Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Mary Ormsby and Paul Hunter: Toronto Mike'd #742

Episode Date: October 28, 2020

Mike chats with Mary Ormsby and Paul Hunter about their decision to leave the Toronto Star, their decades at the paper, Mary's foray into sports radio on The Fan and The Team and why there are so few women on the air today.

Welcome to episode 742 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times and brewing amazing beer. Pumpkins After Dark, save 10% with the promo code miked m-i-k-e-d cdn technologies your outsourced it department sticker you.com create custom stickers labels tattoos and decals for your home and your business and palma pasta enjoy the taste of fresh homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. I'm Mike from torontomike.com and joining me this week are a power Toronto media couple,

Mary Ormsby and Paul Hunter. I just had to open with some Peter, Paul, and Mary. And I honestly, I came this close. I've become good friends with Peter Gross. You might know Peter Gross. I almost invited him over just so I could have Peter, Paul, and Mary on the program. So welcome, welcome guys. Thanks for inviting us.

Do you have a favorite Peter, Paul and Mary song? That one. Is this one? Okay. Yes. The Gordon Lightfoot cover. Yes, it's beautiful. Well, it's the one I chose. I had to choose and this was my favorite as well so you have good taste.

I feel like we'll just listen to this for a little bit and I will remember it. Did you ever get tired of the Peter, Paul, and Mary jokes? No, we do get them often, but that's fine. You can't get tired of that. No. It's all with love in the heart here. Are you warm enough, Mary?

You're comfortable there? I'm totally fine. It's a gorgeous, warm autumn afternoon. Love it. And I don't know who chose this date, but kudos for not choosing yesterday it was no because I was out here for two and a half hours like around the same time maybe a little later and uh crummy man it was crummy it was wet I had tarp covering the gear from the rain it was cold but

today you're right this is one of those fantastic autumn days. So thanks so much for being here. I have so many questions I want to ask you, but I'm going to ask you the first one I want to get out of the way. Actually, first I'm going to read a question from my buddy Hebsey, Mark Hebsey. So Hebsey says, ask them if it's okay to ask some tough questions and then hope like hell that they don't walk out and end the interview abruptly. So tough questions are coming you're still sticking around though you've been okay yeah paul says he's gonna leave the car running so i saw that just in case yeah i thought i thought that was actually pretty clever uh you

never know what's gonna happen in toronto mike's backyard so how did you two meet, give me the Paul and Mary origin story. Well, we actually did meet at work. I was a young reporter and Mary was there ahead of me. She'd come over from the Toronto Sun to work at the Toronto Star. Can I also say I was also a young reporter, just in case anybody's wondering about an age gap? My eyesight's pretty good. Paul's got 25 years on you. At least, yes. Yeah, so we worked together for a couple of years, and finally I got the courage up to ask Mary out.

And it's always a little bit of a risky thing, you know, when you work with someone and you want to date them. And, you know, in case it doesn't go well, then you're still working with them them and it could be pretty awkward. Yeah, there's an expression. I won't quote it exactly, but you're not supposed to, you know, crap where you eat, I think. That's so romantic.

I know. I regret now saying it out loud, but I did clean it up a little bit. I've always heard it like dipping your pen in company ink or something. Yeah, that's a better, you know what, I'm going to change it to that one. That's why he's the writer. I got to change it. But like, do you remember how you asked her out? Like, did you ask her what, to the movies?

What was this? Out to dinner. I remember being home and he phoned me at home. That's right. And I thought, well, why are you phoning me at home? You know, and I thought, he said, oh, are you free this week to go have dinner or something like that? And I went, yeah. I thought he was going to quit.

But sure, I'll talk to you because we were friends at work first, right? We're good friends. Sure. And sometimes covered assignments at the same time, maybe CFL or whatever. I mean, those sorts of things. You're sort of rolling in a big back in the day. It was a big department back in the 80s. Right. So I couldn't figure it out. I said, well, okay, yeah, see you. Bye. I mean, those sorts of things. You're, you know, sort of rolling in a big, back in the day it was a big department back in the 80s. So I couldn't figure it out. I said, well, okay, yeah, see ya. I hung up and I had no idea

it was going to be a date. By the next day at work, he was he came up to me and said, what kind of food do you like? Like that. And I went, oh, this is a date. It's a date date, yeah yeah so it went it went quite well I oh clearly yeah I hope so and uh how many kids do you have uh we have four four kids four spread over 11 years so three boys and a girl well good for you yeah which made work a little bit difficult at times but also uh know, a great amount of fun. Wow.

Like, I just, it's just, it's so great because you clearly still like each other. Like, which is, which is more than half the battle here. So, okay, that's fantastic. Now, that's, that's the first question I had. And then I thought maybe we'd start with the other big question and then we'll you know hopefully you'll indulge me so I have lots of Toronto Star and Mary I have some fan 1430 slash 590 questions for you as well here but why are you two no longer at the Toronto Star well long story short, I guess, we took a buyout along with a lot of other people. The buyouts were offered in about November, I think, of last year.

And for us, the timing was good. It worked. And we didn't leave until midsummer, but we were allowed to pick you know, pick a date in the future to leave, and everyone kind of lined up and picked different dates along the way, and we were able to make it work for us, and we left. And to be honest, it was a good time to go. Like, the business has changed so much over the years, and we were pretty much done, I think, at that point. So you're at peace with this decision.

I remember when David Schultz came over, he came over to officially announce that. He said he couldn't stop himself from smiling when he heard them say there were going to be packages. He was so excited. He was already raising his hand. He was just waiting for one, and then one came, and he was so excited to kind of walk away.

But you have no – it doesn't sound like it was a difficult decision, like you're at peace with stepping away. Well, it's been, for me, almost 40 years because I did work at the Sun before I went to the Star, and that's a long time to have one job. Right. And it's a great job and it requires, I think a lot of energy and a lot of, uh, you know, physical and mental commitment. And I, I think I probably could have stuck around a bit longer, but I think at some point you say,

well, when do I go? And, um, you know, I'm 60 years old. Uh, it was going to work out, you know, pension wise and had to ask some hard questions about you know are we done can we do this will we miss it will we work afterwards and I thought we were we were pretty yes we were at peace with the idea I and then COVID hit of course which made me really kind of happy that I I was leaving but also it was the biggest story in the world so we're all we're working on that for several months. So I would have to say, though, I do miss the deadlines and the upset stomachs and the worry and having to talk to the lawyer about legal things.

But I do miss the hunt and the chase and the detective work that goes with some of the stories we did. That I do miss. Right. And the camaraderie of the office, it was a very collegial place and although as mary mentioned with covid that didn't exist anymore anyway so we were essentially leaving an empty office which took away the sting a little bit because there wasn't the emotion of saying goodbye to people or anything like that and it must be nice to be able to leave together. Like you can literally like hold hands and kind of, you know, walk into the sunset together, right? This is like, this is a nice, uh, kind of like Thelma and Louise.

Now, you know, I was, I guess my next question is, do you consider yourselves retired now, or is it just time for another chapter? Cause you're still full of energy. You still, you're still good at what you do. You didn't suddenly, you know, you're still full of energy you still you're still good at what you do you didn't suddenly you know you're still excellent at what you do like is there another chapter in your professional life i mean my vanity won't allow me to say i'm retired and honestly i think that's all it is because i've always said well actually i took a buyout and that's what you know that's why i left right and so i haven't come to terms with being able to say i'm retired so i think at some point i i would like to do some more writing I don't know what what kind I don't want to be for newspapers that that I found that too hard you know once you're out of that out of

your lane for me anyway it's hard to get back in because it's a pretty demanding job and you know newspapers are very organic you know created every day actually almost every minute of every day now with the internet so I think there's something down the road but right now I've decided to you know just sort of lay low for a little while and maybe clean the house properly for the first time in 30 years I think at some point I could see myself writing again but likewise I just want to take some time it was a pretty stressful lifestyle for a while, especially raising four children. And we both traveled quite a bit when we were in sports.

So there was a lot of strain at the time. And it's cumulative. And it's just nice now to not have that. And to, you know, essentially I think I just want to get bored and then see where my mind takes me once I'm bored, you know. And if something interesting came along, I would do it. If it doesn't, I'm fine. I'm fine.

Well, Ben Rayner's been in this backyard a few times this summer. You know, I can't get rid of him. I think he just shows up and he threatens to start a fire. He's over by the barbecue there. He's eyeing the beer. I'm going to watch him. Well, he does like the beer, but he just likes to be outside, I think. And, you know, he kind of took the summer to, he has a young daughter,

and he took the summer to be a dad. And then he started, you know, he just recently, his daughter went back to school, which is great. She's back in school. And Ben's getting, you know, Ben's a which they, you know, they, which is great. They're back, she's back in school and Ben's getting, you know, Ben's a bit younger than you guys, obviously,

but he's got that itch again and he's started kind of trying to figure out what, what's next for, what next for him. But, uh, it is interesting as a, like a lifelong,

uh, I grew up with the Toronto star was our paper. Like, so, you know, it came to the door every day, like, like the old days.

I know. And it was the Toronto star. It was, that was our paper. And, uh, just these names that you hear that are kind of taking packages and leaving. And then even people like Morgan Campbell or just Peter Howell was here. I think he was here maybe January or like a week before he got this news. He didn't have a clue it was coming when he was over here.

