Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Jorey Middlestadt: Toronto Mike'd #543

Episode Date: November 14, 2019

Mike chats with Jorey Middlestadt about his two tours of duty at The Fan 1430/590, being the first on-air hire at Headline Sports, why he's no longer on The Fan 590 and what he's up to now.

Welcome to episode 543 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, StickerU.com, Brian Master from KW Realty, Capadia LLP CPAs, and Ridley Funeral Home. I'm Mike from Torontoontomike.com, and joining me this week is Jory Middlestat. Jory, I got to ask you something right off the top. Okay. My original plan was to jokingly call you Joey Middlestat.

This was the plan all along, and then I chickened out, and I thought, what if he punches me in the nose? It has happened so often, especially back in the radio days when we took a lot of phone calls. I've been called... Joey?

I bet you got Jody. Jody, Jordy, Joey, you name it. Is there another Jory on the planet? Yes. Is this a unique name? It's relatively unique, but there are others. I have met a few. It's become, I wouldn't say a common name, but apparently it's actually semi-popular,

but more for girls. Okay. Because the name Jody, like Jody, for example, I know male Jodies. I know female Jodies. Jordy too. Because Jordan can be male, female. And I guess Jory goes in that same category.

But Joey, most Joey's are male in my experience. But you could have a Josephine go by Joey. I don't know. Everything goes now. My stepdaughter is named Joey. Okay. Is it Josephine or is it actually Joey? No, it's by Joey. I don't know. Everything goes now. My stepdaughter is named Joey. Okay. Is it Josephine or is it actually Joey? No, it's just Joey.

Okay. Very cool. See, it all comes together here. So don't call me Joey. And I remember listening to a lot of Fan 590 in, I guess, 1430, then 590. Yeah. I listened to a lot. I was the right age.

I'm a big Toronto sports fan. Of course I listened. and 590. Yeah. I listened to a lot. I was the right age. I'm a big Toronto sports fan. Of course I listened.

I remember you would do this like ongoing bit about your name, like don't call me Joey or whatever. So I'm like introducing me. Good memory because that's a long time ago. Yeah. Yeah. I think I had hair then. Oh, well. I couldn't.

That's the thing. We never knew. I met you now. I had no idea what you look like because you're a radio. You're a voice. And that's before social media and websites were really popular. Well, there were no websites in the early 90s. But there was basically no way, unless they had a big ad campaign,

like your name's Bob McCowan or something. We had no idea what you looked like. There was no ad campaign for me. No, there's not even a Wikipedia page for you. No? No, but I'm thinking this episode, if we do it right, will become the basis for somebody to put up a Jory Middlestead Wikipedia page. Well, my profile's pretty low at the moment.

Well, let's see if we can't change that right now. This will be the start of the comeback. They'll all point back at when did the comeback begin. Jory made his way to Toronto Mike's basement. Were you, Jory, were you at the don cherry uh rally the uh protest at sports net were you part of the uh crew there no i was not at the rally no no i know there was like 20 people i think or something like that listen i'm actually uh personally kind of sick of talking about don cherry because I had a long chat with Mark Hebbshire on his podcast, Hebsey on Sports. And then the last episode of Toronto Mic'd was with John Gallagher and Peter Gross.

And we did a lot of Cherry talk on there. Next week, and this name will come up later because I found out you worked with him, but Dave Hodge is in next week. Like I have to ask about Don Cherry. I'm contractually obligated. Yes, you should. But I'm going to do it one other time and that's right now.

And I know you're kind of a political tweeter. Lately, yes. I would like to know what Jory Middlestead thinks of this whole Don Cherry episode. Well, I think it's been a long time coming in the sense that don has gotten away with a lot in terms of what he said on the air and it's a little bit surprising that he lasted this long i think sportsnet was put in an untenable position. And I think in this day and age of political correctness, they really didn't have much choice.

And reading between the lines, and I don't have any particular inside information, if you will, I think they wanted to get rid of him prior to this year. Is that because of Cabbage? Is that because of his high price tag? Or has he just always been bad for the new branding, the new diversity is our strength kind of mantra? Yeah, I think a combination of both.

I had my own run-in with Don many years ago. Well, I gotta hear what kind of run-in. I mean, that's what we're looking for here. Well, back in the fan day, so I wanna say this is probably around 94 95 somewhere in there if you were a faithful listener of my uh late night shows on the fan which is where i found myself most of the time evenings late, late nights, some weekends. One day I was looking for, call it a controversial call-in topic, because we took a lot of phone calls in those days.

I threw out one night, and again, we're talking many, like over 20 years ago. Right, yeah. I threw out a topic for the callers. Does Don Cherry have anything worthwhile to say anymore? That long ago, over 20 years ago. Right. And it elicited a pretty good response. You know, we had some pretty fun conversations

with the listeners. fun conversations with the listeners and uh one night uh i'm it was before i was going on the air i was always there a little early to do some prep work and meet with my producer who i think was todd hayes at the time i know time yeah and um i walk into the kitchen. This is back on Holly Street. So this is before Rogers took over, et cetera. I walk into the kitchen at the fan. And who's sitting there but Brian Williams and Don as they were getting ready to tape Grapevine on radio because they would tape it once a week.

I want to say it was maybe a Thursday night. It would be later in the week because I think that's – it wasn't for – I don't think it was for a daily, but either way they were there to record. Right. And so I walk in, and I knew Brian already. I had never met Don. And so Brian stands up.

They're on the opposite side of a big table. And Brian stands up and shakes my hand and says, hey, how are you? Because, again, I had met... And it's worth mentioning that Brian is one of the classiest guys in Canadian sports media. 100%. So brian in his brian williams fashion uh stands up shakes my hand and says uh don don i want you to meet a really

good guy really good guy jory middlestad and so don stands up shakes my hand, sits back down, and then pauses for a second. And I can see something's going through his mind. And he then proceeds to say, are you the guy who said on the fan, on this station, that Don Cherry's got nothing worthwhile to say anymore? fan on this station that don cherry's got nothing worthwhile to say anymore so i'm taken aback and i immediately respond by saying well no that's not what i said but i posed the question to the listeners so as you can imagine he was not too thrilled to meet me right the look on brian's face was one of shock and dismay right i can imagine and at that right at that moment when he said that and he was you could tell he

was upset gourd stellick walks in okay gordy yeah fotm gourd stellick and so don says to gourd gordy you know this guy and gourd's like yeah i know jory he's Gordy, you know this guy? And Gord's like, yeah, I know Jory. He's a good guy. Yeah, you know, young guy here, blah, blah, blah. And so Don says something to the effect of, well, why would you say something like that on the air? And I said, well, we're always trying to get stuff rolling here. Right, get a reaction a reaction right not necessarily be

controversial because that wasn't my nature to just i wasn't a hot take guy per se and um again gourd was like what did i just walk into so uh i i think don then said something to the effect of, well, I'm glad I got to meet you and see you. And I said, well, it was a pleasure to meet you. I got to run because I'm on the air like in two minutes. And so I've told that story over the years. And so Don was never really a big fan of mine. And I mean, I think the first comments, I mean, if we exclude Joe Warmington and the Toronto Sun,

I think the first comment, the first time we heard Don talk about all this was on Barb DiGiulio's show on 1010, okay? And as soon as I- Somebody else I worked with. Right, yes. Well, this is where I'm going, is that as soon as I heard, oh, Don called up Barb,

I'm like, of course. Don loved listening to 1430 slash 590 the fan like that was he he yeah he probably heard that segment he was always listening yeah so when it comes to the gourd stellix or the barb de julio's for example like these are the sort of the comfort zone for don cherry like of course he's calling up barbie used to probably tune in barb he probably used to hear barb every single day on the cjcl the fan so yeah and the one thing i always said about don and i think even thinking back to that night when i threw out that phone topic i tried to make it clear in the sense that i wasn't i said look i'm not pretending i know more about hockey than don cherry i don't secondly i don't

want to take away from all the good things that he does off the air from a charitable standpoint yeah um from a patriotic standpoint um he was more controversial at that time just for his hockey takes it wasn't it wasn't as sort of french maybe uh or is that after anyway it's so hard so long ago yeah um he was just going at europeans at that point probably good guess um and yeah well i guess europeans were starting to make their way into the league uh on a more um frequent basis at that time. But I just felt as an analyst, I always want to know something I didn't know. I want to learn something from an analyst.

And I felt like it was just the same old shtick all the time, right? Just railing on Europeans or guys who are soft or the whole fighting thing. It was always sort of the same stuff where looking at good analysts in hockey or other sports right to me a good analyst is somebody who's teaching me something or telling me something i don't know or that i don't notice when i'm watching right i had a buddy tell me he was mad at Don because it was basically,

he blamed Don Cherry for the fact that his teenage son had to wear like a three-piece suit when he went to hockey games, okay? He's like, this is ridiculous, but they have to do it because Don has shamed the entire hockey culture into dressing up in a three-piece suit to go to your hockey games.

