Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Michael Traikos: Toronto Mike'd #1228

Episode Date: March 30, 2023

In this 1228th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with Michael Traikos about his recent departure from Postmedia, his 20 years at the National Post and Toronto Sun, his thoughts on adults wearing bike helmets, The Golden Goal in Vancouver and more. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home and Electronic Products Recycling Association.

Welcome to episode 1228 of Toronto Mic'd. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery. A fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. online for free local home delivery in the GTA. Palma Pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh, homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. Electronic Products Recycling Association.

Committing to our planet's future means properly recycling our electronics of the past. And Ridley Funeral Home, Pillars of the Community since 1921. Joining me today, making his Toronto Mike debut, is Michael Treykos.

How you doing, Michael? Hey, thanks for having me on, Mike. Well, thanks for coming here. Now I got to ask you the question I ask all the Michaels and Mikes who drop by is why aren't you a Mike Trecos? Why are you a Michael? Give me the reasoning there.

I don't even know. Maybe my mom, I guess. I always thought Michael sounded more like writerly. Professional. Yeah, I always thought if I was was going to be like a book author or whatever, Michael versus like Mike Trejo. Mike Trejo sounded like, not a scholarly. No, no. Whatever it was.

You know, I can see that. Like whenever I feel I need to be more professional, I think, oh, maybe I should be Michael. Hey, if you're going to crack open a Great Lakes beer, do it right on the mic. So put it right in front of that thing. All right. And then Michael Logger. That's

your new name. If you ever go into like acting, you could be Michael Logger. Michael Trey Coast has just cracked open a Great Lakes Logger. How is it? I like it actually. Well, don't be so surprised, Michael. Fantastic. Yeah. I always say like I'm always surprised whenever

I try a new beer now. It's always like an adventure. What is your go-to beer? Steam Whistle probably right now. Okay, boo to you. Listen, honestly, this is a family-run local craft brewery, Great Lakes, and you can find them in LCBOs. You can go to greatlakesbeer.com.

You should switch your beers to Great Lakes. Yeah. Would you consider it? I would definitely consider it okay fiercely independent too here I'm overselling them but cool label yeah cool they got a what is it Keegan Matheson was here last and he said they have a good mix of like the standard

beers like that lager the good and then also the kind of the newer IPAs like they kind of have a good balance of everything there so okay so you're a Michael not a mike were you ever a mike like was there ever a moment in school or you know you thought about being a mike not really you know like when you've got i know you're asking me how to pronounce my name tracos yeah and like growing up it's always i was always going by my surname so i'm tracos to everyone and even like new jobs or people i i meet they always just i guess they hit on the last name because the first name is just so damn common

right right so having a name like tricos as the as your last name it's perfect and even i'm noticing like i got a son 13 year old and kids on his baseball team he's tricos to everyone coach yelling tricos but my daughter's never tricos so it's definitely uh i don't know gender specific i guess you want to say well for you no mic required okay uh i was michael in primary school and then at some point in high school I realized I felt like more of a Mike than a Michael and I just sort of made the switch and then I've just been Mike ever since. But no judgment here.

Michael, Mike, we're all in the same gang. There you go. Any thoughts at all? I'm going to ask you off the top and then we're going to find out what's going on with you, man. We're going to get to know you better. And of course, I opened it up to questions and I got one question more than any other so we're going to get to know you better. And of course, I opened it up to questions and I got one question more than any other. So we're going to get to that right in a moment.

But any thoughts on the cancellation of Tim and Friends? Like, did you ever tune into Tim and Friends? Yeah, I would. I liked Tim. I liked Tim and Sid. And then when it obviously went into Tim and Friends, you know, I was playing like, so Arash Madani, whenever he would go on that show,

I always thought he would be the perfect foil for Tim or just, you know, I thought they just worked perfectly together. And it's funny because like Arash and I played tennis the other day and I was actually mentioning this to him. I don't want to like go too deep into what we were saying. Well, please, give me the transcript. I need to know what's being discussed on the courts.

Arash is an FOTM like yourself, friend of Toronto Mike. He's been here. He lives in New Toronto. I think I could throw a stone and hit him. He's really close. What can you share with us about your convo with Arash? Well, I'm going gonna share the fact that this guy is just i don't know if anyone has played tennis with a rash but it was my first time out

with them and honestly i'm a squash player slash tennis player and lean heavier to squash and i just thought you know i'm gonna go in and just have my way with them right i had twisted my ankle like a couple weeks before and i was like ah it's okay i'm just gonna hammer this guy because i don't know i'm not i guess a little maybe cocky on on that side but uh arash whooped whooped the crap out oh he beat you bad oh my god he destroyed me and it wasn't like oh i've got a bad ankle or anything. It was from the time we were just rallying. Wow. Yeah, a hard hitter.

Hell of a bat. I remember I was telling my brother the same story last night. We were having a little workout session, and he's like, oh, how'd you go with the match? And I was like, he killed me. He's like, and then his first question was, what's good about him? And I was like, honestly, it was everything. His serve, he had one where he almost hit me with it because it spun so much.

Wow. Aced me three times maybe. But just, yeah. So if you ever see Arash covering tennis and you're like, yeah, what's this guy? Does he know anything? Because honestly, he's built like a football player. And oh my God. Okay.

Look, we're learning a lot of scary tennis player strong tennis game but since you you know you were hanging with a rash it sounds like your buds with a rash why is he not on because today like we're talking right now as we speak there's a blue jay game like starting right now like the first game of the season why is a rash madani not part of the sports net telecasts anymore oh i don know. He wouldn't go into that. Honestly, he was covering soccer after we were playing, and it's not like he was, if anything, he was sounding excited about doing whatever he was doing that night. He's got a lot of stuff on the ground.

I think he's kind of like me, where throw him wherever, and I think Rash will probably be happy. He just eats the stuff up, and I think there's a lot of guys like that. Utility player? I don't know. That sounds disparaging. What about you? Would you describe yourself as a utility player? I would consider myself

the Zach Hyman of I think of journalism. Wow. Okay, well we're going to get into that. Nothing stands out but not afraid to do whatever is necessary. Valuable part of the team. Yeah. And you miss him when he's gone.

You miss him when he's gone, right? I think so. I think the Leafs are... Oh, I meant you, though. Oh. Because, okay, so I just checked my calendar. It's like, okay, you've got to chat at 4 p.m. with Michael Trakos, which I'm very excited about because I'm going to ask you some hard-hitting questions and we're gonna get to

know you better all right but then i see my the next thing on my calendar is i'm going to a uh steve buffery retirement party beezer yeah okay so my first first of all were you invited yes okay good because that would be an awkward moment when when i'm invited and you're not uh how well because you you were working most recently you were at uh post media which includes the toronto sun and the national post how well did you know beezer oh very well like so when i was at the national post we were competitors to a degree because obviously they weren't owned by the same company but when post media owned it um i probably worked with bees less than um i did like when i was with the post and he was uh the son basically because bees was on hockey for a bit and that's right around the time where i was covering the leafs so uh definitely crossed paths with him hilarious guy like just yeah there's a

certain like i think old school journalist that is kind of well they are going away but they're not also being replaced by and i'm not trying to sound like hey i'm the 40 year old saying all these new generation reporters they don't they don't do whatever the simple fact is there's just fewer of them and i think that's that's the whole idea is like when you went on the road it was always the same four or five guys or a rotating cast of players and now well our travel got cut and now i'm not there um and there's many more examples of that so it's a different feel but yeah i kind of i pine for the days where when i was starting out and i was the young guy and you know buffery paul hunter um david schultz um oh geez i'm gonna like leave

kevin mcgrann mcgrann and like all those guys you mentioned by way fotm all those guys um did i say paul hunter yes uh zoro mike mark zwolinski obviously mike zeisberger who yeah um is a lot of ways like my big brother on the beat and like when i when i had a birthday this guy would be taking me out i think i turned 30 on the road and uh so but when you're a young guy and you're growing and you're coming into the uh the scene when like all those guys are there and you've got the Damien Cox and the Simmons and it's not just like nowadays

you might see one of them at a time in the Leaf room. Back then it was like not uncommon for four or five reporters from every outlet to be there. Do any of those, I'm sorry to interrupt you,

but this is also fascinating. I'm probably rambling. No, no, no, no. That's what you're here for you direct me so when you're you know that crew you just talked about and again everyone you just mentioned except so zwolinski who i realize needs to get his ass on toronto mic uh just so i can like get every i want to get him on toronto mic so if you're listening mark you gotta come on but all those guys you mentioned are fotms which they've been over we've had conversations do any of those guys hate each other? Like, are there any, uh, like awkward moments on the road where a couple of those guys just

don't get along? There's been awkward moments probably on the road, I'm sure over the years. And I've probably been privy to like maybe a couple of them. Um, but they're always surrounding like alcohol. And then the next day you just, it's water under the bridge so it's tough um i think probably the the biggest in fights or sorry fights come from within the same like company so really yeah it's almost like two guys fighting over the same beat at the sun or the star but the thing is those guys aren't going on the road a whole lot together because

you're generally traveling with your enemy. It's kind of like a traveling band of just kind of like guys out to kill each other during the day then at night they're all having beers together. But is there ever like that one reporter that nobody invites out for beers? So like the guy is like,

we're all going out, maybe it's you, right? I'm sure it's been well i'm thinking okay i'm thinking of like a like what a lot of lonely nights in detroit like on this show because i've had james myrtle on this show and of course uh steve simmons who i think i'm going to see tonight these guys don't like each other like there's no love loss between a james myrtle and a steve simmons but but is that true or is it just like i think it's true you can tell i mean i i have face-to true or is it just like, I think it's true. I've had them both on. You can tell.

