Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Stephen Brunt: Toronto Mike'd #269

Episode Date: September 27, 2017

>Mike chats with sports journalist Stephen Brunt about his years at the Globe and Mail, his video essay for the 2010 Olympics, his fallout with Bob McCown, his work with Jeff Blair and much, much more.

Welcome to episode 269 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent brewery producing, celebrating 30 years in the craft beer business. Visit GLB at 30 Queen Elizabeth Boulevard for $5 patio beers. And propertyinthesix.com, Toronto real estate done right. I'm Mike from torontomike.com and joining me this week is sports journalist Stephen Brunt. Welcome, Stephen. It's nice to be here. You're Hamilton Mike this week.

On that note, right off the top, I promised him I'd do this, but there's a gentleman on Twitter. His handle is actually ArgosSuck. Yeah, he and his buddies invented ArgosSuck.com, which the forbidden cheers we call it in Hamilton because the owner didn't want him to do it anymore. But yeah, Jack O'Neill and his gang of merry pranksters. So tell me, how do you know Jack? Well, I'm a Ticat guy too, right? And I covered Grey Cups for years. So I would run into him and his pals at the Grey Cup.

And yeah, I got to know him through that. He lives in Calgary, but he is like the world's greatest Ticat fan. And he's a smart guy. And actually, one of my great accomplishments in journalism was that I, before, which I forget who was playing in the Grey Cup. That's how bad it was. But it was in Vancouver. But I did deliver Argo's suck buttons to the Arkells who played the pregame.

And they wore them on TV. And they're from the Hammer, too, right? They are, indeed. Yeah, Arkell Street's right around the corner from where I live. So they're McMaster guys. Actually, they're not from Hamilton, but they all went to school in Hamilton. So I went down and delivered it to those guys, and they all wore it. I think they, they took some flack for that, but I was, I was very, very proud up in the press box, seeing them on TV wearing Argo suck buttons. And he basically, he's the reason you're here today.

Is that fair? Yeah, he vouched for you, Mike. Like, again, I know the podcast, but I don't do stuff like this generally for a bunch of reasons. But he vouched for you. He said you were cool. So if this goes horribly wrong, this is all on Jack. It's on Jake the Snake. Jake the Snake. Since you mentioned Hamilton and Jack is a big Hamilton booster, a real quick question from Jack.

He wants to know, he says, a lot of people of national and international profile are from Hamilton. Why are you still there? And why is the Hammer, warts and all, so great? Well, I was born there. So I am a Hamiltonian by birth. People usually ask you if you're from Hamilton, where you went to high school, if other people from Hamilton, I wasn't there in high school cause my dad got transferred, his job got transferred and we ended, he ended up working out, his office was out by the airport in, uh, what people then called Moulton, you know? And so we,

we moved to Georgetown. I was in Georgetown for, uh, a bunch of years through high school. And, uh, but you know, my, you know, my folks are from Hamilton. My dad, my mom's from Binbrook, which is just outside of Hamilton. My dad came to Hamilton right after the war. And, uh, you know, my mom's and my parents went back there and lived there. And we, you know, my wife and I moved back. We were living in Cabbage Town. Um, and, but right around, you know, right around the time when our second kid was born, so late 80s, we decided to make the move. And yeah, look, it's a real place.

It's not a subset. I get a little testy about the whole, it's very hip now, right? It's like the Brooklyn of Toronto. That's what I read in the Star, right? Ralph Ben-Murray moved there. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, Ralph.

Ralph and I, I did a thing with Ralph. There was an event last year where the National played. It was super cool in a church. So there were all kinds of cool people playing, including the National. And I was one of the people that got to make a little speech. And I referred the Toronto Winter Lopers. It's great that they're there because they brought a lot of money and a lot of cool, a lot of artistic people.

And we have way better restaurants than we used to have and all of that stuff. But when they kind of come to Hamilton and go, oh, look, there are trees here. It's so nice. And I do get my back up a little at that stuff sometimes. It's a separate place. And I lived in Georgetown, which is a little town that turned into kind of a suburb. But Hamilton, my identity is really tied in Hamilton. It's tied up in a time when people work for the steel companies., uh, it's a working class town. It's got a working class

kind of ethos and, uh, uh, you know, a very separate identity. It, there are people there who are now legitimately worried that it's going to lose that because obviously it's not steel town anymore. It's not driven by heavy industry. And, you know, all the cool kids have moved there because of the cheap real estate. And, uh, I'll, you know, I'll take the pluses over the minuses of that, by the way. It's like, you know, it's like pining for New York in the seventies. I was in New York in the seventies. It was really crappy. Yeah. It was really, I don't want the old time square back, but, um, yeah, it has, it, it does. It has a very, and it, you know what, there are huge chunks of that city that will not be gentrified. They are going to, they,

they are ungentrifiable. They are un-gentrifiable. So I think it will retain that. I've always thought there's kind of a fundamental down-to-earth honesty about the place. You know, we were the little town down the road from the big town. I grew up hating the Leafs. And never mind the Argos. You know, we didn't worship Toronto. We kind of resented it.

And a little bit of a chip on her shoulder, I guess, all the bad Hamilton jokes over the years. So, yeah, now that it's hipster paradise, there's some great irony in that. But, yeah, I'm very comfortable there. I like the people. I love the neighborhood I live in. I've lived in the same place. We've been in the same house for almost 30 years now.

We're near McMaster University, so the kids all sweep in, in the, in the fall and sweep out in the, in the spring. Right. Uh, yeah, it's a, it's a,

it's a beautiful place to live and I can get from where I am to anywhere, or I can get out, you know, I can be on the grand river with a fly rod in my hand in 25 minutes. So I like that. You're right. This is going to be a Hamilton mic'd, but it's about time we did a Hamilton century.

So is, is, does Cox still live in Hamilton? No, he lives in Toronto now, but he's from Hamilton. He went to high school there. Blair lives there. My compadre on the radio lives there. Ken Fidland from The Sun is an Ancaster guy.

Maybe you can find out for me why Jeff Blair blocked me on Twitter. I'll ask him tomorrow. I've never said a negative word about the guy in my life. Well, he's a sensitive soul. You know that. I think I got caught up in some Mike, some Mike in Boston web or something. But let me ask you about music real quick before we get going here.

You've already expressed interest in kicking out the jams. Yeah. What do you know about the kick out the jam series? Well, you know, I love the personal playlist. Like, it's great, right? But I, look, I was, before I, well, again, I was never really a sports guy.

I kind of stumbled into sports, but I was a music guy. Like I went to university trying to be in faculty music at University of Western Ontario. You know, I had a union card when I, my dad was a real musician. My dad played with Tommy Dorsey and played with some real folks. But, you know, he marched me. He said I had to march into the musicians union, the F of M, and get my card when I was like 16. You know, so I played in a band that played the high school formal when I was a senior in high school. Last year in high school, I played that kind of stuff in high school.

But I wasn't good enough, like a lot of people. I wasn't good enough. So like a lot of people who aren't good enough at something, those who can't teach. I didn't teach. I wrote and, uh, I started writing for about music and when I was in London at the Western, so I was writing for the Gazette at Western where a lot of people have in the business have come from. And then I was writing for the London free presses, their music critic for the last three years I was in university. So, so I've spent a lot of time, you know, not just, you know, I was, I was way more of a kind of a jazz nerd guy when I was in university. So, so I've spent a lot of time, you know, not just, you know, I was,

I was way more of a kind of a jazz nerd guy when I was really, you know, a teenager, but I spent, you know, good part of my university years. And then even with when I went to the globe, originally, you know, I was in the old M and D department, music and drama. And, uh, you know, especially covering really like crappy rock bands in, in hockey rinks. So, you know, if you think about kind of the early eighties, I like, I saw everybody like, So, you know, if you think about kind of the early 80s, like I saw everybody. Like, you know, I had to go watch Ted Nugent at the London Gardens, right?

I saw Rush like seven times. Sure. So, yeah. And, you know, it's funny. I've come later, you know, later on, you know, when your kids grow up and stuff. Like I go to more live shows now than I think I ever have in my life.

Did you bump into Dave Hodge at all these shows? Oh yeah, we go, yeah, we're buds. Yeah, we go to a lot of stuff together. He would have vouched for me too, because he vouched when Brian Williams was thinking about coming on, he spoke to Dave Hodge and Dave Hodge says, you got to do it. So you could have got another endorsement from Dave Hodge. Well, that's good.

He's the coolest man alive, as you know. Is he the oldest guy in the mosh pit? He is so cool and so tuned in, and he listens to a lot of great stuff. He's obviously super contemporary, right? Yeah. Right on. I learn stuff from Hodge all the time, but we go to shows together.

And the other thing is I've got this festival in Newfoundland that I kind of started, so I get to program music too, so I'm a booker now, which is a blast. I get to phone people and say, would you play my show? I have a whole Newfoundland section here. So I get to program music too. So I'm a booker now, which is a, is a blast. I, I, I get to phone people and say, would you play my show? When we,

I have a whole new Finland section here. We're going to, we're going to talk about that for sure. So just to let everybody know who's listening, you are going to kick out a jam at the end of this episode, but not the jams. Cause you're going to come back at a later date with your 10 jams in hand to do the proper kick out the jams episode.

But so we'll get one today. So my question is, I don't want any spoilers on what we're going to hear in your next Kick Out the Jams episode, but what are you listening to these days? Jeez, what am I listening to? I'm listening to the new national record, which is very depressing, but beautiful.

I saw Feist on Sunday night at Massey Hall, which was a great show. I've never seen her live before, but I saw her at the Polaris Awards a couple of times, and she's tremendous live. My God, was a great show. I've never seen her live before. But I saw her at the Polaris Awards a couple of times. And she's tremendous live. My God, what a great show that was. I was listening to, there's a track by a band from Lindsay, what are they called, The Kents, that I really like,

kind of anthemic pop music that somebody pointed me to the other day. I really like that a lot. Who am I going to see this? I'm going to see Arcade Fire. I've got tickets for that. I was supposed to go to Billy Bragg this week, but I think that's not going to see this I'm going to see Arcade Fire I've got tickets for that I was supposed to go to Billy Bragg this week but I think that's not going to happen

he started the residency at the Horseshoe last night the National in Hamilton in December there's something else on my docket I forget what it is I kind of Catholic tastes I say more than when I was 16 which is the irony I see the beauty in a good pop song now more than I did

when I should have been listening to pop music. So, yeah, I try to, you know, and I kind of watch for people that, you know, there are people who I've seen a lot, you know, Pearl Jam, I've seen a lot, a guy named Alejandro Escovido you might have heard of. I love him. You know, if they come into town, I try and find them. Excellent. I mean, I love music too,

but I just can't, right now I can't find the time to get to many shows. Well, looking around here, I can tell why. You know, if you've got kids, you can't do it. Tell me what happens

because I have two kids who are now teenagers and yeah, great, I can do anything, but then I have two little ones now that have messed up my rock and roll, you know, adventures.

Yeah, it's, it's sorry. There's no way around that one. I got news for you. I got to wait another 10, 15 years. Yeah. But, but it's,

but there is this kind of funny moment of liberation when you look around and say, hang on a second, you know, there's somebody playing at a club and they're going to go on at, you know, 1130 tonight or 1230.

And I can do that. Yeah. I can't wait. I can bike over to the horseshoe and see a band. Yeah. Don't need a sitter. It's awesome.

Can't wait. Okay. Now a bit of a sponsor break before we get back to your story. I can't wait to do a deep dive with you here. But I want to thank Sue. Sue has arranged, she didn't want to do the Patreon thing

because everybody can go to patreon.com slash Toronto Mike and help crowdfund this passion project. But Sue made contact with me and found out how she could contribute via PayPal because that's how she donates to things. So thank you, Sue, for your contribution via PayPal. That was fantastic.

Stephen, I understand you enjoy a cold beverage. On occasion, I have been known to. Yes, sir. Actually, on that point, I have a couple more questions later from Jack O'Neill. But one of his questions is, what's your favorite beer? later from Jack O'Neill, but one of his questions is, what's your favorite beer? You know, I don't know if I, you know, I kind of just move around now through the craft beer thing. It's so amazing, right? Like I walk into my, well, I can walk to my grocery store now, for God's sakes. It's almost like, you know, we're in a kind of a liberal permissive part of the world.

We're in Quebec now. Yeah. And I can, you know, honestly, I I, I, I honestly, I kind of surf around, you know, I, I really do. You know, I, I don't,

you know, I don't drink like porters in the summer or anything like that, but, but I, you know, I do like the great, crazy variety versus growing up and drinking Labatt's Blue every day. Exactly.

Have you ever tried Great Lakes beer before? I have indeed. Yes, sir. Yes, I, I, I have surfed my way through several of these,

by the way. I, I, I recognize them very well. What is this? Okay, what do we got here? It's one of the big bottle kind of things? Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, you have the pumpkin one because that's the season.

Yeah, I'm not crazy. I'm not big on beers that taste like things other than beer. I've been told as far as, you know, pumpkin spice beer goes, that's a good one. Okay. Don't take my word for audrey hopburn it's a belgian ipa this is a new one put it back before you leave it here but very very nice but you got yourself a six pack there enjoy the great lakes beer and you probably heard off the top i fumbled my intro because it was just, I had the same intro for like two years now.

