Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Ken Reid: Toronto Mike'd #1382

Episode Date: December 4, 2023

In this 1382nd episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with Ken Reid about Myles Goodwyn, his career at Sportsnet, his new book Hometown Hockey Heroes, hockey cards and more. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, Electronic Products Recycling Association, Raymond James Canada and Moneris. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail]

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Season 5 of Yes, We Are Open, an award-winning podcast for Moneris, hosted by FOTM Al Grego, and Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921 today making his Toronto Mike debut is Ken Reed welcome Ken to Toronto Mike not the skier no well okay on that note you know you don't have a Wikipedia page really Really? Are you aware? No. Which I think is crazy because you're on national TV all the time. Everybody knows Ken Reed. Can I tell you who does have a Wikipedia page? Please do.

Okay. Ken Reed, the British cartoonist. Okay. So he's actually long dead. Actually, yeah, I know who that guy is because I've seen his stuff sometimes. It comes across my, I don't know, timeline or mentions. Yeah, they want you to ask you how you're still here. Right.

Okay, and then not dead yet is a Northern Irish journalist named Ken Reid. Yes, I know of that guy, yeah. Do you often get mistaken for that, Ken Reid? No, but I often get mistaken for Ken Reid the skier. People have mistook me for him. But that's different spelling, right? It's different spelling, but it would surprise you how many people think I'm in my mid-70s. I was once a great alpine skier.

That is funny. Okay, so these are all Ken Reed spelled the same way as you, R-E-I-D. There's an American stand-up comic. Yes, Boston-based, I believe. Yeah, so there's him and there's still two more. There's Ken Reed, a legal scholar who is a professor of Scottish law at the University of Edinburgh. Wow.

That makes sense because the Reids are from Scotland. But I do not know of that Ken Reid. One more to go here. Sadly, this Ken Reid is also dead. But there's Ken Reid, the American art director. But all these Ken Reeds have wiki pages. I was surprised. I think you might be the biggest guest I've ever spoken to

without a Wikipedia page. Well, that's something to be proud of. How do you get a Wikipedia page? You can't do it yourself. I feel like if they sniff that you did this yourself, they kill it right away. It's got to be like a third party has got to put it up there. I have a buddy who's an actor who did his own internet movie database page. He filled it full of lies it's hilarious yeah i was in a few

good men did you know that okay look we're gonna talk a lot about uh your career at sportsnet we're gonna discuss your new book ken hometown hockey heroes which which is a very enjoyable read. And this is the like holiday gift giving season. And as a wise man, I think it was Stephen Brunt once told me the only books that sell in Canada

are books about hockey that are released in time for the Christmas season. Stephen Brunt is a very wise man. That's true. And you nailed it. This is like a heartwarming Canadian hockey book

that is out in time for the holiday season. And we even have a Brunt quote on the cover. That's the early release, right? The one you have? Of course. I only read the advance copies. What are they called? The ARCs?

Advance Reading Copies? But on the actual copy, Brunt has a quote on the front. All right. Are you still in communication with steven brunt oh yeah yeah i sent him a nice little uh bottle of whiskey from cape breton for the nice uh endorsement he gave me on the back of the book and on the front of the book so steven's uh as first class as you can get and working in the business when when steven brunt knows your name i'm like that's kind of cool man i grew up reading Stephen Brunt, so it's kind of cool that he knows me. Sorry to age you there, Stephen.

Stephen knows. I will say that if you, Ken, are around next Saturday, you got big plans next Saturday, like from noon to 3 p.m.? Like the 9th? The 9th, yeah. I'm an exotic buffalo

for Hockey Night in Canada. Okay, all right. So there's a good excuse for you. At Palma's Kitchen, which is in Mississauga, not Buffalo, but at Palma's Kitchen from noon to 3 p.m., it's the 14th Toronto Mic'd Listener Experience, TMLX14. And I have confirmed with Stephen Brunt and his wife,

who confirmed this at a recent Sky Diggers show in Hamilton, Stephen Brunt 100% will be in attendance for TMLX14 Saturday, December 9th at Palma's Kitchen. That's a good get. I haven't seen Brunt in a while. We, you know, text and message, but I haven't seen him in a while. But he's living the good life right now.

Well, when he jumps on the open mic at this live recording, I will... Can I tell him Ken Reed says hi? You can absolutely tell him I said hi, and thank you. Thank you for the quote, and thank you for the best Super Bowl experience a man could ever have in New Orleans.

Well, can you give us a little detail on that? Yeah, sure. So I want to say it was Super Bowl XLVIII in New Orleans. It was the Niners against Baltimore, and we went down, and we did Sportsnet Central from the banks of the Mississippi. Stephen Brunt was with me the whole week, and when you travel, if you travel with Stephen Brunt, you just say, Stephen, where are we going? he took us to some fantastic places we went to an oyster house off

the grid in new orleans and these were the biggest greatest oysters i ever had in my life so it was it was awesome going somewhere with stephen because he knows where to go like i didn't want to go to the super bowl and go to the media parties right you? You guys, no offense. You wanted an authentic New Orleans. Correct, correct. So, like, when people ask me, whoa, where should I go in Nova Scotia? I say, well, don't go anywhere in the Doers and Dreamers Guide, right? Like, I don't want to send people to Toronto

and have them go up the CN Tower, right? I want to go a little off the grid. So we went off the grid. It was a blast. Like, for work, we've gone to Cabot a couple times, and I go, and I'm kind of like the entertainment, I guess, and we take all these clients, and, you know, we give them the Cabot experience, which is fantastic.

Yeah. And then I say, do you guys want to go to the Legion? And I take them to the real Cape Breton. We go down to the Legion in Inverness. We have a great time. Have you ever been to the Brunt summer home in Newfoundland? I have not. Woody Point, around that area.

Around that, because he does that festival, the Woody's Point. My dad and stepmom have gone over to Woody Point for the festival. They're big Brunt fans. But no, I've never been. I guess the closest I've ever been is being in Corner Brook for Scotiabank Hockey Day in Canada, but I never made my way to Woody Point, but I would love to. I mean, I love the off- off the grid living in Newfoundland is

about as good as you can get as far as that goes so I want to learn more about your maritime origin story and I want to get you to Sportsnet and I want to talk more about this book and a bunch of questions came in for you but I want to start things with you Ken with a little music you ready yeah You ready? Yeah. She is. Ken, I know you were a big fan, as was I. We lost Miles Goodwin yesterday at the age of 75, a fellow Maritimer. I'm sorry for your loss.

I feel like the Maritimes are in mourning this morning. I think all Canada is, man. Yeah, it's funny. I just played this song for my boys this morning on the way back from the hockey rink. My oldest had Trouts for a school team and the youngest tagged along. And my youngest said, I know this song. And he sure does. Yeah, my brother called me yesterday afternoon and he gave me the news and I kind of was just, what? And I kind of didn't believe it. And, you know, we're in such a race to be the first on Twitter and all that. And I said, I'm going to wait because I don't want to believe it. And then it gradually came out.

I think it was Eric Alper. Well, Eric Alper is, I know this because I've had Miles Goodwin on the show. Yeah. And I booked that through Eric. Eric was Miles' publicist. Yeah. So once Eric put out the news, you knew it was, wait, well, Eric's not going to put it out unless he was sure anyways. But yeah, he literally is, he was on the payroll.

He knows. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, I've done an event the last couple of years. I've done an event the last several years, Summerside Boys and Girls Club. We do it at Mill River in Prince Edward Island. And Miles has been there the last couple years. And he's everything you'd want him to be.

He's just a great guy. He's cool. He listens. And I saw him this summer. He looked great. And then things happened so quickly. And he was really enjoying, I guess I'll call it retirement, Nova Scotia. He was doing songwriter circles.

He was still writing. And man, it was just a massive bummer. And I think Canada, I think Canadians took April Wine for granted. Like whenever there's an awesome song on classic rock radio and you're like, oh, who is that? I love that song. It's April Wine. Guaranteed. Sneaky deep catalog. Sneaky deep. One of the easily

top five rock bands in Canadian history for me. And I'd put Miles up there with any songwriter this country's ever produced. The first time I introduced him on stage in PEI, I'm like, you know, England has John and Paul as great writers and we have Miles Goodwin, man. The guy can write a hook. He can write a song.

I mean, just listen to this. This is awesome. You're nailing it. No, I mean, I just re-listened to, this was only a couple years ago I had Miles Goodwin on the show. He gave me over an hour. Like, I bet literally. And what, so, like, a couple of the early big radio hits, not the first one, but the second, the big one, and the third were covers, right? So I think there was a little bit of, like, oh, like, and I don't think many Canadians even understood at the time that, oh, Could Have Been a Lady was a cover.

It was a cover. And when you hear it now, I don't think of it as a cover at all. Yeah. And Miles usually, he sings that in PEI, too. He would sing it, which was awesome. The crowd would just be rocking. When you're at a golf tournament in Prince Edward Island and Miles Goodwin's on stage playing and Ricky and Randy from Trailer Park Boys are in the crowd with you

and we're all jamming along, it's truly magical. But, yeah, Miles is a gift. It was a gift from Waverly, Nova Scotia to the world. A guy who just made his way to Montreal and ends up writing a tune like this and so many other great ones. waverly nova scotia to the world and you know a guy just made his way to montreal and you know ends up writing a tune like this and so many other great ones it was it was awesome and in my basement yeah there's uh you got some stuff on your wall here i have a you know that classic april wine's greatest hits album it's kind of that blue light blue background there's five of the guys in the

front yes so my wife walked down the aisle to, I'm on fire for you, baby. So Miles signed the album for you. I'll say to Mrs. Reed, Ken's still on fire for you, baby, Miles Goodwin. So that's how cool Miles is. I'm not done talking about Miles yet, Ken. You didn't know this was 90 minutes about Miles Goodwin.

That's cool with me, man. No problem. Talk about Miles all day. A little French know this was 90 Minutes about Miles Goodwin. That's cool with me, man. No problem. Talk about Miles all day. A little French in this song, too, eh? Just between you and me Baby I know

our love will be Just between you and me Always I know how love will be Just between you and me Wow. Okay, you know, this is the first Canadian band ever to be played on MTV.

MTV, yeah, yeah. Wow. Okay. You know, this is the first Canadian band ever to be played on MTV. Yeah. Yeah. Like that's because people forget when MTV started, it was like a rock station, right? They wouldn't even play R&B and stuff like that. Well, I think the first black artist might have been Prince, I think. Yeah, Michael Jackson had a tough time getting on there. Yeah. But yeah, and it's cool too, because I mean, there's a great, on YouTube, there's a great April Wine concert, I want to say from Idaho. They got this rink packed.

There's about 9,000 people there. And when you see April Wine and you see all these classical bands, with the exception of Kiss and Motley Crue, there's no backing tracks, man. They were playing. They were the real deal. And Miles was legit. He was the real deal. He did it because he loved it. A true artist, still

writing. I know he said his greatest honor was getting that Canadian Writers Hall of Fame. He was a writer. He was beautiful. And his recent solo material was really kind of soul-searching and deep. He had this great angel jam that I...

So we're now episode 1382 but if you go into the toronto mic feed one back so uh 1381 is a tribute to miles goodwin and his own words talking about the origin of the band going solo but one of the interesting things can you kind of alluded to it but an underappreciated underrated band, because I asked him about that, because did you know Miles Goodwin and April Wine never won, like, I'm not talking about, like, career retrospective

honorary Junos, but they never won a Juno. They were nominated, I think, 11 times and never won one, and I just asked him, and he kind of opened up, and I'm going to share this at the end of the month in the Ridley Funeral Home Memorial episode, but he, and you can hear it on my episode 1381 but he says so it's a maritime band that moves to montreal and they're montreal based and he said there was a huge bias with the junos for toronto based bands and because he said these guys like triumph and rush these guys were

all like you know out with the writers and the the media and hobnobbing with them and at parties with them and golfing with them and playing hockey with them. And he said that he took it as a slight because they were based in Montreal from Maritime. I would say all awards are just the opinions of others about someone. So don't worry about awards. about someone so don't worry about awards i mean man like i always say the most like i remember when miles got a lifetime achievement at the east coast music awards i want to say it was around 2002 and that all these artists played a medley of april wine's hits and my brother and i just sat there in amazement going what that one too yeah that one too that one too that one too and that's kind of really when i got an April Wine was based off that.

