Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Sports Media Roundtable: Toronto Mike'd #594

Episode Date: March 6, 2020

Mike hosts a sports media roundtable with Mark Hebscher and Fast Time Milon. Topics discussed include The Fan 590 vs TSN 1050, recent changes to the 590 morning show, the loss of Bob McCown and Don Cherry, the Blue Jays baseball broadcast crews on television and radio, the passing of Tony Fernandez and more.

Welcome to episode 594 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times and brewing amazing beer. Palma Pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. StickerU.com. Create custom stickers, labels, tattoos, and decals for your home and your business.

The Keitner Group. They love helping buyers find their dream home. Text Toronto Mike one word to 59559. And Banjo Dunk from Whiskey Jack. One of the most celebrated roots, country, bluegrass bands in Canadian music history. I'm Mike from torontomike.com. And joining me on this sports media panel is Hebzion sports host Mark Hebzerhire and a man I call Fast Time Milan. Welcome, guys. Hey.

Great to be back with two legends in the business. And who may they be? I was going to say, are you looking in the mirror, Milan? Not at all. Not at all. Milan, I have your return and it's been highly anticipated, but I have a jam for you here. Hebsey's got a theme song,

we all know, by Los Lobos. This is the Milan Talsania theme song, written specifically for you. Thank you. By Mark Morrison. So Return of the Mac.

The one hit wonder. That's true, but it's a hell of a hit. It is, it is. If you're going to have one, make it a big one. Good to see you, buddy. Really appreciate it. Thanks for having me back. Well, I wanted to get the band back together here.

Get us all back to talk about all these things that are going on sports media. I actually just came off. So I just came off an episode of Hebsey on sports. And Hebsey dropped a little bomb on us all regarding Toronto sports media. Don't say it that way. That's a good thing. Oh, yeah, that's bad. Well, it makes it seem like it was an F-bomb or I farted or something.

He just dropped a bomb on us here in the studio. Oh, my God. He had a little exclusive that he's going to. Now, it's on Hebsey on Sports, which records every Friday. I think it's the best sports podcast in the city. Hebsey, maybe tell everybody, just in case there's somebody listening to us right now who's never listened to Hebsey on Sports, tell us what it is and why everybody who hears our voice

should subscribe to Hebsey on Sports. That's a good one, Mike. Because we're unfiltered, because we don't bow down to any corporate entity like Rogers or Bell, we don't have to worry about whether the wife of the controller was upset by a comment or whether we might have said something

that could be construed as politically incorrect and makes potential sponsors run away. We don't have to worry about that. We're fiercely independent. We say what's on our mind. At least I say what's on my mind without fear of recrimination, without any concern that it might cost me my job or anything like that. They can't even take your media pass away.

No, I don't have one. And so I think that the idea that you should be able to listen to comments from someone independent that does not depend on the team that they're covering or the corporation that's running the media empire to tell you what you can and can't say. It's a beautifully liberating feeling. So, yeah, I'll say stuff that you're not going to hear on Sportsnet or TSN or any, you're just not going to hear it because they're not allowed to say.

They might think it, but they can't say it. I can think it and say it. Mic drop. Mic drop. And Hepsi's just left the room. It'll be just Maloney and Mike. They can't say it. They want to.

I know they do. They go, oh, I would love to kick the crap out of Rogers, but I can't because the radio station is owned by Rogers and the team is owned by Rogers and that's owned by Rogers Or there's some partnership somewhere. So you tell it like it is, and it's not always pretty. pretty i'll say that i've been sitting beside you for 18 months and sometimes you'll say something and it's maybe even a little controversial but you basically share with us your thoughts uh on different uh sports topics right like if i was working for the fan let's say in toronto i could not tell you what's going on behind the scenes,

even if I knew. I could not relay that information to the listener viewer. It would cost me my job because I would be the source. Wait a second. You can't talk about the internal goings on. Rogers, you can't say why Ashley Docking isn't part of the morning show anymore. You can't reveal that information. You can't do it.

But you're going to, I mean, you did reveal it on today's episode of Head to Head Sports, but you're going to reveal it a second time in this episode. It's no skin off my nose. It's no skin off my nose. But the background of the story is, and this is for Milan also,

is the ratings, it used to be you would get ratings twice a year, spring and fall right and those were the bbm bureau of broadcast measurement books that you based your advertising rates on you would compare fall to fall you would compare spring to spring right then they started putting some summer numbers up there just to make people feel good oh look at all the people listening to the blue jay games in july and august but generally speaking it's the fall ratings and the spring ratings which drive the advertising rates for terrestrial radio right and for many many years and still now the system is

terrible but there's no other system you could have there's no instantaneous feedback well there is but you have to walk around with a device on your belt and every time you're near a television or a radio it's got to be on and all that stuff but basically what it used to be was you filled out an actual diary they would send you a thing in the mail with a couple of loonies taped to it yeah two dollar bill yeah and here's what we want you to do we want you to fill it we want it we want to it's a radio diary we want you to fill out your listening habits so you can send them in so we know what your age is, your, you know, male or female, whatever, your demographic, what you're listening to at a particular time period in 15-minute increments. And then once we know that, we can base, you know,

we can base our ad rate card on that. Oh, look at all the men age 25 to 54 that are listening to this show. Let's get the beer advertising in there. Let's get the car advertising in there, the hardware, the guys that, you know, stuff that men are going to want. And if it happens to be more towards women, well, the advertising is going to reflect that. But you've got to go to the advertiser and say, here are the numbers. They're going to go, where did you get those numbers? Oh, from the only source that's available. Everyone's the same.

You might look and go, how can their numbers be so good when no one I know listens to them? Well, that's the only way you can base it on that type of thing. So the fan just had a book where they were beaten for the first time ever by TSN radio. Well, okay. We're going to get into this we're getting in total this will be the first topic of conversation because uh i am i have the advantage of coming off an episode of hebzion sports so i've heard some of your thoughts uh and it depends on really like like like as often the case with radio ratings it depends how you spin it because i would argue the fan still leads 1050, but we're actually going to get into this right away.

But I want to let people know Hebsey on Sports is available wherever you get your podcasts. So wherever you get Toronto Mic'd, you can find Hebsey on Sports. It's a great companion piece because you get to hear my beautiful voice on Hebsey on Sports as well.

We kind of sleep together. You've got the upper bunk and I've got the lower bunk. Right. Wow. Well, sometimes we switch. Does that make me the third wheel? Well, third wheel Milan. Oh, no. the third wheel? Well, third wheel Milan.

Oh, no, sorry. Milan's got the cot over in the corner. Fast Time Milan is also familiar with listeners of Toronto Mic'd because for a very long period of time, you were a proud sponsor of this program. Absolutely. Then you said, I'm going to spend all my money on 60 Minutes. Is that correct?

I cannot deny or confirm those allegations. But you are advertising. In fact, maybe I gave Hebsey a chance to hype Hebsey on sports. Milan, take a few moments and just tell us about Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair. Well, I appreciate that, Mike, and it's great timing because it's Daylight Savings Time this weekend.

So we spring ahead an hour. That's why I booked it today. So great timing. Was it earlier? Didn't it used to be in April and they moved it back? You're right. You're right. Yeah. They moved it because I used to work for a German company and we always had a two-week gap between switches. So there was always two weeks when we were five hours apart as opposed to six.

And it was very confusing for me, but please. Yeah. So it's great timing. Spring ahead an hour. Great time to get your watch battery replaced. We have locations right across Ontario. Yeah, so visit FastTimeWatchRepair.com for a location near you.

And in these parts, we have a great location in Richmond Hill. We have a watch and jewelry technicians right on the premises. Is that where you can be found? Like if somebody said, I want to shake hands with the man with that golden voice, they're best to try Richmond Hill location. Well, I think with everything going on right now, probably a fist bump or something right now.

Hold on. No, no, no. You can't do the fist bump. It's got to be the bow. Can we do the bow? Is it the Japanese custom to bow? Yes. Why don't we do that?

Yeah, you got to get rid of the handshake. The handshake is really good. First of all, I did break. I know I make a broken record. I broke my pinky 18 months ago, and it still hurts when a... I was with a martial artist yesterday, and I think he's a broken record. I broke my pinky 18 months ago and it still hurts when a, I was with a martial artist yesterday and I think he had,

you know, he's a martial artist, so he's strong. I think he wanted me to know how strong he was and I think he rebroke the pinky. Why don't we start bowing? Sure.

Or what about the kid and play the little leg kick there for our younger audience? I love, I'm telling you, house party. You remember house party? That's right,

you do. I wish I could grow my hair like. Oh, cameo. Man, man, man, man. That was the best. That is our, yeah, that's our demographic. He looked like a pencil with the eraser on the end of it, right? With that hairstyle.

Why is, why am I playing Return of the Mac? Wasn't it Kid Funhouse, right? Feel the groove. Yeah, that's right. I feel it now. Getting a little love now. Okay, so fast time. If somebody out there has a watch. Yeah. That might have, maybe it's in the drawer next to your bed and it's because it a little love now. Okay. So fast time, if somebody out there has a watch

that might have, maybe it's in the drawer next to your bed and it's because it's broken. Like forget me. Yeah, of course, if you need a watch battery replacement, that's a no brainer. You go to fast time.

You were the Sears guys before Sears up and screwed you over, right? I've told that story a hundred times. But if you have any watch or jewelry that needs repairs, you go to fast time. That's it. Well said.

And if you don't watch 60 Minutes, this is your opportunity to learn about this fantastic... And many of your listeners have come visited us. You want to shout some of them out? I know one is JJ. She has many names, I think. So shout out to JJ. And

did Lieve Fomka come see you? You know, they like to hear their names. The FOTMs. Okay. They do, but yeah. Be a good FOTM. Go see Milan at fast time.

You do great, great work over there. Where to begin? There's so much here. Let's go. Hebsey already started us off there. So let's go. Let me just start by saying that if you look at men 25 to 54, okay, look at men 25 to 54 okay i believe that to be the target demographic for 10 50 and 590 so men 25 to 54 and you just look at that the fan still leads 10 50 2.5 to 1.8 very very close it's never been that close but now that i've established that sort of baseline of fairness,

if you will, Hebsey, now pick up where you were there. It sounds, and I also saw Jonah there from Toronto Sports Media was mentioning something about this, and then I heard more detail from you, Hebsey. Don't you find it odd that Jonah lives in Seattle?

Well, he's from here. No, but he's not hiding the fact. He lives in Seattle. We're starting the hiding the fact. He lives in Seattle. We're starting the real talk early. He lives in Seattle and he's on a plane most of the time. He's flying. He's got Rogers insiders that seem to communicate with him. Oh yeah, no, no, I'm just saying

but I find it interesting, right? Because if, I mean 20 years ago, he wouldn't be able to listen to Toronto Sports Radio here in Seattle. Oh, that's true. But I mean, you can be anywhere in the world. And I mean, our show, my show, Mike, you and I, Hebsey on Sports, we've got people listening all over the world. They're not just

in Toronto. They happen to enjoy hearing about what's going on in Toronto sports. They might be expats. They might be Leaf fans. Whatever it is. So you can be anywhere and still be just as up on what's going on. And so he does. He's got some insiders there and his and i mean his stuff he usually breaks some pretty good stories whether you know whether he's

on a plane heading to uh you know where mumbai or or he's in seattle he's got some inside information especially at rogers especially at rogers yes in fact maybe only at rogers there's a lot of no but there's a lot of loose lips at Rogers, though. There are a lot of people that are at Rogers now or were at Rogers that understand all the machinations. Read some of Nick Kiprios' tweets. You think just because he was there for a number of years. I think Nick was there 20 years. Since 98.

Okay. So you're there 20 years. You've got friends. Trust me if I tell you. Of course. Guy gets home from work and you know and he says hey kipper you know between you and i this is what's going on right here's what's going on um you can't you don't shut people up like that you know all of a sudden they say oh i can't say a

word i can't no secrets or anything like that everybody talks and especially when you're in the business of talking okay people know what's going on behind the scenes. And they know that the fan is absolutely like the Titanic. It is just sinking. How do you stop it from sinking? You've got to find a way. You've got to put your finger in the dam. Whatever it is, at this point, they've got to do something. And we've listened to this station from day one.

Yeah. Yes, I did. So I think there's definitely an engagement. And I think this is what the executives and the tall foreheads at Rogers have forgotten about

is that there's a bond and there's an engagement with the hosts of the show and the audience. And you look at the turnover just on the morning show alone in the last 10 years, I think you gave out the number,

Mike, it's insanity. And if the station doesn't believe in its hosts, why should the listeners? And a lot of these wounds have been self-inflicted. I think it's insanity. And if the station doesn't believe in its hosts, why should the listeners? And a lot of these wounds have been self-inflicted. I think it's a complete disaster what's happened at the fan. Okay, let's talk about that morning show real quick

by saying, okay, we remember, let's start with Gord Stelic and Don Landry, okay? So Stelic and Landry, right? They got removed because they were going to bring in Andrew Crystal. But for that summer, they actually had... Jeff Lumby? Right, FOTM Jeff Lumby, just for the summer, though.

I remember that. And then you had Andrew Crystal, which was, I think, in terms of moves of this nature, it was a disaster, I'd say, Andrew Crystal as morning show host at the Fan 590. And then they brought in, am I right, Brady and Lang? Is that what's next? You tell me, Malone, if I screw this up. I think it was Brady and Lang.

And then Lang was removed due to chemistry issues, which will tie into something Hebsey's going to share with us very shortly. I think it was Andrew Walker. And they brought in Andrew Walker. And now you've got what I think was a pretty darn good morning show, Brady and Walker, and they got some pretty strong ratings. They did. But.

They had good numbers. They had good numbers. But. And not only were the numbers good, got some pretty strong ratings they did but they had good numbers they had good numbers but and and not only were the numbers good but you could see that you could build upon that morning show that if they would have had the patience and said let's let these guys let's leave them alone yeah no matter what the numbers look like leave them alone for two years because if you don't have a strong morning show in radio it doesn't matter how the rest of your day goes. It's called the funnel system.

And anyone will tell you, if you've got a strong morning show, especially in the car, and people have that button, that preset pressed, when they get off of work and they get back into their car, that preset button is still on the same station that you were listening to in the morning show.

If you listen to the Jays game at night or whatever, when you get back in your car the next morning if you listen to the jays game at night or whatever when you get back in your car the next morning right you're on that preset station that's very very important that my number one preset has always been 590 first button 590 right so to give the audience any opportunity to flip somewhere else is a mistake so you stick with it you have some patience and you know what if brady and walk Walker were still doing the morning show with the fan now, I'll bet you they would be absolutely solid. The fan would not have to worry about the rest of their programming because

enough people will have listened to the morning show that they're going to go back to that station. They trust that station. And I think they had pretty good numbers. Did they have a 6.9? Maybe one. Okay. You look that up while I share the fact that at the time, I believe the program director was Don Collins.

I was going to say. Yeah. And I think what he got the stars in his eyes, the stars being, oh, that guy who had big numbers at 102.1 is available. Well, you can say his name. He's not an FOTM, but you can say his name because it happened. But they basically, the reason they moved Brady and Walker to 1 p.m. is to put Dean Blundell in the morning show slot.

That's right. So you're basically saying, okay, yeah, we might have, and Hebsey's going to come up with a number, but maybe we have a 6.9 now. I think that's the number we're going to confirm. But I think we can get, like, if we can get some of that 102.1 Dean Blundell audience, maybe we can get, you know, big numbers,

like a 10 share or something like that. I understand their thought process. The execution, of course, was off, but I understand the thought process. I'm going to fast forward a little bit here, if it's okay with you, and I kind of want to ask Hebsey. Mike Zigomanis might be a great broadcaster one day

or a lot of potential. What's the thought process here, Hebsey, from a program director's perspective of putting someone like a Zigamanis on Toronto Sports Radio? Like, it's really his first broadcasting job. Yeah, the problem is that you devalue your morning show when you introduce people who have never been on the radio before.

