Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Sports Media Roundtable: Toronto Mike'd #449

Episode Date: April 8, 2019

Mike chats with Mark Hebscher, Brian Gerstein and Milon Talsania about the current state of sports media in Canada.

Welcome to episode 449 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Fast Time Watch and Jewellery Repair, Camp Turnasol, and Sticker U. and sticker you. I'm Mike from TorontoMike.com and joining me as we dissect the Canadian sports media landscape is Mark Hebzer from Hebsey on Sports, an author of The Greatest Athlete You've Never Heard Of,

Property and the Sixes, Brian Gerstein, and Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repairs, Milan Talsania. Welcome, guys. Welcome back. Pleasure, Mike. The band is back together again. Thank you, Mike, for having us. Okay, we last recorded together on January 11th.

And those who liked that episode liked it a lot. November 12th, Mike. Is that right? Mm-hmm. Why do I think it's January 11th? I those who liked that episode liked it a lot. November 12th, Mike. Is that right? Why do I think it's January 11th? I have no idea. What do you guys think? I think it was January 11th. You said, what's new since November 12th? I have it in my notes.

That's when I was wrong. You've got notes? Yeah. You brought notes to this? This is supposed to be spontaneous. He brought more than notes. What brought notes to this? This is supposed to be spontaneous, I thought. He brought more than notes. He brought, what's that ball you have there? That's the 81 Expos reunion that I went to in Montreal. So that was an amazing event

and I got to meet a lot of Expos and all related to Gary Carter passing away. And that was the start of the ball rolling in Expos Nation. And hopefully for the next five years, we'll have a downtown baseball park. We. In Montreal.

We. Yes, that's my team. You're from Montreal? I am originally, yes. So you live there now? No. So we, you're not Montreal. This is Toronto.

We're here in Toronto, right? Yeah, and I was basically reborn here, and that's why I'm a Raptors fan. I can give my 100% allegiance to the Raptors. The real talk's starting early. You know what? This is double dipping, Brian. Pick a side. You can't be a Montreal guy and a Toronto guy. I can give my 100% allegiance to the Raptors. The real talk's starting early. You know what? This is double dipping, Brian. Pick a side.

You can't be a Montreal guy and a Toronto guy. Pick a side. That's right, you can't. Okay. By the way... And the Expos don't have a team anyway. How could you root for a team that doesn't exist? You don't root for the Washington Nationals.

You're a Blue Jays fan, right? The Nationals, I hope they lose every game, actually. We're getting too deep. You're punishing them. Mike, I apologize. No. Like Milan said, let's get this real talk going early because we're going to compress this.

So, by the way, did you hear when Garvia Bailey was on, I played the clip of Steve Garvey hitting the two-run shot. Was that tough to listen to? It was, actually, and brought back a lot of horrid memories and nightmares. Mission accomplished. And, Brian, tell us a little bit right off the top about propertyinthesix.com. Sure. Okay, the big thing that I'm not so much pushing because it's going to sell out very quickly

is the Galleria Mall redevelopment. I'm just waiting for the actual logo of the project to hit and should be arriving hopefully any day now. And then we're going to have a separate landing page, which I'll promote as well as I'm going to have a sign-in page. And I've already had some people reach out to me, some of your listeners as well. So I'm updating them as I get briefed on all the developments.

So basically, the end of May, early June, there's a one-month window. We're going to sell the first building. There's two buildings. The second one will follow. And my advice is to get in in the first phase because prices will go up. So if people want more info, how do you want them to contact you? The best thing is just text me at 416-873-0292 and just send me a text with your number.

We can have a quick chat and I can fill you in on all the details. Milan, I can't believe you're here so early on a Monday morning. Tell us what you were doing until what, one in the morning last night? What was going on in your life? Oh, geez. Well, yesterday evening I had the good pleasure of watching WrestleMania. It's a yearly tradition that we hold at my good friend Dr. Gerald Topchin's home every year. The good doctor is

about to get married this year to his lovely fiancée Tilda. So I think this tradition could be ending soon. Tilda doesn't like wrestling. No, I don't believe she does. This is a mistake that your friend is making. I hope he knows that. But okay, can you give me, I don't know anything

about this, but can you give me the highlights? Did Mr. T show up? As I recall, he always showed up for these things. Was he there? No, Mr. T was not there, but the big news this weekend was, you may have heard a little bit of Canadian content, at the Hall of Fame on Saturday night, Brett,

the hitman Hart, who I think we all know, was attacked in the ring by I saw that. It wasn't you, though. You were here. No, I could the hitman Hart, who I think we all know, was attacked in the ring by... I saw that. It wasn't you, though. You were here. No, I could definitely prove. Now, is it okay to mention that I am a wrestling fan?

Because to me, wrestling's always been sort of that thing, like porn or the CFL. It's one of those things that, you know, people don't admit to watching, but watch. Adults, You're right. Adults need to be a little careful who they disclose this to. Because I feel, I don't know. Mark, when was the last time you cared about wrestling?

Maybe it was last night. Tell me. Bruno Sammartino. I understood as a youngster that it was fake. And I know that it's fake. So if it's fake and choreographed, it's not a sport. It's an event. It's entertainment.

That's right. It's like going to a concert, right? It's choreographed. The dancers are going to do this, then we're going to do this song. You're going to do the suplex, then you're going to jump on the guy, then we're going to heal. So it's not a sport. It's entertainment for some, which is great.

I've got nothing against it at all. I don't watch it because, again i i'd like the outcome to be determined by the two teams or the two individuals that are going against each other versus is it your turn to win or is it my turn to win and and i don't know i just so are you a ufc guy no not at all no no what about boxing though because you'll watch i think you'd be into a boxing match, right? Yeah, yeah, I like traditional boxing. I like that. The idea of, like UFC to me is just too brutal and violent. Like you've got to put him in a cage and he's got to tap out.

Whatever happened to the artistry of the sweet science of sports? So mind you, boxing has been corrupt for many, many years on many levels, so I really shouldn't talk about that. So sometimes the fix is in over there, possibly. Well, a lot. The fix could be in any of these sports where it just takes one person to take a dive. That's true.

So you could look at it that way. But no, listen, as far as wrestling goes, that's great entertainment. I don't watch it, but I don't hate people that watch it. But you have to understand one thing, and that is you must know that it's fake. Wait, because hold on.

You know it's fake. You're not like Caroline Shedd. You must know that, and fake. Wait, hold on. You know it's fake. You're not like Caroline Spade. You must know that, and everyone in your circle of influence must know that it's not real. You know what it is. Or is it, in your mind, real? I'm not talking about Conor McGregor.

I mean, is what they do in WrestleMania, is it staged? Absolutely. All right, that's all. Yeah, right, okay. And does everyone know that? Oh, I believe so. Because there's this one particular person

that thinks it's real, that you know, I'm not going to mention who it is, but someone who's prominent in the media that like, it's like this really, it's real. It's like a real sport. It's like. Does that person do KFC ads? I'm just curious. But it's male soap opera.

You know, I think that's what it is for us. And when I was younger, I was the same. It's basically a chance for all of us to be 12 years old again. Thank you. And I think that's what it was. Now, after your Caroline Schwed interview, Mike, I was the same way. It's basically a chance for all of us to be 12 years old again. Thank you. And I think that's what it was. Now, after your Caroline Schwett interview, Mike, I thought you'd become a fan.

First of all, I was a big fan. Where's my Andre the Giant mug? It's over here. I was a big fan. I outgrew it, like, in the late 80s. And nowadays, I don't shame anybody

who's into it. Like, whatever. Hold on, my guys are talking right now. Hold on, who's there? They're almost here. Come on, Jesse. Jesse the Body Ventura.

This is my time, okay, buddy? You may not get through this next cut with concerning humans. Anyways, I'll take them down, but that's my time. Vince McMahon's there. I'm happy for you. You had a good time. Now, tell me what's going on at Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair. Quality Watch and Jewelry Repair is for over 30 years.

We're going to have to change that tagline soon because we're going to be celebrating our 40th anniversary in December. Wow, where's the party? Yeah, yeah. Wait, so I keep saying over 30 years. I could be saying almost 40 years. Yeah, yeah. I don't know what sounds better.

I think it's in your 40th year. Yes, yeah. 1979. Right, so you're in your 40th year. Right. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So yeah, we have 12 locations throughout Ontario. We're formerly Sears Watch and Jewelry Repair. People may know us at and visit us at fasttimewatchrepair.com.

We have a great location in Richmond Hill as well as 11 locations throughout the province. We're in Richmond Hill, by the way, because I live in Thornhill. So you're close by. So we're Bayview and Major McKenzie's, the major intersection. Did I see, was it a couple of people have dropped by the Richmond Hill location to meet Milan? Did I see that right? Or am I hallucinating? Yeah, I think it's more to get the repairs done. And I'm just the add-on sale, you can say.

Well, if you want to meet Milan, go to the Richmond Hill location. Despite Milan's there. What's the website for people to go to? It is FastTimeWatchRepair.com. Mr. Hebbshire. Hello. You're now a Hebbshire. Hello. You're now a published author. I am.

If I ever published anything, that's all I would be billed as, published author, Toronto Mike. Tell us about your book. It's a good book. It's about an interesting character named George Washington Orton who lived a fantastic life

that nobody ever knew about. He never spoke about himself ever. He was the first Canadian to win an Olympic gold medal. But more than that, he changed the face of 20th century sports because he was around at the time where sort of sports was being invented, like the rules and the regulations and how do spectators watch a game. You know, back in the early days of sports, it was only about the participants. Nobody really thought about spectators or media covering them.

And so the early football games, you watch the game from the sidelines. Until a guy like George Orton, my guy said, wait a minute, if you sit on the side of a hill, maybe halfway up, you get a better perspective. And so that was sort of the evolution of sports in North America and the team games like basketball, which really didn't exist before 1891 and really wasn't popular until the early 1900s or even later than that. Football, you know, it's been around since the mid-1800s,

but really it was popular in the college level. So these games were being played, but mostly by the upperclassmen, upper crust crust you know college students and not not the general population anyway george orton came around at a time where um and he was a disabled athlete as well he had fallen out of a tree and the whole thing about his identity whether he was american or canadian because when he ran and won the gold medal in 1900 he there were no national teams and so he was thought to be an american because the Americans went,

wait a minute, we're going to take him. We'll put USA next to his name. He's an American. All that level. Always taking our good stuff. Actually, I have an idea. I'm popping out at 11.

How much is a book? You have them in your trunk. Can you do an autograph copy for me? I'll leave money for Mike. I've got a, you know, a good author never is anywhere without. I know.

You've already talked about it. And this one, I actually was reading a few pages of, just going over a few things. So I'll be happy to autograph it for you, Brian, and you can pay me here. I've got a copy right here. Oh, perfect.

We'll make that too. Oh, beautiful. I've only got one here, but I'll... I got first dibs, man. I have the... Mike, don't you have a copy that I signed first? Brian's got tenure. I have an original manuscript.

That's right. Mike's got the original manuscript. But in addition to the book, which, tell the people listening how they can get in on this action. Do you want them to contact you and buy it from you directly? You can get in touch with me via social media. I'm at Hebseyman. You can get me through Toronto Mike. Or you can go to

Amazon or Indigo and just punch in my name, Mark Hebster, or the name of the book, The Greatest Athlete You've Never Heard Of. And then you can order it online and they send it to you and all that stuff. And of course, you are the name of the book, The Greatest Athlete You've Never Heard Of. And then you can order it online and they send it to you and all that stuff. And of course, you are the host of the greatest, in my humble opinion, the greatest sports podcast this country produces, which is... It's actually the second greatest because we're, you know, the podcast is behind spitting

chiplets. No, that's popularity. That's not greatness. Oh, oh, oh, thanks then. Quality. I'll accept that. Come on, I'm a quality guy. Well, the book I wrote is The Greatest Athlete You've Never Heard Of.

So it could be The Greatest Podcast You've Never Heard Of or Podcast You've Never Heard Of. We could do the whole franchise. Everything you've never heard of, right? Right. I mean, Brian Gerstein is the greatest real estate agent you've never heard of. Milan Talsania is the greatest watch and jewelry repair man

you've never heard of. Toronto Mike is the greatest interviewer you, well, most people have heard of, but you've never heard of. That's in a greatest interviewer you, well, most people have heard of, but you've never heard of. That's in a general sense. Most people in this room have heard of me. That's what matters to me. So Hebsey on Sports,

subscribe in the way you listen to this podcast. You can also subscribe to Hebsey on Sports. There's a really smart co-host on that show. I just think you should listen and find out. But so great. We've done our intros. I know why you're all here so quickly. It's because you wanted more

Palma Pasta lasagna. So thank you to the gang at Palma Pasta. You each should have a lasagna somewhere in front of you. I got three of them. Enjoy. Did you guys enjoy your last lasagna? It was delicious.

My vegetarian daughter appreciated that as well. Vegetarian all the way. All the card players loved it. Right, that as well. Vegetarian all the way. All the card players loved it. Right, that's right. We had a card playing tournament and we just actually it wasn't mine. That would have been Jake Gold's. No, Jake Gold made

his, yes, he did it for the card game. The Jewish Euchre? I don't know what it's called again. Klubish. Klubish. Hey, Brian, have you ever heard of Klubish? No, I haven't. He's from Montreal. Okay. It I haven't okay well he's from Montreal okay so it just doesn't count

he's from a totally different community would have never known about it he was too busy with his head in the expos I'm trying to get his head get him in on the action there okay so y'all have some palma pasta and by the way

tonight I'm drafting a playoff pool by invitation only so you can't all just show up at my house for this thing but it's being catered by palma pasta because because everybody loves Palma Pasta. It's the best Italian food in Mississauga and Oakville, in the GTA, I'd say.

So go to palmapasta.com. Also, there is six beers in front of each of you. Great Lakes beer. I was with, I'm going to drop some names for a moment. I was with Jack Armstrong on Saturday. Get that garbage out of here. And we're chatting and he's the nicest guy.