I always heard them as kids, but I didn't know it was them. But then I knew it was them. I'm like, these guys are deep, man. They write so much great stuff. You're right. And even when they weren't writing the songs, and we talked about the Hot Chocolate cover, Could Have Been a Lady, which was a big hit.

Even in the States, that was a hit. But the other song I always heard on like Q107 Classic Rock, and it would come on and I would dig it. And I'm like, who the hell is this? Bad Side of the Moon. Yeah. Which is, I had no idea, you know, whose song is that? Is it an Elton John song?

That's Elton John. Yeah. So there's these covers that they kind of made their own. Right. And all these originals. Right. Because you didn't think Elton John ever for that song, right? I sure don't know it as an Elton John song.

Okay, question came in for you, Ken. Yeah. From Rob Del Mundo. Oh, hey, Rob. Rob wants to know, what is your favorite April Wine song? So I guess that answer, like this, when people ask me who my favorite band is or what my favorite type of music is, I can never answer because I think it changes on my mood

and where i'm at on a certain day and i would say the same thing about my favorite april wine song but if and i hate to just pick the obvious one it's like when people ask me what my favorite hockey card is i say it's my wayne gretzky rookie card i gotta go with roller man because it just it's just rocking and it's just it's got everything a good rock and roll song should have. It's got the multiple guitar layers. It's got a killer bass line, and Miles' vocals. Every time I'm in the shower and I try to hit that bye-bye at the end, that does not work.

So it's got everything a song could have. And I'm on fire for you, baby, right? Because it reminds me of Mrs. Reed. Beautiful, beautiful. Miles does not sing on this song, but this is a jam. I really honestly would hear it i know and i would hear it all the time yeah on the radio and i never really knew it was april wine like i feel like until i had miles on i started doing my homework i'm like oh that's an april wine song that's it it was an unbelievable like uh tidal wave of like oh my god can i predict it can i go yeah you say it and then i'll how about i'll just go this. No, no, no, no, no, no.

Bingo. Oh, what a night. Jim Clench, the bassist on lead vocal. Yeah. We'll get a taste of it and then we'll... Cause you know that the light here really hurts my eyes. I come from a world where the light is dim and the people now so giant. So fine. You know it's gonna be. So come on, come on, come on, come on baby.

Come on everyone let's be. Ooh, man. Yeah. Little Beatles asked how Miles shared the vocals right there. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah, a little harmony. And I always say modern day April Wine is Sloan because Sloan writes so many great tunes

and Sloan is massively underappreciated in this country. And I got a buddy, my buddy Kevin Hilliard, he used to be in Grace Babies and he sells merch at Sloan's shows. And I remember one time Murph broke his collarbone, so Kev had to play bass. And he's a big April Wine guy, loves Sloan too.

And to me, Sloan just writes hit after hit. You hear it on the radio, and you're like, who is that? Well, that's Sloan. Same with April Wine, man. Two great bands. I'm glad you brought those two bands up, because I feel like the Boomers, because you and I are both Gen X. But the Boomers, they get April Wine both gen x yeah but the boomers they get april wine like they lived it they breathed it yes you know and i will shout out uh humble howard glassman

who i booked miles goodwin on humble and fred and it was like i booked paul mccartney like uh howard it was his first concert he grew up in moose jaw huge april wine fan and that was right like he's right in that, you know, key boomer demo that loved. And I would say Sloan is to Gen X as April Wine is to boomers. I would not engage in a debate with you on that. I would agree with you on that. And the other thing about April Wine, too,

they made such an impression on Canada because they literally played everywhere all the time. Like, there's people tweeting at me, and I didn't know this, they played my high school dance. And I should note that my high school prom was played by Sandbox. Yeah, and Bubbles from, you mentioned Trey Lippert Boys earlier. Yeah, Mike

was one of the guitarists, and they were known as Sandbox Legacy then. So, shout out to the boys. Good dudes, man. And Paul Murray, the lead singer, who I always say was on the cover of Nova Scotia Teen Beat Magazine four years in a row. He's Ann Murray's nephew. So lovely guy. Troy Shanks on the drum.

If you ever need ENT advice, Jason Archibald, who wrote Curious, is an ENT guy over in Brampton. So he's close by. You get this show, man. How come it took 11 years to get Ken Reed on Toronto Night? I told you. They cut down my access to the Gardner living get this show, man. What took you, how come it took 11 years to get Ken Reid on Toronto Mike? I told you, they cut down my access to the gardener living in the beaches, man.

Meanwhile, here's what was like salt in the wounds. I had to co-host an episode of Hebsey on Sports. Shout out to Mark Heb here. Missed that show, by the way. Yeah, I do too.

It was like my every Friday morning. It's like now I don't know what's going on with Canadian tennis. And no one talks about Canadian sports media anymore since Hebsey won. Oh, I know.

And I used to do these quarterly roundtables with him. I enjoyed those. And I miss that too. Brian Greenspan, right? No, not Greenspan. No, Gerstein. Greenspan's a lawyer. Yeah. Well, if we get into libelous stuff, we'll call Greenspan. Well, propertyinthesix.com, of course. Shout out to Brian Gerstein. I hope I see him on Saturday. But you

did do an appearance on Humble and Fright. There was a weird... Humble and Fright. Oh, my God. Get my and Fright. Oh my god. Get my clients right. Yeah, I did Hebsey's show. Hebsey on Sports Forever was really just Hebsey going off and stuff and I just loved it. And then at some point, he was like, oh, let's have guests. It's your show. You can have guests. And he had a few guests in a

row. Starting with Rob Baker, who I saw Saturday night at the Horseshoe Tavern because he was there to see Junk House. Junk House. Wow. By the way, Junk House. Junk House, wow. By the way, Junk House, if I may, kicked ass on Saturday. Tom Wilson, Tom Wilson's from Hamilton, much like Stephen Brunt,

and Tom Wilson is confirmed for TMLX14. And I'm actually going to tell him when he gets on the mic, this was like a one-off thing. They did a Hamilton show and a Toronto show. No, they need to tour. They sounded so good, Ken. to tour they sounded so good ken junkhouse sounded so good on saturday night touring in canada that's tough well you know you do you get on a you know it is tough to yeah okay so why did i bring up rob baker because he

was the first guest on humble on uh hebzion sports i keep doing that but you were a guest on hebzion sports yes by the way my uh my son my youngest he's really into music, so I was playing him some Tragically Hip the other day. Yeah. And he wanted to know if the guys in the hip played hockey. So I told him that Gord was a goalie. So I don't know if Rob played, but I've seen video of Rob. And Paul Langlois, I've gotten to meet him a couple times over the years.

He's a super friendly dude, too. Absolutely. So next time you have one of the guys in, you'll have to ask him about their hockey history. I will. I will. Paul Langlois was in here recently, played live in the basement. It was amazing.

But Michael Grange. Yep. You ever heard of this guy? Yes, I have. I have heard of Michael Grange. All right. By the way, if you are on your drive home, you should listen to Michael Grange kick out the jams on Toronto Mike because it's something else. He was a blue head, which means like a guy who would follow a blue rodeo around in the early days. Wow, I was a parrot head, which means like a guy who would follow Blue Rodeo around

in the early days. Really? Wow, I was a parrot head. I wouldn't follow Jimmy Buffett, but I'd see him every year. Shout out to Ridley Funeral Home. Who was better? Troy Reed or Craig Smith? Okay, this is definitely a Mount Allison question. Grange went to Mount Allison in Sac-Lew-Brunswick. He played basketball there.

And two guys from Pictou went there around the same time, Troy Reed and Craig Smith. They both played hockey for Mount Allison. If you want an on-ice defensive leader who can change a game with a hit or rush up the ice, it's Troy Reed. If you want a sparkling, dazzling forward, it's Craig Smith. I see them both every summer. Troy's a teacher back in Pictou County.

Craig lives in Thunder Bay. His wife, Amanda, is a professor at Lakehead, but Troy comes back home every spring to fish lobster, so I see him on Pictou Island sometimes. So there you go. Love it, love it. Very inside, very inside info. I love inside info.

Pictou County, that's where you're from. Yes. So for those of us who only know, like, this is Halifax, like, where is Pictou County? An hour and a half northeast from Halifax, directly from prince of rhode island so the north shore yeah all right so we're right there you take the ferry from pei you go i've done that though yeah okay so i've been there i've been there yeah amazing uh michael lang right we're gonna get back to picto but michael lang writes in how many hockey cards did ken destroy in the spokes of his bike as a kid? Surprisingly few, if not zero.

I can't really recall doing that. I remember other kids doing it and just going, why are they doing that? Why are they wrecking the card? I did like the sound, but I can't ever remember doing it. And we were short on clothespins in the Reed household. I didn't like the idea of destroying a good card either. Correct. I didn't like doing that either.

I know. These are too valuable. Okay. Jeremy. Oh, good. Because we can talk a little about the book and then i can go back i want to make sure the uh the book gets its proper spotlight here hometown hockey heroes jeremy writes in i am guessing he will be there partly to promote his newest book is that why you're here ken oh we know how business works, Mike. It's amazing when people suddenly drop by because they have a new book.

By the way, on that note, Damien Cox and Gord Stelic are here Friday. See how it works? This is like big-time showbiz, you know? Just show up on Letterman to promote your latest film. There's no Letterman anymore, though, is there? No, he's got like a Netflix show, I think, or something like that.

I haven't really watched late-night TV since he left. Oh, okay. I was a big Conan guy for a while. Oh him love him love him so now that conan's not even on late night i actually don't watch any but i was i was there for the like the beginning of conan because i was a big simpsons fan oh man the simpsons hasn't been the same since he left either like oh yeah no it's only yeah you're right the last 25 years thank you conan that's right there was a run there, season three and four. There was a run.

Monorail? Yeah, monorail. Oh my God. I still like, so my youngest likes to watch Simpsons on Disney Channel. Yeah. So I'm now seeing like,

oh, there's episode 22, 23, and I'm seeing it. And honestly, those first, I'll say the first six seasons of The Simpsons, there's never been anything quite like that.

It's unbelievable. Like year three through six was just, they hit their str's never been anything quite like that. It's unbelievable. Like year three through six, they hit their stride. They were just giving her. It was awesome. By the way, speaking of promoting books, and suddenly you'll come on Toronto Mike, Rick Emmett's returning.

We're talking about Canadian rock stars here. I'm going to ask him about Miles too, but he's back on to promote his new book. By the way, Rick wrote a book of poetry through ECW. It is awesome. His son,ndan worked at sportsnet with us great baseball player by the way i didn't know that yeah and he gave me this book of poetry that rick wrote and it was it was just fantastic i never read poetry really before i read some brian wood poetry he's my literary agent but uh rick's stuff is just you just want to be taken away sometimes when you read,

and it does that. It's the way to go, Rick. What about, you never read like some Leonard Cohen? No, no. I usually just read. Or Gord Downie too. I'm thinking of musicians. No, I usually just read baseball books and hockey books.

I'm pretty limited. I guess that's a choice because that's what reading is all about. They should have put that blurb on the book.'m pretty limited okay so back to jeremy who uh wisely suspects we might talk about your new book yes he goes i know it's a little premature so i'll ask this question and then we'll segue over to talk about the book before i ask you about sports net and stuff but he wants to know uh are you already working on your next book any thoughts about the next book he wants to talk about the next book and then we're going to talk about this book. Jeremy, give me a break, buddy. Come on.

Jeremy's spoken class today. I'm still pimping this one. Yeah, I signed a deal to write another book and I do it because I love it. I do it because I'm passionate about it. I'm sure you do this at the start because you're passionate about it. You're a curious person.