It's just some of these names you've been reading forever are just kind of no longer in the game. I just wonder what's next for the Toronto Star? The other side of that, quite honestly, is when you get people like us, this generation,

maybe it's time to step out of your lane. Morgan Campbell, you mentioned, is a bit younger, obviously, quite a bit younger, and he wanted to have other opportunities, which he's pursued. But at some point, you've got the next generation's plural coming up after you in a different sort of business model now because the star has now been sold. So they will be working for new bosses,

and there's a lot of talent at the star still. And we enjoy reading it every day. And then, and it's not just reporters and columnists, it's the editors and copy editors and, you know, it people, everybody,

the graphics people who make it go. So, you know, I, I, I feel that it's in good hands. Well, I'm going to have more,

more Toronto star stuff later in the episode, as we dive in there, I'm going to have more Toronto Star stuff later in the episode as we dive in there. I'm going to ask you about some of the guys. People I want to ask you about later, not now, just like a teaser, but like Mil Dunnell, for example. I got some questions about some of these cats I read growing up. One quick thing.

My guest yesterday was Mark Weisblot, who has a newsletter called 1236. And his big, he wanted me to ask you this. I'm going to ask it right off the top here. He says, he wanted me to ask you this I'm gonna ask it right off the top here he says he wanted me to ask you how do you how do you feel about your absence resulting in more rosies so he's observed that sort of so and I asked this event too because it's no one in the public domain here we know about this I don't know what you call it but there was like a letter about Rosie that was signed by a bunch of Toronto Star people. I know you're well aware of all this, but do you have any thoughts on the whole Rosie thing?

And the fact that I think there's more Rosie than ever, Rosie DiManno, than ever right now in the sports. Well, she was always, you know, an incredible worker and a powerful person. Yeah, a dominant person, a powerful person in the newsroom. And if she wanted to cover something, no one ever said no to her. So, you know, she's been doing that Rosie thing for 20 years, 20 plus years. It's not anything new. More than that, probably. Yeah, yeah.

She's tireless. I couldn't keep her pace up. I couldn't have either. You know, and especially, again, I go back when the days when we traveled a lot, she would be everywhere and writing two or three columns a day. Right. To say there's more Rosie now, I don't think that's true. I don't think so, yeah.

She's not filling a vacuum. She was always there, and she's a steady performer. So maybe it seems like more Rosie because there's less others, maybe. Possibly. This is a Mark Wiseblood observation, I should point out. Mark has a thing about rosy collars. Of course, you know, she's so interesting, and he observes the landscape, and she's one of those characters.

Another name that will pop up later, Steve Simmons is going to pop up later. He sent me a nice note about you, Mary. And nothing bad about you, Paul, but he wrote about Mary. And Steve's another guy. He's been over a couple of times, and I like reading Steve. But there's a guy, a polarizing guy, I would say. People either love his stuff or they kind of love to hate his stuff. Well, that's a columnist who nails his or her job.

Yes, that's exactly what you want in a columnist. Damien Cox would be the same way. And those are the people you either read to love them or read to hate them. But you read them. Yes, exactly. And when I read a columnist, I don't want to necessarily read an even-handed opinion.

Let me have it. You want a reaction, right? Like it's an apathy or indifference is your enemy. Something a little visceral and mixed. And if you can build and, you know, mixed. And if you can build your argument, too, to support whatever your polarizing opinion is, you know, all the more power to you.

That is quite a skill. It's hard to do. I remember Steve Simmons, you know, all the way back to when he wrote for the Western Gazette, and I spent a couple of years at Western, and I used to read him back then, writing about college football, university football. And I remember being really impressed

that a university kid would write with such confidence and such opinion and such strength, really. Authority. Yeah, authority's a good word. And it's continued on through his professional career. And I consider Steve a friend now. Oh, me too. So you'd call him Cy?

I would never call him Cy. I've never called him Cy. I've called him Steve. I'm not big on that thing. Every time I have a friend of Steve, they call him Cy. And I'm like, oh, I guess you get to call him Cy when you're in his inner circle there, I guess. Well, you know, you're in a friendly this is pro simmons territory here and cox too we'll talk about cox later but he's been over four times uh yeah and we he's done this he's him and steve simmons i believe they both kicked out the jams which is like uh you're you get you

once you've done your deep dive you get to come back and kick out the jam so we'll get to these cats now uh there's two of you so you of course could have been episodes unto yourself so i'm gonna start with mary and then come to paul that's so cool and i'm gonna open a can of great lakes beer if that's okay with you guys i got a fresh can of burst here so and i have to do it on the mic here there you go wow hi duck everything's authentic here no sound effects here okay so mary tell me uh i guess it all because like you were a university uh athlete uh yes volleyball yeah i uh i played volleyball after actually uh i ran track for many years and then i had the two really major heartbreaking things happen when i ran track number one i got I got fat. And number two, I got slow.

So it was really quite a tragic set of circumstances. Getting slow is tough for a track athlete. A tragic set of circumstances that led me to volleyball, although you have to be in shape to play volleyball. And that's where I actually learned how to do early forms of cross training and other things that sort of got me back into shape. So I played a lot of volleyball here. And I was on the junior national team for a little while

and then went down to Ohio State University on a scholarship. Oh, good for you. And study journalism at a great school. One thing Mary would be too modest to tell you is that she's in the Ohio State Sports Hall of Fame. Wow. I feel like that's super impressive. The, yeah, the Buckeyes. It was really nice. It was pretty good. I'm curious about your height now. My wife was a big high school volleyball player. She went to the University of Alberta.

I said, did you play there? No, she's 5'7 or something. Or 5'6. She couldn't play there or something. What's your height? I'm 5'8", which even sort of back in the day was short, and I was a setter,

but I would always just, nobody measured you back then. It was like me playing with, you know, Ty Cobb. It was, who kept stats, right? So I'd say, well, I'm 5'10". And nobody ever really measured me, except the other girls who were 5'10", said, you're not 5'10". I said, well, you're not going to tell, are you? Well, I, when I was much much

younger I met Ty Domi which was a big deal to me because I was a big Leafs fan like so unlike you I you know I didn't meet a lot of Leafs and here's Ty Domi and we had a photo together where I was taller than Ty Domi in the photo and I remember his card said he was 5'10 that's what his cards I think it was 5'10 and I was I had a couple inches on Ty Domi and I'm about 5'9 or so and I just remember thinking, okay, so at least now I have a frame of reference of what it means when you see 5'10 on a hockey cart. It's more like 5'7, I think.

But anyway, okay, so Mary, you came back here and you mentioned the Toronto Sun. So is that where your sports journalism career begins? Well, after I graduated in 81, I had an internship at the Dayton Daily News in Ohio, not too far from Columbus, Ohio. And I was in sports there, and they couldn't keep me on at the end of the summer,

so I came home. And then I just started phoning around asking for jobs. And it was tough. It was not a good economic situation back in 81. But George Gross, who has now passed on on he was a sports editor at the time very famous uh sure toronto personality do you do an impersonation of uh no i don't i i i couldn't do the baron if i tried uh but anyway he hired me in november of 81 so i actually started there and then i quit uh early 85 because i just thought I was in the wrong career, quite frankly.

I was enjoying it. I didn't like how I was being worked at the Sun. I was on night shift. I did copy editing. I did some reporting, and I just quit and had a couple of weeks break. But I phoned the Toronto Sun, Star, excuse me, and said, would you be interested in hiring me at all? And they said, yes, we need a woman. Because Alison Gordon, who had been covering Blue Jays,

Toronto Blue Jays, was ill. She'd had Hodgkin's lymphoma, which she beat. But she quit the business, and I took her spot at the Toronto Star, and that's how I ended up at the Star. So quite literally, almost like there's a quota of some sorts. Oh, yeah, for sure. We need a woman. So quite literally, like, almost like there's a quota of some sorts. Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah. We need a woman.

And you could argue it would still, you know, that quota is still in play. But anyway, back in the day, so I took that job, and they were good to me there. And I got to do a lot of fun things and different things. And that was a fantastic break for me. Okay, before we leave the son behind here, I know it was early in your career, but, you know, you spent what, five years there, almost? Almost four. Four years, okay.

You mentioned George Gross, so I've had a lot of the sun, so the thing about the sun, guys, except for Ryan Walstat, who is about my age, I'd say, everyone else has been there a long, most of them have been there like a very long time. That's right, I worked with Lance Hornby, he was there, Scotty Morrison, Scott Morrison, who was moved on to television after that Lance Hornby. He was there. Scotty Morrison, Scott Morrison, who was moved

on to television after that. Of course. He was there. Steve Simmons was not there at the time. He comes from Calgary at mid-80s, I think. Dave Schultz was there towards the end. Frank Ziccarelli was there. I can't think of who else.

Steve Buffery there? Mayor of Edmond. Sorry, I said Mayor Mayor of Edmond Mayor of Etobicoke Steve Buffery, the beezer Ken Fiddle was there too So that whole group was there Was Bob Elliott there? He came a bit later The model I think

If I remember right Jim O'Leary would have been there So you were their woman too There was no other woman writing at that time? Not full time, no. I think they had a couple of women come in for summer jobs and things like that and people who didn't stay very long. Essentially, I was it.