Like, think about that. Of course, we're not talking house league here. We're talking about... Okay, so you're playing, you know, double-A Adam. Right. You're 10. Right, and you're in a suit. And I still remember my cousin played.

He ended up playing... He played pro, but in, like, ECHL and some smaller leagues. And he played in the OHL. And, yeah, he had to be dressed in a suit to arrive at his hockey games. And it's all Don's fault. You can blame him. Interesting. But, again, I've

shared my views on TorontoMic.com but it's funny how you get conflicted with this like comfy nostalgia that you used to like watching him even though you knew it was always kind of he was always kind of I don't want to call him a dinosaur but you always knew that he was

kind of outdated and had some rather like socially conservative views that didn't necessarily align with yours. You still kind of were entertained by him. You thought he was harmless. I know I'm guilty of being a big watcher of Coach's Corner. And my turning point wasn't until the Rob Ford speech, which was 2010. Okay. So that's when I jump off the cherry train that's only nine years ago so uh i was late to that but i will say um the controversy surrounding the whole don cherry thing is interesting to me and that it doesn't seem to be too much about uh hockey or poppies

it seems like people are confused by what freedom of speech is and there's a lot of people who think this is a freedom of speech issue which of of course it is absolutely not. Nope. He's free to say what he wants, but when he's employed by a large corporation on a national network, they have the right to decide if what is said is appropriate or not. One more interesting thing you might have some insight into is, I find it interesting that CBC airs Hockey Night in Canada. So it's on their airwaves.

They have, from my understanding, is they don't have any control over the actual content. Rogers completely controls that. Yet, at the end of the day, should have Don have said something much, much worse. Like, where's the buck stop?

Like, when it comes to CRTC, et cetera, you're responsible for what you air on your airwaves so at the end of the day and i that expression is awful but i think it works here uh cbc is actually responsible for what they air on their airways so this whole that whole dynamic to me is fascinating that people are like why is this stuff on our national broadcaster you know and meanwhile cbc struck this deal where they literally sub broadcast something they don't control like it is very unique i can't think of anything else like that yeah it is a unique situation um and cbc does have to bear some responsibility to your point but again they're not really in control it's hard to blame them but you can't but if if he had said

far worse and they were actually going to be repercussions at some point uh rogers doesn't get that uh although i don't know it might have aired on sportsnet too but cbc still anyway so that's a whole interesting little story we'll let dave schultz worry about that one if we can coax him out of retirement all right one last question this is before we kind of get going with you my friend but Milan actually wrote me an email to say that your your twitter feed is very political he wants to know your thoughts on the comments yesterday on ctv's the social by Jessica Allen surrounding the hockey culture are you up to date on this one okay did not see it yeah you know what i missed it completely and my wife said did you hear about because my wife when she was on that leave would

watch the social and then i work from home so i would be walking through the room and i'd be like oh and this is a while ago now but this is a show that a national show by ctv uh for women discuss issues of the day and i guess jess allen was on the show and she said something about how in her experience hockey was mainly like rich white boys and bullies like she made some broad stroke generalizations but you're not i'm gonna get you off the hook here because you're not i didn't see it fully aware i think i think a lot of yeah in certain circles this seemed to be uh I think a lot of people thought like, if Cherry got fired,

you got to fire her too. Like there's a little bit of that, which is completely ludicrous in my humble opinion. Okay. I have a contest and this is coming to an end. So I want to promote it here. Did you ever listen to The Watchmen? The band The Watchmen.

Does that resonate at all with you? Yeah, at some point in time. You probably heard some of their radio hits or whatever, maybe on 102.1 or something like that. Okay, so I have two tickets to give away to The Watchmen. They're at the Danforth Music Hall. And this concert is November 23rd. But I think what's

really cool is the opening band is the Grapes of Wrath like which is another band I quite like so if you're into the Watchmen and why aren't you

and the Grapes of Wrath and you you can always buy the tickets but you can also win a couple tickets all you have to do is tweet at me

I'm at Toronto Mike tweet at me why you deserve to go see the Watchmen like why do you love the Watchmen and why do you deserve these tickets? And then during the Dave Hodge episode, which is next Wednesday,

I will announce the winners. So I thought about, like, do I give it, like, one plus one? Like, is this a ticket for somebody to bring someone? Or do I give just the individual the ticket? So I'm actually leaning towards giving two different people the tickets. You know what I mean? Like it's a general admission. You go,

whatever. So tweet at me before Wednesday, why you should go to the, the Watchmen concert. When I did some homework on you, Jory, it was revealed to me that you were quite the tennis player. Still play. But you were competitive were competitive like can you help me so tell me like this is are we going back to the like the

the 80s here tell me about this because i did not know this i was never one to sort of talk about personal stuff on the air um except in the right context so growing up uh yeah i played what we would call the circuit so uh trained daily and uh played all the junior tournaments uh ota the ontario tennis association ran through the summers every week there's a tournament and then there's um you know then there was at the time eastern Canadians and nationals so I was a ranked junior and most of my summers were spent driving around the province you were good playing tournaments that was pretty decent okay and uh And so how good were you? Like, was there ever a chance of you, I don't know, playing professionally? It's hard to say.

You were better than me, but were you, yeah. I was ranked pretty high, had some good results, got injured around the age of 15 had to take um kind of a year off ended up taking another year off because i was teenager and wanted to hang out with my friends and not be practicing and training and playing tournaments every weekend but doing more teenager type things if you will and um so could i have gone professional that's that's a question that i can't really answer i was always told that i was pretty talented um but the dedication that is required to get to that level is something i don't know if i was prepared to do at the time again you know you're young you don't think the same way as you do as you grow older um so i don't know if i was

good enough that i could have like made it on tour i would probably say no um but i still enjoy the sport i still play uh i don't play a lot of tournaments, but I still do play some age group stuff. Yeah. Okay, good for you. I was surprised. I'd see like dates like 1982 or something and I'd see like results. Like this is all archived for all eternity.

Yeah, the newspapers used to publish the junior tennis results back in those days. We're talking late 70s into the early to mid 80s. The Star, the Sun, The Globe, they would all publish the junior tennis results back in those days. So tennis at that particular time, right? This is the Borg, McEnroe, Connors era.

When tennis was at its peak, it's really come a long way back right now. And obviously with what's going on in Canadian tennis is extremely exciting right uh yeah you were born too soon if you were coming up in this age you might have got the nurturing or whatever you required to uh join the ranks the coaching now uh especially in canada is at a whole other level we're seeing that you know with the rise of felix and dennis and before that milo and of course bian, and there's more to come.

It's a great time for tennis in this country. I'm really excited about it and I watch a ton. Amazing, no doubt, no doubt. Okay, so what gets you into sports media? Like what makes you want to be a sports media professional? So going back to, I went to Western, then known as the University of Western Ontario, today known as Western University.

Oh, yeah. Okay, they cleaned that up a little. It's now called Western University. And so I was always a big sports fan. Obviously, as we talked about, I played tennis, played pretty much every sport competitively in some way and then i got to about 11 or 12 and my parents are like okay you got to make a choice in the winter i was playing hockey and tennis and it was like every day i was somewhere sometimes

had to be somewhere twice in a day right they go you got to make a choice so i chose to go with tennis because i was better at it and uh but i was always a sports junkie uh watched listened um obviously you know the availability of live sports on tv is i mean there's just no comparison as you're well aware right going back to those days so at western i um i started to get involved um with the campus radio station i wanted to get involved in sports stuff could i write for the the paper the school paper get involved at the radio station and in my second year, so we're talking my first year, I guess I started in September of 86. And it was more second year I started to try and get involved. You know, back in those days, you'd go to the Mustang football games.

It was a big thing on Saturdays as a student. So, you know, Western had good sports teams as far as cis i think it was ciau at the time yeah yeah it was called yeah and so i started to get involved uh it was called chrw the uh the radio station and in my second year um somebody started a sports talk show on CHRW. So we're talking 87, 88. And you know who that was? Can I guess? Elliot Friedman.

No. Elliot's younger than me. Oh, see? He looks older than you. That's all. Oh, take the shot at Elliot. He's an FOTM. It's okay.

Even better. Okay. Wait, wait, wait. I'll give you one more guess. i don't know who somebody who was at western at the time actually i'm gonna say i don't i have no idea you need to tell me dan show okay yes excellent the show was called from the cheap seats and dan hosted it was a call-in sports talk did he have the same voice he has now yes Yes, he did. Wow. And I had known Dan. We had mutual friends in high school.

We didn't go to the same high school, but I actually knew him, became friendly with him. Sorry, this was my, yeah, my second year. See, I remember, because I've had Dan on the show, I remember a story where Dan's father,

who's a dentist, knew, and I hope I have this right, unless it was Elliot, I could be conflating the story of Elliot Friedman's story was somehow friendly with howard burger's dad it is could i could that's entirely possible conflating no that's i don't i don't know okay i don't know the answer but that's entirely possible and dan of course was studying to be an actuary that is correct at western so i knew dan dan did the show. And he had the pipes right from the very beginning.