You like hearing stories. Right. That's exactly why I write books. So I'm going to do one on hockey scouts. I want to track it down, a bunch of Hockey Scouts, and get some more stories. I love it because it's all about storytelling. That's it.

That's what I want, more stories. So before we dive into Hometown Hockey Heroes for a moment, you mentioned, I don't know, I guess his name is Jeremy, and I started singing Jeremy. And I just want to tell you what I learned. This is interesting. I think this is interesting. So, of course, 10 is a playthrough.

I think every song on Pearl Jam's 10 is Mike talking for Mike right now. I love that album playthrough. Jeremy, actually one of my least favorite tracks on the album, but mainly because it's overexposed. And the video was all over much music. But did you know, Ken, there's a frame

they took out of the video, I guess for MTV. I bet I know. And it changed the whole video. So in the video, I find it a little ambiguous as to whether Jeremy has shot his classmates or did Jeremy shoot himself in front of his classmates. I find it a little ambiguous. And before the edit, it was obvious he did not shoot his classmates. Jeremy took his own life tragically in front of his classmates. He did not shoot his classmates.

Jeremy took his own life, tragically, in front of his classmates. But it's, so this edit changed everything, in my opinion, for how people interpret the Jeremy video. Amazing that a country

in which so much gun violence takes place, they would edit it on MTV. Right. Come on. That's, come on. And it's worth noting,

I'm pretty sure that was the last Pearl Jam video until Do The Evolution from Yield in 1988. Really? They laid off the videos yeah five years yeah they said no we because of that because of the uh because of i don't know if it's because of the edit or if it's more because uh well pearl jam is one of those like uh those kind of bands i think they felt like hey we don't need it's about the music man i think it was a bit of a vibe but they definitely did stop making videos after that but yeah you talk about over the top that thing was played non- need, it's about the music, man. I think it was a bit of that vibe. But they definitely did stop making videos after that.

But yeah, you talk about over the top. That thing was played nonstop. So it's one of those things. It's like, if they play your video nonstop, can you become too cool for school and say we're not making videos anymore? Because if they didn't play your video, I bet you'd still make videos.

Good point, good point. I will shout out Porch as my favorite song in 10. I like all of 10. Okay, so back to your book. Tell me, please, Ken, about Hometown Hockey Heroes. Like, why did you want to write this book? So yeah, Mike, I grew up in a small town. We talked about it, picked on Nova Scotia.

So I'm sure you and your youth could go down to a Leafs game maybe a couple times a year, hop on the train and go down. So that was a far-off fantasy world for me. The NHL existed, but only on Saturday nights and in my packs of hockey cards. And on Saturday nights, sorry to interrupt, it's Habs games, right, for you? The Habs are Leafs, one of the two.

Okay, so you, okay. Yep, and I was a Habs fan, but I'd watch a lot of En Francais. That's why I can do No. 39, Brian Scroodlin. That's why I can do stuff like that. So my local hockey, the closest, the biggest thing we had was a Junior C team called the Pictou Mariners. They were the Nova Scotia champs four years in a row. Troy Reid, whose name came up earlier, was the stick boy.

I actually have Troy's Pictou Mariners coat. It was a Junior C champion's coat. Craig Smith would come home from Mount a and play for the mariners in christmas break but i fell in love with this team because they were just down the hill from my house i could go to the hectorina it was a dollar to get in 50 cents for the program i could buy two packs of opici and i could watch the picto mariners play in a smoke-filled arena with 1200 pictonians going nuts scraps goals and my favorite player was a guy named Dana Johnson. They called him Teapot.

Teapot could score at will. As my dad said, soft as hands east of Montreal. And it turns out Teapot was also the best softball player in town, the best golfer, the best darts player. He's a local legend, and he's still a legend to this day. And they always say, write what you know so i know small towns and i know teapot so i figured you know what i should i wonder if there's guys like t in every town right just small town heroes and i kind of put the the vibe out on twitter who's

your local legend and people came back at me with tons of names and i got a book out of it and it's just celebrating guys who never made it to the nhl but are still legends local legends and they made a huge impact of the game and what it discovered through doing this this book this is my takeaway i'm going to get philosophical on you now love it do not let someone else define your definition of success so just because you didn't make it to the nhl doesn't mean you didn't make it so that's what i got from this book and it was so much fun given given a spotlight and a stage to people who perhaps never had one before but still made a big impact on the game and a big impact on a lot of

people i love how the book it opens with teapot and closes with the wayne woodacre yeah not intentional uh book ended because i didn't know how to end the book because it's just profiles of 14, 15 guys. But at the end, I'm talking to Teapot and he's like, you know, my Teapot was Wayne Woodacre. I was like, what? He goes, yeah, when you were 10 watching me and I was your hero, when I was 10, I was watching Wayne Woodacre.

And Wayne Woodacre is a guy from Pictou who, this is incredible to me. And he coached me, Wayne coached me when I was in Bantam. And it was kind of folklore at that point. But Wayne had gone from playing in the Pictou Town Hockey League, which is like a non-contact gentleman's league, to a tryout for the Hartford Whalers within four or five months. And so I kind of get to the meat of the story. How did this guy who was working

at the picto shipyards try out for the Hartford Whalers all of a sudden so it was it was kind of picto folklore so I kind of chased it down and maybe I left a little bit of the folklore in there you know because folklore is awesome right we're kind of here because we're folklore we're story guys so that's kind of what the book's all about just uh local dude and when and when people buy the book I want them to go you should have wrote about this guy from my town that's kind of what the book's all about just uh local do and when and when people buy the book i want them to go you should have wrote about this guy from my town that's kind of what i want to get from it sydney crosby's uncle is robbie forbes man the uh the hero of the 1986 allen cap champion cornerbrook royals and when you if you can i don't know if you got youtube there but if you track down and i couldn't tell you what the timeline is but there's video of the 85 86

cornerbrook royals and when you're watching it you go okay that's sid's uncle that's robbie forbes because he skates with the shoulders up the bottom hands high on the stick he keeps going to the back hand flicking it like sid does and you're like wow that's that's amazing so robbie was uh he's still much revered in cornerbrook they still love the guy for helping them win an Allen Cup, what, 37 years ago. So if you need another blurb, maybe right after the Stephen Brunt blurb, here it is. You ready? Yeah. Charming AF.

I was charmed by the book. I love the idea. I was born and raised in Toronto. Yeah. Not a small town. We don't make the cut on this one here uh but uh the the whole idea of the the the teapots across uh from from sea to shining sea here i guess that's an american thing but we have seas too uh we call them oceans okay but i i would say charming and i love how you

collect you're collecting these inspiring stories you're you're sharing them uh loved it ken good thank you appreciate it it's funny because you know i dropped drove through mimico on the way out right and i think brennan shanahan right away so we had guys who made the nhl as well but i wanted to shine a light on guys who who didn't and a lot of people would write to me go oh you gotta do a story on you know um name steve sullivan i'm like yeah but he he made the NHL. I want guys who didn't make it. Yeah, I'd much rather read about the teapots and the Steve Sullivan. He was traded for Doug Gilmore for God's sake.

Yeah, that's like us talking about April Wine being underappreciated, right? I want to spread some love here. Look, I've read the Wayne Gretzky's, I've read the Bobby Orr's, and I love those books. I read Wendell's book. I loved it.

I read Dougie Gilmore's book I love it but my whole thing is there's more to hockey than just the NHL so that's kind of you know I just had a memory it's funny you mentioned Wendell Clark who is by the way represented in the met him at your book site his book launch that's the time I've met you yes it just hit me like I because

at Mattamy yes right which is right above Maple Leaf Gardens well where Maple Leaf Gardens was it It's up there. And I remember FOTM Jim Lang wrote that book with Wendell. Am I right? And I did, yeah. I saw you there. Yep.

And I remember getting, you know, I get these, I'm on these lists. And there's like, they want influencers, et cetera, to check things out. And I remember it saying, meet Wendell Clark at Maple Leaf Gardens. And I remember thinking, like, he had me at Hello. Like, I don't know how, like, I don't know how to say no to this one like and i don't i'd say no to 99.9 of these things and i'm like no i do yes i do want to go to maple leaf gardens and meet wendell clark yeah that's a good one that's a good hook that's a good hook and i think it was easy you get a beer or something too i'm like i'll take the beer too and what's the admission it's free right yeah i can do that and

you can skate with wendell and yeah and i remember it was cold day but i biked over and i remember taking a photo of wendell and i think i um tweeted there goes my hero or something i i that i mean this again doesn't count because have wendell body check you into the boards as hard as he can i would be honored to be quite honest here okay i mentioned beer do you drink beer occasionally okay so now now if it was college me yeah every day so i've tried to i tried to cut back i made a conscious effort but yes i will drink beer okay and uh i am like happy to give you some fresh craft beer right here in southern etobicoke this is great lakes brewery sending over these cans. Thank you. They're also going to send over beer for everybody

at the aforementioned TMLX 14 on Saturday. So when you come out, that's a free event too. Not only do you get free Palma Pasta, the best Italian food you can imagine. It's delicious. But you'll get a free beer. So you're giving away free beer at your free event? That's better than the Wendell Clark thing.

Many a person has said, why is this event free? and it's because i'm a bad businessman yeah that's just don't take business advice you might have like 7 000 people show up to this you know what that would be at least they i know they'll be fed i might not have enough beer for 7 000 i should start giving away beer and pasta at my book signings then people will show up have you ever had who was telling me somebody recently was telling me about doing a book signings and people will show up have you ever had who was telling me somebody recently was telling me about doing a book signing and like two people showed up or something and then saw mike camito tweet out something about that okay because well he you know he was in my calendar but i wanted to do it in person and something came up and he came out of my calendar because

you know the book people it happens it happens has it ever happened to ken reed though nationally famous oh yeah, for sure. It's like any stand-up comedian bombs. It doesn't matter how good you are, you're a bomb. Right. Yeah, I've done, I did one last week. I had 12, I sold 12 books. Yeah, for sure.

It might have been Roy McGregor. Yeah? He came on Toronto Mic, and he has a book. And I think he was talking about, he prefers now that he kind of does it on Zoom, because he would show up at the bookstore totally nobody would come out it's yeah it's humbling so so first thing is it's like they put you in the bookstore sometimes and they put you in the back and I'm like why am I in the back shouldn't I be out front I just did an event in Huntsville on Friday night it was fantastic the The bookstore had it in a bar in the back room in a bar. It's a new

bookstore in Huntsville. It was a fantastic event. That was really good. And they did one with Roy McGregor up there in a theater. They get 250 people because that's Roy's from there, right? Right. And I just went home. I signed books at home at the Hectorina Pecto. I had like 120, sold 120 books. I was overwhelmed. Amazing.

But they're not all winners sometimes you can do a bad one i did uh i guess my most memorable book signings were with eddie shack because eddie eddie was not um i'm sure eddie heard about speaking sensitively but he didn't practice it he would he would say whatever he wanted it was and i'm here to tell you it was awesome you know what those are my dream guests, to be quite honest. Eddie Shaq? Yeah, well, I mean, he's no longer with us, sadly. But yeah, the people who just tell it like it is.

He was awesome. Well, he'd tell it like it is, and then he'd tell more. It was beautiful. Put it this way, if a nice lady approached the table, he expressed his feelings, yes. Oh, wow. Mark writes in, a lot of hockey card stuff for you.

Maybe you should almost give a little background here. Have you ever written a book about hockey cards? Two. With the very unique titles, Hockey Card Stories, and Hockey Card Stories 2. So how you resisted the urge to just go right to number three? Like you got this

winning franchise. Now in Hollywood they just pump out things that work. I know. Is that coming next? Like Fast and Furious. No, it didn't do

the business that Fast and Furious did. So that's why the urge stopped. But you're in it for the, you need to self-publish now, is that the deal?