It makes the other hosts work harder. And you're auditioning on the air on a morning show. What you need is, like in the old days, you need that person. If you want to be a radio announcer, you're going to do weekends. You're going to do sports updates. You're going to do overnights.

Right. I remember listening to Dan Shulman in Barrie. Yeah. So the idea is that you need to go somewhere to work on your craft, hone your craft. And there is, that doesn't exist anymore in today's media. Everyone, not everyone, but a lot of people that you see on Tsn or sportsnet or here

on the radio are doing the this is the only job they've ever had in media they didn't have to work their way up the ladder they didn't have a crummy time slot they'd have to work overnights it's like oh right into the morning show now i think the problem might have been with the chemistry of some of these shows is these people hadn't worked together. Look, you could bring up Vladdy and Bo and Kevin Biggio together and say, you know what? This will work because they played in Buffalo. They played in New Hampshire. They know of each other, whatever.

But if you were to take a guy from another organization and another guy and say, all you three guys right you're going to play the outfield for the jays you're going to learn at the highest level when not to step on that person's toes right when to give way to that person that's all part of a chemistry as well and no offense to any of the people i've mentioned where else had they worked what other time slots had they been in how much on-air experience did they have? It's like flying time. You're not going to be piloting 767 first time you've ever flown a plane. You had to. I hope not.

No, no, but I'm saying you had to have had experience flying, but not at the highest level in order to reach that status. You don't just hand it and say, hey, Mike Zygomanis, we know you're on the morning show. Fast time alone did a hell of a fast forward there. So I'm going to catch up really quick because the Blundell experiment did not work. And it is now they bring back Brady.

So Brady was removed from the 1 p.m. show and it was just the Andrew Walker show. And Brady, I don't know what the deal was. I can't remember. Maybe Hebsey knows. They paid him. But he was still being paid not to be on the air. They took him off the air.

Right. So he's sitting in Ajax and getting hissey. They paid him. But he was still being paid not to be on the air. They took him off the air. Right. So he's sitting in Ajax and getting his money. They paid him. Right. He obviously can't go and work anywhere else. Right. Because he's being paid by Rogers. Right.

There's a no compete in there. Right. Right. And then, yeah, and then they brought him back. They bring him back. And they bring a guy from Montreal who's unknown because I didn't know him. Yeah, I knew who he was. Because you're savvy.

No, no, because I worked in Montreal, and I know who Elliot Price is. But again, I was very surprised when that happened, because wouldn't you want to bring someone in that was from this market, that could speak about the Raptors, speak about the Blue Jays? Or just a name we know. Name recognition is kind of important, right?

Name recognition, how would you know who the guy is? Unless he's from Toronto. Right. Who would you bring in? Or if he was a national name. Right, right. It goes back to that bond and continuity I was talking about before.

So they put, I remember this show was Brady, Elliot Price, and Hugh Burrow, who is known to Toronto audiences. Yeah, and Hugh was part of that. He was doing the updates and he was part of that morning show as well.

But then, as we all know, they removed Elliot Price from this about a year, they gave him about a year. And then they gave him the boot. And they brought in FOTM Ashley Docking to take his spot. And it was basically Brady and Docking for a while. And then.

I think Hugh was still part of that. Hugh was still part of that. Absolutely. And then again, Hebsey, you probably have the specifics here. But is it Brady who basically. How did Brady end up leaving this morning show? Was it his call? I don't know the particulars of that. the specifics here but is it brady who basic how did brady end up leaving this morning show was it his uh his call i don't you know i don't know the particulars of that i just know that the chemistry

wasn't there and obviously they wanted to make another change on the morning show which of course why should we be surprised they change way too often right so you you almost knew when it was brady and ashley docking that there had to be a next step. They had never worked together before. Yeah. Right. Don't know if they'd even met each other before. The only thing they had in common was me.

No, but I mean, you know what I mean? It's like, and now you're going to be on the number one market, one of the top markets in all of North America. Right. And certainly number one in Canada on a heritage station where people tune in for, you know, top quality broadcasting. Number one sports radio station in Canada. And you're going to listen to two people that don't know each other

and are trying desperately to develop a chemistry right before your very ears. That's a recipe for disaster. So I don't know if one of them said, look, I don't't know it's not going to work or they said look this isn't going to work we're going to go in a different direction or whatever the case was he wanted to do something else probably whatever the case was look at the numbers now versus then and i'll bet you if you could ask the fan would you would you go back

would you like to go back they'd say yes i'd like to go back to those numbers how do i get back to those numbers go back to that uh brady and walker back to those numbers? Go back to that Brady and Walker. Yeah, how do I do that? How do I undo the mistakes I've made now? And that's where, if they were smart, they would say, okay, how do we fix this? Can we bring Brady back for the morning show? Can we bring Bob McCowan back for the afternoon show?

Can we do these things and get our numbers back? Okay. There. We're almost there. So Brady leaves the morning show, and Scott MacArthur is the replacement. So Scott MacArthur is now doing the morning show of Ashley Docking.

And then they have this, I can't remember when they relaunched this, but it's Mike Zigamanis at some point joins the fray. So Mike Zigamanis, Scott MacArthur, and Ashley Docking, and Hugh Burrell's now moved to this like pre-morning show yeah he's really good actually that's a great 5 30 to 6 he's got lots of time and you know what it's a good half hour it's really concise he gets the audio clips in there he gets the play-by-play clips of what happened yeah he's good that's a great show that's better than the morning question you show. That's better than the morning show. I have a question. That's better than the morning show.

The 5.30 to 6. It is. But it's got so few people listening, I would imagine. Well, that's it. At 5.30 to 6. Yeah, obviously you're not in. Well, 5.30 to 9. Generally around 5.30 it starts.

7 a.m. is the prime time. Right. At 7 a.m. you want to have all those ears because everybody's listening at 7 a.m. Right. But I think Hugh's show was great because it's well-crafted. It's scripted.

He adds his, you know, personal touch to it. He doesn't have to fight for airtime with anybody else. Right. And it's good. I like it. It's good, but can you afford,

and I'm curious about this, like, can you afford to pay that kind of, like, Hugh Burrow money? I'm not saying he's making six figures or anything, but paying an adult salary for a 530 to six guy?

Like, I always thought that... Well, you're not paying anybody else. I mean, how much money have you saved? Well, you could probably get somebody like a college will do that for free, I bet. How much money are you saving in salary without McCowan's salary, without, you know, Jerry,

whatever they were paying Jerry. Then let me just say... Jerry Howarth was on the fan for all those years. You think that when they, when he left, all that salary that he was making, you think they immediately...

Did Jerry Howarth want to leave, or was he basically making too much money? You know what? That's a really tough one, and obviously you would have to ask Jerry of that, and I think that in some ways he wanted to because he wanted, his health was of paramount importance, and obviously his relationship with his wife

and his kids. But he seems to be okay. Oh, I think also, I think if you're prepared, if you said, okay, it's not, it's not going to be an easy transition, but Jerry still goes to all the ball games. He always goes to the first game of a series. That's right. To say hi to his friends,

to keep himself informed, keep himself out there, that type of a thing. Does he miss going on the road? Oh, probably not. Right. Right? It's a grind, I would imagine. It's an unbelievable grind.

Listen, it used to be that the that the announcers didn't take a break now buck martinez gets a couple weeks off every summer so does pat tabler so to i mean because they realize any newspaper writer doesn't can't cover the team all season like you can't do it you can't go from spring training to the playoffs you'll wear yourself out so there's ways of them taking their holidays and having other guys come in but um listen this this idea of putting someone on the air that has no experience that the audience isn't familiar with right and expecting the audience to go oh no i've got i got patience i'll keep listening even though it's cringeworthy because i think there's going to be potential

no you wait till they're ready to move up to the big stage. And that means that they have to, they've got to put in their time in the minor leagues or in the time slots. Okay, but I think the audience has shown to be very loyal and persistent, the fan audience. You think so?

I think for the most part, if you look at from, we just talked about from Jeff Lumby, Gumby? Sorry, I don't know what his name is. Jeff Lumby, yeah. Jeff Lumby. He's on the, I don't know what his name is. Jeff Lumby. Jeff Lumby. He's on the Red Green Show.

Okay. That's not quite my demographic, I guess. You're one of the few people that's going to remember Jeff Lumby doing a morning show on the Fan 5. I'm saying a lot of these are self-inflicted wounds. They're all self-inflicted wounds. From Andrew Crystal to Dean Blundell to the management. It's up to management to say, this will work great. And until they're sure self-inflicted from Andrew Crystal to Dean Blundell. It's up to management to say this will work great. And until that's until they're,

they're, they're sure of it. They don't risk putting them on the air. In other words, it's like, I'm not sure if this trio is going to work. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to take an entire weekend.

We're going to take these three people who are going to be on our, that we would like to be on our morning show. Right. We're going to take them to a place where it's just them. And we're going to, we're going to throw the microphones on and let them go let them go back and forth with stuff let them you know and then and then we're going to make a determination you know what that sounds i think people would like to listen to that or no we're going to have to do a little bit more tweaking before we put them on the air because once you put them on the air and people

hear this and they go i don't know about that i i don't know if i like that at all and they flip to the other station and now they hear landsberg and koliakova and they go oh this is better right now like i can go back and forth i like what these guys are saying they sound like they're they know what they're talking about or they're it's engaging and interesting conversation to listen to i'm not going to go back to that other one. And I don't mean to harp on Jeff. My apologies.

It's okay. He was a summer fill-in. Yeah, to love me and his family. I think my point is, at a time, do you recall any signature segments anymore on Morning Show?

I remember when Stelic and Landry were doing it when they used to have Sam Mitchell on and those were entertaining segments. Smidge. Smidge, exactly. And now there's no I call it destination listening.

There's no reason to really listen to it in the morning time. Bring back the champ. I hear Brother Jake is available. Hey everybody this is the champ. How about even Lunchbag Letdown? Right. You know I mean, yeah you're right. You've got to have a reason to tune in. And the number one reason is you enjoy the company of the host or hosts.

You enjoy their company. Of course. You want to be in the studio with them while they're having these conversations. And this comes at an especially riveting time in Toronto sports. Yeah. Where the Raptors are coming off a championship season. Right. You know, the Leafs are a hot mess, but it's still

entertaining to listen to. But we'll be in the playoffs. The Blue Jays attendance is down almost a million people over the last couple of years. There seems to be hope there. Right. But the era we're talking about,

Toronto sports were a disaster. TFC was in the MLS Cup last season. People forget that. Yep. Very close. Here, okay. So let me be specific here.

I happen to, I'm trying to set Hepsi up for what I think is an exclusive. I have not heard this before, but I'm going to start with Milan. Sure. Milan, did you enjoy Ashley docking on the Fan 590 show?

I did. What was it? I'm asking as a person who, well, full disclosure, I did not listen to a lot of morning radio on the Fan 590 recently, but did they have chemistry, the hosts,

I think it was coming along. Well, I'm going back to the Brady and docking. I was enjoying that show. I like Scott McArthur in his role as Jay Stock. Not to say Scott's not a great broadcaster.

I think he is. Again, it goes back to what Hebsey was saying about continuity. I wasn't familiar with his work at TSN, so I was still new to listening to him and now to throw him in the morning time it was a bit of a shock from from my ears and he anyways but brady i i think i just i was used to listening to brady all those years and i think docking was a good sidekick to him i think i think the fan has been looking for that pop culture sports combination for years, dating back to, I remember Catherine Humphries was rumored way back when, and I guess she didn't want to do the job,

and there was talk about Jodie Vance, and they were looking for that combination about that male-female sort of dynamic pop culture sports. And you could hear it with Brady and Dawkins. It sounds like you liked that show. I did. It was growing on me. And that's what it should have been.

Because I believe too that as they went on, they were more comfortable with each other. The audience was more likely to stay tuned in, to hear a different point of view, hear a little bit of back and forth. He said, she said, however you want to put it. And it was getting better. And that's the weird part of it is is that

like should they not have said all right we're putting you two together right we're not going to do a thing for 18 months we're not even going to ask any questions and then we're going to reevaluate it after 18 months which is three books three main books and then say all right but at least give it time to grow which is what tsn radio has done with Landsberg and Koliakivo, but especially with the Overdrive guys. When they started, people went, ah, it's just guys talking hockey. What are they going to talk about when it's not hockey season anymore? Well, guess what? They talk pop culture.

They talk about their own experiences. And they're also fans of other sports. They don't delve into baseball as deeply as hockey because they know their limitations. So they'll ask questions about it. And they'll have experts on. Like they had Steve Phillips on. I mean, that's what you do. And you basically take a step back and go, look, I

know my hockey, but I don't know enough about baseball. Steve, what happens with this or what happens with that? Enlighten us. And that's why it's a good show because they've stuck with it for five years, six years. And Brady was a sports savant. So I've heard the criticism that maybe Ashley knew her basketball, which I think she definitely does. And on baseball and hockey was, you know,

not maybe quite to the level of, you know, previous hosts. But I think Greg more than made up for that. And I think Ashley brought in sort of that pop culture, a little bit of a younger, you know, references. Okay. Then the big question I got to get to right now is, why did they fire Ashley Dawking? This is a question I was going to ask both of you.

I'm looking now at Mr. Hebbshire because, again, I had the advantage of listening to an episode of Hebbsy on Sports this morning. Sure, so here's what happened, okay? And you, you know, first of all, I think this is your show, but boy, we spent a lot of time on the history of the fans morning show here. Wow.

You know, this is deep dive, right? That's what we do on this show. A lot of people, a lot of people, as of yesterday,

there were over 130 comments on Mike's thread about this topic. Right. I think that's almost, you're reaching Molly Johnson levels here. Also,

you were right when you said it's my show. So we're going deep. Right. So we've gone deep, really deep into this. So there is interest. So now you've got to kind of go,

okay, now, so what happened? What was the order? Like it was Brady and dogging and then Brady left and then docking was by herself, but not for long because immediately they moved in. Scott.

Scott McArthur. And how long before they moved in Ziga Manis as well? What was the thinking? In other words, when they let Brady go, did they not have a plan in place immediately to implement, to make it a nice smooth transition?

But you said when they let Brady go, we get to establish that's what happened. Maybe Brady wanted to do something else. Whatever the case was, the day Brady wasn't on the air anymore was the day that TSN's transition should have taken place smoothly and they had a plan in place.

Right. Brady didn't all of a sudden wake up one day and say i'm not going into work today screw them right right there was a process in a time period where he says okay greg your last day on the air is going to be whatever and then we're gonna huh and then we're gonna introduce that they should have had a plan in place but it seems that they didn't it seems that they woke up one day and said holy shit what are we gonna do about a morning show did you already fire fire Brady? Or did we already buy out his contract? We did.

Oh my God. We don't have anything. Okay, grab him. Grab her. Grab Scott MacArthur. Right? Who they had, if I'm not mistaken,

they had just hired Scott MacArthur to be their Blue Jay guy. Yeah, to replace Wilner. So Wilner could be the play-by-play guy. Not to host his own show. That's right. But to be the Blue Jay guy, which he was when he was over at TSN when he started there.

So now you're taking a guy who left doing an afternoon talk show on TSN radio to go to the fan to become their baseball reporter. And now, after just being established as a baseball reporter, before the baseball season even starts, they're going to him, okay, we want you to do the morning show. Right. We're going to put you together with Mike Zigamanis

and with Ashley Dawkins, and it's going to be the morning show. There's no bench. That's right. There was no bench. They had no bench. They looked down the bench and said, oh, we don't have anyone.