Man. And so he graduated because he was a year older than me. Right? So when I was in second year, he was in third. And in those days, undergraduate degrees were three years. Yes, if you got the BA, you were three. And if you had the honors, BA was four. Right.

Right. Because we had grade 13 back in those days. Of course. was there yeah so although we called it oac right we didn't call it grade 13 in my day i think it was okay well i think we just called it grade 13 okay nonetheless so dan was graduating and i said you know i went to the whoever the program director was i have no idea uh whoever was in charge and said i want to take over that show and so i did and that was sort of my first entree into sports media i did a little bit of stuff at the paper i did um practice so i think i did some play-by-play like for the football hockey oh for hockey for hockey uh in my third year and that was sort of how I got into it. And at the time, my plan was probably to

go to law school, wrote the LSAT, applied, did all that. Came time to make a decision. I then actually took a year off and tried a little business venture with a couple of friends. But I decided I wanted to get into sports media. And I ended up going to graduate school in the States for a master's in broadcast journalism. Okay you go and does this relation did you have so does the dan shulman hookup help you at all uh getting any opportunities at whatever it was 1430 at the time i guess um i want to say when i put my hat in the ring because now we're skipping ahead i was in okay i was so I was away for a couple years in Florida

I went to a school called Florida International University FIU okay which now has D1 football and basketball didn't at the time and did a two year program masters in broadcast journalism

when it was over I came I actually wanted to stay and work in the States because I interned at sports channel florida um anyway nothing i couldn't land anything at the time at the states i had a one-year work you could get a one-year work visa in the u.s at that time if you graduated with a degree there didn't find anything right away finally my parents are like okay we're not flipping the bill anymore get your ass home and get a job right and um i got a job at tsn which we can talk about well yeah well do you want to talk about now well i'll get okay so i'll get you keep going and then i had also put my hat in the ring at the fan which had just gone completely all sports right just right late 92 yeah right Right when the Jays run was happening,

that's when they flipped the switch to all sports. And I want to say that at the time Dan was there, and I want to say he might have put in a good word. I believe he did. So thank you, Dan. I'm sure I've thanked him over the years. So I don't think he had a hand in me getting a gig. I'm not convinced Elliot got the job at the fan

because Howard Berger's dad had Howard Berger put in a word to get Elliot his role, his start. Well, I was there when Elliot started, and I thinkiot was on with me uh maybe even his first time on the air on that station certainly in the first couple um he co-hosted with me um several times back in those days those two names though if you think about it right dan shulman and elliot friedman, like talk about success stories, right? Dan might be the, now that Vince Scully has retired,

Dan Schulman might be the greatest living baseball broadcaster. He's great at everything, but. He's great at everything. I wouldn't argue. He's arguably the most successful Canadian sports broadcaster we've ever had. Absolutely. And then if you think of Elliot, well, he's, I don't know where you'd rank him. I mean, Don's out now, did you hear?

But, you know, you got Ron McLean and you got Elliot Freeman's huge on Hockey Night in Canada. Like, think about that. Elliot's done extremely well. He was, 10 minutes after I met him, I was like, whoa. He is extremely bright.

His retention of information. But you didn't see this coming. There's no way you saw this coming. Like with Dan, you might have even seen something with Dan where this could happen, theoretically. Like if you heard the voice. I always, well, I always felt that Elliot would be successful because like I said, his knowledge was incredible.

His memory was like off the charts for statistics, just anything sports related, and I'm sure otherwise. And when I gave up my gig at TSN and The Fan, which I was working simultaneously back in those years for about a four-year period, I was working simultaneously back in those years for about a four-year period. When I went to Headline Sports, I was basically the first hire, along with the producer of our show, the front page, Mitch Berman, who I had worked with at TSN. I think I was hired first and then Mitch or right around simultaneously.

And in our initial meetings with the brass, this was before the network even hit the air, right? This is when they were starting up. Yes. I remember sitting around a boardroom table and the group at the time, Lee Haberman, who ran the show there, and John Levy, who owned the network at the time, said, so is there anybody else you know in local media that we should be looking to get over here first word out of my mouth Elliot

Friedman and then he ended up coming over I love hearing like origin stories like this I love it I'm gobbling it all up here so we're gonna pause because pause because then we're going to pick up the first iteration at the fan and we're going to talk about the TSN stuff and then get you to the headline sports because you're a day one-er, as you said, which is always fascinating. I have gifts for you, Jory. Wow.

Where do I begin? So many gifts. How about with this Great Lakes beer? This is fresh craft beer from Great Lakes Brewery. You can take home that six-pack with you. Done. They have a fantastic Christmas market. I went to it last year, and it's at their retail store,

which is, I always say, down the street from the Costco, but it is actually 30 Queen Elizabeth Boulevard. You can see it from the Gardner. It's pretty close to Royal York. But they, what is it? I'm trying to get these dates right, because my event, which is it? I'm trying to get these dates right because my event, which is at Palmas Kitchen this time, is TMLX5. That's on December 7th. That's a Saturday. So you

come to Palmas Kitchen near Mavis and Burnhamthorpe to see me and be a part of TMLX5 where you get free pasta, free beer. That is December 7th, the Saturday from noon to 3 3 p.m so please make a point to do that on the saturday and then on the sunday see i'm keeping track of all this no notes either december 8th which is the sat sunday that's when you go to great lakes brewery for their christmas market that's your that whole weekend i just planned your whole weekend here jory you too i would love to see you at tmlx5 at palmas kitchen december 7th. I'm putting you on the spot here. You have to come quickly up with an excuse. You're out of town. Somebody's birthday. I'm not going to pull

my phone out, but I'll check the calendar and see if I can make it. I have a frozen lasagna for you courtesy of Palma Pasta. I love lasagna. And if you ask Andy, Andy Kim got, Andy Kim, do you know Andy Kim? I know the name. So he did Rock Me Gently, which was a big hit.

And of course he co-wrote Sugar Sugar, which was number one 50 years ago. So he's, yeah, he's living here now. And he came on last November and got, he was one of the first people to get a Palma Pasta lasagna on Toronto, like, and he's, you know, he had that, oh, it's frozen lasagna. How good can it be?

And he's like, let me try this because he had this free lasagna. He came back and did a testimonial about just, and this is Andy Kim. He's not going to blow smoke up her ass, right? How amazing the lasagna tastes from Palma Pasta. So you'll have to let me know what you think. I will do that. So thank you, Palma Pasta, for hosting TMLX5. Thank you, Great Lakes Brewery. Stickers from StickerU. think i will do that so thank you palma pasta for hosting tmlx5 thank you great legs brewery

stickers from sticker you uh i'm going to tell everybody listening that jory was a big test subject she was a guinea pig if you will i decided not to do the whole watch your head speech just to see what happens and i in yours 510 511 a little over just'10". I wish I was 5'11", but I'm not. But that's the height that bangs their head on my ceiling because you're not used to always watching your head like a Leo Roudens, for example. So when you got down here, I was watching like great anticipation with Jory hit his head.

And you looked up and you saw this sticker that said, check your head. And you did not smash your head because you saw the sticker and that's a good thing because when you're bald as i am right it shows right i think there's some damien cox blood on the ceiling up here somewhere uh fellow baldy right yeah and speaking to dan shulman too who told me that he hated balding but he loves being bald. I totally agree. Like the process of balding. Totally agree. I will never go back.

Never go back. Would you think one day Friedman takes it down or he's still got enough I think he's still got pretty good head of hair. Okay. Well, he's got enough

going on there. So you see, we're bashing Friedman today. That's not cool. He's a nice guy. You're bashing. I'm bashing. For the record,

I'm just having fun with FOTM Elliot Friedman. So thank you, StickerU, for the check your head. And there's a Toronto Mike sticker for your jury. Thank you very much. You can take with us. So can you tell me a little bit about, like, how did you get into the fan?

Was it 1430 when you started? Because it starts at 1430 and then it moves over. Yeah, I think I was there for the transition to 590. I was 1430 when I started and not, I want to say within a year, I think they transition to 590. I was 1430 when I started and not, I want to say within a year, I think they went to 590. I feel like I was in year, I'm going to say 94.