I mean, you're in it for passion anyways, right? You're not in it to get rich. You're not writing books to get rich, are you? No, not writing books to get rich are you no not writing books to get rich but if you can sell more of one than doing the other i'll do i'll do that but yeah is it stressful like uh i've never you know believe it or not i've been approached like you want to write a book or

whatever but i mean i would be afraid to like put out a book and then it sold like 120 copies yeah i mean if you sell 800 books in canada it's considered successful really yeah it's like i might be able to do that ken so a best seller in canada yeah it's 5 000 so if i sell 5 000 books i'm deemed a best seller which sounds very low but you should try selling books sometimes it's uh people have to commit to reading right that commit to buy then commit to read you gotta buy your dad's or mom i once said that and someone said you know women read hockey books too and i'm like you know yeah that's right women do read hockey books you need to buy your parents something for the holiday season whatever holiday you celebrate be it christmas or whatnot uh you

know you got to give them something like this is give them something like hometown hockey heroes and look it's not even hard cover so you can bend it and it fits in a stocking someone once told me ken you write great books for uncles i'm like that's very specific demographic but thank you you cornered the market on uncle books yeah that's something is it stressful is that what you were gonna get uh yeah like like let's say uh your publishers let's say you know your publisher says, okay, Ken, we got to sell, I'll make it up, okay, 2,500 cop units, okay? And then I don't know how often do you get an update. Do you get like at the end of the week they send you an update?

Okay, we're at 823. No, I don't get an update like that. With this one. There's no dashboard you log into? None that I've found. But I mean, this one's been on the, I guess, the Toronto Star and Globe and Mail bestsellers list, which is nice. Look at that. So I know it's selling. Good. none that i've found but like i mean this one's been on the i guess the toronto star and globe and mail bestsellers list which is nice look at that so i know it's selling good um i know how

much they printed okay but yes you don't want to you don't want to uh you don't want to bomb i guess and you you hope people i guess you write what the way i write and this is going to sound weird but it's i write selfishly i i write the stories this is going to sound weird, but it's, I write selfishly. I, I write the stories that I want to know and I want to hear about. So I kind of just hope that other people want to hear them. Like when I wrote the hockey card books, it was all because I wanted to know why this guy in 1984 has a perm and a

mustache and he's in the wrong uniform. So I called them up and asked them because I wanted to know, and maybe other people will want to know too. So I think it's any i don't want to i'll use the term artist but like when miles goodwin sits down and write a song or when gordon the hip would write a song they're doing it because they're passionate about it and they like it and if it transcends and other people enjoy it well that's a beautiful thing so when people come up and say hey ken your book doesn't suck i'm like wow thank you very much. I enjoyed your book.

Thank you. I'm so happy you did. Cause I enjoyed doing it. And that's the other thing when you talk to people and I, and I always say, I never say authors cause I pictured authors as kind of, you know, pretentious.

Yeah. Like patches on their shoulders. And, and I always say, when you talk to people who write books, they usually, some of them will say, Oh, it's the worst thing. I'm like, but why would you do it?

Like, I enjoy it. It's fun. It has its moments, but it's not the worst thing. I couldn't imagine. I've never talked to anyone who sat down and wrote a song and go, oh, that was the worst thing ever. Unless it was the follow-up album that the record company wanted within six months. Well, contractual obligation. Yes, exactly.

Lou Reed or something. Yes, exactly. You're thinking of Lou Reed, right? Yeah. And Neil Young might pull a move like that too. Yeah, yeah. It's painful. Speaking of Neil Young,

who had a big hit with Four Strong Winds, which is an Ian and Sylvia Tyson fan. It's funny you mentioned, you know, the songwriters they create, they don't think about commercial success necessarily. But Sylvia Tyson wrote a song for Ian and Sylvia called You Were On My Mind, which was a massive hit.

And she came on Toronto Mic and she told me her accountant keeps asking her to write another song like that. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's why Warrant ended up writing Cherry Pie, right? The record label wanted something softer, more poppy, and they hated that song. But, I mean,'s uh songwriters

who aren't singer-songwriters who just sit there and try to crank out pop of course that's why we've got so many boy bands and they're usually swedish this is like max marden right yeah i thought you were relating to abba and oh no that's true the pop you know abba and uh who are the uh uh all that i want is another baby ace of ace girls oh yeah spice girls is british see i think and who are the All That I Want Is Another Baby. Ace of Ace. Spice Girls. Ace of Ace. Oh, yeah. Spice Girls is British. See, I think ABBA, they were kind of artists. They wrote what they wanted to write.

It was just poppy. But, you know, there's factories writing songs for the Backstreet Boys and such. That's right. And I really do think those factories are in Sweden. Like, this is what I believe

to be true. They could be. Questions for you. Get back to my questions here. Oh, Rance Mullenix's mustache. Good duster. What? Yes.

He was the most unlikely. I mean, I was a big Jay Stiller. You were a Garth Orr guy too, right? Well, because you've got to take both, right? They were the greatest platoon in baseball history. But Rance, when you see him, he just kind of looks like a skinny guy with the mustache. He just doesn't look like an athlete. See, I kind of like the dual DHs of Al Oliver and Cliff Johnson.

Good sideburns. Scoop. You know, Al Oliver's an awesome ball player. And lest we forget, because we did lose the ALCS in seven games, but Scoop was amazing in that 1985 ALCS. Should be in the Hall of Fame. With the Expos, he won the batting title. He won the batting title with the Expos in 82,

and he lost half a season in 81. Right. So if you add it, he's close to three. I think he's around 2,500 hits, but he's one of those almost Hall of Famers. Hall of very good, like Jose Bautista. I don't even know. I think it's a talk radio sports media thing

to kind of talk about Jose Bautista in the Hall of Fame because he's not close. Like, please. Like, let's, I mean, we're very biased in this market and we saw his great years and there were a good, you know, five, six, seven amazing years. But he's not, I never once thought Jose Bautista was a Hall of Famer.

Did you? He played like one, but for a brief period of time. Too short a time. You need that longevity. I think the standard is they want 10 years of kind of dominance. But yeah, the Hall of Fame debates are the best. If there's nothing to talk about on the radio, start up a Hall of Fame debate.

The guy, I mean, besides the obvious, which is Dave Steepe, the guy, the Blue Jay, I think, who's got to go in before Jose Batista is Carlos Delgado. What happened? Well, here's what happened with Carlos Delgado. And I will tell you. Because I have a theory too. I want to hear yours.

This is my theory. And it happened to a lot of guys. It happened to Fred McGriff he had to wait forever because people who absolutely cheated cheated the game like Barry Bonds their numbers were elevated right so if you end up with what I think was 491 home runs like Fred McGriff did in the past that's a no-brainer but Carlos Delgado you look at his totals he doesn't win home run titles and he's 30 behind because bonds is juiced out of his mind hitting 70 so all you so you don't think of carlos delgado is great even though he was so when people say buried bonds didn't cheat because it wasn't against rules he did cheat he cheated the game and he cheated people like carlos delgado out of

remaining on the hall of fame ballot for more than one year which was an absolute farce thank you i'm with you i also want to throw in the fact that he took that stance later, I guess when he was at the Mets, I think it was, but he took that stance where he's a proud Puerto Rican, Carlos Delgado, and he stopped standing for the, I don't know if it's the American National Anthem, but there was something like that before the game where he just stopped standing because he was kind of protesting how America, I think that hurt him. I feel like in standing because he was kind of protesting how America... I think that hurt him.

I feel like in the US of A, red, white, and blue, that'll do it even though he stood by his values. And I respect the hell out of it, but I don't get a vote for this Hall of Fame. But I think that worked against him. I think that worked against him. Good half. So what happened...

This question for Rance Mullenix's mustache is, what happened to the sideburns? They're still here. But they're still here yeah they never went away i've had them since i was 19 look they're under the headphones right now okay well we're gonna take a photo uh by the tree afterwards we'll zoom in i'll have to clean my ears out rance molyneux's mustache can zoom in on that rance have you been looking at your own dust or too much because the sideburns haven't gone

anywhere brother what is this mustache? Mark wants to know, what are your five best slash worst airbrushed hockey cards of all time? Okay, again, this could change on any given day. All right, if I'm just going to list off the five best airbrushes slash worst, and I know what they mean by that.

Number one is definitely the 7172 Opeche Rogi Vachon. Rogi was traded early in September after Ken Dryden came around, so they put Rogi's head on Ross Lonsbury's body. It looks like you're looking at it. It looks like they did it in a matter of seconds. The tan doesn't quite match. So that is one. Mel Bridgman,

I want to say is 83-84 Opeche. The crudely drawn helmet is on Mel. I'll say number three would be Rick Vive's rookie card. For some reason, the card makers decided to airbrush Rick's hair as well, which Rick doesn't really understand. Rick has great hair. He still does.

Rick has the best hair, but if you look at Rick's 8081 Opeche, they color his hair and they make his hair crayon. Let's see. Let's go 8687 Opeche Gary Nyland. It's rude. It's crude. He looks kind of surprised. It was from a free agent signing.

And the final one, because he's close to my heart, I grew up loving Harold Sneps. his 84-85 Opeche, Minnesota North Stars. They color a crude Minnesota North Stars jersey on him, but he still has his Vancouver Sox. And Vancouver Sox. Honorable mention, without a doubt, Brian Maxwell, WHA card.

No one knew who was on it, and it took me, it was in my first book. No one knew who it was, and it took me about a year of research to find out who it was. Wow. And it ended up being a gym teacher in Chagrin Falls, Chagrin Falls, Ohio. So far, Chagrin, where the unknown don't even go. Chagrin Falls, Ohio. The guy's a gym teacher, and he's on a hockey card.

That's amazing. His name is Mike Christie. Amazing. Yeah. Hey, ref, has a quick question on the live stream live.torontomike.com does sportsnet encourage staff to write books uh they no they don't have anything they don't encourage nor do they discourage i will say this they have been beyond supportive in my little uh book writing career. They've been awesome. Like, they helped me promote it. They put it out there.

They've been awesome. They've never, never, ever said anything negative about it. So thank you, Sportsnet. And you've been there quite a while now. When did you join Sportsnet? It'll be 13 years this spring. So I think I joined in April of 2011. Okay, so I will get back to Sportsnet, but I do have to mop up a few more questions here.

One is Jeremy back again. Get us singing. Have you ever considered doing your own podcast? Sure, I think everyone has. But again, if I'm... What's the... Jerry Maguire, show me the money. Like, I mean, I'm in the broadcasting business for...

It's a business so no one's ever come yelling ken you have to do a podcast so and i've never so you work for sports net so they would sell it first right they would have to come the entire presents the ken reed show and then it would happen and no one's ever come that's how it works show me the money okay yeah so start a petition jeremy christopher. Black. That's a great episode. That's the Camp Krusty episode. Which one's that? Mr. Black.

Camp Krusty, but Krusty has nothing to do with it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it turns into Lord of the Flies. It's actually amazing. That's amazing. Yeah, that was a good one. Mr. Black. That has Conan written all over it.

Oh, man. When he plays men's league or pick up hockey. Oh, this is from Chris Black, producer at Sportsnet. Okay, Chris Black, producer at Sportsnet. Does he get pucks in deep? I do, sadly, but I don't chase them because I'm out of shape. But I have been known to dump it in in men's league hockey, yes. Mike Lynch.

A lot of Mikes chimed in today, from Michael Grange to Michael Lang to Mike Lynch. You're on Toronto Mike. On Sportsnet, Ken likes to make a lot of references to wrestling from the late 80s, early 90s. True. I'm just going to get my Georgie Animal steel bag here for you. Hair not included. Oh, look how they have the hair drawn on him. Yeah, they painted the tongue too.

What does it say? Please ask him to list his top three all-time favorite matches from that era. And I'm listening very intently because I'm a guy who came around for WrestleMania and then I kind of bolted after WrestleMania 6. So I have six years of falling very closely. I'd be the same wheelhouse. Okay, so I'm dying to hear this. So I won't go hipster choices, right? I'm just going to do the obvious.