He's amazing. That's not bad actually. Nicest guy and we're talking about him coming on Toronto Mic and he's like he's all into it. He gives me his personal business card or whatever and then he says okay but you're going to have to hook me up with some Great Lakes and I can tell he doesn't realize. I can tell he doesn't know. And I look him in the eyes and I'm like, there'll be a six-pack for you when you come over.

He thinks I'm going to go buy him a six-pack at Great Lakes. He has no idea. I'm just going to get it provided. He's got about 12 children, so he may need a lot more than a six-pack. That's right. So thank you, Great Lakes. Don't forget, June 27th, 6 to 9 p.m. is TMLX3. Be there.

Lowest of the Low is going to be there. You should be there. Anyone here coming? I don't want to put you on the spot here. And the Royal Pains, right? The Royal Pains. I hope they don't get a complex that I don't build them as highly as Lowest of the Low. When they produce a Shakespeare My Butt, I'll move them up in the order.

We'll have CB doing a comedy routine. I don't believe I will. I don't know where I'll be on my book tour then. I'll move them up in the order. Will Hep C be doing a comedy routine? I don't believe I will. I don't know where I'll be on my book tour then. I could be in Indonesia, but I've got it locked off of my calendar, and unless something extremely lucrative comes my way, I'll for sure be there. I might have to pay Hep C to show up.

I mean, extremely lucrative. You don't know, because by June, the book could just be on fire. It could be all over the place. Who knows? But yeah, I'm planning on being there, of course, Mike. And now, before I talk about the other sponsors, I want to get things rocking here with a bit of a bang. So let's listen in. Anybody who's watching on Periscope

won't hear this, because usually I put one of the extra headphones over there and they can hear this. But I need it all for it. They can listen to the podcast. It's okay. I want you to hear this. So, this is from 1972. One minute left to go. A 5-5 tie.

This is the tie-breaking game. You couldn't get it any closer. Savard at his own blue line, turning around with Pat Stableden coming out. Stableden's pass on an open wing, but here's Cornwallier coming up for it. A long shot in off the stick of Esposito. Vasiliev goes back of the net.

Cornwallier steals it. A pass in front. Henderson was upended as he tried to shoot it. Here's another shot. Henderson right in. He scores! Henderson! While the team pours over the board, they're mobbing Henderson.

They're mobbing Henderson. And Kenny Dryden, I've never seen a goaltender like that. From one end of the ice to the other, over 200 feet, all the way. And team officials are over the board. Henderson has got to be the hero of the entire nation now. 34 seconds left. They got a 6-5 lead. Can they hang on?

Well, I'll tell you, you wouldn't ask for anything more. Henderson, if this turns out to be the game-winning goal, will have scored the game-winner in the last three games of the series. Bob Cole doing the, I guess that's the radio call, because Foster Hewitt, of course, famously does the television call. That was the podcast call, because Foster Hewitt, of course, famously does the television call.

That was the podcast call, actually, Mike, back in 72. It wasn't called a podcast back then. That's right. That's right. Bob was ahead of his time. In fact, on the heels of that, I'm going to... CBC podcast, if I'm not mistaken. That's right. Real quick, one more.

This is a few years later. They are leaving the ice. They're going to go. The Soviets are leaving. They're going home. They're going home. Yeah, they're going home. Can you imagine?

Denny, it's been a short afternoon. Oh, it's terrible. They're acting like a very frustrated hockey club And I think they're displaying poor sportsmanship Can you believe it Dennis? I certainly can't believe it I thought they'd have a little more pride In to play the game

In 72 in Moscow We stayed and we took it all And in 74 And now the Philadelphia Flyers room around a little bit and they're going home. I see those last two calls. Milan, you're in the same boat as me for sure.

We didn't enjoy those live, those moments. And Brian, you're younger than both of us, right? Now that you've lost. How many pounds have you lost since you were last on Toronto, Mike? I'm coming up on 25 now. All right. Thank you. Do I get any credit? I'm coming up on 25 now. All right.

Thank you. Do I get any credit? Because it all happened after your appearance on Toronto. Absolutely, Mike. Good for you, buddy. You look great. Hebsey, you remember those two moments? No, not at all, Mike.

I have no idea what you're talking about here. That was a rhetorical question, right? You look 45, so i never know that was a yeah of course well of course absolutely i mean the 72 series i mean i did a documentary the 10th anniversary 20th 25th 30th 35th 40th so i would say that um that's part of my life part of my i was in high school when that happened uh i could recount everything every moment and since that time i've interviewed every player that was on team canada and a number of the russian players as well through interpreters

and otherwise and so a lot of back stories that i mean there's been so much written about that series over the last i mean it's gonna you're coming up on 50 years in 2022 50 years of a moment that really changed you know i mean not just hockey culture everything like that but i but I mean, Russians and, and, uh, you know, those from the other side of the iron curtain started playing in the national hockey league soon after that, the Czechs started coming and, you know, the Swedes, even though the Swedes weren't, that wasn't part of that culture, the idea of that, the idea that every member of the Philadelphia Flyers that year was Canadian. Every single player on the two cup winners was born in Canada. Every one of them.

Every one. So, yeah, the game's changed for sure. And of course the other one, I mean, they're going home. That was just a classic, like, what do you mean they're leaving the ice? Of course they came back. Because they were promised that if you leave, you don't get any money. No, no money.

And then they came back and they ended up losing. But yeah, those two moments are extremely important in the history of Canadian sports lore. One more Bob Cole. This is my favorite. One of my favorites anyways, because there's always the Borszewski there. But let me play this last Bob Cole call, and then I'll start things off with us and talking about Bob.

Gilmore back in the net. And we're chucking front with Borszewski. It is Gilmore waiting. Waiting around the net. Waiting. He's up. with us and talking about Bob. Solo job. Doug EG. Doug Gilmore, my favorite Maple Leaf of all time, by the way. I got goosebumps. I know. You know what I don't like?

Okay, so like Sportsnet means well. They put together a bunch of like greatest hits or whatever, but they always put that music in the background. Did you hear the music? And it's like, no, I want to hear the call without that music in the background. Okay, I'll start things off and then we'll go around the table. But in my humble opinion, this big farewell for Bob Cole, which I watched

because I love Bob Cole. I think he's the best at his job. It really never sat well with me because I know for a fact, because he's been very vocal about it, that Bob Cole wants to keep calling games. I also, in my humble opinion, I love it still when he calls a game. I love the call of the game I watched on Saturday night. So it's a forced retirement. They're basically telling Bob Cole, your services are no longer required. We won't have you calling games for us anymore. And they're kind of sending him off. And to me, it's not joyous. It's sad.

I want to hear your opinions on this because a lot of people are like, oh, he's 85 years old. He keeps misidentifying players. Send him off. I heard someone tweet at me, send him off to pasture or whatever. So am I out in left field here? Who wants to start on Bob Cole? I think he's our Canadian Vin Scully. You know, I think that's the best way to put it, in my opinion.

At the same time, I'm kind of torn because I know we're going to probably approach these topics a little bit later on. But he's, in my on but he's in my opinion he's got a job for life as far as I'm concerned but at the same time there's sort of that double-sided sword in the sense that what about the younger talent and you open up a spot

for someone else as Bob is the younger talent you know really qualified to step in and match like I'd rather have 75% of Bob Cole right now than the alternative. That's just the way I feel. Hebsey, how do you feel about the Bob Cole retirement? It's necessary.

You can't go on forever. No one is in his position. Look, he's got the easiest job in the world. Any one of us would take his job and do it for nothing. To go to a game and be able to describe to people what's going on on the ice? And let me tell you, look,

he's a different type of broadcaster. They don't exist now. You can't get into the business to become a Bob Cole. What do you want to do? I just want to call hockey games. Well, what else? You want to be a sportscaster, journalist? What do you want, interviews?

No, I just want to call games. So that job doesn't exist anymore. The Jim Houstons of the world and such. I mean, after a while, it's going to be, you're going to have to have more than just that. Your mention of Vince Scully is incorrect only because Vince Scully was the Dodgers announcer. He did every Dodgers game for whatever, 60 years or 70 years,

something ridiculous like that. But he was a Dodger announcer, but he was a national announcer when he was doing NBC, like the Kirk Gibson game if the Dodgers were involved. And he did football for many years. He called the Joe Montana pass to Dwight Clark. But Bob Cole was one sport only, Saturday nights, sort of that traditional thing where nobody, it's like,

I'm sorry, but you're going to have to move out of your house. Oh, I don't want to move out of my house. Well, you've got to, You can't stay here any longer. It's too dangerous or something might happen. And so, you know, this is going to happen with your mother or your grandmother. With all of us, it's going to happen, right? They don't want to go, but they have to go. And in Bob's case, he didn't want to go.

He's got the best gig going. He's comfortable. He's in his house. It's the same kind of thing. And when I think of my heroes and no matter what it is being too old to be able to do what they could do i saw willie mays play when he was 42 for the mets it was the most embarrassing thing i was he was my hero as a kid i watched him stumbling around the outfield missing fly balls he should have retired by then he didn't want to retire and

they didn't say to him willie we're sorry you got to go so with bob in bob cole's case missing players and such play by play isn't the way it used to be it's not smith over to jones over to smith it's not it's casual conversation while the game's going on you're in the neutral zone oh billy i don't think that was right oh well blah blah blah and you know his daughter was here the other day he scores it's very different so for bob cole to not know who that player was you're watching it on TV. You can tell who the guy is. Don't pick out the fact that Bob Cole couldn't. But at the same time, I said this before,

my dad doesn't want to quit driving. He'll never want to quit driving. He will have to be told, you can't drive anymore. It's either too dangerous for you or for someone else or something's going to happen that's going to besmirch your reputation or you're going to get in. And the fear is that Bob Cole or something's going to happen that's going to besmirch your reputation or you're going to get in and i and my the fear is is that bob cole something's going to happen because he's 85 where people are going to go oh my god you see what happened with bob cole do you hear what he said oh that's terrible he didn't mean to say it like look jimmy the greek snyder

they caught one day after a couple of drinks and he said something about the black man and his career was done. And so I think there's sort of a fear that Bob Cole could continue to call the games until he's on his deathbed at 107. And we would love him because he's Bob Cole because he's a tradition. But really to protect his integrity, the integrity of the broadcast,

and for those to remember him well, this has to happen. Or else he's going to be Willie Mays. He's going to be stumbling around and we're going to go, Oh my God. He's not alone, right? You could put Dave Hodge sort of not in a play by play kind of thing, but a broadcasters who still excel,

but are politely being pushed out. That's where, well, this is where I come from is that, I'm not going to say it's ageist, but it's got a bit of ageism going on here. That goes on everywhere though, Mike. It doesn't make it right.

No, no one says it's right, but that happens in every industry, okay? We want you to retire. I don't want to retire. Take any CEO, any industry where someone looks and says, you know, maybe your time is past or whatever. That guy or that woman does not want to go they don't if they like their job now i know a lot of people who are

dying you know great pay me out i want to quit i hate this job but people like their jobs they never yeah never look at the end and say well i'll have a job for another x and that used to be had to retire at 65 matt can you imagine 65 bob Cole would have had to retire 20 years ago. A lot of times it's because the older, experienced people make more money. Yeah, the bean counters play a large role, absolutely. So you could look at this as a cost-cutting move. Like, I'm sure Bob Cole... No, it's a reputation-cutting move, okay? The last thing Sportsnet wants, anyone wants,

is for something to happen on their broadcast where people say should have never let that guy on the air but there's no there's no indication howard stern though i mean i wouldn't be conserving that angle no no howard still listen the advertisers come running for howard stern of course he's got any listen let's be honest do you think one less person is going to watch hockey because bob cole's not doing the game do you think one less advertiser going to say sorry we're is going to watch hockey because Bob Cole's not doing the game? Do you think one less advertiser is going to say, sorry, we're not going to advertise on Hockey Night in Canada because Bob Cole's not there anymore?

If that's the case, I agree with you 100%. And in the Vin Scully case, Dodger fans were used to listening 162 games a year to Vin Scully. Leaf fans or Habs fans or Calgary fans or Canadians, quote unquote, would hear Bob Cole occasionally. It's just that we remember because he was the voice of all those big moments. Harry Neal and Bob Cole.

Bob Cole, Harry Neal. Listen, I traveled with Bob Cole, Harry Neal, Don Cherry, Ron McClain for many years. The four of them, okay, were an institution. But look, so were John Madden and Pat Summerall in the football booth. So were Vince Scullion, who didn't even have a sidekick. But I mean, I'm just saying that's going to happen.

It's inevitable. Irv Weinstein could not do Channel 7 Eyewitness News forever. Bill Hoagland could not do CFCF Pulse 12 News in Montreal forever. It just doesn't work that way. But where's the line? Where would you put Jerry Howarth? I know he had to leave because of health reasons. Jerry Howarth was still a very effective broadcaster. Extremely effective.

I think he probably went, not kicking and screaming, but maybe under doctor's orders. Look, you can't do that. And Jerry wasn't maybe in a position to say, I would like to do just the home games maybe, or a select number of games. That's for the guys who were in their 80s and 90s. Sort of like, look, Jerry, we want to bring young broadcasters up.

But if Jerry was healthy, I guarantee you, he would be doing Jay's games until they pulled him from there kicking and screaming. But Hebsey, that's where I, you talk about Willie Mays. He displayed an ability not to play the game anymore. You know, I remember for Roberto Alomar, Tampa Bay Devil Rays. I think that's where he ended in spring training,

couldn't throw the ball anymore, and he was done. So you see that. But Bob Cole has demonstrated an ability that he can't do the job anymore. Well, it. So you see that. But Bob Cole has demonstrated an ability that he can't do the job anymore. Well, it depends what the job is. Again, that's what I'm telling you. If someone says, well, he keeps misidentifying the players. In other words, do you keep Bob Cole on

because he's Bob Cole, right? And here's the other thing. Do you have to, what makes a good play-by-play broadcaster? You tell me. The guy who identifies the players correctly, who has the right amount of enthusiasm and understanding and all that. I mean, who has the right amount of enthusiasm and understanding and all that, I mean, who has the pulse of the game?

Because Bob Cole, as far as I'm concerned, he could call every playoff game, no regular season games, and just say, you know what? Playoff time, bring in the reliever. Bring in the big right-hander, the guy who we know captures the emotion of the game, has perspective, has reverence. Bring him in.