That's my feeling. Yeah, so within about a year because I started on the fan right around January of 93. Okay. So did you just apply? Was it Nelson Millman working there at the time? No, Alan Davis was the program director at the time yeah i just i just applied you know i uh i i'm sure i threw out that i knew dan but uh i

didn't never hurt right but although at the time he he he wasn't yet was he hosting primetime when does he host prime this no i think he was still uh at that particular time it was not primetime i want to say he was either in the i want to say the afternoon slot at that particular time it was not prime time I want to say he was either in the I want to say the afternoon slot at that time because I know one o'clock you know the one to four time because when Bobcat leaves primetime sports a lot

of people think he was the one and only host and they forget that he went and did mornings for a while and Dan and Shaky right Dan and Shaky Hunt right so you're at the fan five is there uh any memories of people who whose paths you you know we talked about dan shulman and elliot friedman but uh do you want to because i like revisiting these uh this is my era too i mean i just had gordon stelic on you know barb did you leave i love talking gordon was there

barb was there was uh norm rumak there norm was there uh hammer Norm Womack there? Norm was there. Hammer, head alert. I usually preceded Norm. So I do like the 9 or 10 o'clock to midnight or 1, and then Storm and Norman took over from theirs. And I co-hosted shows with Norm. And Jim Richards is there? Jim is there. I mean, so many names uh when um the crazy friday night late

night show launched for a short period of time with jeff merrick the game george strong george strombolopoulos was my board op right right as they now say technical and of course we know how this happens right because macko was this was this when Bob Macko went seniors there? Well, then he came after Alan Davis. Right. And so it was Jeff Merrick, Strombo, and Macko Jr., who I know you've had on. Well, all three of those guys have been on.

And they're actually, all three were fantastic. So Jim Richards was there, as I said, Damian Gord, obviously Bob Shakey Hunt, Damian and Mary Ormsby. And I knew Mary very well at the time. I love his name. Because again, I was working full time during the day at TSN and then I was doing night shifts on the fan. I was doing both.

See, because you're behind the scenes at TSN. Correct. Idiots like me don't even know what's happening so i was an associate producer at inside sports with dave hodge wow i came on the show was probably in its first year um and yeah i was one of the uh i was i was one of the associate producers. What was it like working with Dave Hodge? Phenomenal. So, I mean, everybody knows in this country who Dave Hodge is and was. And the show was unique.

It was different at the time. It was a ton of fun. And the thing about Dave is that what most people probably don't know or see throughout the years on air is his sense of humor is incredible. He is so funny. But it's dry, right? It's dry. So people can miss it.

Right. Very dry, but so clever. And he was such a pro. He's very good at Twitter. I think that humor translates well absolutely um it was incredible to work with him get to know him and just watch like a real pro because i don't know if you remember the show but a big component of the show was doing what we call double ender interviews so we would hire a camera person in whatever city the guest was, right?

Okay, yeah. They would be in the studio. There would be a camera there, and they would hook up on an audio line. This is early days of cell phones. Usually we preferred to do it on a landline. Sure. So they could hear each other but couldn't see each other, right? So recording done on each end by each camera.

Okay. And then how did they get it to you? So they would then, we would record the interviews. They were rarely live. Right, of course. Because you could, we did some live,

but most of them were recorded. So what would happen, it would be the cameraman would record the interview with the guest on that end. Obviously, they'd record in the studio. The cameraman or person would then drive to a local TV station or somewhere where they could, by satellite, transmit the interview. And then it would be edited together in our editing suite,

and then aired. It's funny to think about how that's going down, and then today they just like do it on Skype or something, right? Right, yeah. I mean, we could do it here. It was old school, and getting the line established, I mean, there were so many technical issues a lot of the time, but, and timing, right, because the show was a nightly show at 6.30. You know, Dave Hodge has become, oh, he's definitely an FOTM, but I think he might be more than that. I think he might be a friend.

Like, we have long phone conversations and stuff. He's coming back for his third or fourth visit, but he comes back every December because he picks his 100 favorite songs of the calendar year. Huge music fan. Massive. Massive is right.

Think about that. Can you name, and I know you probably can't even name 10, can you name 100 new songs that came out in 2019? 100? No. I know. No. Right. So this is his favorite.

Anyway, we're going to play the top 10, and of course we'll talk about Don. I think he's an interesting guy to talk to because uh i mean i i'm fascinated by the pen flip okay so i'm if i can get like either ron mcclain in here or paul romanuk or i'm trying to think of who else was in uh ken daniels like anyone who kind of witnessed it live or whatever i gotta you know the only guy ken was at the fan when i was there right and yes yes uh now i didn't see i didn't see i would mostly work nights so i wouldn't see everybody but because of my tsn duties right where i was an associate producer as i said on inside sports and then which transitioned into

that's hockey right i was down at maple leaf gardens all the time so i got to know uh writers other broadcasters amazing what a time of course all the tsn people because i was there every day yeah in fact it's funny because now we're so used to the fan being owned by sports net now like it's like it's like oh yeah you know like that that sports net tsn conflict did not exist back then it's like you have to kind of get some context for the times we're talking here. So you're working at TSN. Dave Hodge, by the way, it's funny we talked about Brian Williams, but I think the reason,

I think that's where I was going. The way I got Dave Hodge on the program, I think is that I invited Dave and then Dave talked to his BFF, Brian Williams, about Brian's experience on this show. And Brian said, Dave, do it.

Like, do it. You'll love it or whatever. And the rest is history. Brian gave you the, do it. Like, do it. You'll love it or whatever. And the rest is history. Brian gave you the two thumbs up. That's exactly right. Brian's one of the nicest gentlemen you will ever meet, honestly. I'm with you.

And what you see on air is what you get in person with Brian. I've heard from broadcasters like yourself who will tell me that they got like handwritten notes or phone calls from Brian when they, early in their,

their career with encouragement. A hundred percent. He did that. Yeah. And like, I originally met him through, um, like a mutual family friend.

That's how I originally met him. And then, yeah, he's, so we had already met before I got on the air and, uh, yeah, he would always say,

and again, I would see him a lot. Uh, I would see him in those early days sometimes, as I told the Don Cherry story earlier, but, um, doing inside the lines,

which I'm sure you'll get to, um, they recorded, um, I guess the five shows for the week for grape line on Sunday mornings. Okay. So I'd see Brian and Don almost every, you know,

many Sundays. I've told this story previously, but real quick, that ties into Grape Line is that I wanted Don Cherry to be my guest for episode 500. So Mark Hebbshire, who's a friend and we record Hebsey on Sports Together, had Don's home address.

So I realized for Don, I needed to kick it old school. Okay. So I wrote a handwritten, I wrote an invitation, a handwritten note, basically who who i am what i'd like to do with him i'd be willing to go to him he didn't have to come into my basement or whatever and then this whole thing for 500 and i called my phone number and everything and i got a phone call unknown number this phone call i pick it up i don't of course i answered the damn phone uh mike it's don cherry like and it's like you hear the voice you're like oh this Cherry phoning me. Like, this is kind of neat.

And then he explains, he got my note, thanked me for it, and he explained why he could not do episode 500, because it would conflict with his radio work on the Fan 590 doing Grapeline or whatever. So I think a really soft letdown. Like, I've been let down before, but this was a nice letdown from Don. You know, if you're going to let me down,

that's a great way to do it. And then like a week later, the Fan 590 announced that Grapeline was cancelled. Anyway, that happened in August, I think, or something. Yeah, it's fairly recent, right? It aired up until this year. Yeah, that's right.

So no more Grapeline. Anything else you can share with us about this era where you're at 1430 slash 590 and also doing work at TSN? Anybody else you want to shout out or any other people passing in the wind? Well, there were so many great people at TSN back in those days. Jim Van Horn. Yes.

Vic Router. Still there. Yeah. Vic, Rod Smith. I. Yeah. Make the final. Rod Smith. I mean, there's- Still there. Gino.

Celebrating his 35th anniversary. I saw that. I saw you tweeted that. These guys were all great to me because at the time, I was behind the scenes and I made it fairly clear that I wanted to be on air.

And of course, at the time, they knew i was hosting shows on the fan simultaneously so um uh lisa bows was one of my favorite tsn theresa hergert right i worked with all these people um she ran for i don't know she did she ran uh in the recent federal election up sort of in the Woodbridge area or maybe just a little bit south of that. But yeah, I saw signs. Like I said, so many, and some of these people are still there.

A lot of them, really a lot of them. I mean, Michael was, Michael Landsberg. Still there. So, there's a lot of names from the past and I have a lot of good things to say about pretty much all of them. If you ever want to, you know, just for fun, if you ever have time to kill, I really, I always tell people, you know, because it kind of got, not buried, but lost in the mix because a lot of stuff's going on. And if you blink, you miss it. But when Vic Router kicked out the jams, it was something special because of the way he did it.

Like he kind of set it up with like, you know, you know, his parents were listening to 10, 10, like parents did back then. And, you know, he'd be the kitchen radio and he'd move it up a little bit to tune in, you know,

10 50 chum. And this is what I heard. And then he would play some song he loved as a kid on 10 50. So like just the way he framed, it's just like, I never forget the Vic router jam kicking. Great broadcaster and even better human being. Just a super guy.

No doubt. And I know he listens to the show. So hello to Vic. Hello, Vic. It's been a while. Hello, Vic. Okay, I want to get you to headline sports here. But I want to take just a really quick break.

