his own. He probably wanted to, like me, probably saw more opportunity, especially what he wants to do, hockey, broadcasting. Right, that's where the games are.

That's where the games are. So he's got a great gig. He was doing like back-end TV stuff at TSN when I started out. And now he's on the TV for every Leaf game. So I get what he did. But I guess what I'm wondering is the difference between Bob McKenzie and Steve Simmons. Pretty different.

Yeah, so they're both very talented. They're both very well-known in this market, especially where Steve's at. He's a national guy, but he's really known in Toronto because of the Toronto Sun stuff, right? Sure. But I guess Bob's a national guy, but he's really known in Toronto because of the Toronto Sun stuff, right? Sure. But we're, I guess, Bob's more national. But I guess nobody, you know, people might not, people typically have positive things to say about Bob McKenzie,

or they're indifferent. Like, there's a lot of indifference, possibly. But there's not a lot of, like, oh, I hate Bob McKenzie going on. But your dad, again, I don't mean to bring up Wilner so much, except it was yesterday. He talked about his people either loved him or hated him, but there was no indifference. Everybody had a strong opinion

one way or the other. Your dad's a similar thing. So the people who don't like your dad would probably look for reasons not to like you is what I'm thinking. That's what I was saying. It definitely can hurt you. And it's funny. Sometimes I'd be in the newsroom and there'd be guys who wouldn't

know me. And one time someone went off on something he wrote and called him the stupidest fucking idiot in the media. And everyone around him is laughing because they know I'm sitting right there and they don't know that I'm also laughing because I find that stuff hilarious.

I don't take me or myself too seriously, so I don't get mad at that stuff, but there'll be guys. I'm sure there are people who treated me differently because of what my last name was. Okay, for that guy, though, who was going off and he died, when he found out,

because I'm sure somebody mentioned, you know, his son's right beside you, or you said, oh, yeah, that's my dad. Like, what was his reaction? Oh, he completely apologized and became a coward. See, I find that stuff funny. Unless it's personally attacking my family

or saying something that's just way out of line, I don't care if someone disagrees with something he wrote. Listen, I disagree with a lot of stuff he writes, and I'll be the first to text him when that happens. But it's when stuff becomes personal, and I'm sure people were careful with some things they said to me. Or some people want to know always what my dad thought of stuff. Right.

I found that very interesting. Guys at the higher level would always ask me, what does your dad think of this guy? What does your dad think of this guy? Yeah, because I think people, we know he won't be, not gentle, but not PC either. But he'll have a take. He'll have an opinion and he'll express it. it it won't be wishy-washy no no he's an opinionated man and he's

he's not stubborn like the most stubborn guy but when he's opinionated he really believes in that opinion and it's hard to get him off of it and i think that's what's made him so good at that being a column writer. Chris Boddy on Twitter wants me, he says, he asked actually, is it wrong to ask him if he believes the hot dog story is true? And I thought about it

and I think it's fair game. First of all, I'm going to play a little clip of your dad talking about because your dad came on and I asked about the hot dog story. And this is the story that Tyler Stewart went off on.

More than any other Steve Simmons story, I hear about the hot dog story more than all the rest so does he in fact well i'll let him i'll let your dad speak for a moment and then i want to hear what you thought oh but before i start playing he references that uh like a friend of his son are you the son so no i'm not okay so oddly enough do you know that like that pension plan puppets website? Of course, yeah. So the pension plan puppets website, this is what pissed me off years ago. They accused me of being the son. And somehow they figured out where I was living at the time. And there were guys attacking me on a daily basis, which was way out of line, in my opinion, because number one,

I wasn't the son. Number two, I was defending something on Twitter. I can't remember what it was. And somehow word got back to where I lived and I had all these guys, like guys who were working for that site, like saying out of line things to me when I, and that's where I just got a little uncomfortable. Okay, let's hear your dad

and then we'll come back to this. For the record, okay, do you stand by the Kessel hot dog story? Absolutely, except for the address. I'll explain what happened that day. It was a day where I was working at TSN because it was trade deadline day. I spent the entire day there. At the end of the day, I have to write a column about Kessel being traded.

About January or February, one of my son's friends had said, every single day when I go out in the afternoon, there's Phil Kessel at the hot dog stand by his condo. And I thought to myself, what a neat lead to sort of explain what it was about Phil Kessel's time in Toronto that didn't make sense, among other things, was his unwillingness to sort of, you know, be...

Gary Roberts up. Yes. Whether Gary Roberts up or just be, you know, intelligent about being a professional athlete. And so I thought, what a great way to explain, begin the piece, which was about 850 words. Right. For the record, the hot dog which was about 850 words. For the record, the hot dog reference was two sentences. It's not a story. It's not a series of stories

despite what people have written. It's not all these other things. And so I phoned the kid to say, where are you? Where's the hot dog stand? Now, my version of where are you was where's the hot dog stand? His version of where are you was where's the hot dog stand.

His version of where are you was where he was at the time. So he gave me the address of where he was at the time. And then the reason I wanted to put the streets down, I grew up reading Mike Lupica in New York. And whenever Mike Lupica wrote about anything in New York, he always referenced it was Broadway on 17th. He always brought you home. I thought this is the way you got to write about people in your city. And I've always done that. So I'm going to get the block. Well, I got the block and I wrote it. One of our editors who lives at that block said there is no hot dog stand there. The hot dog stand is here. And so she changed the streets so the streets get changed

and the original streets were wrong then she changed them so there's already been one mistake made right if i use the word he goes to a downtown hot dog vendor every day there wouldn't have been one word of complaint from anyone trying to be too specific and then having a miscommunication with someone got me in a position where I got the streets wrong. And so I know for a... And the funny thing was, what happened, the day after the column appeared, before any of the Olbermann, Pension Plan puppets,

any of the other stuff happened, I happened to be talking to Brendan Shanahan. And Brendan Shanahan had been in the office and he'd read the column. And Brendan Shanahan had been in the office and he'd read the column. And he said, he walked into the office today and everyone was laughing. And I said, why was everyone laughing? And he said, because they thought I wrote the column. I said, what do you mean they thought you wrote the column?