And it's like, I don't even read it. I just, it's in my cranium there. And today, because just today, the guys, can we mix it up and mention the $5? And I butchered it. But if you go to the patio at the Great Lakes Brewery, which is near Queensway in rural York on Queen Elizabeth Boulevard, they got the $5 pints and you sit on that patio I mean today is like I think the last day of summer too the sequel apparently it's all going to change

tonight apparently that's right so get out there while you can but it's a great place to enjoy a pint so thank you Great Lakes Beer

proud sponsors of Toronto Mic'd and you have a pint glass so there is the empty glass I see that there yes that is courtesy

of Brian Gerstein who is as he told me yesterday has a huge huge man crush on you. I don't know if that's frightening or... That's okay. That's all right. I'll take it. Yeah. That's the kind of crush I generally get, I got to tell you. My life would have been very different if it worked some other way. That's right. That's right. So he's got a huge man crush on you. He loves your work. That's right. So he's got a huge man crush on you. He loves your work. He is a real estate agent with PSR Brokerage. But let's actually, and yes, he's giving you that pint glass. You can enjoy the Great Lakes beer in his pint glass. But let's hear a brand new, this is a newly recorded today, a new message from Brian. Property in the city including 16 story Kingley in King West ready for occupancy in 18 months or for the iconic 85 story the one at one Bloor West to be completed in 2023 and be the tallest building in Canada you need to call me now at four

one six eight seven three zero two nine for renderings, floor plans and pricing as both are being sold in October. Tallest building, but not the tallest freestanding structure, right? I don't, I don't think that's happening, but yeah, the tallest building in Canada.

So get in while you can contact Brian again, 4 1 6 8 7 3 0 2 9 2. Mr. Brunt, are you ready for your deep dive? Yes, sir. Do you mind if we begin with the Globe and Mail?

And feel free to backtrack if it makes sense, of course. But most of us came to know you from the Globe. So how did you end up at the Globe and Mail? Yeah, I was there for 27 years. So, you know, I was there as a mere lad. So, well, you know, I graduated from university. So I've been writing for the, uh, I wrote for the university paper. I say I was writing for the London free press as a freelancer, as an undergrad in university. And, uh, but in those days, and I kind of thought that might do it right. But, uh, they, they, you had needed a journalism

degree. I, you know, I saw I was in English doing undergrad in English. And, uh, so I had to go to journalism school and I went to the, I did a one year master's at Western, the master's in journalism program. And I didn't get in, by the way, the first time around. I did not make the cut, even though I was working. I wasn't a bad student, but it's not that I hold any grudges. But I didn't get in. I got in because somebody else didn't go. But there were some great people in that class. Peter Edwards at the Star does all the great organized crime stuff.

Eric Reguli, who's in Rome for the Globe and Mail. Sue Dando, who runs the Nature of Things at CBC. Those are pretty cool people in that group. Anyway, I did that. And I sold some freelance stuff to the Globe while I was there. It's kind of how I used part of my year in journalism school was to try and be a freelancer as well. And I sold a piece. The first thing I sold to the Globe, Miles Davis had been, he didn't play for 10 years almost, right?

He had this kind of dark period where he, because of health issues and drug addiction essentially, didn't play. And he reemerged to play what was then called the Cool Jazz Festival in New York. And so I was writing for the Free Press, but I thought, you know, here's an opportunity. And Miles Davis is God, right? And a horrible human being, by the way, but as a musician, God. As many great artists are.

Yes, it's an interesting discussion, right? How do you separate the art from the artist? We do this in sport all the time. As a guy who thoroughly enjoys the guilty pleasure of R. Kelly's Ignition remix, I can tell you. Yeah, perhaps the worst person

not in jail right now, right? Exactly. So I cold called the Globe and Mail, the arts desk, and said, hey, Miles Davis is doing this show in New York, and I'm a freelancer,

and I'm going to be there, and can I do it for you? I had no idea I was going to be there. I just made that part up. And a guy named Phil Jackman answered the phone who I ended up working with later on and said, sure. So then I had to find my way there. So I found my way to New York. I had no money, of course, and then had to talk my way into a credential and did all of that eventually and got to New York and Miles Davis, Avery Fisher Hall. So, uh, you know, and it was the kind of, he came back with the band that was the last band he played with. So,

uh, you know, Bill Evans, the saxophone player, not Bill Evans, the piano player, Bill Evans, the saxophone player, and, um, Mike Stern, the guitar player, and it's a really cool band, um, and cover that show and wrote that for the Globe. And that was kind of my end to the Globe and Mail. And so they agreed to eventually agreed to bring me back, you know, the free press, which would not even give me a summer job as a, without my journalism degree. But so I kind of skipped out on them and went to

work for the Globe as a summer student. Uh, there was the midst of a recession and the newspaper business was in the tank. So sort of like now, and they laid off the summer students halfway through the summer. So I got dumped in August. And my wife, my now wife, then girlfriend, we were living together. And we moved to Toronto to do this.

And she was working for The Sun. And so she essentially paid the rent. And that's how most people become freelance writers. Unemployment focuses the mind. It's an amazing motivator. So I became a freelance writer, but mostly within the kind of orbit of the Globe and Mail. So I wrote anything, right?

Like I wrote for their real estate section. I wrote travel stuff. I got a couple of phony baloney travel, like junkets out of it. It was pretty awesome. I was unemployed and I got sent, I got taught to learn to ski in Vermont and went to Finland, you know,

all essentially while I was, I didn't have enough money to feed myself. Um, so I did whatever was there broadcast week, you know, they used to have a TV guide. I used to write for that a hundred bucks, you know, pop 50 bucks, 75 bucks, and kind of hung in there for about three or four, well, three years, I guess. And then things turned around a bit in the industry. They started a Toronto section. They were going to be a Toronto paper. You know, a lot of phases at the Globe. They'd hired John Sewell as their city columnist. And they wanted to hire a general assignment reporter to be for that section.

And look, I've never been a general assignment reporter. Like I was an arts, when I was a summer student, I was in arts. So I was there with like Jay Scott and Ray Conolog and Adele Friedman and Carol Corbett and all of these incredibly intimidating arts writers. I'd never done news except for pretend news and journalism. But somebody votes for me and they hired me and then sent me out to cover fires. So yeah, that's how I got into the globe.

It was a fluke. It was just the cycle had turned around and they needed reporters and somebody hired me over somebody else. And you could write. Yeah, and I could write. Look, that's one thing that's, unlike music, where I was not a natural, I'm a natural writer. It comes easily for me. I don't, you know, it's good to have something you can do in that.

And let me guess, you figured this out in high school, you figured out you could write a kick-ass essay. Yeah. Well, especially in university. And you know, the great thing about that was if you could write kind of coherently, the content didn't matter because whoever the poor marker was,

the poor TA that was marking it, if they could get through it, they were so thrilled. I understand this now after the fact that you get a great mark just for writing something that's coherent. That's the story of my university career right there. I could write a kick-ass essay.

Just whatever. I can argue anything. Let's go. Yeah, so I wasn't a bleeder. There's some great writers I know who are bleeders, but I didn't bleed much. Yeah, so it worked out. I kicked around in news for a while. They let me write kind of a weird behind-the-scenes column in the federal election, like 1984, the Mulroney election. Right. That was a bit of a hit. I was, I became the sports section, which was huge in those days in the Globe, had a dedicated feature writing job.

And I did that for a while. And that was the only sports, that was the first sports writing I'd ever done. And I'm, look, I'm a fan, like I always say, I'm a fan like everybody else. But I was going to ask you, if it's 85 when you start writing sports, but you were a sports fan. Yeah, sure. But I wasn't. I never wanted or dreamed of being in... Most people I know who are sports writers

always wanted to be sports writers. And they became sports writers. Steve Simmons was the sports editor at the Gazette at Western when I was there. Elliot Friedman worked as a sports writer at the Gazette. The Festchucks, both the Festchucks worked. Those guys, they were sports guys, right? I never, that was never the route I was going. I wanted to be like Mark Miller, who was the jazz critic, the freelance jazz critic at the Globe and Mail. Not a great job, but he was great. So yeah, I did this.

I did the feature writing job. Then I went back into news and wrote features and kicked around. And, you know, the one sports thing, I did cover the 88 Olympics in Calgary, where they hired me to be the kind of peripheral guy, you know, like write about goofy stuff around the edges, you know, write about. Eddie Eagle? Yeah, exactly, right. Yeah, I think I got Eddie the Eagle duties and wrote about the strip club that had the Miss Nude Olympic contest and, you know and went to Ralph Klein's bar and all of that stuff.

So I did that. And Trent Frayn was there. And that was one of his last gigs. Bill Frayn was one of Canada's greatest sportswriters and one of its great gentlemen. He, in those days, back in those dark days, when you were 65, you turned 65, you had to retire. So he didn't want to. But he was retired out of that job. And there was not really a natural successor within the department. And so I applied for the job and got it.

Okay, cool. Which, you know, again, most people who do that gig have been beat writers, have been sports-specific columnists. They've done something else. I'd done a few features. I think I covered a couple of fights. I remember I covered the first Holmes-Spinks fight as a side gig. But essentially, I hadn't done any of the things you were supposed to have done to be a sports columnist.

And I wasn't very good, by the way. I came into that job. But you won a Missioner Award. Yeah, that was later, though. And that was for investigative stuff, right? Okay, in 88, though, right? Yeah, in 88. That's before I started the column.

But yeah, that was more of a long investigative series about boxing and safety in Ontario. So that was a different kind of a project. And that's certainly the best reporting I've ever done in my life. Do you still have that award somewhere? You know, they don't give it to you. It's in a case at the Globe and Mail. I'm not sure if the Globe and Mail moved it. Maybe they left it in the old building.

I have a picture of me holding it. Actually, my mom has a picture of me holding it. At least you got the picture, but I just learned when you win a Grammy or something, they don't give you the award. You can buy it for $600 or something. Canadian Screen Awards since I got in the TV business. I never got a national newspaper award, but

I'm killing it in TV. These are the new Geminis, right? Did you win a Gemini? I got one Gemini. I was a finalist for a genie with something I did years ago. I have a Gemini and some Canadian Screen Awards. Yeah, $400 each. It's the dirty little secret.

It's a money-making operation. It's sort of like when you hear the celebrities getting a star in the Walk of Fame or something. Oh, wow, they're going to go in the Walk of Fame. But you don't realize that you buy that. Oh, yeah. It's why they keep adding categories. I say

you go to the Canadian Screen Awards, there's like a million categories. And we, the sports ones are stuck on there. And we don't go to the fancy night. Like we're on like a Thursday afternoon with all the children's program. And like there's hundreds of categories. You just, you know, the first one I won,

we were the first category. I remember that. And the beauty of it was we got it, we got out of there and then we went to the bar and there's no one at the bar. Just sat there for three and a half hours while this thing played out. Is there a video essay category? It doesn't really, you know, the first one of those I won was for the Olympic thing in 2010.

Which we're going to get to that. Yeah. And I forget what they called it. I'm thinking you could like dominate that category. Like, what is it? When the guy from The Daily Show, Jon Stewart, kept winning every year. Yeah, for a show just like Jon Stewart's show.

Or Julie Louise Dreyfuss. Just give her the best comedian, comedy. Well, it was... Lord knows awards are crapshoots. I'll tell you my best awards. I do have a great story. So you mentioned that series on boxing corruption, right? I win the,

for which I won, you know, shared a mission with some other people at the Globe. So I was nominated for a National Newspaper Award for that one.

There were two other people nominated, one of whom was Michael Farber, the great Michael Farber at Montreal Gazette, Sports Illustrated. I just read his piece on Paul Crea

like this morning. One of the best, right? Yeah. So I had, you know, I'd done this series and I put a guy in jail. That series was pretty good.

It ended up putting someone in jail. Be careful. Don't you watch Narcos? You've got to be careful. And so I went to, so my wife and I go to this, we go to the National Newspaper Awards, which were a big deal in those days. And Farber comes up to me and says, you know, essentially says, look, I concede. You win. You know, everybody thought I was going to win.

He'd won before and he said, look, you're going to win. Congrats. You deserve it. And I, everybody thought I was going to win. He said, you know, he'd won before. And he said, look, you're going to win. Congrats. You deserve it. And I kind of thought I was going to win. And so we sit down at the table. Now, it was an uncomfortable table because the Globe had just had a management purge and they just fired the managing editor and the editor who were both there along with their successors. So there was a degree of tension at this table already. And I sat down, I opened the program and the names of the winners were in the program. So I poked my wife in the shoulder and said, I opened the program, and the names of the winners were in the program. Oh, wow. So I poked my wife in the shoulder and said, look, the names of the winners are already in the program. And look, I didn't win.

So I went over to, you know, and then the emcee hurriedly got up there and, you know, eventually got up there and said, oh, no, it might not be true. It was true. Don't open your. So I went over and tapped Farber on the shoulder because he didn't win either. And I said, hey, by the way, I didn't win. You didn't win either. I said, by the way, I didn't win. You didn't win either, just so you know. Then I got blind drunk. There's no speech, right?

I was disappointed. My wife and I both just said, the party's on. We have no responsibility. It was a learning experience. That's great. Talk about spoiler alert. Who decided to stick the winners? I believe it was an error. I got it. Now, I hope this is the right, since we're at the Globe, and I do want to get to how

you leave the Globe, but I'm going to ask a question. So throughout, I have a lot of questions myself, and then sometimes I have Twitter questions that'll pop in here. Okay. So G writes, would be interesting to hear how he feels about the current state of the globe sports section. Only a few in-house writers remain, travel budgets chopped, no national hockey writer, mostly news folks sent to the Olympics instead of

sports staffers, et cetera. Yeah. Do you have any thoughts on the current globe? It's not globe specific. You not, it's not globe specific, you know, it's the state of the business. You know, the newspaper business is,

is in its death throes. And, you know, and I say that, look, the happiest day of my life, other than, you know,

births of my children was when I got a call saying, you've been hired by the Globe and Mail. And, you know, that meant everything to me. I, I,

as a newspaper, you know, as a writer in this country to be hired by the Globe and Mail is like, that's, that is the cream of the crop in Canada. And, and, newspaper, you know, as a writer in this country to be hired by the Globe and Mail is like. That is the cream of the crop in Canada. And, you know, what has played out, I was just talking to my buddy, Dave Naylor, you know, we were both at the Globe together now, you guys know him from TSN. And, you know, we both, I remember having this conversation with him once before, you know, he was going to leave for TSN. He didn't that time before he eventually did.

And we both kind of figured, you know, we were looking at the way the newspaper business was going to leave for TSN. He didn't that time before he eventually did. And we both kind of figured, we were looking at the way the newspaper business was going, kind of figured I could probably play out the rest of my career there, but he wouldn't be able to because he's that much younger than me. But what I thought was going to take 15 years took two. It's steamroll. And it's unsustainable, right?