I mean, I have face-to-face convos with these guys. I think it's true. So I've been in a situation where we're on the road for the Stanley cup final and it's Greg Wyshynski from ESPN, Puck Daddy. Right. And similar to Myrtle can just get under people's skin,

especially at that whole new versus old guard, um, versus I test. Right. And I remember being in the same bar and it was kind of like, Oh, this asshole's here, blah, blah, blah. But then I've also seen this, the same kind of thing play out where a couple hours later, those two guys are having a good conversation so i think a lot of it is all kind of driven behind the keyboard and because at the end of the day we both know like everyone is there it's not like they don't like hockey they just i don't know they consume it differently now i'm going to drop a couple of names on you who are basically super old school so it sounds like you're what you you're about 40 years old? Yeah. Okay. So your entire life,

these two guys, I think have been, you know, working for a competing paper, although now Damien has a different deal with the star, but Steve Simmons and Damien Cox, like to me, they're the two guys you think back to like, uh, the nineties. Those are, they, you know, Steve Simmons was the sun guy and Coxx was the star guy the rival papers i don't think there's any love loss between those two gentlemen i i can't see them uh you know having having a beer together uh did you ever see them together i don't think simmons even drinks beer okay well there you go maybe have a dr pepper diet dr pepper with. I think that's his drink of choice. Or being in like a Pittsburgh media room

and him kind of going gaga because they actually had it in the fridge. Yeah, that's hard to find, that diet Dr. Pepper. Wow. But those are the, I mean, I'm not trying to get to the dish too much dirt. I got a really hard-hitting question coming up next. But we hear about this.

I think that's a lot of the problem is like, the guys, it's not like, there's some guys who just don't go out and i used to be part of that crew like coming on the the beat early on i was just um all business and then went home showered worked out and went back at it the next day and there's a lot of people whether they're early in their career or later in the career or or just they're one drinking out or just come out for the dinner. So it is kind of a different scene. You do see the same four or five guys always go out night after night. But let's face it, that's a tough kind of lifestyle.

Oh, for sure. I consider myself a pro, but then you can see some guys and you're just wondering, like, I don't know, you're sweating alcohol, my friend. It's tough on your liver, right, to be a sports writer in this city. Okay, now, so Beezer took a package. So it sounds dirty, but it's not. So I guess Post Media, they offered packages and people like a buffery could get,

I don't know, X dollars per year of service if they just kind of go away. So Beezer, so when I say retirement, it's really like retirement from the Toronto Sun. Beezer might end up doing something else. He's in the Etobicoke Sports Hall of Fame, by the way. But what happened with you? And then we're going to, I got to address something with you

and then we got to go chronological. But why are you no longer at Toronto Sun and National Post, Post Media? Yeah, it's not a secret that Post Media has laid off a significant portion of their newspaper writers, management, management and whatever. And yeah, unfortunately when you're not unionized and you're kind of out in the open, um, yeah,

uh, I, I felt cutting. Yeah. It's, it's cost cutting right at the, right at the finest there. And I,

I don't want to go too into it because I'm still trying to deal with the severance package and whatnot. But yeah, it's kind of unfortunate because you spend two decades with the same newspaper, whether it's the Toronto Sun or the National Post. And you love your job and you do a great job and you're part of the solution in terms of moving things forward with digital and podcasts and video and all that. And you work with a great team of people. But at the end of the day, I think there's a lot of companies right now and you see it, whether it's Sportsnet, whether it's ESPN, whether it's Disney, people are just, it's cost cutting right now. So, unfortunately, it's good for, whether it's Disney, like, uh, people are just, it's cost cutting right now. So yeah, unfortunately it's good for Beezer. He spent a lot of time there and I think he was able to kind of go on his own. And, uh, to be honest, um, that's the way I'm kind of treating this. It's like to spend 20 years at one place is it's, it's an accomplishment accomplishment but at the same time i'm always looking also for a nice new challenge and uh there's a couple things i'm working on i've got a great uh new venture that

i'm uh starting out uh podcasts are already kind of dropping today with the hockey verse which is not just another hockey podcast we are a total resource for hockey players parents and fans so we have a panel of experts including matt nickel former leafs trainer um yuri bersky uh skills coach for stephen stamkos and a bunch of nhlers we've got scouts we've got um agents and and our crux of the show is we take live listener questions from the hockey community, or the hockeyverse as we call it, and our panel of experts will be answering anything from, is my 13-year-old getting the right advice from his hockey skills coach to what kind of off-season training should I be doing as a kid

who's going from AA to AAA. So I'm really excited about that. And hopefully in the next couple of days, we'll have even more to say. But we're already on Spotify, we're on Apple iTunes and wherever you can find podcasts. Okay, firstly, congrats. That's amazing that you got this new venture

already kind of kicking off here. And is it the magic word to search for is hockeyverse? So'll get you to this uh to this program yeah the hockey verse so okay taking questions too at hey hockeyverse.com well post media is lost hey hockey verse at gmail okay get that right come on you know that that's the problem is like when you're at post media you're you're never having to promote and self-promote and i always felt icky about it but now it's like oh man it's it's a different industry well you're independent right this is a fiercely independent uh project you and these people are endeavoring right yeah yeah yeah that's that's exciting to me like when you're just a hired gun for post media like you know it's fine but you're you're just a hired gun and everything you write belongs to them and they all kind of own you in a sense.

But now you're going to find out the freedom of working for yourself. This is what matters. Yeah. You know, I got to do a bit of this when I wrote my book, The Next Ones. And that was another experience where you don't just get to know the hockey players, but meeting the parents of like Mitch Marner and Austin Matthews and Connor McDavid and even Matt Murray and William Nylander's parents, every single player in that book, their journey varied. Two Ontario kids had completely different journeys, never mind the kid from Finland or the kid from Arizona. different journeys uh never mind the kid from finland or the kid from uh arizona it was ridiculous and talking to like their coaches growing up their uh like i said their brothers

sisters what is it like when you're in the same house as a guy who's a complete phenom it's almost like surreal like um doing that story so i i i've had i've been really fortunate like in the last 20 years to not just get to know uh players from draft year to retirement year but um to know kind of everyone involved in the community and it is a hockey community and that and that's the the whole thing we're trying to highlight with this hot the hockey verse so um yeah yeah. Well, I promise we'll talk a little more about the hockey verse at the end. The book you mentioned, The Next Ones,

How McDavid, Matthews, and a group of young guns took over the NHL. It won a silver medal. I'm going to pretend I know what this means, okay? You won a silver medal at the Independent Publisher Book Awards 2019. That's not bad.

Who the hell beat you? Do you know? I don't know. I think it was like a book on like yoga or Pilates or something. That's bullshit. Are you kidding me? The next one should have won. I think you got robbed, buddy.

But good. Congrats on the silver medal. Now let's address the elephant in the room so we can move on to more about your career. This is key here. Let me shout out to Chris Cooksey, whose son plays hockey. He's very good, but he's trying to call me, but'm not available chris i'll call you later okay a lot of questions came in about this i'm gonna just give you a chance to explain yourself and we're gonna have an adult conversation about this but i'll give credit to jake s uh who was first in we have to

have yeah we have to do this now because you know no no and now i'll conversation well you don't have you can you can throw things at me if you want, but don't throw the beer at me. Jake S., I'll give him credit for the first one in here. He says, what's he got against adults wearing bike helmets? Okay, I saw this tweet because I subtweeted it. I'm like, this Michael Jacobs is an idiot or something like that. Okay, please don't be upset.

But I called it like I saw it. What did you tweet that has upset so many people regarding adults and bike helmets please michael speak to me i knew i knew this is christina rutherford a friend of the show she's an fotm yeah okay i knew it was bad when she she she tweeted at me she was like come on it's like my whole twitter profile is with me in a helmet okay what did remind us because i know you deleted the tweet like a coward you can probably find not like a coward like like a good boy from a company who got told to delete the tweet okay you got told to delete the tweet okay post media is like this is a bad look yeah we can have like

brian hunter on our paper but you can't tweet. That's funny. So like, how does that work? The boss says, would you mind deleting that tweet? Or do they tell you? Let's back up.

Okay. So the tweet was like, I'm going to lean back. What was the tweet? It was like, tweet was like something like, I don't understand grown adults who ride a bike helmet, like something to that extent, right?