They said, well, were you talking to Steve yesterday? And he said, no, I haven't talked to him in a couple of weeks. Why? He says, because the column reads like you had written it. That's a great clip. I think it's great because I've got to give 100% props to Steve Simmons, your dad, for

being so honest and detailed. That's refreshing. That's why I'm like, the guy came into my basement. He never said, oh, I don't want to talk about the hot dog thing or whatever. He said, ask what you want. He answered it thoroughly thoroughly and honestly you can agree or disagree if you like and i'm gonna ask you now what whether uh what you think of like do you think uh he should have walked it back do you think it was fair game he says it's only two sentences in one article well

it's blowing up now into a major motion picture i I think. If I was him and I wrote a lot of articles, I would have done a little more due diligence on the address if you're going to go that route just because of the reaction and you know people have such access to information. That's where I would have changed it. I don't know if I would have wrote the hot dog thing per se because I think the rest of the column was really strong and really good. And I know the Shanahan thing per se because i think the rest of the column was really strong and really good and i i know the shanahan thing did happen i can i can verify i heard a lot of stories not from him about how shanahan couldn't stand phil and how there was

like a scene of phil and bozak after practice and phil slamming his stick on the ice because he wanted to go to subway with bozak because i think bozak had some deal he had to like pay for his lunches or something like that so i've heard a lot of stories in that regard and yeah I wouldn't have per se done the address because I don't think let's see what that ad other than a problem I probably wouldn't have wrote that tidbit at all because I think the column works otherwise but yeah it's he doesn't go a day on Twitter where someone doesn't mention the hot dog and I think if he can do go back in time I think he would get rid of it because I don't think...

I think the rest of the column would have worked just as well and you would have never heard anything about it. Okay, that's your insight there. But my thought is potentially he sees now, and almost like a WWE wrestler in a heel turn, but I feel he's owning it now. See, I don't think he does enough.

And I've talked to him that I think he should play that side up more. Yeah, like maybe tweet out a picture of him enjoying a hot dog or something. That's what I would do. Remember the Coke machine one? No. So he took a lot of grief on Twitter

before a Jays playoff game because he tweeted out that the Jays were like the only team that didn't give them free pop until the game started. Right, right. Oh, yeah. Everyone's like, oh, look at you. Yeah. Dr. Pepper or something? Yes, I remember now. And he took a lot of shit for that. And then he went to, I think, Texas. The Jays were playing

the Rangers in the playoffs. And he tweeted out a picture of their pop machine at like 2 o'clock in the afternoon. I thought that was like, okay, this is a sign of progress. You could really play up this heel thing. Have a sense of humor about it and then we'll like it more. He gets mad and he gets defensive.

I told him when Tavares signed, the first tweet he should say is like, okay, I'm going to ruin you now because that's one of the things. I'm going to run this guy to town or something along those lines. And I've offered to take over his twitter and like yeah run it as like a pure like nwo style character right go big or go home right yeah i

think like i think he could play that up and he can become like double the size of his personality but he likes to give the insight and the analysis and i think he loves twitter and he loves being involved with that so i don't see him doing that. But if I was him, I would maximize that. I'm thinking now, like when remember Phil Kessel would pose with like the trophy or whatever the Stanley Cup and you have hot dogs in the Stanley Cup. So he's kind of he's needling it a bit. Yeah, it would

be a nice move. Maybe if your dad kind of plays up. I think you should. I think there's a big opportunity there. Oh, man, that hot dog story. And it's funny how I'm even, like, I had no idea that Tyler Stewart from Bare Naked Ladies

would react that way. But even like, we're doing two and a half hours and we're talking about B&L and, you know, a whole bunch of nostalgic Toronto stuff. And even in that episode,

he goes off on your dad about the hot dog story. Like, it's just everywhere. It's amazing. It's amazing. Now, I want to know what, I guess I want to know, of course, why you left your gig at Sportsnet. So you do six years.

What, you just weren't feeling it? Or was it you were worried about it's a shrinking industry? Were you worried about never being able to make enough money to afford a downtown Toronto condo? What's going on here? I'd say there were a variety of factors, and it's a good question. And I think, yeah, growing up, I always wanted to be in sports. And I love the work I did. I love the people I met. But as six years went by, and six years is not that many if you think about some of the guys

who've grinded in this industry, like Elliott Freeman and where he started, and Greg Sansoni, in this industry, like Elliott Freeman and where he started and Greg Sansoni, something like that. But I was looking around a lot and money was a factor, but not a big factor. Obviously, it's very tough to afford to live in the city right now. And I looked around on a pretty daily basis and I just saw a lack of opportunities given. And I mentioned that pigeonhole stuff earlier. And one of that pigeonhole stuff earlier. And one of the things that I think I screwed up personally, and I say this to young people all the time who ask me about getting in the industry, is I think personal branding is really important

in today's market. Like, look at a guy like Steve Dink. Like, I don't necessarily like the stuff he does. I find it annoying, but... Too many jump cuts. He's just... It's not my kind of content. I'm like a pure sports, like... I think it's because I have this talk of my son all the time. And's just it's not my kind of content i'm like a pure sports like i

think it's i have this talk of my my son all the time and i think it's a general i know you're like a lot younger than me but you're not young enough for steve stangle yes fair but like he has a brand and he's established himself with that brand and i think someone like me who was like an all-around knowledgeable sports guy like i became pigeonholed as that like i became the guy doing content for every sport i wasn't really getting a chance to like specialize in anything oh jack of all trades masters yeah and it's like when where i thought that would be a strength to be like a team player kind of guy i think it actually limited me and i became the guy who was doing like the nhl shift on the desk or writing stories off what john morosi said on the radio because i can

turn that around quickly or trying to be the nfl guy in a city that doesn't have an NFL team, probably not the best way to brand yourself. So I'm looking around and pretty much everyone I started with is in the same position they were in other than these bump ups I'd mentioned earlier, where like new management came in. So they would promote a couple of guys. And other than moving into management and I was working at Rogers, working management at Rogers did not get my sports juices flowing. So I'm looking around, and I just didn't see opportunity. And basically, I would talk to my bosses a lot.