I'm sure they will find a form in which they can exist as long as David Thompson's willing to pay the bills at the Globe. But in sports, my last conversation with the editor of the Globe and Mail before I left was about, I remember saying to him, you're not competing with the Toronto Star anymore. You don't understand this. You're not competing with the Sun or the National Post. You're competing with ESPN.com.

Sports news is coming from all kinds of places that have a vested interest in sport and you cannot compete with them. So unless you find a way, you know, some kind of niche where you are different than them, you got no shot here. And they were delusional, right? It's the asteroid coming to the earth and the, you know, the dinosaurs munching away. Right. You know, that's kind of what it felt like. it felt like. So I don't blame anybody for what's happened there or anywhere else. It's just the world has changed. And no, it's not the section I used to work for.

There are some good people still there. But when I think of the people I used to be able to look around at, my colleagues there, that was a very good group and a very good section. Do you think the athletic, for example, this sort of a new model that's emerged where they have some known writers and working there now

and they charge you a subscription so you pay X dollars a month or whatever to access their content. Is something like that the model that we maybe can make it? I don't know, Mike. You know, I subscribe. Like I signed up for a bunch of, you know, again? I don't know, Mike. I subscribe.

I signed up for a bunch of, again, supporting. James Myrtle's there, an ex-Globe colleague. Sean Fitzgerald's there, who I think is a great writer. They've both been on this podcast. Yeah. There's a really good group of people there. They've got Pierre Lebrun working for them now. All really good.

I just don't think, I'm not sure what the long-term game is there. You know, it's a bunch of venture capitalists that started it, right? And I don't know if they think they're going to sell the whole thing and then everybody will cash in. But again, I've just seen no evidence that people will pay for content, you know? Sort of like closing Pandora's box, right? Like I think we're all so accustomed to, you can access this kind of sports writing for free on the internet. Well, the internet is free, right?

No, that's what people think, right? Like my kids are in their 20s, right? They don't pay for anything. They'll never pay for free. Well, the internet is free, right? No, that's what people think, right? Like my kids are in their 20s, right? They don't pay for anything. They'll never pay for anything. They laugh at me for paying for cable. Yeah. You know, they pay for their phones. And they're going to get killed on the other side

with their overages and things. But in terms of actually specifically paying for content, they think we're chumps. No, it's funny because my daughter has discovered this website where you put in the YouTube link and it pops out an MP3 file, okay, that she puts on her, right? And so when the new single comes out, the new Selena Gomez single comes out,

she pops in the link and then she's got the MP3. And I told her, like, you know, I'm old enough that I was buying 45s at the local Sam the Record Man. And I actually would go there. I'd hear it on CFTR, the hot single, and I would go and buy that for whatever, $4, $5, whatever. But yeah, people, they think it's all free. Yeah, they think it's free.

And the argument that you're ripping off the artist, which is true, doesn't apparently, you know, that doesn't work. I've tried that one. Who are you stealing? You're stealing from the artist. That's what you're doing. But in terms, look, in terms of, again, back to the athletic and the subscription model, it seems to be growing. I think the

growth is part of the point. Keep it growing, growing, growing. Bring in investors. I'm rooting for them. I say I put my money where my mouth is. But somebody's got to show me where a subscription-based model works. I'm going to turn the channel here for a minute and talk about a radio station called the Team 1050.

Oh, yeah. Yep. Now, I've had a number of Team 1050 alumni on the show, like most recent. So I've had Jim Van Horn's been on here twice. Yeah, JVH is a great person. Fantastic person. He came to kick out the jams. If this goes well and you don't hate meH is a great person. Fantastic person. He came to kick out the jams.

If this goes well and you don't hate me at the end of this thing, you will come back and kick out the jams for the record. I'm so far so good, man. Couldn't remember if that was before or after I pressed record. I wanted to get that on record. I could send you the clip and say, hey, here you are saying you come on. So tell me about how you ended up at the Team 1050 and what that experience was like.

Well, you know, I was already, so I was already at the fan co-hosting with Macau and on primetime, right. And doing a chunk of it. And I don't remember how much of it I was doing, but I was doing a fair bit. And, uh,

like, but I had no contract. Like they never offered me a contract. They never offered me. Is it pay as you go? Like, yeah. Okay.

Yeah. Eventually pay is paid by the shift. Right. And there was no, and it wasn't much like, again, one of the beauties of sports radio is that, you know, this is why the death of newspapers is going to hurt sports radio more than anyone. You know, newspaper guys didn't make very good money. So we were always available to supplement our income and we worked cheap. And they, you know, they look, you think of some of the guys who've come through, you know, a lot of ex-newspaper guys kicking know, and we were, and we were sent places and we saw things. So we had stories to tell. So yeah, I was, I was working and, you know, Nelson was running the station and, um, I don't know if Alan Davis was gone by then. I don't remember, but yeah, I had nothing on, I had no paper. I had no contract. They had no obligation to pay me. There was nothing. And, um, and the

team guys, so Paul Williams and Gerald McGrory started that station with Chum. And they came to me and said, we would like you to, you know, we're going to start this show, and we'd like you to co-host this show, and we'd like you to do this number of weeks, and here's how much money we're going to pay you. And it was more money than I was making in a year

from the Globe and Mail, right there. So I'm going, holy smokes, yes, let's do it. That gets your attention, right? I can do that, right? And again, I had a contract. They were competing against nothing. And it wasn't like the other guys were going to jump in and say, hang on a second.

And there was a little bit of discussion about who I was going to work with. And the fan was an orphan in those days. This was between the telemedia and the Rogers ownership when it was kind of in play. In hindsight,

if they had taken their truck full of money and backed it up and offered it to McCowan, they might have had a shot. Oh, the Team 1050. Yeah. They probably could have done that then. I always assume they... I don't know. I just assume they took a shot. Oh, the team 10-50. Yeah. They probably could have done that then. I always assume they, I don't know,

I just assume they took a shot. No, they didn't. You know, they kind of, I think they kind of talked themselves out of it. They, you know, Paul may have,

in other incarnations, may have had talks with Bob about stuff and understood what was going on. Oh, maybe because there was a connection with the score, right? Yeah. And maybe they were trying

to recruit McCallum. Well, the team, yeah, we weren't connected to the score, but Paul might have, you know, Paul had a long history in radio, so he may well have, you know, negotiating with Bob's not fun. So he may have just said it's not worth the hassle and we will reinvent it and it doesn't matter.

So, you know, they launched with Jim and me and they had, you know, the morning show was Romanuk and Mike Richards and a bunch of other people. And, you know, Gene Valaitis, I think, doing a sports show, you know, which he was kind of miscast. But, you know, he was doing a sports show. And they, you know, they were very confident. Like we had more. I always think about, you know, I had a whole wardrobe of team stuff.

Like I got more gear from that station than anywhere I ever worked. I had a leather jacket, for God's sakes. And now you can wear it ironically. Yeah, well, no. I think some guy from Mission Services is wearing it now. I think that's where it wound up. But, you know, two things happen. One is, well, again, history would tell you,

if you look North America wide, the legacy sports station dominates. No one has really made it work with the second one. It just doesn't work. There's room for one, it would appear. So legacy habit, radio is a habit medium. You get in your car, you listen to the same thing, especially sports radio.

It's guys in cars. And that was quite the head start, right? That was a long time, 15 years or whatever. 2001 was the team. And the reason I remember that, because of course we you know, we did a soft launch in the spring. I ducked out to Newfoundland for a month, came back. We're going to have our big launch on Labor Day and then September 11th. Right.

So it all goes out the window, right? Sports radio doesn't matter. Yep. No, I remember that feeling of like, how can I give a shit about a football match right now? Like, I distinctly remember this perspective that hit us all like a ton of bricks. And I felt the same way. We all felt the same way. The guys on air felt the same way.

And, you know, by the time things kind of got back to normal, like, I'm not saying it would have been any different. And they made a bunch of mistakes, right? Like, trying to do national shows, you can't really, there's no such thing as national sports radio, especially. I think Jim is a TV guy, but he was not a radio guy in that sense. He'd done radio chum in the old days, but it was a real... He's a rock jock. Yeah, and he's going against Bob, right? Yeah, and I think you nailed it about being second in.

And I mean, the same thing's happening today with 1050 now, which is TSN radio. I think that being there and establishing yourself and everyone's in the habit and then you're going against Bob McCowan. I mean, it's it is a recipe for failure. Now they have brand power, though. Like that's the one thing with TSN. And in the last days, in the dying days of the team, I actually helped broker a meeting between TSN where I was working at that point doing TV and the guys running the station talking about rebranding at TSN radio because it was kind of that was kind of the Hail Mary idea right and by then you know I had downscaled the number of weeks I was doing because it was killing

me I realized I couldn't do that and you know the other thing was it was just you know it was pretty clear we were banging our heads against the wall so yeah I brokered a meeting between Keith Pelley who was running TSN then and the folks running the radio station. But it was too late, right? It was done. But I thought, look, I thought with 1050, with the brand power, you know, at that point, number one in TV, that they might have been able to do something. But you know what? ESPN Radio in the States, you know, when it's gone up against, and New York went up against WFAN, it didn't work, right?

Right. In fact, what's interesting is if you look at the last ratings book or whatever, it actually looks like the 1050 numbers from today, where it's TSN, are maybe even a little worse than the team 1050. Yeah, we didn't last very long. Two years, right? Yeah, it was less than two. I remember the day we all got fired. Well, can you tell me about that?

Because Mike Richards, who shoots from the hip, loved this guy, came over twice. And his story about the day you guys were notified, I guess one of my favorite stories I think I might have ever heard. Can you tell me about that day? My experience is probably slightly different because I just happened to be there that day. And I just happened, like I wasn't doing,

I wasn't working that day. I would say I wasn't working as much. I was doing a lot of work from home. They put an ISDN line in my house, Right. So, you know, I was, I was doing some stuff from home and I wasn't doing as much regular stuff, but I remember going in to talk to Jim in his office and he said, he said, I think something's coming down here today. And, uh, so then he said, no, I think this is it. And while I was there, we all got called into this room, you know, and I've heard about these things before, how commercial radio works. So we did, we all got called into a room and Paul Williams announced,

uh, I think it was Paul, maybe that announced that it was over that as of noon, I believe there's going back to chum 10, 10 50 chum. And, uh, thanks very much. And, uh, each of you will, you know, pick up an envelope and, and then they let us, you know, anybody who had any kind of personal effects, they had to go and get them. They were with security envelope, and then they let us, anybody who had any kind of personal effects, they had to go and get them. They were with security. And they handed us an envelope, and we were led to a door

that led directly out onto Yonge Street. It was up at Yonge and St. Clair in the old Chum building, right? Right. And so we were standing there in the broad daylight. Now, I got to say, for me, I opened up my envelope, and there was a great big check in there,

and they didn't owe me anything contractually, as far as I know. I did not say that. Come get it now. Is there a statute of limitations? I don't think they can take it away now. Yeah, so it was like complete, it was like,

woo, that's great. I don't, you know, I'm not really totally involved in this thing anymore anyway. And you had another full-time gig and you were probably burnt out by it all. All of the above, yeah. This is not a bad day for Stephen.

Well, it stunk because I, you know, and I, I liked the people I worked with there a lot. I liked some of the chum people, the behind the scenes people. Hey, I worked with Geetz there. Geetz was the,

yeah, like a hero of my youth, right? You know, he's an engineer, right? He's still working. He runs that.

He built that station. Yeah. So, you know, I worked with Geetz. It was just, that was the, one of the coolest things ever. But yeah,

it was, it was awful, right? It was inhuman the way they ever. But yeah, it was awful. It was inhuman the way they handled it. And some people ended up having to sue them. And there's some bad blood there. I don't think Jim Van Horn was very happy with that situation. No, he was not. And I don't blame him.

No, they made commitments to him. Look, commercial radio is a dirty business. It's a nasty business. And you hear those stories about stations being reformatted overnight. And you walk in and suddenly it's a country station and you're not working. Do you remember the song that 1050 played when they returned to whatever they called it? Golden Oldies? Moldy Oldies?

No, what was it? Because I remember that it was Elvis' A Little Less Conversation. That's right. And they didn't... I've got to say, there were people... Like, we were never part of the Chum family. I've got to tell you that. Like, there were some people who were nice to us there, but it... You know, we felt

like we were replacing someone's dead relative. When we walked in the door, number one, Chum FM was on the go. They were the number one station in Canada at that point, right? It may still be. I don't know. But they were then. So they were.

They're right up there. Yeah. Ratings monsters doing like a 21 share or something ridiculous. And we were, you know, 0.5. But there was this kind of sense of, you know, there was that whole history with the family-run business. Right. You know, how, you know, which had been built on 1050 and the hits. And here are these guys, sports guys.

And we were parachuted in. The whole operation was not a chum thing. It was just, it was brought in like a plug and play. And so what I'm saying is I'm not sure there were a lot of tears internally when we were marched out, the frog marched out the door. That's a good point. I mean, it's tough to replace, like, you know, we mentioned Jim Van Horn and his shock jock, shock jock, his rock jock days. But, you know, 1050, I mean, you ask my mom about 1050 and she goes into the chum bugs and like jungle J and the chum charts and all that stuff. This was a big deal to a certain generation.

This was, you know, a very big deal. So it's tough to, to replace that. So, uh, yeah, the 1050, the team 1050 lasts less than two years and some good people were chucked out the door. And maybe a terrible segue, but now I want to bring you to, if it's okay, I want to bring you to the Olympics in 2010. Sure. If I skip over anything

that you have a good story you want to tell, feel free to interrupt me. I will say the chum money, the team money bought my house in Newfoundland. So that's my legacy. That and the jacket.