I would say bring Bob Cole in only for the Stanley Cup final. How's that? Sold. I hope so. How about selected Bob Cole? Yeah, selected game. To me, it's Dan Schulman right now.

I mean, from a play-by-play voice, he's the man. I hope we're not having this conversation 25 years from now about Dan Schulman. Let's hope not. No, again, that's my point. And I'm glad we have differing opinions because it gets us off to a nice rocky start.

Hebsey wants to send Bob Cole out to pasture. And I'm saying let him decide. Oh, no, I didn't say that at all, Mike. I didn't say that at all. You see, this is where the problem is. Sending someone out to pasture is, you know, it's like taking a horse to the glue factory. You're taking them out to

shoot them they're no longer useful right and what you're telling me is that if bob cole can't do play by play for hockey net in canada he's no longer useful far from it far from a little reduced schedule that's fine but to take them completely off no that's wrong okay good i just want i'm glad you clarified that well i think i had mentioned when i said have them just for the playoff games i know but i did not catch? You were being facetious, I thought. No, no, I wasn't actually. I said for selected games, it would be a treat to have Bob Cole. That's different from saying to Willie Mays when he's 58 years old,

come on out and DH for a game because we miss you. I watched the entire game on Saturday night, and to my ears, anyways, Bob Cole still captured the emotion of the game and his timber was still A+. So as far as I'm concerned, this is very different than the Willie Mays, as Milan pointed out, where he was becoming his skill set.

He was becoming incompetent and unable to do the job. To my ears, Bob Cole's still the very best, even today. So I just think it's a shame he doesn't decide when it's time to hang up the headphones and that we forced it on him. We didn't do it. Rogers did it. Scott Moore.

Scott Moore did it. Right. Before he got kicked out. But they could have reversed that decision. Who was going to reverse the decision? Whoever. Scott's been gone a long time now. So you mean they would have gone to the NHL Central

and say, let's look at the video. Wait a second. Hold it a second. No, no. And give him his job back? Yeah. They gave him more games he was supposed to wind down in december 2018 and then when scott left they said okay we're

gonna have you till the end of the season but they could they can they always can reverse these bring back bob cole let's start a campaign right now bring back bob cole and they did with ron mcclain bring back bob cole let's go and and strombo too no he's kidding and strombo yeah bring back strombo and bob all right listen before we dive into the next meaty subject and i like that we got a feisty and Strombo too. No, I was kidding. And Strombo, yeah. Bring back Strombo and Bob. All right, listen, before we dive into the next meaty subject, and I like that we got a feisty Hebsey on our hands. This is a good one. Do you know any other kind?

Yeah, I do know the other kind, but there's a couple of sponsors I want to thank who aren't here today. So I want to thank Sticker U. They're the newest sponsor of Toronto Mic'd, and it's a great Toronto company. They're located in Liberty Village. And basically you can make your own customized stickers,

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And of course, I know, Brian, your kids are older. Milan, your kid is not older. It's perfect age to send them to French camp. Right. Camp Turnasol. You go to camp T.C.A. They have overnight camps and they have day camps and they have camps for francophone and for french immersion and even children who are just uh new to french so go to camp t dot ca and

when you do book your child or grandchild or whatever into a camp at camp turn a soul please use the promo code mike 2019 mike 2019 because you'll save some money and they'll know much like uh fast time and property in the six that it makes sense to sponsor the real talk here and just one thing my kids went through immersion and they are fluently bilingual continued to high school they could probably be counselors of the camp you You know, they're so well-versed in it, and that will stand them in very well, you know, going ahead. So I highly recommend, you know,

people to learn French, and it is the second language, national language of Canada. It is. Still, I read Two Solitudes. That was forced upon me in high school, and I'm an English major, so. Absolutely, you're right, Brian,

and my kids are, my teenagers, and they will all be eventually, but right now, my teenagers are also are my teenagers and they will all be eventually. But right now, my teenagers are also in French immersion and fluently bilingual. And if you want to watch your kids' French skills blossom over the summer, Camp Tournesol. We're heading there within the next couple of weeks. Is that right? Yeah.

Look at you. Matching Toronto Mike, yeah. Good man. Milan, you're my favorite. I'm going to buy you lunch today. All right. Blue Jays. We're not going to talk about how dismal they are. We'll save that for

Hebsey on Sports, which we'll record right after this. I want to talk about the changes made in the sports media world of Blue Jays baseball, which is that Mike Wilner, as we knew, because we knew it, but it hadn't been announced yet, but Mike Wilner is now calling games, and is it Scott MacArthur is now hosting Jay's talk.

Has anyone heard this gentleman? I have. I love Scott MacArthur. I've always loved him on TSN. His voice is amazing. It projects. He's a unique voice. You will recognize it, pick it up within the first literally syllable out of his mouth,

which I think is a very good feature to have. And his ability to combine analytics plus just the personal aspects are a fantastic blend. He is an incredible addition. Let's just hope we can, for the Blue Jays' sake, they can put a team together so more people will tune in. But I'm very, very pleased so far with what I've heard. And he'll be, it's fair to say, he'll be less polarizing.

There's the magic word, polarizing than Wilner. Talk to me, Belmont. This is where, I've listened to Scott MacArthur too. I think he's great. I never listened to him before on TSN 1050,

but his baseball knowledge, his delivery, excellent. But this is where I think on Jay's talk, you do need someone polarizing, in my opinion. I miss Mike Wilner. I'm a fan of his. I know this is a big opportunity for him to be in the booth, but just from a selfish perspective. It's his dream job. someone polarizing. I think Scott MacArthur more reminds me of a Scott Ferguson type back in the day, which knowledgeable baseball guy, terrific to listen to, but I don't find a destination listening.

Especially with this team that we've got on the field right now, I think you need that little extra zing for the postgame show. It's interesting you should say that because Scott Ferguson, to me, he put me to sleep. Just the voice and all that. He literally put me to sleep. He literally put me to sleep. I don't have that right you know, right now.

And I'm not mocking Scott. Yeah, that's fine. Scott. Scott? By the way, Scott MacArthur. All right, no. Milan, I know what you're doing there. And I don't know if I'm allowed to talk about that on a podcast.

No, no. That'd be for patrons only if they write me. I have a story for them about Scott. But because that was going through my head, that whole story. And I'm like, I can't talk about it. And Mike's blushing right now, folks, for those watching on FerrisCoop. Hebsey would be a great host for Jay's talk. Been there, done that.

Agreed. Wouldn't do it. Why would you not do it? Well, the reason that's because the reason they didn't want me to do it after the first year that I did it there, because I said to them, I'm going to have to be critical. The team was horrible, horrible, horrible team. So I couldn't honestly go and give my opinion if I had to worry that I was being too critical of the home team. So I just said, I can't do it. I can't be a yes

man. I can't, if the decision comes down where I go, I really want to say something about how horrible this player is or this terrible acquisition, but I can't because I'm going to get flack from my bosses who happen to own the team. So this was many years ago. And when we had the broadcast rights, it wasn't the fan at the time. It was 1430. I don't even remember what the call letters were. But I did that show.

CJCL. I originated that show. Baseball Today was my show from the very beginning. It did not exist before 1984. Bad. The Tigers got off to that 45-5 start. 35-5. Oh, I see what time does to these stories.

Well, no, it's 35-5 because the Jays had an outstanding team in 1984. Outstanding, but the Tigers had an exceptional once-in-a-lifetime team that went all the way to win the World Series. So even though Labatt's owned the team, you were still told way back then. Listen, it had nothing to do with Labatt's. It was the rights holders. You're on the radio station that does 162 games.

They come up to you and say, look, we're partners with these guys. We're partners. You got it? And the same with the Leafs. I had a talk show on the station that had the Leafs and the Jays. They were both horrible. Well, the Leafs weren't horrible. If you remember something about the Leafs,

the Leafs of the 70s and early 80s made the playoffs like eight years in a row, nine years in a row. And then once the early mid-80s started, it was a different story. They were up against dynasty teams, so it wasn't really for any fault of their own. Well, no, they had a good team. They just weren't quite good enough. Montreal was amazing, and then the Islanders for like four or five years,

and then the Oilers for a bunch of years. But my point is that when you're on the broadcast for a team, you just have to be more careful because you're partners. When I had the broadcast on 590, which was CKUI,ky we did not have the rights and i could go off and go crazy right and that's what i wish guys like scott mcarthur and wilner and guys like that could do but even wilner will tell you that look you can only go so far in criticizing a manager like cito gaston before they come down on you and say you can't do that and so your true story on that one and so your hands are when you're when that's why those are homer broadcasts you know you should not expect You can't do that. And so your hamstring. Make up a true story on that one. And so your hamstring. Bingo, Mike.

That's why those are homer broadcasts. You should not expect Mike Wildner and Ben Wagner and Joe Bowen and Jim Ralph to not be homers because they're being paid by the home team and they want to see the home team win. They'll admit to you, look, we want to see the home team win. We don't want to see them screw up. We don't want travel to have to do all these games

following a losing team. We want them to win. So if Hebsey was facing that in 1984, I can only imagine what it is now. Oh, it's horrible. But the owners and the broadcast rights are all under one roof. How many games back did the Jays finish in 1984? I remember them closing that gap. I was a kid watching that in the Toronto Star.

And I remember it might have been something like, did it get to two games? Am I dreaming this? It got pretty close. That's incredible. It might have been five games but the point is is that when you start off really well and you see the team 35 and 5 and you've been playing great baseball and you're seven or eight games back of this juggernaut of a squad it's tough i don't i don't uh i don't recall at the end of the year what the gap it was close it got close for a while there was a very

exciting season and then of course the following, they won their first division title, the American League East. You know, which back in those days, man, I mean, come on. You had some fantastic teams. I have a spoiler alert. Later in the show, we're going to each, we're going to have a play,

like a play of a sporting event. We'll play for each of us. We've each chosen one. And spoiler alert, you might have just nailed mine, but I don't want to give anything away. That's coming later in the show. What a tease. What a tease.

What a great tease that is. Oh, and also, while we're on the topic, I need to tease this as well, that Jerry Howarth is booked for Toronto Mike. So Jerry Howarth's going to be here. Good. I hope he doesn't hit his head.

He's not a tall guy, as you would know. He's a diminutive man compared to me, but I'm six foot three. So for you to say, is he a short guy? as you would know. He's a diminutive man compared to me, but I'm 6'3". So for you to say, is he a short guy? I'm 6'3", so... What do I do with Leo Roudens? He's booked for this show. Oh, yeah. He has to sit outside the

restricted area. He's got to be outside the restricted area out there. He can sit where Milan's sitting on the other side of the table. You may have to take this to Great Lakes Brewery, I think. Maybe I'll take it to Fast Time. Is that roof in Richmond Hill? Lots of roof. What about Wilner calling games?

Has anyone heard him yet? I love him. I'm biased. Unlike Milan, I don't listen to a lot of Jay's talk pre, post show, and I wish Wilner was doing every single game. I really am a total fan. I'm unabashed, and I think he's fantastic. Not that I'm so much against Ben Whack,

I just think Wilner, for me personally, I just love his inflection. I'm unabashed and I think he's fantastic. So I, not that I'm so much against Ben Whack, I just think Wilner, for me personally, I just love his inflection. I love his calls. I like the way he mixes his whole demeanor. How much did he pay you for these? No, no, it's just, it's genuine. That's how I feel. This is real talk. Did you face any flack for mentioning

Greg Zahn last time? Oh yeah. You both did though, right? I did. Nothing came back to me. I got some awful email. I didn't want to share it with you guys, yeah. You both did, though, right? I did. Nothing came back to me. No, okay, okay. I got some awful email. I didn't want to share it with you guys, but apparently what you did there was out of bounds.

You're not supposed to be defending these guys. Wow. You're not supposed to be normalizing it. I think that's the term, but that was last episode. Listen back to that. He's still missed, by the way.

Hepzee, do you think Willner calls a good ball game? Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's hard to compare him. You can't compare him to Jerry. Jerry did it for 35, 40 years, whatever it was. But, yeah, Mike knows the game, right? He's enthusiastic with his call.

Really is. And, you know, I mean, he's got credibility. He's got chops. So, you know, in your first few years of doing play-by-play every game, you've got to be able to establish your own style. You know, is he working on his home run call? I don't know. But I mean, like, again,

when you hear Jerry Howard for years and goes, there she goes, it's kind of tough to make that, you know, well, what's Wilner's call? Or what's his, you know, signature call? That takes a number of years. You know, he will have, he needs five or six years of calling every game.

Just a quick note on that. Compared to the TV call, there's nowhere to go back. Oh, that's the worst call. Can we talk about that? Buck Martinez does the whole, get out of here, ball. I actually cringe every time. It makes me not want to watch games. Isn't that awful?

But as a fan, do you want to listen to the home broadcaster cheering the team on or no? I don't mind what Bowen does. I don't mind it at all because I know he's the home broadcaster and i and i i kind of like the bless you boys and all this like because i'm a big leafs guy i'm okay with it i'm okay with buck being kind of pro jays or whatever well it's the home broadcast it's the same as right why should be different than radio i mean if you're that's your partner they own the team they own the broadcast they can tell you not tell you but they're gonna it's obvious that you know you're gonna stop for a second if you think that being highly critical look if buck

says hey that was not a good move by drury trying to stretch a single into a double with nobody out that's more that's fine i'm sure nobody at rogers go hey buck take it easy on the team but you have to understand that buck played for the jays yeah managed the jays and has been a jays broadcaster for man he's also been a national broadcaster he's also worked for the ori, managed the Jays, and has been a Jays broadcaster for many. He's also been a national broadcaster. He's also worked for the Orioles. He knows where his bread is buttered. He understands that. If he was a national broadcaster,

he could criticize, and the Jays couldn't say to him, hey, Buck, we're taking your credentials away. We're taking your job, because he doesn't work for them. But it's safe to say he's being told. No. You don't think that call about get up, get up,

well, I cringe too. Who's being told? By his bosses, Buck. By his bosses saying- To add a little bit of embellishment for the home team. No. No, I actually don't think so. He knows that that happens organically.