Right. And what about the person that's doing weekends and nights? No, they're not ready to move into a morning show. You move, what you do is you move your afternoon drive personality there or one of your midday personalities.

Yeah, what about the good show? You do something. Well, here's the thing. We go back to the history again, just briefly. Dean Blundell, his sidekick was supposed to be Andrew Walker.

That's right. And Andrew Walker said, oh, hell no. And he went to the West and then George Rus George Russell came in. So you're building up at least Russick and now Russick's been shifted off to the, uh,

you know, the dead zone again with Rogers on the weekend. Hepsey, why tell us what you've learned about the dismissal of Ashley docking from the fan five 90 morning show. Okay.

This is what happened when they put the three of them together, docking Scott MacArthur and Mike Zygomanis. There was virtually no PR at all from Rogers, from the fan. There was nothing. There were no posters. There was no,

come join the new morning show on the Fan 590 featuring Ashley Docking. That's true. And a clip of her going, whatever, making some comment. And then here's another clip of them laughing together or listen for the chemistry, listen for the expertise, listen for the expertise,

listen for the personality of these three. And it's your morning show. Build it up. Instead, you're building up a show that goes in the afternoon that nobody listens to that doesn't draw that doesn't even have a ratings isn't generating any revenue, nothing against Steven Brunt and,

and Jeff Blair. And they're excellent, excellent journalists, but that's the And they're excellent, excellent journalists. But that's the show you're... You've got to sell your morning show. So to not sell the morning show, to not go out there and hype that morning show and let these three people know that we're with you guys and we're behind you.

We've got the power of the PR of Rogers and we're going to elevate your status so that during commercials on blue jay games it's going to be and don't forget tomorrow morning tune in to ashley ziggy and scotty m none of it mac not none of it none of it it was always treated as a stop gap but they never even but they promoted all their other stuff they promoted the afternoon show and writer's block a lot of tim and sid promo tim and sid up the stuff. They promoted the afternoon show and writer's block. A lot of Tim and Sid promo. Tim and Sid up the yin-yang. Promoted the hell out of it, but didn't promote the morning show.

So why do you think that was? Did you think they had an idea that this morning show might not last together? And if you're one of those three and you realize that, this was McCowan's thing and I didn't blame him. Why are Tim and Sid getting all this hype, and I'm not? I've been doing this for 35, 40 years. Why are these two guys getting the TV? Why are they getting the time slot that's going right up against me?

Why would Rodgers do that to me? Why are they spending all this promotional money on Tim and Sid? Why not this show here? And you know what? I don't blame him at all, and I wouldn't blame the people on the morning show of the fan if they looked up and said, how come we're not being promoted together as this new threesome, this refreshing new morning show? So what happened was one of the three aforementioned hosts went to their boss and said, I can't work with so-and-so over there. Either I go or that person goes. There was a chemistry issue at the very beginning.

It's either Scott or Mike. there was a chemistry issue at the very beginning right it's either scott or mike there's a there was a chemistry issue from the very beginning where one of those three hosts wow one of those three hosts and mike you could be barking up the wrong tree here one of those three went to the boss and said either i go or one of those other two goes and and specifically that one not that one i don't have a problem with that one but i have a problem with that one so either either management said either management said to the person that spoke up okay you've got to go because we're not going to let the other one go or management said okay okay we'll accede to your wishes gotcha you're staying that person's going

why would she be the expendable one? I can't answer that. Okay, how about this? Can you at least let us know? You don't have to name names. Why did you say that she was the expendable one? Well, she's the one who was let go. But wait a second. You labor under the misconception

that somebody else went to the program director and said, I don't want to work with her. Why didn't she say, you know what? I didn't sign up for this. I love my basketball. I have other aspirations. I can't work up for this. I love my basketball. I have other aspirations. I can't work with this particular person on the morning show. And maybe because she was on with Brady and when Brady was let go, she felt that maybe she felt that she should have been the

star. She had already been on the morning show for several months. Why shouldn't she feel as if she was the incumbent and one of these other two were interlopers and she couldn't work with one of them? So don't assume that it was this particular person and that person said, I don't want to work with Ashley. It could well have been that Ashley said, I can't work with that guy there. It's possible, all right?

All I know is this, one of them said to management, it's either that person or me, one of them said to management it's either that person or me one of us has to go and management said okay and one of them was gone my thing is that i don't see any one of those three having the leverage to pull a power play like that well you're obviously wrong yeah because they did have yeah yeah no it's just the other the optics from roger looks terrible right but the other thing is that what the heck was Roger supposed to do at that point? You're going to leave three people that can't stand each other? Or you know that one of them can't stand one of the other two?

You couldn't let that show go for one more day like that. You couldn't risk putting on your morning show three people, two of whom couldn't stand each other. It would come filtering through the radio. Any listener would go, oh my God god there's something going on there and you know as well as i do when you see that two people who supposedly are going to have chemistry and they're at odds with each other you can tell man you can cut through that with a knife any listener goes whoa there's something going on there because so and so said hey what do you think of this and the other person gave a snide comment or didn't give a comment back or ignored the person and And if you watch them on television,

because that show is televised, it's a radio show and you see the body language of your hosts looking at, looking away, looking at a monitor, looking at their device, not looking at the other person. Like we're looking at each other doing this show, like,

you know, looking away and you're going, well, what's going on in that studio there? That doesn't look like a fun place. Milan, is it possible? Maybe Mike Zygomanis was explaining to Ashley

how to make her Palma Pasta lasagna? Is that at all a possibility there? You don't want to mansplain how to make lasagna, but I will mansplain it to you too. Your Palma Pasta frozen lasagna, 375 for about 45 minutes. Delicious. I have some for you guys. Palma Pasta sent over lasagnas for you both.

And they're in my freezer right now for you. So thank you, Palma Pasta. Palmapasta.com. Excellent partners of Toronto Mike. They help fuel the real talk. Beer as well. I've got fresh craft beer from Great Lakes Brewery. These guys know what they're doing at Great Lakes.

And tasty beer, you can find it in LCBOs or you can go to the retail store and stock up. That's what I do. I literally bike over with my trailer. I load it up and bring it into this walk-in fridge we are recording in right now. So thank you, Great Lakes. I have Toronto Mike stickers for you guys,

but you probably have so many. But you can have one more because StickerU makes a great sticker. and people should go to StickerU.com to order their custom stickers, quality stuff, reasonably priced, any quantity, any size, and they're fantastic people. They must be. They partnered with Toronto Mike, but also they have a storefront on Queen Street. If you go to 677 Queen Street, you can go check out their sticker museum. This is something I know you don't have yet. A copy of My Good Times of Stomp and Tom. Banjo Dunk, who co-hosted the last episode of Toronto Mic'd with me.

We had Sam Grosso, who used to run the Cadillac Lounge and the Elmo at some point. And of course, Graffiti's in Kensington Market. Hebsey, did you ever watch live music at the Cadillac Lounge? Oh, many times. Many times at Sam's Place. Plus, there were fears that the place was going to close down. They were going to sell.

There's some really good, excellent music played there. And the El Macombo apparently is going to reopen. They've shown pictures of it and stuff like that. Where was our media invitation? I saw a lot of pictures of it and stuff like that. Where was our media invitation? I saw a lot of media people were taking photos of that. I saw that too. Where's our invitation?

Come on. But yeah, apparently. And apparently the ticket prices, I mean, I personally, I don't know if I want to go see a band at the Elmo and pay over a hundred bucks, but I guess it depends who you're seeing. But we'll see if the Rolling Stones return to the Elmo for that one.

But Banjo Dunk has a big event. Whiskey Jack presents stories and songs of Stompin' Tom. This is April 16th at the Zoomer Hall. So get your tickets. Zoomer Hall at 70 Jefferson Avenue at 7.30. Yeah, you can catch Whiskey Jack

presents stories and songs of Stompin' Tom. And it's funny that we're talking about Scott MacArthur today because, uh, I want to get this right. His brother was very good friends with Austin Keitner in high school. It's such a small world. And Ben Ennis, recent guest of Toronto Mike went to the same high school.

Like there's this whole small world thing going on there, but Austin Keitner is the man you want to talk to. If you have any real estate questions at all, text Toronto Mike, one word to five, nine, five, five, nine, engage Austin Keitner is the man you want to talk to. If you have any real estate questions at all, text Toronto Mike one word to 59559. Engage Austin Keitner. The Keitner Group have partnered with Toronto Mike to fuel the real talk. And I sincerely believe Austin Keitner can help you.

So you guys got all your gifts. You're well taken care of. I know what you're all eating tonight, what you're drinking tonight. The fan made a huge move in the past year. I know we talked a lot about a huge move in the past year. I know we talked a lot about Ashley Docking in the morning show because that was so recent. But Bob McCowan, I want to talk about Bob McCowan

because he was the guy, right? He was probably the most popular sports media radio personality in the country. And suddenly he was gone. And I know that I once recently tweeted about how about how you know why don't you bring back bob for the afternoon drive and you know put tim and sid in the morning i think i tweeted this and a lot of people said i was full of uh full of nonsense and hemsi himself laughed at me because of the tim and sid thing okay but you were laughing at the other person no no no no no no not at all

but had you just separated the two and said, for example, the same way people said, just bring Joe Bowen back and have him do the TV play-by-play when Joe was no longer on it. You were used to hearing Joe Bowen's voice doing the games, and now it's someone else doing it. Nothing against John Bartlett or Jim Houston. Right, but he's not Joe Bowen.

But he's not Joe Bowen, right. So in the case of McCowan, all you had to say was bring McCowan back. If you made a mistake, bring him back. But the's not Joe Bowen, right. So in the case of McCowan, all you had to say was, bring McCowan back. If you made a mistake, bring him back. But the Tim and Sid in the morning? No, that's where you lost me. Had you separated the two, I would have been with you 100%.

I like to bundle my thoughts. Because you wanted to change... My speculation. You wanted to change the entire programming of the fan. Like, all of it. Not just one of the shows. I don't... You wanted to fix all of it at the same time.

So let's put Tim and Sid here. Ben Ennis and JD there. Blair and Brent over there. But McCowan backed over there. Tim and Sid can go back to television. Well, you put Brent and Dice back on Primetime Sports with McCowan. And then you put somebody else. But everything we've just talked about.

No, I disagree. I disagree. Your 9 to noon show should be writer's block. Because the stories are still... But it's thinking man's radio. It's too early for thinking man's radio. It's nine to... Well, I don't know.

First of all, I don't have a car to sit in all day long and listen to AM radio. Right. And I don't know how many people are listening to AM radio on whatever platform it is during the day. Are they listening to it live? Still a lot of cars, though. Are they listening to it on podcasts?

Most people are listening in their car. They're stuck in traffic. There's nothing else they can do. Right. And you're a sports fan. Basically, I think, and a quick aside, and by the way,

I want to predict that Greg Brady's back on the morning show. I'm making that prediction right now. Really? Greg Brady back in Montessori, but not at 590. He's going to be the next 640 morning show host. That's my prediction.

640? Have you seen their ratings? What is that? I call it GNR. Said someone who worked there 25 years ago. 640, what's that? The hog? Global News Radio.

Is that the hog? I remember the hog. Talk 640? Is it talk 640? Toxic. It's AM 640. I couldn't tell you. It's actually Global News Radio now.

Is that what it's called? They branded it. GNR? Guns and Roses Radio? Anyway, I predict Brady ends up as a morning show guy there. I'm just throwing that out there. Well, he's doing some fill-in work there now. And I think he'd be a natural.

And their radians are really in the toilet. And I think they need a little help. Let me ask both of you this. I don't say. The death of AM radio is going to be when people finally, when the old farts like us all figure out how to put Bluetooth in our cars. Okay? When people finally, when the old farts like us all figure out how to put Bluetooth in our cars, okay?

There's still a lot of guys like, old farts like us, who are driving a car to work and they're stuck on the 401 or whatever for an hour. And they still don't have Bluetooth connectivity. So they got an AM and an FM and they can just slap it on 590 or 1050 and listen. The death of radio is going to be when that all goes away. But everything we've just talked about here, Hebsey and Mike, does the fan, does Rogers care about the fan? You just talked about no bench. Why wouldn't they? Well, a hashtag morning show with no plan,

you're doing a simulcast now on Tim and Sid, dates back to the new VR days with Raptors radio and television. And that's a television show that's on the radio. Yeah, and let's hope nobody notices. Cutting the payroll as they have, obviously, it appears that the Brady move and the McCown move was pretty much financially motivated. You can blame the Rodgers hockey

deal, but to me, to me as a listener, it feels like Rodgers does not care about the fan. Let me ask you a question here. If Rogers Radio, and that encompasses all the Rogers stations. Right. CHFI.

Oh, yeah. 680. If when the year is over and they go to the radio division of Rogers, they go, how did we do? Is Rogers going to say, wow, we didn't make as much money as we could because of all these changes at the fan and da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Or do they look at the whole thing and say, well, we slashed these salaries.

We didn't get the revenue back that we wanted there. But boy, did we ever do well at 680 News. And man, CHFI is flying. That's what I'm saying. So the fan 590 is a lost leader. And here's why. Right. You're committed to every Blue Jay game on radio.

You're committed to a number ofay game on radio you're committed to a number of maple leaf and raptors games your evening programming for the most part is taken up by live sports this isn't the first time an am or any station for that matter that's a flagship station of a sporting team had problems with the rest of their day right when they play an afternoon baseball game it screws everybody up it's like well wait a second what are we gonna do with tim and sid you know that kind of thing. So generally speaking, the baseball games are at night except on the weekends. Your weekend programming is syndicated stuff.

And you've got four time slots. You've got your morning, your midday, your early afternoon, and your drive. And that's it. That's all you've got. So at the end of the year, when Rogers Radio reports an increase of 2.3% in revenue, even though the fan lost 0.8% or whatever, it doesn't matter. It comes out of the wash. It's all part of Rogers Radio.

And that's what I'm saying. So they can afford to take a loss. But how much money did the fan save in salary? That's right. Who is the highest paid member? You tell me. Now? Yeah. Who's the highest paid radio personality? I would guess writer's block if you take out Tim and Sid. who's the highest paid member at the you tell me now yeah who's the highest

paid writer's block if you take out tim and sid who is the highest in other words if you were to take the salary of the highest paid radio personality at the fan right now right and you said sorry we can't pay you anymore you make too much money we're taking you off the air and we're going to pay you out or whatever do you think it would make a huge difference to the station do you think the station would be crippled if for example they said to jeff blair you've been here for enough years and you're making i don't know what player makes 150 000 let's say yeah we'll make up 200 000 yeah whatever 175 000 whatever it is sure and you said okay well you know when it's too much money i can get four people at 40 grand a year that's right they can do that job and so they And so they say, like they've done with many, many people, including me in the business,

you get certain nature, you make a certain amount of money. Okay. So now if they were to do that with Blair or Brunt or I don't know what other... Richard Deitch? Yeah. Deitch or Tim and Sid. Right. Right?

And you say, that's it. We're taking them off the air. Would it be that big of a blow to the radio station at this point? They've already done it with McCallan. McCallan was the big one. They've already proven that. If you can do McCallan, anyone can go with you.

You can do McCallan. If you can do McCallan and you can take Brady out of there who delivered you some pretty good shares on your morning show. That's right. And those are your two best shows and you can do that with them.

Who's to say you can't do it with any other? Ashley Dawking, thanks very much for coming on. I don't think they're interested in investing anymore. Mike Richards used to say the same thing about 1050. Do you remember he used to come on this show and talk about how TSN doesn't care about 1050?

Right, but now it's changed because now the TSN knows that they can get a bigger piece of the pie. And remember, here's another thing. TSN radio is Bell. It's Bell radio. Now, Bell radio in Toronto is CFRB, News Talk 1010. It's Easy 97.3 or whatever it's called.