Well, that's the thing. So when you and Jim Van Horn are going against Bob McC's my legacy that in the jacket well that's the thing so when you and Jim Van Horn are going against Bob McCowan which is you know there's uh in the afternoons on 10 50 that's an expensive duo I think uh you and Jim like that's yeah not as expensive as Bob I got I got news for you no one's as expensive as Bob so I hear we'll get to Bob a little bit later we're gonna save our Bob talk I made a mistake not a mistake I asked people on Twitter questions for Stephen Brunt. 95% of them were the same questions.

We'll get to that one later. Sure. But let's talk about the 2010 Olympics. In fact, let's, if you don't mind, I'm going to play this clip here. This is a video essay that you put together, like a closing essay. When I listened to this, I could tell it's recorded before the Golden Goal. Yes. But like near the very end, I guess.

This is the one though. Yeah. We did it. We did it before the hockey game. And it near the very end, I guess. Yeah, this is the one, though. We did it before the hockey game. And it starts with my friend, Brian Williams, who came on. So we're going to let it... If it's okay,

I'm going to let it go for like three minutes here, and then I'll fade out. Let's listen to this essay, and then we'll talk about it. Massive national celebration and outpouring of patriotism continues. I think it's appropriate

that one week ago, as we reached the midway point of these games, Stephen Brunn of the Globe and Mail brought us in a video essay. You might remember, he described a feeling that was emerging in this country, a momentum that even a litany of early Olympic problems could not stop, how hosting the world was bringing into focus just who we are as a nation. Well now that the games are ending and you can hear the celebrations we asked Stephen for his final thoughts on what the last 17 days have meant to this country.

Let's be honest, it didn't start out very well. A tragic death on day one. An embarrassing malfunction at the worst possible moment of the Olympic opening ceremonies. The snow melting away on Cypress Mountain. The cauldron crudely fenced off from those who wanted to bask in its glow. It seemed like Canada's Olympics might not recover from that stumbling start. And that was before we realized it wasn't going to be quite so easy to win the podium. And Charles Ameland will not move on.

Before the crushing pressure to perform at home shattered the confidence of some of Canada's best medal hopes. It's really hard. I feel like I've let my entire country down. But even as those inside the Olympic bubble were fretting and wringing their hands, on the outside, on the streets, and not just here in Vancouver and Whistler, but right across Canada, something remarkable was taking place. It was as though an entire country was given permission to feel something it needed to feel. And it was the country that set the tone for these games, and not the other way around.

A sense that began with the torch relay, and kept right on building. He has done it! Even after Alexander Bilodeau's victory, the historic first gold medal, and those unforgettable images of him with his brother, it wasn't quite the script we were expecting. The story was supposed to be all about Remy, about finishing first, about putting a new swagger in our step. Turns out, the swagger was already there.

It was just waiting for the right stage. Montgomery takes gold in skeleton! for the right stage. And by the time John Montgomery made his famous stroll through the streets of Whistler, all of Canada was walking beside him, reaching for that pitcher of beer. The number of medals didn't really matter. Though, in the end, the number's going to be just fine. We didn't really need to own anything. What mattered was the occasion.

What mattered was the event. What mattered was the excuse to wave the flag and sing the anthem and shout it out loud. Cynicism is easy. So is retreating into historic grudges. So is looking at a world in which what were once borders are now dotted lines at best and believing it doesn't really matter what you call yourself or where you live it does matter or at least it can it is important to have a shared history there is power in the collective experience and admit it it feels good it feels good to let your heart show now the rest won't play well in the podcast.

But first, I got somebody quick. First of all. Cutting off Hey Rosetta there. That's the man. You know, Hey Rosetta, excellent. Was it Seed? That album, Seed? Yeah, it's from Seed.

I think that's from Seed. You know, we saw them. My wife and I saw them. They're friends of ours. But we saw them, I think it was at the Commodore during the games. Okay. So after I'd done the first one, which nobody remembers, the first essay. And we were sitting there and they played this.

And it was my wife's idea. She said, you should use that. So that's why we used Red Heart, you know, which became, you know, I think the emotional punch for the song is, you know, is a huge part of the piece. I mean, we already established you could write. You could write. You're damn good at these video essays. Even now listening,

I've listened to that many, many times. Sorry, Brian, I've got to fade you down here. I still get the chills and it still affects me. You know, it's... Well, first of all, Matt Dunn's the guy that produced it, so the pictures matter. Boy, he did a great job. The funny thing is, I got hauled into the Olympic Consortium by my friend Keith Pelley, that produced it. So the pictures matter, right? And boy, he did a great job. And the funny thing is, I got hauled into the Olympic Consortium

by my friend Keith Pelley, who ran it. And I knew Keith, I'd known Keith for a long time. I worked with him as a director. We did boxing together. He ran the Argonauts for a while, and then he came in and ran the Consortium.

And he hired me kind of as a multimedia guy. The idea was they're going to build this Bell Globe media thing where we would all be multi-platforming. Right, I remember this digital push. hired me, you know, kind of as a multimedia guy. The idea was they're going to build this globe, bell globe media thing where we would all be multi-platform. Right. I remember this digital push. Yeah. But the beauty of it was like for me,

what it turned into is like I got to kick around and follow Alpine skiers for off and on for the year. So I went to Val d'Isere and I went to Wengen. Like I had a ball, you know, Lake Louise. And I was up in Whistler. I did all this cool stuff getting ready for the games on Keith's ticket. And then I got to the games and I was up in Whistler. I did all this cool stuff getting ready for the games on Keith's ticket. And then I got to the games and I was supposed to write

for the digital, for ctvolympics.ca. Mike Grange had the same gig from the Globe. So we were assigned to it. And, you know, the website was, it was one of these things where A, we had very little to do, honestly. And B, the website was full of beautiful pictures and widgets and gidgets and stuff. But the writing writing just like you'd write something and it would disappear immediately behind 27 other, you've got to see it videos, which is still sort of a problem to me in that

world. So, you know, I was, I was slightly underemployed there. And, um, I think it was Ken Volden who originally, who's a TSN, right. Um, I've got to give credit for a lot of people. And this was Ken's idea for the first one saying, what if you wrote something and, you know, about kind of what's happening here? Because in Vancouver, you know, it was, it was, there was a sense that, you know, and I look, I'm as cynical as anybody, especially about the Olympics. But it was kind of this giddy feel good thing. And, um, so, and Matt Dunn and I put the first one together, which is, I say, you know, no one much remembers. And so, and Matt Dunn and I put the first one together, which is, I say, you know, no one much remembers. And then they asked us to do one for the, but it was successful, but it wasn't, it wasn't this.

And then they asked us to do one for the closing, you know, and it's funny, like, there's a lot of money spent on those Olympics, right? That consortium, like the budgets for the real features in that Olympics were unreal. It was like little feature films. budgets for, for the real features in that Olympics were unreal. It was like little feature films. And this thing is this, this is like the TV equivalent of like spit and binder twine and two cans tied together with string. Um, so Matt and I did it. It's just the two of us with an editor. Um, you know, I got the, Hey, Rosetta guys to give us permission to use the song.

And I wrote the script and Matt cut the pictures and it had no, you know, it was no guarantee it was even going to air. And I got to say, Nelson Milliman, he's the second time his name's come up. God damn you, Nelson. You know, he's been here. Yeah, I bet he has. He'd go anywhere to be able to talk on a mic.

He's the guy that helped me perform that. You know, he really talked to me about performance and using my voice and being an actor, you know, to understand that you've got to perform. Now, don't be the newspaper guy, you know. You've got to perform this Now, don't be the newspaper guy. You know, you've got to perform this and let it happen and relax.

And, you know, it's just some of the best advice, best counsel I've ever had from anybody. He really did help me in that area. So we threw this thing together, really. And again, it's kind of amateur TV compared to everything else. And it just hit, you know? It hit that chord.

Yeah. It changed my life, you life, among other things. Okay, well, good. Because is it, I don't have the name, but somebody tweeted at me, where would your career be without that Vancouver 2010 closing essay? That's a real good question, you know?

Like a lot of things, like I was, again, I was going to be the first content guy at Bell Globe Media right after the games where I was, you know, and Keith had worked out a deal. So tell this story a little later. So that was going to happen to some degree and I would have had a TSN role

and a CTV role and a Globe role and a whole bunch of things. You'd be working for the other guys. Well, yeah, and there's a story there. But yeah, it definitely, I'll never forget turning my phone on after the first time that one ran, you know, and just kind of watching it explode and the reaction from my colleagues and seeing the pictures of people watching it and, you know, Whistler on the big screen.

And, you know, the Hey Rosetta guys were in Surrey, the band. They watched it with a crowd on the big screen. And, you know, and then they ran it over and over and over again. And, you know, like I listen to it now, you know, the nice thing is that I can say I believed every word that I wrote, you know, and in the moment. And look, there's some things in there I could make a pretty good counter-argument to, you know, kind of tribalism, nationalism

as positives in the world. I think mostly they're negatives in the world. They tend to cause horrible things. But, you know, I return to that theme a lot, the power of the collective. I think that's, if I've got to give myself a reason why I write about sport or I'm in the sports business, it's that for all the empty spectacle, there is power. It's like being in a concert, right? The power of collective caring.

If you're part of a larger whole that's engaged with something emotionally, it's one of the great experiences of being human. It's nothing better than being at a concert and all 20,000 of you singing along to the song at the same time. That's what we want. I know we're alone all the time. We're alone, but we're tuned into everybody in the world. But I think we crave that. And I think what those Olympics did was kind of create a national community for 17 days and a kind of a national glow for 17 days. And maybe people, maybe people hear this, is anybody too young to remember those

Olympics? I got to watch that all the time now, the too young to remember thing. Oh, the 2010 Olympics? Yeah, probably not, unless you're nine. But, you know, it was a great moment, right? It was a cool moment, and the goal, like you say, Sid's goal came, it was like the cherry on top, right? It had already happened by then.

It was scripted. It was absolutely perfect. You're right, some struggles at the beginning, especially the death at the very beginning of the Olympics, but then it went according to script and it was just unbelievable. And then your essay kind of succinctly kind of packaged it up perfectly that we could all digest and it can go viral. Yeah. So there's a big aspect of kismet in the whole thing. But no, it really, yeah,

no, I'm not sure what I'd be doing now. I'd be doing something like I'm doing. But it really did change a lot. It really, really fundamentally changed a lot for me. So let me ask you this. My buddy, Tim Thompson. Yep. He put together this montage on a Ron Hawkins from Lois de Lalo has a song called Peace and Quiet. And this was a couple of years ago, Ron Hawkins,

Tim put together a montage. I think he called it the Maple Leafs Forever. And it was like, they play it at the ACC because Shanahan likes it and it goes on it goes anyway he updated it because his story it was perfect but then we drafted matthews and then there was a whole he needed to throw in the kids then they actually got good right so he updated it uh he same montage but a few little differences at certain key points in the montage where you see you know we got the number the number one pick and you see Matthews on the ice with Marner and Nylander. And then you were like, oh my goodness, like, did you ever consider, was there ever consideration to update the,

I think it's called what these games mean to Canada after the golden goal? No, you know, cause I kind of thought, as I say, part of the beauty of those games was that it didn't, you know, like it mattered. Obviously we won that hockey game or not. I'm sure it would matter to a lot of people, but you know, the beauty of those games was that it didn't, you know, like it mattered. Obviously we won that hockey game or not. I'm sure it would matter to a lot of people, but you know, the beauty of it was that, you know, uh,

that winning a luge gold medal with, you know, um, that, you know, or bobsled or anything else, you know, had the same kind of buzz.

You know, I always think, you know, it's funny seeing Montgomery these days, obviously, but, but I still think that image of him walking through Whistler and grabbing the beer is one of my, is one of my favorite. I mean, still, I get him walking through Whistler and grabbing the beer is one

of my, is one of my favorite. I still, I get a tear in my eye watching him grab that beer every time I see it. Yeah, that's the moment actually. Outside of, that's the non-competing moment of those games is him drink walking and drinking that beer. And I always wonder what would have happened

to him if he didn't grab the beer and drink it? Like we wouldn't see him all the time at Amazing Race Canada. No, but it is. Yeah, no, it changed his life, didn't it? Yeah. Grabbing that beer.

You're right. You know, because then he's just another, you know, winter. Yeah. How many gold medalists do we not see him all the time at Amazing Race Canada. No, but it is. Yeah, no, it's that changed his life, didn't it? Yeah. Grabbing that beer. You're right, you know, because then he's just another, you know, winter. Yeah, how many gold medalists do we not see him? You know, I think that was the definitive visual from that is him drinking that beer. But I think that thing, you know, and it's, you know, it's, look, there's, it's not, you know, like I could probably critique it as a piece of, you know, as a broadcaster or even as a writer. I could probably change some stuff. But, you know, it's so much of that moment. And it's pure, right?

As I say, I believed it. So it's hard to write stuff you don't believe. James on Twitter has a good question. He says, his reflection amid the 2010 Winter Olympics talked about a different Canadian. After almost eight years, does he think that stuck? I think, yeah, I think it did stick a little bit. I think, you know, maybe even to the point where people are a little jaded about,

and again, if we're just talking about sports, right? But yeah, I think we expect things now. We, I think there's a kind of a bit of a swagger and a bit of confidence there that didn't exist before. You know, again, is that something that, you know, well, let's put it this way. I think it's a, it's a bit of commonality between someone in, you know, in Woody Point, Newfoundland and, you know, and someone in the Gulf Islands, right? Like I do think that where's the, you know, the connective tissue is hard to find in our country sometimes. And, you know, sometimes, you know, maybe that comes from watching people wearing the maple leaf.