So I'll count down. Let me think. Okay, I know one, I know two. Okay, so for three, I'll go Macho Man against Steamboat at wrestlemania three has to be there for two i'll go orndorff against hogan saturday night's main event i was there match the cage match no there was a there was a paul orndorff uh uh uh hulk it was he was called the i can't remember what they named is the main event because that event. Yeah, Saturday Night's Main Event. It was at C&E. It was at C&E's exhibition stadium.

And I was there. There was like 70,000 of us there. Oh, my God. But being there is different than watching it on TV. And I didn't, you know, as a kid, it was like, I'm there. And I see the ref do a three count. And I think that, you know, Paul Orndorff is the, was it Paul? Yeah, it was Paul Orndorff, is the new, you know, champion.

He beat Hogan. And we all went nuts. But it was a two and a half, if you watch it on TV. I always amazed how the refs could react that quick to pull their hand up. It's amazing. Yeah. What theater? Number two is Hulk Hogan, yeah, against Paul Underwood.

That's a cage match. Saturday Night's Main Event in the cage. And it's like they jump out and it's like, they've landed at the same time. Which is well choreographed. It's like, no, they didn't. You can see how they tried to save it. They've landed at the same time. No, they didn't. But can see how they tried to save it. They landed at the same time. No, they didn't.

But that is tough to pull off, right? That's very tough to pull off. And number one has to be Hulk against Andre, WrestleMania 3, right? He slammed him. Defining moment of our childhood, 1987, he slammed him. Of course, they had wrestled each other before, but they failed to publicize that. Look at Andre. I'm a huge Andre the Giant guy.

This is the real deal. This was purchased at a byway in 1985, I think it was. That's solid. It's like one of the few things I held on to since 85. You've had that since 85. Don't break it. There's other matches. I saw Hogan fight the Macho Man in person at the Halifax Forum.

Goodness gracious. Do you do a good... You know, Scott MacArthur does a very good Macho Man impression. Do you have any impressions? I do Stu Hart. Stu Hart had me in his dungeon. Bret Hart's dad. He put the moves on. If I just take you here and I put a depression

under your chin, your eyeballs pop out. And it does. So Stu had me. I was working in Calgary as a reporter and I went and did a story. It was the first time Bret retired. Stu was like, come on down to the dungeon. And Helen came down. Stu was awesome. I was at their house for three hours.

And honestly, the dungeon, Mike, is the size of this room. And it's just mats. And it's an old, you know, the old school wood paneling in a rec room basement. And Stu's just in there just twisting, guys. It was really cool. Amazing. Okay. Very, very cool.

Now, Dano wants to know, what are a few of your best slash funniest Terry Ryan stories? Oh man. Wow. So Terry and I first met each other. Uh, I was doing Edmonton radio every Tuesdays with Bob Stauffer and we had a guy call in and he starts going off and on he goes and Bob goes, you know, it's Terry on the line and Bob kind of puts two and two together. He's like, is this Terry Ryan who played for the Tri-City of America?

Yes, boy, it is. So Bob says, why don't you come in some Tuesdays? So we started doing train wreck Tuesdays. So there's so many Terry Ryan stories. My favorite one is when he knocked his own teeth out with a hammer so he could get his teeth fixed by his hockey team, and he didn't have to pay for it by himself. Oh, my God.

So he gets a few pints. Like like his teeth were killing him right they had been wrecked the previous year i believe it was and he wanted them fixed all summer but he wasn't under contract anybody and he asked this new team to fix his teeth and like no you're only going to fix your teeth or you get injured playing for us so he goes to camp and uh his teeth are killing him the nerve endings are hanging out every time are breathes. Are we talking senior or junior here? We're talking junior, but senior could have done it as well. He's breathing, and it's hurting, so he's going to camp, and it's killing him.

He finds out if he's injured here, they'll take care of him. I think he said he got a pint of rum, took a hammer, went down to a basement like this, and smash! Wow. Spits him out. Wow. Puts him in a little baggie. Shows up to practice next day. got a pint of rum took a hammer went down to a basement like this and smash wow spit some out wow put some in a little baggie shows up to practice next day last guy there and terry's never the last guy there last guy on the ice throws the teeth in his mouth goes out wheels pretends he trips falls under the board spits his teeth out oh my knock my teeth out boom they fixed him wow yep that's tr baby what a beauty i remembered, so I can't share this on the air,

but the best Terry Ryan Sr. story, I can't say anymore, but there's some legendary wild stories about Terry Ryan Sr. I've been in the basement of Sr. on a Friday night in Mount Pearl, Newfoundland. It is a beautiful place.

It took me an hour and a half to get down the stairs because Sr. is like, you know this guy because there's pictures everywhere as you go down the stairs. So Senior is a, much like Miles Goodwin is a gift to Canada, Senior is a gift to the hockey world. I'm so glad he's gotten a taste of fame with Spittin' Chicklets. The boys are bringing him to the Chicklets Cup all the time.

Senior is just the best. And when I leave his basement, every time he's like, take a puck, take a puck. I'm like, so Senior collected pucks from everywhere he played. He'd grab a puck playing minor pro. I'm like, Senior, I can't take a puck. And he's got them in the old milk crates, right? I'm like, these pucks are worth a lot of money. Take a puck, take a puck.

So I got, I think, a Minnesota Fighting Saints puck and a couple others. He's a super generous guy. He's the best. Love you, Senior. Love you, senior. Love you, junior. Who is Ken Reed pre-SportsNet? Like, just give us a taste of... So, yeah.

Let's see. Junior A play-by-play in Nova Scotia for a couple years for the Dartmouth Olin Exports, the Maritime Junior A Hockey League on Access Cable 10. So I guess I was Access Cable Ken. Then I was kind of tired of making eight dollars an hour so that's what i made out there when i started so then i went and took a job and i was telling this to my kids this morning i took a job as i moved to calgary my mother was living there with my stepdad they were nice enough to house me because people in

media often need a lot of support when they start sure so i live with mom and i got a job at a channel calgary which was a fantastic station a lot of young people we were all hungry a lot of people from there have gone on to success in a number of places like i'm talking new york city and well you want to name them yeah so tom negavan went to wgn in chicago he's now a reporter at abc news in new york vivian's now a reporter at ABC News in New York. Vivian Lee is a reporter in New York. Tyler Harcott. From Psycho? No. Tyler Harcott, who hosted the Canadian Bachelor.

He started with us. He's down in the States. Liza Fromer was there. FOTM Liza Fromer? Yeah. Amazing. Liza was the first person I ever did sports with on the weekend. Liza was the anchor.

Get out of here. I love that woman. You better listen to her kick out the jams. She was sweet. I've seen her kick out the jams at karaoke. So she's awesome. A quick note on her is that her crush growing up was Rob Pruce from Spoons. Really?

And Rob is actually here once a month. We do these toast episodes at Toronto Mike that Rob is one of the hosts of that, co-hosts. And we have definitely talked about getting Rob Prues and Liza on together in person because she'll go nuts. She'll go nuts. This was a big thing for her. So she, yeah.

So I remember when I go there, one of the guys like, yeah, the girl from video and arcade works here. And it was Liza. That's her. So Liza went on to, Alex Pearson was there. FOTM Alex Pearson. She was our entertainment reporter. I don't even know if Alex would remember me

because I was just a writer then. Entertainment? Really? I feel, okay. She was our entertainment reporter. She took a right turn. Yes.

She's not an entertainment reporter. She's in politics now. But, so yeah, I started there as a morning writer. 4 a.m. to 9 a.m. Writing news. That was a morning writer, uh, 4am to 9am writing news. That was a good time. Had to get up at 3am tinfoil on the windows like Elvis.

And from there I got to the full-time writer, then videographer, then weekend sports, then weeknight sports. This is all in Calgary. Then from Calgary, I went to Ottawa at the new RO, which was an experience from there. I went to CTV Edmonton, where I met Mrs. Reed. So wait, you married an Edmonton girl? No, she's from Winnipeg. She's from Winnipeg. Okay, because I married an Edmonton girl.

Oh, okay. I was going to bond with you over that, but Winnipeg, that's a different story. Well, that's close. So we met out there, and then we moved to Toronto. In Toronto, I started at CP24, and at at the same time i got a job as a field producer for tsn just kind of holding the mics at uh right because they're both bell media practice right right and then one time i was going to leaves practice they said you have a tie because you're going to do a story today so we stopped at the sherwood gardens mall and i brought a tie and

that was that so then i got on freelancing at tsn and then yeah uh nhl network so then i was doing nhl network freelance and tsn freelance and then sports net so that's the whole kit and caboodle right there did you were you like tapped on the shoulder like we might have an opening for you yeah or did you apply for a job like how did you get could not get i just couldn't i wanted full time so i was looking for a full-time contract so sportsnet was because you needed a dental plan so you didn't have to take a hammer to your i didn't want to take a hammer to my teeth i expected mrs reed and i wave want to welcome a couple kids into the world at some point i wanted something stable and i've loved sportsnet ever since it's been awesome they've

been they've been a place where i can just be myself never once has someone said you can't say that quick back and like the clown that you are um i'm kind of an idiot and i'm kind of an idiot on tv so they've uh they've been awesome my you know i'm myself like my favorite when i talk to young media students i always say um one of my favorite bands and you can learn a lot from them it's a very simple lyric audio slave to be yourself is all that you can do be yourself and you if you're authentic you'll end up where you're supposed to end up and maybe you're not supposed to be on the tv maybe you're supposed to be doing something else but uh if you fail fail on your own i'm not a fake it till you make it guy at all. So be yourself.

Be yourself. That's good advice. Shout out to Audio Slave. I miss Chris Cornell. I'll just throw it out there. That's a big loss. And then that, that story,

tragic unto itself and sad. And I grew up with Soundgarden, but then Chester Bennington taking his own life on the, the birth, what would have been the birthday for Chris Cornell, like only like a year or so later, like such, I mean,

these are, this is your next book, the tragic, terrible stories, but you had to beat Alan Cross to this one. Cause I'm sure he's working. And he sounds way better if he does an audio book. That authoritative voice of Alan Cross.

What a great delivery he has. Oh, I'm a huge, huge Alan fan, as everybody knows. And I do listen to the ongoing history of new music. What a great delivery he has, eh? Oh yeah, I'm a huge Alan fan, as everybody knows, and I do listen to the ongoing history of new music. And on that note, I do have Ivor Hamilton in the basement later this week. I'm doing a little cross-promotion.

Ivor, of course, is also from CFNY, and Ivor just retired from his, where is he at? UM, what's that? One of the big labels. I don't know. I'll do my homework before he gets here. But he's finally going to talk about his career after CFNY, which has always been kind of off the table,

because he's now retired. So Ivor Hamilton in the basement later this month. Retirement sounds awesome. I actually think about retirement now. It's weird. Well, I'm going to guess, you're like mid-40s? Where are you? That's a good guess, yeah.

Okay. 49. I'm 49. There you go. 74. Yes. There you go. 74. Yes. There you go. Okay.

All right. So we're all turning 50 next week. Yeah, good time. There's actually a lot of- You're 50 next week? No, I'm sorry. Did I say next week? Yeah.

I feel like I'm turning 50 next week. 50 next year. We're all turning- If I'm 74, I can't be turning 50 next week. That would be tough. Next year, we all turn 50. That's kind of going to be a huge cohort of 50s. Cool 50-somethings like us, Ken.