I was the token. But I mean, right now, there's not a woman there now. I don't believe there's a Sun Sports female writer. I don't know. I wouldn't want to say no. I don't think so. But again, they've all been there so long, except for Wahlstadt, who came in and comes in and covers the Raptors.

I think they've been a long time. But tell me about, okay, One Young Street. I was literally there today, but not to visit the Toronto Star, but I was there earlier today um yeah it is quiet there you can those elevators are empty if you need to go pick anything up at one young string i think uh ben rayner told me he had he still had to pick up some things here but uh tell me a little bit about the uh well okay so well maybe we can bring in paul here so you joined there in 85 pa, how did you end up at the Toronto Star?

Well, I was a student at Ryerson. I mentioned Western earlier, but I didn't stay there long. I stayed two years. Took some time off, did some traveling and such. And then I started at Ryerson in 82 and graduated in 85. And I ended up getting a summer job at the Toronto Star in 85. Yes, it was. And I had no inkling to be a sports reporter at the time.

I wanted to be like a news guy. And in fact, if I was going to parcel myself off anywhere, it would have been to do theater reviews or things like that. When I was at Western, that was what I was studying. But what happened during that summer, it was a fantastic summer program. They would rotate you through different departments, and I ended up getting a few stints in sports and it was fantastic you were given so much more freedom in the writing and there were so many characters and it was really they were

really fascinating people you know it was fun it was actually fun and where news at the time we were such a big staff you'd cover basically everybody that died in a car crash or died in a fire. You'd go to the house, knock on the door, do what we called pickups where you try to get a photo. And so I just kind of gravitated towards sports. And I told them that at the end of the summer. They were interested in hiring me.

And I said, well, I'd like to be a sports writer. And they said, well, good luck to you. and uh they said i think there's a job in medicine hat if you'd like so i uh i ended up not getting hired and ended up i'm sort of rambling maybe but i know at the london free press the following summer in what they called news features but the news part of that's a bit of a misnomer. It was kind of soft features about everything from topsoil to country markets and things like that. But it was fun.

Anyway, partway through that summer, I went to a stag, and there was a fellow there named Joe Hall who ended up becoming a good friend of ours as well. And his father was the sports editor, Jerry Hull. At the Star. At the Star, yes. I'm sorry. That's why Mary's here, to keep you in line. She's always filling in the blanks. That's great. That's great. So this was before internet or anything like that.

And Joe said his father had been asking about me. And he had no idea where I was. And he said they were interested in creating a new position at the Star because they were finding this was the mid-80s and there was so much money around and every little sports organization would have press conferences. And Jerry Hall, the sports editor, wanted a guy or a girl, but it was a guy, and to come and write the story, take the photo,

and basically take all that stuff out of his hair. And so he'd liked, or had remembered anyway, what I had written the previous summer through my time in sports and was interested. So yeah, just through this connection at a stag party, I ended up getting more or less a job offer, or at least it ended up being that when I connected with Jerry.

Is that, we're talking 86? 86 was when I started. Okay, so Mary's already there. Yes. Is it right? Are you literally sitting beside each other? Pretty much, yeah. I think I saw a tweet from you at some point where somebody tweeted about how office romances and something.

And the person beside you, I can't remember, and you tweeted, I married the person beside me. Well, one time I sat in the office and tried to count all the couples and I think I came up with about 12. Wow. But it's one of those businesses where you work such long hours a lot of times and so it's fairly intense

and you're in close proximity and you tend to develop relationships. Now, whether they're romantic or just good friends, that depends. But, you know, at this point in my life, most of my good friends are from the paper. And obviously I found my wife there as well, which is kind of funny. Amazing. Amazing. So at what point in your career, Paul, do you end up being, you know, the hockey guy? I mean, I see you're on the Maple Leafs media wall of fame.

Yes. I started out doing like pretty much everybody did in those days, doing high school sports, college sports. We actually covered them fairly extensively in those days. And then CFL did that for several years. And there was no, like, great transition, but one day the sports editor sent me to the 1991 Stanley Cup final. That was Minnesota-Pittsburgh. Right.

And kind of that was a debarkation point where suddenly I was doing a lot of hockey and sort of half hockey, half football for the next couple of years and then ended up doing hockey full time. Now, give us a little sense. I mean, today we look at it in like these papers you might have. There's the hockey guy and sometimes there's somebody else maybe who does commentary about hockey or whatever.

But like how many, and Mary, you can chime in too, but how many people working at the Toronto Star would be covering hockey back in the mid to late 80s? Like approximately, obviously. Just to give us a sense. Well, there'd be, oh boy, in the late 80s, there'd be guys like Frank Orr. Well, let's, yeah, with the late 80s,

it would be Frank Orr, Rick Fraser, Rick Matsumoto, myself, then columnists like Milt Dunnell and Jim Proudfoot. Wow. So there was quite a lot. And what year did Cox show up, Damien Cox? Rex McLeod was still around then. Damien showed up. Mid to late 80s?

Yeah, yeah. And around there, a few years after Paul started diving in, Damien came over from someplace else. At one time it kind of settled in in the early 90s and around there. A few years after Paul started diving in, Damien came over from someplace else. At one time it kind of settled in in the early 90s that it was Bob McKenzie was our columnist and Damien and I were the two beat guys and Mark Swalinski would come in too and he did a lot of baseball.

He was like our utility guy. He could do baseball, hockey, football. He could do everything. So that's kind of what the roster looked like at utility guy. He could do baseball, hockey, football. He could do everything. So that's kind of what the roster looked like at that point. I once had Kevin McGran over here, and I think he was telling a story about the 1992 World Series in Atlanta. And he was telling me the number of people

that Toronto Star sent to Atlanta for the 92 World Series, which of course featured our Toronto Blue Jays. But the number, I can't remember the number now, I think it was 20-something? It probably would have been. It could have been with photographers and darkroom guys who'd have to process the film probably.

They do that for Olympics as well. And that used to be one of the jokes in the 80s and early 90s back when we had about 400 people in the newsroom that the Star would establish a beachhead somewhere, One of the jokes in the 80s and early 90s, back when we had about 400 people in the newsroom, that the Star would establish a beachhead somewhere, whether it was a Canadian Open golf or a playoff series, and the Star would send your nucleus of whatever the sport was, like Paul and Company for hockey. Then other city reporters would come to cover the color, and a city reporter would go, and then you'd have your photography staff as well and and when they were using you know chemicals we often sent a darkroom tech what

chemicals were they using well that's on their own private time yeah there was once in the mid 90s when toronto uh the leafs were playing new jersey in the playoffs and the Raptors were playing the Knicks. And they overlapped. And there was a huge star contingent for both of those two sports. And then, of course, the Toronto Sun would also send an army of people. And there was an off night for both series. And we all got together in a bar in New York.

And you could have... That's amazing. If a bomb had dropped, you would have wiped out basically the... All the Toronto coverage. There would have been a lot of happy college students because there would have been a lot of jobs open at that point.

Wow. I think it's just wild. I mean, if the Blue Jays made the World Series this year, I mean, you might send Gregor Chisholm. You'd send maybe Laura Armstrong. I don't know. One, maybe Rosie. I mean, it would be a few people, I think.

You'd know better than me. There'd be a few. If it wasn't COVID, you'd have more people going down, obviously, to a playoff, but still. Even into the 2000s when we'd cover a playoff series, we had enough people there that we'd rent a van and sort of drive team star around so there'd be seven or eight of us like it was uh it's still a good time yeah it was

it was great times and the money flowed and i'm sure they got their value out of it because they wouldn't have spent the money if they didn't oh i mean yeah it's it yeah it sounds sounds great i think everybody everybody benefited there. So, Mary, to come back to you at the Toronto Star, so we talked, Paul here has become Hunter Hockey here. He has become Mr. Hockey. Tell me, you're kind of all over the place, right? You're reporting on Olympics and everything.

Yeah, I would say I was more a general assignment reporter in sports, which really suited me because I don't think I was very good at beat work. You know, I did some, you know, CFL, and I don't think I was really very strong on game stories and off-day stories. I did them, and the Raptors was a bit different because it was much more exciting and compelling to me was to cover the Raptors in the early days. But I also like doing the other sports too,

and other by meaning, you know, amateur sports, which a lot of the other, I shouldn't say, but some reporters preferred not to do amateur sports. I love doing it, especially track or swimming and things that were directed to a world championship, skiing, or the Olympics, and World Cup soccer. So it was a great open world for me and i enjoyed the variety now do you guys was there a moment when you realized the the the internet was driving coverage like was there was there that moment where i know because kevin again kevin mcgrann

told me a story about how clicks drive what you cover so they're like they don't want they don't want a big thing on the fourth line winger on the trottle maple leaves they want it on uh you know they want it on tavaris or uh matthews or marner uh maybe a knee lander but like literally like they're the the the the topics that get the clicks are what they want him writing about uh so when the is there a moment that you know of where basically like oh no you know but that sport, that's a compelling story, but it doesn't get the clicks? Did you ever have that moment?