And like, for instance, when the, you know, the women's soccer team in London, right? Christine Sinclair et al., one of my favorite teams I've ever covered. I love those women. They're just the best. You know, it felt like that then, didn't it? Right? Like it really did. And I think that, yeah,

I think we can tap into that now if we need it. In a nice little note, from Tuesday noon on Twitter, that vignette he did during the Olympics on Canada Pride was transcendent extreme chills. Thank you. So a lot of people have positive memories of the 2010 closing essay,

and I revisited it this week, and yeah, it brought me right back, and I had the chills again, so good work there for sure. Thanks. Let's talk about your move to Rogers. So maybe tell, how do you end up at Rogers, and why do you leave the Globe? Maybe just tell that little tale there. Well, the Rogers thing happened first, and that's like,

well, not Rogers-Rogers, but Rodgers in terms of versus CTV. So after the Olympics, as I say, this plot was being hatched to make me the first multi-platform guy. And I was doing the reporters anyway, TSN, and I'd done some stuff, some written pieces for TSN as well, written TV pieces. So this was the deal. They were going to make me that guy. Now, as a result of being that guy, I would have had to leave the fan because the fan was owned by Roger. See, I was working both sides of the street at that point, plus working for the Globe.

So Keith had hatched this plan, Keith Pelley, and it was going to be a very good deal for me financially and a good deal in all ways, and I was really excited about it. And it got to the point where I actually had a contract. A contract was sent to me. So this was, this is in the spring, late spring of 2010. And, uh, you know, I, my, I looked it over and Gord Kirk, who does contracts for me, you guys know him from primetime, right? Gordy was looking at it. And we looked and it was, it was all fine and good. And, um, but there was a line on the contract that said, as it is in, as part of this contract, you can be asked to host a radio show.

And they did not have radio at that point. There's no TSN radio. So I'm looking at this thing saying, hang on a second. That seems like kind of a big give, right? Because that's got to be worth something, and it's a lot different if I'm hosting. And by the way, I don't host shows. I'm a co-host. I'm the sidekick.

So that held things up. Otherwise, I would have just signed it. And that held it up for a few weeks. Just about the time we finally got that clause taken out, I got a text from Keith Pally that said, sorry, I couldn't tell you, period. I said, what the hell's going on? And then I looked, and the news came in that he had left CTV to go to run Rogers.

So now I'm in a bind. So this is a very, very important thing. Period. I said, what the hell's going on? And then I looked, and the news came in that he had left CTV to go to run Rogers. So now I'm in a bind, right? So this is a tricky position. And Keith kind of, as you remember, that was, didn't go over that well at CTV, Keith leaving. So, yeah, things were a little rocky there for a while. There was a lot of unhappy people. And I'm just kind of collateral damage here. It's nothing to do with me.

But Keith kind of went to ground for a while. There was a lot of unhappy people. And I'm just kind of collateral damage here. It's nothing to do with me. But Keith kind of went to ground for a while. And I honestly didn't know what to do because this is my guy. Now, by now we're in the summer, I'm on a hiatus from primetime sports from the fan. But I haven't told anybody I'm not coming back. And I talked to Keith. Finally, I got in touch with him over the summer. And I said, look, what do I do here? Because I negotiated this contract with you and you're not there anymore. And he said, look, we negotiated in good faith. You have to sign it.

And so I was going to sign it again. And then the truth is the other guys backed out. Because they said, well, I'm not sure about this and not sure about that. Because you were Pelly's guy? Or maybe they weren't as enthused about me as, you know, as Keith was. I don't know. You know, it's sometimes it happens, right?

Right. So, yeah. So they kind of backed. So then I got in touch with Keith again and said, look, they appear to have reneged on this. And he said, okay. He said, don't worry. I'll look after you.

And I signed a deal with Rogers that fall, which was very vague about what I would do. But I did go back to work on primetime that fall and then started doing a little bit of television for them. And that's, yeah, that's kind of what happened. Otherwise, I would have been at TSN, and I would not have been a fan. Right.

I didn't even realize how close you came to signing with the other guys. Some people close to me know that. But yeah, that's the story. I got caught up between the Rogers Bell thing. But it's interesting that, you know, you negotiated in good faith, you were willing to continue, but they reneged, which is an interesting...

Yeah, they can do that. You know, it's different people, right? The guy who negotiated was gone, and I guess they felt, you know, I say that's... Well, it's funny how life works, eh? Yeah, yeah, it is funny how life works. Look, and I've got a lot of good friends over there, you know, including Haji, right?

Like I started the first show, what became The Reporters with John Wells, I was there for. So I was there right from before Dave took that show over. So, you know, I have a lot of good friends at TSN and I've worked with a lot of great people at TSN and I would have been quite happy to go work with them. All right, let's address the,

there's an elephant in the room. Let's chat with this elephant here. Yeah, sure. There's, so, okay. So you're co-hosting Primetime Sports with Bob McCowan. Yes.

As a listener, you guys were fantastic together. Thanks. In fact, real quick aside, because we mentioned the boxing earlier, because you, you've always been a big boxing fan. Yeah. I just want to let you know that when I would hear you talk to Bert Sugar.

Bert Randolph Sugar. Randolph Sugar. Is it Bert Randolph Sugar or Bert Sugar Randolph? Bert Randolph Sugar. Yeah. I just want to let you know that when I would hear you talk to Bert Sugar. Bert Randolph Sugar. Randolph Sugar. Is it Bert Randolph Sugar or Bert Sugar Randolph? Bert Randolph Sugar. Okay. When I would hear you talk to Bert Sugar, I'm not a big boxing guy, but I'm telling you, I could listen to that all day long.

Something about you guys. He was a great character. He was like a Damon Runyon character. He self-created Damon Runyon character. I never knew with Bert what parts of his biography were actually true. Right. You know, but like I did, I famously, he ran boxing magazines. I never knew with Burt what parts of his biography were actually true. I famously, he ran boxing magazines. I got to know him. I wrote

or he excerpted my book, my Sean O'Sullivan book, I think. And I'm one of the few people who actually got paid. I remember I had somebody take a picture of him handing me the check for 500 bucks or whatever it was because he was notorious, right? That magazine never got paid. So I knew Burt forever and I used to have the odd cocktail with him at the fights.

And yeah, so that was it. Made for great radio. Thank you. It was one of the great pleasures of my life doing that. So you and Bobcat, you had worked with him before you went to the team, right? And you're back co-hosting with Bob and Colin. Yeah, he banned me for a while. So was that initial ban because you left to go to the team?

Yes, because I left a place where I had no contract and no guarantees for a place where they would pay me a lot of money. I'm sure Bob wouldn't understand that. You're probably on a pretty good list in that little black book or whatever. Yeah, they come and go though. So let me, okay, so I've had David Schultz on this show to just, and he tells a story. He wrote about this in the Globe and Mail. But something to the effect of, and I hope I get this right, but you did some work on Tim and Sid's show,

and Bob was not happy about this. So Bob, maybe Bob banned you from primetime sports. Did I get that partially right? Yeah, I guess. Well, he had a tantrum. I guess that's it. Look, the deal, again, the deal is when I went to Rogers, so I went to Rogers, I left the Globe in 2011, right? I went to work for Rogers, um, which we can talk about if you

want as well. But the, you know, I, I had, you know, I signed a contract and that contract involved doing a variety of different things for Rogers. You know, they were starting the magazine at that point. So I was the back page columnist for the magazine. There was a TV component to what I did. Um, you know, there are a bunch of things and, you know, I, I, you know, I'm not going to, I wasn't going to do and couldn't do, you know, 42 weeks of radio a year. I would have died. So I had a, you know, I had a contractual radio commitment of 20 weeks, 10 and 10. So I do 10 in the fall, 10 in the spring, um, which are the big rating periods for radio. Right. So that's, and that, that was about right. So, you know, the rest of the time,

someone else would do the job, you know, and there, you know, look, there'd have been full-time co-hosts, part-time co-hosts over the years, different guys, you know, shaky was kind of a full-time guy for a long time. I think, you know, Jim Kelly was a guy that did it some of the time when I was there, uh, Damien, you know, so a lot of times it was split up, but, um, yeah, so I, I think Bob really wanted somebody to be there, you know, every week and A, I couldn't do that and B, I didn't want to do that. I really didn't, you know, that's just, it was too much, you know, and I wanted to do the other stuff. I really enjoyed doing the other stuff. So yeah, I know that again, the short version is I, you know, I came back, I usually started a Labor Day. Labor Day was late. I'd come back from Newfoundland. There was a week in September before Labor Day. One of Tim or Sid was away. The guys asked me to sit in like they often do. And I had often done.

And it is the same company. And, you know, I wasn't on Bob's show that week because I wasn't obligated to be there. But I was on the other show. And he was just trying to make a point with the bosses. But, again, I think I was kind of collateral damage there. And because Tim and Sid is a television show, it actually airs at the same time as Bobcat's Primetime Sports

airs on the radio. Yes, it does. All right, let me, okay, Greg on Twitter, so the way he wants to know, what is your relationship with Bob McCowan like since you no longer host Primetime Sports? I think people are curious, are you and Bob friendly? We never cross paths

off outside of radio you know we we do different things so it's not like we would see each other socially he's a bit of a recluse in a lot of ways but you know it's not like I'm gonna see him at the horseshoe some nights that's right it's not gonna happen um so yeah look I see him at work but you know no we you know like we we had a you know as is often the case in these things you know you work together for a couple of hours. We had a really good thing going there, I think. And I think I understood how to work with Bob pretty well over the years. And by the way, he's the most talented broadcaster I will ever work with.

You know, he invented that medium in Canada. There's nobody more talented than Bob McCown in doing what he does. He's, you know, he's a genius in that. And I, and I mean that absolutely. Like he's just, he's the best. But yeah, no, we look, we, it's not like we hung out back in the day. We did our thing, we were compatible and then we went our separate ways.

Kyle wants to know if you'll ever return to primetime sports. It doesn't, I don't. It doesn't sound like it. You know, like I'm really happy. I'm incredibly happy doing what I'm doing right now with Jeff Blair. You know, I think we're doing some of the best radio I've ever done. And we can do things on that show that are different than, you know, it's a different show than primetime, but I really like the differences.

You know, I like the deep dives in baseball. I like some of the stuff we can do. And, you know, I've known Jeff for 25 years, right? So going back to the newspaper days, back when he was at the Montreal Gazette. So I'm very happy doing what I'm doing. The time, the mid-morning thing is better for my life in a lot of ways. I guess you never say never, but yeah, it's not imminent.

It's funny how you've had a lengthy career of excellence, I would say, and you open up the Twitter questions for Stephen Brunt, and so many just want to know, like, what happened with Bobcat? You're never on primetime anymore. Well, people still think, it's funny though, you know, I still get people, it's always a big clue when people, you know, people, you do TV and people start to recognize you in a way that they wouldn't when you're a newspaper guy but i still get people who come up to me in the grocery store and say either i love reading you

in the globe i've been there since 2011 or you i love hearing with you with bob where i haven't been since uh you know whatever so yeah it's a bit of a it's a bit of a tell sometimes as to what people really do that's funny i'm gonna play a clip very briefly here of you on Tim and Sid. And then before we get into you and Jeff Blair, I just want to hear about your relationship with Tim and Sid. But I thought this kind of shows a different side of you.

So we'll give this maybe 30 seconds here. One, two, three, and to the foe. Snoop Doggy Dog and Dr. Dre are at the dough. Ready to make an entrance. So back on up. Give me the microphone first so I can bust like a bubble. Compton and Long Beach together. Now you know you're in trouble. Shakespeare. That's Stephen Brunt. It goes on. It's the only thing I've ever done that my kids were impressed by, by the way. Well, that's what I was going to ask. It's really,

it shows a different side of your personality because you're a journalist and you come across as kind of a serious guy and you talk about sports, but you talk about some serious angles of sports,

but here you are dropping some Snoop Dogg. Yeah, playing against type though, right? Like that's the whole thing. Like those guys, number one, those guys are a scream.

Like I really, I have a lot of fun with Tim and sid um they're both you know they're very different guys like tim and sid are different uh people uh they're not just one person um like sam and eric yeah yeah but they're um yeah they're they're very cool and i you know i had a i had a scream doing that one that was just that was just like i it's the only thing, like, I'm kind of a one-take guy. Yeah. But we were doing that, and I said,

no, no, let me do that again. I think I can, I think I can get that even gooier than the last time, you know, so. You're a bit like Leslie Nielsen,

right? Like a serious actor who's found himself playing a straight man in an airplane, and next thing you know, he just is in comedies for the rest of his life.

yeah, you play against type a little bit, you know, and I say my kids like that one. My kids were very excited about that one. That's great. That's great. Okay, talk about, so you mentioned some a little bit, you know, and I say my kids like that one. My kids were very excited about that one. That's great.

That's great. Okay, talk about, so you mentioned some working with Jeff Blair. So that's where we hear you today on the Jeff Blair show. Yeah. Which is what time? Just to remind me. I'm either on, he's, well, it depends. It floats a little bit.

Right now we're nine to, his show's nine to 12, but 11 to 12 is Baseball Central with Kevin Barker, the great Kevin Barker. So I'm on 9 to 11 right now. Usually it's 10 to 12. It's 10 to 12 when Barker's on 12 to 1. So I'm on two of the hours, either 9 to 11 or 10 to 12. You know, Kevin Barker sat right there with his arms crossed, glaring at me while I interviewed Hazel May. He's the best guy ever. And I said, I have a third mic.

You wouldn't do it? No interest. But he did take a photo with me after when I wore my Jose Batista bat flip t-shirt. Oh, I love Barker. Barker Off Air is like there's a whole other show that we could do with Barker Off Air that would be different. That's the show I'm going to do with Barker if I can ever get him back. I'll talk to him about it. Let me ask you about

one particular piece, a piece in particular that you worked on on Shapiro. So you did and this piece, you know the piece I'm talking about. Is it, in my opinion, maybe it was

a fluffier piece than we're used to from you? This is me talking here. Yeah, you know what? I would reject that. I thought it was right down the middle. I think there was a lot of knee-jerk stuff floating around Shapiro because he had arrived in the wake of Alex and was the evil outsider

and people read stuff into the way he sounded and the way he pronounced his name. I always kept asking people, essentially, what do you object to about this guy? I still haven't got a straight answer for most of the people.

He's not double A. I love Alex. Alex and I are friends. He's a great guy, but he's a different guy. His handling of the media was to be uber-friendly and keep talking. And if you kind of dissect it sometimes, you realize it's like Bill Davis as a politician used to be back in the old days.

