Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Mike Ganter: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1958

Episode Date: August 24, 2026

In this 1958th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with Toronto Sun sports journalist Mike Ganter about his lengthy career in sports media.A version of this podcast without programmatic ads is available to all Toronto Mike'd Patrons at patreon.com/torontomike.Toronto Mike'd, an award-winning podcast, is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball, Ridley Funeral Home, Nick Ainis, and RecycleMyElectronics.ca.If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey, it's Mike Gantor from the Toronto Sun. I've heard a lot about this podcast. I've read a lot about this podcast. I've never been on this podcast. And I'm very excited to finally be here. My first question will be, what did you hear and read about this podcast? So stay tuned. Welcome to episode 1,958 of Toronto.

Mikeed, an award-winning podcast, proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery. Order online at Great Lakes Beer.com 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. Visit palma Pasta.com for more. Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball. Catch a game at Christy Pits this summer. No ticket required.

Fusion Corpso, Nick Aienis. He's the host of Building Toronto Skyline. And Mike and Nick, two podcasts that you ought to listen to. Recycle My Electronics.C.A. Committing to our planet's future means properly recycling our electronics of the past. And Redley Funeral Home. Pillars of the community since 1921. Today.

Finally making his Toronto Mike to debut from the Toronto Sun, it is Mike Gantor. Mike, I know I said after your cold open, my first question will be, what did you see or hear about this podcast? But my true first question is, in the ongoing battle of Mike versus Michael,

can you tell me how did Mike win for you? Brevity. It was all about that. Just shorter. Yeah, I just, And, like, Michael just seems formal, and I only answer to it when my mother is mad at me. You know what? That's about right. I took the words right out of my mouth.

There we go. That's meatloaf, right? Okay. Shout out to Meatloaf, and shout out to Ridley Funeral Home, Meatloaf no longer with us. But I'm a mic for the similar reasons. It seems, Michael seems stuffy to me. Yeah, I agree. Like, that's like, I don't know, if he's like a lawyer.

I don't know. It's just. Yeah. I haven't reached Michael's standards yet, I don't think. Yeah. Okay, we're in the same boat. You're in the toy department. You're covering sports, right?

Exactly. You know, but I will say Michael Lansberg told me he went with Michael because Mike is the name of the guy who fixes my car. That's what Lansberg said. And when he said it, I said to myself, and that's why I'm a Mike. Exactly. That's stuffy. I mean, I've met Lansberg. I kind of like Lansberg.

He does. He always tended to be, probably because he used Michael instead of Mike, I always thought, you're a little suck on yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you know, I'm trying to think, who's the greatest Michael versus Mike? And it's got to be Michael Jordan, right? Yeah, yeah.

And Michael Jordan earned it, right? I mean, he can, like, I mean, if I had Michael Jordan's talent in anything I did, I might be a Michael, but I don't. And I know my lane and I'm a Mike. And I'll be a Mike until, you know, forevermore. Okay, you and I on the same page there. But Michael George, what I, you know, were similar vintage and we grew up in the heyday of Michael Jordan. And he had that deadly combination of mad skills. and I will murder my grandmother to get this basket.

Yeah, yeah. The competitive fire within that man was, that's what separated him. I mean, he's just like, he'd do anything. He'd do, and he's,

he's that way in life now. I mean, you've heard the stories about his betting escapades. And you're like, dude, take a, take a bill. And I took that personally.

Oh, that was like the highlight of the pandemic was the fact that we got that, that series, right? It was 100%. And I mean, I think we were in the vast, vast majority.

We were all glued to it. Like it was, it was much watch. Sports fans for sure, like you and I, for sure here. Okay, so Jake Allen's wrote in when he heard that you were making your Toronto mic debut. And I will get to that question I had about, like, what have you heard? What have you read? But Jake Allen says, have you ever been to Gantor Brewery in Germany? See, this is a good question, actually.

My family, there's four of us, four kids in my family. And my sister came upon the Gantor beer. Right. in the LCBO right by that LCBO right by the Toronto Star or where the old Toronto Star was. Yeah, one young street. Yeah, one Youngstown. Well, they have their like headquarters LCBO was like, was there. Yeah, well, right in behind that.

There's an LCB. Anyway, she came across Gantor Beer and then that set her down a path and she found Gantor brewery. And I mean, we knew my father was born in that area of Germany or sorry, not born. His grandfather was born in that area of Germany. They emigrated to Saskatchewan. And it all unfolded. And now it's on the family bucket list of we're doing a family trip to that,

to Gantor Brewery. Where in Germany is it? I don't know. It's the dark, the dark forest. Oh, yeah, that's like where the October Fest stuff comes from, right? Is that like, okay.

But there is, and it's still up and running, and they still brew a beer and, well, that's a good excuse to go to Germany. Exactly. No, I don't need an excuse to go anywhere,

really. I'd love to travel, but I'll take that one for sure. Okay, good question. Jake Allen's, here, hopefully this is a good question as well. This comes from a gentleman who comes to the Toronto-Miked listener

experiences. So there's like these levels of like fandom. There's the listener who hopefully becomes a patron because if you go to patreon.com slash Toronto Mike and become a patron, it's like five bucks a freaking month. You don't even get the dynamically inserted ads. You get the feed, the raw feed, if you

will, that we're recording live here to tape. No tape required though, by the way. But this chap comes to the event. So I will see this man on September 28th at the GLB brew pub at Jarvis and Queens Key. Before I go any further and read his question, this fresh craft beer, it's not from Gantor Brewery in Germany. It's from Great Lakes Brewery here in Southern Otobico,

but you're going to love it, Mike. Thank you. Thank you very much. Rob Delmundo. Ah, yes, I know the man. You know this man? Okay, he says, I just mentioned you were coming on. He said, Raptors turned Scepter's Beat Reporter. I've gotten to know him very well covering Scepter's games.

what's the most bizarre oddball scepter story you've written, Mike, that for whatever reason you couldn't publish it. Does this exist? Is there a story that you wanted to write, but you weren't able to publish? It's a tough question from Rob, eh? Yeah, I mean, he's really putting me on the spot here. Thanks, Rob.

Appreciate that. Go run another 10K, Rob. Keep yourself busy. I don't know that there's a, an odd ball story? There's always stories you can't write, as you know, like for whatever reasons. I mean, I, there was... Tell me why.

Can't you, maybe there's some stories you have to leave the names out, like, for legal reasons or whatever, or you don't get sued or something, but why can't you publish any story? You can't, I have a publisher for one. Right, right. And there is that they do have final say

and what goes out there, but there are some, I'll use a recent tempo example. Sandy Brown Dallow, I'm sure you heard this. She was, I was at the game. She was very upset. One of the players on the other team, Black Girl, was having a game where she was getting the benefit of the whistle,

quite a bit. And it was apparent to everybody. And Sandy used a phrase from Australia that is indigenous to Australian, or sorry, it's Australian, not so well known here. but the context of it is not the same here. Right. And the context and the phrase was, what is she? A protected species?

And the use of the word species obviously triggered this woman. And she, not being from Australia, took offense, went immediately to social media as everybody seems to these days. Right. And said, and called her out. And she was like, I don't know species. You can't call me as species. And even after the fact, you go. when you look that up and you find out protected species in Australia just means that.

It means somebody getting the benefit of the whistle, somebody, like a Michael Jordan, for instance. Right. How many times did he get the benefit of the whistle? And so it was completely harmless. And for me, the intent was not what, like, was not malicious or anything. It was just, it was, it was her legal. There was no racial connotation to that expression, but you wouldn't know that if you weren't from Australia. Yeah, and anyway, but the league jumped in and suspended her for a game, and I'm like,

and I wanted to write how wrong, and I did end up writing, but I had to go back. My wife was like, you're going to get canceled for this. And I'm like, cancel. I don't think I'd get canceled. He said, you might get canceled for this. So she threw it in. She's far more up on her AI than I am, and she threw it into something, and it came back, and it said, and it kind of gave the pros and the cons for what I had written and how,

and I ended up toning it down. So I ended up still writing the story, but it wasn't the story I originally intended to write. Okay, then it was a good question by Rob Delmond. Yeah, no, it was. And so things like that do happen. I just don't want to tell any of the Sefters ones, because I'm still covering that beat, and I can get in real trouble there. But thanks, Rob.

Thanks for putting me on the spot, buddy. He also wants to know if you know any good barbers in the Birchcliff area of Scarborough. Well, there's this fellow named Osmond. Osmond goes by the name of Donnie for obvious reasons. And he is number one barber in Scarborough, yes. Okay, I'm taking notes over here. My barber moved to New Brunswick. So I'm in the market.

The golfing or the, what is that hunt? Not the Toronto Hunt. What is it called? I don't know, because that's... Right on Kingston Road. I think that's a long track, though, for a haircut. It is. Let me think on that for a little bit.

Okay, so tell me, because in your cold open, you said you've been hearing about Toronto Mike. Yep. you were reading about Toronto Mike. Elaborate. It's just I, and when I say reading about it, you've had all of my friends and all of my contemporaries on. I see Grange and Wollstad and Simmons and everybody.