What I took from your tweet, and maybe I'll look up what you really wrote, but what I took from it was basically you were ridiculing adults who wear a bike helmet. Yeah. First of all, were you hammered when you tweeted that? Give me some excuse here. Okay, so here's the thing. I'm going to try to explain it, and it might actually sound worse. Okay, let me hear it. So let's... I think it was just like, it was during the pandemic.

This is how you... This is how you absolve yourself of everything by just saying it was during a pandemic. Things were weird at that time. There was a lot of anger in the world, right? There was a cloud of hate just covering you wherever you walked. I remember just walking around. Toronto,

you have to remember, you live in Toronto. Yes, I do. This is a different world to me. I'm up in Newmarket. During the pandemic, I have a yard where I actually got to enjoy things. I reconnected with my life. I have a yard. Do you want to see it? I have a yard where i actually like got to enjoy things i reconnected with my you want to see it on you i have a yard anyhow i'll show you before you leave to ride a bike

in new market is like when you see like uh video footage of like 1940s movies or something okay like there might be a car there's no cars because it's just bike paths first of all that go through wood wooded areas i'm listening okay so i'm gonna hear you out before i respond so this isn't like i'm i'm suggesting adults don't wear bike helmets if you're going down like lakeshore boulevard or like up young street you think in dundas or something you think the absence of cars mean you don't you shouldn't like wear a helmet you don't need to wear a helmet. I think if you're just going for a nice bike ride, you're going to play tennis that day,

and you're confident in your biking abilities, there's no reason why you should fall off that bike. And all I was saying was, I don't know. It was during the pandemic, Mike. All right, my turn? Okay. So I have so many things to say here. It feels like we should have started with this

and then been like, okay, it's been an hour and a half. We really have to go. Well, I'm going to get this out of the way because then we're going to talk more about your career in sports media. But so I should fully disclose, I don't know why I have to disclose this,

but I am an avid cycler. I did a couple of rides already. I was talking biking to muskoka with my friends last weekend and when you bike in your neighborhood obviously we probably would not have i don't think i'd be wearing the helmet for that but okay sorry so so okay so in in march 2020 which was during the pandemic we were a couple weeks into this lockdown or whatever it was and i I was doing a bike ride. I was on rural York. Okay. No cars in sight. I couldn't even see a car. I guess in March 2020, nobody left their fucking house. It was like no automobiles. It was kind of weird, but I'm biking on rural York and there are these two kids and they're walking a dog. This happened. Okay. And I'm biking by and the dog just juts out like it's going to go into my spokes, okay?

And I was so afraid that I was going to have like a dog in my spokes. Something happened where I hit the brake really suddenly, and I went over the top, okay? My helmet split into two. Like, I went to St. Joe's because I broke my wrist, too. So I had a broken wrist. But my helmet split in two, and they did a CAT scan because he's like like we got to see if you have any brain damage uh brain bleed from uh it's funny i'm talking about this because i actually have another brain issue now which you probably noticed by talking to me but all this is to say no car involved i don't even want to know what would happen to me if i wasn't wearing my helmet because it was enough impact to split into two. Like, that's only three years ago. So since that tweet,

a lot of people have been tweeting to me about bike injuries that they've had, and I guess I was just kind of ignorant to the fact that people have, yeah, had bad spills. And it doesn't, like, the absence of cars does not negate, and you know, you're saying... Listen, I'm not saying, like, hey, take off your helmet, hippie. Get that thing out of here. of cars does not negate and you know you're saying you never know what could happen

take off your helmet hippie get that thing out of here I'm saying like especially on ski hills there's a lot of kind of like people looking down on you if you're not wearing a helmet these days yeah because I think and again

it's not the law so Michael Treyko's you don't have to by law, there's no law saying you have to wear a helmet when you bike. That's just for kids under 16 or something like that. You don't have to wear a helmet. But I will tell you, I won't go for a

ride without a helmet because it's not worth the risk. There are many things that can cause you to crash or fall off your bike that do not have anything to do with automobiles. I've had several times my helmet has hit the ground. I do bike a lot though, I should point out. But I've never had a car involved in any of them.

Like it can happen. So I'm just saying, I would say it was best practice. My 21-year-old son, I always tell him, I would like you to wear a helmet every time you bike because it's not worth the risk. It's your head, man. I'm going through a brain thing right now. This is so fucking vital that you protect your head.

Why wouldn't you throw on a helmet? Why do you think that touched the nerve, like the issue so much? Because I remember tweeting it out. Here's the thing. I tweeted it out and I was like, oh, wow, a couple of people are retweeting this. And I laughed about it. And then so I work out with my brother at his place twice a week yeah i went to work out with them i came back home and my wife

was like you went viral what happened it was the only thing i went viral for and she's like it got so bad that the editor at the paper called me and said listen we either got to come out with an editorial about how we're uh against bike helmets or we got to take this down which one which one are you gonna do i was like you know i'm just gonna take this down i'm like i don't know and i was getting like people from like the states uh getting involved it's kind of weird to touch the nerve it's because you weren't like i don't wear i choose not to wear a helmet you were like and i wish i could i wish i could find this tweet like it was a little effort a lot of people screen grabbed it of course because

they're like this idiot's good my name and idiot and i think there's another one i wrote so i wrote a product review for husker results for you an idiot so many results okay go ahead so you know husker von or chainsaw uh yes the chainsaw of course so they it was during the summer i was i usually don't work in the summer because it's i'm a hockey writer so i take like a school teacher right in that regard right so if they are like hey we got like some product reviews you wanted to write it kind of like whatever they'll send you a chainsaw to play around with so i did a story about it and in the picture i'm not wearing any protective equipment no visor i'm wearing my like squash

shoes i'm just wearing a pair of shorts they gave me chaps some pictures i'm wearing them some i'm not the one that they chose for the paper look at this i've just typed in trichos and chainsaw it's hilarious okay the amount of comments I got from people saying, you idiot, you're going to chop off your leg. I've had a chainsaw incident. It was almost like the bike community, a bike helmet community and the chainsaw protective community teamed up on me.

All right. One thing at a time. Let's get this bike thing going here. Okay. So I found the tweet. This is what you wrote. Things I'll never understand colon kind of like hmm things you make you go hmm right yeah right shout out to cnc music factory okay things i'll

never understand colon adult cyclists who wear a bike helmet so i think the reason we all shit all over you deservedly so i would say is that you don't understand why an adult might want to keep their brain intact and keep their brain protected when they're on a bike ride like the whole arrogance and idiocy uh idiocy that uh you would write i i'll never understand why adults wear a bike helmet like please tell me you were hammered like at least then we can be like oh drunk you know what again i think i was just taking the piss and just like i don't know if you've followed my career but i've had a reason my like i've talked to my wife but i have a have a history of like riling up the masses or but you double down and you're you get me i'm getting angry again because at some point you one of your replies when people are like, you know, you wrote,

I avoid cars when I'm on my bike. Thanks. Like, what an arrogant, stupid, like everyone who's been hit by a car, you know, doesn't just didn't avoid them. You say it was March. I think it was sometime in July, actually. No, this was your tweet. No, my bike.

I never said my bike crash when I split my helmet was March 2020. That's where March comes in. Your tweet is from June 3rd, 2021. Hold on, we're not done yet. Somebody came and said like, hey, you know, like, what if you fall or something? And then you wrote back, maybe don't fall with a question mark, like, which pisses me off because I was literally safely on Royal York in a bike lane with no cars in sight. I just picked up a tax form from my son who was at his mom's house, and I was biking home.

And there was these two kids in the fucking, because as I speak to you, Michael, I literally have a brain clot on my brain. And I have a hematologist and I have a neurologist trying to figure out how the fuck does a healthy 40-something-year-old guy get this super rare blood clot in the brain, super fucking rare? How does he get this thing

when the biggest causes are birth control pill and pregnancy, okay? I've never been on the birth control pill. I've never been pregnant. Two fun facts. So they're all, like, their job is to figure out how I got this. I'm being tested for genetic disease and all that.

Have you guys looked into, like, I don't want to. What are you, doctor now? Vaccine, possibly. Yeah, that's what they've cited. Did you get the Moderna slash,

what was the other one I got? I got like a three, a trifecta one. Is that how your brain operates? Like, it's probably the vaccine and not the actual fucking COVID I had. It's probably the vaccine.

Okay. It would be more likely to be COVID than the vaccine. Regardless, it could be that crash in 2020. i'm just saying it could theoretically we're gonna we're gonna find out i'm gonna let them do a lot of variables here a lot of variables here but i'm just reading now i'm getting angry because this person has indexed doing your colleges man i don't know what i do my colleges for the, oh, sorry for the earlier tweet regarding bike helmets. I meant, I don't understand why adults

who know how to ride a bike choose to wear a helmet. For those still learning how to ride, by all means. What a jerk. Welcome, seriously,

like, why would I want this guy in my basement for a nice chat? He sounds like an asshole. See, that's, so we were talking earlier

about Myrtle and you're like, oh, isn't there like some hatred in this stuff? Yeah, myrtle and you're like oh isn't there like some hatred in this stuff yeah myrtle and simmons but there is go on so there's this medium called twitter right where you're just kind of like firing back at people and during the pandemic i swear it reached heightened levels of hate where i had to remove notifications and then scrub. But if you had sent that same tweet in 2019, we would have shit on you then too. I don't know. I promise you.