Those guys were running the magazine at the time, and that was their main priority. The magazine shut down months later, so I can see why that was their focus. And basically, I was trying to find holes in our system. We didn't really have an NBA writer outside of Grange. Sportsnet has a very elaborate baseball setup where they have Shy, Ben, Arden. So I tried to move into that NBA role. That was one of the angles I saw as a weakness. And they said, you are too valuable to cover one team. And to me, that was really bizarre. And I think that jumps back to what Wilner said. I was pigeonholed as being too good on the desk that I couldn't get away to... So I'm looking around. I tried doing

radio. I co-hosted a bunch of late 590 shows. I was a weekly guest on 590, which was the coolest thing for me. That was what I grew up on. dad was like the host of like when the first the station first launched like he was with a mary ormsby yeah so i grew up around that station like barry davis like watched me like play with like my wwf wrestling toys when i was like three and so i was trying to do that and i was trying to bounce around and i just didn't see where to go next and I still look around I'm still very friendly with all my guys from Sportsnet the athletic didn't exist yet and

basically I needed someone to die or quit to get a an opportunity or a promotion and even then you'd be going up against like a bunch of other people that's it so I love so I love the job I love the work and I was good at it but I was scared that that I was just, this was it. And oddly enough, at the same time,

two workers from TSN who I'd worked with, under 40, passed away out of the blue. It's very, one of the guys was who trained me at doing that archive stuff. And both of them, so that just got me thinking a lot. And one of the things I started looking into because there was like... One of the families was doing like a GoFundMe account

after the dad suddenly passed away and I don't know if he was properly covered. I started looking up life insurance. And at the time, I'd never heard of life insurance. My dad made me get it when I was like 25. I didn't know what the hell he was doing. But so I started looking up life insurance and I talked to our family insurance guy and I said, he managed my

money, did my RSPs and stuff. And he said, you should come work for me. Like I look at your income, your income hasn't changed in five years and you seem to be doing really well. I read your stuff, but at the time, like insurance and sports, are you out of your mind? So I kind of ignored him. A year later, the same thing comes up. Listen, you're working the same hours. Your income's not changing. Are you going to stay with this company? What's going on?

So I applied for that Leafs job at TSN. I ended up going to Kristen Shilton. I tried looking around. There was no athletic. I tried doing more 590 stuff. And it felt like I was just beating my head against the wall because the magazine was where I was technically listed on

in feature writing. I sat beside Christina Rutherford and Arden. Great voice, by the way. Those were... Christina's one of my favorite people in the industry. And I sat beside her and she would hate me saying this,

but she's one of the top five best writers in the whole operation. but I would see their passion for writing a feature story and I would see how excited Arden would get about one of his Blue Jay stories and I would see Christina would just get so excited about some of the stuff she was doing and Dan Robson was right there he was doing a lot of stuff and we had young guys like a guy like David Singh who's moved into Robson's position he would get really excited i thought he was a really good writer and the feature writing to me felt like homework like my bread and butter was like radio sports analysis nuts and bolts stuff like i wanted to do beat writing and i looked around and i'm

under this magazine wing which i can see was falling apart like scott moore announced that they weren't making money and that he was keeping it basically for just branding purposes. And so I'm looking around this dying property and I can't see an opportunity for myself. I was trying to do a lot. I was doing a lot of baseball stuff with Ben. Ben and me were very close.

And even before Ben, Mike Cormack was running the baseball operation. I was always trying to get in that side, but it was so overloaded with guys, even Wilner was contributing and Shai, and now Jonah Carey does a lot of stuff. I just didn't see, and the NBA thing I tried to do just kept getting shut down. So I went back to the guy. I said, okay, I'll take this insurance exam.

I passed it, and I was doing, I did it while I was doing my night work at Sportsnet. And after a while, I started talking to my boss, who's no longer at Sportsnet. He was running the magazine. And he basically told me, if you have a good opportunity, you should take it.

I was, I was hoping for any opportunity to stay. Right. I basically have pitched a bunch of goals. And if they said anything, they could have just bullshit me. I probably would have stayed. But when I was told,

basically you should leave because you have an opportunity, and I'm not sure there will be one here, that's when I decided to resign. And I caught a lot of guys off guard. People still ask me a lot of questions about why I left, and now guys have jumped to Yahoo. Right after I left, we had two guys jump to Yahoo. We had one other guy go to Indie 88. We had another guy leave for a chorus.

So I don't know if I started some trend, but it was crazy to see five, six guys who were at my level all jump at the same time. Well, the writing might be on the wall. You talked about career path. You're right. There's only so many jobs. It's not like there's a bunch of companies doing the same thing.

There's two companies really kind of doing this thing. And that's it. The newspapers, you would have thought I would have an in with the newspaper, but newspapers could be out of business. They're hemorrhaging, to be honest. Your dad's going to be turning off the lights.