Yeah, that's when you remember when you turned 40 and you're like 40 is a new 30 I'm like no it isn't it's still 40 however

when I watch All in the Family I'm like Archie Bunker is supposed to be 48 he looks like a thousand and nine you know where I get that I just re-watched

The Sopranos and you learn in the first episode or early on talking to Melfi you learn Tony's like 36 or 37 and I'm like no he's not I'm looking at him and I'm thinking rhinos yeah you learn in the first episode or early on talking to melfi you learn uh tony's like 36 or 37 and i'm like no he's not i'm looking at him and i'm thinking oh shit like that's 36 37

it's just it's kind of like yeah wild to think that that's 36 37 it's so funny because my brother and i have always had this theory that people age so poorly back in the day and now it's like very much everyone goes with that theory but it all comes back to wilford brimley being two years older than robert redford when they made the natural 100 yeah and you had a track when you hit the age wilfred was when he did uh nothing uh well okay you can say the natural but i always think a cocoon yeah cocoon and we won't get any older we're never gonna die what was the show he did it was a sitcom our house our house probably yeah i think he was 28 when he did that he looked like he was a thousand and nine wild okay uh on that note steve martin is a guy who i thought was old when i was growing up and uh he's still the same like so he didn't age for

several decades the hair but it was a hair you know what's funny when you look at i actually saw a picture of him with black hair the other day but when you look at the face within the hair you're like that's a young face that's true back when we were kids you just looked at the cheveux that's right we weren't distracted okay so when did you uh first connect yes with ivanka osmack first day they put us in there um they hired me and they said you're gonna work with ivanka so my first show was with brad fey so love that guy a beautiful guy speaking of. Speaking of good-looking dudes. Yeah, you know, he did a smart thing recently

where he stopped dyeing his hair. Was he dyeing his hair? Oh, you know what? I say this like I know it authoritatively. I only know this because I know him. He's been over and I see him. And all of a sudden now

he's got the white thing, but I feel like he was dyeing his hair. I need to confirm this with him. I think he might have been. Like a lot of TV people do that. People always ask me if I dye my hair. Do you dye your hair? For the record, I do not. If if you saw my dad dad's 80 this summer and he doesn't have very

many grays at all so i think it's just holding on to the pigmentation from for rance malnick's mustache i do have gray in my sideburns so there you go just a little distinguished gray brad faye recently came on of jamie campbell to celebrate Sportsnet's 25th anniversary. I listened to that episode. So how far into that 25th? So you're at 13, did you say? Yeah, I'm at 13. Okay, all right. So I would have come.

What did you think of that episode? We paid tribute to you. 12 through. It was good. It was good. Learned a lot of old stories. I was left going, well, who was it? Who was it?

Remember when they'd say, yeah, this one guy couldn't do the show, so they got Jamie. I'm like, who was it? Who was it? Remember when they'd say, yeah, this one guy couldn't do the show, so they got James. I'm like, who was it? Who was it? You know, you just DM me all those questions, and I'll call up Brad and get all the answers. Brad lives down the street. I can ask him next time I bump into him on Queen East.

Do it. Absolutely. Okay. So it was just good chemistry. Let's keep these two together, you and Ivanka. Yeah, it just worked. And I think it was just kind of like, we'll see how this works out.

And it worked. So I don't think it was, if we suck together, I don't know. Maybe they would have still kept us together anyway, but we didn't. I don't think we did. Some people think probably we suck, but no, they're happy. And we get along like peaches and cream because I know you hear the stories

and news anchors not talking and that's not us. I do get those stories. There are those stories. It's not us. I wish it was. If I can, if I may, because I will write a book one day

when I get to maybe episode 2000. I'll just put it all out there. But my favorite story in that vein, not that it's good that people don't talk to each other. I'm not happy it happens, but I'm here to get the real talk. In fact, there's a real talk question

for you coming up. The great duo we had in this market on City TV, Gord Martineau and Ann Roszkowski. I grew up watching City TV, City Pulse News. Shout out to Peter Gross. But the fact is,

the only time, according to Ann Roszkowski, the only time that the great Gord Martineau would speak to her was when the red light was on. And that was it. For three years, she said. That's crazy. Because my whole thing is,

if you're working with somebody in whatever line of work it is, and it's awkward, it's awkward. If you're working with somebody and you don't speak to them and you're on TV together, that's very difficult, one would think. I'm lucky in that I've never had that experience. So you legit, like, will you ever meet up for a coffee or something? Oh, yeah.

Like, we went to Vegas together. Our husband and wife came, too. It wasn't just Ivanka and I. Okay, that's the real talk I'm looking for. She's come to Pictou for the Pictou Lobster Carnival. Oh, yeah, no, this is true friendship. She searched out for teapot. She didn't find teapot, but she asked everyone in town,

what's your favorite teapot story? And Randy Mansoor, who goes by the name of Manhole, said nobody makes better snow forts than teapot. Wow. So she came to Mom's house. Mom showed her how to clean cooked lobsters. Okay. You know, Adam, her husband, it was so funny.

We're at the beer garden and everyone's like can you take pictures and adam's like sure he's just taking pictures of people with his wife all night that was pretty good but no we uh we get along really well we have our kids are funny you know they're kind of the same age so like uh she i think her kid might have bit my kid once the baby that was pretty funny so or he wrecked a toy or something there was a big thing so yeah we get along it's good you get along here and uh long may you run but uh so gonna give you a couple gifts real quick here before we wind down there's a wireless speaker for you and it sounds good it's bluetooth i say that like i'm surprised but it's quality uh bluetooth speaker and that's courtesy of manaris because. Because just like, I would say, Ken, just like you've been collecting these

great stories with hometown hockey heroes, an ideal stalking stuffer for the hockey fan in your life this holiday season. Okay, that's five bucks you owe me for that one. I was just going to say it. I'll trade you a speaker for that. I would say that season five of Yes, We Are Open is

hosted by FOTML. Grego, Al, I'm going to see you on Saturday at TMLX 14. I can't wait. But he went five of yes we are open hosted yes we are open is hosted by fotml grego al i'm gonna see on saturday at tmlx 14 i can't wait but he went out east he went to the maritimes he went to newfoundland and he collected stories from small business owners and he's been sharing those inspiring stories uh for entrepreneurs like me it's season five of yes we are open so that's what you're going to listen to if you're a new speaker. Beautiful. Love it. Thank you very much. And all that Sportsnet cash you've been earning the last 13 years. Tons of it. Tons of it. You got to invest it wisely. And I would recommend you subscribe to the

Advantaged Investor Podcast from Raymond James Canada. Ken, whether you already work with a trusted financial advisor or manage your own investment plans, the Advantaged Investor provides the engaging wealth management information you value as you pursue your most important goals. Best investment I see in the studio here is that Andre the Giant mug. I'm thinking you could get a good return on that. I don't think, I think the return I'd get. I'd get at least 50 bucks on that.

See, I'm thinking now in my head real quickly, what price would I sell it for way north of $50? That's why I like Storage Wars. Right here, that's a $50 barrel. I'm like, no one's going to give you $50 for that bud. This right here, this microphone that's a $1,200 microphone. It's $1,200 out of the package. You're going to get $15 for it at the Mississauga Flea Market.

Let's go on. Okay, but what if you were told that is the microphone that Dave Hodge spoke into when he unveiled his 100 songs of Name the Year. That would add the value, right? Hodge still loves the new music, eh? Well, last week. Here, I'm yelling at you, Ken.

I'm angry with you now. Last week, Dave Hodge unveiled his 100 new songs of 2023 right here on Toronto Mic. That man listens to a ton of new music. I don't listen to anything after 1991. That's my cutoff date. Nirvana ruined it all. I don't believe you, because I bet you you would tune in.

I listen to Audioslave. Oasis. Yeah, Audioslave's a good example, too. But my cutoff line, way later than yours. I don't go all the way to 1997. Oh, really? Wow, that's deep.

That's like, that's Oasis. Yeah, that's... See, I didn't like that whole era when they started taking product out of their hair and just wore cords. That didn't do it for me. Also, I should shout out, I do really like that whole era when they started taking product out of their hair and just wore cords. That didn't do it for me. Also, I should shout out, I do really like the White Stripes,

and that is a post-90s phenomenon, I think. Fair enough. I've never gotten into them, but that's cool. There's a great band that I love, and they are awesome. My brother and I saw them randomly in Cleveland one night after a baseball game. We just walk into this bar, and we're like, hey, let's go listen to the band. And they're playing their own stuff. And I'm like, these guys are phenomenal.

And I'm going to give you the name of them. The Black Moods. They're from Phoenix, Arizona. Three dudes. They're just rocking. But here's the problem, Ken. I suffer from this. If I see a band live, I love it.

That's when I saw them. Yeah. Well, yeah. So, but this is dangerous because I've noticed like the same band where if I listen to the CD, it's like,

I'll deem it pedestrian. It's mediocre. Like I don't need to go back to that, but I catch them live in a bar or something. And I'm like, Oh my God. That's what was, that's why they used to tour right now.

They tour to pay the bills. They used to tour for that. But so black moods, we, there's 50 people there. We talked to them afterwards. Where are you guys from, Canada? Oh, do you know Our Lady Peace? They got the best drummer. It was Jeremy Taggart.

I'm like, I know Taggs. FOTM Jeremy Taggart. Black Moods, you will love them. I'm sold. Guaranteed. Okay. Guaranteed. Jeremy Taggart would do the, did you watch Degrassi Junior High?

Now Taggs knows his Degrassi Junior High and Wheels' dad, of course. Every time. Oh, that's where I'm going. Every time I drive by Port Hope. Me too. When I'm not driving, I snap a picture of the tower.

Okay, I don't do that. Every time, I just did this because my daughters live in Montreal right now and we just did the whole Montreal 401 thing. And yes, every time I approach the green sign, Port Hope, I tell everyone in the car, that's where Wheels' dad lives. That's right. that's right every single time where mike and the drifters

play yes and that one chord what shout out to cam gordon and when freaking wheels got in with that hitchhiker i'm like why are they on a dirt road port hope is literally right off the 401 it's right there so yeah like port hope the first. The first time I drove, my brother, it's Port Hope. It's Port Hope. I was a wheels guy. So I'll tell you another one. So I made, like I was obsessed with wheels. He was my guy.

Yeah. So I had his shirt made up. It says, I'm wheels from Degrassi. This is like 2004. I'm going through customs. Go up, put my stuff up. Yeah. The guy looks at me.

He's like, really? I was like, what? He goes, your wheels from Degrassi? I'm like, no, it's just a t-shirt. He's like, that's the best t-shirt I've ever seen. Go ahead, bud. So that was, that's my wheel story. It's who sadly passed away.

Well, I mean, that's a tragic. Oh my God. That's a tragic. That's like the most, because we didn't find out for five years, I think. No, that's life imitating art. I mean, that is just, it was awful. You're right.

I mean, we could go, I could. He was a John Doe in Hamilton. Like, that's life imitating art i mean that is just it was awful you're right i mean we could go i could he was a john doe in hamilton like that's crazy yeah and we'd also i what i find it just kind of interesting is that you see port hope and then you tell the story and then you remember the guy's name the actor's name is hope yeah neil hope that's a mind blow too right like yeah it's hope and it's poor hope neil hope yep and yeah terrible story of five years before a you know the guy who played Wheels. And he came back, I'm trying to remember because he went to jail

as we know in the school's out. He came back on Degrassi The Next Generation. The first time he came back he was in a wheelchair which made no sense and then he came back.

But that was Shane, wasn't it? Shane did Acid, jumped off the bridge. But he came back because Jonathan Torrens played him in Right, right, exactly.

In the new series. In the new one. But then there was one, it was a weird one where Wheels... In a wheelchair? I think he was in a wheelchair, but then he came back again because they had to cheer Snake up, so they took him bowling, and Wheels showed up, and then they sang the Zit Remedy song in the back of the car on the way back home.

And Joey was there too, right? There you go. So it comes back to Pat Mastroianni. Yeah, well, FOTM, Pat Mastroianni, come on. But yeah, such a sad story, the Neil Hope story. So sad. And the character, yeah. So schools, I don't know.

I feel like, as I talk to you, Ken, I'm almost winding down, because I don't want to take two hours of your time. You can, I don't care. I got nowhere to go. I realize you would love Toronto Mike. It's right in your wheelhouse. Dude, I listened to it.

Okay, because we did Cam Gordon, who now works for the same company you work for, I don't know if I'm allowed to talk about that, but he, we did a 2.5 hour deep dive into the finale, which was a TV movie on CBC, School's Out.

School's Out. Wasn't my fault Lucy wanted chips. Wasn't my fault the baby wasn't wearing a seatbelt. And of course, at the end of that, you know, Wheels is arrested, and she went blind, arrested. She went blind.