You think so? And the thing is about me, when I tweet, I'm actually, like I don't actually. I would have done it earlier in my career had I known I got the reaction. I could have parlayed that. You could lean in, like, yeah. One of those kind of like bad boys, shock jockey kind of.

What is that? Do you wear a seatbelt when you drive? So my wife's always on me on this. So you don't? It depends. Can I tell you this? Can I just look you in the eyes when I say this? You have bigger muscles than I do.

No. Yeah, trust me, you do. It's all smoke and ears. I think you're kind of dumb, man. This is some stupidity that you're, uh, I think you're kind of dumb, man. This is some, some, some, some stupidity that you're spitting into my, uh, nice professional microphone.

Listen, this is all entertainment. I remember talking to, uh, a couple of broadcasters who were involved in that whole TSN, like rap. What was it like a country song or the rap song they did? The trade deadline. Not surprised not surprised but yeah and it was

just kind of like you made yourself look like an idiot i'm just like it's entertainment buddy all right so today as we speak in march 2023 do you want to go on the record and like like you can double down if you want because your your fucking opinions but how do you really feel about adults who choose to wear a helmet when they bicycle, even in new market? Do what you will. All right. No judgment from me.

Thank you. There you go. And that's all I'm going to say. See, now I have to root for you to have a bike crash and break your skull open. You're part of the problem. So I can say, Michael Treykos, I told you so. Yeah. See, that's the thing you miss on Twitter is just like, ah, the guy's just like, he's charming.

Who's charming? Me. This guy. I'll let you know. We can do another half an hour and I'll make a change. That's funny. You're like, you're just a dummy. Smoking mirrors for 19 years, Mike, okay?

Smoking mirrors, man. I said, I just had, I got chat GTP before anyone. That was the real coup. Holy smokes, Michael. Okay, look, and Michael, you know what? I'm going to just say it now now that we've you know established

I think you're kind of dumb I think you should be a Mike this is this Michael pompous Michael bullshit okay who do you think you are that's part of the smoke in me ears so pretentious you know

originally I was Michael S. Trecos oh that's even worse are you going to put Esquire at the end of that like Michael S. Trecos it was before all that so I could have

do you know uh this gentleman michael landsberg you ever heard of him yeah i was on uh off the record with him yeah yeah how many how many okay a bunch of appearances okay so the wrestlers on with you tell me about your off the record my off the record appearance was amazing so i was still uh i just i think before i was even engaged my wife but she was always hanging around. I was still living at my parents' house. We had the whole basement set up where it was kind of like, is this guy ever going to leave?

And I'd go on off the record. We'd tape it on the VCR, VHS, and then my buddies would come by with my wife and we'd have some beers and watch it. Once I was on with Ed the Sock, but some beers and watch it once i was on with ed the sock but not at the sock i was on with the steve kersner no his wife oh uh liana k yeah so she was one of the the people frank d'angelo oh you're okay you're safe oh my god and who is the third person frank d'angelo's gonna write fora. Okay, okay, look at him now. Hockey Man Canada Superstar.

It was an all-star panel of just kind of like the surreal life. Wow, okay. And then me, obviously. Leanna Kay's been here. I bought my whole outfit that day. It was shades of brown. I had like brown etnies, like some brownish khakis, and then a dark brown polo.

You know, it's too much brown. Frank D'Angelo, he was being financed by Barry Sherman. Do you know the name Barry Sherman? No.

Billionaire apotex. He was a billionaire. That's not the one where him and his wife were murdered. Bingo. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. See, you know the story.

He said I'm a dummy. Yeah, so anyway, Frank D'Angelo. I have not invited him over because my insurance won't cover it. He's running for mayor now. Yeah, he's running for mayor because it's going to give him some publicity for a real cheap amount of dollars. You should run for mayor and just outlaw bike helmets in adults. It'll be your first platform.

I've got a Frank D'Angelo story. So when I was covering the Indy, it was right when cheetah drink came out remember the cheetah of course i do ben johnson what was the slogan it was i cheetah all the time do i remember the cheetah drink so where you are so we're in the media room and they obviously have like a cooler full of drinks just It's sweltering hot, right? You're going to see me grounds all day. Right?

No joke. The whole bloody cooler is just filled with cheetah drinks, like five different flavors of the damn thing. No water, just cheetah. Yeah. You know what's in a cheetah? The whole thing was,

there's no caffeine. It's no caffeine,'s no caffeine all sugar yeah that's a secret ingredient is dump a bunch of sugar in here i'm sure the the whole uh enterprise was financed by barry sherman because that was like yeah because he made all these movies and he'd pay cash for like you know uh big famous actors who are maybe a little past their prime he'd pay cash and they'd kind of all shoot their stuff in one day or whatever, but that's the Frank D'Angelo way. Mike, can I have another one of these?

Yeah, but do you want me to go get you a cold one? If you can talk, because I'm not going to edit this, okay? I refuse. But if you want to address the FOTMs listening, I'll run up and get you another one. I'll get you another one. Yeah. So talk to the people. Go. Thanks very much. You can say anything you want. I'll hear it later.

Well, I'll probably just be talking about, you know, my real views on the vaccine and what the government really wants us to think about. No, in all seriousness, Michael Draco's here from

former post-employee, post-media employee, now part of a team called the Hockeyverse. And honestly, if you are a hockey parent, hockey fan, hockey player. Pop it on the mic. You have to buy us. We want to hear from you. Hey, Hockeyverse at gmail.com.

Okay, you're going to... Hey, Hockeyverse at gmail.com. You're going to have to become a sponsor if you're going to do that you. HeyHockeyverse at gmail.com HeyHockeyverse at gmail.com You're going to have to become a sponsor. I will. So Great Lakes beer, you just had your second can. Do you like Italian food? Why? You think I'm Italian?

No. Why would you think I'm Italian? I don't think you're Italian. You're just proving my point. I don't think you're Italian. Soundscos. See, you're just proving my point. Okay, listen. I don't think you're Italian. Trecos sounds very Greek to me. Sounds very Greek to me.

But do you like Italian food? Love it. Okay, I have. Please, let me do my plugs. I gave you all that chance to do your plugs. I'm trying to give you. Michael, I'm trying to fucking give you a delicious frozen lasagna

that's in my freezer right now from Palma Pasta. I'm trying to fucking give you a delicious frozen lasagna that's in my freezer right now from Palma Pasta. I'm trying to give you free food. Do you think I think you're Italian? Do you think I'm... I was in the gifted program, Michael. I should pull out my gifted certificate here. Holy smoke. That was pre-brain damage, though.

But I do have a large meat lasagna for you, and it's courtesy of Palma Pasta. Palma Pasta makes delicious Italian food. I don't think you're Italian, but I think your dinner tomorrow night will be Italian. You're taking it home with you. I will. Okay, and you're going to enjoy it, too. And your wife's going to enjoy it, too. Everyone's going to enjoy it.

You got any kids? I do. How old are these kids? Oh, you got a 14-year-old daughter and a 12-year-old son. Perfect lasagna eating ages. Yeah, they love lasagna too. 12 and 14. Yeah, everybody does.

Okay, you're bringing that home. That's a big box. It's going to be full when you leave. I'm also giving you, I don't know what you'll need to measure with this, but you never know. This is measuring tape courtesy of Ridley Funeral Home. And if you don't wear a helmet when you bike you're going to end up at ridley funeral home you know what i wanted to measure my bicep the other night and i couldn't find a measuring tape so this is perfect honestly that's

what i want you to do i want you to measure those biceps find out what i'm in for when we finish recording okay and last but not least if you got any antiquated tech maybe you got an old eight track machine in your garage or you got some old sony walkman that doesn't work here i'm really really really going back with these references but if you have old tech don't throw it in the garbage it ends up in the landfill and there's a lot of dangerous chemicals in there go to recycle my electronics.ca and find out a safe place to drop that off because EPRA has our back. Thank you. EPRA. And thank you.

Recycle my electronics.ca. Okay. So you got a second logger going there. We're going to move on from the helmets and cycling. Cause it's a, it is making me mad. Like I'm actually like, I don't care if you have bigger muscles,

I'm saying let's throw down right here. I got the cameras on us. Let's go. I don't care. Just don't hit my head because I got to be careful. I got blood thinners and it could fuck me up. So don't do that. Okay. When in your life, Michael Traco's young Italian man, when did you realize

you wanted to write about sports and be in sports media? That's a weird one because I never choose to go into sports sports literally chooses me okay in the sense that i don't know what it is about me because i wasn't like a high level athlete or anything like that but uh when i wrote at the town paper i started writing a regular column and they threw me into hockey and then the day before I was supposed to start at the national post,

uh, Jim Bray calls me and says, I know you're supposed to start a news, but you know, we've got a couple of guys getting married this summer. We could really use a guy who could help out on everything. We're going to throw you whatever. And I was like,

okay. I remember even calling a guy at the hockey news and everything we're going to throw you whatever and I was like okay I remember even calling a guy at the hockey news and being like hey what do you actually think I should do and he's like I don't know news is probably a better entry into journalism sports you might get typecast but so I was never actually

choosing sports I ended up going to sports and then you know looking back it's it almost like ruins you because i can't imagine going from sports back to news now it's almost like it was too much fun where to actually write about like i don't know city politics or anything like that i don't know so you accidentally fell into a 20-year career as a sports reporter yeah Yeah, very much so. Like a lot of people will start out in junior hockey or really kind of like paying their dues, so to speak.