I wish they would tell him to stop. No, no, that's why they hired him, because they know he's a Blue Jay guy. They know it. Well, of course, just like Matty D. They don't have to say to him, by the way, and by the way, Buck, don't forget you're on the way. He knows that. He's well aware of that.

He knows where his bread is buttered. He knows it's a partnership. Is my BFF, Jack Armstrong, ever going to say, get that garbage out of here because they blocked a Raptors shot? No, of course not. Of course, these are Homer broadcasts. But the get out ball thing, for some reason, that to me is different. Hebsey, I'm kind of dying to know what you think of that particular call.

Like you okay with it? You're okay. When he gets a, tells the ball to try to get up and it gets caught on the warning track. Yes. And no, I think if it happens naturally, if I feel that he look,

if I'm sitting at home and somebody hits one, as soon as forget it, I got the broadcast sound down. Let's say I'm not listening to it. I'm watching it because I've got something else going and I see the ball hit down, let's say. I'm not listening to it. I'm watching it because I've got something else going. And I see the ball come off the bat. And I'm a Jays fan. Here's my reaction.

Come on, get out. Come on, yeah. That's the way, as a fan, I'll describe it in my own head. I'll jump up off the couch and go, come on, because the ball's in the air for three seconds, four seconds, two and a half seconds. While that ball's in the air, I seconds four seconds two and a half seconds while that ball's in the air i'm going to get out get out so if this is a natural if this is the way buck was when he managed if one of his players hit the ball and it was going

to go out and he went get up get up he got above the if that happened when he was a player and it's natural i'm okay with it but if it sounds like it's contrived, then I don't like it. I grew up in Montreal. Dave Van Horn. We know you grew up in Montreal. No, I know. I don't give a shit about Dave Van Horn. I make it. No, no, no. I don't give a shit about Dave Van Horn. I want to make a point about the call.

Or Russ Taylor or any of these. The French guys were better anyway. Jacques Doucette. All right, let's get back to the Anglophone broadcast the way I listen to. Yeah. Anyways, Dave Van Horn had up, up, and away his calling card. Yeah, not for...

It wasn't always his calling card, though. You see, he developed into that. He developed into it, but that call is not cringeworthy. I don't think it's because I'm a Valles Expos fan. You don't think so? No, I think he just projected it differently in the Buck desk. I think Buck has really got to tone it down, dial it down a few notches. That's fair.

Here's my hot take. Yeah. I think Buck Martinez and Bob Cole need to be put out. Wait, like... I think listening to Dan Schulman, especially the last couple of years because he's been back on the airwaves, it's time for Buck and Pat to move on.

I don't think the radio is the big issue. Well, let Buck and Dan do it, but Buck could be the other guy. Sure, fine. But I think from a radio perspective, I think what was missing last year was the consistency. I think we got used to Tom and Jerry and now with Mike and Ben.

As long as it's consistency, I think as a listener, that's all you want to hear. I have it on mute. I can't even listen. It's so bad. I have to be completely honest. For the television. Yeah, for the television. Why are you watching this horrible team anyway? It's awful. This is not even a fun team. Because I like watching baseball. I like having it on. I agree. I think it's Tom.

I like Jamie Campbell, but even that pre-show and the post-show, there's nothing there. Joe Sittle should be back on the radio maybe. But he's not a television broadcaster. I agree. Good call. But he's a handsome man.

That's probably what you're thinking. I think he's a handsome man. All right. Well, if that was a criteria, you and Hepsey would be a play-by-play voice. Speaking of Dave Van Horn, is this the Expos guy you grew up loving? Yeah, of course.

But didn't Elliot Price fill in once in a while when Dave had to do another game? Yeah, when they lost the broadcast rights. We spoke about it last time when Mark brought that up. And yeah, he was on the internet. It was kind of crazy back then during that period before the Expos demise. But yeah, Dave Van Horn was,

to me, a consummate professional. His inflection would favor the Expos, but he would, Dave Van Horn was, you know, to me, a consummate professional. His inflection would favor the Expos, but he would still give credit to the other team, you know? And it wasn't like you felt that he was a homer. Like, I never felt that way. Well, he also did a lot of national broadcasts at the Expos game on CBC. He did.

So we knew who Dave Van Horn was in Toronto before the Jays, but even after the Jays, you know, he was their guy. He's still broadcasting his with Miami. Yeah, he's with Miami. But the point is that so dave van horn was known as a i don't want to say neutral guy but he when he did expose games and he saw him on cbc he was a fairly neutral i mean you know i don't recall him going wild when the expose

did a home run but he was very much like vin scully the expose wanted a broadcaster that had that sound that particular intonation of which, you know, the baseball announcers that, hey, you know, here's the 3-2 pitch. It's hit on a line to left field. It's going to be a base hit. Very, you know, not monotone. Of course not. The proper inflection at the proper time.

But never really critical. Let the game, I'm not here to tell you to comment. I'm here to tell you what's going on in the field. Correct. And then you can make your own judgment. Or my color man, man don drysdale was his color man for the first few years that was a great and then duke snyder of course for many many years let the color man you know make the commentary well when i played this wouldn't happen or blah blah dave van horn was like you know the voice of reason bob cole the same way there's a reason why dave van horn's in

the hall of fame i think in baseball we hold our play-by-play and our broadcast teams to a much higher level. 162 games, you know, you listen to it on radio. You mentioned Mike falling asleep with him, waking up, you know, kind of a thing. That's right. I think in other sports, you can get away with it. Like, let me ask all of you, who do you prefer, Chuck Swirsky or Matt Devlin?

That's an interesting one for me because I'm a massive Raptors and basketball fan. I watch a ton of NBA. He's Raptors devotee. Yes, Raptors devotee. And, you know, I have a special affinity for Chuck because he brought in the Vince Carter era. And to me, that was the most exciting time.

It still is as a Raptor fan until they proved otherwise in the playoffs. And at the other time, he can go so overboard. His actual basketball knowledge was quite limited, which is interesting because, you know, you would never get, I was always going to the Raptor blogs, even back then going to the sources

because I wasn't learning from Chuck. he was just strictly an entertainer yeah but i think you need that though and i'm going to bring it back to the wrestling for a second you know uh in a way it is entertainment and sort of the great broadcasting teams in wrestling i know it's a little bit different but you know you had the sort of the baby face the good guy play by play guy and then you had the heel jesse ventura kind of you know adding the entertainment factor and i think in sports you kind of need that too. I remember Vince McMahon, Gorilla Monsoon, Bobby the Brain Heenan. There you go.

And Jesse Ventura. Yeah. Absolutely. So sort of that in a, maybe it's a little bit of apples and oranges, but, you know. What kind of balance do we strive for? Like, obviously, they do a lot of studies. They want to get advertisers. They, you know, it's a business.

Well, we talked about it last time in the sense that I love that the NBA pre-show on TNT with Shaq and Barkley and all that. We don't have that here. In fact, with the Marsh Madness, bless their hearts on TSN because my boy Jack is there with Kate Burness

and then Kia Nurse. But I always watch the CBS feed because I like the Barkley... Brian Burke's the closest CBS feed because I like the Barkley. Brian Burke's the closest thing we've got to Charles Barkley. Write that down. Now, Brian Burke, he tried to sue me once.

Do you know that? But yeah, Brian. Is there anyone who hasn't sued you, Mike, over the last six months? Well, no. I need to go back to Elliot Price because I'm trying to keep us to two hours here. I know it's almost impossible.

But Elliot Price was co-hosting the Fan Morning Show with Greg Brady and Hugh Burrell. They let him go after two years here. He came from Montreal. And they replaced him with, I think we may have announced this. We knew it was coming. And Ashley Dawking. Has anyone heard this show? I've heard on my commute with my

dropping my kids off at school at the beginning i felt she got off to a rough start she was trying to fit in too hard and now she seems more relaxed and poised and she's coming into her own so i i enjoyed that i flip between 10 50 and 5 90 i give up on 8 60 just or this channel that at a hamilton your buddy that you know it's just too hard because of the traffic updates. What station is this? What station is it? What is the Mississauga one? Oh, Mike Richards.

Mike Richards. My buddy. Yeah, too many bloody traffic commercials. I don't live in that area. But I'm impressed over her. I've always been a huge fan of hers, as Milan knows. And yes, her knowledge is maybe know, it's more basketball oriented. But I just like her style, like the way she dives in, asks smart questions.

And I'm just a fan. I enjoy it. I'm interested in hearing Hepsi's because Hepsi was on the show with him. And Hepsi's having a bromance with Greg Brady. They went to England together. That's right. But in my opinion, it's of course only my opinion, I think this program has the opportunity to be the best fan morning show ever. Wow.

Yeah, yeah. I've really enjoyed it. I think she's been a breath of fresh air. Yeah, really nice. You know, I probably listen to the fan morning show now more than I have in years. I know there's not a lot of competition recently, especially with Andrew Crystal and the likes of those guys. And that other guy.

Yeah, who we will not mention. You can mention him if you want. I think this has the opportunity to be one of the best shows in a long time. She did it organically, like in terms of upbringing with lacrosse and everything. She paid her dues. Absolutely. What I'm interested in hearing,

maybe Hepsy can, is Brady's got the reputation sort of of going, I don't know if it's his fault, but going through co-hosts, you know, Jim Lang. I know Andrew Walker was a different situation moving to Vancouver. Elliot. And now Elliot, yeah. He seems to go through a lot of co-hosts. I don't know if that's a Brady thing or a management thing, but... Well, Walker, they did move him to Vancouver. Hepsey, have you heard the morning show with ashley talking yes what did you think i'm not a big fan of morning shows when it

comes to sports anyway i just think it's really difficult to get into any kind of meaty conversation i was a guest on the show before ashley was announced officially as the co-host i think she was in for a trial basis and elliot just been let go or whatever. But I just find having worked morning radio, everything's in a rush. No one's got time. Ashley didn't even have time to look at the book. You know, I came in to talk about the book and I don't blame her. There's a million things going on. You got four hours every single morning and you don't have much time to get into it. In other if you if you wanted to take a reasonably deep dive into one topic you just wouldn't have the time to because you have two hosts which means

each one of them has to get their questions or comments in you've got one guest who sort of like all right you know here's my first of three questions for you i don't know how long i was on for but i couldn't have been more than three and a half or four and that's typical uh right you know you can't three and a half or four minutes. And that's typical. Right, you know, and you can't three and a half or four minutes. You know, I did Bill King's show. I'm there for like 40, 30 minutes or so. You get into some kind of a deep dive. But so I just, it's hard.

I've done it before. And when you're on the clock and, you know, there's advertisers paying big money to go, you know, come on, let's go. And the commercial clusters are three, four minutes long. It's hard to get momentum going. It's really difficult. So a lot of times it's got to be quick hot takes between the two hosts back forth boom i don't mean to put you on the

spot you know greg uh well you don't have to answer yeah yeah what do uh what do you think uh his thoughts are he's really greg's really smart greg knows a lot about every sport this is the difference okay we have too many specialists and it's not their fault you want to get sports broadcasting what do you want to do i want to do? I want to do hockey. Okay, hockey. Go do hockey. Do hockey, junior hockey, high school hockey, girls hockey, boys hockey, college hockey, junior B, junior whatever.

Make your way up to the pros. Hockey. But concentrate on hockey. All the baseball guys, Wilner, Scott McArthur, they're baseball guys. Scott McArthur knows his stuff. He hosted a show in the afternoon. But Scott McArthur does not have the knowledge of other sports like he has in baseball. Everybody has to specialize nowadays.

Greg Brady knows as much about college basketball, English soccer, the National Football League, baseball, lacrosse, golf, tennis, hockey, of course, CFL. Detroit sports. Oh, no, no. I'm just kidding. I mean, obviously, you're going to know more about where you grew up in the city that you were in, right? He knows Toronto stuff like he knew Detroit sports. Oh, no, no. I'm just kidding. I mean, obviously, you're going to know more about where you grew up and the city that you were in, right? He knows Toronto stuff like he knew Detroit stuff.

Greg knows I'm joking. When you spend a lot of years in Detroit, naturally you're going to know about the Lions and the Pistons and the Red Wings, right, and the Tigers of that era, and Michigan football and Michigan State football and basketball too. So Greg's very, very well-rounded, very, very well-read. Agreed. And when you're talking sports other than this your specialty and i don't know ashley's background enough i do know that basketball and lacrosse yeah you're chops but can you get into a deep dive discussion about the nfl

this was the problem with a lot of his co-hosts greg is they didn't know you don't know i did not know nfl like greg brady knew n. Jim Lang knew NFL, but not like Greg Brady. But isn't chemistry a big part of it, though? It's everything. It's everything. Chemistry is everything. So you have to find someone that gets along well with someone else that you can have interesting organic discussions.

And the type of discussion, if you're a sports fan, that you feel you could have with that person, if you were involved, you're eavesdropping on a conversation between two of your friends who are making interesting cogent points about issues that interest you and you'd like to be part of that conversation. That's the way it was for us on Sportsline for a number of years. Come on, join me and Jim in the basement. We're watching highlights of games and we're telling you what's going on.

So that's the connection that's important. And Greg Brady and Elliot Price didn't have that connection to the audience. And Greg Brady and Jim Lang didn't have that connection to the audience. And Greg Brady and Andrew Walker did have that connection to the audience. But whoever the program director was

decided he was going to bring in Dean Blundell. And then, so it was just a cluster blank. You know what it is. Don Collins. Yeah, but the point is that... Not his real name. You listen, people listen because they like the sound they feel comfortable with whoever the broadcaster or broadcasters are if you don't have that you can't force people to listen oh no listen for a little

while look you get it if it's someone new when i first heard jim ralph i was oh my god he's horrible jim mckinney on the radio terrible but after a while, hey, Kim Mitchell's probably the best example. Great musician. Went on Q107 in the afternoons. He was brutal, but he was still Kim Mitchell. So you, okay. And then after a while, you know what? Got a little more comfortable with Kim Mitchell.