I don't know if that was something that was really across the board for a lot of years. That's probably a more recent development because, let's face it, newspapers are fighting for their lives right now after basically ignoring the Internet for 20 plus years, quite frankly. But I know that when the Internet was first up and running and the star realized we could file instantly, whether it's from the courthouse or, you know, City Hall or something like that. Suddenly your work day didn't go from, you know, game day to the end of, you know, a deadline at 11 o'clock at night and then a rewrite at 12.30,

you'd be filing from the morning skate, you'd be filing after the morning skate, you'd be filing... Your day became very, very long. So in that way, for a reporter, that began to form our day in a really hard way. We seemed to be working all the time, and Star was in a union, and we had a seven-hour day.

We weren't working seven hours ever before but with the internet it was way more than that uh i think the idea of you know clicks and it's growing pains i think for the toronto star yes i think it directed a lot of coverage you know and if you're you've got writers or editors who are pushing certain types of stories that they can tell people aren't reading right they're going to have a little chat with you and say maybe we should go in a different direction so i wouldn't say i'm not a boss so i don't know and i don't work there anymore but i don't think it really defines the coverage but but now there's a different way to

measure with quite a bit of accuracy what people are are, you know, clicking on. Right. Speaking of the internet, Paul, what were your thoughts on the whole StarTouch experience here? I mean, StarTouch was a highly publicized venture where I remember personally as a guy who didn't, was reading the Star, but didn't, I had a laptop where I worked on a laptop and I had an Android phone, but I did not have a device that would actually

like allow me to read Star Touch. Did you have a tablet? I didn't have, no, I didn't have a tablet. I had an Android phone and I had a tablet that ran Windows, like Windows. I just never took the tablets. I like laptop or phone if I'm going mobile. But obviously the StarTouch is gone

now, but they sunk a few bucks into that one. What was it like at the Toronto Star during the StarTouch? I think it was frustrating for a lot of people. I know by then I was in the features department where you'd write longer stories, and so they weren't really tablet-friendly, but

we were forced to conform in our writing to sort of chapterizing everything and making it so they could set it up on star touching pages and and illustrate each page and i don't know it it never really worked i i understand they had to try something and uh and it worked at lepress right like right? Like this is their tech, I think. I think it was a bunch. It was, it was their tech, but it was a different market there because they were, you know, they pretty much had cornered the French market, I think,

or a big part of it in Quebec. So, you know, you're, that's how you're going to get your, your news. Whereas in Toronto or Canada, like the rest of English Canada, there's so many options for people. So if they don't like the technology or they find it awkward or they can't access it, as was your situation, they're going to move on and read something else. A couple of things came into play too right around then.

It was that Canadians weren't buying tablets at the rate they had been buying them. That's true. And the American newspapers had already discarded the idea of a tablet. It wasn't working. So they were going to go to what are people looking at in the donut shop? They're looking at their phones. It has to be on your phone and easily accessible. So the Americans had already moved that way. In fact, as we were about to launch this, Marty Baron came up from the Washington Post, and he was doing a Q&A on this very subject.

Somehow I was there with a couple of star reporters and some of the brass from the star itself, just as we were about to launch the tablet. And I thought, oh, my God, my heart sank. And he wasn't talking about us. He was just talking about, you know about for the Washington Post, they discarded that idea, it wasn't going to work we had to go to phones

so for me personally, the tablet it was too bad it didn't work but it was awful, I hated it and I had friends who said yeah I could download it for free but I got rid of it because it was unreadable we preferred to read it in print right some days just

in fairness, some days it looked absolutely beautiful. And it was a gorgeous product some days. But it was a little behind its time. And you couldn't update it either. No, static. It would be, essentially, especially in the Internet time, it was old news by the time.

Is that right? You couldn't up, like once that's surprising. I didn't say I didn't know that because I just knew I couldn't access this. No, no, it was whatever appeared and it was gorgeous and you could swipe some stuff with the, make the colors change in the car and the car ads and things like that, but you could not update a story on the tablet. It was a different

sort of read for people and people didn't really, you know, love it. No, clearly, clearly didn't really, you know, love it. No, clearly, clearly didn't work out there. It's funny, they just cancelled this Quibi. I don't know if you follow this whole Quibi with Katzenberg and Meg Whitman. They sunk, I don't know, a lot more.

I mean, the star sunk a lot of money into the, what's it called again? Star Touch? Is that what it's called? Yeah, Star Touch. What name was I given? But nothing like Quibi. Anyways, Quibi, they just shut it down. Like, they just said, we got to cut our losses. This happened like this week, I think earlier this week. They said, that's it for Quibi. But there it goes. But okay. So I'm going to ask you about

some personalities that you guys worked with at the Star. And if you could bury me in any, any thoughts or stories or anything, that would be like awesome here. Can we start with Milton L? Cause when I started reading the star, I thought he was a hundred years old when I started reading the star. So I, I guess he lived to be like 130 or something. What,

like, like what was it like? Cause that's a, that was a living legend, right? What's that like working with Milton L and the Charles star right? What's that like, working with Milt Tanel on the Toronto Star Sports? To be quite, I have to be honest here. Yeah, be honest, of course.

I didn't really know him. I was a young guy, and I was intimidated. I never talked to Milt. He was a guy who I revered through reading his writing, but I knew my place, and I never really talked to Milt. So he wasn't the kind of guy who would reach out to the young'uns

and do a little mentorship or whatnot? Not to me. He was such a humble man. He was, yes, that's true. And a gentleman of the highest order. So that may have played part of it because, you know, we were pretty a raucous bunch. But he would look the part from an old film from the 40s, you know, with the fedora. I think I saw him in The Natural, I think.

The fedora and a trench coat and, you know, the pen and a little notepad. But maybe I was around a bit more than Paul. The thing with sports, you're not actually in the office that much, right? You're out doing stuff. Unlike some parts of the newsroom, you work the phones a lot, but sports, you're out usually at events or practices and you're out finding people.

Milt loved to have fun gambling. He would have some little $2 bets with guys and him and Proudfoot got along quite well. It was fun to sort of be an ear to hear some of them talk about, you know, the boxing days because, of course, he covered Ali and, you know, Frazier and all the whole, I don't really love boxing, but I'd be mesmerized with some of the stories.

He also talked one time about Jim Coleman, who has now departed, but another famous Canadian columnist and when Milt was young he had I think he had rickets so there was a bend in his legs when he walked so they were bent out and he said you talk about Jim Coleman and he would say

so you know and Jim Coleman was knock-kneed so he said when we would walk down the street together we'd spell ox but Milt was so funny and I couldn't And Jim Coleman was knock-kneed. So he said, when we would walk down the street together, we'd spell ox. But Milt was so funny, and I couldn't believe it. He tried to retire several times from the star, and they just wouldn't let him. And finally, he just said, I have to go, because it was hard for him to walk and everything.

But his mind was so sharp, and he was so on point, even to the last few columns that he wrote. That's so true. Well, yeah, like I said, living legend, it just seemed, yeah, wow. You mentioned the name Jim Proudfoot. I need to know about working with Jim. Jim, again, a gentleman of the highest order. He loved horse racing. I was going to say the ponies, he loved figure skating,

he would get mad, he would throw some tantrums, he would get jealous of other writers at times, he'd see that, and he wouldn't help you. That's when he was at his best, when he was angry, agitated,

and he came through his copy. Yep, because not everyone in the newsroom is an angel, best when he was angry and it came through his copy? Because not everyone in the newsroom is an angel. We all have our moments. It's a very emotional work, especially when it's on deadline. But God, he was funny.

He could tell some great stories too and he loved golf. The ability to be a raconteur and do that in a way that wasn't old-fashioned that could still get young readers reading you and reading your notes and things that like Simmons does, like the dots and the bits and the notes. Yeah.

Yeah. So he would do that. Milt would do that. That was kind of an old fashioned thing, but it was a way to catch up on the news and in a way that was kind of timeless. Real quick story about when Cox was here one time, I was asking him about

Milt Dunnell because I'm naturally curious. Unfortunately, he's never coming on Toronto Mike, so I've got to find out these stories. But Milt, of course, covered Bill Borilko, the legend of Bill Borilko, right? And Damien Cox once asked Milt Dunnell

what modern-day player, this is back in the late 80s, I guess, but what modern day player would you compare Bill Borilko to so that Damien had an idea of what kind of player he was? And the answer Milt Dunnell gave Damien Cox, according to Damien, was John Cordick. Yes, I know.

Yeah, so it's kind of interesting when you talk to somebody who was actually there to get some kind of perspective because, of course, now we've got him, he's the Buddy Holly of hockey, like his legend is larger than life at this point with the hip songs and everything, but yeah,

very interesting. Okay, and that Jim Proudfoot, yeah, I mean, there's still, right, there's still a Christmas fund? Is that, what's, the star has a Christmas fund in his name? Sportsman's Corner? Yeah, Sportsman's Corner. They raise money for the star Santa Claus Fund through a specific area, like through sports donations. And they raise quite a bit of money every year in his name.