He would talk and talk and talk and talk. And you'd say, hang on, he didn't really say anything there. But there was a method in it. And Alex is warm. And Mark is guarded. He's incredibly smart. Comes from a very different background. And he landed in this kind of alien place where people hated him.

You know, like he walked in and said, like, why? And I still don't fully understand except for the fact that he wasn't Alex. You know, because from a baseball point of view, his bona fides are pretty good, right? Like it's kind of people in baseball really like him. I think it is a fan. I think it's because of the timing of it all, which was that I call it the hype train of 2015. I mean, from the trade deadline to the bat flip, it was just like my – go ahead. But, you know, we acknowledged off the top in that piece exactly.

You know, the start of the piece, people don't like you. You know, they don't like you. They don't like the way you pronounce your name. Again, aside from what people read into press conference performances, which was kind of the only way anyone knew about him, I'm not sure anybody had any grounds for that. So we just did a piece about who he is. His dad is a well-known guy in baseball,

one of the kind of pioneer agents in baseball, again, enormously well-respected in baseball. We went down and we talked to Terry Francona. We talked to the GM in Cleveland. We talked to all kinds of people who'd worked with him. I'm not sure that many people in baseball hate his guts because there's not really a good reason to hate his guts. I say he's a different guy, but I just thought we were fair.

I think my follow-up for this would be, do you think people are going to look at pieces like that with cynicism because you work for Rodgers and and Rogers owns the ball team. And they're going to say, this isn't so much a journalism as it is PR trying to get the Jays fans to like open up and it can accept this change. Well, I guess they can look,

you can look at stuff any way you want. I, I, I, I haven't seen the alternative piece about, you know, that proves Mark Shapiro was Satan or something like that. Again,

where's the independent, the great independent piece out there that's going to blow the lid off Mark Shapiro and what he's really about. Like, you know, again, I read a bunch of knee-jerk stuff from people who, I guess, you know, and again, who's, like, independence is, I work for the Globe and Mail, you know. The Globe and Mail was way less independent than it pretended to be, right? It had all kinds of connections. It owed people political favors. It was owned by Bell or co-owned by Bell. At least 20%. Yeah, not anymore, but during a stretch there.

And again, I don't think they're going to blow the lid off David Thompson anytime soon. So yeah, pretty much everybody works for somebody. But I... So you never got pressure from your bosses or whatever to do a... It doesn't work that way. You know, I went out and worked with George Skoutakis to produce the same guy. We did the Aaron Sanchez piece.

We've done the Osuna piece. Same guy I've worked with on that. I worked with Paul Sadu on pieces. I worked with Jeremy McElhinney. It's between me and the producer Sanchez piece. We've done the Osuna piece. Same guy I've worked with on that. I worked with Paul Sadu on pieces. I worked with Jeremy McElhinney. It's between me and the producer. And yeah, I guess if we'd come out back with a piece that said Mark Shapiro worships Satan or something, then maybe somebody would have raised an eyebrow. But yeah, again, people can read it any way they want. And certainly, buyer beware in all things media.

I understand that. But again, I just don't see the counter argument in terms of the content there. I really don't. That's who the guy is. And judge him by what he does. There's a pretty good baseball team across Lake Erie that he had a hand in.

They seem to be rather good right now. I'm sure that's not all despite. You nailed it. You know why there was a backlash against Shapiro. I didn't know about the way he pronounces his name. I never knew that was an issue with anyone. That's just stupid. Is that stupid?

Yeah, it's stupid. Or the way he looks. Oh, boy. Look, he doesn't come off as a warm guy publicly. He's certainly not a schmoozer. I think in terms of the local press corps, he didn't know who was who. And again, he's not a back-patter.

He's not a phone-you-at-home guy. He's not, you know, send-you-a-text guy. He doesn't operate that way. He's very formal in a lot of ways. I think the fans liked the guy who delivered that hype train of 2015. Yeah, except they didn't like him until the trade deadline in 2015.

They all wanted to run him out of town. No, you're 100% right on that. You're right. But because all this news broke kind of during the playoff drive of 2015 or whatnot, it would seem like, well, Alex, that's the guy we want because look what he's done.

And it came across, the perception was it was going to be Shapiro or Alex. And because it was Shapiro, it couldn't be Alex. So this backlash, in my opinion, was because if we have Shapiro, we don't have Alex. People wanted Alex. And of course, Alex could have stayed. They did offer him a load of money because the optics of it were tricky and they were willing to bring him back. But the other thing is, look, I got to tell you, people have friends in the media. That does influence the way things work sometimes. It just does. Everybody's human. So sometimes when people are beating the drums for someone, the other side's true as well. Somebody they

really like, and then they tilt in that direction., you know, and then they, they tilt in that direction. It just, it just happens. And I say that, look, I, and I say, I like Alex as a guy. He and Mark would not have worked together well. That, that wasn't going to happen. That, that they, and I, and I like both guys and

I respect both of them professionally. I think they're both really good at what they do, but I, it would have been an oil and water thing. They're just stylistically two very different people. And there's a question here from G again, and it's not about that particular Shapiro piece,

but it's kind of in the same vein. And I always wonder about like perception over reality when it comes to the optics of, you know, working for Rogers and then kind of covering Rogers' own properties and stuff. And, you know, Rogers, I don't know if you heard this, but they signed this big deal with the NHL. Is that right? Yeah, it's a big deal. You got to catch up on that. But G says,

might be interesting to hear his thoughts about whether Sportsnet has done an adequate job on NHL concussion stories and lawsuits compared to TSN. And then in brackets, it's in parentheses, it says Westhead is all over it. Yeah, he is. You know, and he's done, Rick's done a good job. And we haven't committed the same amount as they have to that story he is. Rick's done a good job. And we haven't committed the same amount as they have to that story or to what Rick's done. I think, again, in conversations, in terms of talk on the station, I think that's not an issue.

But no, we haven't... We don't really have anybody like Rick either. But look, again, just flip the script. I don't think you're going to see TSN kill the CFL very often either. Rick was working on a great story at the Star when he was there about how David Braley had scooped a bunch of public money to stage the Grey Cup here and put it in his pocket. And I don't see them pursuing that story.

So, look, is it going to be different? Would TSN be more willing to gun for the NHL than they would have been as a rights holder? Yeah. Would they be less inclined to gun for the Canadian Football League? Yeah. But I'm not sure, again, I'm not sure that influences

the kind of the opinion part of things. You know, I don't think anybody's telling McCown what to say on these subjects, or Damien, or me, or Jeff. I think those are two different things. It's the way of the world in 2017, I suppose. It just is, right? That's the way, you know, the reason those two great telecoms have invested so much in sports content, you know, the world is divided between, the sports world in this

country is divided two ways, you know, and that's not going to change. That's not going to get changed by subscription-based things like The Athletic. It's not going to get changed by the dying embers of the newspaper business. This is where your content is coming from, and it's the same thing. If you're in the United States right now, ESPN is a rights holder. There's all kinds of issues about how they deal with specific subjects. They try to separate church and state, but have not always been successful. It's a tricky business.

Yeah. Again, everybody knows who I work for, right? It's a publicly traded company. I'm not hiding it. That's true. That's true. This question is mine. I own this one.

I have Damien Cox coming over to kick out the jams next week. Excellent. So I'm going to ask him the same question. But it's, I saw this, it was tweeted. It was a picture

of all the like Fan 590 hosts. I think nine of you around a table because Walker was still there. This was before he left. And you're all across

and it's a great photo. Like you're in it. A bunch of old white guys photos. That's the one you're talking about? That's the one. So my question to you is, should the fans lineup be as diverse as a city it represents or at least more diverse than it is

where I see these nine white men? There's not a lot of diversity there. Is that something that should be addressed or taken? Yeah. Look, I think the point's been made and I think it's a good point. And I think we should be more diverse. And I think we should be more diverse and um you know I think we should offer opportunity uh it's a small it's a very small world right now

the world of you know sports broadcasting in this country never mind sports radio in this city right it's tiny you're only talking about a handful of people and some of those people are you know they've been doing it for a long time and are very good at it. They're very popular. So you're not going to dislodge them, but you know, in, you know, there are ways into the business and, uh, there are ways into the business for producers and there are ways into the business for on-air people. And I think we should be very sensitive, you know, and more so, you know, well, look, I, I, yeah, yeah i think i think we should understand that uh better than than we have we the business went through the same thing in the newspaper industry to be honest especially in sports you know a lot of talk about you know why we didn't have more women in

the sports department um there were some great female sports writers there have been some great female sports writers you know we also didn't have to be honest back in those days we didn't have a lot of women beating down the doors wanting to do it it just we didn't um and if they had been i think you know the globe especially they would have been encouraged um but it's yeah i i you know it's funny that picture you know i think internally as much as externally kind of made a point i really do i think you know again i i there's been a bit of a sea change there uh it seemed a little bit tone deaf, like almost like... Yep. And it was, by the way...

I can't argue with that. I know. And I really, I respect this because somebody you work with DM'd me very different opinions on this, but I won't name names. But the... No, the optics were horrible. Until I saw the photo, it's almost like, of course, it was true before the photo was shared, but the photo brought it home and it's like

you kind of sit on it for a minute and you're like, that looks so, it doesn't look right for a city like Toronto. It just seemed really male. Well, I'll tell you what, the other thing it looked like is it looked like our audience. Well, that's, but then

we have to have the argument about like... No, I'm just saying, well, the maleness of our audience. Is that because nobody hears their perspective on the station? Like, is the audience male and white because all they hear is the perspective of white males? Well, it's male because... Chicken and egg? Because the sports culture, you know, because the sport is the language of men, you know, in some ways it has been. It's the way men talk to other men.

You know, and that's... It's the way men talk to other men. I had a lot of female readers at the Globe and Mail, and we have female listeners, especially with Blair's show. We have a lot. But there is a maleness to the culture. Again, I always assume that our audience on radio is guys in cars until proven otherwise. Now, we probably should have a wider definition of what that is, but I would think the numbers would tell you to a large degree that's who it is now.

You know, is that, you're right, is it a chicken and egg proposition? Maybe, you know. Look, in any case, you know, however you want to justify it, yes. They should be, diversity should be something, greater diversity should be something that they strive for, that we strive for. We talked about boxing briefly, but I have a great question from John.

He says, given our better understanding of head trauma and CTE, is he, are you still a big fan of boxing? I am, but I'll tell you, you know, way before CTE, you know, people have been beaten to death on national television in fights. You know, Benny Kip Barrett was beaten to death in a fight on national television when there were only three channels. You know, people watched. You know, Boom Boom Mancini beat Dooku Kim to death on CBS. So the notion that, you know, being hit in the head is bad for you

was not something new. You know, I think we could kind of pretend in other sports at times, you know, because guys wore helmets and they were covered up. But, you know, in boxing, you can't cover up. So, you know, anybody who likes boxing, you know, and I like it in a kind of a, you know, the appeal of it is the lizard brain, right? It is a primitive appeal.

And, you know, obviously it's a great writer's sport. And, you know, it has, you know, all kinds of, it has spun off a lot of great art over the years because of that. I think because people are trying to deal with something that's primal. And I think it's beautiful at best, too. I think there's an art to it. I think it's like watching dance. You know, there's a rhythm and a pattern to it that appeals to me, which I don't get from. I got nothing against MMA.

I've covered MMA. But that, I don't get that in MMA. But the drama of a 12-round fight and the kind of beauty of it to me is, or a 15-round fight back in the day, there's nothing like it. But yeah, morally, I have no justification for it. I have none. It's generally been poor people risking themselves for the amusement of richer people. That's what it is.

people risking themselves for the amusement of richer people. That's what it is. You know, the economic exploitation is almost as indefensible as the, you know, what happens to guys physically. So, yeah, it's just dawning on people in other sports that it's bad, but people who watch boxing know, you know, the goal in boxing is to

concuss people. You're right. We get it. He killed the guy in Pulp Fiction, remember? He killed the guy in the boxing match. Yeah. But boxing really did spawn, baseball too. Baseball and boxing spawned the best movies,

in my opinion. Yeah. Something about the two sports, the romantic or something. Well, and there's, baseball has space. I always think with baseball, it's the space. You know, that baseball is, Blair and I were talking about this the other day, that, you

know, you have to, if you do not engage with baseball on some level, it's pointless. Nothing happens, right? It's silence, right? John Cage, silence. And so it requires an investment. And I think that's part of it. There's a lot of space to work with in baseball. There's a lot of thinking space. Oh, there's no clock. I don't think there's, is there another sport without a clock? No, there's no sport. And it doesn't, you know, I don't think there's another sport without a clock? No, there's no sport without a clock.

And it doesn't, you know, again, the cheap, baseball is like jazz. You know, it happens and sometimes it goes somewhere and sometimes it doesn't go somewhere. But it's the getting there that's the interesting part. You know, a lot of sports are three-minute pop songs. You're right. And there's nothing wrong with three-minute pop songs, as I've already said. You know, I appreciate them.

But there's a different kind of gratification that comes from watching 10 seconds of a football play than comes from allowing an inning to play out in baseball. It's just, it's a very different aesthetic. Yeah, so baseball gives you some great movies. Boxing too. I mean, the guy, Raging Bull, he just died, right? Jake, yeah.

No, I interviewed Jake back in the day. He's a horrible person, like the worst person ever. But the greatest sports, well, one of the greatest films of all time, never mind sports films. The other one I like, which didn't get obviously nowhere near the recognition of Raging Bull, but Cinderella Man, okay? Yeah, yeah, yeah, the James

Braddock story. Yeah, it's with Russell. Russell Crowe. Two things. One is the night my second born was born at Women's College Hospital, that night I was driving home at like three in the morning and I watched as they were filming because Maple Leaf, that Simpsons there was the Maple Leaf Gardens at Bay and

Queen there. They shot in the old gardens too though, didn't they? They shot some of the fight scenes there. Right, they did. So as I'm driving down Bay Street to go home after watching my daughter born, which was wonderful, it was like 1930s, I My Daughter Born, which was wonderful. It

was like, I guess, 1930s, I guess that was, but it was transformed. The cars, the people, it looked like the marquee of the Madison Square Gardens. Just amazing. But secondly, a lot of those scenes were filmed in an area I used to live, including the St. Cecilia's Church at Annette and Runnymede area area. There's a lot of scenes there. But great movie. It's a nice film. Yeah, it's kind of, you know, in some ways, well, it's a true story,

but it is kind of the cliche boxing, you know, the up from nothing, the underdog guy who somehow wins the heavyweight title. Yeah, I thought Russell Crowe did a great job. I did too. I just noticed it didn't get quite the support that I thought it was a better movie than I got credit for, but, uh. But it's not Raging Bull.