I like he would bring out his acoustic guitar and play a little something. So you felt comfortable. This is going to take time with any duo or any individual, especially on radio radio because it's so intimate i think brian brings a great point about chemistry because not only can greg bring it from a sports knowledge but from a pop culture as well i think that's where they really shine and that's where i kind of like it but michael is interesting your opinion like do you do you think she's a better

morning show host i haven't heard a minute of this morning show and a podcast guest that's why well ashley was a great podcast guest. I'm surprised Hebsey doesn't know Ashley's background. That tells me he hasn't listened to her. No, no, I do. No, no, I know she's a big NBA fan, and she hosts a lot of these NBA things. She played soccer and basketball for Seneca College.

Hey, I played soccer and basketball. That's great. I mean, that doesn't make you a sportscaster. She also hosts an episode of The Bachelor. It was like a 10-minute podcast she did. She's very versatile in pop culture. How do you know this, Brian? One of my co-workers was one of the...

Co-workers. Yeah, the agents in my office actually was on the actual Bachelor show. Did you... Were you caught mansplaining anything to Ashley during your... Oh, that's right. She didn't pay any attention to the book. I don't think she had any interest.

I'm sure she didn't read any of it at all. Did not even ask for like... I attention to the book. I don't think she had any interest. I'm sure she didn't read any of it at all. Did not even ask for like, I listened to this segment because, because there was a million things going on with the Leafs, the Raptors, the Jays, the whatever was going on, basketball,

NBA. There was just a lot going on. And it's like, again, I felt sort of like, you know, and it was nice of Greg to have me on and all that. I sort of was kind of like,

you know, all right, this guy's talking about a book. It's happening with Hebsey nowadays, this podcast. What's going on with the Leafs? What's going on with the Raptors? Jays, that's why we tune in. Let's go, let's go, let's go.

So I just sort of felt, and it wasn't her fault or Greg's fault. It's the Kevin McGran, you know, but the hits and they're the topics. Give me Marner, give me Matthews. Right. What kind of contract would she have gotten though? Because I know Price came here

and I know for a fact there was a three-year contract. You know for a fact. I do, I do. I found that out, yes. So a three-year contract. You know for a fact. I do, I do. I found that out, yes. So a three-year contract meaning what? Well, he was let go after two years. Which means he's going to get paid for a year to do nothing. It happens all the time.

No, I know. It's a buyout. The third year is a buyout. Someone coming, I'm just curious, like someone like Ashley. Two years and an option. The option works. And the option probably they paid off whatever, 60% maybe of what his final year was.

And then so he's got enough money that he can, you know, be unemployed for a year and, you know, be unemployed for a year and, you know, find himself another job. It's interesting. But that's another thing. I'm glad you... Nobody moves to Toronto

unless they got themselves a decent contract. Well, that's it. Exactly. You told me that. But Ashley is significant for this fact. In addition to the fact

she's a good addition to the morning show, she is the first non-white guy to have a spot in that daytime lineup on the Fan 590 since, I don't know, Barb DiGiulio? Spider Jones?

Who's the last? Milan, you know your Fan 590. From a morning show perspective? Any time between morning show and afternoon drive. When was the last time a non-white guy had a permanent spot? Wow. Yeah, I'm thinking Barb DiGiulio when she had that program with Shulman and McCowan, when she did that.

Long time ago. Yeah. Long time ago. She's now at 1010, but nobody knows that. That's good that finally the Fan 590 realized they can hire somebody who doesn't resemble this same model. Do you think it will help ratings?

I want to talk about ratings right now. Good segue. I know Milan does not listen to 1050. In fact, Milan blocked. Is it true you blocked 1050 on your radio dial? Is that correct? He doesn't like 1050 at all because he grew up listening to CJCL. Like myself, and I know you're a nostalgia pimp. What's the term I'm looking for?

Nostalgia hound. Is that where you play the Wonder Years theme now? What would you do? Joe Cocker. That's one of the best fake cover Beatles songs. So I'm dying to know, you guys. Nostalgia, the nostalgia of him. This came from Jonah at Toronto Sports Media,

is where I read this anyways. And he was talking about how the Overdrive show was getting really close in the key demographics to catching the primetime sports of Bob McCowan, which is something I think a year ago we would have said like, no way, Jose, right?

Cause people like Malone have blocked 10 50 on their dial. Does anyone here listen to the overdrive show? I do. Um, talk to me about that show. Yeah. I'm not like, I'm not a religious listener,

but I do kind of do some flipping and all that. And I enjoyed it. Those guys have talked about chemistry. My God, those guys are just so tight. I mean, it's incredible for hockey, for hockey. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I enjoyed it. Those guys have talked about chemistry. My God, those guys are just so tight. I mean, it's incredible. For hockey. For hockey.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, they are. That's it. Because, you know, I like Jeff O'Neill. Right. I like Jamie McLennan. I think in the hockey context, they're great. They're both former players, good storytellers.

Brian Hayes is an excellent broadcaster. He is. But I'd rather hear Hayes talking about other sports. I don't want to hear those guys talking about the NBA or the NFL. Absolutely. Or mind you, I don't mind if it's talking about issues because they're fans too, you know, what they think of this issue or that issue in sports.

But man, when you get down to the nitty gritty and you're talking about an NBA playoff preview, I'm not interested in. It's like when I hear Kevin Barker talking about the Bundesliga. I mean, I know it's supposed to be fun and all that, but I mean, no. If you're bringing on experts for certain sports, it's really hard to take guys who are former hockey players.

Even the attitude of, well, that's bad. Like O'Neill will say something like, well, it's always like that in baseball, which is sort of like a hockey player snub to another sport, which I just don't appreciate that. I mean, you can be a hockey fan and a basketball fan and a baseball fan, but don't be just, you know, you're known

for hockey and then you kind of poo-poo. Actually, I have an idea. Why don't they rebrand themselves Hockey Drive instead of Overdrive? I think that would work a little better. Well, they take the whole summer off too, don't they? They pretty much take the summer off. Once hockey season, once the Stanley Cup is done, I'm pretty sure that show goes on hiatus for a couple of weeks. I read that article too, Mike.

And I think the concerning thing if you're a sponsor or an advertiser or an executive over there is that the numbers are just being rejigged. It's not new listeners that are coming. It's basically Bob losing share, primetime losing share to Overdrive is what's happening. Which tells me that listeners from primetime have shifted over to overdrive because I think over the years, Bob, we've talked about this in the past and it's sort of mailing it in a little bit has, it's catching up to him a little bit.

He's, he's a generalist in the true sense. And I like Daish and I like Steven Brun. I think they've added a lot to the program, but this is where I think the past little bit, the last few years are catching up to Bob. I think it's going back more than a few years. Yeah. Right.

Agreed. Honest. And Brian, you know all about contracts. So I can ask you, Bob McCowan just signed a three-year deal, right? Is that right? I'm not sure the latest on that. You have a source on the inside, I think. Yeah, no, not on that front.

And Bob is one of those who, you know, there's really no reason why he can't rate his own ticket, you know, as long as he wants to. He's, you know, established that. And even, I don't think it'll be a Bob Cole-esque kind of move on McCown. Mark, do you see that, though, happening? Where Bob's going to be asked to be politely asked to leave?

Mark worked with Bob McCown. That's why I'm asking. I know, I want to let the listeners know. Well, we talked about Bob Cole and we talked about, you know, Dave Hodgkin. I think it's inevitable. I think that again, you know, I, I don't know Bob well enough to know if, you know, where the time comes where he says, that's it. I've had it.

I don't want to do it anymore. Does he get a golden parachute? Does he get, look, we're going to cut you back to one hour or does he get the shaky hunt routine when he turns 75 and it's okay bob you'll be a special guest on whoever's the afternoon drive hosts show because so that because you're a legacy you're andy rooney that's right you're you know 60 minutes you're all that stuff so do we ease someone like that out but i'll tell you this right now i mean look bob could usually say he could write his own ticket he could just be a host and just pass it along to dyche and brunt and whoever his experts are and

still be quite fine. But he's not the broadcaster he was before because he just doesn't go to the games like he used to. He's not as engaged in every single... That's the whole thing. You've got to work hard. Look, on the weekend, man, I couldn't tell you how many shows I recorded just for my podcast, and that's twice a week, a podcast.

I can't imagine how on top of things you've got to stay. Whereas back in the day when Bob was king, there was only so many sports and so much to cover. There wasn't Twitter. There wasn't the internet. There wasn't all of that where everybody now knows more than Bob McCowan. Bob McCowan used to know more than everybody. But everybody knows more than Bob because people have the time

to go through Twitter feeds and YouTube and everything like that. He's not engaged. No, but the thing is, nobody at that age, nobody at that age, no one that's been in the business for that many years, can possibly put in the number of hours that some young person can with analytics and every feed.

I read here and I read there. They're incredibly knowledgeable. There aren't enough hours in the day that's why you have specialists because uh people like elliot friedman doesn't have to worry about uh you know baseball he only has to focus on hockey and that's right because you can't but i can tell you that elliot friedman you could drop him into an afternoon drive show and say elliot you're going to host the show yes he'd be fantastic he could go from any sport to any sport back and forth to hockey, because he always did have tremendous knowledge of all sports. He didn't come in as a hockey guy.

A basketball guy he came in. I loved him when he was at the score. Baseball guy, don't kid yourself, all that. He knew because he was a sportscaster and he was a reporter and he had covered not just certain teams, but events. I believe this is the last deal that Bob will sign. And I don't think it's going to be his choice. I don't think he goes quietly.

Well, we've got a couple more years of Bob, and then we'll see. But you might be right. I think I always feel podcasting, as it evolves, and we get better sports podcasts out there, should be taking a huge chunk out of sports radio. I don't know how you guys do it. I mean, I can't stand the ad breaks.

I can't stand it when they stop and then they play, you know, three minutes of advertisements. Because you have out there, I have Twitter. I have, you know, other social media in the background. There's always diversions to go back and forth. I mean, that's the way I find it. I mean, I just literally multitask. I think this is where the executives have to change

the way they do their programming. I think the morning updates, thankfully, are gone. Okay, so what happened here? I want to ask, so on TSN, they got rid of sports updates. Is that right? That's why Scott Ferguson is a free agent. Did you hear this? I don't listen to TSN.

Am I breaking anything? That's right. I'm talking to the wrong guy because you're the only guy I can see. I'll defer to Brian. I wouldn't know. I do remember that announcement. You could tell me that they don't have sports updates on TSN radio. I wouldn't have known.

You could have said they haven't had them for three months. I would not have known. So that tells me that the sports update, like you say, I could get my sports update on Twitter or wherever. Exactly. The idea of the sports update being part of that package in morning and afternoon drive where you've got to have your traffic, at least get your traffic in there.

Yeah. Your time checks are not that important anymore. Right. The weather weather isn't that important you can go to 680 news on the ones or whatever so now it's like yeah let's streamline our programming so that we get our commercials in but we don't have to worry about the weather the traffic the news the sports updates the news update which took a package away at the top of the hour on the fan and they're going geez look at the listeners we're losing to tsn 1050, which isn't running updates, weather traffic at that time. That's a key, right? If you flip over to the other station while your station is in a three minute cluster or four minute cluster and they've got some good programming, you don't go back. That's correct.

But why has Howard Stern been successful? And I haven't listened to him in a while since the Q107 days. Cause he asked the questions that nobody else would ask. He asked the questions that he knows every single listener is going, ask that question. You talked about it about the deep dive. And you enjoyed listening. It's a different model. At Stern Show, you can

go for the longest time. There's no commercial breaks. I mean, if there is, it's half an hour, 45 minutes, whatever he says. And Hebsey just said it. That's what you're missing on Toronto Sports Radio right now. You need, I'm going to say, Hebsey type or the stern of Toronto Sports. This is what we keep talking about, the real talk, which is missing on the airwaves. That's why you have podcasts.

You have podcasts because you can't, that's the model that won't support it. The AM model or even the FM model won't support it because it's advertiser driven. National Public Radio in the States is not advertiser driven. CBC Radio in Canada is not advertiser driven. They can go on as long as they want to.

If it's an interesting topic, you're not looking at the time. But these program directors are going to have to change their ways because these ratings were really interesting as it's the same people being regurgitated. They're not adding new listeners.

Right. And you can only go on so long, you know, as an industry to... In case rejurgitated. They're not adding new listeners. Right. And you can only go on so long, you know, as an industry to continue. Because you're all dying. Well, that's what's going to happen. Right. I think this is why Ashley Docking was introduced probably, is to try to bring a younger demographic. I don't know if it's going to work, but this, I don't know.

It's worth a shot. Now, Mark Hebbs, remind me, did you ever work with Jim Taddy in your career? I can't quite recall here. Of course, I'm kidding. You know I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Jim Taddy was the afternoon drive guy on TSN 1150 in Hamilton.

Did you know there was an 1150 in Hamilton, Malone? Yes, because I listened to Jason Agnew's wrestling program. Of course you do. Come on. Jason Agnew, who, by the way, originated the hockey pool that I'm hosting tonight. There's my Jason Agnew. Oh, wow, way, originated the hockey pool that I'm hosting tonight. There's my Jason Agnew.

Oh, wow, I didn't know that. Yeah, and he no longer participates. He's only into wrestling now, apparently. But did you hear, Mark, that they made big changes at 11.50 and the afternoon drive show, which included Jim Taddy, has been released of their duties, let go, they canceled the show.

Any thoughts on that? I could have told you when they started it it was never going to last that station was uh a mistake from the very beginning bell needed a spot they took ckoc oh we got 11 50 that's a nice powerful uh signal there and then they they hired people that had never been on the air before and added jim tatty uh and were forced because the reason that the station began was we're forced to air all Hamilton-Tycat games because every CFL city has to have a TSN broadcast-er,

which is the rights holder, in that city. So every CFL town has a TSN sports radio affiliate. Hamilton was the only one that didn't have that one. And so they rebranded it TSN 1150. The problem is they're forced to do all Thai cat games plus pre and post plus every Thai cat cheerleading thing you could think of plus McMaster games as well, which I don't know who listens to those games on the radio. So now you've taken on basically a station that is a promotional vehicle

for Hamilton sports teams. That's the Ticats, McMaster, and the Hamilton Bulldogs games. So now here's your station. And at the same time, you're trying to add a morning and afternoon drive show, but nothing else in between. No midday show, no noon show. And all your interviews are with other tsn personalities right as per the tsn radio model which is promote within yourself and make sure you get that cfl stuff in there that's the number one priority for tsn own station is cfl because that's where they

spend the most money and that's where they derive a good deal of their revenue. It's from TSN, it's from the CFL. That's the thing. So that TSN 1150 station was just sort of slapped together just so that the Ticats would have a place for their games to be on radio. That's it from the very beginning. Nobody who ever listened to that station ever thought that they were going to spend a penny

on developing talent talent having a solid morning show or afternoon drive show that was hamilton specific because there's no such thing if you're that close to the toronto market and the leafs are the team and the raptors are the team and the jays are the team and your only team really is your tie cats these are people that are used to toronto, big time sports. They're not used to following the McMaster marauders around. Hamilton's a big city. McMaster's a little university, got a little football team.