And so I'd see these guys and and, but I got to tell you, I don't, I didn't envision it being taped inside. I had this vision of you doing all your taping outside for some reason. Well, you know what? There was a period of time. I don't know if you were.

remember this. We had a global pandemic. Yes. I was told I couldn't have people like you in the basement. Like this was the rule, right? So what happened was I had like a brief period of time where I pivoted to like, oh, I'll do it on Zoom for a little bit. That must have been when I came on to the scene. I'm not sure. Okay, that's 2020, right? So March 2020

I recorded with, I still remember, David Ryder from the Toronto Star. I remember Dave. He came over, still there. He came over Friday the 13th. So March 13, 2020. We recorded, but we were talking about like, my God, things are changing rapidly.

Who knows when we're, like, if we can keep doing this. And then that weekend, it was like a parent that I had to like cancel all my in-person guests. But then I thought, okay, well, I don't like to do remotes slash zooms. So like, let me collect some of the people that I wanted to talk to, but they live in California or British Columbia or whatever. And there was some kind of geographic barrier. So I did a bunch of zooms with these types of people.

Shout out to Kish. I always wanted Kish on the show, but he lives in California. So we did that. then I realized I hate remotes. Yes. And I said, I need to do it in person. But of course, I can't have people in the basement studio. So I did for a period of time when we weren't allowed to have people in the basement.

I absolutely did backyard recordings. I did a bunch of them. No, and I'm pretty sure Grange was in that group and maybe Ryan as well. But I don't remember exactly where they were. See, I would bet they weren't. Like I can kind of visualize who, because there was a bunch of them. I think those guys were in the basement. to be honest with you.

Walsstadt, by the way, major 90s hip hop head. Oh, I know. Like, you, to look at him, you'd go, are you, what? You? Come on. And, but no, he, uh, bow down to Ryan on everything hip-hop. Well, he kicked out 90s hip-hop jams, as I recall, but, uh, you know,

he is, he is well-versed in that, but he did grow up sort of Oakwood and A, Oakwood and Engleton, and, uh, it's, that's a, that's a hip-hop. That's a hip-hop, uh, scene. Okay. So what I find interesting about Ryan is he's still the young guy there at the sports department in the sun, right? And he's, I think he's like my age. Yeah. Ryan, I don't know exactly how old is.

He's probably, he's in his 40s for sure. He's definitely 40s. Yeah. And you are right. You're 100% correct. He is the young guy. I'll say this. When we, it hasn't happened in a while, but back when we unionized and everybody had to get their ducks in row

and figure out, oh, who's first to go, who's next, like on the, on that list. Like a seniority list? Yeah, a seniority list. You go bottom up. And even within the last 10 years, I think I was fourth from the bottom. So I was fourth up. Okay. Like Terry Cotion, Ryan Wollstadt, maybe one or two others from news and then me.

And I've been there since 1988. Wow. Yeah. So I'm always amazed by the no new blood arrives in the post-media sports department. No, absolutely not. And there won't like that they, they, the joke. is that nobody can get fired at the Toronto Sun Sports Department because as soon as they are fired, they won't be replaced. So the person doing the firing is basically, you know, they're hurting

themselves. They're like, oh, now I've got a staff of nine writers. Oh, now I'm down to eight and I can't replace them. So no one, we're all, we're all good for life, I think. Yeah, well, yeah, you got, you're all wearing a lot of hats over there. So we're going to get into your career, obviously, and talk about some, some sporting events you've covered. many, many years at the... Can I still call the Toronto Sun or do I got to call it post media? No, I call it the Toronto Sun and I refuse to call it post-media. Well, then I'm with you. I'm with you in that one.

But one place, I will say, shout out to Steve Simmons because we're going to do a little chat about these people who have all been over, except for one, actually, but we'll get to all this. But Steve Simmons, once in his Sunday notes, he wrote his favorite podcast was Toronto-Miked. Of course, I've vivid memories of this because his Sunday notes, very popular. and it was about my faith.

He just declared his favorite podcast was Toronto Mike. I hope that's still true. I don't know. I hope he's listening to this episode right now. Well, I hope so too. I just saw him on Saturday night. There was a get-together of X, Sun, and some star writers, and arranged by Frank Zichorelli.

Ah, yeah, who I'm going to get to in a moment, absolutely. But who was at this event that's no longer writing? No longer writing. Let's see. was Beezer there? Beezer did not show up. He is a mayor of Vitobecoa. I know.

And when everybody loves Beezer at a party, he is on, like there's nobody better. I don't want him to get a swelled head, but he is really good in those events. Right. And we can't get him off his couch. I don't know what the problem is.

So, no, Ziccarelli myself, Simmons. Who else was there? Terricotian was there. Those are all current writers. I'm trying to think of some who are not writing. anymore that were there. We had some deskers who showed up that, like, and guys, the guys behind the scenes that the public wouldn't know, but we, there's a man named John Fitzgerald. We call him

the big man and he was the funniest and best at the same time editor we've ever had. And he, everybody loved this. He showed up out of nowhere. Um, Mike Zyzeberger was there. He's no longer with the sun, but now with NHL.com. Of course. Is he doing all right? He had some heart issues. He did. He did. He's doing all right. The Zeissman, Cometh. I did notice he was drinking wine. It might be a, it's probably a step back from him. But I'm trying to think who else was there.

Dave Perkins was there from the star. Oh, I love that guy. Perk is a great guy. Also, not writing. Doug Smith from the Star was there. Who was here last week? Oh, is that right? Smitty.

Let's see. Oh, Mark Zolensky from the Star. He's been over. Yeah, Mark was there. He wrote the John Cortick book, right? Yeah. He's retired. Yeah.

No, I'm trying to think. That's a number of like former journalists. I think people who are, you know, of a certain vintage who follow sports media in this city will just like hearing these names. Yeah. No, it was, it's a good night. And like shout out to Zick. He does, I don't know why. I honest, he doesn't strike me as the type who is super social in that way, like groups like that.

Like Zick's a one-on-one guy. Right. But he gets these things, like he's done about three of these. Okay. And he does a really good job. So yeah, shout out to Zick. So I'm going to list, uh, six names, okay?

And tell me if anyone's missing from this group. But Steve Simmons, Lance Hornby. Lance was there. Sorry. Good. Rob Longley. Correct. Terry Cotian.

Yep. Coshan or Cotian? Cotion. Okay. Ryan Wollstadt, the Waws. And Frank Zichorelli. Including yourself. Did I miss anybody who writes for the Toronto Sun Sports Department?

Jesus is a tough question. No, I shouldn't be. But it's like when I started it, was like the writing staff was 25, and I think we're down to eight, seven or eight, depending on... Well, that's seven. Yeah, that's seven.

I'm trying to think, did we miss Simmons. Yeah, Simmons, Hornby, Longley, Cotian, Wollstadt, and Ziccarelli, and yourself, of course. Yeah, I think it is seven. Okay, so one by one, I just want you to tell me a little bit about each of these people. So, and then we'll close with Zichorelli, because I have a note from Frank.

Okay, so Steve Simmons, what are your thoughts on Sye? sigh is i i tell this to his face i says sigh i generally don't really like people with large egos and i think your ego is pretty large i don't know what it is about you but i forgive your ego like it doesn't it doesn't like and i i truly like steve and uh but i and i don't know how he gets around it but usually ego is the thing that you know people have a huge one i tend to sort of dislike them and uh but not with him and uh no um steve's got a a a a a big one that's got a a a a a big one Big heart, he is not, he is not the person, you know the persona that he has in the public like this, agitator, yeah, polarizing, agitator.

I get, I get heat for liking Steve Simmons. Like, I literally get blowback because I like Steve Simmons. I know, and we do too, but I don't care. I do. I don't care either. Yeah, I like him. Okay. Aces for him.

What about Lance, Lance Hornby? Lance Hornby is, he is like the, he is the steadiest of the steady of the writers. He is, when I came in in 1980, he was covering the Toronto Maple Leafs. To this day, he is covering the Toronto Maple Leafs. He loves his Leafs hockey. Outside of his family, I don't think there's anything he loves more. Maybe the Ramones. Interesting.

But yes, he is Mr. Steady. And just always, you know, if you need a job done, you say, Lance, this is what we need. And Lance will do it. Lance is a great guy as well. Rob Longley. Rob Longley came into our. came on just after I did at the Toronto Sun. He's now more, he's become our most versatile writer in terms of like he can do Olympics.

He's moved from baseball. He's done enough. Like he's done just about everything. And yeah, versatility would be my word for Rob. And again, like, oh, I'm not going to sit here and say I don't like any of these guys because I work with them all and I like them all. Oh, that would be great clip though. I would probably curve it out and put it on.

Instagram. I hate that guy. Gander calls out colleague, longtime colleague. Terry Caution. Terry is great. Terry and I, we were sort of the two Brampton guys for the longest time.

I lived in Brampton for about 17 years through those, through these 36 or whatever years of working at the sun. And so we were commuter buddies and came up together. We kind of, we did the CFL together. And then he joined Lance on the hockey beat and he has made it his own, like the two of them just, everything leaves.

The Waz, Ryan Walsden. Waz and I have, like I said, he is the young guy on the staff. Yeah. Terry's not far, I'm not sure in terms of age. Terry's just been there a little longer, but Ryan,

and Ryan, like the patience that guy showed at the sun, like there were so many times he got pushed out of a writing gig because, you know, numbers or whatever, corporate decided something. And they'd throw him in, to doing something he really didn't want to do.

And he just, he took it all and he kept coming back. And now he's, we shared the, we shared the raptor beat for a while through the 2019 season, the great one. Wow. And, uh, and now it's his own beat. And he, he deserves it all. He's, he's, he's been great. And he's got two kids now out of here. So, okay, well, I'll get Ryan back in the basement to kick us some more 90s, uh, hip-hop here.

