Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Mike Hogan: Toronto Mike'd #274

Episode Date: October 23, 2017

Mike chats with TSN's Mike Hogan about his 18 years at The Fan, his work at TSN, calling Argonaut games, the Argos attendance problem and his personal relationship with Doug Gilmour and The Tragically Hip.

Welcome to episode 274 of Toronto Mike's, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent brewery celebrating 30 years in the craft beer business. Visit GLB at 30 Queen Elizabeth Boulevard for $5 patio beers. And propertyinthesix.com, Toronto real estate done right. And our newest sponsor, PayTM, an app designed to manage all of your bills in one spot. Download the app today from paytm.ca. I'm Mike from torontomike.com and joining me this week is TSN

broadcaster Mike Hogan. Welcome Mike. Hello. Who's number 300? Who do you have circled? I'm not that organized.

What is this, 274? I can pretty much tell you who's going? I have, I'm not that organized. So what is this, 274? I can pretty much tell you who's going up to like 280, 281. And after that, I haven't even thought about it yet. Okay. Who should it be? I don't know. Who's your dream? Who haven't you done that you really want to do?

I want Bob McCowan. Okay. And he tweeted at me. Well, he tweeted at me once and said, I just did a long form interview and there's nothing more to know. Because he did something with like Sportsnet or whatever, right? Sure. And in that Sportsnet thing I read, which was fine, like he even had a comment like, I'm only doing this because you're with Sportsnet. Like it sounds like I'm not with, I don't know if you know this, I'm not with Sportsnet.

Really? Independent broadcaster. That's why you're allowed on the show. That's not with Sportsnet. Really? Independent broadcaster. That's why you're allowed on the show. That's lucrative, by the way. Independent broadcaster. It pays in beer, I believe. Yes, well, that works. Well, it pays you in beer too, but we'll go to that in a minute.

Nice. So I don't know who I'd want for $300. I definitely think Bobcat would be interesting because I just had Stephen Brunt on and it was kind of a great experience, to be honest. Absolutely. Meanwhile, I also think, I'm not just a sports media on, and it was, uh, kind of a great experience to be honest. But. Meanwhile, I also think, uh,

like I'm not just a sports media guy, as you know. So, you know, there's some, it would be very interesting to have somebody like Drake on. Okay. But I don't even think that's in the realm of possibilities.

You never know. Right? Do you know people? Do you know Drake's people? I don't hang with Drake. No, I have no peeps. He has peeps. I don't hang with Drake. No. I have no peeps. He has peeps.

I don't. He has peeps, but I didn't know how close to the bridal path you live. Is Whitby considered bridal path east? That's right. Yeah, you're coming from Whitby. Let's tell the people, though, a little bit about this confusion we had today. So originally you said, I'll be there at 1. So I'm thinking, okay, originally, originally you said I'll be there at one. So I'm thinking, okay, 1 p.m.

I'll be ready. Then you said, oh, Argos practice at Don Bosco until like after two. So I'll come after that. And I'm like, that's cool. Like I'll be ready. But that means I could do a quick bike ride because I don't have to be here at one anymore.

So I went for a bike ride and then I'm at a red light. I was at Annette, just east of Jane Street. And I checked my phone and there's an email from you like, is one o'clock still good? There's no practice today. I never believed this from an athlete until I started covering football on a regular basis. But when they say one game at a time, we don't know who we're playing next week. I now buy it because I completely forgot there was a buy. Right.

Completely forgot. So I was kind of in that mode of Sunday off after a Saturday game, at least a coach's availability on Monday. Right. I'll go up. I'll talk to Trestman. If some of the players are available, I'll do that. And then I'll rifle down because I'm at Bosco, which is on Islington. Yeah.

You're not too far off Islington. I'm south. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, off Islington. I'm south, yeah. So I mean, okay, this works out well. And then of course me being the idiot, I get up and go, how come they haven't sent out the sketch? Oh, I'm an idiot. Well, now I realize. So you were going to kill the two birds

of one stone. Yes. But now you've come all the way from Whitby just to talk to me. You should be honoured. I am, because that's a long way. And I'm feeling bad, like you're going to have a heck of a time getting home. I'm used. Trust me, when you cover the Argos and they get off at 2.30, sometimes I'm doing the podcast there till 4. I'm used to the traffic.

It's fine. How is the facility at Don Bosco? How is that going? You know what? It's interesting because when they announced it, I went, okay, this is just another one of those things that the Argos keep shooting themselves in the foot with. It's actually worked out well. So they've got complete reign of the lower floor of the school.

So at Downsview, they didn't have a decent meeting facility. Now they have an auditorium. Good. They didn't have a weight room out there. Now they have a spectacular weight room. All of the coaches have big offices. The players are out there always looking at

video. They have their own areas to go. They've been able to take an area, turn it into a clinic, essentially. It really has worked out well. If they get, and the plan is, to get field turf out there next year, then they'll have the playing surface ready to go. Everything will be fine. It worked out better than I thought, to be honest.

Good. No, I'm glad. I mean, I know the Leafs and Marlies, they practice on Kipling, which is in the West End. And then, well, they got to do bio steel thing. That's more like C&E for the Raptors. Still West End. Yep, still West End.

And then you got the Don Bosco facility there. That's great. So Whitby is really East to me. Like I visualize it, it's very East, but you know what's even more East than Whitby? What's that? Kingston. You're good. You passed geography, didn't you?

Yes, because I've driven to Ottawa a few dozen times. And I remember Kingston, that's right in the middle or whatever. So I want to talk to you about, because you grew up in- Not the middle. No, not the middle. The center of the universe. Okay. I thought that was here. It's the center. I've been telling people that-

You've been misled. Kingston, I've never, like I've driven by it a million times. I don't think I've been telling people that. You've been misled. Kingston, you know, I've never, I've driven by it a million times. I don't think I've ever stopped in Kingston. I'm missing out, right? Kingston's a great city. In the summer, you would be stunned at how nice Kingston is. On the water, it's where Lake Ontario

meets the St. Lawrence River meets the Cataraqui River. Tons of water front. If you're into history, can't go wrong. I am. Fort Henry, Barrio meets the St. Lawrence River meets the Cataraqui River. Tons of waterfront. If you're into history, can't go wrong. I am. Fort Henry. You know, they built the courthouse there to be the first parliament of Canada. Was the capital of Canada for a cup of coffee.

So they've got all of these things going. If you're a history buff, I'm amazed you haven't been to Kingston. Yeah, you know, I majored in history. The whole Sir John A. thing, Bellevue House is there, the penitentiaries. I'm actually amazed too. Now that you point it out, I'm amazed as well

and I'm going to fix this. Next summer, I will make a trip just to go to Kingston. I have not done the tour yet, but the tour now of Kingston Penitentiary since they shut it down

is like people are raving about this opportunity. So I'm going to go. Oh, look at that. I'm going to go. And these guys. So, okay. So I have some Kingston questions.

My favorite Maple Leaf of all time is Dougie Gilmore. Dougie! My favorite band of all time is the Tragically Hip. Like, why haven't I been to Kingston? I don't know. All my favorite people, they all come from

Kingston. Mike Hogan comes from Kingston. Well, see, you picked up on that because I was going to go there. I got a tweet yesterday from somebody saying, not just the best CFL play-by-play guy. This guy's tweet, and I'll get to this later, but that you're the greatest play-by-play guy, period, in this country. Who's that? Was that my wife?

I have a special shout-out for her at the end of the episode. I don't want to use spoilers in case she's listening. But tell me about growing up in Kingston, and if you have any stories about Gord and the boys from The Tragically Hip or Doug E.G., now's the time. Where do you want to start? Let's start with Doug Gilmore, and then we can finish with The Tragically Hip. Doug and I met when we were kids.

We were the same age. He went to, I forget which public school, I actually don't know, but he didn't go to my public school. But we played lacrosse together and we played baseball together when we were kids. His dad was our baseball coach. He was a guy, when we played lacrosse, let's say I'm the height I am now, he'd come up to my waist.

He was so much smaller than everybody else. That's what I like about him. Then you'd look at the end of the game, we'd win or lose by scoring 12 goals, and he'd have nine of the 12. He was an exceptionally good lacrosse player and was a pretty good ball player too. His dad was a great coach. Doug was sort of a first-basement catcher.

I was a pitcher, shortstop. So, yeah, I've known him a long time and just thrilled for the success. It was really bizarre seeing him here in Toronto with the success he was having. Seeing Kirk Muller as the captain of the Habs, Doug the captain of the Leafs, with Don Cherry there on a Saturday night. It was weird. It really was. Kingston represent, right? Yeah, absolutely.

Well, other than those guys and Dan Aykroyd. Dan Aykroyd's from Kingston, right? He's from Ottawa, but they've got a cottage just north of Kingston. So it was like a summertime fixture. I get that confused because he introduced the hip on Saturday Night Live, which we've all seen a hundred times. And in my mind, it was because he's from Kingston. He's got a cottage on a lake called Lobral Lake.

They've had it there since the turn of the 1900s, I believe. And now Gilmore and Muller and a bunch of the guys are up in that part of the lake as well. So, yeah, he's honorary Kingstonian. How's that? Will Doug E.G. reply to a text from you? That's how I can tell. Oh, are you trying to get him now? How well do you know Doug?

Oh, that's not a bad idea. I've never had a professional you know I've never had a professional athlete on this? This is episode 274. Yeah. Never had a professional athlete or former professional athlete on this show.

Interesting. Like, not even by design. He's on a book tour now. You might get him. He spends a ton of time here in Toronto too, right? Like, he's scouting for the Frontenacs.

Well, let's see. Will he reply to a Mike Hogan text? I don't have a text. I can throw out a tweet. I can get in contact, if you would like, I can get in contact and ask, how was that? Let's do that. Now, Dougie, would I get, like,

here's one of my thoughts on professional athletes. Sort of like my same thought I have for politicians. Like, will I get the canned, the trained PR answers to everything? Like, I know he's promoting a book. I'm waiting to see the book. I don't know how in-depth he's going to go in the book. If you get Doug Gilmore unleashed,

it would be a spectacular two hours. Right. No, that's the two hours I'm looking for. I don't know how far he would go, but put it this way. When he was in Toronto, when I was in Toronto, we'd bump into each other quite often.

When I was over at the fan and doing the Leaf Post games at PM Toronto back in the day. We'd run into each other often, and it was fun. It was like he had become a Beatle, right? He was just absolutely mobbed. It was crazy. It's the only jersey I ever purchased for an active Maple Leaf, so I've got a Bill

Barocco jersey, but I didn't see him play. That's my little... But... Sure. Gilmore was a jersey... Before he became captain. So when Wendell was captain

and he came and he was assistant captain, so it's got an A on it. And I bought the jersey and I played road hockey in that jersey forever. I still have that jersey. And I've never bought like, you know, my son, he had to have an Austin Matthews jersey last Christmas.

But now I'm going to stick with my Gilmore jersey. I don't need an active Leaf. I have my Gilmore jersey. So at what point does, because you go to a Leaf game, you go to a Jays game, whatever the sport may be, and you look in the crowd and you'll see a jersey or a sweater of somebody who has just been traded. You'll go, you'll see a Kessel or a Phaneuf or something.

Oh, sure, yeah. Where is that line between retro cool and, okay, I'm just too cheap to go out and buy a jersey. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're right. That's a tough oneUF or something. Oh, sure, yeah. Where is that line between retro cool and, okay, I'm just too cheap to go out and buy a new jersey? You're right. That's a tough one. You're right. So the Kessel and the FNUF, that's still too cheap to buy a new one.

Gilmore, Clark, if you were a hot fan, that would be good. My brother's got a Brian McCabe, which is now good. Now it's come around, I think. Okay, so Darcy, Tucker, Domi, they'd be okay now? I think they're okay now. Okay.

That's a good question, though, because there's a time where, yeah, that's just you got your FNUF jersey on because you're too cheap to buy a new one, and then there's a gray period where you can go either way, and then there's all of a sudden where that's cool again. If I were to throw on a 21 Borge Salmon jersey, that's freaking cool. Especially one with the solid stripes on the arm. If you could find that, you would win the night at the ACC.

I keep going to Value Village hoping one will show up there. There was a Joe Carter replica jersey, of course, but it was a 29 Joe Carter jersey that was there. I was like, that's cool. Okay, let's talk about the tragically hip. So we are only a few days removed from hearing the terrible news that Gord had passed away. So I'll shut up and you tell me

about growing up in Kingston and any stories you have about the boys from the hip. Well, we all went to high school together. When I was in grade nine and going up for football the first year, Rob Baker and Gord Sinclair were on the team. And so we played together for a year. And then they got out of football together,

which was too bad because they were actually pretty good players. And then in grade 10, Paul Langlois, whose dad was the head coach of the senior team, played with us. I didn't know Gord Downie very well at all until basically the band started. He played pickup basketball with us at noon kind of thing, and there was always a hi, how you doing, in the hall. But it's not like we went partying or golfing or anything.

The other three guys I knew better. I didn't know Johnny Faye at all. He was in grade 9 when I was in grade 12, or the dearly departed grade 13. So he was considerably younger than we were. So you're a grade 13 guy, because I'm an OAC guy. And now they're both gone. I'm 54, so. So you're a grade 13 guy because I'm an OAC guy. Okay. And now they're both gone.

I'm 54. So yeah, I'm a grade 13 guy. Like one senior year wasn't bad enough. You know, my wife's from Alberta and she's like, you know, we all, we all like, we just went to grade 12 out in Alberta. Like we didn't need that extra year, but I, you know, it's kind of a double-edged sword. Like, yeah, you got the extra year, but you got the extra year. Like, it's kind of like...

I was incredibly immature. And I may have died at first year of college when I was 18. Yeah. 19 wasn't much better, mind you. But, you know, some kids seem to be mature when they're 12. And others when they're 30. And I was probably closer to the latter. That grade 13 year, and I didn't even finish it i knew i was going to college um so i went and got a job

to get some dough for college um uh it was it was probably a godsend for me i got one more year out of football too so that helped it's like you delay reality another year sure absolutely which is not such a bad thing uh let me ask you about the band now. So you knew a lot of these, you knew a few of these guys pretty well, which is pretty damn cool. Were you a fan of the music? Immediately. They used to have a sax player at one point, an older guy. We were all kind of in our early to mid-twenties at the time, and then there was this guy,

he was probably like 35 at the time, which to us was ancient. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It just didn't quite work. They go to an old bar called the Lakeview Manor, which if you walked out the front door, you'd be staring at Kingston Penitentiary. It was an awesome bar. Awesome bar. They had different rooms.

Like the big room on the main floor in the afternoon was a strip club. And then at night, the strippers would go upstairs to another smaller venue. This place would then be for live bands or a DJ or whatever. There was a strip club. And then at night, the strippers would go upstairs to another smaller venue. This place would then be for live bands or a DJ or whatever. There was a sports room. There was a shuffleboard table and a pool table and great pizza. And it was a cheap beer. And it was just the place that everybody would go to.

And when they were starting, they'd play some Saturday afternoon matinees. And a buddy of mine, Tim, hi, Tim, one day said, you know, Baker and Sinclair are back in a band. Okay, who are they with? He said, Paul Langlois is with them. And I was like, Paul Langlois plays guitar?

Because I had no idea. And Gord Downie's the lead singer. And I'm thinking, okay, the really, really shy guy is the lead singer? Interesting. So we went down and saw them for the first time on a Saturday afternoon. There were probably, I don't know, 20 of us in the place. And Gord Downie came out, and I didn't recognize him because he was so odd at the time, jumping up around and gyrating,

and it just didn't look like him. And he had this big mop of hair and the omnipresent jean jacket. And they were doing stuff like I'm Not your stepping stone and route 66 and a bunch of covers like that they still do the best cover of route 66 I've ever heard it was awesome um but yeah so it was kind of uh watching that and then they put out the EP with last American exit and small town bring down and right uh I thought man this is really good and never thinking it would go any further than, oh, they put out an EP, and then they break.