No, no, no. It's Virgin. Virgin. And 104.5. Yeah. So you've already got a radio division there where TSN 1050 could do the same thing. They could take a loss. But the radio division is strong enough for Bell that they can withstand that loss.

And it's there to support the television where they make the money. The Tim and Sid move tells me everything. Here's a prime time radio slot. And you've mentioned it at Hebsey on Sports. You've mentioned it numerous times on radio. It's the morning and it's the afternoon drive home. Right. That's your money making. That's your revenue generating. So here we've already

acknowledged that in the morning they had no plan. They threw basically things at the wall and hope something stuck and it hasn't. And now you're putting Tim and Sid. The other night I was listening to Tim and Sid driving home. You were listening or you were watching? Listening. Driving home. You're not watching while you drive, are you? Stuck on the... I didn't know he was driving.

He might have been home watching the television show. Stuck in traffic, and it was a segment, and it's not the first time where they're throwing darts. Sid was throwing darts. Does this translate into radio? They also have Masters Masters and there's a ton of Vancouver Canucks, Edmonton Oilers talk, Calgary Flames talk. Because it's a national television

show. But what's the number one thing we've learned about radio and the success of radio? This is dating back to the fabulous Sports Babe days on the fan. Local radio. Just ask the team 1050 guys about how important local is for radio. Or national sports radio on the fan. That's right. It's local. It's local.

And it's going back to the basics. The last thing you want to hear is anything to do with the Winnipeg Jets or the Vancouver Cubs when you're sitting in traffic in Toronto and that night you're going to watch the Leaf game or the Raptor game. But it's not a one-off, Emsi. It wasn't a one-off.

Zach Cassian return and all that stuff. It's consistent. Yep. Because, Ebsi. It wasn't a one-off because Zach Kassian returned and all that stuff. It's consistent. Yep, because they're doing a national television show. Right. But that doesn't help us as a listener in Toronto when I'm driving in the garden

or stuck in traffic for an hour. That's exactly right. So Toronto people in their cars are flipping over to 1050 and they're listening to Overdrive. Overdrive is the biggest beneficiary. Once Tim and Sid went back to radio to simulcast their TV show

from five to seven, a lot of people who, like you, Milan, said, I don't know what's going on there. Where else can I go to get my sports? 10.50? Oh! That's what's happening.

And they're never going to go back. It's Macauan listeners, right? How many have discovered? Once they've discovered 10.50, and it's better than what they're listening to on FanFive. Exactly. We've talked a lot about Macau and phoning it in in recent years

and that kind of a thing. But I'll tell you, when the whole Babcock stuff was going on last year and you had all this stuff with Hakeem Alou and the Bill Peters situation, a big news story. Yep. I miss, I don't have anywhere else to go

other than Hebzeon Sports. You're right, Milan. To listen on terrestrial radio. And I remember some riveting radio in years past. I remember the Unel Escobar situation. People remember that with the Blue Jays. Of course. The whole Alex Anthopoulos and Rodgers situation.

McCowan was at the forefront. When there was a big news story that broke, you wanted to listen to Bob McCowan. You know, how did you replace McCowan once? Only once or twice? How many times have you replaced McCowan in your career? Twice. Twice.

That's amazing, right? Because I'm 14. What was it called? The station? CJCL. CJCL, 1430. Well, actually, it was CKFH, and then they changed it over. Right.

And that's Sportsline. But what happened was, is in both cases, when they decided that they didn't want to go any further with Bob or however it worked out, before they made that decision, they said, okay, who are we going to get to replace Bob that's as good as Bob or has the potential of being as good as Bob that can attract a similar type of audience? And they went, like you say, they went through the roster or they went down the bench or

whatever it was and said, okay, Hepsher. He's like a younger version of Bob. He's up and coming. He's not afraid to speak his mind. He's like but he's like a younger version of bob he's up and coming he's not afraid to speak his mind he's knowledgeable right he's enthusiastic he's the natural so when bob left when when bob um um was at 14 30 and was the guy and he was on from 10 till midnight at that time a late night sports show where you could get away with anything right forget about politically correct forget about that some guy would call

into Bob's show yeah Bob I want to talk about the Leafs I think Salmi or whatever and like Bob and the guy would be half drunk or whatever and Bob would say stuff like sir can I ask you a question how did you dial the phone wearing a straight jacket he says I've never heard anything you're you're out of your mind yeah you're crazy for

saying the stuff that you did or suggesting this trade or whatever and he would make it about the listener and he would take the listener to task and he would say you've got the gall to call in the show and give your opinion on whatever and you don't have the facts and then and it would be a great discussion yeah it would be a fabulous discussion and that's what drew people to that type of a show which worked from 10 till midnight. The late night crazies, you know what I mean? The really off the wall people, but a lot of them very knowledgeable and very entertaining.

And that's what radio is about. And it's not- Entertain me. Tim and Sid are great broadcasters. This is not a knock against Tim and Sid. It's the format that to me as a listener, and I think a lot of it is mental too. I know I'm listening to a show that is made for TV.

And possibly made for younger people. Like possibly, right? Like we are, you know, 40 something. I don't know. Some of their stuff I like. But again, that's different from their radio. Their radio show was very different from the TV show. Right.

Okay, Milan, you famously came on the show in the past on these sports media roundtables and claimed that you simply couldn't find 1050 on your radio. Is that what I remember? You were a 590 diehard. It was like 590 or bust. Have you listened to Overdrive? I haven't. That's interesting, right, Hebsey?

Because Hebsey, I heard this is- I'm one of the last heritage guys, I guess. So have you ever flipped over to see what's going on on the other sports media station? I have a little bit with Landsberg in the morning and a little bit with Overdrive. I don't know. To me, I'm...

You're loyal. I don't know what it is. It's just, yeah. But also, if you're that loyal, you can be as critical as Milan is. I mean, he's invested a lot of time and energy. He's got a right to say that they're doing that wrong and that should be changed.

And he's going to continue to listen to see if they take his advice or they change things up because they're losing listeners. So, Malar, do you listen to less 590 than you have in the past? Well, I'm listening to music. And that means you're not listening to 590.

I'm a diehard sports fan. Yeah, so I'm definitely listening to a lot less. And you're really missing McCowan's show, I can tell, Primetime Sports. I do. Hebsey, you and I,

we talked about how maybe they pulled the Aaron Davis. The Aaron Davis is when Rogers, coincidentally, removes a popular morning show host, and then after some time and all the blowback and people missing that voice on the radio. A tremendous amount

of blowback. And McCowan has had the same thing. So they brought back Aaron Davis. If you were to say, what would you think about bringing back Bob McCowan? You would have a tremendous number of listeners who maybe didn't speak up in the first place, but have been listening to the fan in the afternoons. We want Bob back. Maybe it's like classic Coke.

You remove it to bring it back to much marketing fanfare. The return of the McCowan. Only if you consider TSN's overdrive to be like Pepsi. And can you get them back? Now that they've tried Pepsi, can Coke get them back? Now that they've tried overdrive, will the return of Macauan lure

them back to the fan? I think Macauan should be used to build the next generation of stars. So he's your franchise. Build around him. He's the aging star. Hang on a second, though. Bob will be 70 in 2022. Right.

So do you say, listen, we're going to bring Bob back. He's going to be our guy until he's 70 years old or whatever. Yeah. We've got a date on it. And in the interim, we are going to find and we are going to harvest our next radio but mccallan superstar that's right he's the reu while you're getting nate pearson right right so when so when bob when we are ready to say to bob okay bob now is the time to and bow out graciously and all that we've got the replacement we've got the jay leno to the johnny carson or whatever your transition

is going to be that That's a great point. Whereas they didn't have that before. When they let McCown go, they figured, oh, we'll just plug in Tim and Sid and we'll move writer's block. No, what you've got to do now is you've got to learn from your mistakes. You say, Bob, please come back.

And then you say, here's the plan that we have. We're going to be completely transparent to all of our followers. Bob is going to be our guy until whatever, he turns 70. And then he's going to go on the Jim Hunt tour where he's going to be a contributor to the guy who takes over for him, Dan Shulman or whoever. This is exactly what, there's a lot of people throwing darts at Rogers right now. What is the solution moving forward?

Yeah. They've come up with a disastrous, like what happens now to the morning show? I think that's something we got to discuss. Are they going to continue with another year with Scotty Mac? They have to, they have to, you know, cause the marketing has been shocking,

but I agree. It's a year long enough. I think with McCowan, you bring it back on a, on a short-term deal and now you build the next superstar. Like they did with Dan Schulman in the nineties. Now Schulman became a huge star, but now the mistake they made in recent years with it.

And it could be even someone as a co-host. Who was McCown's co-host in the past? Stephen Brunt, Damien Cox, you know. John Shannon. Right. They were not bringing, they put Ken Reed for a while. That was a disaster. So they're not bringing in that next younger talent to work

with Bob who can now move in. There's that continuity we talked about, and there's an engagement. It's a gradual evolution talked about. And there's an engagement that it's a, it's a gradual evolution and they didn't do that. No. The other thing is, and in McCowan's case, and I was the same and a lot are,

some people are really good doing the show by themselves with, with little help here, a little help there, a little special guest there, a little whatever. Right. They drive the show. You got to,

Bob is a big enough personality that he didn't need, he didn't have to have a co-host, right? have brought now we're going to talk media we're bringing so-and-so in richard dyche we're going to talk some hockey now here's john shannon our insider who produced talking in canada we're going to talk baseball and we're going to bring in steve phillips whatever the case was yeah he was good enough on his own and knew enough about sports and issues all around the place now it's almost like it's a bunch of relief pitchers. You're a left-handed specialist. You're a right-handed specialist. You're a late-inning guy.

Right? Instead of one guy being able to throw the complete game, which they used to be able to do, the one guy, now it's like, oh, we've got to have co-hosts for you. Look, I bet you there are some personalities out there that would love to not have a co-host. I'll bet you Ben Ennis, if you were to say to him, look, if you had your druthers,

nothing against JD. I could have asked him that. Poor JD Vonkis. But if someone said to you, this is your show. Yeah. Your show from whatever, one till four.

You're the host. You're the guy. You don't think he's going to go, yeah, I wouldn't mind trying that. I'm going to respectfully disagree with you, Hebsey. I think McCowan's show was at his best. There's no doubt he could do it. Not a co-host.

Like I said, I'm the host. Right. And now for this segment, I'm bringing in my expert, Mike. But you didn't enjoy Stephen Brunt with Bob McCowan or Damien Cox? Not for the entire three hours, no. Okay. No, I didn't.

And that's why McCowan would do the first hour. He'd take calls, right, from fans. Right. And then for another hour, he would have whoever he would have. Who would he have? Shannon? Or somebody for an hour. Yeah, for the first hour.

And then, okay, bye. Okay, see ya. You're gone. An hour is good for you. That's not the same as having a co-host three hours. In other words, Landsberg, Koliakovo. Did Landsberg not do the show by himself for a while there? I think he did.

He had David Naylor. Then he was by himself. Then they had fill-ins for him, Matt Cause and a few others. You're sort of looking at a Mike Richards, David Bastel kind of situation. Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah yeah exactly right so who's the main guy he's a sidekick sidekick yeah

second banana sidekick someone to bounce off of like I am on Hebsey on Sports yeah but that's there's different I mean a second banana is an Ed McMahon on Johnny Carson right he was just a sounding board right he didn't really contribute that much right

you're not an Ed McMahon on the show you've got you know you've got interesting perspectives and stuff like that. So yeah, it's different nowadays. But I think people are afraid now to say, let's take that one person there, all that personality, all that knowledge, and let's give them a show.

But here's my concern. I was reading an article on Bart Yabsley. Bart Yabsley? Does anyone know this guy? This is the guy you took over for Scott Moore? Well, he's a big grand poobah. Yeah. That's forced in front of the media division.

And I was reading an article about him recently, and he's talking about more, I don't know what the catch corporate word is. I forgot what he said, but more like the Tim and Sid kind of concept, more multi kind of. It's called cost cutting. It's multi-platform.

Multi-platform. And he's talking about doing more of this. It's multi-platform. Multi-platform. And he's talking about doing more of this. Yeah, multi-platform. So that's why I go back to the question to both of you. Does Rodgers care about the fan 590? Yes, but then I have to say, because you just talked about bringing McCowan back. And I'm here to remind you,

the reason we don't have McCowan right now, he made too much money. He's not coming back for 50K a year. He's still expensive, right? Like, so either expensive right like so either you're asking are you telling i'm telling suppose someone said to you mike uh you're done with your podcasting you're out yeah now a year goes by a year and they say hey mike we want you to come back i agree you're gonna go yeah you pay me all that money that you paid me last time i'll come back it's not screw it right you might say well you know they might say to you look we can't pay you what we did before but let's sit down and discuss something sure you can i don't think he has sense giving

him and then you said to them and then you say to them okay tell you what give me i want two years i want two years with an option for a third year and i want to be paid and they go okay nothing close to what he was making now both sides kiss and make up okay with that whatever happened in the past happened. I'm back where I want to be. Right. Now you've got... So you're suggesting you get the same Bob McCowan

at a lesser price. Yeah, yeah. Like CHCH tried to do. McCowan's not going to go into podcasting, Mike. McCowan's not going into podcasting. And the other thing too is that imagine the publicity you're going to get and it's going to cost you nothing. No, it's going to cost you nothing no it's going to cost you zero dollars to to to publicize this right because we're all going to do it on social media we're bringing back bob mccowan now all of these people who left the

fan because mccowan's gone who might have gone to overdrive and said oh i like overdrive but now all is forgiven a second bob's back maybe you want to go back to 590 and just see how Bob sounds again. That's worth its weight in gold. So stick your tail between your legs, fan. Go call Bob. Say, look, that was then. This is now. We want to make amends.

We realize we made a mistake. We want you to come back. Let's talk. And Bob's looking at the landscape too. If you look at a lot of these established broadcasters, they have not come back to terrestrial radio. There's no place to go. Whether it's Dave Hodge. There's no place to go. That's talk. And Bob's looking at the landscape too. If you look at a lot of these established broadcasters, they have not come back to terrestrial radio. There's no place to go. Whether it's Dave Hodge.

There's no place to go. That's right. When Kiprios left, you think people, oh, you'll go to TSN. I said, why would TSN? That's right. Why would, do they need somebody that badly? There's a big hole in their roster that they need Nick Kiprios. And that's nothing against Nick.

Right. But Nick was 20 years a Sportsnet guy. Right. You can't just walk across the street and go was 20 years a Sportsnet guy. Right. You can't just walk across the street and go, I'm a TSN guy now. Drager did it. When? Dragan did it a while ago.

When? Darren Drager was a Sportsnet guy who crossed the parking lot and became a TSN guy a long time ago. How long? Yeah, the last game. 15 years ago? I don't know. And was he the insider that he is now at the time? Not as high profile as he is now.

Not even close. A broadcast legend like Dave Hodge. Not even close. Darren Drager was doing a whole bunch of stuff at Sportsnet, all kinds of things at Sportsnet. At TSN, he's the hockey insider. Okay, what do you do with Tim and Sid then if you bring back McCowan

since we're playing this little game? Because I want to get to TV too because some guy named Grapes, we have to talk about. Well, that's why I think, I like Hebsey's idea on paper, but you've dealt with management. That's now saying admitting a mistake.

But they did do it with Erin Davis. And Julie Adam, I believe is her name, she literally just like, I made a mistake, we're bringing back Erin and the rest is history. Well, I hope that happens, but I'm not sure. But again, with Tim and Sid, it comes down to this. They're multi-platform stars. There's a lot

invested in the two of them you know combine their salaries what are they making right there's two salaries what are they making you tell me what 150 each i don't know so let's say it's let's just say it's 300 grand plus the cost of producing a show right that's way more than for a radio show if you're doing a tv show yeah right you got to add your visuals you got to say this up on screen. You got to have a live director there and producer right there. For a radio show, it's not the same.