She went blind. They wouldn't fix his glasses. She was going to go to Carleton to study journalism. She's the real life. Anais Granovski? I hope I didn't butcher that first name. The actress. She was in a Kish video.

I rhymed. Yes. She was in the video for Let's Do It. Oh, okay. She's a flirt. Cont. I rhymed. Yes. I rhymed in about 80 days. But she was in the video for Let's Do It. Oh, okay. She's a flirt. It's a controversial title. Okay. Let's Do It.

And she's a flirt. Kish is an FOTM2. Kish, good friends with Tim McAuliffe. You know, I'm going to later ask you about Tim and Sid. But Tim McAuliffe, yeah, proud Maltese guy from the Junction, right? Like Jeff Samet. I feel like this is the whole yeah yeah uh junction uh click here but okay we'll talk about tim very soon i want to shout out

recycle my electronics.ca because if anyone listening has any old cables or electronics or devices that they need to throw away don't put that in the garbage because the chemicals end up in our landfill go to recycle recyclemyelectronics.ca and find out somewhere near you where you can drop it off and it will be properly recycled because it's accredited by the EPRA. So much love to recyclemyelectronics.ca.

And again, I shouted out Ridley Funeral Home earlier, but Brad Jones at Ridley Funeral Home, they were serving hot chocolate at this weekend's Lakeshore Santa Claus Parade. So people at 14th and Lakeshore got hot chocolate from Ridley Funeral Home. And I just want to shout out his podcast, which is called Life's Undertaking.

Every two weeks, Brad drops a new episode and I just love it. So while you're subscribing to those other podcasts, I recommend make sure you subscribe to Life's Undertaking. In your book, book ken before i get back to sports net i did enjoy the uh george palawa story uh because i'm a huge tom cochran fan and i absolutely adore big league yeah so i golfed beside tom at joe carter's tournament this year and i kind of told him about that he's like yeah like he doesn't let the secret go of exactly who the song's about,

which I respect. But when you read George's story, I know his buddies think it's about him, so it kind of adds up, right? He died shortly. I noticed the wording is, he may have been the inspiration. Like, it's a little not quite. Yeah, you're careful with that. And he died, what, 86?

And Big League came out, I think, 87, 88. So I like when you don't always know the answers. So much respect. Like the end of The Sopranos. Correct. Much respect to the genius, musical genius and gift that Tom Cochran is because Tom's kind of never given that up, and I respect that. And yes, like the end of The Sopranos.

So again, I mentioned I re-watched it very recently. kind of never given that up and I respect that. And yes, like the end of The Sopranos. Which, so again, I mentioned I rewatched it very recently. I rewatched it like two years ago. Yeah. In the last two years, I've rewatched

the following three shows, which I loved when I watched them the first time. Two of them with my wife because she had never seen them. She's my second wife. So I watched some of my first wife. I got to watch my second wife.

And then a third time. So the three shows I'm referring to are In Order, The Wire, which i rewatched for a third time with my oldest son my favorite show of all time six feet under which my wife monica had never seen speaking of uh you know what you should see it because if you love the sopranos and you love the wire you should watch six fenner it's it's about a funeral home right it's about a family that lives yeah the fisher family and they own's about a funeral home, right? It's about a family that lives, yeah, the Fisher family, and they own an independent funeral home.

It's pretty much the Brad Jones story, but it's a tremendous, tremendous series. Okay, and then the third one is The Sopranos, and we just revisited, and I don't want to spoil anything, except I absolutely love The Sopranos finale. How brilliant is it that phone lines and cable outlets were flooded?

They thought the cable went out. That's just But in real time, when I watched it in real time, I knew 100% what David Chase was doing. Like, I knew exactly what that son of a bitch was doing. You think they whacked him? Well, I don't know. Are we allowed to talk? I mean, it's many decades old now. Yes. Okay. Yes. I believe

because who is it again? Bobby. In just the previous episode or something, was talking about, just before Bobby gets it, he's talking about how you don't even hear it when it's coming, and he's kind of describing the end or whatever. And then that scene, you know, he's looking

up at the door. The members-only jacket guy, you can kind of, if you watch, you can watch it a hundred times now, you can watch almost like a chess match match like where they go when he goes in the washroom they always allude to the godfather the godfather yeah it's 100 the godfather and he looks up that last time and i believe i believe paulie walnuts had him whacked paulie yeah i'm putting it on paulie why paulie uh most loyal of the soldiers. Is he though? Because he, do you remember that scene earlier when Pauly's on the boat with Tony?

Oh yeah, and Tony's thinking about whacking him. Yeah. And then he's asking him again, like, you're the guy who told Johnny Sacks about the joke that was made by Ralphie about Johnny Sacks' wife being overweight,

Ginny or whatever. Yeah. And it was him, we know that. But anyway, too many spoilers. I apologize if you haven't seen the sopranos just fucking see it yeah like there's there's a great youtube the sopranos is a comedy do you ever see that like no oh it's great there's so there's great little eight minute videos on youtube about the sopranos

like the best christopher maltisanti's an idiot just little clips like that well he is is an idiot sopranos was a comedy and there was this the best line, it's one of the funniest lines in Sopranos as I watch these things on the characters. They did a little two-minute vignette on Adriana's dad whenever he's in the episode. So his daughter disappears, and then he, no, they're at a funeral for somebody, and his daughter disappears, and then he looks,

the mother's crying, he looks at the TV, and the dad goes, look at this, now Syracuse is losing. Like, come on, that's funny. Poor Adriana. I know. Such a tragic arc here. Okay, everybody go see The Sopranos, and then maybe we'll do a special episode. And go see The Wire.

I have a box set of the DVDs here. And for God's sake, watch Schools Out so you get half these references. And then go to the Toronto Mike Cam Gordon deep dive into Schools Out. And we talk about the music. We talk about everything. Gowan. Gowan's all over there. Big time.

Yeah, absolutely. And I asked him about it. Yeah. Schools Out. By the way, Cam Woolley, you worked at CP24. Yeah, I know Cam. You remember Cam. Okay.

So Cam on his final shift, he retired from CB24, as you know. His final shift, he did the shift, then he drove here and sat with me for his exit interview, and then he disappeared into the night. But in that episode, we learned he only started a media career because he saw an OPP car out in the wherever, Ontario wilderness, and he checked in on the plates or whatever and found out it was like being used for a shoot, like a television shoot. And it turns out that that was the car, the car that was going to arrest wheels for drinking and driving. So that's deep.

So because he discovers this, he learns about this thing where, you know, TV shows have to borrow cars, cars and ambulances and stuff. And he gets in that business. And he gets in that business. So he gets in that business because he stumbles upon the filming of Schools Out.

And that is how he segues into the media career because he was a longtime OPP guy. But the media career at CP24 is because he stumbles upon the filming of Schools Out. Wow. If you go from season one all the way to Schools Out, last guy I figured would be a pothead was Yik. Get your stuff together, Yik.

Yik and Art in the early episodes, because Art's sister was Stephanie K. All the way with Stephanie K. Which I think is the first episode, I think. I do believe, yeah. And she was best friends with Vula, who suddenly disappeared after seasons one and two. That's a good point.

She got caught shoplifting with Lucy, and I think her parents sent her away. Oh, my God. Do you want to start a Degrassi podcast? I think we might have to. We could get Jeremy Taggart could be a guest. Oh, Tags is coming on big time. So somebody asked, I don't have a podcast.

I think we discovered what it should be about. Honestly, and I will shout out Andy, who will be at TMLX 14, the biggest Degrassi fan I know. You're not far from the facade of Degrassi Junior Hall, which is Franklin Horner is in New Toronto. That's the neighborhood you're in right now, Ken. And we can literally do a tour, and I can show you the facade of Degrassi Junior High.

Shida Bedi teaches at Centennial College. I walked in, I go, the quad! Because that was Degrassi High, right? The quads there where the Irish guy tried to romance Spike with his guitar playing, wearing his Pogues t-shirt. Shout out to Shane McGowan. Sadly, no longer with us, man. Were you a Pogues guy?

Not really, but I see his brilliance, right? Because when you were telling the story about the hammer to the teeth, Terry Ryan's teeth, I was actually thinking of Shane McGowan's teeth. Yeah, he had tough dental surgery work there. But yeah, I mean, you can't help but admire the guy. Just a genius. And this is the season of Fairy Tale of New York.

It sure is. Which I still believe to be the best Christmas song. Mrs. Reed and I will probably do karaoke of it several times this month. Amazing. Amazing. I hope her site never returns. Okay, so Toronto Jeff. This is a...

I like this question. Toronto Jeff asks you, Ken, how do you justify your love of fighting in hockey with the obvious CTE that these fighters have to live with? All right, now we're getting into the hardball. Now it begins. Hockey's a game played with passion. Sometimes people get angry at each other.

Sometimes angry people hit each other. If you can intimidate another team, you will do with them what you will. As John Tortorella said the other night, we we got balls sometimes it takes that to win in hockey there's no real analytic for it you can't measure it uh sometimes the game has to police itself that's how i justify my love of fighting all right uh i'm gonna ask you now about your stint on primetime sports. Okay. Okay.

How did it come to be that you would co-host with Bob McCowan? So they called me up one day and they said, can you come in? We want to ask you something. Do you want to host? So I go in. You want to be Bob's co-host for 20 weeks a year? We'll pay you this.

And I said, I sure do. Can you throw in some free parking with it? So they did. Wow. So that's how it came to be. I think that was around, I want to say, 2014, 2013, 2014. So I'd been at Sportsnet for a couple of years. I think it was obviously one of the co-hosts had moved on.

Do you remember who it was? Who had moved on? Yeah. It was probably Damien, I guess, but I'm not sure. Damien Cox, my guest on Friday. Yeah, being one of Bob's co-hosts, it's like being a drummer in Spinal Tap, right? You just kind of spontaneously combust and you disappear. So, yeah, I think I did it for a year and a half.

And, yeah, they offered it to me and I said, sure, I'll give it a go. Why not? And I know some people didn't like me, but as I said before, to be yourself is all that you can do. Well, some people did like me. So the one thing in broadcasting, not everyone is going to like everyone. So if people think I suck, that's

cool. That's their prerogative. I didn't ask them, but if they feel the need to tell me, that's cool. But I know a lot of people liked it too. And it sucks when they do that. They don't have to tell you that. If you don't like something, if you don't like Toronto Mic mic'd you just don't subscribe and you don't listen there's there's these things called dials or they used to be or i don't know

how you turn a channel now but yeah then that's fine if you don't like me don't listen and i get why on bob show because let's face it i'm far more conducive to tim and sid and kyle brandt than i am with bob right um i see sports more of entertainment. I know Bob loves the business side of sports. I'm not a business side of sports guy, but I think maybe they wanted to try the frick and frack and see how we'd kind of rub together. How long did you serve as co-host to Bob McAllen on Primetime Sports?

I believe it was about a year and a half, I want to say. A year and a half to two years. Probably closer to a year and a half. But yeah, one day they called me in and they were like, okay, your contract's up. We can pay you this now. And I was like, yeah, I'm not interested in working for that. And that was just, I think they wanted Deitch to come in.

So I think Richard came in. Right. But that was after, that was, I think, I think that's who replaced me but anyway like i i enjoyed it um you should always have an opinion with bob and frankly on some of this stuff i didn't have an opinion because i wasn't interested in it but again i i guess that's just me going with the old to be yourselves all you can do so yeah, yeah, it was fun. It was a great experience. Well, the specific question from Sports Fan was, why did Ken's stint with Bob McCowan not pan out?

Well, what's pan out mean? By the way, do you know this music is just like this piece of, like, public domain music? Is it? Oh, yeah, yeah. Like, Channel 10, we used to just use public domain music. Okay, so let me just a little bit of it. So yeah, it just runs forever.