And when they really started going, I was up in Ottawa at the time at a rock station, 54 Rock, and it was mind-numbing to watch people who I knew start going ape crap over a bunch of guys that I knew from high school. Yeah, I can't imagine. It was a really bizarre circumstance, and it took me forever to really warm up to the fact

that this band, or realize, I guess, that this band was as big as they were. It was mind-numbing. Did you have that sense, like, you know, you know them from this, like, you know, you said, right, kinks in penitentiaries right there, like, this was hyper-local for you, and then you have that moment you realize, this has gone

national. This is coast to coast. And it was bizarre. When you heard New Orleans is sinking and Blow It High Doe and stuff like that, you go, man, these guys are really good. The first time I heard Little Bones, it took it to another level for me.

For me, that was the song when Rob Baker was just thrashing. That's the song I went, okay, this is not a one album wonder. There's something special going on here. Road Apples is fantastic. I mean, I loved Up to Here. Don't get me wrong.

Loved it. It was when I fell in love with the hip. But that Road Apples, man, I think underappreciated, underrated. It's not a bad track on it. No, from Cordelia to Fiddler's Green to Long Time Running to, you know, you mentioned Little Bones,

but it's all great. It's, and I saw your tweet the other day about being out in Ancaster and seeing the exit to Fiddler's Green Road. That was yesterday. Yeah, I picked up my wife and my youngest at the Hamilton Airport. I didn't even, by the way,

this is how stupid I am, okay? My wife tells me she's saving 100... I've picked up people at the airport a hundred times and it was always YYZ every single time, a hundred percent of the time. And then she's like, Oh, I'm saving 150 bucks. Uh, pick me up at the, us up at the Hamilton airport. I had no idea there was a Hamilton airport. I had no idea. Anyways, I'm driving there yesterday and just as I turn off and I'm listening to hits FM, which they're calling hip FM for the day and it's 100% hip the whole day and it's I'm just like I got my three-year-old in the back seat and I'm just screaming out the tracks and then there's a sign and I didn't even know this existed uh the Hamilton guys are gonna yell at me but it just said Fiddler's Green Road and I'm

staring at the sign and I'm I'm listening to the hip and and it was just surreal. So that's Ancaster? Is that what that's called? It's such a sad song. Oh, Fiddler's Green? But a beautiful song. Okay, so when I heard the news, like everybody else, when the hip put out the statement, I didn't know what to do, and I came down here, and I just recorded a 26-minute tribute,

just off the top of my head playing like five tunes or something. The first tune I played was Fiddler's Green. Why, because you were sad? It just seemed, because I was sad, it just seemed like the most, it just seemed to be about death, if you will, and it just seemed like that was the tone that I was feeling when I heard the news.

Which is understandable. I mean, it was shocking. I saw Rob Baker two weeks before it happened. I was at a Queens game. Rob Baker is like a gigantic Queens football fan and season tickets and donated money to the new stadium, etc., etc. I had seen Gord Sinclair in passing earlier, but I ended up walking out with Rob. And I won't go through the whole conversation, but he left the door open at one point for me to ask about Gord, so I did. I said, how's Gordy doing? And he just went, not great.

Wait, sorry, when was this? Two weeks ago. Two weeks ago. Three weeks ago. Two weeks before the day of the Thursday before Thanksgiving. And I got out of that conversation very quickly because I didn't want to pry, to be honest. But you could tell, you know, I was kind of expecting him to say something like, you know, more good days

than bad, or more bad days than good. But what the tone he took, it was obviously it wasn't well. I just wanted to get out of the conversation and not go there. Well, it's so personal. At the same time, we all feel like he's our buddy. And for you, it's almost a little different in the fact that

although you weren't that close with Gord, but you almost could argue that he is a buddy. I will say, because there were times when the band was even up to here and wrote apples and stuff, where they'd be in Ottawa and I'd invariably find myself backstage

with them after the show having a couple of beers. So I mean, it was, I will say, a friendly acquaintance. How's that? More than friendly acquaintance. How's that? More than friendly acquaintance. Way more. So for me, who never even met Gord and just listened to the music, I had a recent episode of somebody who is kind of tight with that circle,

and I won't say who it is, but after the episode, we talked about it, and so I got the same kind of report you got, which is it's not good. This was because he didn't show up for the TIFF launch of Long Time Running. And I hadn't seen him in public since my daughter saw him in Ottawa on July 2nd. So I was very, like, you know, ready for the worst. And I was so prepared for the worst. And then we got the worst, which was not a shock and not a surprise. And it still hit me like a ton of bricks. So I can't imagine how,

how did you feel when you woke up to the news? I was sad. I'd gotten up, I was working that day and I'd gotten up to kind of, you know, surf the net and do a little writing for, for the Argo website. And I think it was around eight o'clock in the morning when I saw the first

tweet. I was like, Oh no. And then I immediately thought back to the conversation with I was like, oh no. And then I immediately thought back to the conversation with Rob and went, oh, why didn't I read more into that? And it was sad. And it's funny, when I went into work, obviously the guys at TSN know, you know, that I went to school with these guys and they were kind of, who do we get? Who do we get? And I said, nobody. I said, I'm not going to bug anybody today. Just not worth it.

We ended up getting Dave Bedini, by the way. He was fantastic. I can't imagine, yeah. He was fantastic. You know, he had toured. The Real Statics had toured with him. I've seen the Real Statics open for the hip. Yeah, fantastic.

So Dave came on. He was better than good, put it that way. So we did get Dave on. But I didn't feel that emotion. And then at 1 o'clock, five seconds before I turned on the mic, I welled up. And I don't know how I didn't cry. I don't know how I didn't do it. Kind of going there now. But it was weird.

And I didn't once think of the musician. I didn't think about the band not playing together. I'm thinking about guys i know losing a brother um you know people i went to high school who knew gourd specifically a lot better than i did right and how they were feeling this was this was another person from my age demographic leaving too early that's where i felt so man i'm uh i last night I watched the Secret Path concert on CBC, and I just bought a print from the artist behind that great Secret Path animation. His name is escaping me. He put out a print of Gord for $50,

and all proceeds go to the uh downy uh uh chenwag chenwag no wenjack uh foundation and it was the most no-brainer purchase i've ever made in my life online like take my 50 bucks like right now please this is the one where he's walking down the railroad yes that's right the hat on that's right that's a beautiful shot so if anyone out there uh knows a hip fan and wants to buy them, I don't know, a Christmas gift or whatever, I mean, I can't imagine, like, I can't wait to put this up somewhere and all proceeds go into that great cause. And wow. Sad time, isn't it?

It's amazing how much that band affected. When I watched the documentary on Friday night, it was the roller coaster. It hurt like hell when I saw that shot from the first rehearsal when he's got the long beard and he's just walking around and can't remember anything. And it was like, oh my God, how did they get through this? And that was the juxtaposition between that

and the over joyous look on people's faces when they were singing along with the concert. And then there'd be somebody next to them crying and somebody having the time of their life and then somebody else with tears. And it was an incredible. Rollercoaster of emotion. Yes, absolutely.

But I think sometimes we forget when you saw that band live, how much the fan base was into that group. Just incredible. The scene in that doc, one of the lines that really got me was when they talked about the doctor. So the doctor who I guess did the surgery to remove a good surgery to remove a good chunk of Gord's brain, right?

And he had said that Gord could do this. And apparently, like, so the way they described it, he had been carrying this, that he had said Gord can actually do this concert tour in his condition. So when it went off, when they started the first concert, I think it was in BC, Victoria or something. They start the first concert and Gord's able to do it. And it's like tragically hip in concert. And here it is. And it sounds good. He just started crying because he just let that go. He had been holding on to that the whole time. He could do it. And this concert, which is less than a year ago, because Gord's wearing the poppy in the Secret

Path concert that I watched yesterday. And so I think it's like early November 2016. But Gord did an amazing job. Like the songs from the Secret Path, which are very haunting and beautiful. He did an amazing job that was less than a year ago. It's amazing how quickly he went downhill. And when they had that news conference, what

was it, 18 months ago or however long it was now, um, and the doctor came out and said, this is terminal. It's coming back. We don't know when. And I, I, I don't know if this was the exact phrase, but I, I, I kind of got the, the, I have this memory of it saying, uh, it could be

two weeks, it could be 10 years. And I just, I, I had kind of maybe been bracing for longer than 18 months. And that's why when we heard the news on that very sad Wednesday, it was devastating. It was. It was devastating. So we're going to miss him, but that music's not going anywhere. I mean, that's going to be the soundtrack to road trips and cottages and campfires.

If we turn the calendar ahead by a century, there will be somebody at a campfire with a guitar singing ahead by a century. And that's a pretty good legacy. Amazing. I did a pretty good segue getting you to Kingston, but I don't have one to come out of this except to say that if you enjoy Toronto Mic'd and these kind of conversations with people like, I can call you Hoagie. Sure, absolutely.

Hoagie. With people like Hoagie, then please help crowdfund this passion project at patreon.com slash Toronto Mic'd. Give what you can there. And he needs the money

because he's paying me $4,000 to do this. He doesn't know it yet. That's the only thing. I had to pay for your gas from Whitby. That just right there drains my account. And no, you don't. Do you enjoy beer?

Where am I from? For all I know, you're a recovering alcoholic who can't touch the stuff. I've got that from a few people. That would be none of my business. But yeah, you do partake in a cold alcoholic beverage. That and rum would be my... And maybe a good Jameson's every once in a while would be the beverages of choice.

I was in Dublin a few years ago and I went to the Guinness plant and we were almost going to do a tour of the Jameson. Wait, no, no, no. You went to the Guinness plant and I, we were almost going to do a tour of the Jameson. Wait, wait, no, no, no, no. We didn't do the tour of the Jameson. You went to Dublin. Yeah. And you didn't go to the Jameson distillery.

No, but I did do the Guinness one. Okay. Isn't that a good thing? I did walk by it and I took pictures outside. I have not been to the homeland yet. And it's, it's like number one on the bucket list and every year it's, yeah, I'll do it next year.

Yeah, we'll do it next year. Yeah, we'll do it next year. And we, next year has never come. But everybody I know that has gone to the Guinness plant has said, the brewery has said that once I had a Guinness there, it was completely different than every subsequent Guinness I have had since. Have you had a Guinness since you've left? Yes. And I think it's because of the freshness. So one of the great things about Great Lakes Brewery is it's all fresh, like ridiculously fresh.

You grab a can, look at the bottom of when it was canned or whatever, and go take a look at these dates because you're only buying this thing in Ontario, essentially. And we're in Guinness. You're getting that pint that was brewed right there. It's so fresh.

But also, I think it has to do with this, the fact you're drinking this freshly poured Guinness while you oversee Dublin. I think it's called a storehouse or a stonehouse. I can't remember what they call it, the stonehouse or the storehouse. I think it's the Guinness storehouse or whatever. But the view of Dublin,

and when you get there, you'll see what I mean. It is the best view of Dublin in the city. Nice. So you're overlooking. You have this freshly poured pint of uh guinness in your hand that is ridiculously fresh and you just came off the tour it just it's going to taste better even if it doesn't taste better do you know what i mean like so a lot of it might be psychological but i think the freshness is the reason that the guinness there tastes better than the guinness you get here in toronto and to verify what you just said i just looked at the bottom of one of these cans and it's eight days old.

Yeah, yeah. And that's, like that's insane, right? That's insane. So they can that eight days ago and you can drink it today. Yeah. And that's why people go to Great Lakes Brewery.

It's ridiculously fresh. Check the bottom of your cans. You'd be surprised with some of these big conglomerates, like how old that beer is at your point. Which is not too far

from here, right? It's like, well, you know, rural York and Queensway, you can throw a stone from there and hit this place. Like there's a Costco there. And the back, and that's why I used to drive

by it while I used to live in Mimico. Oh my gosh. So it was, that was my Costco. Land of Brendan Shanahan. Yes. So when I would, home of the blue goose. That's right. But when you, when you escape Costco, I would

come out that way and drive by and was always intrigued until I finally tried one. And I see you have a bottle of it here, the pumpkin spice ale. It is the season. Of course. It is the season. So that's been going for quite some time now.

So this obviously has quite a bit of a run behind it, this Great Lakes Brewery. So the big addition since you lived in Mimico is they added a patio to this Great Lakes Brewery. So they have this really beautiful patio now. So you can go get your $5. Speaking of fresh pints that taste

better than usual, like the fresh pint on the patio, it's a very cool way to spend this extra summer we're getting in late October. So yes, you're taking that home. Beautiful. Thank you for that. Enjoy. There's a pint glass for you as well. Oh, nice.

I didn't even see that. That's from Brian Gerstein, who is a real estate sales representative with PSR Brokerage. So while you check out the pint glass, I'm going to play a message from Brian. Here's Brian. Brian Gerstein here, proud sponsor of Toronto Mic and sales representative with PSR Brokerage. PSR specializes in new condominium sales with the hottest projects in the city. Contact me at 416-873-0292 for more information on two new exciting condo projects. 0292 for more information on two new exciting condo projects,

Kingley in the King West neighborhood and the one residences at one Bloor West. That's 416-873-0292 to learn more about these exclusive projects. Are you going to, you're going to die in Whitby? Like it's a plan to just enjoy life in Whitby and not come back to the Big Smoke? I don't know. I think at this stage, it's to stay in Toronto as long as anybody will have me. Likewise, with my far better half, with her side of things. And at some point, I think we want to go somewhere smaller to retire, probably closer to Kingston.

She's born and raised in Belleville, me in Kingston. So head back to eastern Ontario, find a little spot on the water somewhere and fill our boots. So you're not moving to one bluer west to look down on the city. Speaking of the views of the city. Back in the day, potentially.

It's funny because Mimico, which is very close to here, but not here. You're aware of that because some people think this is Mimico. This is New Toronto, is it not? This is New Toronto. Thank you.

You are now my favorite guest of all time. Because I know that? Yeah. See, I used to take my dog for a walk down to Lumsden Park. Best view of the skyline. Yes, and that's where I was going. It's different now because of all the condos that are up in Mimico that are, you know, in the last five years since I moved out of there. They've got their own skyline now.

It's crazy. But that view of downtown Toronto is completely underappreciated. all the condos that are up in Mimico that are, you know, in the last five years since I moved out of there. They've got their own skyline now. It's crazy. But that view of downtown Toronto is completely underappreciated by folks in T.O. Just great view. That's a great park, that Lumsden Park. Yeah. Absolutely. PayTM. PayTM is an app designed to manage all of your bills in one spot.

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Visit Paytm.ca, download the app, and use the promo code Toronto Mike. All one word and $10 is yours. And you can thank me later. You have your own promo code. That's cool. I've never had a promo code. That's incredible. Do you want one?

No. That's too much pressure. You could get Whippy Mike. Kingston Mike. Kingston Mike. Much better. Much better. Well, I know I tweeted this earlier that if you are meeting somebody who's like in their 30s, 40s, or 50s,

and you're not sure what the guy's name is, call him Mike because you got a 50% chance of being right. How many times have you been on a streetcar or the subway, especially the subway, and you'll hear, hey, Mike, and nine guys turn around. Absolutely. My slow pitch team, there were only six because a co-ed slow pitch in the team, and I played on this team for 10 years, over 10 years. There were three mics on this team, three mics. Wow. And I mean, so many stories of working at a place, and you're on a call, and there's 10 people on the call, two Michaels, three mics, ridiculous. Just call me LeBron if it makes it easier.

Okay, LeBron. Let's start with, and you tell me if we need to back it up a little further, but I first heard your voice on the fan. Okay, 92 is when I started there. But that's when the fan started. Yes. I was hired in March of 92 when the station went mostly sports. went mostly sports. There was a story in the, I think it was the Toronto Star, that CJCL was going, which was the home of the Leafs and the Blue Jays at the time, were going to try to go mostly sports from six or seven o'clock at night on. So it'd be McCowan and then something. So

I was looking for a gig and thought this could work. So I found out Alan Davis was the program director, sent him a tape back when we had tapes. And he said, get in here. I said, okay. So I sent him a, what I had was a news tape from when I was working at CFTR. And he said, we're looking for update people who can do news and sports. How much do you know about news? How much do you know about sports? How much do you know about sports? So I went through the whole CV.