And for me, I was editor-in-chief of the Eye Opener, so Ryerson's student newspaper. And from there, I did some freelance with the Hockey News. Again, it was almost like all of my friends were always in sports so maybe that's what helped out and yeah

I always wondered if I had kept in sport news because I remember even in my internship I was getting a lot of like A1 stories and I was really into traveling and doing the War zone coverage i remember at the when i was at the toronto star uh radio room uh one of my assignments was like transcribing rosie uh domano's column um from where she was in afghanistan at the time and it was the worst job

in the entire universe tell me why because rosie would just be yelling at me and she was on a satellite phone that would break up like constantly and she was like if that period isn't there or if my m dash is in the wrong spot and i'm like you gotta write for rosie so she's like just yelling it at you. And I'm like, this is going to sound, it sounds so weird. So you're trying to write it and you're like trying to think in your head. You're like, but that's not how people write a sentence. Like,

why am I? And she's just cutting in and out. And it was just like, I was so worried that I was like, Oh God, I'm going to get fired because Rosie didn't like where I put the semicolon or she's not going to take any shit. We know that.

She's been very public when she... But here's the thing about Rosie D'Amano. I don't know what your thoughts are on her. I love her. I've invited her on, but she wrote back, and I'll never forget the line she wrote, strictly a print gal am I, is what she wrote back, which is kind of a strange way of saying

I don't want to do a podcast. I've had nothing but amazing interactions with her. And I know a lot people i might see her tonight buddy i listen i if you do don't be here's the thing she comes across at someone that like maybe is prickly and whatever don't don't buy that because she is the nicest person she's great to talk to she's funny great wit you might not like her opinions in the paper i love the wit. You might not like her opinions in the paper. I love the fact that I might not like her opinions in the paper. It's like the same reason why I love Simmons, Cox. I love the people

who aren't afraid to kind of really go up on that high wire. Take a shot. If you don't like it, it's almost like a stand-up comedian who's going to bomb and they know they're going to bomb and they're still going to go up there. Do you think I only invite people over when i agree with everything they uh i've been waiting for my invitation for so long man 20 years why didn't you tell me to invite you

like just drop me a little and my buddy greg strong on he's like i was on trauma mike this awesome we're talking to me we're doing all this stuff i'm like buddy you know you could have given me a hint but uh you know i given me a hint. I don't read post-media papers, so you were a bit off my radar. I just needed a little hint you wanted to come on. I had buffery on. You don't read post-media papers. That's like 95% of news

in Canada is post-media. You know that, right? Just I read Sunday Notes from Steve Simmons because I'm his favorite podcaster. How about my Thursday column? It was the most read Thursday hockey sports column in Canada. Is that true? It was the only hockey sports column on a Thursday in Canada. Okay.

Lots of, lots of meat on these bones here. Let me just, so I started by saying I'm, I'm invited to this buffery, which I actually plan to attend. And I'm an outsider, right? Because I've never worked in the media

and this is going to be a bunch of these buffery people. But a couple of things here. One is that I invited buffery over. We had a great 90-minute talk. My politics couldn't be more different from bufferies, okay? Bufferies like right of... Super right-wing guy, super conservative guy. I don't care.

I like talking to these cats. I'll strack it on. I don't care. You know, think about that. I don't guy. I don't care. I like talking to these cats. I had, I'll strike it on. I don't care. You know, think about that. I don't care. I don't care.

You're here and I think you're stupid. Okay. Because of your bike helmet and you're here now for a conversation. I've given you two beers. You're going to take some beer home with you. I'm going to give you a lasagna. I don't, you know,

I'm not, I'm willing to look past the whole helmet thing. Cause I'm willing to get to the whole helmet thing because i'm willing to get to know you better which we're doing right now so if i'm at this party tonight are you going by the way you said you were invited i don't know because it's like it's anatopico that's the problem so i'm down here now you're here now i wish this was like another day because i'm down here now yeah and the other is, it's like, how many of these do you got to go to? Well, it depends how much you like Beezer.

Like, it depends how close you are to Beezer. If you like Beezer and you're a friend of Beezer's, you should probably go. That's not fair. Well, that's everything, right? Yeah, I know you're right. Like, if I'm invited, it's particularly because you're in South Etobicoke right now. Beezer is practically the mayor of Etobicoke. He's in the Etobicoke Hall of Fame and his party is in, I will call it, southern part of Etobicoke.

You could go from here to there practically, you know. Maybe stop somewhere for a beer or whatever if you have like a half an hour to kill or whatever. Yeah. So, if you don't go tonight, you really don't like Steve Buffery. That's not fair. It's on a Thursday. It's a Thursday.

Why do you have it on a Thursday? I don't know. I think Simmons organized this thing. Okay. So you were in the radio room at the Toronto Star. You're transcribing Rosie D'Amato's stuff. It sounds like that's you on your way to being like a crime reporter. You're going to be.

No, no, no. Yeah. Well, that's on your LinkedIn page. You call yourself a crime reporter. Well, that is a smoke and mirror. No,

it is. Well, you're technically our crime reporting. You're listening to like. Yeah, the crime is, is the way that you're being treated by Rosie DiManno. Basically. No, you're listening treated by Rosie Domano. Basically.

Now, you're listening to the police scanners. You're in a room full of scanners. Okay, I'm trying to imagine this room. One Yonge Street, right? One Yonge Street. You're literally in a glassed-off room. You can see in and out. It's so bloody loud because you have maybe eight police,

ambulance, fire scanners, all buzzing, talking about whatever. You get to know the codes. And if there's a crime being committed, you start making calls. What's the code for indecent exposure? Do you remember? Is it 311?

That's a crappy band. I saw them live once. I heard the band name. Did you? Oh, my God. I was dating a girl. Amber heard the band name. Did you? Oh my God. I was dating a girl. Amber is the thunder in my dream. Do you remember that? My hydroponics.

I remember all the 311 songs that made it to 102.1 The Edge. Oh man. You know who opened for them? Tell me. Finger 11. Mark McGrath's band. What was that?

Oh wow, Sugar Ray. Yeah. I'm surprised it wasn't the reverse. Remember that Mean Machine song that he had? Well, I remember Fly. Yeah, yeah. That was a big one.

We had a bunch of big hits. Mean Machine was the one where they're on the hockey rink and they're just hitting each other. I have a chat tomorrow with Moe Berg and he had the song Gretzky Rocks. I'm thinking of all the great hockey jams out there. Man, Moe Berg. So when I went to Ryerson.

He wears a helmet, by the way. Yeah. Good for him. He's got nice hair. Go ahead. That's the first thing I thought about when I thought about Moe Berg. I'm like, I wonder if he wears a helmet. Because, oh man, this is going to ruin it for me now.

What were you going to say? When I was living in Toronto, so Ryan Kennedy, do you know Ryan Kennedy at all? No. So he's the editor-in-chief now of the Hockey News. Okay. Him and I were roommates. Okay. He was always in like hardcore bands and stuff, like a drummer.

So we'd go to like show after show after show. And one of our buddies was in the Deadly Snakes, who was in journalism, then was in Tangiers. So we'd always see their shows. What's your buddy's name james say it's now he's a lawyer okay yeah he was in j school with us he was representing uh class action suit actually the one that uh carcilla was involved in interesting okay yeah really cool guy though man the tan i don't know if you know that so you know the deadly snakes right yeah they're an amazing band and he was the bass player in their first album and then him and a couple other guys had the band called tangiers were basically like a stroke style band just amazing they opened for like thrush hermit on their last tour and stuff

like that i love it that's uh jo Joel Plaskett's band, right? Yeah. Yeah. I played for Keegan Matheson the last episode before yours. I played some Joel Plaskett. Joel Plaskett Emergency? I think it's him solo, actually. I can say it's just Joel Plaskett, but it's called This Town.

I can't remember. It's like a love song to Halifax. Yeah, he's got some great tunes. No, absolutely. Okay, I'm enjoying this now. Okay, now you've won me back. So we got the crime reporter stuff. Do you see my tattoo?

What is that exactly? Pixies pee, man. Okay, so okay, well, we should be kicking out the jams next time. I know. That's the thing, like, aside from sports... You know what? He skipped a step. Like, normally I have a Gregory Strong on, which I thoroughly enjoyed having Gregory Strong on, and we talk about his career at CP and everything.