Actually, let's hear from Brian Master. Now, Brian, speaking of these, you know, we talked about 1050, Chum, but Brian Master was a legendary DJ on 104.5 Chum FM back in the 70s. He was on CHFI, and then now he's at The Jewel. But he also is a real estate sales representative. So let's hear from Brian. Hi, it's Brian Master, sales representative with Keller Williams to Realty Solutions Brokerage.

I like working by referral. I love working with people, finding out what they need and where they want to go. So every month I put out an item of value called the Client Appreciation Program. And this is really great material. It's all about, well, for one thing, the way the real estate market is, but other things like, well, this month is how to turn your home into a smart home. We've also had things about how to throw a party on a budget, some travel tips. It's really great stuff, and it comes out once a month called the Client Appreciation Program. I'd love to get you on it. It's easy to do. Send me an email to letsgetyouhomeatkw.com, and I'll send that out once a month via snail mail and follow it up with an email that's something related to the item of value.

You can't miss. It's great information. It's something you can share with your friends. I'm Brian Master, sales representative with Keller Williams Realty Solutions Brokerage. Thrilled to be on Toronto Mic'd. And Brian will be at TMLX 5. If you want to meet Brian Master and chat him up, he'll be at TMLX 5 on December 7th at Palmer's Kitchen. Speaking of shout outs to listeners,

we said a shout out to Vic Router, but I want to say hi to Brad at Ridley Funeral Home. Hi, Brad. Brad and the good people at Ridley Funeral Homes. If you go to, I'm trying to find out,

sorry, the Assembly Hall. This is where it's happening. The Assembly Hall is near the Kipling and Lakeshore. It's right there near the New Humber College, the South Campus there. On Wednesday, December 4th at 7 p.m., they're hosting their annual free memorial service in honor of those loved ones who have passed away

and cannot be with us this holiday season. So if you've lost a loved one and you want a solemn remembrance of them, come to Holidays and Hope Candlelight Service. Again, December 4th at 7pm. If you want more information, go to ridleyfuneralhome.com or call 416-259-3705. And we're about to get to the headline sports, which I remember the birth of headline sports and very well because I was the right age and a big sports guy in this market. And I got a lot of questions. But first, I just want to let Rupesh answer a listener's question.

Rupesh Kapadia, the rock star accountant who sees beyond the numbers. He's been answering listener questions about accounting practices. And here is another Rupesh reply. Rupesh, this listener of Toronto Mic'd wishes to remain anonymous, but this person asks, what types of medical expenses can I deduct from my income tax? Again, this is a very common question we get all the time. The medical expenses that you can deduct are all the expenses that are quote-unquote prescribed by a health practitioner. So if you are buying drugs which are over-the-counter, those medical expenses cannot be deducted.

Saying that, if you want to generalize it, these are the generalized medical expense you can deduct. A. All prescription drugs. B. All optical-related prescriptions, and C, all dental-related expenses. However, please be aware that the total medical expenses for the year for you and your family combined together should be more than 3% of your total income to get a deduction. Now, remember, Rupesh is available for free consultations. Just give me a shout. I'll hook you up with Rupesh. And if you have a question for Rupesh, just send it over Twitter.

I'm Toronto Mike and Mike at TorontoMike.com is my email. All right. May 1997 is when Headline Sports launches. But how do you end up, Jory, being the first employee? Like, how does that happen? Well, not the first employee, but certainly the first on air. Right. They'd hired some of the execs. But in terms of talent. Still, like, did they scout you out and recruit you? What happened there? Yeah, so I don't know exactly how they found me, so to speak. I had started doing some reporting at TSN when Inside Sports changed over to That's Hockey, right? So Dave was the first host of that show get a like a two-minute game preview from reporters around the country uh for that night's game so i was fortunate enough to get the opportunity to do some of that so i guess they'd seen some of that obviously they'd heard me on the fan i forget

somebody knew somebody but the guy who was running the show was lee haberman at the time um and he got in touch with me uh again i don't know through whom or how it came about but he got in touch with me and met with me did a couple little on-air things and ultimately uh they hired me made you an offer you couldn't refuse. But that's a cool opportunity. We don't launch new national, we don't launch like new sports stations every day. And at the time, if you remember when it launched, there was only one program where you actually saw people, right? Otherwise it was all voice

over highlights. Okay, talk about that because the big thing there is the ticker, right? Like remind us what the rules were. The ticker wasn't actually functioning initially. It wasn't fully operational it was when they launched but there were still bugs and that was the huge thing was the ticker was getting the technology at the time was a little wonky okay okay and that was the big thing was they wanted to be the first to have the ongoing ticker not the pop--up. But wasn't it part of the licensing requirement?

Wasn't it a deal breaker of the CRTC that you had to have the ticker? As I recall, because that was how they were able to get the license to differentiate themselves, I think, from TSN at the time. Right. So they wanted to have like a you know a dinner hour show um a live show with hosts and cameras and where you could actually see people because the other 23 hours a day was just voiceover highlights right right so the show was called the front page, wow, I was, it's so long ago. I was young.

I didn't have a ton of on-camera experience. We had a really nice team of people. Like I said, Mitch Berman was the producer of the show, the associate producer. Here's another name, Brian Spears. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now producer of Hockey Night in Canada and a superb

guy as well. There were some other TSN folks that had come over behind the scenes. Matt Cause was an intern on our show. Because we just talked about Matthew Jr., they're buddies. Matt was an intern on our show. It was like the first gig in media.

Was he into wine back then or did the wine thing come later? I don't even know if he was old enough to drink at that time but uh he was a very fun creative bright guy we had a lot of fun with matt and um so we created at the time was a really unique formatted show where we had uh panels we had interviews with a lot of great guests either in studio or what as i said like the double ender type thing we did both uh we covered stories of the day um and the hardest part though about the job was first real certainly first on-air TV hosting gig, no teleprompter. Oh, wow. So like you just had to do it off the top of your head?

So we'd write scripts, but obviously reading when you're live on television is not ideal. So it was a real challenge. I mean, looking back, I wasn't quite ready for the challenge in that respect. The free-flowing stuff, the panel stuff, no problem. Doing interviews, no problem.

But the basic ins and outs and that kind of stuff was really tough at the beginning. Because most of my on-air work had been radio or just doing a voiceover and then a 30-second stand-up. I don't mean to get too technical, but I think people know what a stand-up is. I like the technical stuff, so don't worry about that. We do these game previews, so I go get interview clips and then put together a little minute and a half, two-minute piece, where at the end you do the stand-up, right,

where you're on camera and you're wrapping up and saying, and then it's the Leafs and Habs tonight at seven you know whatever the case may be according to my uh research the there was an initial plan apparently to have like the ticker would be unique to each market like this was an initial this never came to fruition like there was that i don't recall but there was some different tickers for each region of the country, but of course that never happened. So those plans were abandoned at some point. But the ticker was all encompassing at the time. It was all about the ticker and improving the ticker

and making sure it worked because it would freeze, right? The technology at that time was so different. Sure. I mean, and this was, like you said, some CRTC licensing rule set to differentiate it from TSN. So it wasn't just another TSN. You had to have this darn ticker going on here. So let's talk about, because of course it was Headline Sports that launched and at some point it became The Score. So what's your era there?

It wasn't long. It was less than a a year the show ran for about eight months um you know greg sansoni came over from the fan at the time right um steve simmons uh was a big part of our uh round tables that we do uh like panel discussions if you will he was there most nights and uh another name that will people will know um can i get that was who became a very prominent hockey analyst um and i i don't want to say i discovered him but i was the one who pushed to get him on air who's's this going to be? He was our hockey analyst during the playoffs because at the time, the team he played for never made the playoffs, so he was always available.

Oh, I... Who? Nick Kiprios. So in my travels with that hockey, I was down to the gardens all the time. So you're in the locker room like i was down there for morning skates and practices you know to get clips you know to air for our show or to do the game previews whatever whatever was happening on that particular day i

was down there a lot i got to know nick right because you get to know the guys who are the best interviews who are going to give you something that you can actually use as opposed to the same vanilla crap that a lot of the guys spew. And I bet they were few and far between. And one of the things you quickly found out in hockey, and I don't want to overgeneralize, but it was pretty true, was

the fighters, the guys they called the goons, I didn't like that term, but were the most thoughtful and get had the had the best things to say there was an exception to that i know me um and so i got to know nick and we kind of struck up a friendship he was like my go-to guy for good clips now obviously i couldn't be the same guy all the time on a team of 20 guys but got to know him and at one point said, hey, you know, are you interested

in getting into television? This was getting towards the latter part of his career. Right? He had won the cup with the Rangers. Right. Then had come to the Leafs.

So we're talking 95, 90, you know, 96, 97 when, right? He was with the Leafs at the time. Mike Murphy was the coach for most of it. For most of of that time he's there a couple

two three years right quinn right yes yeah yep and um so we brought nick in put him on the air and uh the rest is history so that was his first on-air gig and myself and producer mitch burman um mitch didn't know him as well because he wasn't down there, but brought him in, we met, and yeah, that was where he got his start. It'll be interesting to find out what happens next for Kiprios because now that he's no longer at Sportsnet, but you don't have any inside tips on that. I don't. I'm not in regular touch.