You know, I've basically done both. I'd done morning news in Ottawa. I had done some work on Parliament Hill with Standard Broadcast News. Had a pretty good sports background as well. Had done play-by-play for the 67s in Ottawa and was just kind of a sports geek. And he basically hired me on the spot. And so we need somebody to do updates. And that one day, you know, you always look for

that opportunity to host or whatever, just, you know, kind of move forward. The 1992 NHL draft was in Montreal and we were going to cover it. This was, this was new for, for, for the fan. We weren't the fan yet. We were CJCL. 14.30.

14.30. And it was a Saturday and I was in doing the update run. And I think my first cast was supposed to be at noon. So I'd been in there since 10 o'clock, whatever, nine o'clock, writing, getting ahead, just making sure I could write as much as I

could. And at five to 12, Alan Davis storms into the news room and says, the engineer in Montreal didn't show up. I can't have, we had Joe Bowen, Gord Stelic and Howard Berger at the draft at the, I think it was at the forum. And he said, I can't have an entire

telephone line for two hours. How much do you know about the draft? I had just been the play-by-play voice of the 67th and I was in a keeper hockey league. Our draft was the next day. I had studied the draft. I had just been the play-by-play voice of the 67s and I was in a keeper hockey league. Our draft was the next day. I had studied the draft like crazy. That's amazing. I said, give me a shot.

I'd never hosted talk radio. I had hosted a magazine show, news program in Ottawa, one hour a week and went on. Alan Davis came in after the leaf pick and said, this is really going better than I had planned. Keep going. And I think we'd planned to do an hour. We ended up doing three, I think. And I never did another update on the fan after that or on CJCL after that. That's fortuitous that you just did all that homework. Well, yeah, absolutely. But you can never be too prepared, right?

Yeah. No, it's great. You mentioned CFTR real quick. What were you doing at CFTR? I was doing 68 second news updates, um, back in the era of Larry Silver and Evelyn Macko and Dick Smythe. Absolutely. When Peter Gross went on vacation, I'd fill in doing sports in the morning. Uh, I did that for a couple of weeks. It was Tom Rivers and Jesse and Jean and Tarzan Dan. It was that era. Uh, my pal, Jim Elliott, who I worked with in Kingston as well. It was a blast. That is the best radio experience I've ever had in my life, working with those guys and girls, because, my God,

there was a lot of talent in that building. I've had a few of them here. Who have I had? Larry Fedorek was over a couple of times recently. He's down in St. Catharines now. That's actually what went on with him a couple of weeks ago. He came to kick out the jams. And if this appearance goes well, I might be trying to get you to make the drive again from Whitby.

Maybe on a day when there's a practice at Don Bosco. If this goes well. How's it going so far? It's going fantastic. I feel like, what was it? Al Davis? I want to call him. Alan. Alan Davis.

I was thinking, I can't be the Raiders guy, Al Davis, or whatever. Just win, baby. Just get ratings, baby. That's right. But I hear what he heard, I think, which is you have great pipes for the radio. You have a great tone to your voice. Some people hate it. Some people love it. Well, some people hate

Gord Downie's singing voice. Did you know that? Some people are stupid. I got canned at RB and there was more to the story that I'm not going to get into, but one of the excuses Taylor Parnaby gave me is your voice is too nasal.

And I'm thinking, if my voice is too nasal, you heard me on the Standard Broadcast News Network for two years and you hired me in the first place. Why did you change your mind a week later? I'm trying to think of the names, that tone, I know exactly what they mean. Yeah.

But it's, I would say like Andy Frost has a bit of that. Andy Frost. Yeah. So he's a bit more Kermit than you are. Andy's awesome. He says he's coming on in early November. Good.

But he's been... He wants to be 300. Maybe he's number 300. Maybe Derringer's number 300. Andy's the best. Andy is, as great as he is on the air, he's a better guy. I remember listening to him for the first time, and a friend of mine was up for the job that he ended up getting

on the Overnight Radio Network. I forget what it was called, but they did the coast-to-coast overnight thing. 640. No, it was at Q107. Um, but, but, um, I forget what, I forget what the overnight show was called. And the thing that I loved about Andy Frost is, is he's old school in the sense that, especially in that, that timeframe, every show was different. There was a theme to every show. And if you listened for an extended period of time, and I found myself doing it often just to hear the

breaks, like the music was just sort of an afterthought. There was a really nice web that he would weave. Um, and as a radio guy, before I'm a sports guy, I really appreciated what he did. I think Andy Frost is just absolutely fantastic at his job. He's one of the longest serving at the same station guys. There's not many, I mean, other than like maybe Rick in Maryland. Well, what year did he get?

Because I believe he starts at Q in 86, I think. Wow. I thought it was after. I haven't done my crunch homework yet. It would be 86 because unless he got a job. No, because he came in from Winnipeg to take that job overnight, I think. So it'd be closer to 90. But just, John, we used to hang out quite a bit when we were both single men.

And I went up to introduce myself and it was kind of the, I know who you are. I listen to you all the time. And it's just, you know, he's fantastic. He's such a nice man. I'm looking forward to his visit. But the other guy with that kind of that nasally thing, which, by the way, it doesn't sound like Kermit, I think, at all, in my opinion. I think you have great pipes. But Brunt's got a bit of it.

Stephen Brunt, a little bit. Oh, he's just got a Newfoundland accent now. That's right. He had a good hip. He shows up in the documentary. Yes. He's in a long time running. I saw that. That was awesome. I'm like, hey, I know that guy. He had a good hip. He shows up in the documentary. Yes! He's in Long Time Running. I saw that. That was awesome. I'm like, hey, I know that guy.

He just came over. Hey, kids, this guy here, he was just in our basement. I want to talk about your memories of the fan, especially in those early days. Sure. I had Barb DiGiulio on and I was asking her about her

early days at the fan. She couldn't remember the lineup. It's like she had aulio on, and I was asking her about her early days at the fan, and she couldn't remember the lineup. It's like she had a mental block on names and stuff, but you have good recall. When they did eventually launch, and I think it was Nelson Millman, is he the one who brought it? Alan Davis was still there. Nelson and I came in the same month, and Tim Haffey.

We were all hired in March of 92, within a week or two of one another. But when did they rebrand as the Fan 1430? September. September 15th, 13th, 4th. I can't remember anymore. I used to know the date. Do you remember the opening day lineup? Okay. Mike Inglis was the host in the morning show. He was with Ken Daniels, Joe Bowen, and Stephanie Smythe. I think that was the opening day lineup. Mid-mornings was Steve Simmons and Mary Ormsby.

Dan Schulman did mid-days. Bobcat did drive. I did evenings. Richards and Rue Mack did the late show. You mentioned all that talent that was at CFTR before they went all news.

I'm sorry, but listening to that lineup, there's some heavyweights there. There are some heavyweights, absolutely. He went to do the Heat games. He's been in Miami for quite a while now. Ken Daniels does Red Wing games. He just sent me his book. He and Mickey Redman.

I didn't realize we had Ken on last week when the Wings were here. Ken Daniels and Mickey Redman, now the longest tenured television partnership in the NHL. 21 years, I think he said. He listens to the show, so he asked me,

what's your mailing address? And I go, here you go. The book just shows up. I got the Red Wings book and whatnot, which has got a lot of fan 1430 and 590 stuff. I'm looking forward to reading that. It was interesting because

none of us knew what the hell we were doing. We really didn't. We had no clue. But sometimes I think that produces the best content. If you ask Jim Richards, he'll say he had the best times at doing... In fact, later I have a question from Jim for you. Okay.

Okay. Oh, great. This could be bad. Who I just met at Great Lakes Beer like two weeks ago. He was there with the whole tent crew. Okay. I'll save the aside until Jim asks a question. Oh, but you can do it now because you might forget.

Jim is the only guy that left me laughing so hard, I had to take a break early. I used to do a thing called the 24 second shot clock, where we would have people with a 24 second clock just rant about anything they wanted to. It was their time. I wouldn't interrupt them. And at the end of the 24 seconds, and the mic goes off. I stole it from a station in Chicago. It's a great bit. Yeah, it actually worked out really well. So all of a sudden, he called up under a pseudonym, and I said, you know, Jim from Barry, or whoever he was, 24 seconds, you ready? He went, yeah. I said, three, two, one, go.

You hear the tick, tick, tick, tick. And he went, meh, meh, meh, and I'm waiting for the punchline. All I get is, he bawled like a sheep for 24 seconds. I couldn't, I was laughing so hard. I don't know why it tickled me the way it did. Greg Sansoni was the producer. He came running in, took over the microphone. He's looking at me going, I've never seen him like this before.

But for whatever the reason, I didn't even know it was Jim. Because it was absurd. I think that's the absurdity of it all. It just made no sense. And it just, it absolutely was perfect. And I just, I just, I absolutely, I couldn't talk.

I was laughing so hard. Oh man, that lineup. And I mean, that was when Shulman was, he was going to be, he was an actuary, right? Yeah, he was a, he was a, no, he's a numbers nerd at Western. Okay.

And he went. Or he was training to be an actuary. He went to Barry at CKBB. CKBB in, in Barry. And he was there when I was, I went in there and followed him actually, because I got laid off at TR and was looking for something. And our, Dan Shulman was a guy I took over for. actually because I got laid off at TR and was looking for something. And Dan Schulman

was a guy I took over for. Don Landry was a DJ there. Ann Deuce, who was on 680 Forever. Ann was there as well. So we, Mike, was Mike, no, Mike Apple wasn't there. Somebody else was there. But it was a pretty talented

group up there as well. Yeah, no, that's a, that's a, that lineup, as you ran through it, I'm listening to these names. I'm like, holy smokes. Landry and I worked in Ottawa as well. We worked at three different stations together. It's funny that you're working together now, sort of. With the Argos, sure.

At BMO Field. And I have had him as a guest on TSN. So I guess four stations we've been on air together. I don't know if you heard the Brian Williams episode, but I started it with an original piece by Don Landry where he did this whole joke of Don Cherry and Brian Williams coming here for Toronto.

Oh, that's awesome. It was amazing. Don is uber talented. He is, when he's on, which is 99% of the time, he is just fantastic. I thought Landry and Stelic was a great morning show. So did I. So did I. So did I.

You don't want to be too heavy in the morning. And they had enough sports content. And Gord's obviously encyclopedic in hockey and Don's a big

football fanatic. And I always got giggles on the way into work. And that's, you know, that's what you're looking for, I think, in the morning.

Yeah. And the comedic characters, I thought, were fun. Who else does Vic Rauter and Wadgett Kahn? And do them very well. Oh, and the dueling Vics, that's right. Make the final.

Oh, man. So, before I get you, was it called The Bullpen, your show? Okay, The Bullpen. You know how that came about? Tell me. Nelson had said, I'm going to move you to middays and this was there were a couple of different incarnations in there and i said okay so we're talking about how we wanted the show to go for i don't know a week or so kind of not nothing there was no we're going to sit down for two hours and go over what we want

like we had lunch throughout some ideas I'm walking into the studio. Hey, Nelson. What? What do we call this? We just never thought about that. We hadn't thought about the branding at all, which now branding is the most important thing on the radio show. Oh, they do that first now. He went, I don't know.

You like baseball. Call it the bullpen. There you go. That's it. There was no research. It was just Nelson as an aside saying, call it the bullpen. The you go. That's it. Like there was no research. It was, it was just Nelson as an aside saying, called the bullpen. The good old days.

Yeah. No focus groups. No. No seven layers of bureaucracy to approve the name or the lawyers to check it out and this and that. But, and then I guess that does eventually become the, the Mike Hogan show.

For about a week. Is that right? I, um, Nelson left, Don Collins came in. Um, Don said, I want to rebrand this. I want to call it the Mike Hogan show. Okay. Cause I'd been working with Toth and working with different people.

And this was, this was an opportunity for the first time really for me to have the midday show on my own. I didn't have the cast of characters from TSN or Sportsnet or, uh, Toth or, and that's not to knock any of them, but it was, it was me for three hours. Um, and, uh, they rebranded it. Don said, okay, what do you want to do here in the future? I told him a couple of things. He says, that's, that sounds great. Uh, our ratings in

that era were basically in the fours, like it was four, three would be weak, four, eight would be strong. Anything outside that range would be probably a freak. My first book was a 5.5. My second one was a 6.2, and they fired me. I'm going to get to that. Yeah, that doesn't make any sense. Surprise! But tell me a bit.

You mentioned Mike Toth. Can you tell me a little bit about what it was like working with another Mike? I like Mike a great deal. Mike would come in with ideas that made me think, even though if I thought he was an idiot sometimes, and I mean that as a friend. I mean, what are you thinking? Mike made you think.

A lot of people hated Mike Toth. I don't know why, but Mike would sometimes reach, sometimes it worked spectacularly well, sometimes it, um, but Mike would, uh, Mike would, uh, sometimes reach, sometimes it worked spectacularly well, sometimes it didn't, but at least he wasn't a milquetoast announcer. No, he wasn't. And he was fun to play off.

He had a really good sense of humor. He was, uh, he was that typical West, Western Canadian hockey loving, you know, that's who I am. It's hockey and family and that's my life. Not necessarily in that order, but, um, I really enjoyed working with Mike. Sometimes he'd drive me insane, but I'm sure there are days I would drive him insane. And I mean that never a bad word, like we never fought

or anything. Um, but, but sometimes he'd come in and I'd sometimes I thought he'd reached too far and usually it worked, I'll cede that. We came at sports from a different angle and I think together, I think it was okay. A lot of people didn't like the show. A lot of people loved the show, which is I guess the reaction you want. I don't think many people listen to the show on it. I think Mike's a funny guy.

I think sometimes he needs to, and I've only met him the one time when he came on the show, but I think sometimes he needs to get out of his own way. Yeah, that makes sense. Of all of the partnerships they've tried as update people, he and Jamie Campbell, to me, of all of the people who've been

through Sportsnet, work the best and it's not close. And there are other broadcasters there who are probably a little more polished. And I don't mean that as a negative, but these guys just, they had so much fun together and Toth was just Toth. They let, they let Mike be Mike. He was not willing to not try things.

He had to try things. He was very candid on this show about, uh, some mental health issues he was dealing with as well. Yes. He went, when Mike was down and it was, it was, especially in the winter, um, he'd come in some days and it was just, okay, how are we going to get through this one?

And that's where I would go out of my way to try and do anything I could to get him to laugh. And sometimes it did work. Sometimes it didn't work. But, uh, you know, I've worked with a lot of people who have gone through that same thing. And if you can get them in a good place, the show goes a lot better. There's no question about that.

Um, I just, you know, luckily better. There's no question about that. I just, you know, luckily I've never had to go through that. I got depressed for a little while at one stage of my life, but never facing on a daily basis what these guys go through. Well, there's two types of depression. There's the environmental depression, which is like my dog died, I just got laid off. Which is what I

went through at one point. Yeah, my mom died, whatever. You have all these different things you deal with and they make you depressed because they're environmental things. And then you have the clinical depression where it's unrelated. It's just a cloud that's over you for no particular reason, and that's where you need a good mental health advocate, be it a psychiatrist or whatnot, to help sometimes with medications and different therapies and things.

But that's a little tougher than, uh, you know, telling a joke and getting a smile. No, understood. But it's just to try and change whatever mood they're in. And it's, like I say, most of the time it wouldn't work. Sometimes it would, but isn't it amazing when

you were talking about a guy like Toth who tried different things and you talk about people in, in media or in the arts, how many of them are troubled, right? They have this, they have these demons and this is how they deal with it with through expression. And for Mike, I think it was just his outlet, um, to, to make people think in sports or to try and

do something that was so over the top funny, whether it worked or not. Some people found his stuff hysterical, some didn't. Um, you know, I'd look back at some of the stuff they did in Calgary when he was out there, just hysterical. Right.

And the stuff he did with Jamie, my God, he had me laughing sometimes. I think Mike is a brilliant guy. But again, with the depression issues that he's had, I didn't want to go in there first until you brought it up, but I didn't know Mike had done it. Oh, no.