Yeah, it's news music. So it didn't pan out, I guess. Yeah, after a year and a half, they didn't want to renew my contract. I think they wanted to bring in Deitch. And let's face it, I mean, Bob and I got along, but I don't think I was his first choice i would say like i like i i would say that i was an out-of-the-box choice for who had preceded me um going all the way back to you know when you think about who was there before me it was pretty serious guys well like jim the late jim kelly right and i'm i'm i can be serious when i need to be serious

but most of the time i think of sports is right it's fun it's entertainment like i don't put it this way i wasn't too concerned if division three athletes in washington were getting rights off video games like that just doesn't turn my crank you know even listening to you now for like 80 minutes here it's like the the highlights are talking about the hockey cards talking about teapot talking about wheels like you know talking about miles goodwin and what you brought to that conversation like we i as you know i don't have any questions about uh third line wingers and the the analytics you know i could talk third line wingers all day sure but my whole thing is i think i like i don't know if you see the pieces i do with kyle brandt cover for on

sports they're a blast i look at sports that way and i totally respect that that bob's pretty like he's a serious guy right and that's cool too and he had a massive audience for it's the most successful radio show in canada so he's obviously doing it right i was honored to be on it but i'm the first to say i know i was a little outside the box for that for sure. It's funny. We opened talking about Stephen Brunt, and he came on this show, and I guess we'll have him back on Saturday

because he'll jump on a mic at TMLX14, but he came on this show, I guess, shortly after he kind of left primetime sports for Tim and Sid, kind of, and he was no longer co-hosting. And I asked him straight out, Stephen, will you ever co-host with Bob McCowan again? And he definitively

said no, like I will never co-host with Bob McCowan again. Meanwhile, his second appearance was shortly after the news that he was returning as co-host for Bob McCowan. Of course, I played the clip just to hear his reaction, and things changed there. Put it this way, if Bob was a band, he's Kiss.

And Bob's a combination of Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons. He's always going to be there. The rest of us are Space Ace, Fake Ace. We're Tommy Thayer. We're Eric Singer. We're Peter Criss. We're Ace Frehley. Right.

You know, and let's face it. Ace Frehley and Peter Criss are probably Brunt and Jim Kelly, right? I might have been Tommy Thayer or something like that. I just kind of dipped in or Eric Carr. For what it's worth, for episode 500 of Toronto Mic'd, I made the mistake of inviting Bob McCowan to be my guest because I listen to a lot of primetime sports, especially when I had a commute with an actual automobile.

And he mistook me for someone else in sort of... I remember that. He mistook you for someone else. I remember that. He mistook you for the YYZ Sports Media guy. Oh, close. A guy who was writing on that blog named Mike in Boston. Ah, okay. So he got Toronto Mike and Mike in Boston mixed up. So he was like, oh, your listeners think I'm a dinosaur.

Meanwhile, I don't think any show was kinder to Bob McGowan than this one. I don't. Like, if people think I suck on that show or they don't like me on TV. That's fine. Like not. That's what you got to accept when you're in the media is like you're going to have critics like we're critics for a living. We sit there and go, why do the Leafs do this?

So how do we expect not to be criticized? So have at her. Have at her. And of course, primetime sports long gone now. Again, I'm curious if you have had any contact with Bob McCowan since news emerged that he has suffered strokes. I haven't. I haven't talked to him since, but I hope he's doing well.

It was sad to hear because Bob and I got along. I mean, we golfed together, and I was sad to hear that, man. That's tough. Yeah, it's terrible news for Bob. So, yeah, if Bob's listening, we're thinking of Bob McCowan. And if you didn't like Ken Reid on Primetime Sports, go fuck yourself. Can I say that, Ken? Well, I don't know if I'd go that far, but I just want to state for the record,

that was not my voice. That's right. No wonder Sportsnet gets people don't come on anymore. Okay, we're going to just wrap. I did, of course, I was listening to you years ago talk not too many years ago but talking to tim and sid and you were uh open and honest about your personal battles uh mental health issues uh and i'm wondering how you're doing these days oh groovy so that all came about um battle anxiety depression for a long time and i would speak about it openly at speaking engagements and

i do i did a couple things with shane corson where shane and i basically have the same brain so shane and i would go and we'd talk about it and i guess the toronto star somehow heard about it so they called me up and we do would you like to do a story in this and i said let me let me talk to mrs reed and i said to my wife like i don't want to come off as a victim because there's nothing I hate more than people whining about what's wrong with them. And she said, it isn't about you. Do it for somebody out there who's going through the same thing, which was very noble of her. And so I did this story, and I stressed I don't want to be the victim.

And the person who did this story did a wonderful job of it. And I've gotten i got one negative piece of feedback on it but i think that says if you're picking on somebody with anxiety i think that's a sponer about the person then you know but that piece of feedback wasn't from anyone you cared about or correct correct it was just some random troll yeah so i don't care i'm surprised it's only one uh seriously seriously so um yeah i was uh i'm glad it's out there and i know there's a lot of people to go through it i still have people come up and talk to me about that article or that appearance on tim and sid and that appearance on tim and sid it was kind of random like it wasn't i don't think it was planned

all that well they read the toronto star yeah, yeah. I know, I know. I connected those guys. There you go. Our own guy in-house just talked to the Star about this. Yeah. Let's talk to him. Let's talk to him. So that was an easy get for them. So, yeah, I'm touched by it.

I'm touched that a lot of people could relate to it. And I have Michael Landsberg to thank for it because Michael started the whole conversation. I remember watching Stefan Richer on Off the record and Stefan was my guy. And I've actually talked to Stefan about it since Stefan was one of the first guys I remember being a hockey player to openly talk about anxiety, depression. And yeah.

So for me, I, I guess I was around 34, 35 when I kind of was like, okay, I really have to try to tackle this. And I went after it and I seeked out a psychologist. Then I got on medication. And, you know, I don't, like you asked me if I drink a lot of beer. Well, I try not to because sometimes that can mess with your anxiety.

So, yeah, I mean, it's something I'm happy to talk about, and I hope that anyone out there that's feeling like crap, step one, tell somebody you're feeling like crap, and they will listen and then get help because if you had a broken ankle, I wouldn't just sit here, Mike, and talk to you about it. I'd tell you you got a broken ankle, and you'd say, oh, man, that sucks. Why don't you go to a hospital? So if I tell you my brain's a little ankle, I wouldn't just sit here, Mike, and talk to you about it. I'd tell you you got a broken ankle and you'd say, oh man, that sucks. Why don't you go to a hospital? So if I tell you my brain's a little off, I got anxiety, you might say that sucks.

You should go see someone. So go see someone if you can. And I got a close family member who's taken massive steps in the last six months and it's so courageous and I couldn't be more proud of them because it's a genetic thing too, right? Right. Well, and it's so courageous, and I couldn't be more proud of them because it's a genetic thing too, right? Right. Well, often it's a chemical imbalance. And that's exactly what it is.

It's chemical imbalance. So the meds are just made to balance your chemicals, and talking about it helps too. And it's amazing how many people feel this way, and more so now since we're locked in our houses with our dumb ass phones all the time and not speaking to people. It's nice that you do this podcast in person. I'm sure I've said, can I do it by video?

Because I'm probably too lazy to come across town. But yeah. And I said no, right? You said no, as you should have, because this has been wonderful. I will wait for you. You'll wait. So if you are struggling, please reach out and talk to somebody.

The first step is to tell somebody, and it's often the hardest step. So massive respect to anyone who does. Thanks for asking that question, because I'm always happy to talk about it. No, and I'm glad that we're getting rid of the stigma, because... Oh, yeah. It's true. And Michael Landsberg's been on this program a few times, and Sick Not Weak is what he says, Sick Not Weak,

and that's key here. We wouldn't be ashamed to talk about the cancer we were fighting. Yeah, exactly. Well, even when I was going to my psychologist, I thought meds were for quitters or losers or some people who weren't strong enough. And I was reluctant to tell my psychologist that I wanted to try meds because I thought it would offend her.

That's interesting. Because you knew Tony Soprano was on meds. That's right. He was seeing a psychiatrist. So that's where the brain goes, right? You're in a very sensitive place. I found myself, at least, in a very sensitive place where I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings.

I didn't want to be responsible for bad feelings. And then you got to, now, like you heard me, people say I people say i suck and i'm like yeah that's fine they can change the channel whereas before i'd be like why do i suck what's wrong with me i'm like yeah not everybody listen you're not gonna be everybody's cup of tea listen exactly look people say nickelback sucks do they really suck because they sell millions of records like You may think they suck. Jeff Merrick always says, maybe it's just not for you. There are hundreds of sports that I don't like or watch. That doesn't mean the sports suck.

They have their own fan base. I do not get up early on Saturdays and Sundays to watch the FA Cup. I'm with you. Other people do. So that's fine. Right. Right.

Ken, may I suggest we, at some point, maybe have a sequel? I want to do a Degrassi sequel, yeah, for sure. We can do Degrassi. We can kick out the jams. I mean, really, you're in the right place. I think this show suits you. And I'm sorry it took us 11 years to make this happen. Blame the Toronto City Planners.

And shout out to Jeff Merrick, big Rio statics fan and Dave Bedini had this big event yesterday about Ontario Place and just before John Lawrence from Spacing went to the West End Phoenix to be interviewed by Sarah Harmer about what's going

on at Ontario Place. He dropped by here and we had it out about Ontario Place. So John Lawrence's Toronto Mike debut yesterday. Shout out to Bedini. Bedini. Shout out to Merrick, great friend of the show

and shout out to Ken Reid. You're now an FOTM buddy. Thanks brother. Appreciate you having me and Bedini, I will see you at Hockey Day in Canada in Victoria buddy.

Woo! And that brings us to the end of our 1,382nd show. You can follow me on Twitter and Blue Sky at Toronto Mike. Ken, are you at Ken Reed SN or is it SN Ken Reed? I can't remember. I'm at SN Ken Reed and I'm on Instagram at Ken Reed Sportsnet.

And if you want to mail me a letter, just put Kenny Reed Toronto. It'll get there. All right. Long may you run on Sportsnet, man. 13 years in county. And I will, because I forgot to mention on the program, but we get there. All right. Long may you run on Sportsnet, man. 13 years in County. And I will, because I forgot to mention on the program, but we're not quite done yet. I'm purposely wearing my CBC Radio

shirt because it's a bad day and I understand that the countrywide meeting, I don't know if it's a Zoom or not, but it's happening at 2.45pm today and I have people on the inside who are going to tell me exactly what is said. So at some point this afternoon, we'll know what happened,

but it sounds like hundreds of people who work for CBC Radio across this country will be, you know, given the pink slip and severed, hopefully severed very fairly and taken care of. But just sad news. I'm a big CBC Radio fan, and it's tough to watch it contract like that. See, we do need more time together, Ken. We do, buddy. I can go. I can go.

This was fun. I'll definitely come back for part two and three and four now that I'm an FOTM. But I can't go to Mississauga on Saturday because of hockey. You're in Buffalo. Yeah. Shout out to Lois Lowe. I'll wink at you. Yeah, do that.

Pull on your earlobe and it'll know you're talking to me. There's a measuring tape for you, courtesy of Ridley Funeral Home. My wife will love this. She's in the real estate game. Amazing. Well, yeah, you always have to measure things there. Okay, so much love to those who made this possible, not just Ridley Funeral Home, but Great Lakes Brewery,

Palma Pasta, who's hosting us on Saturday, Raymond James Canada, Moneris, and Recycle My Electronics. See you all tomorrow when my special guest is Matt Hart. He used to be on the Indie 88 morning show and he's going to talk about what's happening with him and in radio.

See you all then. I know it's true How much of All that picking up trash And then putting down roads And they're broken in stocks The class struggle explodes And I'll play this guitar Just the best that I can Maybe I'm not And maybe I am

But who gives a damn Because everything is coming up Rosy and gray Yeah, the wind is cold But the smell of snow Warms me today And your smile is fine And it's just like mine

And it won't go away Cause everything is rosy and green Well I've kissed you in France and I've kissed you in Spain And I've kissed you in places I better not name And I've seen the sun go down on Shakalaka