Exactly. And I grew up reading the Star Sports section we got every day. And there were so many good writers in those days and i look now it's like three pages long and yeah and griffin just took a job with blue jays pr yeah and they're not sending guys on the road anymore and griffin just left that was a that's a huge story and inside sports and so i'm looking around i still i still talk to i still play like intramural sports with a lot of the guys I work with,

including some of my bosses who still kind of sniff around and see what's going on with me. But I look around and like most people are still doing the same things they were doing three years ago. And to me, that was my fear. And it kind of, it doesn't like, doesn't warm me, but like it kind of shows I was onto something because unless I got some job at the

athletic, which based on Myrtle and my dad's relationship, I don't know if I would have been a hire for him, even though we don't have any issues or so, unless I got some job there or maybe like, that might be an example where Steve Simmons being your dad is a hinder. Yes, exactly.

I don't know. I don't have a problem with James, and we've communicated. In those years, I was trying to learn more about the analytics side because when I was writing hockey, I wanted to know everything I could so I wasn't exposed, but I just didn't see where to go. And now I'm doing a thing where I essentially, I'm my own boss. I run my own business. I have unlimited income potential.

It was hard to say no to that. And I'm doing more like relationship building, a lot of work where like I can go home and like, I feel like rewriting a lot of my job at the end was rewriting stuff. People said on five 90 or on TV and turning it into a story. And that's great content for sports net. My numbers were really good. But I felt like that job could be done by a robot, if I was being honest. And I felt like I was being wasted, in a sense.

And the few opinion pieces I did get to write were really good, but it was just so few and far between. I just didn't see where to go. And that was it. Yeah, you're an interesting case study, if you will, because your dad has been writing for the Sun forever and you were in the industry writing at Sportsnet and then you just, you left the industry.

Like, you don't see it a lot. Sean McCormick did it. Like, there's a few examples I can think of, you know, what happened to, you know, a lot of times, and a lot of times it's people who kind of have to leave the industry, you know, like, you know, Storm and Norman Rumack would love to still be in sports media, I'm sure, right? Or Howard Berger. and a lot of times it's people who kind of have to leave the industry. Storm and Norman Rumak would love to still be in the sports media, I'm sure. Or Howard Berger, there's an example for you.

I saw Howard recently at a funeral. Yeah, he works. He was working. I saw a Fez Chucks article on him and one of my old friend's mom passed away and I'm sitting at the funeral and I see Howard Berger directing traffic. It was like eye-opening. Yeah, he completely left the industry. And was like eye-opening. Yeah, he

completely left the industry. And last time I talked to Stormy Norman, I don't have an update recently, but he was on the show and he was looking at a career in logistics because there was a lot of job opportunities there. And I look at this, but I've never tried to have a job in sports media, but I do know that it's a shrinking

industry. There's less jobs. They're still pumping out these sports media schools and stuff are still pumping out. I always think it's a shrinking uh industry there's there's less jobs there's they're still pumping out these these sports media schools and stuff are still pumping out i always think it's like there's still i speak to these humber college students and they're all trying to get jobs in radio and i think uh like where are these people forget sports for a minute where are these people going to work what radio station when they're all doing the opposite which is like uh one person doing 12 shows across the country or voice tracking or re-rolls or syndicated programming.

Like there's fewer radio jobs than ever, but they're still pumping out these, they're still taking these tuition checks from these students. And I know Steve Buffery got a lot of grief on Twitter a couple of weeks ago because he said the same thing. He said all these guys are going to end up, it was a little extreme. He said they're going to end up working at Burger King or something, but he said the same thing. And he got attacked by like all sorts of people, including Scott Moore. And I was like laughing,

but Scott Moore is the one making like a hundred thousand dollars saying, oh, don't worry, there's opportunities for everyone. That's his hourly rate. Yeah, that just made me laugh. But so yeah, that's what scared me. And like, there's obviously examples of guys proving that wrong. There's like Jonas Siegel's a pretty young guy doing really well. Like J.D there's obviously examples of guys proving that wrong.

Jonah Siegel's a pretty young guy doing really well. J.D. Bunkus is now on the fan. I think he's got a lot of upset. Yeah, but Bunkus is one of the guys. He got the job. You talk about someone who has a die or leave or whatever. And yeah, so he is like, I would say these are the outliers. And people love to point to the outliers and say, oh, look, that person. See, that was it.

My dad did not want me to leave. This industry has been great for him. He's grown up. It's helped raise the family. We grew up very okay. And he would always point to Elliot Friedman and Barry Davis and Sansoni, those guys who were producing his radio show.

And now they're in the top jobs. But I asked, what about the other 97%? And what scared me is what's happening with, you mentioned, Berger or Barry Davis or Storm and Norm. One day you wake up, you've been doing this for so long. And they say, OK, you make too much money. You're gone. Or you're too old.

You're gone. And then where do you go? Right. Then you hope there's something at the athletic for you, whatever. Like, yeah, where do you go? I didn't have a mortgage at the time. I don't have one now.

But if you're mid-40s, you have a mortgage, you have a family, and you say, okay, you're gone, or we're getting rid of your job, and you're in this industry where there's very little opportunity, to me, that's what scared me, and that's what I would be worried about

if I was one of those students. And yeah, there are chances, and you can try to beat the numbers. But to me, I want to go in a situation where I'm I'm with the opposite way. My job is now recession proof. I'm my own boss. No one tells me what to do. And I create my hours and I can make as much or as little money as I want. Well, good for you. I mean, yeah, you're happy. I'm happy. You're happy. And I tell people I work in insurance and it sounds grim. I don't do like car or auto insurance. I do life insurance and disability and critical illness care and group benefits for businesses. Did you want to drop your company name or like you can promote your services? financial horizons and I work for a team inside of them called 33 seven. But again,

I'm mostly, I do my own business. I have my own book of business and I make my own hours on my own boss. And again, yeah, you can email me, call me anytime if you need this kind of help, but connect on LinkedIn.