But so Steve Simmons, Lance Hornby, Rob Longley, Terry Co. Ocean, Ryan Walsstadt, and now you, Mike Gantor, you all have something in common. You've all been on these microphones in this basement for a Toronto micd episode. But there's one more name here, Frank Ziccarelli. You haven't had Zicke. Well, let me read what he wrote me. I actually read this a few times to make sure this was fit for public consumption, and it absolutely is. Okay.

So I have invited Frank into the basement to chat about his long career at the Toronto Sun. He doesn't drive. That might be part of it. Okay, but we can work around that, actually. We can work around that. But he writes me, sorry, Mike, I'm too old school, which makes me a dying breed in the media. I've been in the business for 40 years,

and I can count on a few fingers the times when I would share my thoughts on a non-sun platform. One was Dick Beddows when he hosted a radio show on CFRB. The other with Dave Quinn. Nothing personal is not my cup of tea. Good luck and all the best, Frank. So maybe the nicest

Yeah, no, the nicest, no. Email I ever got in my life. But that's why Ziccarelli will never become an FOTM, a friend of Toronto Mike. He'll never appear on the show. So really, I can never complete the set because you're finally here, but I will never be able to, you know, collect them all.

Yeah. No, Zick is, and he's always been, he always, he's always kind of, you know, moved to his own drummer type of deal. He doesn't, he, he really is one of one. and I mean that in the best way. There's a, there's a lot of people that will have a problem, like with Simmons, that will have a problem with Zick for whatever reasons.

And again, I forgive everything from Ziccarelli because that guy might have the biggest heart, honestly. And most people, I don't think really understand this, but he does have the biggest heart. I'll tell you a story without your naming names. He once lent a guy in our department, who's no longer in our department and hasn't been for a long time, he lent him money.

a substantial amount of money because it was a betting thing and the guy didn't want to tell his wife and he needed the money back and otherwise he was going to get found out and Zick didn't particularly like this individual and again

substantial amount of money and loaned it to him like without question and and like that like he do he do that for any he certainly do that for his friends but to do it for this guy and not even think

about it. Like, the man has a big heart. He does. It's, it's not always apparent. It's not always there. But if people, you know, like, there's a lot of reasons people don't, don't really get on the Zick train. But I am firmly on the Zick train. So let me put this into the universe. Okay, Mike. So you're going to absorb this, but all listeners will be absorbing this at the same time. So you mentioned that you were just at a event where Zick organized it, I guess. This is what last week? No, on Saturday night. Oh, Saturday night. Oh, my goodness. Okay, just a couple nights ago. then I'm telling you, I don't know where these events are taking place, but if they're happening within a cycling distance, and I could travel probably, I could probably go 50K on my bike. I'm telling you,

next time this is happening, I would happily bike my studio and set up wherever the heck you are, whatever public space you're at, and Zick could maybe just chime in and come on, and anyone else at this event could also come in and, you know, say hi. So I'm just putting that into the universe.

I would be keen to do that. Yeah. I would say decent idea, but again, Zick is so sad in his ways. Right. It would be, it's a bad... Dick Betoes or bust. Yeah, Dave, Quinner. Quinner is his buddy.

So, okay. Those two will be the only ones and I don't think he'll ever... All right, my loss. I'm just throwing that into the universe. I know. I got it. I don't blame you. He'd be interesting, but again, Zick doesn't have a filter either.

He, he... Well, which is good, but also you'd end up probably cutting out a lot of it. No, you don't know the show well enough then because those are my favorite guests and I won't edit a stitch. Really? Really? Even this conversation, go test me out. Say something. I believe you. I'm just saying Zick would test that. Okay, well, I would be up for that challenge. You've got me more excited now and now I know it won't happen. This is just making me sad over here. So, okay. So that's okay. So there you go.

That's the current staff. We're going to kind of dive into your origin story here. but I am curious about something, so you're covering the Scepters. Yes. See, I cover women's professional baseball league, which is the WPBL. So I always have to take a moment to remember, it's PWH, right?

Correct. Okay, I always have to stop that they start with that because the women's professional baseball league starts with W. So it's like, I got to get my... And same with the women's basketball. Right. So they didn't...

Okay, so it's PWHL. Okay. So, I'm curious because there is a, what is it? Like a, it may not be accurate. I was going to say stigma. Yeah, I probably started saying it. That's how you got it. But maybe there's a, that's like, that's the paper of worms talking to Don Cherry, the Toronto Sun.

Do you know what I mean by that? Like, this is like, it's like a, it's a working man paper. It's a bit old school. You know, it's conservative without a doubt. And I wonder. You know what? I've often, it is conservative and it shouldn't be. Like it's not, like, you.

would think it's like I had this conversation Saturday night with somebody it's like you you look at the voting demographic in the states and the voting all the Republicans get all of their most of their support from the south the south isn't represented by the Republicans and yet they vote for them and I know and I feel the same way about the sun like the sun is a conservative paper but if you go through and this goes back to 1988 most people lean left well I know I had Liz Braun on the show yeah and she told me she to get out of there because she was like a lone liberal voice in that. She was not. Okay, okay, that's interesting.

Because we have seen leaked, I believe it was Canada land, that published leaked memos about how the writers for postmedia at the sun, they were basically told to favor the progressive conservative party provincially. Like it was, these are leaked memos. You must have seen them. Well, no, because it didn't reach the toy department. It didn't reach the, okay. But point is, I guess it's a long-winded way of asking,

how do Toronto Sun readers receive women's professional sports? Being completely honest, not great. It's just like, you know, when you're writing something, you get feedback, right? You get emails and or comment. If you've ever, don't ever look at comments. Never read the comments. Never read. This is a rule.

Well, Simmons will tell you that. Yeah, it's definitely a rule. But if you've ever read the comments, like anytime I write W, W or PWHL stories, I get like back, like, why, why you're writing that crap? Why get, get back. And I don't care, to be honest. Like, I don't really, like, I'm not, I'm not trying to curry favor with any writer or any, any, any reader. I just, I want people to read.

But I also know that there are people that read about professional women. I can, I go to those games and it is, it's a different group than the leaf group. And probably the leaf group is more, uh, indicative of our, readership, but there's 8,400, 500 there every night and there's an audience and people love it and there's stories to tell. And quite honestly, it's easy. It's so much more enjoyable telling stories from people who want to have their stories told than from people who are sick and tired of media and just view it as a necessary evil and something that it's a chore and I have to do it. It's part of my contract. Like the professional women's hockey league, I can't, I don't think I've ever had

interview. Well, that's not true. I've had one interview that was kind of reluctant. But other than that, it's like they want to tell their stories. And it's for me, at my age, I'm 59 now. I just, I enjoy it. And, uh, and, you know, for the naysayers, you know, go fly a kite. Yeah, I would, so I think I get why maybe the sun readers, I could imagine just, just thinking they'd be like, oh, my men's team could beat the SEPters. Like that kind of, that kind of vibe, right? No, it's the Bantam hockey team that they like to use. That's the reference. My 13-year-old son's, yeah, a AAA team or whatever. Which is incorrect, by the way.

I shouldn't even have to say that, but I will. Right. But so, so I would think that SEPTers fanatics that are filling up the Coca-Cola Coliseum to cheer on their team, I would think there's not many of them reading the Toronto Sun. Yeah, I, I, I don't know the numbers, but I would have to agree. And I mean, I got told coming out of the, I was covering the Raptors

and our boss, Bill Pierce, who we have, I probably should have mentioned, but he's our sports editor. He said, look, we need, we want to cover this league and we want to get in early. And of course, early for them was like too late, like the draft had already taken place. And I was like, well, we're a bit late.

And he goes, well, Simmons was at the draft. And I was like, well, yeah, but I mean, if I'm going to cover this, I'd like to be at the original. Anyway, so I was a lot of catch up. Better late than never, but better late than never. and he said, we want to do this. So it wasn't his idea. It was someone above.

And there is this push from above about women's sports in general and specifically PWHL within post media or the Toronto Sun. I'm not sure which, but they want to have it done. And so I've been doing this for three years and no one has told me to stop. So I'm not going to. Well, I would say kudos to whoever made this decision and Bill Pierce for enforcing it that I'm glad, I'm personally glad, the. Toronto Sun is covering the Scepters and the tempo.

Yeah. Yeah, so am I. I mean, and we haven't really, we have, we, we, we, with the septors, we're a day-to-day, we're on, and we haven't given that to the tempo yet. Um, and I think that's more of a scheduling thing than anything. I mean, I've been doing some, um, you need some more bodies over there. Yeah, we might, but. Maybe someone under the age of 45.

I don't know what they, they wouldn't, we would be able to relate to anybody. That's right. Well, okay, so good on you for covering the Scepters. Oh, no, I loved it. I love it. And it's when you talked about the joy of covering the Scepters. And so every week I produce this podcast called the WPBL podcast, the Women's Professional Baseball League podcast. And the host of the show is a woman named Ashton Lansdale,

who's a hell of a player. And they're playing games now. They're playing all through this month. And we have a different person every week. It might be Kelsey Whitmore, whatever, Manet Davis. Somebody each week, we have a guest. We're working on a Japanese player to be our guest this week here. Did she play for the Toronto Maple Leafs?