Does this go back to the last round table we had? And I think, Hebsey, you brought up a great point is that management's now looking at a different view. They're not looking to create stars. Right.

So the Arden Zwellings and the Ben Nicholson-Smiths. The brand is the star. Exactly. The fan is the star. All these hosts, the Sportsnet Central hosts, the TSN,

they're all interchangeable. Okay, then you're not bringing back McCowan. That's what my concern is. I think both networks are, they don't want to create a star bigger than the network. The US model is quite different.

Because then they have you over the barrel. That's right. There's no Tony Romo coming up here. That's where you get the big salaries. Yes, you're right.

That's exactly right. There is no Tony Romo coming up here. Right. There's no star system now anymore broadcasting. They don't want to create that star system. No, but now that McCowan and Cherry, for example, are gone,

those were the last two superstar sports personalities in the country. There's no one else. Those were the two big ones. In TV, Don Cherry was the big one, and on radio, Bob McCowan is the big one. This is a great segue to talk about... But Hebsey and Taddy were stars on Sportsline.

They were destination viewership. On Sportsnet, on TSN, on their late-night shows, the hosts are interchangeable. You're not getting the same people. Right, I know Jennifer Hedger's been there forever, but are you watching... Jay and Dan are big names in this country. Yeah.

That's like the last kind of example. They've got their late-night show. They're the Heb's like the last kind of example. Well, they've got their little midnight show. They're the Hebsey and Taddy of 2020. But it's dying. That kind of model is dying. It's sad, right? Because we like these big personalities. I personally love the big personalities. And if

maybe the big personality is expensive, it's not my money. I'm sure you get a good ROI on that. You talk about Glenn Healy all the time. Where's Glenn Healy? Yeah, he's, I don't know, he's playing the bagpipe somewhere. That's it. The biggest fear with the personality thing was always this. What if this person gets out of control?

Yeah. What if they get so- That's you, Hebsey. What if they get so popular? So popular. Right, like, don't worry. Explain this to me. That it takes over from the rest of the team.

There's going to be jealousy. There's going to be backbiting saying, well, how come he gets... Look at McCowan. McCowan looks and says, why the hell are you spending all this on Tim and Sid? I've been here for 35 years. He's been on the station. And I'm delivering you numbers every time. And you come along and take a couple of guys who a few years ago were doing a podcast and a radio show.

And they were midday. Remember, their radio show wasn't primetime. It was midday. It was one to three or one to four or whatever it was. And now you're taking these two guys, you're giving them their own television show with a big studio and a big crew

and you're going to put them up against me? You're going to put their show up against my show? Explain this to me recently. Mike Richards, friend of Toronto Mike. FOTM, Mike Richards. FOTM. As recently as two or three years ago when the whole Blundell stuff was going on

from Calgary, he was the hottest free agent in the sports radio market. He was there with Andrew Walker, by the way. Which was just a few years ago, Mike? Oh, no, over 10 years ago. 10 years ago? He was an opening day TSN guy.

Hasn't TSN been around 10 years? I don't think he has. Was he opening day? Yeah, he was the opening day morning show host on 10.50. To a guy who was one of the hottest free agents, to a guy who can't get employed. Are you saying 960 the song guy? He might be listening.

We love you, Mike Richards. Through his own words, he wasn't earning an income. And he can't get a gig at TSN radio. Oh, crap, I wanted to pick up on something income. He can't, and he can't get a gig at TSN radio or, oh crap, I wanted to pick up on something Hebsey said right there and it's gone,

but oh yeah, demographics. So you're talking about the Macauan primetime sports and the Tim and Sid and that sort of rivalry that sort of Macauan was not shy about.

I think it's David Schultz who published this article for the Globe and Mail. Sadly, another great writer no longer writing because of cost cutting, but okay.

I just want to say that I believe it's different demos. I believe Tim and Sid appeal to a younger pair of ears. And that's what the radio station wants. Mike, you already said 25 to 54. That's a pretty big range. It is. Are you telling me that at the top end

of that range, they couldn't generate all kinds of revenue from Macauan fans? And at the bottom end of the range, they were more than and sid and at what point in your life at what age do you go yeah this is a little too juvenile for me i think i'll go to the older guys or vice versa right but if i'm listening to tim and sid and my son who's 27 happens to be at the same time is it not possible that when they're talking about the J's or the Leafs or whatever, that both of us are going, oh, that's good.

Or one of us goes, oh, geez, these guys are too young. They don't remember. Or they're too old for me. Come on. If you're a fan, you're a fan. And if you like someone and you enjoy what they're doing,

you're not looking at the age of that person necessarily. Speaking of enjoying what you're doing, can you please, Mark Hebbshire, tell Milan what he's missing by not tuning into overdrive? I've heard you earlier today talk about what you enjoy about overdrive, but this is a show. It's kind of a success story because again,

I did say off the top that males 25 to 54, the fans still had this edge 2.5 to 1.8 over a TSN 10 50. That's in the 25 to 54 Mike, but you're not looking at 18 to 1.8 over uh tsn 1050 that's in the sounds like that's in the 25 to 54 mike but you're not looking at 18 to 34 and so in 18 to 34 tsn has the edge yeah you're not looking at 25 to 34 you're looking at a bigger demographic okay 25 to 54 covers i told you a lot you've got boomers in there you got millennials in there and that's all I could get. I don't get access to this damn book. So there's 18 to 54.

There's 25 to 64. There's various little... But 18 to 34 is a huge demographic. So post-prime time sports... Men 18 to 34 have disposable income. Generally speaking, are not married, are still on their career path. And have more life to live.

They have more life to live and therefore are more appealing to more sponsors. Get them hooked on Coca-Cola now and they're going to drink it till they die. Now, here's the other thing. How many females did you see in Jurassic Park during Leaf playoff games or Raptor playoff games? How many? A considerable number, right? Yeah. More than you might think, but I'm just saying it wasn't all men.

There were a number of... Oh, there's a lot of women who cheer for the leafs and the raptors of course do these women listen to sports radio or they're just there for the game and they don't care about the other stuff but maybe the networks have not given them a lease listen a reason to listen to that's why ashley docking was brought in and she's gone now and that's why you know and again that's why they tried some, I think they tried some TSN person. Well, you got Andy Petrillo. Andy Petrillo's on the air.

On the air on TSN 1050. But don't you, don't they occasionally have the, some of the female anchors on the TSN other shows as guests? Do they not do that? Like a Kayla Gray? Can I ask a Kayla Gray or a... I'm going to ask you both a hot take question. Were Scott MacArthur... Then Icking hired strictly for their talent?

Their broadcasting talent? Milan, you're the only person of color at this table. Are you suggesting this was an attempt to diversify? No, I'm just going back again to my thought process on why did they get the morning show? Well, it's a beautiful PR thing if you were to take advantage of it. You've got a female. Right. You've got an openly gay man that just came out.

Okay. And you've got a former hockey player. So, I mean, if you were going to do it intentionally that way, you at least should promote the fact that you have Canada's number one most diversified sports talk program you've got perspective from different areas where before you didn't have that perspective female perspective I'm not sure Scott MacArthur's perspective on sports would be any different whether you know I'm with you on that or not I don't think the fact that as a human being he has a he he would have a different take on things for example such as whether the redskins logo for football is offensive to people whether the thought the the comments by so-and-so would

have offended uh uh people that weren't being inclusive so it's just a different perspective that you want to be able to relate to your listeners saying we're going to offer you more perspective on this show than that show can offer. But Malin, while you ask that question though, you must have asked that question because you're wondering if this was some kind of a diversity checkbox. I think they're both talented broadcasters,

but it just, it goes back to the point we made earlier about, you're talking about one of the biggest markets in North America. And you're putting basically two rookies, if I can say, broadcasting rookies from a morning show perspective. From a morning show, yes, absolutely. You know, in the hot seat.

And what was the fans, what was Roger's thought process in this? And that's why I'm asking that question. And you talked about, it goes back to the demographic that's been terribly underserved, whether it's the LGBT community and women have not been served by the fan.

We always go back to that famous picture. Right, white men of the Fan 590. Right, and Hebsey brought up a good point about it's a great PR move potentially, but it's also great marketing to help the station to grow, and they never did that. And they undid it one year later.

That's what i don't understand and now and you're right i don't i don't believe personality conflict so that's a i didn't know that but i just thought listen if you're going to take advantage of a situation if you're going to put three people who have never worked together in a situation and and the three people combined all right combineder up a tremendous perspective. Why not take advantage of that and say, folks, this is the future of this station or whatever. Right.

We want to offer differing views. We have three broadcasters here that can do that individually. Right. Can we find a way to harness all of that and make it a show that's going to be appealing to a mass audience not just the lbgtq community or females because if you did it that way you would a lot of regular listeners might say you know this isn't for me anymore it's not they're not giving me the reason i tuned into the first place the background the stuff like that the stats the stories i'm not getting that i'm getting more of this or i'm getting more of that which i really didn't want in my sports talk i wasn't that interested for example i wasn't that interested in how this

particular um uh athlete who's who's from a minority group handled this or that we wouldn't we wouldn't have discussed this at any time with the previous guys that were here for example so now maybe i don't want to be force-fed this perspective or that perspective in in the name okay but that's a self-fulfilling prophecy in the name of diversity i'm here for i'm here to listen to sports it's been fascinating i'm a sports fan and i want to listen to other people like me who love sports, are passionate about it, have the knowledge and have my respect. That's why I want to listen.

I enjoy it. I don't necessarily want to listen to three people that you've thrown together. Okay. And they're auditioning for me and the other listeners when they haven't even gained the respect of each other. That's the thing, Mike, how do you sit with someone doing a show and say, I don't really just respect this person and now I got to do a three-hour radio show with them. I don't respect them.

I don't respect them. Well, that's no way to live a life. No, not at all. Versus I love working with this person. I want to do more. I've been fascinated by... They'll do it for free. And Toronto Mike listeners

are among the smartest listeners, right? That's been proven. High IQ. High IQ. It's been interesting to read the comments on this Ashley docking thread. And the number of people have commented that they don't like her voice.

It's asinine to me, to be honest with you. I don't think those are the Toronto Mike listeners, though. Those are the Googlers. But it's probably, people probably feel that way. And I think, I can't believe in 2020, we're still having this conversation. What conversation? That someone doesn't like someone's voice?

The number of comments on my- If I hear Milan, if I'm reading between the lines, Milan's suggesting that they don't want to hear a woman's voice on their sports radio talk. Well, hang on a second. I mean, is that it? Or would it, look, if it was, let me give you an example.

Suppose you had to listen to Jack Armstrong do three hours every day and every eight- Hello. Hello. Would you not? I mean, because that's annoying after a while. Right.

It's annoying. You need it in small doses. You need it in small doses. But the point of the matter is- I like this show with Doug McClain. But if someone said, for example, look, I can't listen for three hours every day because that person's voice grates on me. It doesn't matter if it's a female or male voice.

Is it a grating voice? Right. Or is it a soothing or an interesting voice? She's not Scott Farrell. No, no, no. That's different. And some people can't listen to Rush

because they don't like Geddy Lee's voice. But what I'm saying to you is if the story is a great story and the storyteller happens to have a raspy voice

but tells a good story, are you going to go, you know, it was a great story but I didn't like the way it was told? Versus would you listen to someone-

I don't see too many comments on male voices. No one complained about Dave Perkins and Bob Elliott telling baseball stories. But that's different because they're not on the air for three hours every day. No, I wish, I wish. Every day. Could you listen for three hours every day if it was Sid and not Tim? All right, I'm going to try to move.

This is a dangerous little territory because- No, how is it dangerous? There are, I'll tell you why. Because you spent decades serving up a white, straight male perspective on sports. So what happens when you do that? But I'm a white, straight male.

But that's my point. So hear me out, hear me out, hear me out, hear me out. So because you've been serving that up for anyone who doesn't want to hear that perspective is gone. But I don't understand what you mean by that.

So what happens is, hold on, hold on. So all your listenership are gonna end up white straight males okay and i'll leave straight out of it because i don't even think that changes the sports but i say white males so now white males are listening that's all that's listening because that's all you've served them there's never been a perspective from a woman or a person of color etc now that that's all you got listening you change it up okay let's say you

add an ashley doc ashley docking to your lineup that's a you got listening, you change it up. Okay. Let's say you add an Ashley Dock, Ashley Docking to your lineup. That's a woman's perspective. That audience that has been listening to white guys forever. And that's who they are, are now like, I don't want change. I want what I always wanted. I want my Don Cherry. I want my Bob McHale. And I want my white male sports media that I've been consuming forever and ever.

And they, they reject it because it sounds, I don't like the sound of that voice, the tone of that voice. That's a woman's voice delivering my raptor talk. Like I want my, give me a man voice. I think whether you're a white male or not. So it's self-fulfilling. Like how do you bring back a woman listeners and people of color in this most diverse city?

Toronto is the most diverse city, one of the most diverse cities on the freaking planet, right? How do you bring back those listeners if you don't introduce perspectives that they can resonate with them? I think the listeners are more sophisticated than that. You look at a show like Inside the NBA with Barkley and Ernie Johnson and Kenny and Shaq.

I'm sure a lot of white males watch that show. It is an entertaining program. I think that above and beyond anything else is the number one thing. Do you think that straight males won't listen to Scott McArthur or Ashley Dawkins? No, no. I'm explaining that

blowback that you're describing about the sound of her voice. Don't kid yourself. That is essentially a misogynist statement to say, I want my sports media delivered by a man, damn it. It doesn't end. this cycle continues until you introduce different perspectives and then bring back uh listeners who can read who can uh appreciate in it where that can respond to

those perspectives like it's a reflection right of the city and that's all i'm saying like you would never hear metro morning would never just be white male perspective because they're speaking to the most diverse city on the planet. You have to remember another thing is that for years in radio, it didn't matter. And people didn't know what, whoever was speaking to them, what they were all about. I listened for years to a guy named Art Rust Jr.

On radio out of New York. Fabulous. I didn't know what color he was. I saw a picture of me black. I went, Oh, didn't know what color he was. I saw a picture of him. He's black. I went, oh, didn't know. Didn't matter. Didn't know. You didn't tune out when you learned that. But my point is this. My point is this. I'm not sure anybody that listened to Art Russ Jr., black or white, cared or would have cared if they would have known. By the way, did you know you're listening to a black guy? I don't think more blacks would have listened if they knew that

that was a black guy. Okay, but what about a woman you know you're listening to a black guy? I don't think more blacks would have listened if they knew that that was a black guy. Okay, but what about a woman? Because you can hear audible difference between a male and a woman's voice. Yeah, that's right, you can. So what, because what I would ask you then, other than sprinkling in a little, oh, you had a little Mary Ormsby back in the day

and you sprinkled in a bit of Barb DiGiulio, right? But you really haven't had a woman anchor on our sports radio station forever. Right, so just because it's a woman, does that negate everything else? Should she not be a good broadcaster to begin with? In other words, how do you get on radio or television unless you had some type of presence?

But Milan loved her with Brady. Like he said, you loved listening to Ashley Dawkins and Greg Brady. All right. So I would say yes. The fan has been in existence for 28 years, since 1992, September of 92. Right. And you're telling me in 28 years, they can't

find a more of a permanent female host? Well, this is now morphing into a different discussion, but they had one for a year and they just cursed her. Why should it matter whether it's a male or female? Is it not about getting the best ratings and understanding your turst her. Why should it matter whether it's a male or female? Is it not about getting the best ratings and understanding your audience?