Yeah. This is a good segue, because we talked off the top about how you don't want to pry when you're asking, how's Gord doing? And you don't want to pry. That's a health matter. Yeah. It's a personal matter for friends and family and whatnot.

So I'm going to ask you, this is real talk, I'm going to ask you a question, very non-specific, and you can tell me what you can tell me and whatnot. But CFL fans obviously see that Chris Schultz is not seen on these broadcasts. And Chris Schultz worked with you.

Long time. Long time. And I want to ask how it was working with Chris Schultz and is there any light you can shed on the apparent disappearance of Chris from television? I assumed this was going to come up at some point. I talked to Chris a couple of weeks ago and just said, you know, I'm getting all kinds of questions. What should I say? And he told me what's wrong, and I'm not going to certainly, you know, uh, breach that confidentiality. Um,

Chris has gone through a couple of health scares. Um, and, uh, the plan is for him and I don't know when, but he'd like to be back at least writing stuff for the internet, uh, by the end of this season. And the plan is for him to be back next year. Um, yes, yes. So, um, he's in a much better place now than he was a month ago, two months, well, no, three months ago, maybe. Um, so we'll, we'll find out. I just, he'll be okay. Hopefully he'll be okay. Part of me is glad we live in a country.

I think this is a big difference between Canada and the United States. I feel like in Canada, Chris Schultz can leave the airwaves to deal with a health matter. Yes. And nothing will be said because it's a private matter and there's no official, you know, he doesn't want to say anything. So nothing's put out there. And yes, people will often discuss amongst themselves like, hey, where's Chris?

You know, I haven't seen him on the broadcast in months. But that's kind of where it is, where I feel like in the U.S. you'll TMZ or something. We'll like have some someone at a hospital will sell some information. There'll be somebody camped outside of his house in Burlington. With Gord, too. The way we found out Gord passed was because of a statement made by the band. Yes. Okay?

Yeah. Think about that. That's how we found out he was sick in the first place. And it took hours, right? It was the night before he passed, right? What time was that released? Because I read around 8 o'clock in the morning. Yeah. Boom. It was like between night before he passed right? Yeah. What time was that released? Because I read around 8 o'clock

Yeah I was boom it was like between 8 and 8.30 sometime between 8 and 8.30 Yeah and you know so there's several hours at least at least 8 hours

I don't know what the time of passing was. You gotta wonder like when you you know whether it be Prince or Tom Petty

or whatever like the celebrities in the States who die it's like oh someone someone on the inside sort of

sells the information you know what I mean so it's like I'm, someone on the inside sort of sells the information. You know what I mean? So it's like, I'm kind of glad that, you know, we don't know that Chris can keep something like that private and when he's ready to talk about it, of course, then he can talk about it.

But it's great to hear that. He was pretty positive last time. We just exchanged texts about two weeks ago and he was very positive. Do you know if he's growing his mustache back? I hope not. I think that's the important, let's not bury the lead here. That was bad. It was good when he played, because there was an air of

evil with Chris Schultz, right? Chris Schultz... Speaking of Landry, who did a great Chris Schultz's mustache impression. Yeah, the mustache, I forgot about that. But yeah, Schultz, he was an awesome player. I first heard of him when I was in high school playing, and he was down, he'd just been drafted by the Cowboys,

or he'd just gotten out of high school, and he got drafted by the Cowboys. And I'm thinking, geez, a guy from Burlington going to the Cowboys. That was unheard of. Right. And I knew the Argos had drafted him. I was like, man, can you imagine if he played for the Argos, if he can start for the Dallas Cowboys as That was unheard of. Right. And I knew the Argos had drafted him. I was like, man, can you imagine if he played for the Argos, if he can start for the Dallas

Cowboys as a kid? And he ended up up here. And what I loved about Schulze, he was a typical offensive lineman because he would draw a line in the sand and that's the line of clean play. And then he would step over it and he would draw another line in the sand and then he would step

over that one as well. His nickname when he played, this isn't, I don't think, uncommon knowledge. His nickname was Sybil. Because he was about 15 different guys when he played. Right? And if you got angry Chris Schultz, he was

going to get kicked out of the game. And now you see, like he's a big lovable, you know, pile of former mustache over there. Right. He's the nicest guy in the world. Sam's mustache. And he is not the guy you would see play. He's just one of those guys that was a different

guy when he played football. All right. Before I forget, because since you work for TSN, I want Gino Retta's mustache back as well. Oh, we all do. On the subject. We all do. No disrespect to Schultz's mustache, Gino is

still the king when it comes to the mustache. Gino had the greatest mustache of all time. Absolutely. If there's a top 10 list, if they do a Sports Centre top 10 of all the mustaches in Canadian sports history, sorry, Lanny McDonald, you're a solid two. Gino Retta, number one.

Chris on Twitter wrote, and you've covered most of this, but Chris on Twitter wrote, I'll be interested in the TSN Mike, the Mike Hogan one, if you ask about his early days at the fan and his exit, which he was not happy about. I got fired. Who's happy about that?

So this is June 24th. No, no one wants to be fired. June 24, 2010. Yeah. Can you tell me a little, so it was PD Don Collins just didn't like the look of your face? Like what happened here? Collins came in.

Collins is the guy that rebranded the show five weeks earlier. It was the Mike Hogan show. We had talked about long-term goals for me at the fan and he was on board. Everything he said was positive. And then I was in Kingston on, I think he had a couple of days off or something. And I was in Kingston.

I got a phone call. Mike, I hate to tell you this, but we're going in another direction and you're, you're not part of that direction. Uh, which stunned me. Um, he had given me a complete vote of confidence. I had bought a car the week before, right? I was like, okay, I'm here for a while. This is good. Um, I was, I never had a contract. I was always, uh, an employee at, okay. So you're a permanent full-time employee. Okay. Yeah. So they just had, you know, I, I was always an employee. Okay, so you're a permanent full-time employee. Yes. I'm not at liberty to say what my

severance was, but they gave me, I will say, a pretty good severance. 18 years? Is that about right? I was there 18 years, and then I did another six months there because of the Argos. I stayed on to do play-by-play. Before you signed anything, you had a lawyer look at your severance to make sure that was right. Okay.

Cause yeah, you'll get, you'll, you'll get something there to tie you over. I'm not going to say anything, but yeah, I got, I was ultimately, I was pretty pleased with the severance. So they did, they didn't lowball me very, very much. I don't think, I don't know. I'm not a lawyer. Well, you know, that's tough, right? Because you know, if it's close, you might just sign to move on or whatever. It was what I put it, it was, it was about what I expected. Put it that way.

So I was, I was okay with it. But do you have in your, like, do you have a hunch or feel that they'll never tell you? Cause if they sever you, they don't need a reason to fire you? I've heard this. I'm not, I'm not going to divulge the reason. Somebody told me something and somebody who would have known and somebody

who I trust told me the reason and it was complete BS. It was ridiculous. And, uh, it was part of a, I was, there was what, I don't know how many went that day. It was, it was, uh, Landry and Stellick. Was that the DiGiulio and DiGiulio went to? No, she survived. It was, it was, uh, Stellick, Landry, me,

Rick Ralph, Brian Angus, Jack Armstrong. Um, was there anybody else? There were probably nine or 10 other people, but that was, it was a mess. Like the first time I got let go of the fan was when the, uh, the hockey lockout and baseball strike were happening and they lost millions and millions of dollars. And I was one of 13 who got let go. Um, and then they bought it in the fabulous sports, babe. I got a call from Nelson saying, Nelson Millman saying, this isn't working.

Would you like to come back? And it was like, of course. Um, so, uh, I never got the return phone call from the fan, but, uh, I was not happy about the reason given for my dismissal. Put it that way. Yeah. That's never fun. That's never fun. Who was I just chatting with about Rogers and Bell?

Oh, yeah, Kayla Gray is at TSN. Do you know Kayla? Yeah, of course. She was here last week. Yep. Very young, very good. Very energetic. Yeah.

You need to be in this industry, I think. Yeah, absolutely. To get heard anyways. But she was on and we were just talking a bit about, because she's on contract and we were talking about how she can't do a Rogers thing because she's doing the bell. We were just talking about it. I told her I was old enough to remember when there was

a bit of like back and forth. Like you could, there were examples of like a bell guy coming on a Rogers show. And then until a moment where there seemed to be this line in the sand where it just seemed to stop happening. I think the last guy who's going to be able to do that was Jonah Carey last year, who was double dipping. He was a paid insider for both stations.

I saw Jonah in Montreal about a year ago. I said, how the hell did you pull that off? Which, you know, I was happy for him. You know, from the fans' perspective, it was great to have him on as an insider from our perspective at TSN. Fantastic to have him on. So, uh, no, good for him. He's a, he's, he's a unique guy. And, uh, I just don't know if anybody will ever be in that position.

Uh, you know, it's kind of be one or the other. Uh, so Steve on Twitter, uh, he writes Mike Hogan should have a story about the Rogers Bell stuff. He hosted a show with TSN people when Rogers bought the fan and got changed to, then it got changed. No, when Rogers bought, sorry, there's a couple of dots here. When Rogers bought the fan, it got changed to Sports Netters. So what's that story about? Well, I used to do a show and we were owned by Telemedia at the time and it was the bullpen. And we had a rotating cast of co-hosts from the

11 to 1 portion of the show. So it would be like James Duthie and Vic Rauter and Darren Dutition and just roll all the guys through. And I really enjoyed it because there were different personalities every day. There are pros and cons to that. And then Telemedia sold the fan to Rogers.

Rogers wasn't really keen on having DSN guys on nonstop. So it just became the same show, but we went from that cast of characters to Brad Faye, Jamie Campbell, Mike Toth, et cetera, et cetera, coming in and co-hosting. So it was, you know, from my perspective, it really didn't change aside from the personalities.

Right, right. By the way, Brad Fay is coming on in a couple of weeks. Fay is awesome. His kid's name is Robbie, and Brad's a big basketball fan. I say you've got to call your kid Bobby because Bobby Fay would be the best name for a point guard in NCAA history. Bobby Fay with a three. That would be fantastic. name for a point guard in NCAA history. Bobby Faye

with a three. That would be fantastic. He's actually going to kick out the jams, which is unusual for a first appearance. He's a music fanatic. That's why, because he did a road trip with Cox. Damien Cox was on and he was telling about this road trip they went to see went to Detroit to see my brain's broken

right now. Bob Seger. Okay. Okay. My brain just warmed up there. Oh, that's fine. So yeah, so he's going to come in and talk about his,

his, his career, but then also kick out the jam. Faye, Faye is late to the Bruce Springsteen fandom, but he took it a notch. He's probably seen Springsteen a hundred times. Wow.

Like he's, he's become that guy. Yeah. Where he just try, if there's a concert he wants to see, whether it's in Canada, the U S Europe, he's just going to go. Cool. Wow. Like he's, he's become that guy. Yeah. Where he just try, if there's a concert he wants to see, whether it's in Canada, the US, Europe, he's just going to go. Cool. Yeah.

So you'll be able to get some Springsteen stuff out of here. All right. So that, that, that's, that's happening. Uh, one question from Jim Richards I teased earlier. So Jim Richards wants to know, why did you not go to the 25th anniversary of the Fan

590 reunion? Didn't want to. Is it? I think he's, and I don't know, maybe Jim's trying to stoke the fire here, but is it, because you had a bad breakup and you don't feel like. The divorce wasn't good.

Having nice with him. Dave Cadeau, the program director, had sent me a letter. Jason Rosa, the assistant, had sent me a letter and then another one and then another one. And Cadeau gave me a call. Dave used to be my producer back at the station. And he was like, come on. And I just, I told him the reasons why, and there were multiple reasons. And I just said, I don't think I'd have any fun. Uh, I'd love

to see Jim Richards. I'd love to see some of the guys from back in the day who went there, but, uh, just know it was, it was a bad breakup. I, Our high school reunion, our 35th for our year and 225th for our high school was last month. We had an Argo game in Hamilton, so I couldn't go. Again, a lot of people reached out and said, come on, come on. And there were a few people I would have loved to have seen. But for the most part, I hate small talk.

I really hate it. I hate going around at a party where you're partly in and partly out. And then you see people that you don't necessarily want to see, who are taking time away from the people you do want to see. And then you have to go over the same story 35 times. And I just, I'm so not into that.

So I appreciated it. And I heard from some of the people who went, they had a great time, but that ain't me. That ain't me. But if Dave Cadeau phoned up and said, hey, me and Jim Richards and Lance Kennedy and Max Prosick and Landry, we're getting together. Sign me up on that.

You're in a heartbeat. Jim added this line, I didn't know what it meant, so you're going to tell me what he said. Did he ever say howdy howdy Hogan here to start a show? When we started, did he ever say howdy howdy Hogan here to start a show? Oh, yes. When we started, like I said, we had no idea what we were doing. And I thought that everybody had a catchphrase, right?

And people would say, how you doing? I'd go, hey, howdy, how you doing? I used to say that just off the cuff. And I thought I'd open the show by just saying howdy. And I don't know how howdy became howdy. Howdy, howdy, howdy, Hogan here. And it was awful. Like I said, we had no idea what we were doing.

And yeah, that's embarrassing from back in the day. That lasted, I don't know, a month, if that. Jim remembers. Yeah, but Jim's a freak. I mean that with all love. Jim is one of the most talented guys in this market. He's brilliant. He's very good, isn't he?

He's brilliant. He really is. He just thinks about things differently. I'll give you an example of something I learned by listening to Jim Richards. I think he was at News Talk at the 10 and he was doing a late show. And I don't know how many phone calls I've taken

over the course of their career, but it was often. You know, I used to have to do an hour every day. That was kind of mandated. Nine to 10, I'd have to do calls. And at the time that I listened to this, a guy phoned up. And my reaction, if you got a bad call, was get rid of him. A guy phoned up Jim after the Super Bowl. I was in the car listening.

And the guy phoned up, he goes, what do you think of the Super Bowl? My reaction would have been, what would your reaction be when you hear somebody like that? Thanks for calling, hang up. Would it not be? Right, yeah. Jim not only got every thought out of this guy about the Super Bowl, he switched gears and started talking politics with him.

And it was one of the. This drunk guy. Oh, Zach, can't you hear? He became Bobby Moynihan's drunken uncle. That's right. That's what it was. And it was hysterical. I'm thinking, what kind of guy goes the other way instead of doing the normal radio?

Okay, this guy's drunk. How did he get on the air? Next caller. Next caller. Jim milked it for all it was worth, and it became an incredible 10 minutes of radio. There you go. Jimmy Richards. By the way, have you had any contact of Storm and Norman at all?

I haven't seen Norman. Oh, boy. I don't even want to get. I haven't seen Norman in years, boy. I haven't seen Norman in years. In years and years and years. I like Normie. Normie's a harmless guy. For the character that he played on radio, Norm's a pretty... Hammerhead alert! He's Gord Downie shy.

Right? And Gord Downie would turn it up on stage with all the gyrations. Norm would turn it up on air with the hammerhead alert and all of the stuff that he would do. Murder city dead things. And yelling at callers and getting into arguments with callers. And then Norm would turn off the mic and he'd

have a nervous laugh and would be very quiet. You go for a beer with him afterwards and he'd just kind of sit in the corner. Yeah, he's a very shy guy. Yeah, it's funny how some people can turn it on when the mic's on. You mentioned yelling at callers and stuff. So Shane Smith on Twitter says,

you used to get so mad when callers would say negative stuff about other hosts. And then he's got a quote from you, don't diss the colleagues. Yeah, that's accurate. The thing that bugged me is, if I was doing open line, somebody would phone me.

And let's just say Stelic and Landry were on. And a guy would phone up 10 minutes after they were off the shift. And he would say, Stelic's an idiot for thinking this about the Leafs. And it would be, A, why are you calling me? Call him. They do open line radio. Don't diss my colleagues to me. It's like, these guys are my family.

Don't come to me if you have a problem with them. Have the intestinal fortitude or the balls to phone them up and tell them yourself. I'm not going to deal with your problem with Gord or Don or whoever. And why do people personalize it? Like why can't you say this opinion is stupid? Why is it always the person who's stupid? You know what I mean? Well, that doesn't happen in politics now.