And it's wonderful, really, that his legacy, or his name anyway, is kept alive through that charity work. All right. Tell me about Frank Orr. Frank was hilarious, very funny guy. He could tell stories that scanned decades of hockey. What I always found fascinating about Frank was you'd go to a hockey game with him, and people would come up and talk

to him like he had that kind of aura about him where you'd be in the press box and you know Bobby Clark or who had taken over as GM of the Flyers like people it was almost like not quite kissing the ring but people would line up just to check in with Frank and see how he's doing. He covered the league back when it was the 16 league. So all those guys that went on to have coaching and GM positions later would all revere him, really. I think he was quite well loved within the hockey community. He wrote a book too, didn't he? Yes, he did. It was very funny. It was a fiction book.

Tell them the name. Puck is a four-letter word. But it was kind of a collection of stories that he would have experienced through his hockey coverage career and hockey writing and sort of strung them all together in a story about an expansion team in Cleveland. And if ever you see it in a used bookstore, it's worth picking up.

It's very funny and it's very Frank. Have either of you guys chatted with him recently? Do we have any recent Frank Orr updates? You know what? I have. And after you mentioned his name, I felt badly about that because we had visited him several times after he left the star. I'm here to make you feel badly, Mary. That's part of my job here.

In fact, he lives in this part of Toronto. Wow. Tobacco. I don't know how he's doing. I know he's in his mid-80s now, so I don't know how he's doing, obviously. He's in the Tobacco Sports Hall of Fame. Him and Beezer and who else is in? I think Gino Retta's in there.

Excellent. Yes, in fine company. I think George Gross might be in there as well. Probably. Oh, I'll bet. Because, you know, he's buried at Park Lawn Cemetery, which is not too, like, bluer in Park Lawn area there. I know George Gross is in there.

Because, you know, who else is in there? Harold Ballard's in there. Okay. Apparently Jeff Merrick put the dirt on the casket when he was working at the gravesite there. You mentioned Harold Ballard's in there. Okay. Apparently Jeff Merrick put the dirt on the casket when he was working at the gravesite there. You mentioned Harold Ballard. Yeah. And that makes me think of another guy I considered a legend at the Toronto Star, Rex McLeod.

I don't know if that predates you. No, it doesn't. Like, it doesn't resonate. I heard you say the name earlier, and I was trying to, like, find it in my head. His son is Rob McLeod, who worked at the Globe for decades. But Rex was one of the funniest writers. I kind of admired his work. And he wrote one of the best leads I've ever seen,

or one of the best leads that never got to print, I guess you'd say, on Harold Ballard. When Harold Ballard passed away, Rex was given the assignment of writing his obit. And the story he submitted had the lead, the fat has hit the fire. And needless to say, it got changed. That has come off, yes.

It's a little nicer. Any other, did you have any Harold Ballard interactions of interest? I did. I remember once him ranting on the phone with me about the Russians. And he hated Russians. And talking about them stealing coke from the dressing room and doing all this stuff. I felt actually, honestly, really uncomfortable. Like it was such a racist kind of, I don't know, small-minded way of looking at the world that made me a little queasy.

A little xenophobic maybe. Yeah, that's a better word. Well, I ran into him when I covered CFL because he won the Ticats, right? So when I would go to Iverwind Stadium before it got refurbished, I saw him and King Clancy coming up to use the, well, I'll loosely call it washroom in the press box, which is basically just a sliding plywood door, and it was kind of like right behind us, you know. And so that's where I see him, but they come up.

And one time Ballard came up, and he said he had to use the washroom. He said, hey, Clancy, come here and put this on your shoulder for me. So going in there. So needless to say, I'm like, oh, my God, I'm the only female reporter in this area. Where am I going to the washroom? So my whole point was I never, ever used that washroom ever. It was just too creepy for a lot of reasons, but it was right there, and it was disgusting. But anyway, I would

see him there. He was very old at the time. Back at one point, for him to get up into the press box at Iver when they had a crane set up outside the stadium, like one of those cranes you'd use to fix

electrical wiring. Yeah, like a cherry picker. And they would lift him up outside the stadium and he would walk in. And he was getting pretty infirm towards the end. And I recall once, I think it was Alan Bester, was asking for a trade out of Toronto and Harold owned the Leafs and the Ticats. So I approached Harold, and I said, you know, Alan Bester's asking to be traded. How do you feel about that?

He goes, ah, that goddamn guy. He said, I'll never trade him. I'm not going to let the Argos have him. I thought, oh. That explains so much, though. That explains the John Cordick trade, I think. So it's kind of backed away. It's pretty unfair to quote this guy at this point in his life.

Completely, obviously, coincidentally. I get these Facebook notifications of, like, on this day, you record with whatever. And it was on this day I had the return of Gord Stelic. And really, I keep inviting Gord Stelic over. And we're going to get to your radio life in a moment, Mary, because I've got a few questions there. I had the return of Gord Stelic. And really, I keep inviting Gord Stelic over. And we're going to get to your radio life in a moment, Mary, because I got a few questions there.

But Gord, I just want him to tell me Harold Ballard's stories. It's just kind of this figure that I did grow up with. I was like 15 or something when he passed away. But just this whole, like, this character. Just the stories. Gord and his brother Bob are the ones who just relate them, and they're fantastic. It's amazing when you think that the owner of a major sports franchise once lived in the arena where that team played in an apartment,

and then he and, I don't know if Yolanda was officially his wife, but certainly his paramour, they would, at one point, she was walking around the gardens wearing a gas mask and claiming that people were trying to kill her and Harold by putting gas under the door of the apartment. It was a pretty crazy scene back in those days. Bananas.

And even the whole story, like, if Gord will tell you how he got the GM job, it really sounds like one of those things, like, where he looks around the room and he points at the guy, the you! Like, come on! This is the biggest and the most popular NHL franchise in the world. I remember hearing stories

about Harold and King. I don't know whether they were true or not, but when they would have the circus in Maple Leaf Gardens, they would invite women over and they and the women would enjoy the various trapezes and paraphernalia that were part of the circus setup.

And it's not something I really want to visualize, but it just sort of cuts to how it was in those days. And Harold really had a huge influence on that franchise. And it's a large reason why they were so poor for so long. Well, Hebsey's still pissed at, I guess they ran Sittler out of town. And that's a little bit like a titch before I was following this board, but Hebsey's still pissed about it. I think it was despite Lanny maybe, they were buds or something.

There's a story there. It's just that alone, that that happened in this market, you know, in our lifetime. Alright, back to the star guys. A few more here and I'm going to give you a gift and then I'm going to ask Mary about some sports radio stuff.

So, how about my good friend Dave Perkins? What was it my good friend Dave Perkins? What was it like working with Dave Perkins at the Star? It was great. He was the biggest, growliest, gruffest guy on the outside and with your typical soft nougaty center. You know, he was a lot of fun to be with. He became the sports editor for a couple of years. He was a hard taskmaster at times,

but he was good to learn from. And Dave, to me, was someone who understood how sports were important to the street guy and the street girl. He didn't really want to talk to the millionaire crowds and the platinum lounge type of people. Dave liked the ponies as well, but he liked to go to different parts of the sports universe

and talk to the real people behind the scenes. He would go to the backstretch, or he would talk to minor league players in baseball at times and understood everything from the ground up. He really excelled at baseball and grew into be quite a fantastic columnist, kind of with one foot in the old time world of, you know, Milt and Proudfoot, and also of a modern day guy. So he was a really big presence. And when he when he left, I think that took some of the wind out of the sails of the star. He was one of those, if you're a sports fan, one of the must read guys. Surprisingly, too, as a co worker, he had very little ego. He was a fantastic guy to travel with.

And if you were working with him, let's say the two of you were covering a game together, and Dave wrote incredibly fast. Like he wrote a column basically in the time it takes to read it. He could just bang things out and there would be brilliant turns of phrases and little quips and funny jokes. And you knew some of them were coming because he'd practiced them on you during the game. But when he finished, he wouldn't just file the story and leave. He'd file it and then turn to you and say,

is there anything you need? And no request was too beneath him. Like, he'd say, well, you know, I actually could have used a quote from this guy, but I never got a chance to see him. He'd say, okay, I'll go back to the dressing room, and I'll find him for you. And what did you want to ask him? And he'd say, okay, give me five minutes. And he'd go and get it and bring it back.

Like, he'd sort of, I wouldn't say lower himself, but he was willing to be a bit of an errand boy once his work was done. And I, I respected the man tremendously for that. My, my, my, I mean,

I have no experience like you guys, but my experience with Dave has been so excellent. I once went, I went on a bike ride and I had this idea in my head of like, Oh Perkins, he's this like old time Jays guy with the, you mentioned the gruff kind of exterior and i thought you know who else has bob elliott's kind of similar in that he's the

long time jay's guy at the sun and he has a similar kind of kind of a you know delivery whatever michael whatever and then i was i had them on this bike ride i'm like like i know them both from being on this show and i'm like i don't know like how tight they are i know they know of each other. Of course they've crossed paths a million times, but I had this whole, like, what if I had them on together?

Like, what if they both came over and Sally, you know, we did it in my basement back pre COVID, but I mean, reaching out to Dave, he was like, I'm game.