I mean, I've bumped into him over the years, but I haven't talked to him in ages. I'm contractually oblig think i wished him well on i think i wished him well on twitter you know when uh sportsnet let him go which was unfortunate yeah i mean there's a lot of cost cutting going down there we'll talk about that okay so some other alumni i guess from uh the scores i mean headline sports slash the score uh that's where tim and sid of course uh they came well after me so as i was saying, they decided after about eight months

that they didn't want to do the show. They wanted to kind of change things up. They wanted to have more on-air presence, right? They started to get what ultimately led to Tim and Sid. Steve Koulias. Steve was there when I was there. He was doing voiceovers at the time. When does Hebsey get there?

He's got a stint there. Yeah, he was again after, I was only there a short period of time, eight, nine months. Well, I guess maybe a little bit longer because I was there before the network even went on the air. We were there probably for two, three months, but my whole time there was less than a year.

Okay, let me ask you a question from the listenership before we talk about what happens after for you. Arthur asks, how much pressure is there to avoid bad news in sports reporting out of fear of hurting the teams you report on? Who might even be owned by the same parent as your station? I think he's asking about,

if you were covering the Leafs, would you be hesitant to report a bad story be owned by the same parent as your station like i think he's asking about like um are you would you if you were covering the leafs would you be uh hesitant to report a bad story because of maybe i don't know your media pass could be pulled or something like that or they might not give you as much access or be as friendly with you because of what you wrote or said so when i was working full-time in the business those conflicts didn't exist right tsn was a separate entity right wasn't they didn't own any teams at the time right right um ditto with the fan to answer that question uh if i was in that position now i would not be hesitant to report you got your you have a job.

I don't want to say you take an oath. It's not quite that. But there is some journalistic integrity that's to be assumed. Correct, 100%. And having gone through journalism school on the graduate level, you got to report what you got to report. The news is the news. And I mean, yes, I think in the back of your head,

you have to consider that. But at the same time, I think you have an obligation to report the story. Now, if you work... Now, okay, so the Leafs are owned by MLSE and there's an equal stake by Bell Media and Rogers, if I got my stuff right. Correct.

So if you work for one of those networks, because they basically... I mean, Bell and Rogers own the bulk of sports media in this country. But if you work for one of those outlets, and let's say you've uncovered a story that makes the league look bad. Let's say it's about CTE, okay, and concussion protocol.

And let's say there's a big story there. And I'm just, I don't know if you'll, this is more like, I guess, like, would you have any hesitation to report this because it makes,

I'm thinking more maybe on the sports net side where they have the $5.4 billion broadcast deal and they talk about the NHL like it's a partner. Go ahead. As the journalist, I would want to report the story, but ultimately what goes to air wouldn't have been my call or the reporter's call right that story could be killed by a higher correct correct as the journalist i would say

do the story and then let somebody else uh at a higher pay grade who has to make those decisions make it um but again yeah i would be all for reporting the story always murky these conversations always get really interested when we talk about you know covering the toronto blue jays for example if you work for sports now it's always and even i often even if you will call it like you see it there's always this uh the optics are never good because of inherent bias i believe that there is a quote-unquote separation of powers. I don't think there's an edict that comes down from Sportsnet. No, I don't think so either.

Or from up top at Rogers to say... Yeah, there's no memo. I don't think that exists. Don't you think it's self-censorship? I do think there is some of that, right? Because at the end of the day, people are worried about their own job status, right? I mean, people want to be employed

and you do have to take that into consideration. But as a journalist, as I said, you got to report the story or at least put it out there and let whoever has to make that decision make that decision at that particular time. All right, Jerry. Thank you, Arthur, for that question.

Now, so you leave Headline Sports. Yep. And it sounds like they push you out. This isn't like you decide I'm out of here. Kind of, sort of, could have stayed in a different role, didn't want to. Right. And so, yeah, I moved on.

So help me know what... So there's a gap. Yeah, what are you up to between that and the bottom line? Well, the first name of the show was Inside the Line. So there's... Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's a period there of about... About three years where I'm out of the media game.

Are you walking the earth like in kung fu or something so i made a decision um at that particular time to for mainly for personal reasons that i needed to make more money that at that particular time in sports media in this country nobody made a lot of money unless you were a Dave Hodge. Unless you're Bob McCowan. The number of people who made real money was really small. And the opportunity to get into one of those positions

was almost non-existent because these guys weren't old per se. So where are they going? No, I hear this. People think that everybody's making the big cash. I wanted to go to the US because that's where the money was, right? I don't think that was a surprise

because just because of the size of the market, you could get a good job in a medium-sized market and make really good money. Unfortunately, my personal situation at the time, I had a young, my daughter was a couple years old, My son was on the way and I wasn't in a position to do so. So- Kids ruin everything is what you're telling me. I wouldn't say that. I dabbled in a few things. I worked for a sports management company for a

little while, wanted to get maybe onto the agency side of things, not necessarily as an agent, but helping to work more on sponsorship and marketing for athletes. So I was doing that for a little bit. And then through a connection, I guess, if you will, I ended up going to work for roots in their corporate sales department, which was, uh, at the time a new part of their business. And so, um, out of the blue, I get a phone call again, about two and a half, three years after I'd really been out of the game completely. I wasn't, I did a little freelance writing. I should say that I did some freelance writing, uh, for score golf. Oh, I was thinking you'd be working for tennis canada or something no i did some i did some writing for score golf uh got to know bob weeks um and and because i knew so many

media people at the time i actually did some work for cbc for uh one of their shows um where they did some sports stories uh produced a couple stories for them so i was doing a little freelance stuff i was doing a little bit of everything and then one day i get a phone call um from steve rapp who at the time worked for a sports book called bowman's they They were the first sponsor of that show. He was their marketing director in Canada and he knew my brother-in-law at the time, knew me from the fan, uh, maybe from headline as well.

Um, they, that show had, they had done sort of one year or half a year of that show. It was Steve Randall, the handle and cash Palmer. show. It was Steve, Randall the Handle, and Cash Palmer. Right. And they wanted to make a change.

They wanted a real radio host, right? But also somebody who knew the betting game, right? Because the show was purely based around sports gambling. Right, because Bowman's is a pain for it probably. Correct. So we got together, Steve, Randall, and myself, and the radio part they already knew me from. They were fine with that.

They just wanted to know that I knew the gambling aspect. And as it turned out, I had been an active sports better. I knew the vernacular i knew how you know i could talk about point spreads and totals and right props and all these things so um we started uh i'm gonna forget the year but i guess probably around 2000 2000 2001 somewhere around there let me just read a little excerpt from the Globe and Mail. This is William Houston. William, yeah, there's no media

columns like there used to be, right? Rob Longley did it in The Sun. Chris Zeljkovic in The Star. David Schultz did start to do it, but he's retired now. But he did start dipping into it recently, which I quite liked, and then he's gone now. William Houston.

He was generally pretty nice to me, as recall okay yeah uh let's so william houston who i mean i don't know he's i don't know what he's up to today he had a blog for a while and he can i say uh he came off bitter can i say that i didn't see the blog. My experience, my experience. Jory Middlestat, formerly of Headline Sports, replaces Fired Cash Palmer as host of the Sunday morning show on the fan radio station in Toronto. Palmer lost his job after complaining on the air about the discontinuation of pop music intros to the fans' shows. In brackets, parentheses, a music rights issue that probably

cheaper to use to not use those songs is what i'm guessing but that's me now i'm sorry i'm interjecting myself into the william houston quote here back to william that violated an office memo instructing on-air staff to keep mom on the subject okay i've heard about a lot of like you know we talk about you know don Cherry's going off on a sword. Like this is the way he wants to go out and he's not going to apologize and now he's lost his gig or whatever. But I mean, that's quite the, like, yeah.

I mean, to protest the music that they play. So is that how you remember it? That's what was reported in the Globe and Mail. Yeah, no, that's all true. And like I said, so they wanted a radio guy because Steve and Randall were the gambling guys. Right. Right, the handicappers.

Randall the Handle, if we haven't called them that yet. Randall the Handle. You haven't had him on? No. You should. Hey, I'm open for business here. If someone's got a compelling story. I. You should. Hey, I'm open for business here. If someone's got a compelling story. I will say this.

Cash Palmer was coming on with Steve Simmons. Yep. You probably read the article. They're old friends, yep. Yeah, they're very tight, and there was an article. I think I read it. The funny thing is, that article I think I read in the Toronto Star, which is interesting because it's Steve Simmons.