Ever. Like I've had a few. I possibly had some opinions you might who's stupid. You know what I mean? Well, that doesn't happen in politics now. Ever. Like I've had a few, I possibly had some opinions you might think are stupid, but that doesn't mean I'm stupid. Oh, I agree a hundred percent. And it's just, you know, at the end of the day, we cash a check, we go home, we hug our wife and we watch sports and we're paid to go

on and be opinionists. Like we're not journalists. We're not. We're opinionists. That's what we do. That's what we're supposed to do. So you are an opinionist. The main difference being you're allowed to have a bias.

Like, you're allowed to be biased. A journalist is not supposed to be biased. I'm not Rick Westhead. I'm not. Right. Rick Westhead is spectacular. By the way, Gino Reddick told me I looked like Rick Westhead. You do kind of.

You know what? You do. Absolutely. That was the first thing. He walked in. He goes, he went, holy Rick Westhead. Yeah. Have you not seen Rick what? You do. Absolutely. That was the first thing. He walked in and he goes, he went, holy Rick Westhead. Yeah.

Have you not seen Rick Westhead? Of course. I've only, of course I've seen him. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. He's got, we got the white hair thing.

Do you think? Do you think you have a, do you have a slight resemblance? Yeah, because blue eyed, white hair, handsome, white guy. Yes, that's it.

That's where I was, that's what I was looking for. That's where I was going. I got to get him on the show just so we can, we can do dueling. You should get him on. He was almost kidnapped by the Taliban at one point when he was on the news side.

He's still afraid to come in my basement. He's got stories like you wouldn't believe. I'll get him. I think that the two best free agent acquisitions in Toronto media in the last five years are both TSN coups. And I'm not just saying that because that's who sometimes pays my paycheck. The two guys are Westhead and Dave Poulin. I think those guys are just spectacular at what they do. And TSN's very, very fortunate to have both of them.

Westhead's reporting is just... Well, there's really no equivalent. And Brunt made this point when I was talking about Rick Westhead. It's not really a Rogers equivalent to what he does over there. And Brunt could be. Like if they released the hound with Brunt, who's a magnificent writer, and

with some of the connections he obviously has, he could be that guy. And if he wants to be reincarnated again to become that kind of reporter, boy, that would be spectacular. Not saying he's bad at what he does now, obviously, but Brundt is just such a good writer. I'd love to see him in that role.

I think you're right. On April 12, 2011, it was announced that you were joining, is it Matt Cause, I guess, you were joining on TSN 1050, hosting TSN 1050 Game Day. We joined, but we didn't work. There was a lot of confusion over that news release.

Tell me. We were both hired, but we were doing one show after another. So it was game day for like eight hours or six hours. I'd do three hours. Matt would do three hours. We'd only cross over at the end of, I think I went first. At the end of my show, I'd bring him on before his show. Yeah, right. That is a confusing,

the wording's a bit confusing. It feels like you're co-hosting or whatever. Yeah, that's the way it was written, but we never co-hosted then. We ended up doing some stuff later. Cause I met when he was doing play-by-play for the McMaster Marauders back around 2000. And his dad, Lou,

is obviously beloved uh, beloved in this town for those who like sports history. Um, so that's how I met Matt. And he was just that guy. He's just, he really, really is. I think Matt cause might be the one guy that everybody loves, uh, at TSN, you know, there's always petty jealousy.

Um, and there's sometimes personalities don't click at an office. You know, if you always petty jealousy. Um, and there's sometimes personalities don't click at an office. You know, if you're selling used cars, you don't get along with every salesman. Uh, but I think Matt Coss absolutely universally loved. I think, I think everybody who's met Matt likes him.

He's one of those guys. I hate those guys, but I like him. I know. I hate those guys too. I haven't met Matt Coss, but I have met Bob McElwitz Jr. Yes. And they have, well,

they still have a podcast. They have the podcast up and going again. Yeah. Right. I think they're recording today. I, but I have met Bob Mackiewicz Jr. Yes. And they have, well, they still have a podcast. They have the podcast up and going again, yeah. Right. I think they're recording today, I think. I worked for Bob Sr. twice. I worked for him in Ottawa. He was the program director there. And then he took over at the fan for a while.

While we were in the midst of that, okay, there's no baseball. What do we do? And this is when they had the Merrick-Strombow, what's the game? And I think Mackiewicz Jr. had a role with that as well. It was the Three Stooges overnight. Right. And they're still good buds today.

That's an interesting clue that came out of there. And by the way, I find that Mackiewicz Jr. sounds a lot like his dad. They have a very similar voice. Bob was awesome. Bob Sr. was very. Bob senior was, was very, very, very kind to me.

And it's, you're not going to be able to get me to say anything negative about Bob senior. Um, he was nice enough when I was in Ottawa, I was doing afternoons and still doing some reportings and kicking around and the, the magazine show.

And he walked up and he said, why are you not doing mornings? I said, I don't know. Cause I'm doing afternoons. And he said, that's going to change if you're up to that. And, uh, he immediately moved me mornings and, I don't know, cause I'm doing afternoons. And he said, that's going to change if you're up to that. And, uh, he immediately moved me mornings and, uh, I was very, very grateful for that.

It was a little bit of a bump in pay and prestige and all of that stuff. Um, but Bob, I used to like to talk radio with Bob. He's just a, he's a brilliant guy. We actually did a, uh, an independent venture for a while called jock and roll, uh, where we talked to athletes about music and musicians about sports. Which is a great idea because athletes are sick of talking about sports all the time and musicians are sick of talking about music all the time,

but there's a lot of crossover interest. It was a pain in the ass to do because every radio station we sold it to on the music side, we'd give them invariably once a week, we'd give them a song that they didn't play. So like if we sent it out to a rock station, we'd have Pat LaFontaine talking about going to see Elton John.

Right. And instead of the station going, oh, we could play Saturday Night's All Right for Fighting, they'd just say, no, we're not going to run that one. I was like, come on. Yeah, that would be tough to sell, right? Yeah.

Yeah, they're so niche targeted now with their genres and everything. And the best line was from David Lee Roth when he told us that, yeah, I used to jog. He said, I used to do some stuff. I used to jog and run quite a bit, but I kept spelling the ice out of my glass. Which is the one line from that entire year that I remember more than any other.

That's a great line. And if you ever, I guess you might have heard it, but if you ever got him to listen to, listen to him telling the story of why they had in their rider that they had no brown M&Ms or whatever the color was they banned. Did they do that just because they wanted to make sure people were reading the riders? Exactly. So they said basically they'd get to the dressing room and they would look in the bowl. And if there were brown M&Ms, they'd be, hey, guys, triple check everything.

Because if they didn't read this line, what else did they miss? Because they had a huge stage show and it was brilliant. And if there's no brown M&Ms, at least you know they took the rider seriously and they probably took every line seriously. I thought it was a fantastic story. People think they were assholes. No, not at all.

It was brilliant. It was brilliant. David Lee Roth, man. That was great. Okay, so what happened between Fan and TSN? Did anything interesting happen or did you just... I collected my severance, baby.

That's what you should do. No, I just... My now wife was living in Kingston. I was in Mimico, so it gave us time to spend together a lot, and then the timing was fortuitous. My severance was ending roughly the time TSN was starting. They needed somebody to do Argos. They needed

an Argo play-by-play guy. And then late they went, we need a couple of other hosts. Um, do you want to start doing the weekend stuff? So I was able to start doing that. And that eventually turned into evenings with Taddy and, uh, uh, know, doing fill-in here, there, and everywhere. So, which is kind of what I'm doing now, Freddie Freelancer. And, yeah, that's how that started. Which is smart to put you on because you're a voice that sports fans in Toronto are familiar with. So, if you're starting a new sports station, it makes sense to have. See, I'm with you.

sports station, it makes sense to have. See, I'm with you. And the one thought, the thing that I kept hearing and still hear it to this day five years later is you can't beat the legacy station, right? I hear this too, yeah. If you're going to fight a legacy station, why not promote the fact that you have a

legacy broadcaster there? I was there for 18 years. Like people who grew up listening to the fan at some point grew up listening to me. And I'm not doing that as a pat on the back. No, it's just a fact. I'm just saying. If you're the only show in town, the sports fans who listen to AM radio are going to hear you. And I'm one of the few guys who was there for 18 years. So at some point, whether you like me or

not is a different question, but you know who I was. So if you're going to battle a legacy station, I never understood why you wouldn't put a legacy broadcaster, which makes me seem really damn old, doesn't it? But in this market, 18 years, I guess, is something. Why wouldn't you promote that fact a little bit more? I never understood that. And then when you put me and Taddy on, I mean, for a generation, Taddy was the guy. Some Taddy questions. So I've become very friendly with Mark Hebbshire.

You might have heard of him. I'm not familiar with his work. I believe he and Taddy worked together at one point. To a point where Hebbsy might have the record for most appearances by somebody who's not like my buddy Elvis or like a personal friend or whatever. But Hebbsy's been, I think, five times and he's kicked out the jams. And I bump into him like I'll go biking at Hyde Park. And he'll be walking. And he's in the hood.

He's a bit more like Swansea, I guess. But close enough. We bump into each other quite a bit. And Hebsey. So I've had Hebsey on many, many times. I've asked him every story, every question about Sportsline. Because I loved Sportsline. I had an interesting conversation with Taddy. DMs and

Twitter, we went back and forth and I just nicely asked Jim Taddy if he wants to come on because I loved his show. In a nutshell, I'm not telling stories out of school, but in a nutshell, he doesn't have any interest in talking about the past and he seemed really cranky about the whole notion that

we would discuss Sportsline stuff and his past and stuff. So I just kindly said, okay, well, we won't do it, I guess. But what's he like? That's Jim. Jim is looking forward. And I think he's at the stage of his career where he doesn't want to be looked upon as,

quote unquote, the legacy broadcaster. He wants to remain current. He's doing that in Hamilton right now. The show sounds great. That was a part of his life. Kind of like me going back to the fan reunion, right? It ended badly, obviously. They killed Sportsline.

But you did this. Like, here's the difference. Okay, I understand not wanting to go to the fan reunion. Yeah. But you were a-okay with coming over here from Whitby and well aware that I was going to ask a bunch of fan questions. So that's the big thing. Where Taddy has no interest in talking about

the past. I think he would be better served instead of fighting this history that people my age love Jim Taddy from Sportsline. Yes, guy. You know what I mean? Instead of fighting that so hard, kind of embrace it, accept it

that yes, this is part of you. And yes, this is not what you're doing now, but people are going to want to talk about it. If you were to celebrate what he's doing now as much, if not more so what he did then, I think he might do it. But like, even work, even work. Well, that's Jim though. Like, I mean, like I would ask him, I wouldn't, occasionally we'd talk about Sportsline because you know, when you're working with somebody, we're trying to tell stories about how we did something a certain way.

And for Jim, he was, that was a big chunk of his life. Sure. And I think, you know, the most we would talk about sports line would be, what's Don Martin doing these days? Like I love Don's writing. And it would, oh, he's in Montreal, last I heard, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that would be it. Or if it was something that we're, sometimes Jim and I would have a different opinion on how to approach something.

And it wasn't an argument by any stretch of the imagination. It was just two guys with a lot of experience coming at a story angle from different angles. And that's when occasionally would say at sports, we did something like this at Sportsline. And okay, I did something like this in Ottawa or in Kingston or in Toronto or wherever. And there was no butting of heads really, but it was just, okay, how do we get to the same place? Let's call on our experience.

And that might be the most he would do. You know, he'd never talk about, oh, when we did the Hebsey Awards or when we did this and when we, never. And I worked with the guy every night and we'd talk broadcasting quite often. Never came up. It's a a bit of a shame in that um people are interested in i don't know a lot of it has to do with nostalgia but like you know when you're a teenager and they're like the

tsn and sports net we have today did not exist with this it wasn't the same like the sports line was important like was it 1130 or whatever? No internet. It was 1130. Like that's, we would go there for these two guys to bring us the hockey highlights and the Hebsey Awards and the Yes Guys. And they made us laugh. They made us laugh.

They never took themselves too seriously. No, they knew it was sports. You know, they weren't covering, you know, news. This was sports. And I just feel like this is something, having a conversation about that with Jim Taddy, personally would be a

joy for me, but I think people would love to hear that from Jim Taddy. Yes, guy. I'm glad he's doing great things at TSN right now. And of course, after Sportsline, he didn't disappear. He's still active. But that is a core part of Toronto sports media history.

Yep. Yep. I'll put in a word. Okay, no. Good luck with that one. I got to call Gilmore. Good luck with that one. Give me Taddy and Gilmore. Okay.

Now, at TSN, on April 5th of this year, so April 5th, 2017, you tweeted this. Oh, God. And this is good. We're going to dive into Argos here. So, have just been informed that the Argos will simulcast the TV broadcasts on radio this year, meaning I won't be the play-by-play voice any longer. So first, let's back up. When did you start doing play-by-play of Argos games? Then the fan lost the rights to AM640 In 2007 The fan got the rights back Was there 2007 to 2010 I did all of those years

Then the fan didn't want the Argo rights Because they had the major commit with the Blue Jays obviously And TSN got the rights It was the same year that I moved From the fan to TSN got the rights. It was the same year that I moved from the fan to TSN. So long story short, this is my 13th year. Not consecutively, but my 13th year doing the Argos. Great. So basically, as long as TSN 1050 has had the Argos games,

you've been the play-by-play guy. Yes. So, I mean, there's so much here to unpack, as they say in the business. And I got lots of Argos questions and a little story to tell when I got to see you and JJ. Yeah, so it was fun. Great.

It was great. And we're going to get to that in a little bit. But like, I mean, obviously they reversed this decision. Yes. So why did they reverse? Why, why do you think, was it just to save a couple of bucks?

It was, they hemorrhaged money last year. I think we, everybody knows that. When you look at the crowd, you know they're losing money. And one of, they had, they have a budget like any other business. And one of the ways they could save was not having us travel. The ratings certainly weren't spectacular. There's no secret about that either. So it was like, okay, we weigh Hogan, JJ.

We have to pay each of them for 18 regular season games. We have to pay them for the playoffs. We have to pay them for the preseason. So it was like 20, 21, 22 games. For the road games, we have to fly them out there. We have to fly them back. They each get a hotel room. They each get per diem.

We pay for their taxis on the road. Not worth it. And that's all it was. And then, my God, do I want to thank the Argo fans who voiced their displeasure with this. Because there was a little bit of a campaign. They were going through town hall meetings at the time with different groups of season ticket holders. And I've been told that that came up at every open mic. The people were just furious that they let me and JJ go.

So if you're an Argo fan who was a part of that movement, thank you so much. I'm going to make sure they all listen to this. Well, I'm going to post the link. But yeah, it was really sad for me when Jamie Dykstra called. And when I tweeted that out, there was a sad for me when Jamie Dinkster called. And when I tweeted that out, there was a second part to that tweet as well that said, I'm not trying to sound ungrateful. I just seriously want to thank people who helped me in the 12 years that I've been doing this.

And it was sincere. Like I didn't, I just said, oh, geez, that sucks. Well, I better let people know and I better thank those who were kind to me along the way. So that was one of two tweets. And I think if you see the first one out of context a little bit, it might sound like, oh, geez, they just fired me. It seems to me like you're essentially stating a fact. You don't really taint it with any kind of like, what a terrible decision or whatever. It's really just like, I won't be the play-by-play because the Argos have made a decision to simulcast TV broadcasts, which as just a guy who watches sports media stuff from home

and watches Toronto sports teams from home, to me it's for a major conglomerate like Bell Media, to me that's like waving a bit of a white flag. I can't imagine your per diem, is this Morden Steakhouse, three meals a day? No, it's the same thing I'm charging you, $4,000 a day. Well, even if you think about all those things you just described, like you've got to pay these two guys for every game,

and then they probably stick in at the dogs and the cats and the bottom of the plane or whatever. No, we travel with the team. We stay at very nice hotels on the road. There was nothing cheap about the trip. You weren't asked to bring a tent so you could camp. No, we're talking Hyatt Regencies and we're talking nice hotels. It just seems like whatever that ended up being, that dollar figure,

knowing what Bell Media does and what they make and stuff, it does feel like that's kind of the cost of doing business. It did. And it was, uh, you know, before I'm an Argo broadcaster, I'm an Argo fan. Like I've been an Argo fan since I was seven years old, which was at least eight years ago. And, um, I, it, it, I, one of the most confounding things being in this market since 1991 when I went to TR is why this brand of football doesn't work in this market. Like people will fly or drive down to see Ohio State play Michigan when 90% of the players on the field wouldn't get a sniff in the Canadian Football League. So you'll drive four hours to see an inferior brand of football. That makes no sense to me at all. None.