And then he comes back and we kick out the jam. So like you're doing, this is going to be like the, the Michael Trey coast, uh, you know, deep dive. And then you come back and we can kick out the,

the pixies. We'll play it on, man. Yeah. Okay. We're going to do that. Okay. Okay.

So, and you get more beer and you get more lasagna. Okay. So I got it, but I got to get to the post media here. So you do like some, uh, you're very young obviously but you're at the toronto star in the radio room and then you're freelancing at the hockey news yeah and how exactly do you get the uh offer from national post so i'd like uh won an award at ryerson and then when you're the editor of the paper and you're the managing editor of news,

you kind of get on people's radar. And especially when you're at the eye-opener, you get on a lot of people's radar. Because former editor-in-chiefs of the eye-opener are like a who's who of journalists. And just going into Ryerson, it feels very much like you're already getting plucked from place to place.

How do you feel about the fact that university is now called Toronto Metropolitan University? You know, I don't care at all. Because when I went there, it was Ryerson Polytechnic University. And then it changed to Ryerson University. I was always like, this place has no identity. It was an institute first.

Yeah, it was an institute first? Okay. Yeah, because when I was at U of T, it was like a polytechnical institute. It has no history. Okay. Yeah. All right, now it's an actual university.

Okay. So National Post, you're on radars. You're on these fucking radars. And National Post is like, we need this Michael kid, this Michael Tracos. We need this guy.

And you come on, what, as a hockey writer is like we need this michael kid this michael tracos we need this guy and you come on what is a hockey writer so i came on i was supposed to be a news reporter got dragged into sports spent the summer there or yeah summer there as an intern and then right after that was the lockout covered a lot of lockout stuff and then you know just grab the beat um out of the 0506 uh season so it was almost like that was the year Crosby and Ovechkin came into the league and there was very much like a young league and I think because I was a young reporter it was almost like it was kind of a good match uh Alan excuse me Alan Woods was just leaving the to to go, I think back into news. And then he was going to go to the star after that. And there was kind of like Bruce Arthur was there, but he wanted to do basketball. Sean Fitzgerald was there, but I think he wanted to do more football. And it was

a nice little void for me and I just come in and just grab it. All right, so you're starting there May 2014, right? Yeah. So are you there? Oh, no, 2014? No, did I say that? Yeah, see, I have brain damage. 2004, May 2004. May 2004.

So are you there when the Leafs are in the second round against, I think it was Philadelphia? So I'm there as an intern at that point. Because I was about to blame you for everything because it's almost like... I've never been there for a playoff win. Right. Okay. So because I have an 18, because that's 18 years, 11 months or whatever. I have

an 18-year-old daughter who's turning 19 this summer. And in her lifetime, her existence on this planet, there has not been a single second round game for the Toronto Maple Leafs. She's about to turn 19. There's never been one game. The last time the Leafs are in the second round

is in the 2004 season. They beat Ottawa, and then they lose to the Flyers in the second round. Pat Quinn is the freaking coach, and Ed Belfort is the goalie. This is ancient history now for everybody. But maybe it's you. You show up, and this team can't win a round.

Isn't that kind of weird? Like there's a whole generation, like it used to be a whole generation of people or fans hadn't like seen the Leafs win a cup. Now it's a whole generation of fans like your daughter who hasn't even seen the win a playoff round. So my 21-year-old son who actually likes hockey can't remember. Like he can't remember the

so you got 21 year old dudes and gals and uh they have no no recollection of the second this year okay but did you say that last year yeah every year every year okay because it could happen right we we you know it could happen it's one of those things where it's like when it does happen you shouldn't be surprised no but that's you could have said that like the last several years like we should have beat the montreal canadians we went to game seven against uh tampa bay last year like there's been it's always been like a coin flip it just always falls on the wrong side yeah i wouldn't even say it's a coin flip it's just like i don't know the ghost of harold ballard you know what's a funny story is It's just like, I don't know, the ghost of Harold Ballard.

You know what's a funny story? I say Harold Ballard. Guess what my street name is? Ballard. Harold. No, it is Ballard. Is that the street where no adults wear fucking helmets on Ballard Street? So we move there and no joke,

it's named after Harold Ballard. So we're in New York. I'm not even surprised. I just went to st joe's with this brain thing and i had to spend the night because i thought i was gonna have a stroke and i'm there and there's the harold e ballard like wings like there's a whole ballard section of st joe's down uh he ingested money everywhere i guess so he brought a like the hl farm team the new market saint right so when he got there that's when my subdivision was being built and so they named a street after him

and then there's a street named after Stelic. Gord or his brother? Gord. Gordo. That's amazing. Like, I'm not surprised at the Ballard thing.

I told Stelic that and he's like, is it a dead-end street? It's a cul-de-sac for Gordo. He's always good with the quips. Must be a dead end.

What I did last summer, now it's just making you jealous because you've been wanting to come on this program for a while, but last summer I put Gord and Damien Cox on together, so they were in this basement kind of reunited for an episode of Toronto Mic'd. Oh, nice. But you are going to come back this coming summer

to kick out the jams, just because I think you'd have a good musical taste because before we pressed record, you told me you had a drum kit in your basement or something, even though you don't play the drums. Yeah, a drum kit. I got a bass guitar. So why don't you learn to play the drums?

You got a drum kit down there. How did you get it? I can do a general beat, but nothing special. Bass I was decent in, but then I screwed up my finger. I'm sorry to hear that. Maybe it was a bike crash. Some drunk guy kicked me. You never know.

That's the other thing. Another reason, again, and I'll leave the bike helmet thing, but you don't know if there's a drunk guy driving around. Like, people get hammered and then they... But it's a pathway. It's a pathway. No cars are around. Okay, but I once chipped a pinky.

What? You chip a bone in your pinky, which they don't do much for, sorry. But I was on the way home from a ubiquitous energy seeker show, and I'm driving, I'm on the bike, the waterfront trail heading west, and there's no cars allowed. But a cyclist coming up basically went out of his lane and hit me head on, and then I crashed down and chipped this fucking pinky. Okay, but how about if you were just walking and that happened happened like wear a helmet then what's it's not the same energy

falling thing like it's about you have to your the more energy how fast are you going on the bike that's the other question a lot of people are like seem like they're like going like tour de france level no no no dude dude i i measure every ride i don't go more kilometers i'm just listening to tunes i'm on my way to tennis. Okay, but ridiculous. You'd probably be going at least, you know, 16, 17 if you're just noodling your way to tennis or whatever. Okay, but here, we got you at the National Post. No more of this bike fucking talk.

It just pissed me off. So May 2004, you show up. They assign you as like a hockey writer. You've been covering these Leaf teams that were shit and then they couldn't get out of the first round and they've yet to get out of the first round although it could happen this year but of course you won't be there you'll be at hockey verse i well i might still be there what is that like freelance because costa showed up in the star and he hasn't been at the star for

a while yeah so it's unfortunate because i didn't time this for coinciding with actual news announcements, but there's a lot of things kind of... There's a lot of moving parts. Do you have an announcement you want to make? I can't make it today. Okay, so maybe you're going to be back at... Yeah, you know what? No, no, not at Post Media, but like...

Somewhere else? Yeah. Where? I'm not going to say. Howard Berger's blog? No, the funeral home, actually. Hey, they're no Ridley, but anyway. So you basically did this.

You're the young guy. You've got all the digital sensitivities. That sounds dirty, but it's not. And you're basically, why don't you give me a few highlights? Like you covered the 2008 Winter Olympics. No, no, 2010. Yeah, so there's a typo on your, it is 2010, but there's a typo on your LinkedIn because I copied this over

and I see now it is 2010. I'm going to fire that guy. How much of your LinkedIn profile is bullshit and how much is real talk? Well, that's the thing. With my job, you can't even bullshit. I could say like, hey, I was the national columnist for sports media or post media. And then you're like, I can't find your name.

So that's the thing. You just look up my name and just type in like Leafs or something. Nowhere to hide. Yeah, exactly. So tell me, were you at the Golden Goal game that Sidney Crosby? I was. So that day. Talk about that.

Okay, so I was covering short track speed skating because you all get it. Everyone gets assigned to a beat. In 2010, I was still cutting my teeth to a degree. And so I got short track and they said, hey, there's going to be a ton of gold medals coming under here. So that's fine and dandy, but at nighttime, I'm going to find my way to the rink and I'm going to write hockey as well. So I did that enough and enough where a gold medal game, they actually give out tickets.

Not everyone gets a ticket. That's the thing you think. Like you're covering the Olympics. It doesn't mean you're going to every event. And everybody wants to go to this gold medal game everyone wants to go right so i remember taking the guy who really wanted to go and really wrote like raised the stink was george johnson because he was like there's no one from calgary going to be here and you're giving the ticket to tragos who's from's from Toronto where Bruce Arthur is and I can't remember who else was there, Joe Connor and there's a bunch of others.

So they're like, you have to write Jerome Aguinla. George has made such a stink. There's no Calgary angle. So lucky enough, I got to write Aguinla. He hasn't done squat. He's like the old man on that team. Remember that? Sure.