Like they were both game. And if you're ever bored, like if you ever have a couple hours, just listen to Dave Perkins and, uh, Bob Elliott in my basement last fall like just listen honestly uh simmons called it the boys of summer and he says the best thing i ever heard and it honestly just i just sat there and let them tell stories for a couple hours and these are the best

stories well dave also remembers every detail i think bob's the same way yeah they both have encyclopedic knowledge of baseball and everyone in it. And so that would have been wonderful to hear them start telling stories. So that's your homework. At some point you tune into the, I'll send you the link. I'll send you the link. One time we were in New York together for probably a Leaf game, or it might have been that playoff series I mentioned earlier.

And Dave took me on a tour of New York City, picking out, pointing out all the spots where different people from the the mafia had been assassinated he knew it was like it was totally like authoritative on that as well like he just and oh and there's the the window you know where this happened there's the barber shop but that's the tour you want right because that's the window, you know, where this happened. There's the barbershop. But that's the tour you want, right? Because that's the kind you need to know somebody who knows something. And when you'd go out with him after a game,

he wouldn't rehash the game like some reporters would want to or columnists. He'd want to go have an adventure. He'd want to, let's go check out this place or check out that place. Yeah, he was a great companion. Funny guy, too. Amazing. Okay, just was a great companion. Funny guy, too. Amazing. Okay, just a couple more names here. And then one is the, I need to talk about Damien Cox,

because, again, I mentioned he's been over at least four times, and I quite like Damien Cox. But he's a polarizing guy. We talked about Simmons and some of the others. He's a polarizing guy. So what was it like working with Damien all those years? I loved it, actually. I actually went through, I was at Ryerson with Damien.

So we go back a long way. And I'd say, you know, we were friends back then and we're friends now, although I don't really see him. We both have our lives. But he, you know, what really impressed me about Damien was he could write the harshest thing about someone. he could write the harshest thing about someone and then he'd make sure he showed up in the dressing room the next day and was there if that person had an issue with him or wanted to confront him about it.

There was no, he wasn't somebody who a duck can hide. He was right there and he'd get in people's faces and, oh, it was a tremendous, he had a, and at one point, gee, for several years, I'd say he was a must-read. When he was doing the Leafs full-time, he was not just a columnist, but he would break news all the time in his columns.

And, yeah, he was quite something. I know some people really actually quite despise him. No, he's become, I'm not saying he's nowhere near Marty York, okay? He's the king of this one. But he's got that Simmons quality of people, again, they either love what he writes or they love to hate it. There's some passion evoked from Cox. Plus he's sort of fostering that too. Yeah, I think he is leaning to hate it. There's some passion evoked from Cox. Plus he's sort of fostering that too.

Yeah, I think he is leaning in on it. On Twitter, he's become confrontational. He seems to relish that side of his personality. In wrestling, he's kind of heel turn, I think, is the wrestling term. Yeah, he's the weasel of uh of today's if you're comparing him to wrestlers i mean like the sheik's guy oh iron cheek yeah i wonder where you're going when you say he's the weasel mary do you have any uh damien comments here before i ask you about one more

more a current name because damien what iien, he still appears in the Star sometimes, but he doesn't work for the Star, right? He's like a freelance? Yeah, a freelancer. Well, when I had my fourth child, I became the deputy sports editor for a couple of years because I just could not handle four kids and Paul traveling, covering the Leafs and they were all different schools and all that. So I had to have

some normalcy to my day. Anyway, this leads me just to, you know, working with staff on a different level. And, and Damien was one of those guys who was really easy to work with. He would phone and say, here's what I'm doing. And I'd say, that's great. We knew we were doing something. And then we'd make sure, you know, that he, you know, he would do, he would also say, here's what I'm doing. And I'd say, that's great. We knew we were doing something. And then we'd make sure that he would do, he would also say, what do you need? Because he covered tennis as well. He loved tennis. But back in the primitive days

when we were able to count things on the internet, in the very primitive days when you just sort of count visits to sites, that was about it. Damien, every day he wrote was one of the top uh reads in the star across the board all the time so we weren't able to tell whether they're unique visits or not or somebody gone back like nine times to read his column however it was some measure measure of who was popular he was an absolute important personality to bring people into the star and to keep them

reading. Awesome. Okay. And now just more contemporary here, Bruce Arthur. So speaking of Twitter guys, because Bruce, I get when he came over, I said, quit Twitter. That was my advice. Quit Twitter. I think because I think he's an excellent writer and I love reading stuff. I think his Twitter persona is less likable. And again, I like the guy. He did a reporter's thing with Dave Hodge that I was lucky enough to produce. I guess I presented

it in my podcast feed. They did it live at the Paradise. So I like Bruce. I like Bruce a lot. I think he's a very smart, good writer. What was it like working with Bruce these last several years? Would you have worked with him more than I have? Yeah. I liked Bruce a lot, too.

Very funny guy. Very funny guy. I kind of admired him more now, actually, when he switched to sort of being our main COVID columnist, for lack of a better expression. And I think he's doing a brilliant job. And he's kind of, in a way, given, I think, some respect to sports writers

because people always would say, you know, stick to sports or stay in your lane and that kind of thing. But by moving over and embracing this new assignment and doing it with such a plume, he's shown that sports writers can do more than just write sports. And he's really, really done well at it. He's a funny guy too, yeah. Oh, yeah, no doubt, no doubt.

He does love Twitter and, yeah. Yes, I would agree with you. Lay off guy too. Yeah. Oh yeah. No doubt. No doubt. He does love Twitter and yeah. Yes. I would agree with you. Lay off the Twitter. Yeah. That was my advice. And, uh,

and kind of secretly, I'm hoping he doesn't live. It was quite entertaining to watch the people go at Bruce Arthur on Twitter. But, uh, but okay. So we're going to get into sports radio, uh,

which means a little more Mary and less Paul, but it's okay. You can chime in and correct her when she, uh, remembers things. But here, what I can give you is, okay, so there is some Great Lakes beer. I mentioned I cracked one open earlier, but

you can take that home with you. That's your Fresh Craft beer from Great Lakes. The red box, that beautiful red box, there's a frozen lasagna, so it's frozen solid. It's inside that. You're taking that home, too. Well, thank you very much. Oh, lovely. Thank you. Parting gifts. So nice.

No danger of it thawing today. No, the beer's going to remain cold. I can tell. That'll probably all get consumed. Tonight. Thank you. No, enjoy. Enjoy. It's great. Enjoy the pasta. I know this is what you're really hoping

for. The Toronto Mike stickers. These awesome stickers are from stickeru.com. They're in Liberty Village, stickeru.com. And, of course, it's a website. So you upload your image. I uploaded my logo. You can pick a variety of sizes and styles. You can get stickers and decals and a whole whack of cool stuff.

So thank you, stickeru.com. We're almost done October here. I've been talking about this great halloween event called pumpkins after dark it's a drive-through event in milton ontario and you're running out of time you need to go to pumpkinsafterdark.com now to reserve your time slot when you buy your tickets for pumpkins after dark use the promo code mik, M-I-K-E-D, because that saves you 10%. So thank you, Pumpkins After Dark.

This is the second year they came back. Seasonal sponsor. So they're done at the end of this month, but it's always fun talking about them. And last but not least, if you have any computer or network issues or questions, talk to CDN Technologies. They're your outsourced IT department. You can call Barb at 905, Barb Poluskiewicz, of course, 905-542-9759, or you can write

her. It's Barb at cdntechnologies.com. Okay, Steve Simmons. We've mentioned him a few times. This, very recently, I think it was Sean Fitzgerald in The Athletic, I believe. He wrote a piece about why there's no woman

in sports radio. In fact, I just last month, I had Michelle Storino here, who was on a station in Mississauga called 960, Saga 960. And she quit because she said she came over here and she talked about how she doesn't feel she was given a fair chance at having a sports radio career in this market. And she says it's because she's a woman.

So that was her opinion. Uh, Steve Simmons tweeted at this time, a lot of talk today about the lack of woman in sports radio as someone who has co-hosted about 20 different radio shows over the years i can tell you my favorite show without question was the year i worked opposite mary ormsby mary i was listening so i need to know how you ended up on and i believe it was at the time uh the fan 1430 if my memory is correct correct so tell me how you end up at 1430, and just bury me in info of this sports radio part of your illustrious

career here. Okay. Well, I got a call that summer of 1992. Is that right? I think, yeah. 1992. And there was this all-sports radio station was going to start up, and the man who phoned me was program director.

His name was Alan Davis. And would I want to come in? He wanted to talk to me about his show. And I went, oh, my God, nothing fun like this ever happens to me. Of course I'm going to come in and talk to you. And we went to 40 Holly Street in sort of midtown Toronto, and I spoke to him, and he was talking about they hadn't named it yet, or at least they hadn't released the name of what the station was going to be,

and it was going to be exciting from the ground up, and all sports radio at the time was a really new idea. And, you know, as this was getting out, that the station was going to turn into that, people were saying it's never going to survive, who would listen to sports, you know, like that. How could you possibly fill any of that time? You know, never mind 24 hours a day. So he said there was this, the, the morning block, uh, was available after the morning show and, um, between 10 and 12 and, uh, Steve Simmons from the Toronto Sun was going to

be one of the co-hosts. And he said, Steve had asked if I would be interested in it. So that's how I ended up in Alan Davis's office. Oh, so he just, uh, he, he mentioned your name to Alan Davis. Yes, Steve told me several times after, because Steve likes to tell you many things, you know, over and over again, just so you can understand that, you know, this point is important. And he said, you know, they asked me for a list of people I'd like to work with,

and you were number one on my list, because Steve likes lists. I learned that over working with him. He likes to rank things, put things in lists, but that's just kind of how his brain works, right? So anyway, it was really, it was, it was so overwhelming and I was so, you know, you know, thankful and I couldn't believe a guy from a competitive newspaper would suggest her, me. And I thought, well, why me? And why a woman? I think Alan Davis said we would prefer a female because we don't have as many as we probably should.