Mind you, the McMaster women's basketball won it all this year. But still, you're talking about a town, well over half a million people, that's so close to Toronto that it really is like a Toronto station. So to have TSN 1050 in Toronto and TSN 11 50 in Hamilton, you had to have major differences and nobody outside of Hamilton. And even though it was in Hamilton, we're ever going to listen to that station so they could hear the latest on the McMaster Marauders and the Thai cats three hour pregame show.

So Jim Taddy is available. Maybe he'll, but Jim's on 10 still does the TSN 10 50 games, right? Which are done now. Basketball does hockey. He still does the TSN 1050 games. Right. Which are done now. Basketball and hockey. That's right. They're done now. That's another thing. You're into the playoffs now.

All Rodgers, all the players. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But sports radio, look, you can't just slap a sports radio station together and say, come on, come start listening to your favorite

McMaster football games, McMaster basketball games. That's a tough thing to do and generate revenue and get advertisers to go, hey, come on over here. We've got 400'm going i'm going back to that point though i think i think the model has to change i think w fan came in everybody copied that model and no one's really sort of come up with a new model i think you talked about podcasts and i think there's a lot more obviously a lot more competition perhaps you touched touched on it, you know, where Bob was the king before,

he's in a crowded market now. It's time to break the wheel. Yeah, I agree. Game of Thrones analogy. Now, Brian, you joked earlier that you stopped listening to Saga 960. This is... I tried to give it a shot for a few minutes.

What the hell? They don't have any more listeners. No, I bring it up because they have like two shows I know of anyways. Mike Richards in the morning and Barry Davis is the afternoon drive guy. And I know because both guys have let me know they're going to be on the sides of Mississauga transit buses and stuff. Like they're really pushing these two shows. But it's almost, those are two sports media guys. Barry Davis is trying to steal some of the Jaystock callers before the game and after the game, I believe, as well.

I saw some. But let me ask this. Is it possible that a broadcaster's name recognition value, you can take him or her to a station that no one listens to and that can help? That's what they're hoping. I always said this. Could you take Bob McCown?

Exactly. Sorry, go ahead. Could Bob McCown go to the morning show on TSN radio, replace Landsberg, and will it... No. Culture is different for one thing. Bob's not a morning guy anyway. I'm just giving an example of sort of a broad... We talked about Damien Cox.

We talked about some of these other fellows. Where else can they go? Mike Richards, wasn't he one of the highest rated in Calgary at one time? Apparently, yeah. He was big in Calgary is what I understand for sure. Listen, you're only on top. It doesn't matter. You can take, look, I'll give you a good example.

Jesse and Gene were fabulous. Brother Jake and the Morning Show. You can take five and 10 year and 20 year periods where the morning local morning personality, especially mornings or afternoon drive, we're there for years and years and years. It doesn't happen that way. We're in a hurry now. Two years. I give Elliot Price two years.

If the ratings aren't improved, he's gone. I give this person two years. Gone. Two years. Everyone's in a hurry. Everyone's in a hurry. And advertisers especially are like, look, if I don't see results and you guys know this, if I don't see results, I'm not going to spend my money on this.

Like, Blundell's a good example. So they saw on 102.1, he had some monster books, like, in this demographic. So they're like, hey, if we could have some of that, that's great. But it never materialized. Look, John Derringer did The Morning Show with Pat Marsden for a number of years. And The Morning numbers were okay, but not like they were when he was on rock radio. He was a rock radio guy. And he knew his sports.

Don't kid yourself. but not like they were when he was on rock radio. He was a rock radio guy, and he knew his sports. Don't kid yourself. But he knew that he was destined to do morning radio as a rock and roll DJ. Right. Right? Not as a, because morning sports shows just, I don't know,

they just don't work the same way. It's hard to generate revenue in a market where people are listening to the top-rated shows, which are not sports stations i mean i don't know the fan what are they at 2.4 3. i mean think about that they're nowhere close i mean the the the the stations playing music and the all-news stations have five times the number of listeners 10 times the number of maureen holloway and not even close it's not even close so you're so you're basically talking to an audience that's in their vehicles for the most part.

I'm talking about the live radio version of it. They're in their vehicles and their real, their default is right to the sports station, right? They don't care about the other stuff, what's going on there, right to the sports station. What are people talking about? My favorite teams, my teams, the Jays, the Leafs, not, hey, the Oilers last night.

How about this thing? Who gives a guy this? Radio is local. Sports radio is as local as it comes. Local. Tell me about the teams. The guy you could be driving right next to, a guy who's a Leaf or a Raptor.

You could have seen him last night at the restaurant. You watch the games. This is what I don't understand. You make it local. I'm not, you know, listen. But that's what Hamilton Radio tried, the TSN 1150. Right, but the only thing is people around Hamilton don't just. You make it local. I'm not, you know, listen. But that's what Hamilton Radio tried, the TSN 1150. Right, but the only thing is people around Hamilton

don't just walk around talking about local Hamilton because they're exposed to the Toronto media. No, yeah. They're so close to Toronto, most of them work in Toronto or they're from Toronto originally.

Right. It's a different story. Now, I want to get us to DAZN, the disruptor, as I call it. DAZN, the disruptor. But I want to first find out if anybody here

misses Damien Cox on Sportsnet. Last time we were here, I spoke about the tennis. I really enjoyed his general columns and his coverage of the Rogers Cup. I will miss tennis, nothing else really besides tennis for me. I enjoy Damien Cox, but he's been ably replaced by Richard Dyche, I think, and Steven Brunt. But there is definite place for him on the airwave somewhere.

My question is, if you're a sports broadcast like Damien or Howard Berger or so many, if you're not on TSN or on the Sportsnet properties, where else can you go? Ask Mike Richards and Barry Davis.

That's right. No, good point. Hebsey, what about Sportsnet? Are they missing Damien Cox? richards and barry barry davis that's right where else you can go uh no good point hebsey what do you what about uh sportsnet are they missing uh damien cox i'll be honest with you i wasn't aware what damien's role was after he was on hockey night in canada in the george strompe lopolis era i do know that i read him in the star i think he's on in saturdays once in a while and i follow him on twitter and he's got some great takes on twitter. But, you know, if you're asking me, you know, is there a station out there saying, hey, if I hire Damien Cox,

is that going to bring me more readers, more listeners, whatever? I would say the answer is no. But I'll tell you what, I don't think there's anybody in this city, anybody that's on the air right now, that if they went to another station would move the needle. That's my question. Howard Stern can move the needle. Right.

It takes someone really special to move the needle. And there my question. Howard Stern can move the needle. Right. It takes someone really special to move the needle. And there isn't anyone in the Toronto market where you're going to go, can we get that person or that duo? Because these properties,

these corporations have done it on purpose. They crank you down. Exactly. They cranked it down. You can't tell the difference between an Arden Zwelling, a Ben Nicholson Smith,

a Ben Ennis, or the next person. There is not that personality. You talked about it earlier about being for the home team. And you can't. Pat Tabler, I can't tell the difference between Pat Tabler and...

Let me give you the best example. Did anybody watch any sports highlights last night, this morning? Did anybody watch your highlight packages? I did not. No anybody watch them live on twitter you get all the okay so when you watch them so what i'm saying to you is do you happen to know who happens to be doing the voiceover when you're watching your tsn highlights or sports net highlights or whatever is it just a disembodied voice a female for example can you detect the difference between voices of uh natasha Stanishevsky?

Kate Burness. No, no, Kate Burness is different. Laura Dykin. Laura Dykin, hang on. Lindsay Hamilton. Jennifer Edger is different. Kayla Gray. Let's add the Sportsnet ones as well.

Let's add Martine Gaillard. Let's add Carly Agro. Let's add Danielle Michaud. Let's add all the female names, all right? And you tell me if you know whose voice that is doing the voiceover and then let's turn around and say alex sixero brendan dunlop um uh ken reed ken reed no no ken reed kenny valk is different they've been doing it together for years um kelsey braid uh derrick taylor let's put all those people together and you tell me in all honesty do you know who's doing that broadcast is it just another disembodied voice whose face is on tv for a few

seconds caroline schwedt mike maybe no okay she loves her dog so so what i'm saying to you is that it's now been to the point where if you were to tell me that any of those previous names that i just mentioned and that's a lot of anchors young male and female anchors a lot of young ones and again dutchie and jen know they've been doing it for years ken reed and ivanka has got to be five years for those two oh all right okay so i'm talking about those established ones all the other ones are interchangeable they're all interchangeable because the the jobs that all those people, they all came from the same school. And that is, they're not journalists.

They're not hard-edge reporters that work their way up. They worked in radio. They did sports updates or they did reporting and stuff, which they got their chops. I'm thinking of Danielle Michaud, for example, who did reporting. She was a reporter. She had to go out there for City.

But the point is that they're all kind of from the same pool of talent has that been done on purpose though because before it is there were personalities like yourself right it keeps there were names above the marquee and they're not now it's just right like you said and the reason for that is i think they looked at espn and said you see espn what they did was when they saw that guys like Chris Berman and such were getting super, Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann were getting so popular, the other anchors would complain and say, hey, how come, why is it the

commercials are with Keith Olbermann? Why Dan? Well, it's the big show. What about Chris Berman? So what ESPN did on purpose was they made all of their personalities the same. They put them on some of those commercials with the athletes, okay? All of them were the same. Craig Kilbourne ended up with his own show. Others moved on to other bigger and better things the athletes. All of them were the same. Craig Kilbourne ended up with his own show. Others moved on to other bigger and better things.

But essentially, they kept them all the same. And they did the same thing in Canada. So the Jim Taddies and Mark Hepshires or the Earl McCraes or the Dave Hodges, for example. And I'm not talking about Don Cherry. That's totally different. That's once a week on a Saturday. That's a whole other thing.

I'm talking about on a daily basis. Howard Stern, big superstar, of course, commands that type of respect it does great interviews the sponsors love them but everybody else it's like you know what you can fit into that job and you can fit into that job and people may not know what voice they're hearing or they might for example go oh wait see that guy that's mark he used to work with jim that kind of you get a lot of that but it didn't work when Strombo replaced McLean, though. You know what? That was different, man.

That was, first of all, when you made a full change like that and all of a sudden Don and Ron were gone and now it's a different looking set with different people with goofy looking socks and odd shots and guys with microphones and hockey sticks and suspenders standing there, you know, showing stuff like that, it was too much of a shock to the viewing audience.

It was, whoa, wait a second. Give me Bob Cole, give me Ron McLean, give me Don Cherry. Or you can add, you know, go ahead and add Elliot Friedman. He's great. And, you know, Kelly Rudy, he's good. But that Glenn Healy guy, oh, no, he's too controversial. And let's bring in this guy and that guy. I miss Glenn Healy.

I think it comes down to personalities. And the problem is there's just not enough of them. Not allowed to grow, to breathe, to be themselves. Like, I'll give you an example of a name. Mark Masters. I love Mark Masters. His tennis coverage. I love the way his dry, defecating humor, his interview style.

Even his hockey stuff I enjoy watching. Where the hell is he these days? Like, I don't see the visibility. There's someone that I saw with potential to really make a breakthrough. And he hasn't. Well, it's because unless you watch TSN all the time, you wouldn't know if Mark Masters is on or isn't on right but you don't watch TSN all the time because you're on your device watching your Twitter live feed and stuff like that and that's another thing is that there's tons of people working there do they have

the opportunity to move up in the world do they have what's the next step for Mark Masters you can do play by play and take over from Gordon Miller or Chris Cuthbert? Probably not. Probably not. So Mark Masters can be the Leaf reporter and the tennis reporter for as long as he wants to. John Liu, for a number of years, did Jays and general stuff

and anchored Sports Desk, and then they said to him, John, do you want to go to Montreal? And he went, sure. I'll go to Montreal, and he's been in Montreal ever since. So basically we're seeing the death of the sports

broadcasting personality, especially here in Canada. It's homogenized. It's all, you know, listen, it's basically, like I said before, you could not tell me who was doing the voiceover on Sportsnet yesterday. You could not tell me if you just, I played you all that you would not know whose voice that was, who was hosting. And here's the key.

Jim and I were on the air for 11 years. We were on every night. If one of us was on vacation, we could never go on vacation at the same time ever. If one of us was on vacation we could never go on vacation at the same time ever if one of us was on vacation don martin filled in all right later gene principe came and took over don martin would fill in bill bird would fill in it was the same now you can flip a coin especially on the weekends i don't know who's working all i know is this during the week if i'm watching late at night i get ken and ivanka after the hockey game or i get after the baseball game.

I get Dutch and Jen, right? I know who's anchoring because they've been doing it for a number of years. I'm comfortable with them. Bob McCowan is on in the afternoon. I flip on, there's Bob McCowan. Now, in the summertime, of course, he's not there, but he complains that Brunt isn't there. You have to have consistency. You have to know if you're going to that restaurant that you're getting good food every time.

And the same people. That's the connection. Sponsors want that too. Sponsors are like, they wanted to be on with Jim and Mark. They wanted to meet us. We want to meet these guys. We want to be part of their show. We know that other people watch for the same reason we do.