He hasn't done anything. Overtime comes around and it's the crosby yelling iggy yeah and again like passing it to crosby so luck would have it i got an amazing story out of it and yeah i forget about short track that's all i care about from the olympics okay so the famously every uh salty old reporter will tell you there's no cheering in the press box. So when you're at like a 2010 gold medal game and you're covering it for the National Post and you hear Iggy, and then we all know what happens next,

Sidney Crosby scores on Ryan Miller, gold medal, gold goal, we got it. Now, are you jumping up and down like crazy or what? Like you celebrating that goal? Yeah, it's not even like the old salty reporter says it. I think it's totally true because you're just on work mode. So what happens when, tell me, what happens with you, Michael? So I'm in auxiliary press box that night.

Okay. So top press box is, it's not even in the press box. You're actually middle of the rink sort of like gold or platinum seats just above the platinum so i'd say first row gold is the media press press box so all the the guys who are been covering canada and the olympics like just hockey are there and there's maybe 30 of them i'm in auxiliary which is in like in the nosebleeds basically i'm but i'm with everyone no desk in front of me i just got the laptop literally on my lap the whole building's shaking the whole yeah the whole time we're in overtime

everyone's on their feet i can't even see a thing i didn't even see the goal all i heard and felt was just everyone just going bananas eruption yeah so when aginla was explaining the whole then crosby yelled iggy and was explaining it i wrote it based on that i don't remember if i even saw like a replay of it wow you know just uh the other night so two nights ago, I was at BMO Field watching Canada play Honduras in soccer. And right in front of us, a guy was wearing a signed, an autographed Jerome McGinley jersey, a Canada jersey, right in front of us. And I says to my friend, Bob Willett, I says, Iggy! And we were just chatting about that two nights ago. Yeah, that happened two nights ago. So that was insane. The only time when you ask me about like,

are you cheering and you getting caught up in the moment? Yeah. So coming back after I'd filed, that was literally the last event of the Olympics. Yep. I'm flying home later that night even. It's like early morning flight. So I'm just going right hotel back to the airport.

In the subway, everyone was, and I guess this happens a lot. I thought it was like to the airport in the subway. Everyone was, and I guess this happens a lot. I thought it was like a rare thing at the time. Everyone started singing. You know, Canada, that's when I was like, started singing along and I was like,

okay, I'm done. What a moment. Yeah. That's when I kind of like, you became a Canadian. Yeah. And I kind of got to enjoy being the whole fandom of it.

Yeah. You rarely get that so is that the biggest moment you've covered in your 20-year sports media career yeah unfortunately because when you think about it like no a leaf like uh a leaf stanley cup win would trump that you're not going to say like covering oh tampa winning or colorado winning or i guess the closest would be maybe like even washington winning but even then it was like in las vegas i kept having to cover like stanley cup finals where the winning team would win on like uh visitor soil so to speak right and you don't get the same sort of emotion you can

call it visitor ice this rice yeah that's right i never thought of that so okay so yeah if you're stuck to hockey because it's not like you can cover the Raptors championship because Wallstat's doing that. And that's the beauty of just being a hockey guy. So if I am watching, I'm a huge Jays fan. Okay. And here you are missing the season openers talking to me. It's true.

But my wife and I will watch uh most games on uh either like pvr it or watch it live you can listen if you want a good primer for the 2023 season the keegan matheson episode of toronto mic'd which is the one before this i think it's 12 27 it's actually really good yeah keegan's awesome he's a good boy. He's a good boy. Now, okay, so do you know Ryan Walstad at all? Or you guys wouldn't cross paths, I guess. He doesn't cover any hockey. Yeah, I know him enough to chat with him, but exactly. Big 90s hip-hop head.

That guy loves his 90s hip-hop. Awesome, man. My son's just getting into 90s hip-hop, and son's just getting into like 90s hip hop and i'm like he's like have you heard this song and it's like it's like notorious big so i'm trying to like move him into like even the 2000s like how about some little wayne some manny fresh i love it okay um tease me a bit uh that sounds dirty but it's not tease me a little about like what i can expect when you do come back to kick out the jams i mean we know we're gonna probably get a good pixies jam which is awesome but like give me a taste like is it is it heavier stuff or is it any grunge in there i'm just curious

what i'll hear not a huge like grunge more like indie like sebado dinosaur jr from back in the day that guy these days like hound mouth and uh 21 pilots i'm into um i do like a lot of hip-hop as well i'm actually it's funny like summertime comes around and i'm i'll throw on a lot of country so i remember surprised i know so like bro country total bro country don't so like when christina rutherford and I were like doing like road trips and so we'd be like in Washington or whatever and we'd like rent a car. It would be just like she's a huge country person too. So it would be the only person on the beat that could actually stand it. Maybe her and Mark Spector.

So Christina Rutherford came on with Rachel Brady. Any Rachel Brady stories? Not really. i think i covered tennis with her once i like greg a lot so i know him probably more than i do rachel so funny thing about greg there is i'm actually going to be recording live at great lakes brewery the brew pub so the one at jarvis in queen's key this is next week i don't know if it's next thursday i have to check my calendar. But I'm there to talk to a whole bunch of like 640 personalities. So I will be chatting up Greg Brady and Kelly Catrera. Who else will I be chatting up?

Alex Pearson, Danny Stover, a whole bunch of these FOTMs. So that's actually coming next week. So stay tuned. Yeah, Greg Brady's been on a bunch of times. But yeah, Rachel came on with Christina Rutherford. Awesome. Yeah, yeah. Christina, she's a hell of a person to

go on the road with. I remember once, her and Greg Wyshynski and I went to some, what was it called? High Lie Brewery in Tampa. And we did the whole brew tour i'll just well good times you're yada yada yada in the best part yeah yeah all right is there any uh

anything now man my head was hurt i woke up in a crash oh shit all right any any big any big memories over the last 20 years? And it sounds like there's something in the works and you, you might be back somewhere or whatever, but in the meantime, you got the hockey verse thing going on, but like, uh, is there any on your drive here? You waited a long time to make your Toronto Mike debut. We could have done 90 minutes on the bike helmets, but we, uh,

we veered off and covered a bit of your sports media career. Any big stories you're like, I want to make sure I tell this story or I want to shout out this guy? I don't know. If you want to ask me about someone specific, I'm always like, I'm the kind of guy that needs to be prodded almost like. I wouldn't have voluntarily spent time

talking about the bike helmet. Any Don Cherry stories? Don Cherry. I talked to him once about like, so once I talked to the Finnish Don Cherry cherry so there's a guy in finland so maybe don cherry's canceled here but there's a guy in finland keeping up the stick and he's literally known as the finished don cherry and he tries to do the whole like let me tell you about this but it's in it's finished i didn't know about this big suits and everything i did get a question

here let me ask this question before i forget uh john matisse do you know this name yeah well we say mattis okay you know what he should change it to matisse i feel like it should be matisse but john mattis uh wants to know who's your favorite road companion that's what i say i responded oh i didn't you got to say on this microphone right now and try to mic. That doesn't work. You and your Twitter, you think you can tweet an answer and that's going to be sufficient. You got to speak right now into this microphone. You know what? I said

it was all those guys and it's a total lie. That's the thing. He did name guys. Luke Fox. They're all great guys. Hold on. He also shouts out Joshua Clipperton. Rico? Who's Rico Once at a bar there was a guy Who was like

It was karaoke night At a Christmas party For Home Depot and a guy named Rico Went up and he was like Gonna sing Like a Prince song And got really into it Everyone was waiting

And then you got total stage fright and just like whispered the song you couldn't hear it okay so what was your you know my okay my answer is mike zeisberger because he's cool as ice zeis is the guy man like honestly when i moved on from post media and there's like a lot of people reaching out to you and stuff zeus is like i will take an uber i will stay over at a hotel we are gonna drink until the night goes down he's he might be there tonight right if he's in town he'll be there for sure great greatest guy in the business honestly yeah he's a good effort you ever had him on yeah oh my god what kind of stories did he tell? Great stories. Have you ever listened to an episode of Toronto Mike? I listened to the Greg Strong one.

Okay, so there's one. Okay, so you wanted to get on this program. You just didn't want to take any time. Among others. I listened to the Schultzy one. Schultzy, yeah. Many, many visits from David Schultz. I didn't listen to the Zyze one.

My brother always said I should do a podcast with Zyze because he found them so interesting. Zyze, I mean, I played Cool as Ice off the top for Zeiss Burger because it's cool as ice, right? Say that, cool as ice. That's a Zeiss Burger anthem right there. Zeiss is more into the 70s

rock. Yeah, actually, I should get him back. I did write him a note. So I booked guests for the Humble and Fred podcast and I actually wanted to do like a just an NHL playoff kind of setup thing. And I actually sent a note to Zeisberger to see if he wanted to jump on and talk to the guys about it. Uh,

anyway, what do you think? Who's going to go number one in your playoff? Are you talking to playoff pool or are you talking about like, who's going to, I want to, I want to talk. I want to,

I want to, I want to, I want to throw some opinions on this, but because I because we've talked about helmets let's get a quick hockey

see it's funny I'm happy to do this but when I have a Michael in my wheelhouse when I have a Michael Trakos on the program

like all those other podcasts you do they just want to ask you about how the Leafs are going to do to get the gold they appreciate my knowledge

that's what I have no interest in because if people want to know the nuts and bolts of the current NHL there's a million places to go.