No, because, but I know her. She was part of that. Yeah, she's part of that league. Oh, here. Oh, sign baseball. Ayami Sato, you're alluding to. Well, you know, I'll talk to you about the Leafs, Christy Pitts in a second here. Because I went, I introduced Ayami Sato to the members of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Oh, nice. And this year, Yassie L. Pweig. So you never know who I'm going to, although he might set a record for most home runs in the, well, it's now called the CBL. But this is, okay, so to wrap up. Who owns the record, though? Is that Bill Bikowski? You know, good question. I don't know.

I think it's Biker. This book I'm giving you now, Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball would have answers like that. So, you know, it's not Rich or Rob Butler, right? The East York legend. No, they didn't play there long enough. It would have to be a guy like. Well, this is a single season record, though. Single season record.

So, yes, you'll please. It might be. But Biker might be in the conversation. He's a scout with a Cincinnati. by the way. So you mentioned Domenico Field, right?

So there's new ownership there. Correct. And it just so happens owner of the Leafs also owns the WPBL. So it all comes supposed to

over. But I'm trying to get to the point that I love talking to these professional athletes that I'm watching on YouTube every time there's a game.

I love talking to them because they're not there for like the money, right? They're not there. I'm making, you know, 30 million a year or whatever.

They love the game and they love to play it at the highest level. And this is the highest level and it's just pure sport. I love it. No. And I mean, you might, I'm not sure it's that altruistic in the PWHL. Those women want to play the sport at the highest level, and they are, but they want to also be paid commensurate with what men are paid. But there's, until they're getting crowds, like men are getting crowds, that's not going to happen. It's got to generate

revenue, right? Exactly. It's like a revenue sharing. It's, we're getting there and we really won't find out until Mark Walter starts, look out Mark, starts selling off some of his teams. And then we'll find out, you know, how much is actually, because right now it's single entity ownership. And that's where we're at.

Do you find it interesting that Rogers, who owns MLSE out right now, they don't seem interested at all in women's professional sports? Yeah, I do find that interesting. And I enjoyed Larry Tanenbaum basically saying, you don't want to do this with me? Fine.

Yeah. I'll leave. I'll take my money and I'll go. I love it. And now he's invested in the PWHL and he owns a WNBA team. And more power to Larry Tamabom and the Rogers family can, you know, kick rocks. Yeah, like talk about dinosaur antics. You know, he does go to Mar-a-Lago.

Although Sun-R readers might like that. So, okay. No, no, please. Let's not. I mean, sun-readers are bad enough. I don't want any Mar-Largo fans in there, too. All right, let's go back to 1988. You, my friend, sitting here at 59 years old, you've only ever had one freaking job.

I know. I feel very fortunate. Okay, so tell us, basically, give us the story of how you ended up at the Toronto Sun. I would have straight out of the institution known at the time as Ryerson. Ryerson, Rye-Hie. Or I called it Rye-Hai. Oh, yeah. Well, D-O-T, we called it, Rye-Hie-Hie.

We shouldn't do that, though. Now, looking back, though, I think you guys had to figure out. You guys all figured out how to get jobs. Yeah, well, that was just it. It's very practical. And to be honest, to this day, Ryerson saved me. because I was not the smartest kid in my grade 13 history class or whatever class I was in,

but I did know that I wanted to write, and I came to Ryerson from a small town in 40 miles south of Ottawa called Chesterville, and I wanted to do journalism. And you would think I would go to Carlton, and that was the original plan. But 17-year-old me decided a period of lunch was more important than grade 13 French. So I took the lunch and passed on the French.

And Carlton said, oh, no, you don't have grade 13 French. We can't take you. That's fascinating. We only need to grade 9 French. I know. Well, no, the rules were different everywhere. Yeah, okay, okay. And so I was, I was out at Carlton.

And then Ryerson was, at that point, getting into the journalism program at Ryerson was quite tough. They were, they were, I think it was, they wanted 86% in your high school, grade 13 and I think I was sitting around a 78 maybe but yeah listen 86 is tough that is tough I got into U of T with a lower average no it was it was it was hard it was one in I remember one in 31 applicants were we're getting into the program and um I went in I'll still remember the man's name Steve Petherbridge um he he he did my interview and um Steve's I don't know if he's I don't think he's still in the business but he was in the business then and and was for, has been, or was for a long time throughout my career.

And I, I said to him, he said, what brings you here? And I said, well, I want to get into the program. He goes, and he kind of pointed at my numbers and said, what makes you think it's going to happen? And I go, well, I'd want to do it. And I thought I'd show up and see if I could, you know, talk my way in. Yeah. And I, eventually I'd talk my way in.

And now, he didn't have to take me. and I'm not, I think it was, we had a long conversation about what you liked about journalism, who you read, what you read, and why, why did you want to get into this? And apparently all that convinced him because he got me in and, anyway, that took me, it got me into Arison. Going back to how I got to the Toronto Sun. Tim Warnsby, sorry, I missed, I should have mentioned Tim. Tim was at the party.

Also an FOTM, friend of Toronto. And a super, super guy. He got a job at the sun first. Wayne Parrish was a sports editor back then. And Wayne had a great, it's not there anymore, but it was a program, an entry level. It wasn't, it wasn't, it was, it brought you in part-time, and it was basically glorified proof readers. So we'd be in the back room back when we actually, you know, you paste it up your pages. And we would be in that back room with a blue pen or a blue pencil.

marking mistakes. So I'd be reading Jim Hunt's column, finding all the typos. I mean, and this had already been gone through times. Like this was back in the day when you had multiple sets of eyes, saw something before it went to print.

Right. That doesn't happen any more people. No, I noticed. There's a lot of mistakes. Someone tell the CP-24 Chiron operators. There are more mistakes on that. Yeah. Don't get me started on that station.

Please continue. So I, anyway, got into that program. And Tim had had the first, Tim had got a job. Tim was a J-Rex. So he had come, he already had a kinesiology degree from Waterloo, made a change, came to Ryerson. So his was a two-year program, I think.

Mine was a three. Or maybe he was still, I forget. Anyway, he was older than me, and he got in with the son and came back one day, and he said to myself and Paul Grant, Paul ended up working at the Ottawa Sun, the Peterborough Examiner. He went down to the States and did a spell with ESPN. And he's done quite, I think he's at Sportsnet now. I'm pretty sure he's at Sportsnet.

Anyway, so he said to Paul Grant and I, there's one spot at the Toronto Sun. There's a job. This was in our second year. Go on down and apply when he was going to get it. And we both went down and turned out I got that job. And Paul eventually followed and he got that job. He got another job as well. And we both got our start there.

And I just never left. I mean, 88 to 94, I was proofreading and doing high schools and whatever they asked me to do. those, you know, those 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. shifts were, you know, but you learned. You learned a ton. Like, it really, it was the best entry-level job into newspapers. I think that's ever existed because it, if it forced you to read everything, it forced you to be, it got you to be a cleaner writer because you'd get disgusted by some of the things you'd see. And it forced, like, it just, it was everything. It was the perfect program. And it only ended because, uh, it, it only ended because, uh, They just didn't want to pay for it anymore.

Okay, cost cutting. Now, I've heard that. A few of guests have mentioned cost cutting in these spaces. You're a lucky man, Mike. Mm-hmm. Like, you got, you got that gig while you were at Rye High, right? Yep. Okay.

And then at some point, I guess after you graduate, you got a full-time gig at the sun? Full-time came. So that was 88, and full-time, I paid my dues. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. I was 88 and I got on full time at 94. So. Okay, so that's the strike year. Yeah. Okay.

So let me just touch on a couple of things. One is, did you cover the 1993 Bob Prentice Cup that was played at Skydome? Only because I was there in my high school won that. Your high school was. Michael Power Trojans. Yes. Okay, hold on. I betcha.

Gee, you're going to really test my memory now. So Michael Power was, it was guys baseball and girls basketball. basketball were the sort of the powerhouses. Although we had a good football team too. It was always a big rivalry of St. Mike's, of course. But St. Mike's always seemed to win. But yes. I'd rather be a Trojan than a motherfucking blue.

There you go. There is no bleep out on this podcast. Oh, no. We're not on terrestrial radio here. I feel like I'm on my other favorite. So only because Andrew Schwatsko, I'm trying to remember his name, we had a great pitcher that game too.

But a lot of these guys were buddies because that was a team. I tried out for the Michael Power baseball team and did not make the Bob Prentice Cup championship team, but I loved playing ball, and I definitely tried out for that team. Yeah, I was a great team.

And I should remember the coach's name too, and I don't. I was doing that this morning. I was trying to go, going through going, he's going to ask me about covering high school sports. Well, I won't cover too much high school sports.

That moment I remember, because it's the only time while I was at Michael Power is my last year there, and we won the Prentice challenge. I'm almost positive. I was covering that game. That's amazing. Okay,

so we were at the dome at the, at the same time. Same time there. Okay. And of course, you were not full time yet, but you did have the pleasure of covering back-to-back World Series victories for the Toronto Blue Jays. Like were you at the Carter walk-off game? No, no. I was in the, I was in that Mosh pit at Agland or at Dundas and, Dundas and Young with my then wife and, or I don't think we were married yet, but we, I remember specifically like pulling her out of the middle of it thinking we were going to get killed or trampled and it was it was that crazy that was after i think that was that 92 or 93 well 92 was of course

uh we went in atlanta okay so it's 93 when 93 is when carter hits it against the umis william it was 93 she was working at the sky dome as an usher at i remember i went over like through the swarms of people wow picked her up after the game and we went straight to young street and walked up with all the partiers and then Dundas and Young got, this is not smart. Got out. Yeah, what a while, I mean, 2019 is probably

the only time since then we got to experience what that feels like. Yeah. Like so a whole generation kind of came with, wait, where's that? So we got it in 92, we got it in 93, and then we had to wait until, and with all due respect to Argos and TFC who do win championships, they were like having rallies at

Nathan Phillips Square. They were having rallies at Nathan Phillips Square. I've been to those, yes. Yeah. I covered a few of those. Different vibe. Yeah. So 2019, which we'll get to at some point here, now this is what we do when Toronto wins a championship. Yeah.