Yeah. LinkedIn or like most people think that they're covered through their work benefits. Then they realize like if something happened to them, they would have $50,000 of life insurance. That's not a lot of money to pay off a mortgage or raise a family. So like you can get like a million dollar life insurance policy as like a 40 year old for like 30 bucks a month. And everyone just,

people don't understand it. I, one of the things that always bothered me is like I spent so much time in school learning about like these math classes that like, or like Shakespeare and like you don't learn like how to do your taxes or practical. I know I have like shakespeare and like you don't learn like how to do your taxes or practical i know i have the same practical so you don't learn like insurance how to do a mortgage yeah how to like manage your books how to change the oil and you do i don't even know do modern cars can you change the oil stuff like that instead you learn like shakespeare

and you analyze some like charles dickens bookens books to the point. So yeah, that's going off topic. Take a couple of hours from your Lord of the Rings discussion. I meant Lord of the Flies. I don't know why I said Lord of the Rings. Is there a class on Lord of the Rings? But Lord of the Flies. Lord of the Flies, exactly. So take a minute.

Take a bit of time from that. And maybe spend some time on how to do your taxes or something like that. And that's a lot of stuff I've had to learn. Now I'm technically an independent business owner. Right. So I have to learn. Like how do you do a write-off? How do you, like what can you write off?

I'm learning. By the way, buddy, I'm learning the same stuff right now because I've been the sole proprietor of my own business in September and it's only five months. And I've got so much I've learned but so much yet to learn. Like it's a whole different ballgame. And that's it. Like things like just having a separate credit card for a business, stuff like that. That goes a long way. And that's stuff you just don't learn about. And most

people are in jobs where you get your paycheck every two weeks. Doing your taxes is easy and all kinds of stuff. Yeah. You get the 1T4. You know how easy it is to do your taxes? 1T4, maybe you have some RRSP contributions and maybe you made some like, I donated some money to the terry fox foundation or whatever and yeah any any monkey can do it right exactly so now it's like i'm working with families and i work with business owners like yourself and a lot of people like independent contractors like chiropractors and dentists and right rmt stuff like that because if they break their hand or something they don't have income anymore so that's kind of what I work with them on

and making sure there's insurance that will pay you income if you're unable to. If you work a nine to five job with benefits, if you break your hand and can't work, you get like 60% of your salary paid to you and it's designed so you have to go back to work. So I know this isn't the most fun sports talk, but that's what I do now and I actually enjoy it.

Well, that's real talk, right? It's not always sexy. No, no. But you're happy, you're in control of your own destiny to some extent and there's a path to making the money

you think you're worthy of and you didn't see that in sports media. So you made the tough call, but I mean, I see it. I see it. Again, it's a very practical, pragmatic decision. And when I told my friends and I told my colleagues,

they were stunned. And just growing up around me... Well, you can always start a podcast, right? Exactly. So I do a little podcasting on the side, but I don't think anyone I know would listen to it. It's like Seattle Seahawks stuff. I've teamed up with a guy in Seattle

who runs a very profitable blog, and all the money from his blog goes to this foundation that the GM of the Seahawks started, John Schneider. He has an autistic kid. And they started a charity called Ben's Fund, which helps autistic kids and autistic parents raise money. So all our profits from the show go to Ben's Fund. Oh, good for you.

Because our partner also has an autistic kid, and he's very passionate about that. So he'd been trying to get me to do some work for a site for years when I was writing in Toronto, but I was contractually obligated, not allowed to. Right, like some kind of non-computer. Essentially, yeah. I was not allowed to write for him.

So we started this football pod. It's purely Seahawks. I don't know if anyone would listen to it, but we get some pretty, like he's really connected in Seattle. He works for Adobe and my sports background, I've been able to get on some like we have nfl network guys on our guests like espn guys oh good so i do that on the side i don't know if that appeals to your audience but that's still that that's you itching the passion yeah i still love my football and i still love my

sports and everyone who knows me knows me as the sports guy but cool working in it just didn't move the needle for me like this job does. Before I forget, because I'm going to bring up Scott Moore again, but before I get to that, James Bell. Do you know Jamie Bell? Jamie Bell. I called him Jamie. My son's name is Jamie. Jamie Bell. He says, ask him why working with the Olympic Consortium for London 2012 was clearly the best move of his career. But then he puts in parentheses,

miss you, Jeff. So, okay. So in 2012, we had an email saying like, the Olympics consortium team is putting together a team from Sportsman and TSN. We need all these writers. Everyone apply.

And I'm looking at this, like I was just like a year into writing so i'm like there's no way in hell i'm qualified for this i'm just gonna delete this email nothing comes of it um like four months later someone has to drop out i get an email from my boss at the time ryan saying i think you'd be great for this we need an opening do you want to do it here's the amount of money you'd make i'm like, this is a pretty sweet bonus. So everyone's been like training for months. I show up with like the only one there didn't apply.

I get, because everyone had already been assigned stuff, I get given this, everyone's doing like an individual index page for the sports. I get like the last one. So I got fencing. All these sports nobody wants. What's the traffic like on a fencing page? Okay, so just wait. So we had to work crazy hours during the year. You had to be on London Olympic time. So we were there like 5 in the morning until 5 p.m.

Every day for 30 days. It feels like you're in a war. You're there. You have no weekends. You barely sleep. You were getting three meals a day basically from there. And they were terrible meals. So you're with this group every day. You really like get to like these guys. And it was some of

the guys I knew from TSN and Sportsnet and it was, it was maybe the most fun I've ever had in the industry. I'll be enough. And so I get this fencing page and I don't know anything about fencing. I barely did any research on it. Everyone else is like digging into it. I'm just, I'm going to go with the flow. I'll figure it out. You went to the wiki page. Yeah, essentially. Like I would basically write a story a day on fencing, what happened, a feature story, whatever. So Bell in the morning used to do this thing

where he would read out the most read stories of the day. And people are doing like some mainstream sports where they're so passionate about the swimming and the Usain Bolt. Usain Bolt, yeah, I can imagine. Michael Phelps, yeah. So he's doing this and Bell reads out the top stories of the day. And my

story is number one, like five days in a row. And everyone else is getting a little irked because they're doing the big sports. They're so into it. Yeah, it doesn't make sense. And I'm like bullshitting these stories on fencing. And every day I'm number one. And it's driving everyone nuts. And everyone's...