They're fun to watch. It's interesting chemistry. We never know where we're going to get left next. It's a good laugh. So we made a connection. But it took 11 years, not three months of two people together who's, i don't know who that person is and who's that where's kate burness she's doing basketball this week how come kate and natasha aren't working together anymore well so-and-so is working there now well i i but would you stop watching if ken and vanco

weren't hosting you're not watching it for them i am actually really yeah i kind of like the way they do it i like the i don't like i don't like the way ken reed calls her osmac i don't like that part of it okay but i think that they've got a good chemistry there and they deliver a good sports cast where sometimes i'll watch and i don't know who i'll know the two people but i've never seen them working together and then you can tell it's just not they don't like sports that doesn't care that they that they don't work together they say look you're just there to read this and do the voice, the highlights. Second period, 3-2, here's a shot by so-and-so. It doesn't matter who's doing that voice.

It's like if you watch Sportsnet 360. They never, ever, the announcer never says who he is. You know, hey, hey, this is Milan with the highlights of your San Jose-Calgary game. Never. It's a voice. It's a disembodied voice that just is a voice that's telling you who that guy is, who scored that goal, what the... That's it. It's a disembodied voice that just is a voice that's telling you who that guy is who

scored that goal what that's it it's bingo callers so really if after tim and sid and jay and dan there's that's the end of the of the duels really probably yeah from a recognizable brand and you could take those two and you could interchange them you could take the sid and tim tim and sid show yeah you say we're going to make it an hour and it's going to be on late at night midnight till 1 a.m and you could take jay and dan and put them in the desks that Tim and Sid sit in and have them do their thing. And it would, it would be. But it's been rumored for a long time.

So are you telling me that if say, uh, Tim and Sid, when Bob retires or leaves or is asked to leave or whatever, and Tim and Sid take over, do you think that would affect ratings? I think it might be better for ratings simply because you can just do their tv show as a radio show or their radio show as a tv show it works both ways i've listened i've been in the other room listening to tim and sid when they're on tv i'm cooking dinner or whatever and i can get all of it i mean sometimes you gotta watch this and then you'd but if they're reading tweets on the air and it's tv i don't need to see the tweet on my screen i

can hear what they're saying. It's conversation. That's basically what TV becomes. TV has become, it's radio. Right? I can be in the other room and I can get the, I don't have to be watching them on television. Great points all. Great points. And I know, Hebsey, I know you and Brian are massive

tennis fans. And I'm becoming excited about tennis myself because there's all these young Canadian hopes. It's not just Milos anymore, which anymore which is exciting please let me ask you guys about uh Canadian tennis particularly with regards to DAZN DAZN is a great disruptor I'm signing up for DAZN I have made that decision I spoke to a couple of friends on the weekend that have followed it for soccer and the streaming everything about it is way better now than it was. It's reliable. They have tons of soccer.

They have tons of football, baseball they're adding on. So I'm going to join Mark. I'm, I'm signing up. Yeah. It's a, I love it because I mean,

I think it cost me $120 a year, something to that effect for the year. But what happens is you're right. You can tune. I can turn on the MLB network and I can get baseball anytime they, and they now have a show with Adnan Virk that does it. It's a wraparound show. Not a wraparound show.

It's a live-looking show, which is great. NFL, they have all the NFL games. We watched the Super Bowl off the zone. Oh, really? The fabulous feed, beautiful. And like you say, for soccer, it's Champions League now, but starting next year, it's going to be all the British soccer, all of it.

And you've got women's tennis, the WTA, which, you know, as long as Bianca Andreescu's playing, and I'm trying to think of, I mean, if it wasn't for her, I don't know how much women's tennis I would be following, quite frankly. And also the Romanian contingent. I read an interesting article about that. Well, sure, once she gave a shout-out to Romania, then all Romanians.

I mean, imagine, for example, imagine, and I'm just trying to think of a, you know, a Canadian superstar. Let's say, let's just say R.J. Barrett, you know, it becomes a first draft pick and a superstar or whatever. And he goes, if it wasn't for Canada, I'm just going to shout out to Canada, we would all be going, yeah, man,

he recognizes his birth country or his parents' birth. He was born here too. But for her to recognize her parents' birth country and her heritage must have been the greatest feeling in the world for romanian people must have been just fantastic like hey this girl lives in canada but we're going to take her as one of our own she's got 20 million romanians and she's got almost 40 million canadians behind her pretty cool yeah smart move by da zone to put that match that the big BB win, the first when she won, was it?

I don't want to give Dazon credit for that, Mike. I just wanted to be very vocal about that on social media. Okay, well, let's hear it. Yeah, that was all Tennis Canada. Tennis Canada drove that completely. Dazon fought them every step of the way. But Dazon had to sign off on it. They did.

They were basically bought out. It was a huge cash disbursement by Tennis Canada to do that, to make it happen. Oh, see. Yeah, absolutely. That's some real talk. I had no idea. I thought this was a huge cash disbursement by Tennis Canada to do that, to make it happen. That's some real talk. I had no idea. I thought this was a grandiose gesture by DAZN to promote them. Zero percent credit for that. They were bought out to do it. Is this something I just missed the reports on this? Or you got some inside

information? I made lots of inquiries to Tennis Canada and to other sources and all that to refute that. I never heard back from anybody. I did some investigative researching on that. So they don't want to admit it, but 100% the silence is deafening. But I'm glad they did. I'm happy they did it too, absolutely. I just don't want to give this own credit for that

one thing that they did. Forget Rick Westhead. We got Brian Gerstin. They didn't allow it on mainstream media. If they really gave a shit, they would have allowed it to go on one of the major broadcasters, and they didn't. They forced you to go through, you know, very hardcore, you know, tennis fans had to find it. And I was not impressed at all, okay?

But they did pay for the rights. Like, they own this property. And it's their prerogative to do that. I'm not dismissing them on that. They could have said no completely and never put it on the air at all for any Canadians to do. Make you, if you want to see the BB match, you've got to pay for it. Yeah, and I went on for a day or for whatever.

Yeah, you're absolutely right. But I don't want to just give them the full credit for that when I think in this case they deserve none or very little. You know what's going to happen? You're going to try to subscribe to The Zone, and they're going to go, Gerstein, sorry, Mr. Gerstein, not available in your area. My wife has a different name, so I will use her name mark.

We heard what you had to say about us, and we deserve some credit for that, and we're going to take some of the credit. We put it live on Twitter. They've really become the athletic of the streaming. I was going to ask you, because you and I have similar tastes, I think. I'm a tennis guy, but only if BB's going to win some tournament. Otherwise, I'd only watch majors, which are on TSN, right? Yeah, TSN, right? Right.

Yeah, TSN, yeah, correct. Checking up my tennis experts to my left. Malone, what would it take for you to subscribe to The Zone? Do they have to actually pick up a property that you're passionate about? Or Eugenie Bouchard, maybe? I don't know.

You can just follow her on Instagram. Eugenie Bouchard is now semi-retired, just the latest. If you haven't heard that, I follow her. Yeah, she basically, what happened, I'll give you a little backstory on that.

She came into Montreal, her family, she posted a picture of an Instagram with her dad and brother and sister. And, um, Stephanie and miles reported in an article saying that, you know, basically she's taking a break. And my take on it is that her father, basically, this is just totally conjecture. Um, her father basically said, he said, what are you doing? You know, you're basically, you know, almost out of the top 100. You're playing these crappy tournaments. You know, you're not going to be eligible for anything at this point. You have to go for qualities if you even get that. No one's giving you wild cards anymore because of your name and, you know, your look.

So, you know, basically, I think this could be the end of Jeannie. She also did really well in the settlement, right? Oh, tremendously well in the settlement. And she's going to be, my prediction, she'll be a Kim Kardashian style like her sister and she will be doing lots of media placements and social stuff and all that and she'll

be well compensated. Anna Karnakova. Correct. Okay, yeah. They lost me now then. I was going to try to find out what property would they have to buy in order for you to subscribe to his own?

Well, I know they've made a big deal with Carmelo Alvarez. Is that the boxer's name? Carmelo Alvarez? I'm sorry. Is it Hepsi?

I don't know this 365 million dollar deal I think with to broadcast his fight. So I'm not a big boxing guy yet, but that could since the

you know, the Lennox Lewis of Andrew Liefeld Tyson days, but that's something that could potentially get me interested. And Hebsey, you are a subscriber. Yeah, I watch it a lot. When's the next WTA tournament? I want to make sure I'm on before then, that Bianca's coming.

I know she's not playing until the Fed Cup. She's going to play then. And after that, do you know the schedule? You're the expert. Yeah, I know. I follow it. Yeah, I know Fed Cup. She's taking a break until Fed Cup. I was going to ask you. That's that, like, do you know the schedule? Well, you're the expert. Yeah, I know. I follow it. Yeah, I know Fed Cup. She's taking a break

until Fed Cup. I was going to ask you. That's going to be, yeah, that's going to be hopefully covered. If not, I will, I will find a way to watch it. Will you be in Montreal

for the Rogers Cup? Pardon? Will you be in Montreal? No, but I'll be in Toronto here. Actually, I have some news. Okay, yeah, I was going to ask you, do you have any exclusive tennis news

to give us before I play our nostalgia clip? He just gave you the most exclusive news of all. No, I have more exclusive news. More exclusive news. More breaking news. This is something, you know, I know the Ravnich family

and all that quite well, and I spoke to the father last week, and Miloš right now is having some recovery time. He's not in the Monaco tournament and all that, and I don't think we'll be seeing him much more, if at all, in the clay season. That's all I can say.

We'll probably be looking forward to seeing him on grass. So just, you know. You mean not smoking the grass? No, no, on grass. I want to clarify. Yeah, and like, you know, the Stuttgart, you know, in terms of that. And, you know, he's, I wish Milic the best.

He's got some back issues, I believe, from the last injury he had. And believe me, nobody wants Milic to win more than me. And I just hope that Wimbledon, he'll be healthy for Wimbledon. That's my next short-term goal for him. But Brian, you on Twitter, I think it's Twitter,

but somewhere you said Felix will be number one in the world one day. Yeah, absolutely. It's not even a question to me. Felix is going to be, yeah, Felix himself has already said, he just came out yesterday or a few days ago

in an interview in Quebec on French TV saying that they asked him where you want to be. He says, I'm going to be, I'm going to try and be top 10 next year. So he, and tried to me means that he will get there. I'm going to try to be number one next year. Yeah. No, within 24 to 36 months, he'll definitely be within top 10. Got to get Jarvis ready. Oh yeah. Yeah. No, he'll be a perennial. It's not easy to win slams at all, but you know, even to win one slam is a tremendous accomplishment. You see how hard it's been, you hard it's been for Miloš to get there.

But this guy has got literally talent coming out of his yin-yang. He's well-versed on the game. He's a student. He plays like a veteran already. He's got all the skill sets. He's learning to get stronger. His serve's getting better. This guy is going to be Djokovic, a second reincarnation of Djokovic.

Talk about lofty expectations. I'm not shying away from that. Can you knock some sense into Brian? There's no sure thing here. No, there's no sure thing, but second reincarnation in Joe Kimmich. Talk about lofty expectations. I'm not shying away from that. Hebs, you're a tennis guy. Can you knock some sense into Brian? There's no sure thing here. No, there's no sure thing, but this is my prediction. I'm going out and I'm making a prediction. And what's your prediction for Vladimir Guerrero Jr.?

I'm a little concerned about his health issues going ahead, so I don't want to put myself out on that. But Felix, though... Oh, no-brainer, no-brainer. He'll be fine. Wow, so it's not to put myself out on that. But Felix, though. Oh, no brainer. No brainer. He'll be fine. Wow. So it's not a prediction.

It's a spoiler. Yeah, right. Are you a time traveler, Brian? Are you coming from the future? I'm going to buy Felix stock now if I could, put it that way. I asked you each to let me know of a sports call that you'd like me to play in this last segment here. I know, Brian, you have to disappear at some point, so I'm going to play

yours first. I've got an autographed book here for you. I'm going to grab the book and I'll grab my wallet and be happy to pay you. It's worth $100, this book. If he signs it, it's $100. It's $25 for a signed copy. It's damn worth it. It is, absolutely.

This is a call for Brian, and I want to hear you talk about it. Let's listen. 55 seconds left in the penalty, a minute and 27 seconds left in regulation time. Boston four, Montreal three. LeFleur coming out rather gingerly on the right side. He gives it in to LeMire, back to LeFleur.

Oh! He gives it in on the mayor back to the floor. What could be more appropriate if anybody. And they're going to look where you take that drop that. He beat Joe Bear with a hard slap shot from the right side low and on the far side. De La Fleur sends his place into a frenzy again.

Well this has got to be heartbreaking for the Boston Bruins. The first two games of the series in here. They played very well and everything went against them late in the game.

They lost both. Here tonight they saw a three to one lead wiped out. Then they came back them late in the game. They lost both. Here tonight, they saw a 3-1 lead wiped out. Then they came back. They took the lead. And a bench penalty, of all things, caused the loss of the lead. All right, so just so you know, guys,

unless Yvon Lambert scored in overtime to win that series, and then the Rangers were cannon fodder for the Habs. They won five games to go on to win the Cup. This was so electric. There's nothing like the sound in the old forum when the crowd, the Montreal crowd, it just has a life of its own. And to be able to have that go on, this two-goal comeback, you know, but they were down two goals, you know, going into the third period.

It looked like the dynasty was over. And that's a veteran leadership. I mean, you look at who was out there. I mean, it was incredible. You got Robinson, Savard, you know, Lemaire, you know, Schutt, LeFleur. You got like five Hall of Famers on the ice, you know, for that goal. And it was absolutely incredible. Gilbert, I mean, the angle that he took to play a little

questionable in terms of what he did but that was a hell of a slap shot that uh le fleur you know now you know this is a toronto mic not montreal mic that's fine yeah hey this is our childhood memories man you're i was a product of the 70s and you know this was a bonus cup at that point you know we had pretty much written off the has after two periods, which, you know, we probably in retrospect shouldn't have given their history. Now here's a call. Milan, you're going to enjoy listening to this, but let's play

a more Leaf-centric call here. Clark's got Lacroix down He's got a couple of lefts going at him As in comes Hextall to grab Potbath Now Potbath and Hextall are fighting Off comes Potbath's helmet Hextall throwing punches at Potbath Felix throwing an uppercut lands on Hextall Right on the butt They're railing away at one another

Hextall sweaters up. That's a find. Here's another throwing punch. Hextall with an uppercut. Felix throwing wags and left. The pileup is underneath, but the main event is the goaltender. Oh, Felix is popping him. He has thrown a bunch of punches at Hextall. He's got him dragged over the top.