Sure. So if they actually said, you know, we really have to get a woman on the air because we're getting the crap beaten out of us as the old white station. Diversity is their strength.

They put it everywhere. Let's go find a woman. It doesn't matter who it is. What women are available in sports now that we can hire and put on the air? Right. How many of them are there?

Well, we're not going to get those girls from TSN, women, I'm sorry. And we're not going to get those women who are anchoring on Sportsnet. Who else is there? So you've got to beat the bushes through other radio stations or some of the internet. I don't know where Ashley was working before, but she was doing some NBA stuff. Lacrosse, some stuff of lacrosse. Yeah, stuff like that. Let's find these women who are hosting lacrosse or soccer.

Pitch talks. Or whatever. Yeah, exactly. And are reasonably comfortable in front of a camera. stuff like that let's find these women who are hosting lacrosse or soccer pitch talks or whatever or start yeah exactly and and and are reasonably comfortable in front of a camera or a microphone and let's accelerate their um career by putting them on the air now whereas you know what i'm sorry in ashley docking's case it's look she sound she sounded great with brady and all that it's because people weren't going on it's a woman they were like oh this is an interesting conversation i'm not paying attention to the timber of her voice her and greg sound good together discussing that end of story right isolate a person and their voice and say that's a female that's a female voice i don't listen to female voices who claim to have authority blah blah blah it's got nothing to do with the female

it's how comfortably are do with the female voice. It's how comfortable are you with this personality, male or female? There's lots of men, like you say, Pharrell, that have their voices just terrible. They might be fantastic and knowledgeable, but something about their voice, you just, it just doesn't do it. Like some people don't like Neil Young, and I go, how can you not like Neil Young? They're like, that voice irritates me.

I know, I get that. Long may he run. But of course, naturally, if it's a female, it's the easiest thing to say is, well, of course, we're not used to listening to females talk sports. So automatically, it doesn't work. My ears don't accept it. Mike's right. We could go

eight hours. I know. Okay, so again, interesting that Hebsey had that exclusive. And these are good, just for the record, these are good sources that you heard on the Ashley Dawkins story here. So you won't say who and what.

Yeah, that's exactly what happened. How do you have three people together and then suddenly, very suddenly, it's like, nope, one of them's gone. Do either of you two gentlemen miss Don Cherry

after the first period of the Leafs game on Saturday night? I think what's been fascinating for me, I go back to, I think it was 2002, when the whole outrage happened with when Ron McLean was doing that contract dispute with CBC. Oh, yes, that was big news. I've been shocked at how little outrage there has been

with no Don Cherry. Well, two weeks maybe, and that was it. That was basically it. The David Ayer shelf life is longer than Don Cherry. Yeah, his 15 minutes has been definitely... What time is it on that 15 minutes? I didn't like that story at all. That's the whole side.

I'd get mad at the whole David Ayer story, but please. But no, listen, it comes back to... We can talk about Strombo's pants. Have they found Strombo, by the way? Strombo's probably on a motorcycle in California right now. Right. We can talk about all this stuff. If the Leafs win,

it's all... Give us a taste of that Raptor championship fever. I'm looking at your hat in the line. I'm with you. But what about you? Hebsey, you watch... You've been watching Hockey Night in Canada forever.

Yeah. Tell us, do you miss Don Cherry? No, because I haven't been watching the intermissions with great regularity anyway. I find nowadays, especially with so much available, that if I'm watching the game andissions with great regularity anyway. I find nowadays, especially with so much available,

that if I'm watching the game and the period's over, I know I've got 15, 20 minutes before the game's coming back on. I utilize my time better. And the other thing is I watched the first period of play. So no matter how much of an expert you are, you probably aren't going to tell me anything that I haven't already seen in the hockey game. And you're probably only tuning in because you want to hear what outrageous thing he's

going to say, right? Yeah. You know, yeah, it was for the longest time. And that is, what's Don Cherry going to say about whatever the issues are that time? And they would promote the hell out of it as well. But as far as now is concerned, I don't. I admit to it. I don't.

For the first while, I was like, oh, Don Cherry. And now it's like, okay, I've moved on with my life. They've moved on with their lives. Agreed. I don't know admit to it I don't for the first while I was and now it's like okay I've moved on with my life they've moved on with their lives agreed I don't know what they do

I don't know what they do differently now that they don't have dawn for what do they do now 10 minutes

I go put the kids to bed after the first game because I don't because again that's part of the past what are they doing now in fairness I don't want the first interview

oh my god that's wild so that's the answer so it just goes to show you, but think about this, Mike. A hundred years from now, someone's going to say, do you know back in the day of television, the early days of television, people used to sit and watch the intermissions? Yeah.

What do you mean they'd sit and watch? Yeah, they would sit and watch the intermissions. They wouldn't go away like in a movie theater or a play and go get a drink or go da-da-da-da-da-da. That's what I use it for now. They would sit and watch and watch the intermissions. Right.

Well, now we don't do that because you can get all that information on your handheld. Or anything like that. I never watched Cherry Live in recent years. If he said something, I'd watch it go on sportsnet.ca and watch a viral thing that he said something

and catch up on it. Just go to Twitter. Here's the latest. Here's the Don Cherry rant. And after the game. Two minutes later. Pass me your smartphones. I's the latest. Here's the Don Cherry rant. And after the game. Two minutes later. Pass me your smartphones. I need to see if either of you,

just kidding, are either of you subscribed to the Don Cherry podcast? No. Did Curiosity get you to tune into maybe the debut episode? Yeah, I listened to

the first couple of them. And it didn't hold you? No, because he started adding stories from his old Grapevine television show or the interview he'd done with Rocket Richard

back in 1987 or whatever, that kind of a thing. And so I had heard those before. And sometimes I'm very interested in those. I'm interested in what, hearing what someone had to say, you know, 30 years ago, because it doesn't have anything to do with today. It was like, this is what it was like back in the day. This was Doug Harvey was like this. Jacques Blanc was like that. We didn't wear helmets. We didn't high stick people, you know, hearing those stories I liked, but that sort of ended up being, instead of him having, ranting about something that was going on now in hockey,

he would just plug in, hey, this interview I did years ago, because he has all this content from all his years of grapevine and grapevine TV show. And if you didn't watch the original television shows or you haven't gone to YouTube, this might be something that interests you. And I think if you're under the age of 25, you don't gone to YouTube, this might be something that interests you. And I think if you're

under the age of 25, you don't really care. But that is, because that was the giant of sports media in this country. They remove them in big controversy

and I, for two weeks, it's all people wanted to talk about and I haven't heard these things. Oh, not even, Mike, because I think,

I feel like it was two weeks. No, I don't think so. I don't think it was two weeks. No, and here's why. Yeah. The Bill Peters thing. Right. Came like the following week.

Because remember, you and I did a version of Hebsey on Sports that was wild about the cherry thing. Right. And then three or four days later, we were talking about racism in sports, the Bill Peters thing. We all moved on. We had all moved on. And what happened to all those guys, maybe the same people who are complaining about

Ashley Dawkins' voice or maybe, but all those people who said basically they're going to cancel the Rogers cable and cell phones and never tune in to HockeyNet again. That's your knee jerk right there. If the Leafs win, all will be forgotten. Joe Warmington led it the longest. He stuck with it the longest, right? Yes, he did. Because he got the exclusive stuff

with Cherry. I think he caused this whole thing. I think I know the answer to this. We talk about McCowan maybe coming back one day. Is there any chance Cherry comes back? No. Any mainstream outlet? No.

No? Okay. I agree. No one's looking for like an 85-year-old bigot. You know what I mean? No, but you know what else too is that he can't,

I'm not sure he could repair, I think it's probably best that he left the way he did because any attempt now to try to come back and rectify things or whatever is going to

make it worse he wouldn't i don't think you will you would you would never get don cherry at his absolute best anymore so why risk the possibility right of him really going off the deep end or or just saying look my dad is about the same age as don cherry okay i know that if my dad got upset about something or whatever, he might say something that could really, like, blow things wide open. It could be bad. It was a different time. But I'm saying, but he could.

He's capable. So I wouldn't risk putting him on the air, on the off chance that, you know, something happens that triggers something where he goes, oh, those damn, don't say it. So with Don, it's like, you know what? He had his run. He said many things he shouldn't have said.

But what's been interesting is that I think Rogers kept him on because they were afraid of the blowback. Oh, sure. I thought it was they were afraid of the Budweiser blowback. Right. Because money is so budget- And I'm sure if they look back on it right now. I felt like maybe...

Because Budweiser spent a lot of money to sponsor that Coach's Corner. And I think, basically, I think if Budweiser had balked, we'd still have Don Cherry on there. I don't know about that because I don't think Budweiser was the only sponsor out there

that was willing to do Coach's Corner. There were probably other ones. And I don't know what the rate card looked like. I doubt it seriously that Budweiser was the only one that was willing to do Coach's Corner. There were probably other ones, and I don't know what the rate card looked like. I doubted seriously that Budweiser was the only one that was willing to pay this much. But here's a big-ticket guy that I'm sure Rodgers is looking back on now and saying, we should have let this guy go years ago.

We could have saved a huge amount. Get him off the books. Look, when it happened, if you recall, Mike, and I said this, I said Rodgers probably had been sitting for months saying, how can we get rid of, how do we do it? And then this opportunity came along. Yeah, right.

And then this opportunity came along that said, oh, we don't have to worry about it anymore. He just did it for us. Right. But let me ask you this now. Let me ask you this. This will be the first playoffs that we're without Don Cherry, where we saw him on a consistent basis.

We'll make a difference. Because all that matters is what the Leafs do. Nobody remembers what Don Cherry was like on television in the playoffs when it was a non-Leaf game. Once the Leafs were eliminated or didn't make the playoffs, nobody said, oh, I got to hear, wait, I got to watch this Columbus-Tampa game.

That's true. See what Cherry says in the front. If it was part of a Leaf game, yeah. Right. But if it wasn't the Leafs, and you can look, you know, if the Leafs aren't part of it, the viewership goes down by half. Oh.

Or more. More. Everybody in Southern Ontario and every Leaf fan is like, don't care. And that's why I say, and you guys had mentioned it, radio is local. Right. Nobody listening to radio here is going, oh, what happened with the Jets? Right. And if they're a Jets fan, they would have found out a long time ago.

This is, you're listening to radio in Toronto. You're listening to Hepzion Sports. We're talking about the Toronto teams. I don't watch these other teams. I spend all my time watching the Toronto teams, the teams I've been following since I was a kid. Why would I? Now, if it's a big, big series between the Dodgers and Houston in baseball and there's going to be a beanball war and the media's going,

oh, let's see what happens when the Dodgers play Houstonston because of the science that's different that's yeah right that's different it's appointment viewing for that particular game but other than that i'm i'm watching every jay's game every leafs game every raptors game every tfc game that's because i'm a toronto fan and that's what makes this rogers national tv deal look even worse terrible it looks bad because the leafs have not won a playoff series since it was signed. Right. I think outside of the NFL, all these sports teams or leagues are really, it's regional television. Oh, yeah.

And listen, don't for a second think that Rodgers is going, well, even if the Leafs don't get in, at least we've got Winnipeg. No. Not even close. No. You could combine all the other Canadian teams and their fans and the revenue they could generate, and it wouldn't come close to what the Leafs did.

We saw that when Ottawa made the finals years ago. Nobody was watching. More people are interested if Buffalo makes the playoffs than Ottawa. Well, maybe Pittsburgh because Crosby's there. But I will say this. Let's say, I won't say anything, I'm going to ask you, if the Leafs leak into the playoffs and go out in five games to the Lightning, what's a potential first round?

We go out in five games to the Lightning. Are there more cuts coming from Rodgers? From Rodgers? Because a lot of these games that we're talking about, like, I believe this

12-year deal is dependent on the Leafs having some long runs. That's a great question because Dave Schultz is blaming a lot of these Rogers radio and things we just talked about earlier on this national television deal. Some are blaming Blue Jays decisions on this deal. Like there's some people who are saying basically the Blue Jays payroll, which is again, young talent is cheap talent.

Okay. And controllable years, et cetera, et cetera. Very important. But that's even tied to this deal. Right. Well, you're still paying Troy Tulewitzki this year $18 million. But that's it, though. Except for Tulewitzki, that's it. He's off the books after this year. Right. Yeah, because last year you had

Martin and you had Morales and you had someone. So what had happened was, obviously, once they had signed that deal with the NHL, they went to all the other properties within Rogers and said, all right, here's your budget. This is what you've got to spend. And I'm sure Shapiro and Atkins knew all about this. He said, all right, you guys, you can't spend any money until 2023.

Which is amazing. We scored a pretty decent starting pitcher. You can't spend anything. Now, remember too, Russell Martin was on the books. That's right. Kendris Morales was still on the books. Tula Whiskey was at $20 million last year.

And the Tula Whiskey one, we're done after this year. Once that's all off the books... That's right. All right? And Shapiro gets a pat on the back from Rogers going, well done. Right. Now, let's expand the dome and invest in the future.

And not to mention the $40 million that Rogers put into Dunedin. That's right. So let's now start... So this year was always... Last year was always going to be. So now we've got some money. Now let's make some capital expenses to make Blue Jay game worth going to. Right.

Bring those fans back at the same time that the team is developing into an exciting. But to answer your question, to answer your question on this, on the cuts. Right. Then I do want to come back to the Jays, but yeah. What cuts are left to be done? Is it like writer's block? I mean. Well, that's okay.

Let's talk about it. Who's the last remaining? Like Hebsey said, who's left? Ron McLean. Yes, I can see Ron McLean, this being his final year. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. No, no. I think Ron McLean would be Rogers' hometown hockey guy forever.

He's making a big buck too, though. That's his stamp. Rogers' hometown hockey is his stamp. Look at how many times this guy does Hockey Night in Canada, and then the next day... That's why David Amber... He's off to go to the Rogers Hometown Hockey. That's why David Amber hosts the late games. Do you think it would make any difference if Jeff Merrick

took over that role? Which role? The McLean role for a fraction of the salary. It would be David Amber. Isn't he the heir apparent? Either or. Again, we're talking about the bench. I think Merrick's more of an analyst guy where Amber's more of a host. Sure. I don't think it would make one difference to the rating. Yeah, probably not. No, we're talking about the bench. I think Merrick's more of an analyst guy where Amber's more of a host. I don't think it would make one difference to the rating. Yeah, probably not.

No, because the game is the game. I think I've been saying this. I said this to McLean when he was here. The game is the game. I tune in to watch the Leafs game. I don't even remember half the time who's calling the damn game. If the Leafs are out,

I think they've learned a valuable lesson with Don Cherry. They did the cut with Bob McCowan. How many times did we hear the cliche, if Wayne Gretzky can get traded, anybody can get traded. If Bob McCowan. How many times did we hear the cliche, if Wayne Gretzky can get traded, anybody can get traded. If Bob McCowan can be fired, suddenly anybody... And Cherry,

all within a few months of each other. Different reasons. We were still reeling from losing our Bob Cole, right? Guys our age had a tough few years. Yeah, all for different reasons, but I think they've learned a valuable lesson is that it doesn't matter. The game is the game.

The game is the game. Right. How long do we hear about George Strombolopoulos, his jeans being too tight in his suit, and that's why people were not watching. It's garbage. To Queen Street. Yeah, to Queen Street. Also, with social media the way it is, anyone that's running a company is going to, someone's

going to bring to the attention, look what people are saying. Right. And you're going to look at that and go, and whether the sample size is small, you're going to go, ooh, really? Because the vocal minority are always the loud saying. Right. And you're going to look at that and go, whether the sample size is small, you're going to go, ooh, really? Because the vocal minority are always the loudest. Right. And the ones that are the pushiest to say, make some changes, make some changes.