People around me who know me are laughing because they see how hard some of the other guys are working. And I'm just doing and it's driving everyone nuts. And everyone's, people around me who know me are laughing because they see how hard like some of the other guys are working and I'm just doing these fencing stories, just like basically recaps. And Bell used to joke with me that there was some like underground fencing community that like became obsessed with our site. And we won some award for our fencing coverage.

I've never watched fencing since. And it just, this made me laugh. King, you know what it is? It's because the stuff about like Phelps or about Usain Bolt, it's getting covered everywhere. That's exactly it. Fencing's,

if you want fencing, there's one place you can, there's nowhere to go. Yeah, and it was like, it was, honestly, it was the most fun I've ever had. Just like,

we're sitting there all day like getting free food. They were bringing out like unlimited Diet Coke and snacks. Fencing. There's not even like that one Canadian hopeful or whatever you can call it.

No, and we're all starting to go a little crazy because you're sitting there 12 hours a day, 30 days in a row, and the stuff that's making us laugh is ridiculous stuff. Oh, that's funny. It was probably the most fun I've ever had. Okay.

Now, Corey Johnson, do you know this name? Corey Johnson? Corey Johnson, yeah. Because he writes, great guy, that real Jeff Simmons. You're the real Jeff Simmons, not the fake one. So Corey Johnson, that's all. He just wanted to say you're a great guy that real Jeff Simmons. You're the real Jeff Simmons, not the fake one. So Corey Johnson, that's all. He just wanted to say you're a great guy. So I trust

his opinion. It's nice of him to say. Corey worked at Sportsnet when I did. Corey was doing TV stuff. I was doing web stuff. And Corey would sit right near us, so we would hang out with him a little bit. He left sports as well to do something in the medical industry. And I think he's been really happy since he left.

We communicate back and forth every now and again just to check in on each other, see how things are going. Make sure there's no regrets. Yeah. I always deep down wonder what would have happened if I stayed. I always keep tabs on things that are going on.

Even when this MacArthur stuff broke in Griffin, I get hundreds of texts from people in sports wanting to know my opinion. I'm selling insurance for a living. It's just funny hearing, you know I have that natural journalist in me when people are calling me to gossip when all this stuff breaks

and I'm the one who doesn't know anything. It's funny to me. That's great. Now, I'm going to play a clip of Scott Moore. He's been on here twice, but the first time time he came over we talked about a bunch of stuff and i was actually so the preface is i was this is the context in which i brought up your dad i your dad wrote a piece i found very interesting for the toronto sun he wrote a piece about how there was no voice of the blue jays it was very fragmented and we didn't know it was wagner or wilner or shulman or what

was going on but we always had a voice in the Blue Jays and we didn't seem to have one anymore and I was going to ask about that but I just when I mentioned your dad's name well I'm going to play the clip and then I want to get your reaction to it so this is Scott Moore on your dad Steve Simmons so Steve Simmons wrote Steve Simmons and we're not this is not about the note by the way Steve Simmons. Steve Simmons. This is not about the note, by the way. Steve Simmons is... I knew you'd ask me about Steve Simmons. I would say on many issues, Steve Simmons has no credibility. And I might even take the on many issues out.

But whenever he writes about us, and if you're going to ask me about something he's written about us, I'm just not going to answer it. And here's why. Because Steve Simmons works for the other guys. His editors should not allow him to write about the competition. You can talk about either network because you don't work there.

Steve Simmons has said many critical things about Sportsnet while taking a paycheck from TSN. So I have no time for any criticism or comments that Steve Simmons has to make about us. It's a strong opinion by Moore and Scott. I don't think Scott's out of line saying that maybe his editor shouldn't let him write Sportsnet. But to me, he just sounds like a politician. And that's exactly what I'd picture a politician saying. Because the whole other guy stuff,

that always bothered me. That was their view. And I always thought, maybe because I worked at both that always bothered me that was their view and like i always thought maybe because i worked at both places i always laughed at their view of like the other guys and how at sportsnet you weren't even allowed to mention that tsn reported a story like if like bob mckenzie broke something we had to wait till we confirmed it and you're this is like the home of hockey under scott moore but you won't acknowledge that bob mckenzie exists right so i see what he's saying that maybe he shouldn't be writing about sports net, but to say like my dad's,

I'm like one sided bias guy. Like no one was more positive towards sports net when I was working there than he was. And he's close with so many sports net guys, but like maybe if I'm the editor, I say, okay, let's maybe leave that out of the article.

But to say like he has no credibility because he works very sparingly at TSN, to me, that just sounds like a politician and not someone who wants to address a real issue. And now that the reporters is gone, unfortunately, what is your dad's deal with TSN? Do you know, like, does he still, because that show has been canceled? Yeah. And that was a big thing for him, that show. And they did that every Sunday for like over 10 years. He's still pretty connected with them. He'll do a lot of radio hits and he'll do his on-air stuff, especially for big events like the trade deadline or the Olympics. Bruce Arthur did a lot of Olympic stuff with them. They were doing daily hits on SportsCenter. But listen, he's in his 60s,

and I don't know how much TSN is using guys like that on their... He's perfect for their radio hits. He's good for their TV hits. But outside of that, they don't really have a show for him anymore. And if you look, their biggest property probably now is Overdrive, which is a bunch of like... Which I love, but some people don't. But it's a bunch of like bros on the air like yeah it's it is it is uh i a lot of people do love that show there's very mixed opinions i've learned on it and i just don't know if like he fits that voice like he was great on the macarthur show and he was probably good on

some of the morning shows with landsberg and but if you're looking for like a 62 year old sports guy i don't know if that's the guy you're promoting yeah i hear you but you know ferraro's no spring chicken you know yeah ray works because ray is the has the hockey player background he connects very well with o'neill and hayes right and raised ray can relate to a lot what they're saying my dad he he's great on overdrive too he works well him and Hayes do a lot of stuff in the summer and but I don't know if he fits that bro tone as much as like a guy like Ferraro does but I still think he's he's still pretty like a regular on the radio you know that bro tone you talk about it's one of those things where either you you dig it or you don't and I guess there's no middle ground no no I I saw I saw someone write about it on the weekend.