And he went right to it with me. So we were able to work together. And I was worried at the time because we thought, well, what if we break stories and we can't tell it? Anyway, we got over that. Because we are in a competitive business. Sometimes we forget that, you know. We've got friends in different, you know, newspapers or different TV or radio stations,

but you're still competing for the, you know, the listener and the viewer and the reader. Right. And so we worked that out, and we had a few dry runs with Bob McCowan leading up to it the weekend before the launch date, which was, I think, just after the Labor Day weekend on the September of 92. Is that the right year? It's got to be the right year. I feel like that's the right year. I think it's the right year.

And we went on the air with very raw. We had no background in it at all. We were total, you know, nerds from newspaperville. And it showed. But it was fun. And they total, you know, nerds from newspaperville and it showed and, but it was fun and they let us do whatever we wanted. And, uh, I just said, can we just do not a lot of call-in shows? Because I, well, I just didn't think that I could handle a lot of nuts and bolts about certain sports. I just didn't want to be asked, you know, who's going to be the starting quarterback for, you know, this team or that team.

Because I didn't really, my mind didn't work that way. I'd like to do the other things. And Steve, God love him, he was really easy to work with. I know some of the people who don't like him would say, that's not possible. But he was fantastic. I believe it. He was so interested in everything, all his lists and all his friends. And he'd pull out the blue book for the contacts in different cities.

And I'd say, oh, it's too early to call him. It's only 8 a.m. in Arizona. And he goes, oh, he's got kids. I know he'll be up. And we were able to do fun things. Paul, were you a proud listener? Yes, I was. Your wife's on the freaking radio.

I thought it was pretty cool. Yeah, I enjoyed it. And I would listen every morning. He was very good that way because I was always afraid to hear it back. I didn't want, I was always, I would only focus on the mistakes I made or if I sounded dumb. Right. And I was careful never to critique. Okay.

I don't know how your memory will be for this, but do you remember that opening day lineup at all? Is this something in the back of your mind somewhere you could pull it out here? Who was the morning show host? Oh, the morning show host? I thought you meant our first guest. No, but you can tell me that too. But is it Mike Inglis? It was Mike Inglis. Right, he was their big capture from Florida.

I think Joe Bowen was part of the morning show, wasn't he, at that point? No, I don't remember. See, I remember Inglis being the morning show. I know he's in Miami now. I should have studied before. He's doing Miami Heat games. He's been doing that for a long time now. And then Ewan Simmons come in after the morning show.

Afternoon Drive, is that Bob McCowan? He's doing Afternoon Drive. Yes, he always did that. But he had a stint on the morning show as Afternoon Drive, is that Bob McCowan? He's doing Afternoon Drive. Yes, he always did that. But he had a stint on the morning show as well. Yeah. They tried him at that. That's when they put Dan Schulman as the afternoon drive. Because I think Dan, until, you know,

Bob's no longer on Primetime Sports. But up until his dismissal there a couple years back or whatever, Schulman was the only other guy who had done it, I think, as the regular host of Primetime Sports. That's probably correct. Now, is there, like, do you remember any, Bowen, do you remember anyone else? Day one on the fan 1430?

Oh, my God. I should have this written down myself. Don't. Okay. If you don't remember, it's okay. I have to think about that. I can't remember. I don't know.

Barbara Giulio was there and Stephanie Smith. Was she there day one? I believe she was. Yes,io was there and Stephanie Smythe. Was she there day one? I believe she was. Yeah, she was as part of the team. And Stephanie Smythe was there. She's on CB24 now. Of course, yeah. That's my thing.

She's another power media couple with Paul Cook. And Strombalopoulos, was he from the Overnights? I know when Mako Sr. was the program director, he gave Mako Jr. and Jeff Merrick and George Rambalopoulos an opportunity to do the overnights at the game. They called it the game. And they cut their teeth doing that. But I don't think that was day one or anything.

Probably not day one either. Was Norm Rumack an original overnights? Storm and Norman Rumack. He's a security guard now. I caught up with him during the pandemic. He has changed careers, and he's a happy security guard. It was a good conversation. Oh, Jim Hunt.

Jim Hunt was Bob's co-host, right? Shaky, yes. Shaky. Speaking of legendary local newspaper people. Absolutely. Now, Cam Gordon, who's a good friend of the show, he's at Twitter Canada. He would love to hear any memories at all.

Is there anything you can share about the 1430 studio on Holly Street, the old 1430 studio? It was very tiny. It looked like a couple of spider legs. The way the microphone sat, the chairs weren't always unsqueaky. And it was tiny and there were always fights about who left their food in the in the room from the previous show where they said wasn't us it was like overnight guys um that's what i remember and then the guys on the board behind the behind the glass it was it was small but it was you know with the green they

had a green room there that was uh you know sometimes the green room was small but i mean you walk out sometimes and there's jim palmer oh you know or gordy howe right right uh you know clyde gray uh olympians they'd be sitting waiting to go in to talk to somebody it was amazing because it was it was open and kind of fun and wild and that's what I remember mostly about. Before I forget, was there a Damien Cox Gord Stelic

show at the beginning? That came a little later I believe. It was called The Cutting Edge or something like that. I believe it was The Cutting Edge. Ken Daniels was around as well. Was Ken Daniels around as well? Yeah, I think so. I love Ken Daniels.

Yeah, he's a great guy. He has great ballad stories too. I can imagine. Yeah, Ken was funny. He's, of course, the Detroit Red Wings play-by-play guy now on the radio. Didn't Damien and Gord have a Sunday morning show with Leo Cahill? That rings a bell as well. I think they did a football show on Sunday mornings.

We should just spend the next rest of our time trying to remember who the hell was on the air. Yeah, that's right. Way to go, Mary. You know, I don't remember anything. And Howard Berger was... Of course. Of course.

Oh, my God. Yeah, Howard, yeah. He was producing the Bob McAllen show, I think, at that point. See, Aaron Davis's husband, this is how I get to it. Rob Whitehead, who was, at the time, I believe he was going by the name Miles Long.

Yes. Yes. He tells me, we talked recently, because I was helping Dana Levinson and Aaron have this conversation, and I was producing it, and he tells me that he was Bob McCallum's first producer, but maybe that predates the fan. That's true.

That's true, And I think Rob was behind all the little bits like Boris Unostrand, because the guy died playing Flight of the Bumblebee with a one-string guitar. That was one of their skits. Holy moly. The good old days, right? Okay, so Mary, what happens, like, when do you

leave the daytime lineup of the Fan 5? I guess you were at the Fan 590 as well like you like i get my timelines messed up you're at 14 30 i don't remember anything okay but uh why do you leave you must remember that oh i do and it was it was uh it was it was just awful because we had a sports center at the time it didn't last very long at the toronto star and he came up to you one day and said you know you know people are saying very trump like that you know you're only putting in half a day's work and we should only pay you half

half your salary because you're doing this radio stuff and i was like shocked because oh my god i can't get fired from the star we have a kid and all this stuff so after about 14 or 15 months, I think, I was pressured to quit by that particular sports editor. And they were saying things, well, you know, these radio people are using all our star intelligentsia and all our stuff on the air. But, you know, it was an early time and people didn't realize that this was probably good cross promotion. That didn't happen. Amazing cross promotion.otion, right. So I laughed, and it kind of broke my heart. And then shortly after, you know, the men started having shows on the van.

And I think, well, what the hell? You know, I kind of got screwed. But Cox, didn't he get the same notice? He may have. He got the same notice, I think so. He may have backed off for a little backed off i now remember the story actually right they're so short-sighted you're right at the time though i guess everything's all new you don't i guess well funny thing was i remember short time later we had the uh they they came

around and said oh you guys have to try to get on the radio more it's really good for us if you guys do more things on the air and promote our product okay so now we need to ask some questions because so mary uh you're a woman i'm here to tell you that it's okay uh you're a mansplainer i'm here to mansplain your gender to you now uh this controversy so basically there's you and how many years do you have before the star asks you to stop being on the radio like how many years are we talking here about I've been at the store probably about seven. I mean at the fan? Like you were at the fan for a year and a half.

Barb DiGiulio was on every weekday for years actually until I think 2009 or something. But Barb was there a lot. So there's you, there's Barb DiGiulio, and then recently they hired Ashley Dawking to be on the morning show.

She lasts about a year into her run. She was let go. Nobody actually, they all were very quiet. Like nobody commented. She just wasn't on the air anymore. So we don't know what happened there. But that's it for that station. In terms of weekday.