And yet people, oh, CFL sucks. I'm going down to see Michigan this week. That, that, that sentence on its own, if you're going for the football, like if you're going for the pageantry, God love you. There's nothing like going to Ann Arbor. Oh sure. It's like a event ceremony and all that.

It's 115,000 people. And it's, it's a great time. I'm not trying to diss the NCAA by any stretch of the imagination. I love watching college football. Like in a game between the, I don't know whose rules they'd use, but in a game between the Argonauts and the Michigan Wolverines. Okay. I'm glad you raised it, because I do this usually once or twice a year.

When somebody comes to town from a big school, I will say, your school this year, not when you played, you're not 25-year-old, you're 18, 19 years old, your top 10 team in the States plays the Toronto Argonauts. What's the score? And they ask the same thing that you brought up. What rules? I say, I don't care. Make it American rules. The closest score I have ever gotten was Argos by 23. It's usually in the 30s or 40s or more. That's the disparity. And that's not me saying that.

Because Ricky Ray is not an 18-year-old university student. No, he's not. Ricky Ray has seen film for 15 years, 16 years as a pro because he did a year with the New York Jets. These are men playing, would it be men playing against boys? So far and away, this is the second best professional football league. And I know you might even say it's the first best,

but let's... No, from a talent level. From a talent level, this is far and away, I don't know what third is, but the second best football league in the world. Yes, it is. And people don't support it. And I don't understand it. And the great thing about this is, but the second best football league in the world. Yes, it is. And people don't support it.

And I don't understand it. And the great thing about this is, if you're a football geek, and I happen to be one, we can watch a CFL game on Friday and then an NFL game on Sunday. And not only is it two different leagues, it's two different sets of rules, two different strategies, two different types of player. You look up here, and you were at a game, you saw some of the returners like 5'2", right? But they're all speed. We watched pinball here forever.

I was at his last game. 5'5"? I made a point to be at pinball's last game. 5'5 is being kind, probably, but the fact is he was exceptional in this league. Yes, and he's also a guy who had a cup of coffee in the National Football League, but it was like, okay, he's going to get killed. I didn't know he played. He was with Kansas City. But he

actually got in a game? He was a returner, yeah. Okay, I didn't know that. Not as a running back, not as a receiver. And then he came up here and just took over the league. I mean, the rules were perfect for him because the field is 15 yards wider. Is it marketing? Like, is this essentially, is this the big American machine behind the NFL?

Which, by the way, turns me off. Personally turns me off because I find it style over substance. Absolutely. And it's too loud and glitzy and American, if you will. But it's also a great sport. I'm not running down. I love the National Football League. I adore it. I adore the CFL. I'm not running down. I love the National Football League. I adore it.

I adore the CFL. I'm an OUA football geek. I watch, you know, before the games at 4 o'clock, I've got OUA TV up on the computer, up in the broadcast booth, watching McMaster play Laurier. I love it. I write for OUA.ca. We have two university football radio and TV show right now, KCU.

It sounds like you're a true fan of football. university football, uh, radio and TV show right now, KCU. So it's, it's, it's, you know, you, it sounds like you are a, you're a true fan of football. Yes, absolutely. And that's, what's so damn confusing about this. Um, you know, we, we, we're blessed here to have this and you know, the one, the other argument just drives me insane. Oh, we're Toronto. We want to hang out with the major metropolises. Have you been to Green Bay? Have you been to Indianapolis? Have you, you know, insert city here. And that whole notion of like, well, it's not the best league in the world holds no water when you realize

they're selling out the same field for a soccer match, which is, I don't know where it ranks, but let's say, I don't know, because I'm not a soccer guy. Eighth best league in the world? Eighth best league or seventh or eighth or whatever. I'm not a soccer guy. Eighth best league in the world? Eighth best league or seventh or eighth or whatever. I'm not a soccer guy.

Like if you played the World Cup final featuring Canada on my front lawn, I'd go in the back and have a beer by the pool. Oh, that's sad. I know. I hear you. I try. I've really tried over the years to like the sport.

It's not your cup of tea. But I am thrilled for soccer fans in Toronto that they've embraced TFC. I think that's a fantastic story. I'm glad TFC wins. I think it's fantastic. And I also appreciate the fact that this eighth best league in the world is attractive

to people. It sells out every game. Look at Atlanta, 70,000 people for a game. Seriously? Part of that, though, is brand new facility. Don't care. It's amazing. Absolutely. And? Part of that, though, is brand new facility. But yes. Don't care. It's amazing. Absolutely.

And it's exposing people to the sport. I'm thrilled TFC is having the support. It's not my cup of tea, but I'm not one of these people who goes, oh, soccer. I used to be.

And you don't root, you're not actively rooting for TFC's failure. No, not at all. I have very close, Elvis, okay, he's been on this show. He's got season's tickets

for the supporter section. He was there last. No, he wasn't there last. He watched on TV because it was in Atlanta, I believe. But they set the record and he's all over Facebook.

Like, no Toronto team has a record like this. Greatest regular season of all time, whatever, 690 points. And he's actively rooting for the Argos failure because he wants them

off their field, which is not their field. It's not their field. No, which in this fact, I know. It's a city-owned. I will call him out on next time he's on because this whole their field nonsense has got to stop. It's not their field.

It does. And the thing that drives Argo fans insane are some of the excuses as well. I mean, when you have Giovinco cramp up in the championship game saying, oh, there was a football game there last week. What the hell went through his mind when he saw the Winter Classic? Oh my God, I won't be able to play there again. It was an ice surface on the field. Come on, suck it up.

And that's why Argo fans get a little testy as well, because TFC guys were over the top. And I don't know why you can't play in the SEC. That was not a good look for Jovinko. And I know I said it wrong, Jovinko. But when he was cramping up and walking off the field in the biggest game of the season. And I felt sorry for the guy. Like, I watched the game. I did, because it was an event.

And I honestly didn't enjoy it all that much. But I watched it, because I thought I'd have to talk about it at some point. Right, because the Toronto team was in the finals of something. And when I heard the excuse, I was like, come on, really? So tell me though, as a, you know, you said you've been a fan since you were seven years old. Yeah. Uh, that's back when they were what, getting 40,000 into the city? Yes, absolutely.

I, I showed our, uh, he wasn't there the day you were there. He was there this week. He was, uh, one of the executive producers at, uh, at TSN named Phil Ballard. And he was down there hoppingpping the game on Saturday. And I showed him something. You can go online and look at 1983 Eastern CFL Final Toronto-Hamilton. And just look at the crowd. It's all you have to do.

Oh, this is nice. I played it for Jackie Perez when she was here. Together fight the foe, foe, foe. That, this is nice. I played it for Jackie Perez when she was here. That's all I got. I realize now, because I'm not a... I'm going to talk about my day there now, but I would put it like

maybe my fifth... It's not a big sport to me, football. I don't really love football. I used to watch a lot of football, but I fell out of love with it, and I've never come back. I'll watch the events. Like me with soccer. Right, exactly. You don't hate the sport.

I will watch NFL and CFL playoffs if I have an interest in the matchups or whatever, or if it's the finals. So Jackie Perez was on the show. She gave me this Doug Flutie bobblehead. I saw that. That's nice. I have a Doug Flutie, but it's a Bills jersey. It's not an Argos jersey. Okay, that's fine. But that Music City game still pisses me off.

It really, I think it was 2000, but the Music City Miracle game really upset me on a level I can't describe where I got so turned off the NFL I've never come back. Okay, so where am I going with this? That's what you get for being a Bills fan. You don't deserve good things. But that was a great time for the Bills, man.

Yeah. Man, those teams in the early 90s, oh God, it was hard not to be a fan. But here... I'll wrap this up real quick and say Jackie scored me six tickets to see the game against the Rough Riders. Nice. I'm so happy there's only one Rough

Riders now because that really was not a good look either for the SML. We went to the game and I got media passes. On your suggestion, you said get media passes and come up and see JJ and I. So me and my oldest, James, who's 15,

we basically had these passes so we felt we could go anywhere. So we found the outside stairwell and we just started going up, and then I saw the TSN room, and I said, oh, let's not go in there. They look like they're doing something in there. And then I saw the press room,

and then I saw, and then there was you, you and JJ, and I got to watch you call in the game, and I got to see your view, and I took some photos, and I took a photo of you guys, and very cool. Like, it was just a great day. Good, I'm glad you enjoyed it was just, it was just a great, great day. Good. I'm glad you enjoyed it. And you do enough of these interviews. Um, I haven't heard them all.

I've heard many and you should be exposed to this kind of stuff. So when you see what's going on, you can maybe ask more informed questions. Like you can see the way that, okay, that's what the, that's what the TV booth looks like. So if you ever get Glenn Suter or Chris Cuthbert, who's a local guy in here, you can say, okay, what was, or ask a question about something you saw in the booth, which I think makes this a better broadcast. No, it was great. It was just great to see you

guys do that, and I'm always curious how the sausage is made anyways, so I just really want to get, and of course, one of the big things, whenever you talk about, let's say the Argos had 12,000 people in attendance, and one of the big things whenever you talk about, let's say the Argos had 12,000 people in attendance and one of the big things they say is, oh, nobody wants to see the game

in this cavernous dome. Like, wait till we get this. Wait till we get to BMO. I heard this forever. And I don't know, I think you had like 15,000 last game, which is actually not bad.

I think you're second. And that building, it was loud. Like, that's, with the design of the building and with the overhangs, with the roofs, it holds in the sound. Right. It gets so loud. Yeah, that's it. The the, with the design of the building and with the overhangs, with the ruse, it holds in the sound.

Right. Yeah. The game looked great at BMO and it's great to be outside and it's great that you can. Did you have fun? I had fun. Even as a non-CFL fan. Yeah, yeah.

I had fun. It was fun. That's all I've heard. Last year, there were a couple of games at home that got way out of hand. Like Edmonton came in here and Winnipeg came in and kicked the crap out of the Argos. People were leaving at halftime because it was like 84-2.

And this year, all of the games have been competitive at BMO. And it's been loud. So what do we do? This is the second best attendance of the season at 15,000. And I went to Wikipedia because it's a different capacity for soccer than it is for football. Because they have the stands and the cell phone zone. Yes, those seats. I saw them hiding outside.

So I'm trying to remember the number and I can't remember, but it's over 20,000 people. I can't remember what the- I think it's 24 for football and 26 maybe for soccer. Something like that, okay. So, you know, we could talk about 15 and this is progress and there's a positive 15,

but 15 in a beautiful stadium for a playoff team that holds 24, in the second year, it's worrisome. And I don't know. I mean, do you have any idea what can be done? Or is this just some stupid mindset where the people... This is my new thought on this, okay? So TFC, I've been to the game. A bunch of people walk.

Literally, young people will walk from Liberty Village to this game, okay? Going to the game, I took the GO train to the Argos game. Beautiful. 30-second walk. It's awesome. It couldn't be more convenient. And I took the Mimico station. And by the way, the ride was like five minutes or whatever.

It was ridiculous. Ridiculously convenient. Normally, I'd bike, but I had the whole family, so I couldn't bike. But so the television ratings, I'm all over the place here, but the television ratings for CF, so I couldn't bike. But so the television ratings, I'm all over the place here, but the television ratings for CFL are very strong. Yes, even in Toronto. So there are fans.

I don't know, like I never see the breakdown by city or whatever. You have to assume Toronto has a lot of Argos fans, but they don't seem to want to go to the game. And I wonder if it's because the Argos fans are, I want to say 905ers? Is it a good contingent of 905ers who don't want to go to the game? I don't even know where they're... I've heard that it used to be, and now the demo has changed

where there are more season ticket holders who are 416. I don't know. I haven't seen the breakdowns. Jim Hunt had the great line, the late, great Shakey, who used to say, the CFL is like pornography. Everybody watches, but nobody goes or nobody admits it. Everybody, everybody watches, but nobody admits it. And that

was, it was a perfect line. And, um, the television numbers are strong. I remember we, we used to get daily breakdowns. Uh, I don't know why we did, but at TSN, they would send out the TV breakdowns and it would go by market. And I showed people this and they had to look five or six different times. The Argos were playing the Ticats on a Monday. There was a Monday night football game at the same time. There was a baseball playoff game at the same time. And the Argos won the night in Toronto. Everybody would lose a bet on that one. Everybody looked at it and said, wait, they beat the NFL and they beat a major league playoff game? I think it was a national league game.

And yeah, that's not nationally. That's in Toronto. Right. And people were just, their jaws were dropping. Right. So if I knew how to fill up the building, I'd buy the team. Of course. If I had a suggestion, the one thing you want to do is make it look like it's a fun thing to do.

Every ticket on the East stands, I charge 15 bucks. Just go, fill it up, see what happens. And if you get people going. What if you piss off all the guys who already bought the seasons? You know, this has been discussed. And as you know, we have seasons. The diehards just want more people in on the party. And they'd say, if this is me paying to keep the Argos alive, this is almost like a charitable contribution you don't get a tax refund for.

It's like, this is my thing. For the greater good. I want to see the Argos thrive. You find a price point that's good for you, and you pay it. And if it means, okay, for a couple of years, you empty out the other side. You want that side filled because that's a side TV shooting. And $15 a ticket. Fill it up.

And then if people really enjoy it and want to go to the other side, maybe that's the cool side or whatever, maybe they spend a little bit more. Or if you start selling that out, you know, move it up to 20 bucks, which is still a very cheap ticket. And if there's 10,000, 12,000 seats on that side of the field, there's an extra 60,000 a game or whatever.

So I mentioned Jackie gave me six tickets. Well, I learned shortly thereafter that my 18-month-old doesn't need a ticket. Nice. So now I have an extra ticket. I hate to say this. You couldn't give it away, could you? I could not give it away. I could not give away a ticket. And then I'm like, well, you know, you can come. You'll be

sitting with me. Maybe that's why I couldn't get it away. Yes, who knows that? You could take the go with us or whatever. And then we had a family pass on the go, I think, or something. So it wasn't even going to cost any money there. But I could not give an Argos ticket away, which made me sad. But this is the reality that they're facing. And 15,000 might be the,

and I don't know what the playoff game will look like. That's where I'm very curious. They've got three weeks to sell it. They started selling them last week as we record this. And they've got a full week with a buy. The Argos have their last game in BC. They've got that full week, and then they've got a week before the game. As we do this, we don't know if they're going to be hosting the East Final or the East Semi-Final, so they could have another week to sell the tickets. So what part of November is this playoff?

It will be the second last week of November or the second week of November on a Sunday. Okay. This will be very telling because it's a playoff game. This is a, you know, lose, get out of here, win, go on. Potentially go to the Grey Cup. Right. If it's East Final. Where is the Grey Cup this year?

Ottawa. If you want to go to a great CFL experience, go to Ottawa. They sell it every game. Old Lansdowne Park, the area around it has been sort of energized, and they have, I don't know, 10 bars outside the stadium. So you can go there and just party, and that's what people do. Like a lot of them are hammered by the time they get to the game

because they're going to the bars. They'll go to the game, and then, oh, we'll meet you at X bar after the game. And it's fantastic. It's a great night out. And it's cheap. It's a relatively cheap ticket. And people have bought in. They're having a blast with this whole Red Blacks thing.

Yeah, yeah, I saw the Grey Cup last year. Can't get a ticket. They're all sold out. It's a blast. And you think, this is the same province as Toronto? Hamilton's a little bit in decline because of the season they had this year, so they're not getting the walk-up. Games in Hamilton are a blast.