And I got a few texts from people saying, yeah, I love that show. Or like, I can't stand those guys. Yeah, it's one or the other. Yeah. But the problem with 1050, and I have no horse in this race except that being first in has really helped 590. Because I do talk to people. And I find myself guilty of this as well. helped 590 because I do talk to people and I find myself guilty of this as well but you because you tuned in 590 for I don't know 15 years 20 years whatever uh it's almost like that's where you're

going still like out of habit or loyalty or nostalgia or something so it is tough to be the second second yeah and that's what I mean about personal branding and big picture branding is huge 590 has been around since the sports radio industry bob mccowan turned 590 into like the number one sports station in the country and i think tsn radio is better than it gets credit for but again i think everyone's just so used to going to 590 i that's what they'll always do and i think i don't even know like i often have this uh you know it's this discussion like if you were to pluck, let's take Bob McCowan, right? Now they like what's going on with Overdrive, but this is very, very hypothetical.

But if you took Bob McCowan and you dropped him on 10.50, like does he now win that time slot? Or is he bigger than the call letters? Or is it like a Belichick-Brady thing where they need to be together? What's going on? I think Bob would help advertising revenue a lot on 1050, but I still think the personal brand of 590 just... I don't think Bob alone is enough to shift the entire TSN versus 590 radio station.

I think it's years of just winning the competition. I think Sportsnet on TV had the same issue for years. And TSN came in first. They had the market share. Until Sportsnet got the properties of all the hockey games and pretty much bought out, they powered them out with money. That was a problem they were having. So it's kind of funny that it goes the other way on the radio.

And it's just, that's how people naturally are. That's what Nike does. That's what Coke does. If I may say, as a consumer of sports media and sports information, uh, the TSN website is pretty awful. Like I find it really awful. Like, I mean, uh, again, if anything, I don't know, I don't have a rooting interest in the belt. I'm trying to think like, am I biased in any way? But actually I'm completely like, I love Jay and Dan.

I love, uh, you know, Steven Brunt's like Brunt. I can go either way. I really, really don't care. Except when I use tsn.ca, I find it's awful. I can't find anything. I find it a terrible website. That's all. It's hard to understand

what their objective is with the website. Because you look at what Sportsnet's done. I worked at Sportsnet and I know the TSN people. Jamie Bell might not like me talking about this probably. That's okay. You're in insurance now. Please continue. It just seems like TSN's website,

the whole objective is video and to promote their TV station. Their goal seems to be put as little money into it as possible and make as much money as possible. I think their hits still do pretty well based on their reputation.

I still think they get a lot of hits based on, okay, we've got to go to tsn.ca to see what the games are tonight or to see what the Jake Muzzin trade and stuff like that. I think that's purely... They don't put any money into it. They don't have any writers.

So it's all basically video. And Sportsnet's gone the complete other way. So I think their view is, let's put as little money into this, and let's keep making money off this thing, and it's purely a business decision. Interesting, interesting. Want to kick out a jam with me?

Sure. All right. My shadow's side so amplified Keeps coming back dissatisfied Elementary son, but it's so old My love affair with everywhere was innocent Why do you care? Someone start the car. Time to go.

You're the best I know. My sunny side is up and down I'm betting that when we collide The universe will shift into a low The travesties that we have seen Are treating me like Ben's dream Automatic laughter from a pro My, what a good day for a I like to get to know you a little better, baby.

God knows that I really try. My, what a good day for a takeout ride. I'd like to say we did it for the better of. Wet Sand by Red Hot Chili Peppers. Tell us why you love this jam. This album, I have a very eclectic music taste. I thought about giving you a Snoop Dogg song. I thought about a Dr. Dre. I have a very rare music taste. I thought about giving you a Snoop Dogg song. I thought about a Dr. Dre.

I have a very rare music taste. I like Nelly. I like Pearl Jam, Foo Fighters. This song just does... I don't know. Whenever I go on a walk, which in the summer happens a lot, this is always my go-to song. I go on a lot of vacations. I don't know. This song just relaxes me. I love this album, Stadium

Arcadium. The Chili Peppers were my favorite band growing up. Them and Our Lady Peace. Not so much them anymore, but this album just, there's so many songs on this album I really like and this one just relaxes me. I don't know. Okay. So you discover Red Hot Chili Peppers. You remember which album you discovered first? Californication. Californication is one of my favorite albums of any band and growing up I was like all I listened to in my car. That and sports radio oddly enough. And when this

album took a couple years to I didn't like it at first but I started listening to it a couple years back top to bottom and this song just always got me every time. So my first... Oh, let me hear.

I hate to do this. Let me bring down Wet Sand, if you don't mind. It's my show, right? I almost gave you nothing but a G-thang. It's my favorite song. Well, Ryan Walstad would have appreciated some hip-hop in the mix. Yeah, he knows that.

That's very bizarre. And he calls your dad Psy. I feel like I should be... Your dad's never said to call me Psy. I feel like it's an inner circle. Yeah, if you knew him in the 1980s or you just grew up in the sports industry, everyone calls him Psy. I've never really understood.