But to go back to your original, I didn't really, I wasn't writing. You weren't covering them. I wasn't covering them. Because Bob Elliott was doing the heavy lifting and you had people like Simmons. We had, like,

those were back in the days when we would have, we would throw like nine or ten writers would go to Atlanta. Or nine or ten writers would go to Philadelphia. And it was a team. And we would cover the crap out of that. Right. These days, you know, we don't travel. Well, listen, I've had, in this basement,

I've had the aforementioned Bob Elliott, who I'm going to ask you about, but Bob Elliott, Dave Perkins and Larry Milsen, have been here together in this basement. Just to tell me stories. But they'll tell you stories about how many people, because that game six, of course, where Carter walks off, that's at home, obviously.

So how many people who wrote for the Toronto Star, how many, no, forget writers, how many Toronto Star people would you send to Atlanta for Game Six in 1992? to, and it would be an enormous number. Yeah. Oh, no, without question. Like, there was, I remember Mike Rutsi was, he, he came right before me in terms of joining Bob on the, on the baseball beat.

I didn't, I got all the glory years with the Jays, 95 to 2006. And that awful logo. Yeah, awful logo, Tim Johnson, all the fun stuff. Right. And, uh, so I ended up, uh, but, but Rutsi came right before me. And Rutsi was in Atlanta and he, his assignment was go to,

you're just going to go to the Atlanta room and you're going to cover off Atlanta stuff. Right. And don't worry about Toronto. Ask Otis Nixon why he bunted. Yeah. I got a great oldest Nixon story for you if you want. I loved his stance.

And he also looked like he was 95 years old. He did and Simmons got in trouble for that. Oh yeah. He mentioned it once in a Sunday notes column. And I remember walking into the clubhouse with Si one day and Ed Sprague from the other side of the room yells out, Otis, that's the guy.

That's the guy. Right, because he was a blue jacket. Yeah. And Otis is like looking over, trying to figure out who he's, and I'm like backing up it. It's not me. And Simmons is just like,

you know, trouble follows Simmons around. It does. He invites it. Well, yeah, he does seem to. He's like, I always think he's like a heel in WWF parlance.

Like, he sort of leans in a bit. I had a son on the show. And we talked about it for Michael. Jeff. Okay. Because he was at SportsNet for a while.

He left SportsNet for a better living, if you will. He does a great Seattle, Seattle Seahawks podcast now. Okay. Well, he's got the chops. But we were talking about hot dog gate with Phil Kessel and how the lead about getting that hot dog, but he got the wrong location. Yes. His son, anyways, he tells, explains that he stands by the story, but he got the wrong hot dog cart. Yes.

Okay. And he, and I mean, the people who, including Phil Kessel, who, you talk about Steve Simmons, and they say, hot dog. Like, it's a wonderful life. It's the first thing that comes to everybody's mind, but, uh, no, you know. Well, lean in. Yeah. Lean in. Yeah.

I say lean in. Like, this is, this is just, just be a heel. Yeah. No, and he does. He takes it. And he, he enjoys it. Like, he really, I mean, you know, the John Cheka press conference. I mean, we all saw that.

Right. Like, he was, that was, he wasn't trying to curry favor. and I mean, I enjoyed that immensely. Oh, yeah, well, I did too. Now, before we get to Bob Elliott, and you mentioned Mike Rutsey, too, of course, but I got to talk about Bob Elliott. Yeah, Bob.

I just got to ask you about that because as far as I know, post-media doesn't have an ownership stake in any of the teams you cover, correct? As far as I know, yeah, I, yeah. Well, I mean, it seems like all the major men's professional professional teams, you know, we talked about Toronto Maple Leafs baseball. I quite like watching them

at Christy Pitts because I don't need a ticket and they're not owned by Rogers. True. Okay. So the Raptors, I mean, you know, Raptors, TFC, Marley's, Jay's, Argos, who am I missing, Leaps? They're all owned by Rogers, right? And then you have Sportsnet is going to be, you know, there'll be the most bodies covering a big,

like Game 7 of the World Series last year. Most of the people in that press room will work for Rogers. A hundred percent. Yeah. So there's always, like, and I know that these are good journalists, Grange. I just had this chat, like I said, with Doug Smith. And he goes, he knows Michael Grange is going to call it like he sees it. But the fact that is, there's an optical, there's an issue of optics.

But what I like about the Toronto Sun having a strong sports department is that you guys are not paid by Rogers. Yeah. So. No sacred cows. Right. All I ever wonder aloud is if there would ever be a moment when Rogers, MLSE would say to Steve Simmons, were revoking your press privilege. religious. Because that's the best of power

that could theoretically if Simmons, because he is a bulldog in that regard, and I'm glad he's there. We're going to miss him when he's gone. 100%. I'm throwing that out there. He's 65 now,

so it's, I'm not saying, and he never sleeps. And he doesn't sleep, he can't sleep. He's, he's starting to look like Otis Nixon now.

Like, it's like, okay, you're 95-year-old man, okay. So what did Otis do to him? Just, did he rough him up there? No, I think he just came over and wanted an explanation

and to point out exactly how old he actually was. And can I, can I go one more with the, another one of this Nixon story? Yeah, cool. And I'm, I probably shouldn't tell us, but I'm going to anyway. You got it. You're in, you're on Toronto.

Yeah. So we're in, uh, it's a road trip in Kansas City and I end up in a, um, it's back in the days when we were still traveling on the charter with the team. So you were a lot closer and, right. And you're in the same hotels. And, uh, I go into a lobby bar in this. Kansas City Hotel and I meet one of the radio texts. He used to work for Tom and Jerry Bruce, Bruce Brenner.

Of course. I listened to a lot of Tom and Jerry. I heard that name a million times. Bruce Brenner was the guy who hung the wires and made them sound good. There he is, fan 1430. 1430. So he would, and Bruce says, come on, let's go to this other one. And I go, no, I'm going to stay in the hotel.

He goes, no, no, there's another one here in the hotel. I go, no, there's not. He goes, yeah, there is. So we go up to the ninth floor and he opens these two doors and there's a bar. and there's only two people in the bar, three, including the bartender. And it's Cito and Mel Queen, who was the pitching coach.

And I kind of take a step back because Cito didn't like to drink with the media. And so Bruce goes, no, no, come on in, come on in. And we go in, and Cito goes, he goes, just the rule, right? Anything here, you can't write about it. And I was like, yeah, yeah. And then he started quizzing me about what I knew about his team. And he said, there is a player on this team.

who has come into my office and he said, Charlie O'Brien is a clubhouse lawyer, and he is badmousing you. Would you like me to take care of that? And the intention was physically, and he said, and he goes, who do you think that player was? And I guess 12, 13, 14, 14, 15 names before.

And it was Otis Nixon. Wow. And Otis was like, don't worry, Skip, I got your back. Wow. You know what? Bury me and Otis Nixon stories. Yeah. It's fun.

Again, I love stories like that because it tells you about the individual and what good people they were. And he was a decent guy. Wow. Okay. So speaking of decent guys, what kind of influence did Bob Elliott have on your professional career? Bob was, so I covered the, I went high schools, Argos, and then baseball. And baseball was the first one where I actually had someone sort of showing me the ropes. Like someone like a mentor.

Mentoring. Exactly. There was somebody who had been doing it and who, and knew how to do it and did it well. And, Bob could report the hell out of any story. Like, any story.

And, like, his rapport or his relationship with players, it is unbelievable. Like, there are guys who, you know, to this day, there are guys in that Jay's Clubhouse

who pretend they can't speak English for interviews. And yet Bob would talk to everybody. I'm going to throw a name at you. Yeah. Edwin incarnate. who hasn't been in that dressing room in a while, but we still talk about that hype train of 2015. But this is,

this is all changed, right? Like, Bob would sit in the dugout and Edwin would trust Bob and Edwin would talk to Bob. Yep. You can't get that close to the players anymore, can you? No, no. And it's getting worse because travel has gone away. Like, COVID, COVID did some good things. Like, when I say good things, I mean, it taught us that we didn't need to be in the office

to work a lot of, and I don't just write newspapers. I mean, like people can do work from. home. You're right, but a lot of, I don't know about the newspaper industry, but a lot of these industries that said, hey, you only have to come the office one day a week or less because you can do it fine from home and more. They're all switching back. I can tell you a big bank.

They want you in the office for four days a week now. Non-negotiable, but please continue. So people, they're reversing on that lesson. I agree. I agree. But quality of life, if you can work from home, much better. Anyway, I've said all that. You're preaching to the choir.