Go to Labor Day. Tell me that's not fun. I just don't get this market. I wish I did. I don't. Yeah, and I don't have any ideas either. Otherwise, I'd buy the team too. Here's a good idea.

Here's a good stat. Doug Flutie is here. Doug Flutie, maybe the best player to ever play in the league. Playing a game that he was built to play on this big field and, you know, being able to freelance, he used to get hell from his coaches in the States if he freelanced, like, I mean, badly. He'd make stuff up at the huddle. He said, instead of doing this, do this.

Okay. And he'd run it and invariably it'd be a touchdown. He was so much fun to watch up here, even more so than he was in the States because of the dimensions of the field, the rules, et cetera, et cetera. I tuned in every week to watch Doug Grady as quarterback for the Argos. Of course. So he's here for two years. Fantastic.

Arguably the best team in CFL history for two years. Yeah. He leaves to go to Buffalo. Attendance goes up. Figure that one out. Yeah. That makes no sense. Why wouldn't you go?

It's like when the Blue Jays had Roger Clemens. Guy went back to back, saw Young Awards. There was no discernible difference in attendance when Roger Clemens was pitching or Woody Williams was pitching. Baffling, isn't it? Baffling. But that's the market in which we work. It makes no sense.

Yet the Leafs could be last place in the league and they will sell out and there will be demand. Yep. For a hockey country. Do you think I'll ever have a problem giving away a Leafs ticket? No. And the problem is there's such demand for them and there's a fear if you're a season ticket holder of giving up your tickets.

Imagine if you were there for the Salute Gate in Kessel and I've had it, I'm not going to watch. And you gave up your season tickets three years ago. And they win the lottery. And you gave up your tickets and now you're watching what's going on oh my

god and you know there are at least a handful of people who are like that right now wow by the way the the guy on twitter who said you're the best play-by-play guy by far that's nice russ lake so he has i don't know russ but he has tweeted that's very kind thank you russ if you're listening that's what do you think you're the you if you're listening. What do you think? You're the media guy. I don't listen to a lot of Argos games, as I mentioned. I'm not a football guy. I drove in from Whitby.

But I think you do a great job and I can't imagine hearing an Argos game and not hear it in your voice. That's nice. Thank you. I think TSN or Bell Media, whoever makes these decisions, when they decided that they will spend the bucks and keep a radio-only broadcast, I

think that was a smart decision. By the way, do you get to go on all the road games or just some of them? Until this year. We're just doing home games this year. Oh, okay. Sorry, and that's... Maybe I didn't explain myself.

There's a lot here going on here. We're just doing the home games this year. They were going to save everything by not having us do any. I guess I didn't finish the story. That's right, we're back. And they brought us back to do the home games this year because they don't have to pay for the flights and the hotels and the per diems and stuff like that.

And sometimes there are conflicts, right, with Leafs or Raptors. Right, right, right. Who are obviously going to get the priority on the radio station. And then you guys become web only, right? Yeah. And that's, you know, I thank God to the people who listen, and I know there are some that want to get the Toronto perspective.

And the diehards will sync up our broadcast with TV and then re-watch the game to listen to Glenn or Rod or whoever's calling the game with Ford or Suter, just to get that extra perspective on what's happening. So those are the diehards. So you've got a core. There's a core there.

And I know my buddy Derek Welsman, who I sometimes refer to as Blind Derek. But him, for example, there's a diehard group just like him that are very loyal and are going to go to the games and they love the product and they're Argos fans through and through. There's not enough of them, unfortunately.

What seems to be lacking are the casual people who aren't diehards. Like you. We need more of you to go out to games. I'm not saying that in a condescending way. I'll own it because I had a great experience with complimentary tickets. I didn't pay for the tickets.

How much would you pay to... Honestly. This is the problem. So after the game, I talked so far. There's two kids. They don't count because they don't know what's going on. The three-year-old and the 18-month-old. So now you're down to...

Now we're down to four of us, okay? And so I talked to my daughter, who's 13, and my son, who's 15. And my son, who's 15, is a massive, enormous hockey and basketball fanatic. But not football, baseball, not football or baseball. No, not even a little bit.

Uh, it's a bit of bone. The only, he's the sweetheart, but when the, I wanted to, we watched the, the Leafs lost and the Raptors won big.

And then it was time to watch game seven of Yankees and, uh, Astros. And my son wanted to go to a different TV to see if he could bring in some West Coast NBA game two. But I mean, think about that for a minute. This is a game seven to see who goes to the World Series, Yankees and Astros, and he has zero interest.

The truth is, I asked my son about the Argos. Was it fun? He said he finds football very boring. And then I said to my daughter, do you want to go again? And my daughter said she found it boring and was not interested in going again. Sort of. She had already done it. Yeah.

So she and my two teenagers had already gone because Daddy, I guess, made them. So they went and they were there for the day because I made them. Don't want to go again. They don't want to go again. So my wife's up for uh she's not a big sports fan but she likes events and she likes seeing interesting things and live events did she have fun yes she had fun uh I think she would go with me so now we're down so there's really two of us going now so there's six of us now because two are little they don't count and what's your price point and all yeah I'm trying to think I'm thinking uh 20 bucks okay I would pay $20 to see a game I was interested in.

Having said that, I probably would... I mean, I haven't done it yet. Like, you know, proof's in the pudding. Like, when I coughed up the $30 for that poster of Gord, I couldn't have given that $30 away fast enough. And I haven't coughed up... The last time I excitedly bought a ticket was when I learned Pinball Clemens

was playing his last game as an Argo, and I had to be there. That's the last time I had to go get a ticket and see an Argos game. So I don't know. This is just the truth, which is there's a lot of work to do. Oh, absolutely.

Not only am I a sports fan, although I'm not a big football guy, but I have a super soft spot for the CFL. Because it's so Canadian and because it's going up against this huge, loud American marketing machine. Kind of like the Tragically Hip is what you're saying. Kind of like the Tragically Hip, where it would break my heart. I would be so sad if I learned the Argos were done. Oh, get in line.

And that's, I get pissed off with the Elvis's of the world because I love going to TFC match. There's no comparison, by the way. When I went, when I go to a TFC game

in the supporter section versus that Argos game, where the Argos game was great, but we were on our feet chanting and stomping our feet and singing the entire 90 minutes of the TFC match. But that's, you know,

that's why I'm envious of TFC and the way that they've done it. However they got it to work, it worked. But live it worked. But no one's watching on TV, right? Agreed. But the people who are going are having the time of their life. Right. And I just have this, you know, whenever I go in and I see the crowd half full, I go,

eh, damn. And then every once in a while, like when you see the when hamilton's in town you get four or five thousand people come down for the hammer and it's it's you're up around 20 and i'm thinking if they could get five more somehow some way or even you start to get into the 20s where you don't see big chunks of empty seats on the other side when you guys could get 20 in there i think that imagine how loud it would be if it would look for 14? Yeah, I think it would just be one of those things where... In Toronto, you're right. Toronto's weird. There were years where nobody was going to Jays games

and then in 2015, bang. Everybody had to be there. Houston would be there on a Tuesday night. There'd be 4,000 people there. Yeah. I know. And there was a lot of chatter about will the Jays survive? And then next thing you know, in 2015,

I'm at a game against the Yankees and it's not always a full house, but it had very similar ambiance, not quite like the TFC, but you could feel the buzz in that building. The amazing thing about the Jays for me is the merchandising that they do. You can't walk anywhere

and go four blocks in the summer without seeing a Jays hat, T-shirt, jersey. It's amazing how much merchandise they sell. Glad you bring this up. So I bike the waterfront trail every day. So now you're on your bike, you kind of observe things. I do it every day. I observe it.

You're right. There is more Jays stuff out there than anything else. There's not a lot of TFC stuff, but you do see TFC jerseys and hats and stuff out there. A few more Leafs things now. Yes, you do see a few more Leafs things now, now that they have hope. And you always see a little Raptors stuff, nothing like the Jays, but some Raptors stuff. But you never see, I never see Argos stuff.

I've seen a little bit, but not much. Maybe my eye is just trained to look for that stuff, but I still don't see it often. But the good thing, and this has been brought up many times, the people who are going to the games are all jerseying up or wearing something. Right. It looks like a Jays crowd, not by size, obviously, but people who are going to the games are donning the colors. Right.

So it's, like you say, it's a small group, especially in a market this size. But it's been put to me outside of the market as well that Argo fans are the best fans in CFL. Does Saskatchewan know that? Yes. It's easy to be a Ryder fan in Saskatchewan. Right. Because if you go into work on Monday morning, everybody's talking about the game. If you're an Argo fan, you go into the office on Monday and say,

hey, did you see what Ricky Ray did on the weekend? Who? Right? That's what they're battling here. But it's like the beer commercial, right? Those who like it, like it a lot. Right. And that's the way it is with the Argos and

the CFL is just, they need to expose the product to more people and maybe get people who like you go down to a game and have a good time, figure out a way to get you to go back. That's the problem. And I don't know how to fix that. No.

And I think we should change the channel only because I think we could spend hours trying to figure out, like, why can't we get 20,000 at BMO to watch an Argos game? But I think it would be very telling to see the very first, so the very first playoff game in BMO history, Argos playoff game in BMO history. So Mike G on Twitter says, do the Argos stand a better chance against the Red Blacks

or the Western crossover team in the CFL playoffs? As of today, as we record this, Brad Sinopoli, one of the top receivers in the league, gone for the year. We found that out from Ottawa. So hopefully Ottawa knocks off somebody from the West in the crossover. That's not to disrespect the Red Blacks at all, but that's a pretty good chunk of their offense. And the Western guys, whoever's going to cross over,

there's not a weak team over there. Maybe BC, but they're not going to get into the playoffs. So whether it's Saskatchewan or Edmonton, it's not going to be an easy game either way. I don't know. It's playoffs. It shouldn't be easy. All right. David Zed says, what's Hoagie's favorite Argonaut player

past and present? First favorite player way back in the day was Bill Simons, who was with the Green Bay Packers. Hurt his knee. He's taller than I am.

He's like 6'3", was probably around 220 as a running back and used to run guys over. And I've gotten to know him subsequently through my broadcast partner, Peter Martin. And I guess I should say my favorite former Argos are Jeff Johnson, Pete Martin, Chris Schultz,

Sandy Nunziata, Lance Chomack, Mike Eben. Who else did I do color with? I played with the Argos. But I'm glad you mentioned Jeff though, because when I went to see you call in the game, Jeff's beside you. Jeff is a, he made me look very tiny. Well, he's short. He's like 5'9".

He's got a, like he's just built like a. Yeah, he's a crap house. He's 5'9 tall and 5'9 wide. Right. And he used to run like a 4'4 40 and would hit guys and play specials and just be that guy. And a nicer guy you won't meet. Fantastic family guys.

Like he's got four little ones running around and, uh, is just like the busiest guy in the world and is as passionate about Argonaut football as anybody I've ever met. Um, he hurts when they lose. He is overjoyed when they win or come up with a big play. Loves the sport.

If a team they're playing, like they were playing Winnipeg, and Dressler makes a nice play, he's as excited for the play as he is for the Argos winning. He just wants to see big plays. So he's that guy, and I'm thankful he's in the broadcast booth because I just love the guy on and off the air. Arooj Islam had a question that we already addressed. I'll read his question because he took the time to send it in.

I am curious what he thinks about future of Toronto as a CFL market and how the team will cultivate new fans in a city where the team barely registers on the sports landscape anymore. It's important that the CFL stay in Toronto for this reason and maybe this reason only. If you are trying to sell the sport to advertisers on your broadcast, and if you don't have the Toronto market, good luck with

that. Right. So it's very important. Because this is the capital of the universe. This is, well, it's just, you know, it's a different rate if you're not national, right? If you're not going into Toronto. I don't even think this is, I think they'd

have to prop it up artificially. You know what I mean? Like they have to have a team in Toronto if you're going to have a Canadian football league. If you are Great Lakes Brewery and you want in on the CFL, why would you get in on the CFL if they're not in Toronto when that's where all the people are? Right?

That's, that's, that's the main reason. So it's imperative that the CFL is here. I think it will be here. I just don't know how they stop, you know, and turn this thing around. I'm hopeful. I hope, you know, Michael Copeland, the president and CEO is all about the process and he knows it's not going to be a quick fix

and it's getting, you know, trying to find more guys like you who go down there and have a good time and maybe want to come back once a year. And see if Rocket Ishmael wants to make a comeback. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, he was a little fast. And I know the Flutie years were great,

but like you said, it wasn't a great attendance, right, at the Flutie years were great, but like you said, it wasn't a great attendance, right, at the Flutie years. But when John Candy, like that whole McNall, Candy, Gretzky, with Rocket, there was a moment there where they were prime time. Like the Argos were a big effing deal. It was fun.

My favorite story about that era, and I didn't cover the team back then. Man, I would have loved to. When John Candy owned the team, if the Argos were playing, say, on a Friday night in Regina, he got on his flight, either fly from Toronto or from Hollywood, up to Regina on the Tuesday. Do every radio station, do every TV station, do every newspaper, everything, just to pump up that team. He'd stay, he'd watch the game. At the end of the game, he'd go to Adam Rita, the head coach, and say, who are your four

best players? And he'd go, him, him, him, and him. He goes, okay, boys, my flight. Let's go. There were times that John Candy would fly back to Toronto and think of all, you know, the Learjet and all the free booze going, et cetera, et cetera, on the way home. Players just in awe of sitting there with John Candy. There were times that Candy would land in Toronto, fill up the plane, grab another pilot, and go back to Los Angeles.

Wow. Like, that's how much he loved the art. He loved the Toronto Argonauts. And if it's cool enough for John Candy, it should be cool enough for you. Absolutely. Absolutely. Oh, by the way, we just touched on this. By the way, I'm going a little long. I hope you don't

have anything. I'm fine. I got nothing to do. I got a lot to say, but quite barely. Bell Media, who owns TSN, also owns the football team. Do you have an opinion on the fact that some think the Rogers outlets are paying less attention to the CFL

as a result? Oh, that's absolutely true. Ask me how many times I've seen somebody from the Fanner Sports Network or Nargo practice this year. How many times? Zero. Nada. Not last year. I'd see Justin Dunk occasionally, but he's not there anymore. They just don't cover it.

If there's a pregame day before, they just don't show up. They don't care. I can tell you without speaking out of school, and I won't tell you who the people involved were, that an executive from Rogers told an executive from the Argonauts, not this current crop, obviously, but said that we're better off if you guys aren't around because they were worried about the Blue Jay numbers at

the time. And this was before the Blue Jays took off. Right. Before the hype train of 2015. Yeah, but that's how Rogers feels about it, just being honest. We were bumped. My last game calling play-by-play on the fan was the Eastern Final in 2010,

and we were bumped to internet only for game four of the Raptors series, a season, game seven, something like that. That's how they feel about it. Necessary evil. And I think the big thing here is, I mean, a lot of our teams are owned by both Bell and Rodgers. But then there's a couple of teams that aren't like that.

The Blue Jays are only owned by Rodgers and the Argos are only owned by Bell. But where Rodgers seems to get away with ignoring the CFL, TSN would never be able, at least not in 2015, but the TSN could never get away with ignoring the Blue Jays TSN would never be able, at least not in 2015, but TSN could never get away with ignoring the Blue Jays. No, not at all. You know, they would be, you can't ignore the Blue Jays, but it seems like we, I guess, Toronto, we seem to allow Rodgers to ignore

our CFL team. I know the CFL has talked to them about that. I don't know to what extent, and I don't know how high at Rogers, and I don't know how high at the CFL. Randy Ambrose is the new commissioner. My suggestion to Randy would be do whatever you have to do in this market to get Rogers on side. Get Sportsnet on side. Get the Fan 590 on side. I don't understand the concept of either A, not covering something because you don't have the rights, or B, changing your editorial

because you have the rights. I've been critical of the Toronto Argonauts often on field, off field as well. I've had an ownership group and a general manager try to get me removed from the Argo broadcast because I was being honest. I know the Blue Jays hated me for a long time. The Leafs hated me for a long time because I wasn't going to suck up to them.