It's not Raging Bull. Nothing, nothing's Raging Bull. Nothing's Raging Bull. Uh, Toronto Brent says, uh. Your brother. Yeah, exactly. Were you scared? Well, he wrote, was he scared when the bear

approached him while he was fishing this summer in Newfoundland? Yeah, I was scared. Yeah. It happened so fast. I almost didn't have time to be scared. I was scared after. I was, I was standing on a river. I was, I'm a, I was scared. Yeah. It happened so fast. I almost didn't have time to be scared. I was scared after. I was, I was standing on a river. I, I was, I'm a, I'm a fly fisherman, you know,

and I, and I, uh, I hiked in, I was on my own. I hiked way in kind of in the bush near my, where I live in Newfoundland. And, uh, I was, you know, so up to my, up to my thighs and the, you know, wearing wading boots out the river, throwing a fly. And I heard a rustling behind me and look, there were lots of, I've been,

we've been out there since 2000, so 17 years. And the only bears, I know there are bears. There was the one that I talked about a lot because it came in, when they closed the dump, it came and marauded in our garbage, and I had a bear trap in my driveway for an entire summer waiting to catch this bear. The bear guys came to catch the bear,

and they put this huge trailer full of stuff that was supposed to smell good to bears. And the only thing it ever did was, during the Writers' Festival, there's a couple of some very famous writers and Canadian musicians who, in a certain state of mind, almost climbed inside it that one night to see what would happen.

So the bear kept it. It was like a bear repellent, right? The trap kept the bear away. But this summer, yeah. So I'm kind of, you know, I don't worry about bears. And they have signs up saying bears in the area. And it's, yeah, there's no bears there. But, yeah, Russell, Russell, Russell.

And I looked around and over my left shoulder and it's 10 feet behind me. It's a big bear too. So I just yelled, holy shit. And apparently that works because the bear turned around and ran. And I kept fishing. You know, I just thought, well, I'm going to work this pool anyway. But it was like 10 minutes after and my hands were kind of shaking. I thought, you know, that was number one, it's really stupid that I'm all the way out

here by myself without even a buddy. And number two, you know, that could have been really bad. It could have ended worse. Yeah, so I was scared. And so 17 summers in a row, you said you've escaped to Newfoundland? Yeah, we bought the house in 2000. The Globe sent me out there, and I talked the Globe into sending me out there in 19... No, I went out to do a magazine story in 99 about fly fishing.

That's kind of where I had the epiphany. That's amazing. That sounds so amazing to me. Yeah, there's no great plan. It was just super impulsive. I'd never been there before. And I met a guy who was at the magazine awards. I say I won a magazine awards.

Newspaper awards never, but the magazine award I did win. And I met the guy who was the editor of Outdoor Canada. And he said, I hear you're a fisherman. Would you like to go do something for us? Well, I'll send you on a trip. And so that became the trip. And they dumped me in Newfoundland, in western Newfoundland.

I met a photographer. It was pouring rain. And we had to kill time because the rivers were way too high. So I just drove around with this photographer while he shot stock footage up and down the coast, west coast of Newfoundland. And just kind of, I had this, yeah, I had an experience. I've been all around the world, right?

But I've been lucky on someone else's ticket, which is really cool. It's the best way to do it. Yeah. But I had kind of, I've been all around the world, right? But I've been lucky on someone else's ticket, which is really cool. It's the best way to do it. Yeah, but it kind of did something to me. My wife claims I phoned and said, we have to buy a house here. I'm not sure I actually did that. But we did go out the next year with our kids. Started in St. John's.

I covered the Royal St. John's Regatta, which is the oldest sporting event in Canada for the globe, and then drove across to where we are in, in, in Gros Morne. We were sitting, sitting having dinner in a restaurant in a place called Rocky Harbor, which across the Bay from where I am now. And, uh, my kids were bugging me. So I sent them out to get the local paper to do something. So they brought back the Western star and there was a four line ad in it that said cabin for sale. And, um, I showed it to my wife and she said, man, why don't you call? And, uh, so we called wife and she said, yeah, why don't you call? And so we called and the person said,

yeah, just put it in there today. Had a bunch of calls. Why don't you come around in the morning? And so we decided to do that. And then my wife, in her wisdom, said, you know, if you're really serious about this, we should go around now. Now going around now meant driving around. It was almost an hour's drive through the fog

and the dark. And moose are an issue in Newfoundland. Like it's a joke, right? But it's not a joke there at night. You hit a moose, you're dead. But we drove through the fog and the moose, stupid mainlanders drove all the way around. So it's

dark now. Pull into this driveway. The lovely person who sold me the house, who still lives out there, a good friend of mine, and her phone machine was going off. People were calling about this little house, tiny little house. And, uh, and I wrote her a check at her kitchen table and then we drove back. I had no idea why, what this was going to be.

Drove all the way back to the, uh, motel. So through, through the fog and lay in bed and I'd lay there all night with my eyes wide open staring at the ceiling and say, what the hell did we just do? How are we going to get back here? You know what, how's this? And I hadn't seen the place in daylight.

Like we went on up to Peninsula, went up to Lansing Meadows, came back. It was two days later before I saw the house I bought in daylight. Wow. So it was the most impulsive thing

I've ever done. It sounds like an epiphany, some kind of. It was. Yeah. Yeah, it was 100%. It was about something else. You know?

I don't believe in a lot of things, but I believe in that. Yeah, and ever since, I guess you've been negotiating into your contracts that you're going to disappear for. Yeah, it's kind of an unspoken thing. This year I came back three or four times for stuff. They're great about it. They'll bring me back for stuff. And at the very end, I made the very direct flight from Woody Point, Newfoundland, to Las Vegas to cover Mayweather McGregor.

So that was a bit of a mind-bill, that one. But yeah, no, I've written out there. I've written books out there. I've written most of my books out there. I've written columns out there, certainly, you know, and I do radio hits pretty regularly from there. So there's a lot of stuff I can do from there, but it's like I have an entirely parallel life

that has nothing to do with this life. Yeah, very cool. When I was with the Globe, no one knew what I did for a living because no one reads the Globe out there. Jay Reeves on Twitter wants a memory of either, he wants either Jim Hunt or Pat Marsden, but if you have one of each, that's...

I didn't hang with Marsden. I knew Marsden a bit. And, you know, I did a story about him. My God, I wrote a story about him for you know, I did a story about him. My God. I wrote a story about him for The Globe. I did a profile of him. And we had, he invited me for drinks after, after he used to do with,

I think he was doing the call-in show, right? Do you remember the call-in show he did? What was it? It's Your Call or whatever it was, where he would do a call-in show on TV. And Marston was, what was it? In on the Park, right? It's the place used to be at,

it's still there, right? Off, just near the, Inn on the Park, right? It's the place used to be at, it's still there, right? Off, just near the, off the Don Valley, right? So near where TSN used to be. So we went to the Inn on the Park, the bar at the Inn on the Park, and I had my tape recorder going, and Marsden, I've never seen a guy drink like that. Like, he just, and he, and it was like truth serum.

And he said, like, sometimes you, sometimes, it's one of those decisions you make as a reporter, right? Sometimes you have to protect somebody from themselves. You're not, you don't go home and go, he, he, he, look what he said. So he did, he said all kinds of things. I wrote a really nice story about him and I saved him from a couple of things that probably would have got him fired earlier than he probably eventually got fired because he's, you know, Pat was a volatile guy, right? He didn't have, he didn't have a lot of filters but he liked me and i really liked him and i loved you know maybe because i knew the character too i loved him on the radio because i

kind of knew that he was you know kind of lived on the edge a bit did he did he know that you saved his ass i don't think so no i'm not sure think they could teach that as a case study in like an ethics class. Well, it is. It does happen sometimes. And you know, it happens when you interview real people who are not used to be interviewing by reporters. And I always said there's a different standard when I was in news that if a real person

opened up to me and didn't really understand what it was going to look like the next morning in the paper, I was really careful about that. Like a politician, whatever they say, fair game, right? Public figure, it's fair game. If they make a mistake, yeah, they're dead meat. But a real person, you know, there were, you know, and in that case, a real person who was really intoxicated. So he's a, you know, a media guy, but, and Shake, I love Shake. Jim Hunt, he was kind of like the kind of wild, dirty uncle you wish you had. Shakey was incredibly funny.

He told unbelievable stories, none of which I will repeat here. I've got a ton of Shake stories. He was going to write a book. He was always going to write this book. And the problem was if he'd actually written the book, he should have written many aspects of his life, would have never been the same. But he was, you know, he came from a generation,

like I was really lucky. You know, Milt Donnell was my guy, and he was my mentor in a lot of ways, and I owe Milt Donnell a lot. But Shake was a guy when you were on the road, you know, like he wasn't a big boozer. You know, he liked to have a drink, but he wasn't.

Some guys of that generation, you know, basically drank themselves to death. But Shake was, you know, he was fun, man. He liked to have fun. And he would tell stories. And again, he had filter issues occasionally. Like I was, I worked at Canada Am with him before I ever worked with him on radio.

And he got fired from Canada Am, I think think three times. I was with him one of the times he got fired. But there's a famous incident, and I'm not sure, and I will not give you the details, but the Wally Mocked incident with Shake at Canada AM is a legendary media story in Canada. So if you can get to the bottom of that, Mike, I give you credit. At his

retirement party, I remember they played it, and Wally came down and introduced it. That was one of the times Hunt got fired. He was a beaut. I loved it when he worked with Bob. I thought it was a great shaky soliloquy when they'd let him just go off.

It was one of my favorite things. Again, a guy who was very, very good to me. I loved him. I loved him. Very, very brief aside, Damien Cox tells a story that he asked Milt Donnell, like, because Milt Donnell

actually saw Bill Borilko play. He's like, who would you compare him to that we all know? Like, compare Bill Borilko to a player for the moment. And the answer that Damien Cox got was John K Cordick. That's odd.

And it's like, we've all got him, like I call him the Buddy Holly of Canada. Yeah. You know, Bill Barocco. We've got him in this like stratosphere or whatever, but he was compared to John Cordick. Wow, I don't know. I did a piece about Barocco.

Jeremy McAleenan and I did one last year for Hometown Hockey, which when they were up in Timmins. Yeah, we found a recording that he made in Hollywood when he was playing for the Hollywood Wolves that he sent home to his mother on an acetate. He's a handsome guy. He's way better looking than John Corder. He was a crazy handsome guy. You know who was on the show, and we

talked about this, Kevin Shea. I'm a big Barilko fan, if you will, like the legend of Bill Barilco, mainly because a little band out of Kingston introduced me to the story. So I don't know if you know those guys. We may talk about those guys before we're done here too. But no, back, so you're asking me about the... Yeah, sorry. About, yeah, Milt. Just, I thought that was an interesting comment. So that's Damien telling us what Milt said about Bill Barilco. Milt had, you know, Milt was one of those guys,

he, you know, he had no, no kind of obvious ego. Very, but, you know, he was one of the first TV guys to be on, or newspaper guys to go on TV, sports hot seat

back in the early 60s, where he was kind of the mean guy on that show. But, you know, he was very generous to younger, at least to me, you know. Now I work for the competition, so, you know,

I wasn't trying to push him out of his seat at the start. You know, and I'm talking about him, you know, he was in his 80s by the time I, you know, um, now I work for the competition. So, you know, I wasn't trying to push him out of his seat at the star, you know, and I'm talking about him, you know, he was in his eighties by the time I, you know, he, he introduced me to all these guys who were his peers, like Harold Conrad, you know, Barney Nagler, all these guys from the, you know, and, and, but every once in a while I'd be sitting in a fight with him, especially I'd say something weird would happen. You know, like we, we, we covered the Tyson Spinks fight together, you know, and I'd say, Milt, you ever see anything like that before? And he'd say, well, you know, the night that Jersey Joe Walcott,

you know, beat Ezra Charles at the Chicago Stadium, I remember, you know, not like a topper, but just like for information. You know, he was there when Bobby Thompson hit a shot, heard around the world, right? Like he's like living sports history. Yeah, yeah. And a great blackjack player, a very patient measured blackjack player.

He didn't, when did he, like how old was he when he stopped writing? Like he was in his nineties. He was. And the beauty of that is, and I, I've told a lot of people this,

but you know, Milt, you know, a lot of guys were not nearly as good as Milt Donnell when they left the business, wrote the, my years in sport. Here's what it was like for me.

See you later thing. Milt filed a column about Larry Walker, who was the story of the day that day, and then told the guys at the Star that was it. He wrote the column of the day. Interesting. Yeah. He was like, he's my ideal of what a working journalist, a working writer is. I need a time machine to go back and put him on this show because he must have some stories.

He probably wouldn't have told you. You know, he wasn't like that. I interviewed him for, we did a. I worked on a film about the Shavalo Ali fight, 66 fight called The Last Round for the NFB which you can find out there. Joseph Blasioli directed it and it's the first film thing I ever worked on.

But we interviewed for that, interviewed Milt extensively. And we had to kind of persuade him to do it, but it was really neat. And when I did the Jay's History Diamond Dreams, I sat down with him and with Trent Frayn and talked about the old Jack Kent Cook days with the Toronto Maple Leafs, you know.