He writes for the Toronto Sun. Yeah, right. He did not write the article about cash. That was about a year ago, I want to say, a year and a half ago. So then, of course, last I heard from Steve, this is probably not happening, but I won't go into why, but Cash Palmer, this is interesting to find out, to remind yourself, because I'm not a sports bettor,

and I would be in the car and go to 590 and hear your voice a bit, but you lose me a bit when you get into sports betting because I don't partake and not that interested personally. But to hear, so Cash Palmer, you replaced Cash Palmer. And what was the name again? Because I remember it as the bottom line. So it was inside the lines for the first 10 years or so, nine, 10 years.

And then there was a split and we actually had a couple different names uh over the subsequent five years i guess when it was just randall and i and did you okay so were you being paid by bowman's or were you paid by uh the fan through the course of that show it ebbed and flowed there were times when i was paid by the sponsor and then there was a couple times but i was paid by the station but for the times when I was paid by the sponsor and then there was a couple times but I was paid by the station. But for the most part, we were paid by the sponsor.

Yeah, because again, I'm not in your industry there. I just talk to people in your industry, but it sounds like there's not a lot of money in weekend programming. No, no, no. You pretty much had to bring money. I would.

Well, I mean, that's no joke because there's a lot of weekend programming on AM stations that's paid programming. And this one, again, that sponsor pays for it. So what, I mean, maybe before I ask you what happened there, because you would do hits on the, you would appear on things like the Greg Brady,

Jim Lang morning show and stuff. Yes. Yeah, I did a lot of hits. We had like Greg Brady, Jim Lang morning show and stuff. Yes. Yeah. I did a lot of, they, uh, I did a lot of hits. We had like a regular gig on the morning show.

One of us, it changed kind of from year to year, uh, be on at night a lot, um, with the nighttime hosts, uh, cause they like to talk about the gambling angle and thought that I knew a lot

about football. Um, and i guess appreciated my thoughts and analysis well you would be even if you just listened to your co-hosts you would absorb enough to regurgitate and be could be an expert but i was a big football fan right um and certainly uh especially when i was doing the show which was for 15 years I literally well I watched every single primetime game right uh Sunday afternoon right you can't watch seven one o'clock games at the same time but I pretty much pick three that I would focus on I would go back I'd watch all the highlights

of every game read all the box scores so yeah my football knowledge is not quite what it was although i still follow quite closely um but i can't say that i watch every minute of every primetime game now but i do watch thursday night you love it night monday night and you still bet i bet a little not a lot i'm uh again i don't partake i don't judge those who of course, but I do spend a lot of time now with Peter Gross. Do you know Peter Gross? I've met Peter many years ago, once or twice, because when Rogers bought, right, everybody was in the same hub.

Like Jarvis and Bloor? Yeah, exactly. Jarvis and Bloor. Right. Well, Peter Gross is no longer on 680. He actually sadly is no longer there. So I spend a lot of time with him because I produce his podcast, Gallagher and Grossor. Right. Well, Peter, yeah. Well, Peter Gross is no longer on 680. He actually sadly no longer there. But so I spent a lot of time with him because I produce his podcast,

Gallagher and Gross Save the World. So I, and he, he's very honest about his gambling and he assures me he's not a degenerate gambler because he is able to stop. So I think, is that, so yes. So yes, he does a lot of gambling, but he is capable of stopping, which is, so I don't know.

Jim McKinney explained to me this degree system, like in which number, and I can't remember the numbering system now, but where Peter sat, but not degenerate, because degenerates can't stop, I would think. I'm nowhere close.

I'm just- So you set a limit and you play within it. Exactly. Disciplined gambler, whether it be sports or otherwise. Right. I,

now like, A, I'll almost never bet a game unless I'm actually watching it. Right? Because I'm not- Because it's more fun. Yeah. Yeah. It adds I'm actually watching it. Right? Because I'm not. Because it's more fun. Yeah.

Yeah. It adds a little spice to it. Would you ever, do you have personal, like, do you have a favorite NFL team? Yes. What is it? Dallas Cowboys. Okay. So would you ever bet against the Cowboys?

No. Which most gamblers will tell you is idiotic. And it is. I think it would ruin the watching experience. Correct. I can't do it. I can And it is. I think it would ruin the watching experience. Correct. I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't imagine that.

Now, on our show, I would, at the time, if I thought the other team was the right play, I would say so. Sure. But I wouldn't bet against the Cowboys. Simply because you enjoy football, you love your Cowboys. Well, and I'm rooting for the Cowboys to win.

And you know what happens when you have money on the line is you're secretly hoping they miss that field goal. And that's no fun to root. I remember there's times where on my team, like the Leafs, for example, and I'd be like, oh, I really would like us to get in that lottery and get a high draft pick.

And next thing you know, you're rooting against your favorite team. And I hate it. Like I had to stop watching because I hate sitting there. And when the other team scores on you feeling happy like it just didn't feel right to me and i you know but that would be what would happen i suppose if you bet against your favorite team that is correct and i never did

it and still have not good for you and you mentioned the word discipline and again that that to me sounds like that's everything and in betting. So on Sportsnet, they replaced you guys with a whole different crew. Why did they do that? So we're going back now about, excuse me, about three years ago. So we had split a few years before. Steve had sort of taken the show to TSN. Randall and I stayed at the fan. We were asked to, and we stayed. And, um, we, the, the last couple of years of the show had been very, uh, there was a lot of scrambling to find sponsors. And it was at one point they wanted us to find the sponsor then they said no

we'll find the sponsor and so i guess it was july late july because we were we were not on in the summer and for the most part the show would run from two weeks prior to the NFL season starting. And then we go, most of the years we went right up until middle of May, the weekend before the long weekend would be our last show. And so after football season, we talk from a sports betting standpoint about everything else,

hockey, basketball. What is the number two sport for betting? Because it's NFL by a mile, right? NFL by a mile. College football's probably second in the states oh yeah yeah yeah and then i would say i think it's probably baseball okay i was thinking basketball but basketball now might be more prevalent um it's probably but it's amazing the best sport to bet if you ask the professionals, is baseball.

Okay. Why is that? So many games and you can find value, right? Because the lines are all based around the starting pitchers, although that's changing with openers and all these sorts of things.

But so many games... What do you think of the opener? I know, so I'm throwing literally a little curveball on you. You know, to me, it's all about winning the game so right right i mean you just gotta get 27 i'm not like some baseball traditionalist right like if that's the way the best way you think to win the game then go ahead and do it i know so but again with baseball the thing about the nfl is it's got the action. It's the dumbest sport to bet because there's such a limited schedule. There's so much information and the lines are so sharp.

Right? Like how many games come within a point or half a point? The lines are so sharp. There are, as you know, right? 30 baseball teams. Yep. 162 games. There's so many. There are, as you know, right? 30 baseball teams. Yep. 162 games. There's so many,

the lines can't, there's just too much for the lines to be as sharp. No, great point from a gambling perspective. Absolutely. And again, I'm not the be all and end all

gambling expert, but I know enough. But you play one on the radio. And having been around enough. No, again, I was the host. Right,

right. They were the handicappers. That Randall the Handle is a great handle though. Randall the Handle. Does it get any better than handicappers that randall the handle is a great handle though oh it's not i would have randall the handle and so you're friendly with randall yes sure i would have him on the show you can let him know trying to make so anyway to complete the story circling back for you thank you as i put my as i put my radio hat on thank you uh so it was around late july three years ago and um dave cadot program director reached out and

said um hey you know we were moving in another direction like we'd been waiting to hear because they said they didn't want us to find a sponsor at the time and i'm not giving away any super trade secrets it's no you should give out all the trade well it's just the truth and um they said somebody else has come with uh sponsorship money and so we're we're going there and so that was that now randall and i were out the funny thing about it is randall and i probably a little bit more randall than myself but at the same time at that particular moment we were sort of contemplating the end of the road for the show so to speak um and how much longer we wanted to continue that particular summer and that particular football season i was actually um i wanted to train for a tennis tournament I was going to be playing the following summer.

And so I have a day job, totally run my own business, which we don't really have to get into. Well, that's your call, my friend. But not really that important, but wasn't allowing me a lot of time to play during the week. So I was really, most of my tennis was being played on the weekends and I wanted to play Sunday. Well, if I'm doing that show, that's an impossibility. Right. Because it's show, home, watch football, right?

Because I would not, I was never one to mail it in. I would never be unprepared. And in my mind, being prepared was watching the games because that's what we were going to talk about and not only that there was a lot of prep work that went into it as well right we handicapped every single game i had to do notes on every games i had to be up to the minute more so on sunday mornings before the show and during the show with injuries, line moves, all these things. So it was a big time commitment.

And like I said, people might feel otherwise, but I never mailed it in. I was always prepared. I always did the work. And it was a big commitment trying to run, you know, a full-time business at the same time. And so I'm not going to sit here and say that we weren't ready to do the show that year,

but we had talked about, okay, how much longer are we going to do it? And Randall had a bunch of things going on that he still writes for The Sun, right? Does football writing during the season, all gambling related. So both had a lot going on. We're like, how much much more we have to do

it because it's it's time commitment was there even a sense of possibly a sense of relief maybe when this went down again we weren't maybe a little bit and it worked at the time it worked out great because that particular um fall and winter i wanted to be playing more tennis. So it worked out to be a bit of a blessing in that respect. Now, the whole idea that there's a similar show there now. Have you ever listened to this show? Every place, Joyce?