Murphy doesn't want to break it up because he'd be the third man in. He's talking to the referee here, but I'll tell you what, Felix Potvin wins this one hands down. What a call, what a moment. Joe Bowen, who's the guy doing the color on that call? That was me. Amazing. That was the greatest night ever tell me

what it was like not only to be there but to be on the call with bowen like talk to me man it was uh i mean felix potvin and ron hextall fighting i mean fighting each other killing each other out there it was a regular season game was in philly the crowd's electric and it was just bizarre man it was fantastic after that game though we couldn't get out of the i think it was the was it the spectrum or the first union arena might have been the first year in the first union arena or whatever they called the new place but we couldn't get out because the philly fans were throwing stuff at the leaf bus and they wouldn't let the leaf bus like they wanted to kill you know pot van and everybody else and i'm on the bus with the team because me and Joe Bowen are the

team broadcasters at the time and I'm looking at him what the hell and Potvan is laughing all the Leaf players are laughing because like guys we just you know you can't just kick the crap out of Ronnie Hackstall in Philadelphia. Hextall. Like having your pants pulled down in front of like, you know, your family, like you're how embarrassing with that. He just got,

I mean, we didn't, we didn't think Felix had that in him. No. And every guy on the team was like, Cat, what got into you? Like Cat,

we had no idea. Cause no one had any idea that Felix could fight. And certainly not Hextall. He could be out of your mind to take on a guy like Hextall. If you were like. In Philadelphia. Taking bets. He certainly not Hextall. He could be out of your mind to take on a guy like Hextall. Nobody, if you were like... In Philadelphia! Taking bets? He's close to the glass.

And we're thinking that these fans from Philly are going to reach up over the glass and grab Potvin's mask. Like, it was madness. In Philadelphia. Are you out of your mind, Felix? What are you doing? In Toronto, okay, we can protect you.

But anyway, we managed to get out of there on the team bus, but it was electrified. Everybody was like, whoa. Did you see that? It was fantastic. And Milan, you remember that well, right? That was a moment.

Felix the cat. Yeah, and Mark's right. You never thought that. Never. That was in him. Never. I don't even think Felix had had a penalty that year for like even anything. Slap, whatever it was.

Tim, not Meek. I don't want to call him Meek, but he was like gentle. He was the lady being of the goalies. He was the Tim, not Meek. I don't want to call him Meek, but he was like gentle. He was the lady being of the goalies. He was the cat, man. Or whatever they call it. I know Brian likes the new Felix, but that's my Felix right there. Felix Bob Van.

Unbelievable. That was a great clip. Felix was a great guy too. You know, Felix was a huge F1 fan. He was a big, big fan of, you know, he was a Jacques Villeneuve fan. Jacques Villeneuve, of course. Big, big fan.

And always when I would run into him, it would be, ebsey what happened in the f1 in those days no twitter or anything like that so it was like you're in the know you know what's going on you're a sports guy what happened in the f1 how did so-and-so qualify and all that stuff right into that and it's interesting because a lot of the guys would want to talk sports with me not hockey they're sick of it but like you know nick capiprios always wanted to talk baseball and guys like that. And Pochettino was always talking about auto racing. So it was interesting to see these guys away from the rink on the bus or at the hotel

or whatever with time to kill, wanting to talk about something, anything, but the stuff they had to talk about. Well, I wonder what he's doing now because the whole Leafs backup situation now, he'd be an improvement over Garrett Sparks, that's for sure. The thought had crossed my mind.

See what Darren Pupa's doing. That's what I'm thinking. That's what we need in this city. More of a Tim Bernhardt guy. Oh, or Rick Sinkwa. Jeffries. Wow. Mark LaForest.

Yes. Mark LaForest. Little Alan Bester. Bester was a starter. Yeah, well, Reggett and Bester platooned, if you will, like Garth Orge and Rance Mullenix. That's right. Yeah, but they were

really young at the time. Then Donny Edwards come in too. Yeah, they were really young. They were very, very young. We could go on. But this will be the next episode.

Now that we got a winner, Brian, it's all Leeds talk now. We kicked out the Montreal guy. Milan, you have a clip too. I like this. Let's listen

because then we can talk about it. For Boggs. So he's been on base twice. The reason I groaned when he was running was that Boggs hit the ball and Henderson would have stolen the base. And the batter, Ripken.

Follow-up tip. National League manager wants to hang on to the 1-0 lead. This is his first time managing an career and he's got a lot of experience with the National League manager wants to hang on to the one nothing leaf this is his first time managing an all star team and there is a little Rousseau he wants a hit from Ripken

thinking of first times I wonder how many times Cal Ripken Junior has faced his former teammate the answer none. First time. Talking about Dennis Martinez. Ball one strike. Ricky Henderson has thoughts about stealing third base. If he does so he'll do it against a very good catcher. And he does.

Santiago. He's got a good catcher. the first two in the third quarterfinals if he does so he'll do it against a very good catcher and he does Santiago Santiago and Alomar very unusual they throw from their knees as well as they do standing up bottom of the third one nothing nationally two on one out for the American Sandberg working at keeping Henderson close at second base.

In fact he's out of position and so doing. But the likelihood of Ripken going the other way remote. That's why Sandberg's holding in close and not the shortstop right. He's got a good shot. He's got a good shot. He's got a good shot. He's got a good shot. He's got a good shot. He's got a good shot. the position and so doing but the likelihood of Ripken going the other way remote that's why

Sandberg's holding him close and not the shortstop Ozzie Smith Smith has to protect against the pool side and Sandberg can hold Henderson close because not too many ground balls to the right side by Ripken. the first half of the season Well, he tuned up yesterday in the home run hitting contest. So, yeah, that's Cal Ripken's big home run.

He was the MVP of that 1991 All-Star game at Skydome. Why'd you pick this clip, Milan? I decided to go off the grid a little bit. I mean, there's the Carter home run and the Alomar and the Ed Sprague home run and the bad flip and the Borszewski. There's so many great moments. But this has a special place in my heart. It was the

1991 All-Star game. So I was a 15-year-old kid, I think, back then. And my father got us tickets, I think, a then. And my father got us tickets, I think, a couple hours before game time. We paid outrageous prices to a scalper. I remember that. So I have a very special memory personally

in terms of spending that time with my father, who obviously I look up to and is my role model and all that stuff. But there were so many ramifications to that game, if you really think about it. The SkyDome was only a couple of years old. Hebs, you probably might have even covered the game. I was there.

Yeah, and it was the first time. It was just off the big Fernandez, the Alomar trade. So Alomar Carter, Jimmy Key were the EJ's representative. George Bell returning back as a member of the Chicago Cubs. With Andre Dawson. Yeah, being booed out of the building. Prime Minister Mulroney and the elder President Bush were at the game. I remember that as well.

Security was very, very tight for that game. And it was great. It was a great Canadian kind of thing because Jimmy Key was the winning pitcher. Dennis Martinez was the losing pitcher. And I remember Paul Beeston mentioning years later that that weekend, it was sort of Toronto's coming out party. They had that great party, I think, at the Toronto Island. And it was a real chance to show off to the Americans, you can say,

what a great city Toronto was, especially with the Dome being two years old. And right after that, of course, we were able to sign free agents. I remember Beeston mentioning that the All-Star game was a big impetus in terms of signing Winfield and Molitor and Morris and years to come. Now, the reason I didn't shorten the clip, because I could have done that in 25 seconds, but I actually, listening to the names, like Ryan Sandberg, and there's like a shift going on,

you hear that, and they're talking about, what is this shift thing going on? And you get to hear, you know, Ricky Henderson might steal third, and Dennis Martinez is on the mound. I just love hearing those old names that's why i kept it so long but uh i was at the previous day so i was at the home run derby day when cal ripken won that too so it was a big weekend for cal ripken that's uh that's for sure and i wasn't a big cal ripken guy because tony fernandez was my guy and they were always in competition, I guess, in terms of who was the best shortstop.

But yeah, I thought that was, you know, obviously I can go with the obvious moments, but honorable mention to the Raptors draft. Do you remember that? I was the 1995, I think.

When they, they wanted Ed O'Bannon. That's correct. Yeah, of course. He can boo Damon Stoudemire and we booed Monica Dio from MTV. I know that'll be close to, or much music. I'm sorry, Much Music.

Yeah, because all we knew, because we were still, as a city, we were learning our basketball, but we knew March Madness, right? Like we'd watch March Madness. So of course we wanted Ed O'Bannon because he was a big NCAA star on UCLA, right? I remember that distinctly. And booing Stoudemire. What did we know, I guess? Toronto fans show their ignorance.

We've come a long way. We've come a long way. We've come a long way. One last clip. I teased it earlier. Let's listen and chat. This is shorter than yours. Don't worry. He works to Hasse.

There's a swing and a fly ball. Left field. Bell is there. He's got it. The Blue Jays have done it. They have won the East. They have won the East. George Bell catching the ball and dropping to his knees a mob scene

out around second base as doyle alexander is mobbed by his teammates here come the outfielders in they will be met by their mates and this mammoth crowd that has come screaming down out of the seats now somebody takes george bell's cap. He wants it back. He takes it back. And the Blue Jays and Doyle Alexander are going to be ushered off the field by their adoring public. Alexander with his cap off, being carried by the throng down there on the field. I chose this clip because I was a massive Jays fan. I'm still in, but I mean, that was when I had to listen to every game or watch the games that we could get on television or whatever, but I couldn't believe

the magic number was everything to me back then. We had this magic number and it was clinch day. We were supposed to clinch the day before and Tom Henke gave up a homer in the ninth, if I'm remembering this correctly. Was it Butch Weineger? Right. Was it Butch Weineger? Or Ron Hasse?

Is it Ron Hasse? It was Butch We, it was Mosby dropped the ball. Is it Ron Hasse? It could have been Ron Hasse. It was Butch Weininger. That's right. And Mosby dropped the ball. I remember that. But that was good in the sense that we got. That was on the Friday night.

And I was listening to that on the radio. And then the next day's game was on CFTO or something. Yeah, it was. So that call I didn't hear because I was watching. Was it Don Chevrier or whatever? Tony Kubik? I don't know. Probably was watching. Was it Don Chevrier or whatever? Tony Kubik? I don't know. Probably those guys.

Anyway, we clinched. And it was the biggest thing in the world to, I was like. I think it was Fergie. I think it might have been Fergie Oliver. You might be right. You might be right. 10-year-old Mike, this was the biggest thing in the universe. The Blue Jays had won the AL East.

We won the pennant. This was everything. Of course, we lost in seven games to George Brett in the Kansas City Royals. We won the pennant. This was everything, of course, we lost in seven games to George Brett in the Kansas City Royals. We all know that story. Hebsey, you were at this clinching game? I covered all these games, sure. Man. I hated it.

Tell me why. It made my job really difficult. It made it very difficult because I wanted to celebrate as a Blue Jay fan from day one, but I had a job to do. I didn't try to get George Bell or any of these guys to say anything when there's champagne in your eyes and just to see it. It was a nightmare. So from a, I don't even remember what my story looked like or anything like

that, but I wanted to celebrate. I wanted to be like everyone else. Yeah. My guys and all that, but, but, you know, I couldn't. I remember that. Yeah. And TSN, the game was on TSN the night before and I didn't have TSN back then. So I had to scramb, so I had to listen to it

because I was a scrambly team. Well, in those days, too, you could listen to radio in real time and watch the game. If you wanted to, you could turn the sound down. I remember there was this big uproar about Fergie Oliver. Why do we want to listen to him? Let's listen to Tom and Jerry. And I remember my dad was one of the first.

I think in the early days, the very early days, even when the games were on television, he wanted to hear the radio because he was familiar with the radio guys, Tom Cheek and Early Win and later Tom and Jerry. Right. So he always turned the sound down on the TV and had the radio on. He might've gone out to the backyard or something like that. So he always had, he'd always, but you can't do that now in real time. You don't get, you get the radio is in real time, but of course your TV signal now goes through a couple of boxes. Oh, no, no, no. It takes seconds for it to catch up, so it doesn't work anymore. And every time you try it because you want to give it a shot,

you realize you hear the play, and then you see it like eight seconds later. Well, that was an eventful weekend because Phil Neeker also won in a meaningless game on Sunday, 300th game. Everybody was hung over that day. Yeah, exactly. Phil freaking Neeker also won in a meaningless game on Sunday's 300th game. Everybody was hung over that game. Yeah, exactly. Phil freaking Neeker.

58 years old, I think, won his 300th game. Man, gentlemen, thank you so much for doing this. Milan from Fast Time, Brian from PropertyInTheSix.com, Hebsey, who sold a couple of books just in this room. I'm sure he'll sell way more when people listen to this episode. So contact Hebsey if you want the greatest athlete you've never heard of. Listen to Hebsey on sports. In fact, we're going to record it in like five minutes here.

Milan, you can watch the show. It's a great event for you as well. And that brings us to the end of our 449th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Hebsey is at Hebsey man. Our friends at Great Lakes brewery are at Great Lakes beer. Property in the six.com is at Raptors devotee.

Palm of pasta is at Palm of pasta. Fast time watch and jewelry repair is at fast time. W J R camp. Turn a soul is at camp. Turn a soul and sticker. You is at sticker.WJR. Camp Turnasol is at Camp Turnasol. And StickerU is at StickerU. See you all next week. Cause my UI check has just come in Ah, where you been? Because everything is kind of rosy and gray

Yeah, the wind is cold but the snow wants me today And your smile is fine and it's 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 And I don't know what the future can hold or do for me and you. But I'm a much better man for having known you.

Oh, you know that's true because everything is coming up rosy and green. Yeah, the wind is cold But the smell of snow Won't stay today And your smile is fine And it's just like mine And it won't go away Cause everything is

Rosie and Gray Well I've been told That there's a sucker born Every day But I wonder who