But the new cycle is changing so quickly now. Yeah. That even that local- Even the Astros controversy has gone away. Have you noticed? Well, it's gone away, but because of the lull in spring training. I guess.

But it'll come back once it got- We wanted that. Once title strength- Once he wants the Boston Red Sox punishment announced. No, no. Well, it's gone away because of the lull in spring training. I guess. But it'll come back once it's gone. We wanted the title straight. Once he wants the Boston Red Sox punishment. No, no. Once George Springer gets the first pitch in the ribs for the season. But my point is that nowadays especially, people look and say, how many followers does this person have?

What are they saying? What are the comments? Bring up the comments. And that is affecting their decision way more than before because before it was harder to get a number of comments people would have to actually write in or phone in right and your secretary would have to say oh i just got a call from so-and-so and here's what they had to say now it's instantaneous right and if this many people are upset at the decision that was made like with the aaron davis one right

vox populi that many complaints complaints? Loud? People upset? How many? Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands? Maybe we should rethink this. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea. Like Joe Bunn arrested him.

I made a huge mistake. I'm surprised the McCowan thing has lingered as long as it has. Maybe we should have done focus groups before we made this decision. Well, McCowan keeps fanning the flames. If he sends out a tweet today that says something like, stay tuned, PTSP, or whatever the hell that tweet was, that a million people sent my way. Look, he's coming back, he's coming back.

And everyone's decided that he must be in podcast. But you said there's no way McCallum does a podcast. He might, he's more likely to do something on the Chorus Network, to be honest, like some kind of a syndicated sports program on the Chorus Network. But who knows what happens there. I want to ask you about the Blue Jays. Are we okay with Blue

Jays broadcast teams? Like we still like Buck and Dan doing TV. And what about, you know, my man Mike Willner and Ben Wagner doing radio? I think there's a lot of room for improvement. I think Dan Shulman is obviously outstanding. I like

Jamie Campbell for the Ron McLean type role. But what Jamie's missing is sort of that sandpaper next to him. What do you mean with Greg Zahn was? Or someone who I really enjoy listening to. But he's not really sandpaper. He's Joe Siddle. Yeah, Joe Siddle's not sandpaper, but he's a very

good broadcaster. Someone who I've really enjoyed listening to in very small is J.P. Aaron Sebia. Yep. You know, and I, yeah, and I think he's done some work for the Miami Marlins. Yeah, and he's a recent, you know, player. So I think he can bring that sort of, and he's not afraid to, we talked about it before,

the unfiltered talk. But you're not going to have that on a Rogers broadcast. They don't want that. Well, they had it with Zahn. Yep, and how did that work out? What about Brian Burke? That was for a different reason. But how did that work out? But he would have still been there. Yeah. But don't want that. Well, they had it with Zahn. Yeah. And how did that work out? What about Brian Burke? But how did that work out?

But he would have still been there. Yeah. But didn't transfer. Let me tell you this right now. Right. Zahn did not go down into the clubhouse and confront the guys he was making fun of, the guys he was taking shots at. And that caused a rift because people were going. Right.

They were going, why are you allowing, like this was Aaron Sebia. Yeah. Why are you allowing this guy to go on your airwaves and talk trash about the players? But Hebsey, do we as viewers care about that? No, no, we don't. But again,

he went to management and said, you own the team and you own the television station. Why would you employ a guy that's ripping people like that? Sports, entertainment. And I think these...

They don't care about the... Look, they don't care about the entertainment. They care about eyeballs. Let me ask you a question. Right. If Greg Zahn, and he's not there anymore, and he was replaced,

do you think the numbers on Blue Jays telecast went down at all because there was no Zahn? Again, it's going to come down to... At all. A winning team. I don't think so. And here's the other thing, Milan. We're not talking about 20 minutes between periods

or 15 minutes with Don Cherry. Right. We're talking about twice a game. Forget the pregame and postgame. Twice a game where they would go back to the studio and Jamie would say, hey, Greg, blah, blah, and Greg would do something. Twice. It wasn't every half inning.

It was twice a game. I did PBR, Baseball Central, from 1230 to 1 on the weekends. Yeah, I'm probably a minority, definitely. But from an entertainment, I did enjoy. I want a little bit of sand. I know you're not going to get it,

but I can't watch Buck Martinez. Is it about... Get up, get up, get up. I'm not a fan of that. I'm not a fan of that. But you don't tune out because Buck's doing the game.

Of course I'm not going to tune out, but again... You're there to watch the game. We had a 67 and 95 team last year, and at best, you're hoping for a 500 team

this year. You want a little bit of entertainment. What I find is... Shulman's year, and at best you're hoping for a 500 team this year. You want a little bit of entertainment. What I find is... Shulman's great, but... When you're doing... See, the other problem is this. When you bring Dan Shulman in for some games, the guy is one of the best at all.

Anyone next to him seems like, why would you have this guy when you've got Dan Shulman? So that's a tough one for anybody that's trying to aspire to be anywhere near as good as Dan Shulman. So that's a tough one for anybody that's trying to aspire to be anywhere near as good as Dan Shulman. If I've got Shulman on the air, why is he not on every game? Like, why am I getting him and going, this is wonderful?

And then the next game, he's not there. And the broadcast isn't as good because you don't have one of your top guys. That's a great point. You're right. He's so good. We're sort of blessed that's living in the city where we live is the maybe, what I would say probably maybe the very best play-by-play guy working today. He also, what he does is he brings out the best in anyone that's with him.

So if I'm on the broadcast with Dan Schulman, I'm going to up my game because I got Schulman there. If he's not there, I can come down to another level and there's no one to compare me to. Will he be broadcasting more games this year? Have you guys heard? Don't know. I have no idea.

I have no idea what they're doing on that TV side. I know it sounds great. Shout out to Andrew Stokely, who always makes those Sportsnet Jays games sound amazing. But he's not going to be. I don't think Dan's doing any more Sunday night baseball on ESPN. No. Because he's doing all of his traveling during basketball season doing NCAA games. He has a new marriage and a new child.

It's important to him not to travel as much. Yeah, so he may not want to travel as much, which is why, you know, if someone said to him, and Dan is, I'm going to say Dan is in his mid-50s. Yes. That's a safe bet, yeah. That eventually, especially if he's got another young kid from his most recent marriage, that he would probably likely, if he was doing his traveling, did it during the off-season, off-baseball season for ESPN,

and would probably like, would prefer to stay close to home and maybe a job with Rodgers doing Jays home games for the most part would be right up his alley. He could spend time with his kid, right? The other one being when the kids are always off for the summer, if you're doing baseball all summer, you don't get to see the kids unless they're going to travel with you. And so he might say, you know what?

I think I'd kind of rather have the summers off, spend with my kids. And then when they go back to school, I can go back to work. There's someone I think who's great on the air that we don't hear enough from is Hazel May. Because she played the Jessica Mendoza role. But she got, I mean, Jerry Davis is gone. Like she's doing more than ever.

Are you suggesting maybe she does actual commentary during the games? Do we know if she can do it? I've never heard her do it. I don't know. This comes up with hockey where we have this game. We're going to see it this Sunday. Yeah, this Sunday. What is the game again?

Winnipeg? Who is the game? Calgary? It's Calgary and Vegas. Okay. All-female crew, broadcasters, and behind the scenes. Right. Leah Hextall, play-by-play.

Cassie Campbell-Pascal as color analyst. Who's done that before? And Christine Simpson. Oh, yeah. In fact, the funny thing with Cassie is, and I remember when she first started broadcasting, when they put her as the sideline reporter or the ringside reporter,

I said, this is the wrong move for her. She is best in the booth, describing a game that she could play and played at the highest possible level to have her stand there and say okay ask this question and ask that question right where you really and this is nothing against ringside reporters i've done it before right there's only so far you can go with the questioning you really could put just about anybody there and say, look, ask this question and ask that, and that's it, right? But you've got to have somebody to do it. But Cassie is so much better when she's in the booth

as the color analyst. So the play-by-play person stops, and Cassie goes, on that play there, and here's the replay, and she shows that. No, no, those X's and O's, because she played the game at the high level, that's where she's best suited. If she's so good at that,

why don't we see her on a more regular basis? Why is this like a stunt for International Women's Day? I don't know. That's up to the broadcasters. Exactly. That's up to the broadcasters. And to bring it back to baseball, if Hazel May has a desire to do this,

well, it's spring training. Isn't this the time? Do you have her do Buffalo Bison's games? Spring training would be great if they broadcasted more than two you have her do, like, Buffalo Bison games? Spring training would be great if they broadcasted more than two of their own games. Well, that's a cost cut. Which is a joke. But on radio, they brought in a lot of the minor league radio announcers throughout the Blue Jays system to do the odd game here and there

with Ben Wagner and or Mike Wilner because they were on BlueJays.ca or whatever it was. And so at least you're giving them a little, hey, listen, this is the guy that does the Lansing Lugnuts. This is the guy that does the New Hampshire Fishercats. This is the guy that does the New Hampshire Fishercats. This is the guy that does the Buffalo Bisons. And while they're on the broadcast, it's great. Tell us about some of the young stars that are coming up.

Okay, so let's talk radio. Are we happy with Wilner and Wagner doing Jay's games on the radio? So I miss Mike Wilner on Jay's talk. Me too. And I know the fans. That was the best show. Yeah, it really was. Because that is so spontaneous.

I think we're the only... Maybe we're not the only... But that was so spontaneous. That was... I got to hear what the fans are saying. Agreed. And I got to hear how Wilder reacts. Who does it now?

Does he hang up on them? Josh Goldberg. And the show, I remember at the end, lasted maybe 10 minutes. Oh, I heard him yesterday, actually, in the car. I heard him.

Yeah, the show ended quarter to 11. The show would be five minutes long. Josh Goldberg would take a call or two and good night. It's so obvious that they don't care about that show. I used to do that show. Yeah. Like years and years ago.

Right. When I first, I'd been in radio for a while and I got hired by the radio network, the Jays radio network, to host the pre and post game show. Is that telemedia? That was telemedia. It was called Baseball Today.

And there was no pregame show prior to that. There might've been a five minute pre. Hi, we're on the air. And then five minutes, boom, first first pitch and then they decided they said we really want to expand we want to get people listening earlier on so i did a show called baseball today hi everybody mark ebser today here's what's going on today and we would pre-tape some interviews with some players on the field we'd run them here's what's going on elsewhere baltimore is playing so and so milwaukee's playing so and so and then during the game they'd say you

know tom and jerry would say right, let's get an update, and here's Mark. And I'd say, all right, bottom of the fifth, and Cal Ripken's home run for Baltimore. And then post-game, we would do a wrap-up. We would get an interview with a player either down in the dugout where they'd have a microphone, we'd interview them live, or I would run down to the locker room, do an interview,

right, quick interview, and then come back upstairs or feed it back upstairs. And then they expanded it locally on 590. Was it 1430 at the time? Yeah, 1430. Where there was Jay's Talk. Right. We didn't call it Jay's Talk.

It was still called Baseball Today. Right. Or Jay's Today, whatever it was. And I would take calls. Wow. And that was the best. It was great. Because people would go, I just watched the game.

So, Hedges is the first Jay's Talk host. What was so and so thinking about it? Scott Ferguson after. Like, they really made their name. Yeah, Scott Ferguson took over for me. He did it for you. But what happened was, people would call, and you wouldn't know.

The producer would go, I got Vinny on the air from Woodbridge, and he's pissed. I go, put him on the air. Right? And immediately, right? Right. Vinny, hi, Vinny from Woodbridge. Right.

Yeah, I know. What the heck was Bobby Cox thinking about when he did ba-ba-ba? And it was great, because if the guy didn't know what he was talking about, he said, why didn't you bring in a left-hander? I go, what are you, sir? So now people go on Twitter and do it, but it's not the same.

Right, sir, are you stupid? I would say, sir, are you stupid? Are you new at this? Have you never watched baseball? How do you dial the phone wearing a straight jacket? That's McCowan's line. But what happened was

is that the angry caller, right, would always, he would be the one to drive the show. So if the Jays won, it was like, okay, let's go to the phones and go, hi, Mike from Toronto. Hi, I just wanted to say that I thought

so-and-so pitched a great game at you. Boring. And I think Paul might have, but get me someone that's angry about a loss, about a decision that the manager made or a base running gaffe. And I mean, that guy could, and then other people call and say,

oh yeah, not only did he do that, but two weeks ago, he failed to touch second base. And before that, let's get rid of this guy. Let let's trade that and pretty soon the whole show was about say what you will about my pissed off listener right and then how the host handled that listener and the rest of the show exactly and that's why wilner on jay's talk is the best right you're preaching to the choir rising the best i'm sure hebsy can sandpaper because i'd be sitting there going mike hang up on this guy what do you hang up on him hang if i'm the, Mike, hang up on this guy. What do you, hang up on him. Hang, if I'm the host, I would hang up on this caller.

Why? And then pretty soon, all right, sir, that's it, click. I'm sure Hebsey will agree. It does the best. Be polarizing, be loved, be hated. Just don't be. Get him listening.

Get him listening. Don't be irrelevant or you don't care. And that's what's happening now. Fox popular. No more Mr. Nice Guy. People are afraid. People are like afraid. So I don't want to take callers from the,

I don't want to take calls from the callers because they might say something. Hey, listen, if you keep opening the phone lines to so-called experts, now joining us is so-and-so from this radio, now joining us is this writer, how about now joining us is Joe Blow? He's a fan of the Blue Jays,

has been for 40 years, watches every game on TV or the radio. Ha, you're on the air. Right. What's the matter with that? I mean, I religiously listen to on the air. Right. What's the matter with that? I mean, I religiously listen to the post-game show. What's the matter with that? And it was a joke last year.

It's been a joke for a long time, actually. I thought they were going to be serious when they had Scott MacArthur. But Scott MacArthur was brought, bringing it full circle. Scott MacArthur, well, more for sure, because Scott Ferguson left the fan to do the team 10-50. That's how Wilner got the gig.

That's right. So that's how we got Wilner today, right? So, although I also heard Wilner tell me that Peter Gross is the reason that we have Mike Wilner today. So really, it's all about me. No, I'm just kidding. So here we are now,

Mike Wilner leaving that role we liked him in because he wanted to do his dream job. Right, I'm sure he doesn't want to go back. So they bring over Scott McArthur. Now he's on The Morning Show. Right. But what do we think of Mike Wilner as a play-by-play guy?

I think he's fine. I think we had a more competitive jay's team like i think that uh we would uh i'm i don't i know i don't listen as much as i did during 2015 and 2016 he's okay you know what i and i like mike as that role i think it's odd hearing him doing play-by-play because we had never heard him do any play-by-play that's right before in other words he wasn't the voice of the buffalo bisons he wasn't the voice of that he wasn't the voice of the i'm sure he had done some play-by-play somewhere a couple innings and when you're used to it would be like if lisa laflamme on ctv national news became a game show host do you know what i mean like we're used to listening to her deliver the news in a certain way with a certain authority right and now she's not out of her

element but the comfort zone of the viewer or listener is now oh you know in other words when i hear mike do play by play i want to hear him go oh that was a terrible play by rowdy telez just awful he booted the grounder threw the ball away into the corner. Man, we're going to be getting calls about that after the show. But he can't or he chooses not to do that role. He chooses to sort of play it more of a straight role. But you're used to hearing Mike Willner go off on stuff and say, that was terrible or that was great or you don't know what you're talking about.

But you can't be polarizing and be a play-by-play guy. Oh, yes, you can. Oh, yes, you can. Not in this market. I think it goes back. Not in the past, can you? But you know what? You can if you've developed that type of personality.

Harry Carey for years was a popular baseball announcer, not because the teams he did work for. Analyst, right? He was a color guy. No, he was the play-by-play guy. But Mike Wilner also does some play-by-play. But Wilner and Wagner are in a tough situation, like you mentioned earlier, about Dan Schulman.