Yeah. No, no. I mean, we don't even, we don't even have. office space anymore. Like we, we work remotely completely. But yeah, everything has changed in that regard in terms of travel was a big thing. If they saw

you on the road, and again, people people used to say, oh, you just say that because you want to be in Anaheim and you want to get out to San Francisco and you want to be, you know, you want to go to New York every, you know, once a month. And quite honestly, I did, but also to be

there with, and for them to see you, they see that your company is invested in this and you've got a bigger you've got a bigger stake and it it matters it matters and you don't have those rapport that that kind of rapport anymore you don't have that kind of relationship like there there are still great guys in that jayers earning earning ernie clement might be the all-time greatest professional athlete in terms of zero ego friendly and great at his job like he is the he is the complete package but i mean i don't have a rapport with him. I mean, I talk to him and he's very nice to me when I am down there, but it's just like I don't,

I'd like to have that sort of like he's seen, I've been in spring training with him. I've been to, you know, and he's seen me around. And, and now he sees me like once every two or three weeks. And it's just like, you know, nice guy, but I don't have that rapport. And I, I just think, like, we've lost a lot, I think, as a, because now it, when it enables, I'll pick on Rogers again, because they own the Blue Jays, but, and they own a large sports network. sports net. So it enables the sportsnet people to, it just enables them to kind of control the messaging. Yeah. No. I don't try. It's not that I don't think, I just wonder, and I don't, I know we're not going to find a memo like we found when the Toronto Sun was helping the progressive conservative party of Ontario, okay? I don't believe there's a memo to be leaked. But I think there is a, you'll think twice. I think about Mike Wilner getting suspended with pay. I was it without pay. I think it was with pay. But he got suspended for comments he made. about Cedogastin, exactly.

And there are other examples where it's like, okay, before you write, before you write this, maybe self-edit because you don't want to bite the hand that feeds. You've got kids in university, you've got a mortgage, who knows? Which is the exact worst way to go at journalism. Like you can't, like if, and that's what's been lost in journalism today is truth. There's, you don't, you, you, if you are not conscious of who you are reading, and you still have this in the back of your head, well, it's written, it's, it's, it's been

published, therefore it's true. Like, you cannot think that way anymore. Like, you used to be able to because there used to be, there were checks and balances. And now, like, again, part of it is social media and all of that that comes out and everybody's an expert. But there's just, you cannot, there is no truth in media anymore like there used to be. They used to be, if this is written, I can within 80% say that this is probably true. And now I'll bet you that number is down to about 30.

30% thank you Donald Trump. Boy, oh boy. Okay, we'll get back to that guy. Bob Elliott, good guy. Excellent guy. I won't repeat the boring story I told Doug Smith, but he did, his first time here, he's been here a few times, but he was at the door. Each fist had a diet Coke in it, okay?

And then I just felt very like, oh, the great Bob Elliott has brought me a Diet Coke and we're going to enjoy Diet Coke together. I did not realize they were two Diet Coke's for Bob Elliott, no Diet Coke's for me. No, it's true. It's, I'm not sure the Diet Coke's done him. any favors later in life, like in terms of health issues and stuff. But he, I honestly believe there was, there's stretches of his life where he lived on Diet Coke.

Like it's, I mean, I covered. No sugar, you know. Yeah, I covered that beat with him for, I don't know, maybe 10 years. Yeah, 95 to 06, right. 95 to 06. And he, I bet you we had, and it's not like we were on bad terms. We were on pretty good terms, but like in terms of sharing a meal or seeing him actually eat maybe six times.

Oh, yeah, that is interesting. Yeah. That is interesting. And you did get the lousy stretch, though, to cover the Jay's beat, because, you know, things got better for 2015. But between, between 90, well, there was a strike eliminated 94.

Yeah. But between that second World Series victory and the hype train that was 2015 with Alex Anthropos. Great man, great man. But, and we talked about Edwin-on-Kanassian. But that team with Joey Bats and Russell Martin, that team, I'm telling you, I still love that 25th.

15 blue jays too. And I'll say this. It was easier to love because Alex Anthopoulos was a guy you could cheer for. And I don't think I'm telling any tales. Mark Shapiro is not a guy you can cheer for. No, and until last season,

I almost like last season, which was awesome. But it does mean we're stuck with... Yeah, five more years with Russ Heckons and Mark Chimiro. And Mark Shapiro is going to be running, he'll be running MLSEE pretty soon. He handles things like the renovations and the beer and, you know, generating revenue for Rogers. Marnie Starkman doesn't get enough credit for the renovation of the, of this.

That's why you're here. Yeah, I just want to throw that out there. It's not all Shapiro. Not all Shapiro. But we're stuck with them now because of last season. So, and maybe time will tell and it'll be what an outlier. Because you can have outliers both ways, right? You can have that mediocre team that jumps up and ends up in, what, they were in one out of it.

They were up in game seven in the ninth inning, right? Yep. It was, it was, it was, everything had to go exactly the way it went for them not to win the World Series. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I KF at third base of his lead and that, yeah,

you're right, and that ball that, the wedge, you're right, you're right. So were you, were you at game seven? I was, I was, I, again, I'm not writing the main stuff. That long, it's long leaves beat and I'm just helping out, but I was along for the ride and more than happy to be so. And it was, we didn't, we weren't traveling. I think Longley went to L.A.,

but I don't even think we traveled to Seattle for the ALCS, which was just abysmal. But I, no, I had a great time, like, just loved covering that. And, like that team was special. Like there, and there's a lot of, likeable team. Yeah, well, and there's still, like, Nathan Lucas still gentlemen of all gentlemen. You mentioned Ernie. Same.

There's just a bunch of good guys in that room. And so I was happy to do that. A funny story, though, because it's a Mark Walter owned Dodgers team that wins the World Series, I'm down on the skydome field after the game waiting to talk to them because they have to celebrate first

before they talk to media, of course. And I'm doing Dodgers, so I'm waiting for them. and I see it wasn't Atlanta Claus who is Atlanta Claus is the soulmate

and partner of Billy Jean King and together they're board members on the PWHL and movers and shakers and while I'm waiting I'd end up doing

on the field an interview with Atlanta Claus about the PWAHL You know what the opportunity struck there okay I love it you're working hard

on the other beats too okay So in your illustrious career, which is what, almost 40 years? Yeah, 36. 36. Not 38? 38. 30.

Yeah, 38. I'm going to help you out of your math here. Okay. So you've only covered one championship season from start to finish. Am I right? Correct. Okay. And that's 2019.

Correct. When the Toronto Raptors won at all. So before I ask you about that great season. And again, this is all, I just talked to Doug Smith about this. So it's all fresh in my head here. But I did, okay, so where was I, there's something I want, like a loose end I wanted to. Oh yeah. Do you think the Toronto Blue Jays will make the playoffs this season?

I know your crystal ball is a little foggy. It's not great. I would say there's just too many factors. And unless, I'll say this. I'll qualify with saying if Vladdy starts being Vladdy again, yes. Can you just turn it? It's August 24th, okay, Mike. How many home runs does Vladdy have at the day?

Dome. Zero. This season. Yeah. So, in fact, if we discount the playoffs, it's been over a year since he hit a regular season home run at Skydome. Correct. Which is a,

that talk about outliers, that makes no sense because we all know sometimes, was it, Wade Boggs? Somebody said when I hit a home run, it's a mistake. Like, it might have been Wade Boggs. Yeah, he was all about a good hitter.

I would, man, I would think those guys like Tony Gwyn. Tony Gwyn. Kirby Pocket. These guys are no longer with us, actually. But, uh, I'm thinking, who is the,

uh, Rod crew. Rod crew. Well, Rod crew is a little earlier, but absolutely. Shout out to the Beastie Boys. Yeah. But, you know, mad hits like I'm Rod Carew. That's a great lyric there.

But guys like Wade Boggs might be the great, like, what a peer hitter. And he used to say, oh, if I hit one out, it's a mistake, yeah. I made a mistake. Yep. And I always think about that sometimes when I think about Vladdy, which is with a man that's strong, that good at baseball, at that age, you'd accidentally muscle out a homerunner 10 at the dome accidentally. Yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm on board with that belief that there is something physically and more than one thing physically wrong this year. Like the back is one thing. And we don't know when

it started it. They told us about it. I don't know, midway through the season or whatever it was, but I can't remember the dates. But it, the back is one thing. The hamstring is enough, but there, there is something physically preventing him because like nobody goes into a season wanting to do this. Like, and there's just, it defies logic. It's a remarkable statistical anomaly, Mr. Gantra. We'll go with that.

Yeah, okay, write that down. I want to read that in the sun. We need that. So, I just wanted to talk, because we're in the pen and race. I do miss, I have to say, I'm going to sound like Abe Simpson yelling at clouds or whatever, okay? Because I do miss the, and I understand

that, yeah, a lot of teams were out of it by, you know, by June. Okay. at the end of June. But I do miss the days when you had to win the pennant, to win the division to play in the ALCS to go, like our two championships. There are,

it just seems like we shouldn't still be in the damn race. No. Why are we in the race? Yeah, well, we're in the race because of parity and mediocrity, the combination. Right. There's a lot of mediocrity in the American League right now.

It sells tickets. And it sells tickets. And it's all about the dollar. It's all, I miss the days when I was ignorant to the, the business side of sports. It was all about the dollar days, too, then. They just didn't know how to maximize it by then.

Right. Well, I know, because you could get into the dome for like two bucks, not the dome, exhibition stadium. You could go to Dominion. Dominion. For a dollar, you could get to a Jays versus Yankees. I forget, uh, Steve Wiccans. I don't know if you know that name.