There's a store called Psy Sims. Oh, that would do it. In the States, I believe that was a clothing store. Well, they call Wohlstadt, they call him the Waz. In the States, I believe that was like a clothing store. Well, they call Wollstatt, they call them the Waz. I'm pretty sure

he made that up himself. I think he needed like a counteraction to sigh. But like, I love their, they have like the words of Wazdom

and they play on that well. So here's my, my first experience with the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Oh wow, the old one. my first experience with the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Oh, wow. The old one.

To be honest, my heart rate still goes up. I loved this album so much. The album's called Mother's Milk. I'll give it a moment here. Let's knock me down. So it's interesting how much age plays a role or whatever. You're a Californication. That's my mother's milk. And then even between these albums, there was, of course, Blood Sugar Sex Magic,

which was massive. That's one of the best ones. Massive. It must be their biggest commercial success, I would think. Yeah. That's where they became mainstream. Big time.

Big time. But I always went back to this album. And I still go back to this album. And I've seen them live twice. But this is still my album. But I just thought it was funny to compare and contrast. Your album, which is like 2006?

No, I think it's 1999, 2000. Okay, okay. Maybe 2001. There you go. Their new stuff's not great, but they had a run in the late 90s to late 2000s where I think they just hit on so much. Yeah, one of the biggest rock bands on the planet i'd say and they're still doing their thing i think it's very cool so thank you for kicking out mini jam you can come back and do your full pen uh this is like a teaser for a future jeff simmons it would be a very eclectic

list dude i like eclectic yeah i dig that yeah uh somebody tweeted at me like i'm some kind of radio authority or something that they were jarred by Boom. They were listening in the morning to Boom 97.3. And they went from, and I can't remember anymore, but some R&B dancey thing, maybe like a delight or something, to Stairway to Heaven. And they were complaining to me that they got ear whiplash. And I was thinking, my initial thought was, I personally, I like ear whiplash. I was thinking, my initial thought was I personally, I like ear whiplash. I like jumping around from genres. I don't need to stick to one genre for the whole thing.

I'm in my car a lot for work now. I'm going to meet clients or prospective clients. I've gotten very familiar with the Toronto radio stations. I recently have just gone all podcasts. Q107 now will play the Chili Peppers. And it's like it's weird hearing that on like classic rock or like I'll play like Pearl Jam as classic rock.

And like they're still making albums. And right. But you listen to some of these stations. Unfortunately, I've gone to like all the top 40 songs now off by heart, unfortunately. But yeah, you hear like they jump around like crazy. Yeah. Well, that's the whole idea of Boom, right? Yeah.

That they don't. They're just like a jukebox. Exactly. Yeah, you hear like they jump around like crazy. Yeah, well, that's the whole idea of Boom, right? Yeah. That they don't, they're just like a jukebox. Exactly. But like you'll listen to like 107.9 or 102.1 or even like that Indie 88 one. It's supposed to be Indian music and you'll hear like Pearl Jam and it's like, what the hell's going on? Now, I've had a bunch of Indie 88 people.

I like Indie 88. But that's not what Indie means. Indie is not about what they play. Indie is about them. They're not Rogers or Chorus or Bell. Well, that's good for them. They're the Indie, but the music's not always the Indie. Okay, I did not know that.

Yeah, see, there you go. They're not pretending they only play Indie. They will play Pearl Jam. Heck, Pearl Jam ain't Indie. My friend, that was fantastic. But I need to know, would you consider coming back to the sports media industry? Yeah. As I said, I have a very good relationship with a lot of people still working in the business. I still talk to a lot of my bosses.

We play intramural sports together, Monday nights a lot of the time. So if the right scenario came up, whether that's a radio job, whether that's more of a leadership role with sports editorial judgment, I think I would have been a great newspaper editor back in the early days where you don't have Rodgers on your back and you're not trying to please them too.

So if the right job came up, I would be open to listening. Sports will always be a passion of mine mine but if it's just the same stuff I was doing before that doesn't move the needle for me I'd have to be in a job where again I feel that security exists and there's a future that I not one day

end up where I'm out of work and I've got to start a new career at 45 say hi to Cy for me he's coming back to Toronto and I've got to start a new career at 45. Say hi to Cy for me. He's coming back to Toronto next week from his vacation. He might come in with Cash Palmer. Do you know Cash Palmer? I know of him.

Oh my God, I should have talked about him. He's the most entertaining person I've probably ever met in my life. Well, your dad and Cash are supposed to come in pretty soon, actually. That's awesome. Palmer was my dad's best friend in high school. He used to do those gambling shows on the fan.

And there was a huge article about him. Yeah, on the Toronto Star. On the Toronto Star, him and my dad's relationship. I just kind of overcame a lot and battled a lot of drug issues in his life. So Palmer was basically, you know that uncle that you don't have that's like... When I was a kid,

I didn't really understand why Palmer was like bouncing around the walls all the time. Always had like this crazy amount of like candy and like... It all made sense later,

but... Right. He's just someone like I grew up with. He used to come to Florida with us. He would come to our family's house

and like... He's just such a funny guy to be around. Well, tune in that ep for sure. Cash Palmer, Steve Simmons palmer yeah i want to hear that so that's coming soon that's coming soon and that brings us to the end of our 426th show you can follow me on twitter i'm at toronto mike jeff is at real jeff simmons make sure you get real in there i'm a very generic name I need it to stand out yeah there's like a

member of Frank Zappa's band or something named Justin no that was me that's cool man our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer, propertyinthesix.com is at Raptors Devotee

Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta at Palma pasta. Fast time. Watch and jewelry repair. I have trouble with the word jewelry today. Fast time. Watch and jewelry repair is at fast time. WJR and pay TM is at pay TM Canada.

See you all next week. I'm out.