Presence. From like the morning show to the afternoon drive. That's the excluding traffic reporting and stuff like that. News readers, that's it. So the question I guess I'm posing to you as the OG, because you were there day one. What are your thoughts on the lack of diversity? There's lack of diversity in many regards,

but particularly from a gender perspective on sports radio the Fan 590 I was part of that story that John Fitzgerald and Lisa Dillman did for the Athletic I can't believe that the needle hasn't moved very much in all this time, almost 30 years

because back in the day it did seem like it was a brand new frontier and it was possible and if people were able to listen to me on the air as somebody who wasn't even a broadcast professional then imagine what a real broadcast professional could have brought to a station like that all I can think happened was that there was no commitment from the top whoever the top was to have more females train more females go out and pay big bucks for top female talent to come in I guess they felt they didn't need it but even for the short time I was there I know there was always great you know

worry about ratings and all that but they never really went away from their tried and true, I guess, playbook of using mostly men and the same sort of men, because there were mostly white men, let's face it, very few people of color, not just at the FAN, but other places too, obviously, it's not just them, but I was quite surprised when I read the article and realized that there hadn't been a lot of you know progress or you know and there wasn't even a lot of attrition for females because as you said there weren't that many women involved at all over that time so like a lot of things thing you know change and evolution risks if you want to call it a risk

it can be done with a stroke of a pen. Like the Washington Redskins could have gotten rid of their name a million years ago with a stroke of a pen just by doing that. There was no commitment to do so, right? So they were happy with the status quo. And maybe in an increasingly fragmented market, that is the status quo isn't good enough anymore. I mean, when you walk away from Bob McCowan and other people like that, what is your idea of changing things up to bring more life, better energy, something new to

your product, and it clearly doesn't seem to include a lot of women. That's, you know, it's disappointing. No, absolutely, and right, there was a infamous photo now i think of a few years back the fan 590 put out where it looked like it was sort of like the last supper but it

was all the daytime hosts like when angie walker and greg brady were there running through bob mccowan and it was it was nine guys i guess but nine nine white guys. And meanwhile, the brand, Sportsnet, was using diversity as their strength. At the time, their tagline, they still use it. And on that photo, it seemed to suggest otherwise. And I don't have

the answers, but I do know there are many women who would love to have an opportunity to be on the sports airwaves on those stations. I think it's illusory sometimes too when people think, oh, what are you talking about? There are a lot of women in sports. Well, there are, but they're in different categories of reporting or broadcasting. If they're silent reporters or if they're a guest on a show or if they're at a table with something, that's not the same thing as

hosting your own show as you're doing because when you are the host you are empowered it is your show is your vision your values your interests you get to control things and that is maybe what is missing because if I were to have a show today for for instance, and I'm not lobbying for one, but if I were, it would probably be along the same lines of what I did back in the original day. Like I like biographies, I like issues,

I like legal stuff. I like all related to sports, of course, but I'd like to bring guests in as well. I wouldn't really stick on X's and O's so much, you know? So that's why I think it's illusory that people say, what, you know, they're, women are not getting the kind of power positions, women of any color are getting

the power positions that, you know, you'd see in radio or perhaps on television and being a reader or a broadcaster, just, you know, reading the the scores those are high profile important gigs but it's not the same as having your own your own podcast even but you know those sorts of things so that's that's what i find more appalling is that you're not even giving a chance to have something that's uh important paul i need to uh mansplain to you that you're a dude uh but i'm still curious that your perspective on this uh do you think you think as a sports fan and I'm guessing sometimes you consume some sports media

maybe some radio yes do you think it would be beneficial to hear different perspectives instead of the same one that we've been hammered at us for decades

I think absolutely like I've never really drawn a line in terms of whether you're listening to a man or a woman. As long as they're giving you information you're interested in hearing, then that's fine with me. And I can't see why, this is kind of a wishy-washy answer, but I can't see why there aren't more women doing it.

Because they've been raised in an environment where they know as much about sports as most men do. So, well, I assume anyway. Well, no, of course they do. And a lot of women have played sports at a higher level that weren't possible back in the 80s. You've had Women's World Hockey Championships, Women's Hockey's coming to the Olympics. You've got Women's Soccer, Women's Basketball where you're playing, you know, and there's semi-pro leagues around the world. I call them semi-pro in meaning that they're not getting paid the same as guys. But there's a lot more women playing mostly team sports and being paid for it, or at least getting some sort of value on television, but that wasn't in existence early 90s or so.

So there's a whole, I don't want to say generation, generations, plural of women out there who've played at really high levels of things, not that you have to be an athlete to be able to, you know, host a show, but you know, they would have, um, uh, certain interests and perspectives, uh, that would be of, I think, fascinating to anybody who wanted to hear what they had to say. Uh, excellent. Now my, uh, listener, Mike Gregotsky does have a question. One more question for you, Mary. He says, you've had such a long and great career at the Star. And I'll just chime in to say you both, and I will say this, you're going to be missed. I think that the Star is lesser off for not having your perspectives in print or online, if it will be.

And I can't remember a time before reading your work in the Toronto Star. And it saddens me, in a sense, like a chapter is closed. So I hope there is. And I know Paul wants to get bored. So when you do get bored, there's so many opportunities now in 2020 where you don't have to rely on these huge MSMs to kind of get your voice heard and be out there. So I hope you do something.

But to finish Mike G's question, because I have kind of hijacked it here. For Mary, she's had a long and great career at the Star. Was she ever close to going to another paper? Like, were you ever, did anyone try to seduce you? Nobody tried to poach me. Nobody tried to poach me. You were very successful. No one tried to poach you. No, and I was me. You were very successful. No one tried to poach you.

No, and I was kind of like heartbroken about that a little bit, but I thought, oh, am I no good? Because I see people leaving the star, you know, especially in the 80s and early 90s, like, oh, well, I'm going to the Globe, see ya. And I'm like, oh, it'll only be a minute, you know, a matter of time before, you know, the New York Times comes after me, but no.

Thank you for the confidence, Mike, but I don't think, no, nobody ever tried to get me. And what about in the broadcasting world when it became that you could go back to radio, like when they started the team, for example, like before TSN 1050, there was a team. Did the team ever knock at, did you ever work in a team? Yes, I did.

I was able to work for the team for the first year. You know what, I should have known that. This tells you I didn't listen enough to the team here. Well, I'm not sure anybody did. It didn't last very long. I was on with Gene Volaitis. He was the host. And again, it was like leading into the noon hour.

And then I think it might have led into the Jim Rome show. I can't recall exactly. But Stephen Brunt and I, the same two old-timers who did a lot of these shows, like on CBC and on TVO and all that. But we, we did that show between us, like, like I would do one week and he would do one week.

I think that's, I think that's kind of how it went. Of course the team, right. And the team, of course, I, you know,

had Mike Richards and Paul Romanek and Jim Van Horn. And these stories about the end of the team, they get, Paul Romanek was back here this summer because he started this new Beatles podcast, which is very good, by the way. But he's still a little pissed off at the way that went down. Like you were promised something

and then it didn't take long before they decided to go back to Golden Oldies or whatever it's called. It was Golden Oldies. In fact, the first song they played was You Talk Too Much. When they killed the program, I believe that was it.

No, I think it was. Ah, no, you know what it was? Was that it? A Little Less Conversation I think was it. Oh, was that it? A Little Less Conversation. Right.

Yeah, like talk about salt in the wounds here. Yeah, I know. And Romy was the morning show host, right? Who did he work with? Okay. Oh man,

this is a riveting, riveting podcast. Everybody's yelling at us as they listen to it. But I do know Jim Van Horn was... I'm so sorry. Yeah, but Paul Romanek left TSN for that gig, I believe. So he quit a big, long-time TSN gig for that.

And I know Jim Van Horn was there, as we mentioned. But Mike Richards, maybe it was Richards. I don't know where Mike Richards fit into that bill, but he was also there. And a bunch of other cats. Maybe Steve Simmons, Was he also part of this? I feel like there were lots of these cats. And of course,

I mentioned I caught up this summer with Storm and Norman. I also caught up with Scott Ferguson, who left the... We had a phone call, a long phone call that I recorded for Trotter Mike, and he left the fan to take the gig at the team.

And then he was replaced on the fan with Mike Wilner. So Wilner is where he is today because Scott Ferguson jumped to go to 1050. Mary Paul, I see now like I've stolen 90 minutes of your life. You'll never get back. But any regrets that you decided to stroll into my backyard today here? Not at all. No. It's been fun.

Yeah, it's been great fun. And it's really lovely to be part of this and relive it. And hopefully we haven't bored people by babbling on too much and forgetting too much. Well, listen, when I listen to podcasts and the hosts are struggling to remember who was in that movie with whatever, I just yell at my phone. I yell the answer. It's one of those things I'll have to deal with. But I think these

stories and this trip down memory lane and One Young Street there, we have Toronto Star and hearing about your days at Fan 1430. Awesome. I'm so glad we finally got this done. I'm really glad you guys could be here. Thank you so much. Yeah, Thank you very, very much. And that brings us to the end of our 400...

No, this is our 740-second show. A little dyslexia there. 740-second show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Mary is at Mary Ormsby. Paul is at Hunter Hockey. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer.

Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U. CDN Technologies are at CDN Technologies. And Pumpkins After Dark are at Pumpkins Dark. See you all next week. brings you the most reliable virtual phone service to run your business and protect your home number from unwanted calls. Visit RomePhone.ca to get started.