You're following two legends in Tom and Jerry with a little bit of, I know, Alan Ashby who was excellent, mixed into their team. And Siddle too. And Siddle was really good on the radio. He was too handsome for radio. So I think, again, and I don't mean to just say he's fine. We're all fans of Wilner,

and we like him, and I think he does. Well, that's it. We're a little biased because we like him as a person, right? We are, right. But again, he's following. He's an FOTM.

He's following two legends, and I think Alan Ashby was phenomenal. Yeah. If there's any way they can get him back in this market, it'd be great. I can tell you it's very difficult if you want to establish yourself in anything, but

if you want to be a broadcaster and someone says, well, what do you like about that broadcaster? Well, I like the fact that they're open and honest and funny and you can't be all things to all people. Right. And in Mike's case, and I know this too, because when I started in broadcasting, I wanted to be the best broadcaster out there. I wanted to be the funniest. I wanted to be the most knowledgeable.

I want it to be all of those things, which, which meant that if I did play by play, I wanted to be the funniest. I wanted to be the most knowledgeable. I wanted to be all of those things, which, which meant that if I did play by play, I wanted to be the best play by play guy. If I did a hosting sports line, I wanted to be the best anchor. If it was voicing over highlights, I wanted to be better than anyone else. If it was interviewing, I wanted to be the best interviewer and you cannot be, you can't be the best at every facet of it. So be really good at one of those things, really, really good at one of them. Jerry Howarth was never going to be the greatest interviewer in the world. He didn't want to be.

He wanted to be a great play-by-play guy, weave a story, tell pictures with his words. That's different. But he couldn't be the funniest and the best and all those things. You can't. And in Mike's case, Mike was really, really good at doing the jays pre and post game he was really good at that it's going to take a while before we forget about that old mike wilner and look at mike as a solid everyday play-by-play voice that that becomes the soundtrack to your summer why do we love tom and jerry so much

because we grew up with them right we didn't have anyone else to compare them to, really. There's still the benchmark. I compare everybody to Tom and Jerry. I mean, the early win. When Jerry started, people did not like him at all. In the early 80s, they didn't like him at all because his voice was unfamiliar. Because it had sort of a...

He wasn't from Toronto. Very different than Tom and Jerry. He wasn't from Toronto. He wasn't... You know what I mean? But Jerry had a wealth of experience in the minor leagues. He was an accomplished broadcaster. So it was easier for him to make the transition.

The other thing was, when Jerry started, he didn't get a few innings. He didn't get the middle innings or whatever. I think Jerry got the fourth and fifth innings. And I think Tom did one, two, three, six, seven, eight, nine. And then after a while, it was like, are you the sidekick? Are you an equal to Tom? Okay, we're going to give Tom four innings

and Jerry four innings and then Tom gets the ninth. And the classic one, and Jerry told this story of the time that when the Jays were going to win their first World Series, it was Jerry's inning to do. And he said, and he decided right at that moment, he said, here's Tom Cheek to take you the rest of the way. Even though it wasn't Tom's inning.

I get chills when I think that's a great story. Even though it wasn't Tom's inning, Jerry as a broadcaster think that's a great story. Even though it wasn't Tom's inning, Jerry as a broadcaster said, Tom's been waiting for this moment longer than I have. He preceded me. He was the original voice. He's a day one-er. It should be his thing,

which was a very magnanimous gesture. Absolutely. So who would you want to listen to at Jay's talk now? Well, it's got to be somebody outrageous, man. Willner's out. I've got him. You want my truth? You want the truth?

I'm looking at him right now. A former player. And it's not Milan from Fast Time. Although he'd be great. Now, again, I have to disclose my... How did you dial the phone wearing a straight jacket? Similar bias, but way before I worked with Mark Hebbshire, way before Hebbsy on sports,

I felt this way that Hebbsy was... He'd be the guy. He'd be the guy. And I don't... Maybe he's too interesting for today's media. on sports, I felt this way that Hebsey was, he'd be the guy. He'd be the guy. Maybe he's too interesting for today's media. Bart, if you're listening. Well, they'd have to make him an offer he couldn't refuse.

First of all, number one, I wouldn't take the job because the commitment, the time commitment for 162 baseball games, many of which would not be in necessarily the time frame that I'd be interested in. West Coast games. I can do a post-game show at 1.30 in the morning. Let him make an offer and we'll see.

No chance. But thanks for thinking of me. It was very nice of you. I guarantee you after the first show, the phone would be ringing and say, you can't say that stuff! You can't say that! We want our Jay's talk to be boring! You can't say that Charlie Montoyo should be fired! You can't say that. Bring us, we want our, we want our Jays talk to be boring. You can't say that Charlie Montoyo

should be fired. You can't say that. Very quick hits here to close this off. Wow, this was full of, full of interesting stuff. Very quick hits.

Milan's favorite baseball player growing up was number one, Tony Fernandez. So Milan, I want to take a moment. First of all,

my condolences. We all miss Tony. I loved Tony. The best shortstop in Blue Jays history. Phenomenal. And what an important position, right? So, tell us a little bit about that. And then Hebsey, who covered Tony.

Hebsey's got some great stories. I know on Tony. Well, I always say my father got me into baseball in the Blue Jays. 1985 was my first year. The drive of 85. The drive of 85, nine years old. But what kept me as a fan was just watching Tony play.

Just his mannerisms, his style, going deep into the hole and throwing out runners on first. The flipper, I call it. The flip throw. I mean, I think everyone our age copied that move. And yeah, definitely my favorite player of all time. He's an athlete I really looked up to. I had the chance to meet him through a friend of Toronto Mike, Jamie Campbell.

FOTM, Jamie Campbell. At St. Mary's when he was introduced to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame. But he might have just a crazy story. It was pouring rain all of a sudden. We ran for cover and we opened the door and standing there was Tony, who was also trying to shield himself from the rain. And then Jamie did a quick intro to us. We got a ball sign.

Met him very briefly. Of course, he's got a lot more interaction with him. There's so many memories of him. So I'm glad I picked him as my favorite player growing up. The same era, I picked George Bell at the same time. And I'll never forget Bill Madlock to this day.

He's still on my hate list. We lost the last seven games. We lost in 87. And you remember Cecilio Gawante, with a fastball right in his face. Wow. And his cheekbone, he's now the same player. Ernie Witt went down too, right?

Was it Ernie or? Ernie. Yeah, Ernie Witt. 87 last week. That's the worst Blue Jay memory there is, I think. Just horrible, but sort of the good, bad, and ugly side. And I remember when he came back in 93, when he was traded for Dick Schofield.

Of course. Well, Dick Schofield. Darren Jackson. Darren Jackson. Yeah, Schofield broke his leg. Sorry, Schofield broke his leg and Darren Jackson. And then they had to get a shortstop. That's right.

And Tony was really struggling with the Mets at the time. And I remember when they got him, and Dave Perkins had that memorable article, not so memorable for me, but just ripping the move, calling him a very moody. And when I had Perkins on, you submitted a question. I did ask that question, right. And I remember his first game back was against the Tigers in Detroit.

He had a huge series, three home runs in the first weekend. He was like a rejuvenated player. Nine RBIs in the World Series. Winning a World Series with the Jays is a memory I'll remember. And he came back, you know, a couple of times after. And you might remember,

he was close to hitting 400 when he came back in the late 90s. He had four tours of duty with the Toronto Blue Jays. And I cannot name, I know Wendell had three, but I cannot name another athlete that had four different tours of duty.

And I think it's just been... Leo Cahill has gone to the Argos? I'll take your word for it. Muhammad Ali? Age 57, and it's just amazing. And I don't know, the media coverage that it did receive, I was amazed by it. People have a lot

of fond memories, and I think he's really kind of the first star from that era who passed away. And it's weird talking to 20-year-olds who weren't even born. Right. You know, showing my age here. I was thinking, too, any core members of my World Series team is dead? Nope.

First one. Yeah. That's absolutely true. And you mentioned it in one of the episodes about Damaso Garcia. I thought he had passed away years ago. No, he was given a death sentence. Right. Years ago.

He had brain cancer. He had a tumor in the brain. Right. And he was given a very small chance to live brain cancer. He had a tumor in the brain. Right. And he was given a very small chance to live. Right. And he did. He survived it, which was literally a miracle. The Tony Fernandez thing is interesting because he,

this is a difficult comparison, but what Vince Carter did for basketball fans in toronto and canada was done by tony fernandez a decade or so earlier when we first saw him play and people who really never played the sport of baseball before or didn't know much about it all wanted to be like tony fernandez that flip throw because that flip throw was something that like my four-year-old kid could do oh dad look at how he throws it we all tried it right like when you learn to throw when you were a kid you threw underhand first of course until you and then you but tony sort of had that oh it looks like i could do something like that and it

had zip and accuracy but also too he was graceful but he didn't look like he was like a skinny kind of like look at him and so we had never seen anything like that first of all as baseball fans prior to tony fernandez i couldn't tell you who the slickest fielder was that ever played for the jays but there was nobody close to tony right alfredo griffin was an okay shortstop but he was not like a ballerina like out there like so what happened was when people first saw vince carter the things he could do the dunk contest all that tony tony fernandez was doing stuff like was wowing people a decade or so before that the difference was this is tony fernandez was always on the jays radar because he was signed by the jays came up through the jays system played at

kinston played at knoxville played at Syracuse for a couple of years. He couldn't beat out Alfredo Griffin. They wanted to keep him down on the farm to ensure that he was a solid 300 hitter and could play the field in the minors before they brought him up. And when they were ready to, they traded Alfredo Griffin, and they elevated Tony Fernandez. Well, with Vince Carter, no one knew until he was drafted, and he wasn't even drafted by the Jays. He wasn't drafted by by the rafters jameson was drafted by the raptors golden state

so prior to that nobody had vince carter on their radar as a college player the same way but we had tony fernandez on the radar from the time he was 17 years old right right and so and even though we didn't have the same knowledge of what was going on in the farm system you'd hear these little things like this kid named fernandez you're going well geez for god's sake and the jays had only been around for four or five years so there wasn't that much but what happened when we first saw him and howard cosell was there abc thursday night baseball or monday night baseball at exhibition stadium tony fernandez the young super the young rookie that we'd all heard about. And then he was on national television, made some great plays. And that's sort of when people started recognizing the Jays.

It was the same thing with the Raptors. Tony was the guy that made people interested in baseball and more interested in becoming a shortstop and comparing him to Alan Trammell and Cal Ripken and Omar Vizquel and all these young guys. And so he revolutionized the shortstop position, but at the same time, he made baseball become a more popular sport of Toronto and all of Canada.

Very underrated. And I feel bad that he didn't get enough votes for the Hall of Fame. No, he wasn't a Hall of Famer. I don't know if he's a Hall of Famer, but you know. I never once thought of him as a Hall of Famer. No, I never thought of him't a Hall of Famer. I don't know if he's a Hall of Famer, but you know. I never once thought of him as a Hall of Famer. No, I never thought of him as a Hall of Famer. One of the leaders, one of the leaders of all time.

I think Omar passed him, Biscayle passed him, but in fielding percentage as a shortstop. You ready for this? I think he has the record for third baseman. Oh, for third baseman. Yeah. Like, I think you're right. He did have it for shortstop and got passed.

I believe he still has it for third baseman. Like, that's how good a defensive player that guy is. But he'll never be compared to the Brooks Robinsons or the Scott Rolands of the world because you've got to play your whole career. I'm just happy. Your whole career. Yeah, he's a shortstop.

When he made that key error, 97 Cleveland, Florida. Yeah, right under his glove. He could have easily become the Bill Buckner of the Indians, and thankful he didn't. But Jerry calls him the Cleveland baseball team. The other thing with Tony was that he was, and Dave Perkins had mentioned, a lot of people, he was very salty with the media, generally speaking. Really?

Because he was a born-again Christian, right? Well, it may have been some of that. I saw him on the 700 Club or something. Yeah, no, no, there's no doubt about that. And I'm like, oh, that's Tony. But the thing is that as a member of the media, when you want an interview and someone is reticent to be interviewed by you or just doesn't want to do it, or if they do, they do it with disdain.

They're like, okay, I'll answer your questions, but I'm not going to give you much. Right. It just, you know, and that occurs year after year. The media generally was like, Tony, don't bother even trying to talk. He's not going to give you anything. Right. And I realized this when I was covering him because it was the same thing.

Hey, Tony, can I do an interview with you? This was for TV or radio. But what happened was when I went down to the Dominican Republic and I saw him in his own element teaching poor kids the techniques of batting and fielding, okay, hours before a game, not getting paid for this, not where and fielding, okay? Hours before a game. Not getting paid for this. Not where the cameras were, right? To do this because this is the type of human being that he was.

He wasn't looking for the publicity. He was genuinely a caring person, okay? Genuinely a caring person. And this was the type, and what had happened was, and you mentioned that error, that he could have been the GOAT. They asked him about it, and you know what he they said are you gonna are you okay with this he says i'm okay with it because i know god's on my side right in other words it would have affected other people who weren't as close to god way worse because they would have questioned themselves and they would have been called the goat and they would cat people would cast aspersions but tony explained that that was

wouldn't was never a problem with him that he didn't react the way that people thought he would because of a goat because he knew that he had god on his side and that it was kind of meant to be so there was sort of that but i tell you i saw stuff that he did where he never wanted any credit for it and in fact he had us turn our cameras off when we were down in dominican he just didn't want he didn't want that and so i had a different respect for him and then when the time came and he had the time he was more than happy to do an interview i think i had mentioned this mike he was a dh for a game with lise and while the game was going on he said come into the clubhouse and we did the interview in the clubhouse at the stadium and then midway through the interview they called down saying t Tony, you got a bat.

And he said, excuse me a second, ran out as the DH, hit a triple, scored, came back to the clubhouse and did the interview. He was wonderful that way. But had I not experienced Tony in his homeland with the people that he loved

and cared about, I would have thought, like most people, that he was an aloof, uncooperative, moody, sullen, moody guy. Yeah.

And there was a lot more to Tony than that. Gone too soon. Gone too soon. Gentlemen, this was fantastic. I'm hoping to do this every quarter. So much changing in this world. We didn't get the two quick items. One is that TSN got the WTA rights back. Hepsey scoffs at them.

That's because they were hoping they would be showing Bianca every week. Right. She's been hurt. Well, hopefully she gets better because she's going to be great. And the other quick hit was that Blue Jay games are no longer available on MLB.TV. Now, if you want to stream the games, you got to get Sportsnet now. So I don't know if you have a 10-second thought on that? They're acting more like the Argos of the 80s.

$17.99 a month for Sportsnet now. Yeah, and the spring training schedule, you're marketing your team. This is like an infomercial. Every time you show your team and they're not, and I don't know what Rodgers is doing sometimes. Again, Mark Hebzer hosts Hebsey on Sports. Go to your podcatcher of choice Hebzer hosts Hebsey on Sports. Go to your podcatcher of choice and subscribe to Hebsey on Sports.

It's fantastic. Milan from Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair. What's the website address again? FastTimeWatchRepair.com. And we can follow you guys on Twitter. Actually, let me do the Twitter thing here. And that brings us to the end of our 594th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at

Toronto Mike. I should know that. Mark Hebzier is at Hebzieman. Milan, Telsania. You guys are WJ... At Fast Time WJR. At Fast Time WJR. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer.

Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U. The Keitner Group are at The Keitner Group. And Banjo Dunk is at Banjo Dunk with a C. See you all next week. This podcast has been produced by TMDS and accelerated by Romeam Phone. Roam Phone brings you the most reliable virtual phone service to run your business and protect your home number from unwanted calls. Visit RoamPhone.ca to get started.