I have listened to maybe five minutes. Was it at all about controlling the talent? Because these people, and again, George Rusick is the host and he's a fan guy, right? So I don't think they had to pay him. Right. I have no idea.

Okay, well... David Bastel, who I know of, but I don't know him. And then Steve, our former partner, who I'm guessing brought the money and wanted to take us down. Bastel, I've never met him, but he does a lot of work with FOTM Mike Richards.

He co-hosts the Mike Richards podcast, and those guys have been working together a long, long time. So he's not a Sportsnet guy. Yeah, that must be a pay-as-you-go. No, but I think he was doing some stuff at the station when they took over the show three years ago. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Here, let's play a little tune here.

I'm just going to see what I got loaded up here. It's something live. It's live. It's live. And again, I just pulled something out of my personal collection from Genesis because I asked you for a favorite song and instead of a song, I got a band. And of course, I'm not cool enough and knowledgeable enough

in the world of Genesis to pull a nice album cut or whatever so I've got to go to the hits because I'm weak that way. This is later on Genesis Land of Confusion. This is Phil Collins at the helm. Yes. So what do you prefer Peter Gabriel?

That's a tricky one and real Genesis I i think most genesis fans that go way back and remember i'm not even old enough to have been a fan when they were producing most of their material and certainly with gabriel i mean it was like more prog rock right uh well yeah yeah maybe that's a good way to describe it so i think old old time genesis fans will all say they prefer gabriel but i don't want to say i have a preference because i love peter gabriel as a solo artist and i like phil as a solo solo artist as well what i would say is that some of the albums with phil at the helm are highly underrated

okay some of their best stuff is with phil some right right i would say their their best would have would have been with with gabriel as the singer. But there's a couple tremendous, off the top of my head, there's three or four that are fantastic with Phil at the helm. And then there were three. Trick of the Tail, Duke. I mean, some of, right?

And that's with Phil as the lead singer. And that's some great Genesis. And there are those, you know, there's the old Genesis snobs that will say, oh, it doesn't compare to the Gabriel stuff. I don't agree with that.

Some of it does. Okay. As they got a little later on, you know, they got a little more poppy and a little more into the mainstream and I'm not as big a fan

of those albums, but the first three, four, five, even with Phil, were fantastic. There's a period in the, I guess, mid-80s, four, five, even with Phil were fantastic. There's a period in the, I guess, mid 80s, I'd say mid to late 80s, where the Billboard Hot 100 would have a Genesis song on it. It would have a Phil Collins solo song on it. It would have a Peter Gabriel solo song.

And you'd probably have... And you could be a Mike and the Mechanics. Right, that's exactly where I'm going think of this think about this in this like maybe 86 or something was I can't remember exactly when but I I remember seeing like in the top charts

songs from all those artists we mentioned and who's the guy I'm missing from who else who else is in Genesis that we didn't just. Steve Hackett was there for a period of time. Wasn't he involved in some project that had a hit as well? And I can never remember that. Well, he was part of Yes, if I'm not mistaken, for a while.

Got so much to learn here. But there's something else he was a part of that had a hit in the mid-80s. And I know Basement Dweller will tell me in the comments. Somebody will come up with that. I'm blanking, but I think I know where you're going with that. So tell us, again, you don't have to disclose what you wish, but what have you been up to since we heard you on the Fan 590? Playing tennis and working every day.

Like I said, I run my own business. This business, is it importing and exporting like George Costanza? I wouldn't say that. I'm in what we call the closeout business. So there's basically a whole underworld economy of what you would call excess inventory that becomes available for any number of reasons, whether it be bankruptcy, packaging change, canceled orders. I'm talking consumer goods. I'm talking consumer goods. I deal in consumer goods.

So I buy and sell deals, if you will. Yeah, here you go. So I was thinking it was something a little more underground. I thought maybe this, you were working the mall there. When I say underground, people don't really understand that how much goods are out there on this market. But retailers, you know, there's discount retailers from, in Canada, you know, the best known would be Winners.

Right. Winners and HomeSense. Right. But then there's different tiers of, and some of them produce products cheaply, right? They're trying to show value to the consumer. So near here, there's a place called, I don't know, Brands for Less or something.

Yep. And in there, you's a place called, I don't know, Brands for Less or something. Yep. And in there, you'd find... I know that store. Yeah. And that would be like, you would buy in bulk because it's something

and then sell it. Yes, I see your role in all this. You buy it at a discount, sell it at a discount so the consumer's getting value. And there's lots of guys like Brands for Less. I know that store.

I think I've sold them at one point in time. Yeah. Would you ever return to sports sports media like something you know be back on the air in some capacity is this at all in the cards i i never say never haven't pursued anything in quite some time uh if i was to do so uh i would probably say radio i had way more fun on radio than television. I much preferred it. I was going to say,

but nowadays radio is live streamed a lot. So nowadays you're sort of, it's all murky now. Yeah, but I'm talking like television versus radio. Right. Not a camera on us talking like we're doing a radio show. Well, okay, so I just talked to John Gallagher in the last episode of Toronto Mike.

I know John as well. I haven't seen John in forever, but another one of my favorite Toronto... Did you know him as TSN spurt? Yeah, and even City. Because again, he was around the Leafs all the time, so I got to know him. Great guy.

Cannot say enough nice things about John. Always nice to me because I was a youngster at the time. Tremendous guy. Good to hear. Good to hear. Now, he at the same time, he had a job on the radio at Q107. And at that exact same time, he was on City TV doing sports. And

I think he was driving a Beamer or something. And I asked him, which gig got you the Beamer? Without a doubt, it was the radio gig. Well, he was a big time radio guy. Right. And Q at the time, right? Q back in those days,

90s, was... Scruff Connors and, well, yeah. Who was the guy, Brother Jake Edwards, you remember this? Sure.

I was a Q listener. Yeah. Yeah, I liked Brother Jake too. I think he just retired out of Vancouver like super recently. But it was interesting to think that, you know, you can make more money in radio than television because I think he just retired out of Vancouver like super recently. But it was interesting to think that,

you know, you can make more money in radio than television because I think that people out there think That's not usually the case and it wasn't the case back, you know,

in the late 90s, early 2000s. Right. He just somehow, the queue had more cash for him in the mornings than City TV was going to pay

for his sports work. So, very interesting. I actually have a gift for you in addition to the lasagna and stickers and beer for you. So that's actually for you. In fact, let me make sure. Yeah, your name's actually on there. I hope they called you Jory

and they didn't call you Joey. No, it says Joey. Perfect. Because I didn't write that. But it is courtesy of the Electric City Candle Company and special needs adults make candles. And then they sell these candles

at electriccitycandles.com and the proceeds from the sales of these candles goes towards their hockey league, their special needs adult hockey league, and right now they're looking to buy a used van for their travel. So, go to electriccitycandles.com for their candles.

And if you want to learn more about the Special Needs Hockey League, go to electriccityspecialneedshockey.com. Jory, that was amazing. I had a great time. Likewise. And, I mean, there was so much you could have covered too. Do you want me to bring, is there anything specific I should have covered?

No, no, no. I'm just saying like, you know, obviously coming in, I was like, well, I wonder what he's going to ask me. I mean,

I had a general idea about, you know, certainly about fan days, what happened with the show, you know, headline, all that. I mean,

you touched upon, actually we did touch upon a lot. Was there anything like, I can't believe he didn't ask about that like any white heat coming off of one subject you're ready for that i completely uh whiffed on is there one of those no i don't think so okay we just you know there could have gone more in depth into certain things but uh well would you come back uh i would come back another time because we can go deeper i would come back another time i had a great time thank you jory that was great and that brings us to the end of our what's that

543rd show you were lucky number 543 you can follow me on twitter i'm at toronto mike jory is at jory Middle. And again, bringing the heat there. That's what you didn't get to. That's what I was expecting. No, no, no. Don't stop. I won't stop. No, what I thought you were going to ask about.

The Trump stuff? The tweeting. The tweeting. I figured you were going to ask me more about that. Yes. That's the one thing that I thought would be topical. I'm not upset that you didn't, but I thought that you may go there. That tells you my appetite for this, that I'd much rather hear about...

Yeah, nobody cares about where I stand or what I think of what's going on in politics at the moment. But they can go to Jory Middle to learn more about that. And again, when you come back, we can dive deeper into that, of course. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U. Brian Master, you write him at letsgetyouhome at kw.com

to get on his great mailing list. Capadia LLP is at Capadia LLP. And Ridley Funeral Home is at RidleyFH. See you all next week. that there's a sucker born every day but I wonder who yeah I wonder who maybe the one who doesn't realize there's a thousand shades of gray