If I saw something wrong on the ice or something wrong on the diamond, I'd say it. It was nothing personal. The one thing that I learned very early was never say anything on the air that you wouldn't say to somebody's face. So if I'm critical of somebody, it's not a personal thing. I think they're doing something stupid on the playing surface or not performing well. I think that's our job, isn't it? Right. Right. By the way, try to get that sentiment through to Twitter that don't tweet things you wouldn't say to somebody's face. There are a lot of people on social media who need a hug. Right. Seriously.

A lot of them. Especially the trolls. Like, come on. Yeah. You know, if Bell and Rogers could figure out how to own, you know, several professional sports teams together, you know, I think that's the only answer is you got to have, somehow you have to get Rogers in as an owner. I don't know.

And they want nothing to do with it. I don't. I just, I don't know. You know, it's too bad. I know they don't know. And they want nothing to do with it. I don't know. It's too bad. I know they don't... But it probably has as much to do with the exclusive broadcast rights belonging to TSN than anything. But who cares? It's still an event.

I'm with you. How do you ignore an event when between 500,000 and 750,000 people are watching on a regular basis? This is why I hate the cable companies owning the sports teams. This is why I hate that. And we have the same problem.

When Brunt's in here and Cox are in here, I'm asking about favorable treatment of the Blue Jays. I'm asking Brunt about his documentary on Shapiro and stuff. And he's throwing back at me. He's telling me, you don't think TSN guys are holding off on certain things that are negative to the CFL? He's like, this is the way of the world in 2017. So it's like, accept it or tune out. I don't subscribe to that theory, but it is what it is.

I think it's awful. I think it's terrible for the industry and for the sports involved. I think that's Bush League, and I think it's incumbent upon broadcasters to have some balls. Full disclosure, when I was at the fan, I was only once told about editorial comment, and it was for the Bills in Toronto series. And it was, we need you to talk more about that. I was never told talk up the Blue Jays or talk down the Blue Jays or talk down the CFL.

Personally, any of my dealings, the only time I was told to go out and sell something was the Bills and Toronto series. That was it. I remember when Wilner was suspended without pay, and he's been on that few, Mike Wilner's been on it a few times. Wilner's a great dude. I know a lot of people. He kicked out the jams too, so if you're looking for inspiration.

Yep. Was it like the Archies? No, it was more like Duran Duran. Okay, there it is. Was it like the Archies? More like Duran Duran. Okay. But he got suspended without pay because of negative comments he made about Cito Gaston, I believe. And they never gave him an official reason. They don't say, hey, go home.

But they don't say this is because of what you said about Cito. So sometimes I don't think it necessarily comes down in the form of a memo from head office or whatever. It's sort of like an unspoken sentiment that don't bite the hand that feeds. And it's terrible. Terrible. Terrible. It is. For a fan's perspective, it's terrible. If somebody wants to go on TSN

and rip the Argos or rip the league, as long as it's something you can back up, go and do it. I don't know why. As long as you're generating discussion. And again, if you want to do that and open up the phone lines and have people go in and debate you or have somebody in the studio with you debate you, I think that's very healthy. But my God, I hope guys aren't holding back.

Maybe they are. And at TSN, I've never. I'm sure some are. I've never been told to bite my tongue about something. I've never been told, hey, go out and rip the Blue Jays today. Hey, go up and, you know, stroke the Argos today. I've never been told that at TSN. And again, only once in 18 years at the fan, and it was the Bills in Toronto.

So I don't know if that's changed down the road or not. I don't know. Here's a good question from The Voice of Reason. He says, would a top flight team like my alma mater, Western University, stand a chance in the Ivy League? Probably. It's a pretty good comparison because, what the hell is a kid's name? I'm having a major brain fart right now. But he played, he was a rookie running back at Western like five years ago.

Big kid. Went to the NFL eventually, but he went to Yale. He did the crossover and was equally effective in both leagues. It's pretty close if you're looking at that conference. I mean, if Western plays Michigan, no. Because all the great players from our Toronto high schools are given scholarships to play for the Michigans and et cetera. So how can... But that said, there are now more people

who are making an honest decision to stay here because it's cheaper to stay here for one thing, even if they get a partial or full ride down there, but you're now able to get scholarships here in Canada. Right, so maybe I'm dating myself. Well, a lot of people don't realize that. Our top tier, because I went to power

and we had a very good football team and there were certain, you know, some men ended up playing. John, was lot of people don't realize that. Our top tier, because I went to power and we had a very good football team and there were certain, you know, some men ended up playing, John, was it John Porchenko? We had some players who ended up playing for like Michigan and stuff like that. Yeah. And it was, yeah, how can you compete with the schools that are taking your best Canadians?

Tyler Varga, by the way, is the kid's name I was trying to think of from Western to Yale. And then he went to the Indianapolis Colts and then a rookie, he was returning kickoffs and major concussion. Good. I'm glad you came up with that name because I was never to think of from Western to Yale. And then he went to the Indianapolis Colts and in a rookie, he was returning kickoffs and major concussion. Good. I'm glad you came up with that name because I was never going to come up with it. Oh, no. It was going to drive me nuts.

But, you know, you look at the top. The top kids are still going down to the States. You know, if you were to look at the top 10 recruits this year, they all ended up going to the NCAA. And why wouldn't you? I mean, you get a chance to play in front of 50,000 people. And that's the path to the NFL, if that's your goal. There are still, I think there are like eight or nine guys at the beginning of the season

from CIS schools, from youth sports schools who are in the NFL. So it's not as rare as it used to be. It's still not big numbers, but more and more guys are getting there. Laurent Duvernay-Tardif is starting for Kansas City out of McGill. I mean, there are some neat stories like that down there. Laurent Duvernay-Tardif is starting for Kansas City out of McGill. I mean, there are some neat stories like that down there. Brian, who sponsors this show, Brian Gerstein. Hi, Brian. And we're leaving football for this question.

Hang on, though. But it's Brian Gerstein. You can call Brian at 416-873-0292. Brian, that's perfect. You should do the voiceover for the end. Replace Brian. I can be bought. What are the chances of seeing the Montreal Expos playing the Toronto Blue Jays? And if so, when would they play in the same division? So he wants to talk about his Expos,

his beloved Expos. My Expos too. When I was a kid, that was by far my favorite sports team of any of the sports. I was baseball first, second, third, and fourth. And the Expos were the team. And I loved the Dodgers as well because it was kind of like the Expos. And when the Expos were out in mid-August, I needed somebody to kind of cheer for.

But the Expo, I was a diehard Expo guy. And I don't care where they play as long as they play. Ideally, it would be take over from Tampa and get into the American League East. I think that rivalry would be spectacular. From my standpoint, it better be a damn National League team because I don't like the DH. I'd love to see them go back to the National League East personally, but I think for the sport, it would be fantastic if, let's say, Bell were to buy a team in Montreal. You'd have the Bell-Rogers rivalry, which would be kind of like

the Carling O'Keefe-Molson rivalry with the Nordique and the Habs back in the day. You'd get one spin on one network. You'd get one spin on the other network. I think that would be a lot of fun. And you know what it's like. Leaf fans going to Montreal. TFC fans going down to watch the Impact play TFC.

They have a blast when they go down there. Argo fans that go down to Montreal always have fun for the Argos and Alouettes. So if you could get a Major League Baseball team in the same division, that'd be a blast. Well, I hope they do go to the National League, actually, because I'm still having trouble adapting to the Houston Astros being the American League, okay?

By the way, I have a small question. We're not going to kick out the jams. We are going to play your favorite song and talk about that in a moment here. But I want to know, Ron Francis or Kevin Dineen? Oh, come on. Is that yours or somebody else's? No, that's 100% mine. Oh, man.

Come on. I did not even steal that from somebody. See, for me, whenever anybody talks about the Whalers back in the day, who's your favorite Whaler? It's like a horse racing 1A, 1B contest, and it's Francis and Dineen. Francis was the more talented. Dineen got more out of less talent. And he was a talented guy, but he squeezed everything he had out.

And if you were playing Montreal in the playoffs and you needed a goal, it was Deneen who was going to score it. So it's unfair, but I will say that Francis was the better player. Deneen was the better heart and soul player without taking any of Francis's heart and soul out of it.

So I'll just, I'll phrase it at that. You pick one for me and I'll be very happy. Well, I, I, Francis had such great success with the Penguins. I feel like we've seen evidence of Francis. I don't acknowledge those errors. That didn't count. He got into the Hall of Fame despite playing for

Pittsburgh in my estimation. And my, and my answer to the greatest Hartford Whaler question, it has to be a former power graduate, Mimico boy, Brendan Shanahan. Of course. If that's eligible. That works. Absolutely.

Here's the big sports letdown. What's your biggest letdown as a sports fan? Oh, game seven maybe. Yeah. Maybe that's it. Sure. Anything like that. Just, you know, Gilmore high stick, whatever it may have been.

Those things always bother you, right? Yeah. My most hated hockey team, Montreal Canadiens. Hate the Habs. Hate everything about the Habs. Me too. Love the Whalers. Adams Division Final, 1986.

Claude Lemieux, my most hated Montreal Canadian, scores in overtime, I believe at the 5.55 mark of the first overtime period on Mike Liud, on my birthday. That is my low point as a sports fan. I remember that. Oh, man. It's so many chances to win that, too. Oh, man.

Poor Hartford. And they would have beaten the Rangers. It was a cakewalk, and they would have played Calgary. I don't know if they would have beaten the Rangers. It was a cakewalk and they would have played Calgary. I don't know if they would have beaten Calgary or not. Montreal did. Montreal did, yeah. That was when Patrick Wallace stood on his head. All right, let's go on to a better thing.

So let's play a tune and then we'll talk about it. So here's a jam we're going to kick out. Live version. Like it. And you can say it's a very specific live version. Yes, absolutely. Nice crescendo. First song of the concert.

And this is in New Jersey? What's the city's name? Passaic, New Jersey. The Capitol Theater. 78 or 79. And this is Bruce Springsteen on the Darkness Tour. Yes. Alright, Bruce, take it. And now you know it's Badlands.

Yeah. ¶¶ How's the pick? You okay with this? Or am I not supposed to talk over Bruce? Since it's not a proper kick out of the jams, you can talk over Bruce. Okay, that's fine. I usually get through like a verse and a chorus and then then maybe I fade it down, and then we chat.

But no rules here today. Having a general sense of your age, I can tell you I might have been shocked if you came over, kicked out the jams, and there was no Bruce. You're in the Bruce wheelhouse. I am in the Bruce wheelhouse. He's on my Mount Rushmore. He's not in the lead position. That would be Stevie Ray Vaughan. But there's something about this song, this tour,

this performance. This was recorded for a... They did it live on radio. This is the same concert where the Christmas standard, Santa Claus Coming to Town and Merry Christmas Baby. It's all from this amazing show in Passaic, New Jersey.

What year? 78 or 79. I can never remember which year. But if you go back and you look, Capitol Theatre, Passaic, New Jersey, they recorded all of these shows on video from that same over-the-stage black-and-white shot. But it's like Elvis Costello and the Allman Brothers,

and they're all full-length concerts. And this is just spectacular. And I love that you have it. Not only does it have to be the live version, but the specific live version. I love that specificity. The reason being, I had this bootleg for years. Back when I had a cassette player in my car, and I literally wore out the cassette of this show in Passaic.

It was a double cassette. It was spectacular. Wait, wait, double cassette? Does that mean it's extra long? Two cassettes. Oh, I see. Two different physical cassettes. Two physical cassettes.

Gotcha, gotcha. It's like a four-hour show. Just incredible. And this was the first song they played that night, and you could just tell. And the reason this song has resonated, there's a line actually coming up here in a couple of seconds. It ain't no sin to be glad you're alive.

And if I got a mantra, that's it. Okay, let's wait for it. It's coming up right here. Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. I want to let emotion, emotion deep inside. It's coming up right here Ooh Inspired Choice You have to come back and do a proper jam kicking we you'll like this because you like music as well my two best friends in the world i don't have brothers they are essentially my brothers we're all the same vintage they were born a day apart i'm like two months older than

they are and they won't let me forget that but there was a book, what was the guy's name? Nick Hornby. Yeah, of course. Wrote a book called Songbook, 31 songs, where he took a song, different songs, and he broke down why those songs were important to him. So I thought, I want to do that with my buddies who are music fanatics like I am. So I came up with a concept when we turned 40 years old of doing a top 40 at 40. So we listed all of our songs. We got together and drank way too much over the course of a weekend and played the songs.

I love this idea. Yeah. And then we did a top 45 at 45 where we picked our next 45. But it was an excuse to go and drink Great Lakes Brewery product and just have a fantastic weekend listening to some great songs. I love it. And then Nick Hornby, I remember when I first read High Fidelity, I'm like,

I love the way he writes about love of music. It's just the list. It was top five. First, the top five first songs that weren't hits on album. My brain, I call them

fun facts. But every day, I. That kind of stuff. My brain, I call them fun facts. I call them fun facts. But every day, I'm dropping things like that. My wife is just, she's like, do you realize, my daughter too, my oldest daughter

and my wife always tell me, do you realize how often you're dropping trivia? Like apparently, you can't just spend an afternoon with me about several fun facts. This is the lead singer

of this band. You know what I mean? My favorite part of that movie was a scene they didn't include in it. If you read the book, and did you see the movie as well? I read the book before I saw the movie, yes. I saw the movie. You've done both.

My favorite part of the book that they did, they shot for the movie but didn't include it in the final cut was when, and this maybe describes us, where, for those who don't know the story, he's a record store owner and he has an infatuation with old discs. So there's a scene where he goes to purchase a bunch of albums from a family. And he goes and he starts looking at this gold mine of albums, like first run stuff from the thirties and jazz stuff from the fifties and,

you know, initial, like, I can't remember which one he cited, but great rock. Like it'd be like a first edition of a Bo Diddley album or something. So he's just in awe of this and he finds out, you know, he asked, why are you selling these? And she said, right now, my husband's in the, on an Island with an 18 year old, I'm selling

his albums. That's right. And he becomes conflicted because he now likes the guy more than he likes the woman because of his musical taste, only the musical taste. And he feels bad about buying the albums. But if he doesn't buy them, she's going to sell them to somebody else or dump them. And it's a conflict. Absolutely.

And I love that stuff. I love it. And funny because in the movie, John Cusack's in the movie, and I've long thought that when they make the movie about the Stanley Cup champion Toronto Maple Leafs, Brendan Shanahan should be played by John Cusack. Yes. Do you see it?

That works. No one else can play Brendan Shanahan but John Cusack. As long as you play Rick Weston. Of course I will. Unless Rick does it for cheaper. I don't know. Hey, I have to say a special hello to a big fan of yours before we close out here.

A special hello to Christine Ross. Not familiar with her. In Whitby. Yeah. Whitby, Christine. I hope you enjoyed episode 274, and thank you for listening. She's on Zoomer, isn't she? She's a news anchor at Zoomer.

Is that the same Christine Ross? See, this I don't know. Actually, I honestly don't know. I only know Christine Ross as the person I have exchanged some emails with, but that's interesting intelligence you shared there with me. That may or may not be my wife, but yeah. So hi, Christine. Hi, Christine.

Call her Christine. She won't like you. Hi, Chris. Oh, I didn't see. That's more intelligence I needed. There you go. Hi, Christine. Call her Christine. She won't like you. Hi, Chris. Oh, I didn't see. That's more intelligence I needed. There you go. Hi, Chris Ross. I went to high school with Chris Ross, but it was a guy. I don't think it's the same person. And that brings us to the end of

our 274th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Mike is at TSN Mike Hogan. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. And propertyinthesix.com is at TSN Mike Hogan. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. And propertyinthesix.com is at Brian Gerstein. And PayTM is at PayTM Canada.

Nice. See you all next week. Arr goes. Nice. Arr goes. Just like mine and it won't go away Cause everything is rose and green Well you've been under my skin for more than eight years It's been eight years of laughter and eight years of tears