He, he works, he works, I think, like, uh, transit or he did cover transit, both at the star and the sun. Anyway, yeah, he was at that thing on Saturday night. was talking about those getting like a ticket at the end of the school year from his and it was one dollar and you could go but it wasn't the leafs you or you could go to the toronto maple leaf baseball like back you know uh bay bruce first team or whatever yeah that was the providence gray's was that because he hit his first home run with the providence grays at the island

on the island yeah uh where the uh maple leaves played and you could go over he said you could for a dollar i think it was for a dollar and you could get a hot dog and a drink and a ticket. Oh, yeah. Like just about, you know, it was a full day. But that was, end of the school year. That was your, if you were at Toronto. Like I said, I grew up in the sticks.

I don't, I don't, I don't, we, that's funny. Because, you know, the tradition that still continues because I, um, taking my kids there soon, but, uh, is, uh, with your report card, you get, uh, a child's pass to the C&E. Oh, very good. He's got to be an adult with you. Good, what kid's going to go with themselves. But, uh, that ticket now, like, if you, like, it's hard to believe that it's now like $22 to get, like, a 10-year-old.

into the C&E if you don't have that pass. Oh. You wouldn't think it'd be $22, but it is. And that doesn't get you on a ride. That gets you in the door. That's just in the door. All right. So before we talk about the championship Raptor team of 2019,

Bob Elliott. I'm going to, well, Bob Elliott, then that, you're right. You're right. Thank you for keeping me on track. But I just want to thank some sponsors real quickly. Because Mike, if you have old electronics, old devices, old cables, I don't know if they're in a junk drawer or a closet or maybe you got a room full of this stuff.

I don't know. Don't throw it in the garbage because those chemicals, end up in our landfill. Go to, write this down, recycle myelectronics.com. Put in your postal code and find out where you can drop all of that off to be properly recycled.

Gotcha. You took a note there. Okay, good. I gave you fresh craft beer from GLB, but I also have in my freezer upstairs, where's my drum roll? I have a frozen lasagna from Palma pasta, and it is delicious.

You will be a very happy man. I think Doug Smith might have mentioned that to me. Oh, It's why all these great guests come by. They say, give me that palm of pasta lasagna and my GLB here. Ridley Funeral Home, who have a great podcast called Life's Undertaking, they sent over a measuring tape for you, Mike. Measure what you wish.

And last but not least, I need more Nick Aeney's in my life, because Nick Aeney said, I like what you're doing, Mike. I want to help fuel the real talk, and he stepped up and became a sponsor of this program, and he helps keep this going, so I can have long-form conversations, a real talk with people like you. So thank you, Nick Aeney's.

His podcast is called Building Toronto Skyline. And this past week, we dropped a new episode where Nick chatted with Karen Stintz, former Toronto City counselor. And it was a very good, very good conversation. So subscribe and enjoy Building Toronto Skyline and much love to Nick Aeemis from Fusion Corp. Where do I go with this?

Firstly, do you have any insight? I know it's a Waws question. I did ask this of Doug Smith of the Toronto Star last week, but are they going to finalize this Kauai Leonard trade or what? Like the season's going to start soon. I have no insight, but I got to believe Bobby Webster is not going to waste his whole summer waiting on Kauai if he doesn't think Kauai is coming.

So I'm going to go out on a limb here and say, yes, it's going to happen. It's just a matter of time. And it's just how the NBA and Steve Balmer save face. And that's how it's going to, That'll be the deciding factor. How do they negotiate this

where nobody looks too bad in all this and eventually Kauai ends up in Toronto? And then Doug Smith asked that question again and gets him to have that silly little laugh. Right, that's right. Well, let's go back to that season we had with Kauai Leonard. What was it like covering Kawhi Leonard in the 2019 Raptors?

It was like you weren't covering him because he didn't. They made him available so infrequently that it really didn't matter. Again, going back to my road wishes and how I wish we were still on the road, when we were on the road, there were times when Kauai would actually hold court

with the three or four guys and just around his locker. And those were some of the best conversations. Having said that, he still came across as wooden and half human. Hell of a baseball. Hell of a basketball player, though.

Oh, hell of all. Yeah. And still is. Well, he's coming off like his, Maybe his best statistical season, possibly. Yeah, yeah. It's, it's like he's not done. And so now it's on to Bobby.

And I'll say this, about that 2019 season. Yeah. The big thing was getting Kauai, but the next biggest thing was getting Markasol. And like they're in the same boat this year. Like they had Jonas Valenciunis then. And it wasn't really the type of big that they needed. Right. And now they have Jacob Pertil who might not be the type of big they need.

I hope he is because, again, lovely man. Great guy. But he might not be the, and now it's going to be up to Bobby to find that Mark Gassal for Yakup Pearl trade that sort of finishes things off. Yeah, well, he was mentored by Maasai. Yeah, oh yeah. So that 2019, when I look back at it, there's moments, but you were at the, it was known at the time as the Air Canada Center.

Yes. The four-bouncer, the buzzer beater in game seven of the second round against the 70s. sixers. What was that moment like in the arena? Just pandemonium. Like it was just it was it was, first it was disbelief and then it was complete silence and then it was complete euphoria. And it was it was it really was it's the moment. If there has to be one moment of just like, oh my goodness in my career, that's that's it. Like it's just like and even more so than you know, anything that happened in in against the gold state Warriors in the final.

Like, I mean, there were moments there, too, that were pretty big, but it did not compare to that, like, bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce. No. That's a moment, right? Like, there's, that, that is the definitive Raptors moment. And it will probably forever be the definitive Raptors moment was the four, four bouncer dropping in. Try matching that for, you know, game seven.

It was only the second round, but still, game seven. Like, try, try, like, try to. You're at home. Yeah. Try to imagine what you would have to do to be bigger than that. I'm not sure. Well, you would be bigger, I suppose, if that exact same play happens in the game seven of the NBA championship. Yeah, well, good luck.

Good luck getting to that. This is my thought. Like, okay, so we talk up, uh, were you at the dome for the, uh, bat flip game? I was, I was, that was the other one. That was, uh, I was, I was in the, I was in the, I think I was, no, it was Longley. It was Longley and I, and we were in the, um, what is now the main press box, but back then was the football press box. They've moved.

obviously they wanted to sell those seats behind the plate because they're Rogers and so we went we were now in this football press box but that's where we were for that bat flip and that was crazy and again I had the Mike Grotzy assignment I was with the I was covering the Rangers room and

that was something else like that was like Sam Dyson the pitcher who was the shortstop who botched all those balls in that game it was I honestly can't pull it out now but it's anyway It was like, again, one of those. And I, like, I thought, I got a call partway through from a friend who was like, you know, Metro, the police are now outside the stadium at every door because they're convinced there's going to be a riot.

And they were ready, like, they were preparing for it. And I was like, oh, and then I'm starting to think about, well, maybe I'll just camp here tonight. Right. Well, everyone was so amped up because of that full seventh inning. And that's, yeah, that's where I was going. So that bad flip was the seventh inning. Yeah. I feel like in 20 years they'll be telling this story and this will be the ninth inning.

Like it's like, whoa, yeah, it was the seventh thing. There was still a couple of innings to play. But that first half of the inning sets the table for that moment. And I think about the four-bouncer and it just felt like a sweet relief. Okay, shout out to Victoria Williams there. But this bat flip moment was just like, I remember I collapsed to the ground. I watched it upstairs in the living room. I collapsed to the ground.

It's like that was a lot. a moment and that was the, you know, we still had a, we weren't going to the World Series. No, no, no, but it was, it's, it's, it's, it's, it was something. Like, it really was. It was, it's a moment. It's still, but it, the, the, it's still, it's still number one. Oh, yeah, and then, uh, because it leads to a championship. And then the bat flip, yeah.

And, and if you had to look at your entire career of all the, uh, events you covered, what is the biggest moment you covered? Is it that four bouncer? Yeah, yeah, I think so. I like, I, like, if it, if, if it, It's not that then it's the actual culmination of that, the championship. And I mean, like that, I'll never forget, we spent, we left, we left the arena and we went back to the hotel. And because of deadlines, like, you're three hours ahead already.

Like, you're, so you're still writing and you want to get, so we, we get back to the hotel and there's a hospitality suite. And everybody just pulls up a table, pulls out their laptops, and we're just pounding away. And I remember thinking, like, yeah, this might be the highlight of my career. Wow. Wow. And one more moment, although not really a moment, because moments are different than the happenings. But game three of the Bucks series, which was the conference finals, we're down to nothing. But we're down to nothing.

And this game goes a double overtime. And again, it's tattooed in my brain because the very next early next morning, Leo Routens came down here and we talked about. But if the Raptors lose that game three against the buck, so we don't win the Larry OB. We'd be down 3-0 in the conference final, and we're not coming back from a 3-0 against those bucks or whatever. So that win in game 3 against the bucks, I mean, I always point to that, like there's your moment.

Yeah, that was a moment for sure too, and that was the one post-game, they said, you're down, down 2-0, going back to Toronto for game 3. No, you're down 2-0. you do now, Kauai? He goes, we go back to Toronto. Yeah. This is your quote. Okay. And we win

it all. Like, Maasai did it. He put together a team that could win the championship and shout out Marcosol. Yeah, shout out Marcosal. What a deep team. I think the chef and everyone, what a great team. Kyle Lowry, does he get the, is his number going to be retired? Because I know the only

number retired, I believe is number 15 for Vince Carter. Yeah. He'll be wait a minute yeah we did do Vince didn't we we did Vince it's just yeah I think it's last season we did Vince yeah okay Vince went first but Kyle's got to go second right he will um I'm it's funny I I covered Kyle for the duration of his time in Toronto and or when I said covered I wasn't the only my Boise was there and we all took turns and there are there are media members that love him and there are media members that are like I just got tired of dealing with you interesting I might have been closer to the latter.