And this is where we go to learn about Michael Trakos. I mean, people who are like, I think I know this name. I'm not sure. That was about 80 minutes ago. Now they're like, I know everything I ever wanted to know about Michael Trakos. And they're all making decisions right now. Like, I kind of like this guy. This guy's a dick.

I think I'm for a lot of people. So why don't you, instead of talking about when they don't fucking what's going on in the nhl playoffs i i watch the leafs i'll be watching the nhl playoffs okay i hope we uh go on a run because it's fucking fun for me but i'm also set to go out in the first round that's how it is being a leaf fan okay it's like there's a lot of people just like accepted the fact that this team is just going to be hey it might go down it's almost like it's an acceptance my brother said to me the other day he goes you know what i'm okay it's an 82 game season they were exciting for 82 games and now it's like you

know the jays are starting it's like if it ends right now i'm okay at least they got the same team next year i'm like that is like the worst kind of comment i've ever heard in my life but you do realize that's because it's like Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown to kick the football, right? Every single time Lucy pulls that football. Why the fuck is Charlie Brown still trying to run and kick that football? You know,

Lucy's going to do you prefer this though? Like just regular season juggernaut exciting. And then the playoffs come. I would rather have the opposite though. I watched, I was watching a bit last night, but I realized I really don't give a fuck about the regular season Maple Leafs. All I care about is the playoffs.

This has been a good, entertaining, regular season team for years now, but no results in the playoffs. So it's basically like, wake me up when the second season begins and let's see if we can make a little noise there. Because what do I care about an entertaining, interesting, regular season? It's all for naught. I've known we're going to play Tampa Bay in the first round for

what, eight weeks now? Yeah. How can I get up for these fucking regular season games? I've got to be really bored with nothing else going on. Last night, I'm going to pop it on and say, hey, what's going on? I'm watching a bit of the game here, whatever. Which we lost in overtime. But I'm all about the playoffs right now.

And you tell me you're feeling good. The Leafs are going to actually win a round for the first time since 2004. I think they're going to win a round. I don't know if they're going to win. That's the thing I'm like struggling with right now. Is it literally Stanley Cup or bust? Or are you okay with one round and out? Or it feels no one's gonna be happy unless there's a cup and then what are we gonna do like we're all coming back it's like almost like if you went two rounds you're like oh we're so close and then if you don't win a round it's like oh they're not even close at all i don't

think there's anyone's gonna be happy this year if Leafs go out in the first round to Tampa Bay, I will be very interested to see what happens with Kyle Dubas. Kyle Dubas is not getting fired. There's no scenario he gets fired. So if the Leafs go out in the first round, for how many years will that be in a row? It doesn't matter. He can do no wrong.

Did you see what he did? The trade deadline? I saw, but isn't it all about results in the playoffs? He literally said hey you fan you guys keep arguing this team's not tough enough it's not blah blah blah you don't have enough depth he got every single player like he he actually checked off all right grit fine here that defenseman who just puts the puck off the glass fine joe from the bridge wants that all right we'll give you that he just went down down the list. Vito and Woodbridge?

And now it's almost like, what else can you look at with this roster? This roster on paper is good enough to win a Stanley Cup. If they don't do it, there's no way Kyle Dubas loses his job. If he does, then it's almost like... Stanley Cup? It's almost like, why would you fire Michael Treges from the...

Oh, yeah, wait. We don't even know if this team gets out of the first round and you're like, Stanley Cup or bust. I think that's the mentality now because it's almost like they... Aren't we skipping steps? Well, they skipped a step. They should have had like a, we won a round, we won two rounds, or now we got far, okay, we took a step back,

and then we came back again. It has been like six years now where they didn't even do any of that. So now you just have to get... I think if they win a round, they almost like... It's almost like playing with house money now. When we hit Boston in the second round, you have a scenario, obviously, in your mind where the Leafs win that series.

I think so. When I just look at this roster and I see they've got so much talent, when I came up with that book, The Next Ones, I thought maybe there'd be one or two leafs on the team there ends up being there's four guys from that book that are on the leaves uh can i guess who they are okay well obviously one of them is a weird one okay matthews and marner is morgan riley in that book no okay yeah john tavarez was too old for that book so he would have been too old right he's got a good head of hair the next guy uh nylander yeah and then the the wild card is he got traded to the leaves okay uh who is it he's won two stanley cups before he was a ryan o'reilly matt murray

matt murray because at the time when i wrote it he was coming off his second stanley cup right that's right and he was only like i think, 21 years old. That was wild, actually. So you thought, hey, this is the successor to Carey Price at the time. How old's your oldest child again? He's going to be 13. Oh, no, sorry. She's going to be 15. 15, okay.

So we'll close with this here. I have enjoyed it. I'm happy to give you your lasagna and your beer, and I do hope you come back to kick out the jams. And I wish you much success with Hockeyverse. The Hockeyverse. It's like, I once called it the Tragically Hip. Your one-stop resource.

Tragically Hip. And Jake Gold, the manager, made me aware of the fact that it is actually the Tragically Hip. Like, T-H-E is an important part of that name. And it's like, it's not the Pixies. It's Pixies. Is it the Spoons or Spoons? that and it's like it's not the pixies it's pixies is it the spoons or spoons i think it's no one knows gordon doesn't even know the gordon told me he doesn't care it's spoon though it's not the spoon not to be confused okay so your 15 year old

will one day be a 20 year old that's gonna happen in five years. It's going to happen in the blink of an eye. When your 20-year-old is going to go bike to work, will you give a fuck? You're going to tell your 20-year-old daughter, why are you wearing a helmet? I don't wear helmets now, though, Mike. Okay, well, I'm going to have to report this to the...

I'm going to report this. Damn it, I told you my street address and everything. This is how much I now know about you that you put on the public record. I just got to go find Newmarket. I got to find a street called Ballard and I got to look for the guy without a helmet. I'm going to make a couple of calls

before I go to Beezer's farewell party tonight and report that your children under the age of 16 are not wearing helmets. That's against the law. Citizens arrest. Michael Trakos, this was great fun, and you'll be back to kick out those jams. Only because I think I'll enjoy these jams.

Hopefully it's not too much bro country, but I can't stop you. What's your favorite bro country song? Oh, I don't know. It might be Cruise. Is it about pickup trucks? Pickup trucks and girls. Pickup trucks, beer and girls. That's bro country for you in a nutshell. How was this experience? Everything you hoped it would be? I think it was fun. I got two beers out of it. Some lasagna. Yeah, you know what? It was a pretty good deal for you. Win-win.

I want to be a guest on my own show. That's what I want. And that brings us to the end of our 1,228th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike.

Michael, tell us how we can follow you on Twitter where we can see all your hot me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Michael, tell us how we can follow you on Twitter where we can see all your hot takes on cycling. There you go. Michael underscore Tricos. That is M-I-C-H-A-E-L underscore T-R-A-I-K-O-S. And again, follow the hockeyverse.com. Hey, hockeyverse at gmail.com.

I know how to spell Michael. Not many can, you know. A lot of get the A and the E mixed up. They go back and forth. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery, they're at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Recycle My Electronics

are at EPRA underscore Canada. And Ridley Funeral Home are at Ridley FH. I recorded a fresh episode of Life's Undertaking with Brad Jones yesterday and it was awesome. We played the sound of a 1972 Volkswagen camper van and it brought back a whole bunch of spring memories for Brad. This was a really special episode. Go listen to Brad and I on Life's Undertaking. Life's Undertaking. Life's Undertaking.

When I say it, Life's Undertaking. Yes, it's called Life's Undertaking. I'm stroking out over here. Call the police. See you all next week. And your smile is fine And it's just like mine

And it won't go away Cause everything is rosy and gray Well, I've been told that there's a sucker born every day But I wonder who Yeah, I wonder who Maybe the one who doesn't realize There's a thousand shades of green Cause I know that's true

Yes, I do I know it's true, yeah I know it's true How about you? All that picking up trash And then putting down roads And then brokering stocks The class struggle explodes Thank you. I guess I'm down because everything is coming up rosy and gray. Yeah, the wind is cold, but the smell of snow warms me today.

And your smile is fine, it's just like mine, and it won't go away. Because everything is rosy and gray. Cause everything is rosy and green Well I've kissed you in France and I've kissed you in Spain And I've kissed you in places I better not name And I've seen the sun go down on Sacré-Cœur But I like it much better going down on Chaclacour But I like it much better Going down on you Yeah, you know that's true

Because everything is coming up Rosy and green Yeah, the wind is cold But the smell of snow Warms us today And your smile is fine And it's just like mine And it won't go away

Cause everything is rosy now Everything is rosy Yeah, everything is rosy and great guitar solo