Okay. Well, that's the real talk. There were moments, there were moments when I really enjoyed Kyle Lauer, and I believe me, his competitiveness, again, and that is the quality of every athlete that I admire most, because everybody can have that. Like, from, from like the goalie, the

short stuff, anybody can have the be the most competitive on his team. The people that have it are the, they're the winners in sports, and he had it up to Ying Yang. But, I mean, I think there's there's there's there's rose color glasses with with Kyle like he when he first showed up here he didn't want to play here and he was a I mean he was a dick like that's people

no you you covered him right yeah he was not it was not but that was the beginning and and and and there was always a contentious like I'm sure Grange'll like I watched a number of Grange Lowry confrontations and they're they're not always fun but he he is the he's the epitome of the competitive individual, like just win, win, win at all costs. No one takes a charge like Kyle Lowry. No, nobody does. And doesn't care if he gets, like, he just,

he'll throw his body out there. Like, right. I just, I didn't really like dealing with him all the time. He was just kind of, he was kind of cranky. Yeah, you know, you're too young, but for those who cover Dave Steeb, for example. Same deal, yeah. Same deal.

I mean, I co-hosted a podcast of Mark Hebscher for five years. And Hebsy was covering Dave Steb. And just, but a complete, you know, he'll tell you, yeah, that guy was an asshole. Yeah, a jerk. And he was. And it's to this day, I'm sure you, I think the, did the star just do a top 50 where they had Rosie and their baseball column, Wilner and Gregor Chisholm. And they all did their top 50. And I'm pretty sure they put, there was at least one or two of them that put Halliday above Steve.

Even though Steve was probably more impactful, but Halliday was just a more fun guy to cover. Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting, because those are the two, right? Yeah. And if you're taught, you have to have a little longevity. Because if you're going pound for pound and you don't care how long they played for the team, the answer is Roger Clemens. Oh, yeah.

But that's, you have to have a criteria for these things. Like, because, Kauai Leonard, too. Kauai Leonard played one, well, until this season coming up, maybe. We'll see. Stay tuned. But he's only played one season for the Raptors. So pound for pound, Kawhi Leonard is the greatest raptor of all time. Yes.

Yeah, I mean, there are people who will argue Vince Carter and there are other people who argue Kyle Lowry, but yes, it's, it's, it's, Coat Leonard because he changed, he did what nobody else, or he led the charge of what nobody else could do. Pound for pound. And similar with Roger Clemens, he pitched two seasons here and won the triple crown of pitching both times. Like, what more would you like? I'd like a better interview personally, but, you know, he was, from a media standpoint, not great. Oh, I can imagine. Yeah. I can only imagine. My goodness, great. Okay. So, so I want to just say this right now, Mike, that I have loved this chat, like it's been effortless. Should I have recorded this chat? Please. I'm just

this is the pre-interview. You know that, right? There's no pre-interview. Okay. But I don't believe we've got the full. Did we finish with your thoughts on your mentor, Bob Elliott? No. And Bob is very impactful for me.

Just because he was the first guy that actually had done the job. And for whatever reason, like there wasn't those other beats, like Tim Orrin's research, Tim and Zick helped me with high schools for sure. But they weren't on the beat. And when I was doing it. so I was by myself and it was like learned certain you're kind of thrown to the wolves same with the CFL and then but then going into going into baseball Bob and Mike Rutsi very very very helpful and taught me a ton just taught me a ton so yeah always always have a lot of time for both them

okay and uh I was reading a bit about your uh I read your official bio so you know you get an official bio right and I'm curious if you'll share with us why you're so irked by the term fake news. This goes back to my Donald Trump semi-rant earlier in this conversation. And I, like, if you don't trust the media, if the media can't be trusted to provide facts and or if somebody and somebody decides, you know what, my path to whatever, my path to whatever glory I want is going to be much better if I just downplay the media and make sure that the media is distrusted and the media. And this is exactly the playbook that Trump went with. And it, like,

it's, to me, it's, and now you have all this disinformation out there. And you don't know, people don't know who to believe. And all I can say, and again, I'll reiterate this is just remember, understand who you're reading, can you trust them, and then make your assessments. But don't, just because you're reading something on paper, don't take it, or you're reading something on your phone. It's not truth.

It's not. You're preaching again to the choir, which is to check your sources. Yes. For everything and make sure that this is a source with some journalistic integrity, something to lose if they lie. Yeah, exactly.

And that's the problem. John's blog doesn't lose anything. if he makes up a story. No, no, he didn't have anything to begin with. You need some journalistic integrity. Yeah, and that's why that fake media, I just, oh, it bothers me more than just about anything. Well, tomorrow on Toronto, Mike, Colin DeMello is going to drop by. Oh, he's with global news.

He's done a great job on Ford. We're going to do a lot more Trump talk because we have to talk, you know, we're in a trade war. Yeah, well, I mean, get Colin talking about Doug Ford, too. He's done a great time. No, don't worry. We'll be talking about Doug Ford. We'll be talking about the trade war, Canada versus USA. We got some catching up to do.

But that's tomorrow. You were amazing. The last, I was going to, like, like, not read this, but I'm going to read it because it came in. This question for you. But Steve Bernie on Blue Sky. So Steve Bernie says, why is the sports section minus Steve Simmons? I'm reading Steve's words here, okay? Why is the sports section minus Steve Simmons the only good part of the Toronto

son. Now that'll sound like a loaded question to you, but I'm reading it verbatim because I think it's only fair to let you, Mike Gantor, reply to Steve Bernie. I don't agree. So I don't really want to respond to that. You disagree of the premise of the statement. Yeah. Well, I mean, I don't want a bad mouth my guy Simmons. And there are, I don't like, I don't necessarily like all of our, try not to get fired, Mike.

our right wing. Can they afford to fire you? Probably not. No. No, it costs them more to fire me, actually. Right. But I don't want to, I don't want to tempt them. I don't agree with all of our right wing leanings, but there are people who work on our news side who do a job. There are some people on our right, on our news side, who I wish didn't write for us. And then there are people throughout the paper who do do the job that they're supposed to do. And I mean, I thank you for the compliment about the sports section. I don't think the sports section is what it once was.

And again, that goes back to what we were talking about, you know, not investing in, you know, travel and being able to do the job properly. But I still believe we do a decent job. And there are some very, very good writers throughout the paper. So you've alluded a few times to what it once was. And I wonder what role, because there was a significant change. changed at the Toronto Sun when post-media took over. Does that play

a role in this cost cutting that is compromised coverage? It's above my pay grade. Like I don't really know when. I just know that we're not, like, look at our paper today. It's the size of the Canadian tire flyer and

less pages. Not as many stereo ads. No, no. Not as many ads, period. And it's just, it's sad. I mean, all newspapers, Let's face it, all newspapers are dying. Like, it's a dying breed, and eventually we're all going to be online. And I don't think that Toronto Sun is going to be last man standing.

I'm assuming, you know, the grand lady of Toronto journalism, the Globe and Mail will be, have that honor. But I don't know. Like, it's going to be sad. And I still like reading a paper that I can hold in my hands, even a little pamphlet. And it's going to be sad when it goes, But yeah, we're not what we once were. Sad to hear, I won't call that fake news because that term is offensive to me as well, by the way.

It's, you know, that orange idiot coins this term. And I'm not parodying that nonsense. But you're doing great work at the Toronto Sun. You've been doing so for decades. And I'm glad we could finally rectify a enormous oversight and make you an FOTM, Mike, long overdue. I'm just glad to be here. It was a lot of fun. Thank you very much. Well, I might make you come back at some point since we hit it off so well.

And if Zick is listening, I need to collect them all. It's like Pokemon's. One holdout is ruining my collection here. But nicest rejection email I've ever received. So I do appreciate that here. And I appreciate you. Remember, I'm giving you some palm of pasta on your way out. So don't leave about that. And we'll take a photo by Toronto Tree.

All right. And that. brings us to the end of our 1,9508 show, 1958. That's how long it took me to get to Mike Gantor. Much love. Well, first I'll tell you, go to tronomike.com for all your Toronto Mike needs.

So Toronto Mike.com, you can become a Patreon. You can read what I write there. I write about stuff in Canadian media that's not sports related. The social's becoming some kind of video podcast, which to me means no live studio audience will do it somewhere else. Who knows what it means, but Melissa Grello will not be a part of it.

All this kind of stuff, I'll write about what's going on. So go to TorontoMake.com. And much love to all who made this possible. Again, that's Great Lakes Brewery. Their podcast is called Between Two Fermenters. It's fantastic. Palma Pasta. Mike's got his lasagna coming.

Toronto Maple Leafs baseball. There's not many games left. This season, they're not making. the playoffs, the Leafs. So you've got like a hand, maybe a few games left to go to Christy Pits. Do it. You won't regret it.

Nick Aini's. Check out his podcast, building Toronto Skyline. Recyclemyelectronics.ca. And Ridley Funeral Home, their podcast is called Life's Undertaking. I mentioned my next guest. That is tomorrow at 1 p.m.

Colin DeMello. Colin's returning. I think it's a third visit. And we have to talk about what's going on. and federally and with him at Global News. So don't you dare miss it. See you all then.