It's just, yeah, those guys you don't replace. Why are you, I've had several of these questions, but why are you not on Twitter? Well, you know, I always kind of, I haven't, and this would be a Milt-like answer, but if Milt was here in the age of Twitter, I think I like to separate the work from me. I think they're two different things. I think, you know, I always, I thought this, you know, back in the day when the Globe first started having like comments below stories and things, they wanted us to engage with the readership. And I said, no, I don't want to engage with the readership.

I want the readers to engage with my work. So when we used to get a letter, you know, I always thought somebody put a lot of effort into that and, you know, I would reply. It's a lot of work to do that. A lot of work to do that. But I always kind of thought, you know, number one, people get – I got a platform, right? People can hear me or see me or read me. I've got a platform. I have access to the means of production.

So I don't need any more. And I would like people – this is what I'm doing today. It kind of goes against that. I think the work speaks for itself. And if you like it or don't like it, react to the work. And plus, it's turned into such a mean place, right? And cowardly place.

If somebody says something mean about me or something nice about me, someone usually tells me. So I occasionally will be led into that world. But so much of it is... Have you ever done a search on your name or whatever to see what... No, it's usually my wife or my kids

or somebody I work with. I've had Wilner on here a bunch of times. The abuse Wilner takes on Twitter, he does a lot of blocking just to keep his sanity. But yeah, it's an awful... There's an awful segment on Twitter. We're not all like that,

but there is a subset. And those same people, I hate to, you know, would come up to Mike if you were walking into the ballpark, say,

hi, Mr. Wilner, how are you? A hundred percent. And they'd want a photo with you. Yeah. So there's a chicken quality to it that I find very unappealing.

But yeah, why I didn't get in is that reason. I just kind of thought, here, you know, this is what I do and it's up to you.

You know, there's a difference between the work and me. And I like that separation, you know. Because it is a rarity nowadays for a sort of a sports media person to not be on Twitter. Well, because it's a brand builder, right, for people. And, you know, and again, I think people like to express themselves and I think it can be fun for some folks. But like if I was starting out in the business, I'd have to do it. And I'd be doing it because I'd be trying to... On that note, because Brian Gerstein, who gave us the pint glass here, he actually asks, have the higher ups ever made that request of you? Yeah.

Well, I think at the Globe more. I think by the time I got to Sportsnet full time, they kind of knew my position. So no one has leaned on me to do it. the time I got to Sportsnet full-time, they kind of knew my position. So no one has leaned on me to do it. Like I do any, if they want me to do other stuff, you know, if they want me to like I

do things for them in other ways sometimes to help out, but they kind of know that's not, you know, and it kind of sets me apart in a weird way now, I guess. Well, it makes you more mysterious, I think. I think that's why I think there was a lot of attention on this episode. I've done 269 of these things, but a lot of questions, more than usual, came in, I think, because they can't ask you directly on Twitter.

Yeah, I guess. The other thing is I think radio reveals in a way that other media do not reveal, even writing. I think people come to understand who you are and where you're coming from on radio. I think maybe if people read my Globe and Mail column every day for 20 years, they probably would have understood a lot of things about me. I never, again, back to the kind of ethic, I never used the word I in a column. That was always verboten. You didn't write, that word didn't exist. So I didn't ever do the I think or I am or I this. But I think it comes out between the lines eventually what your values are.

And on radio, it's more direct, right? Especially a week like this with some of the insanity that's been happening this week. It's great to be working with Jeff this week. We could do a lot of things. This is a great time, I think, to cover sports. And I hate it when I hear somebody suggest you should stick to sports. This is just so distasteful. Well, again, if I were on Twitter, I'm sure I would have heard that a lot this week.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Just ask Damien Cox about that. He's getting that a lot this week. But, yeah, stay off Twitter. It's for your own sanity. I'm okay. Look, I you know, stay off Twitter. It's for your own sanity. Yeah, I'm okay. Like again,

but I'm, look, I have the luxury of doing it. So, you know, I appreciate it. Yeah,

you're an established brand in the market and you're at a place where you can say no to the Twitter request. Yeah. So, Steve Leggett

asks, can you ask him how he gets along with Steve Simmons and did he hear Simmons on your podcast? I'm going to guess you haven't heard Simmons on my podcast. No Simmons and did he hear Simmons on your podcast? I'm going to guess you haven't heard Simmons on my podcast. No, I have not heard Simmons on your podcast.

And I don't want to understand the context of this question. Is there anything going on between Steve Simmons? Not that I know of. You know, no, like I've known Steve forever, right? Like I've known him for a million years. You know, we've, yeah, we've worked, you know, in the same, we've covered the same stuff, right? Sure. Yeah, no, I, you know, he's, you know, we, yeah, we, we worked, you know, in the same, we've covered the same stuff. Right. So, uh, yeah, no, I, you know, he's, uh, you know, he, and I think he does what he does really well. You know, he's, he is great at pushing the hot button, you know, that's,

there's a skill, you know, to writing that column for that paper. Uh, he really nailed it. Right. It's that's, you want to be that guy, right? You want to be that guy, right? You want to be the hot button guy, and he's extremely good at it. Just, you know, Damien's another guy who's really good at that as a writer. You know, really good at kind of boiling it down to something that's going to,

you know, what are people talking about today and then pushing the button. Steve Simmons has already sent me his 10 jams. He's coming over to kick out the jams as well. I can't, I never thought of him as a music guy, but I'm, you know, I'm sure there will be some something there. He's coming over to kick out the jams as well. I can't never thought of him as a music guy, but I'm, you know, I'm sure there will be some,

something there. Yeah. You got to tune into that one here with Steve Simmons jams. Alan asks, will Mr. Brunt consider writing a book on Toronto's newest sports darlings, Toronto FC? You know,

I, I'm, I, I, I, I'm kind of betwixt and between book projects right now. There's something that may happen, which is going to be, which could be really neat,

but which will be outside of the sports realm. And I'm kind of hoping that comes to fruition in the next couple of weeks. You know, the tricky part about publishing and books is that, honestly, these days in sports books, they're all hockey books, right? Nothing else sells. It's really, really hard to get somebody to publish a book about anything other than hockey in this country.

And every year there will be a ton of books about hockey because somebody's getting them for Christmas. Like that's the whole book business is about October, November, December. What are you getting for your Uncle Charlie for Christmas? So, you know, I'd kind of like to write a third. I think there's another leg to be written. You know, I think the Orr book and the Gretzky book are kind of two-thirds of a trilogy,

and I think there's a third one there, but I'm not. I go back and forth on what that one is. So that might happen at some point. You know, what I've done lately is I've done a couple books for other people. I did Bob Cole's book, which was just a hoot, you know, just to hang out with Bob. That was a scream. Did you guys hang out in Newfoundland? Yeah, we did.

We hung out in St. John's and that was being with Bob Cole at St. John's is an experience. I love that guy. He's a one-off. I'm actually in no disrespect to Jim Hewson, who's a great broadcaster. But when I do not hear Bob Cole calling the finals, I feel that twang. Like, I just wish we, well, we have him. Bob feels the same way, by the way.

He's not, he's never gonna, he's not a guy who's gonna say, not me. And, you know, and then I did Jordan Tutu's book before that, which is, you know, a really powerful experience for me.

And, you know, I'm very grateful that I got to work with Jordan because that book mattered in ways that most of the stuff I do doesn't matter. Here's something that probably doesn't matter,

but Mike G wants to know if you have any updates on the natural I do doesn't matter. Here's something that probably doesn't matter, but Mike G wants to know if you have any updates on the natural grass in the Rogers Centre. It's not happening. It's never happening. Stop that. That was just Beast. It was talked about a few years ago. Yeah, that was Beast just threw that out as kind of red meat one day at one of those

meet the open house for season's ticket holders. Right, yes, yes, yes. Without having any clue how it could be done, how much it would cost, whether, it's never happening. You know, they're going to put a lot of money into that stadium and a lot of changes are going to be made in that stadium and they'll all be things that

people, because they're all going to be about, you know, making fans happy and keeping them there and selling them stuff. So there will be massive changes in that stadium, but you can't, the grass thing is incredibly complicated, right? There's no, you've got to blow out that floor, you've can't, the grass thing is incredibly complicated, right? There's no, you've got to blow out that floor.

You've got to create drainage. There's humidity issues with the roof. There's light issues. You know, the amount of money, you know, you could sign a lot of baseball players for the amount of money it would take to,

and I think with the dirt infield, and I think that grass play is pretty true now. Yeah, at the beginning, it was a little interesting and wonky and it seems to have settled. I think it's okay now. But no, I pretty much guarantee that will not ever happen.

Tom wants to know, he says, why is he writing so little these days? Such a shame as he was among the best Canadian sports writers. Well, you know, I write less. I don't write four times a week like I did at the Globe. And, you know, I write with a magazine not there anymore. It's not quite as regular. I was writing the back page every month.

I do write long form several times a year now. So I can stretch out. I wrote the Osuna piece. I wrote 7,000 words on Roberto Osuna. I couldn't have done that in a newspaper. So yeah, I don't write as much. But it's because I do other stuff, you know? And, uh, you know, you know, honestly, I like the variety in my life now. And I, you know, working in television has been a really, it's, it's different. It's collaborative. It's a different process than being a writer. Writers,

you're, you're a lone wolf, right? A lot of the time you've got an editor, but I get to work with really talented people, camera shooters and editors and sound guys and producers. And going out on a shoot, the most satisfying thing for me of all the stuff I do now are those, especially the longer pieces we do. It's a really, really interesting process. And, you know, a lot of guys, you know, Alan Abel was great sports columnist, right? Like my predecessor, one of my predecessors at the globe. And at a certain point he went and started making documentaries, got into TV first with CBC and, you know, did the Olympic stuff and then got into, you know, it's, it, I don't think guys want to necessarily grind out sports

columns four times a week for their whole life sometimes. I get it, right? It is sort of the same at a certain point. Somebody wins and somebody loses. So I write kind of when the spirit moves me or when there's something I really, really want to say. I've been trying to kind of, you know, whether I wanted to weigh in this week or not as a writer. It's one of those weeks when I'm not sure that I actually want to go down that road as a writer. We certainly went down that road a lot on the radio show. It is, you know, this week is one of those weeks where I think a lot of people like turn to you, like to, what does Stephen Brunt think about this? Because it's so,

you know, it's the political and sports converging. It's fascinating. Yeah, and I hope we delivered that on radio. I guess that's, you know, I thought a lot about how to start the show on Monday. And the first half hour of the show, you know, we had James Fallows on the show on Monday, so that's pretty cool.

You know, like from the Atlantic, like one of my writing heroes. So that's not a sports guest. But the first half hour of the show Monday was, you know, I wanted to get it right. And Jeff really wanted to get it right. And I'm pretty proud of that. You know, I know it's sports radio.

And God knows there's somebody out there who said, stick to sports. But, you know, some days you don't stick to sports. No, thank you for not sticking to sports on days like that. I'm going to skip a bunch because I know you don't want to spend six hours here. I'm going to, how about a real quick one. Guy wants to know your favorite sport. To watch, you don't want to spend six hours here. I'm going to, how about a real quick one. Guy wants to know your favorite sport. To watch, you know, or to write about.

I guess they're, like I love baseball. I really do love baseball. I, you know, I guess what sport do you watch when you're not being paid to watch it? That would be. Yeah, how about that? Yeah, that's certainly what I, you know, I watch a lot of baseball. I love baseball. You know, boxing is an option, is rarely an option,

but I certainly keep up with it and follow it. But, you know, I watch NFL on the Sundays. I watch my Tiger Cats. You know, I probably watch less hockey than some guys do. Just because, you know, and I honestly, I grew up in a football-first household in Hamilton, right? The most important sport in my family was the CFL. That's the sport we lived and died over. So, you know, I think sometimes it's what you grow up with. And I mean, we were maybe atypical

for Canadians of that generation, but, you know, it was all about the Ticats for us. My God, my family used to have to listen to the games on separate radios in separate rooms because they got so wound up, you know, because the games weren't on TV necessarily. So you listen to the games on separate radios and separate rooms because they got so wound up you know because the games weren't on tv necessarily so you listen to chml and you know a lot of bad tycat teams do your kids like baseball yeah i've got a my oldest son is a crazy baseball fan and uh that's his favorite sport for sure um you know he's been he travels all over the world with what he does and and but he's the guy that yeah he he's especially Jay's and he's been down to spring training with me and stuff. My middle kid, like many in his generation is a soccer guy. So he would rather watch Liverpool FC and Toronto FC. And I get that, you know, and, and I, look, I've watched, I watch a lot of soccer

too. And I've, I got to, you know, experience soccer at the globe. You know, like I haven't had any lousy, I covered world cups and euros, right. And champions Globe. You know, like I haven't had any, you know, lousy, I covered World Cups and Euros, right? And Champions League. I got, I saw amazing stuff. And that's kind of how I learned about the game was watching, you know, watching ridiculously great stuff. So yeah, I do love it.

I especially love it live. You know, one of the best things I've ever seen was that Champions League final, the Man U-Bararthelona final at Wembley, when that greatest side of all time, probably, that Barcelona side, right, and just, you know, it's an awfully good Man United side, but

it's just so beautiful. I think I missed out on something, because I got to plead ignorance on that one. Oh, it was great, yeah. So, yeah, my middle kid, and my daughter's a theatre kid, so she doesn't give a damn about any of this stuff. But, uh, but yeah, you know, and they've, you know, they've had weird experiences, right? They've, they, when they were little, they sat at, went sat ringside at fights with me when I was doing stuff, sat next to the ring card girls, you know, they met a lot of the rounders from the boxing world and hung out in gyms. Uh, they, but yeah, one, one is a crazy, you know, and again, I think generationally, that's why if I look out there, you know, my oldest son's 30. That's, there's a lot of folks that age who are

baseball centric, I think, or soccer fans. You're right. You're right on both counts. I only ask because my 15 year old, I did everything I could to make him a baseball fan and I failed. So like like suppose you can lead a horse to water, but you can't. Yeah, maybe give it time though. You know, it's, as I

say, he's a sports guy. He just won't touch baseball. Take him to spring training. I'll tell you that would win anybody over. That's the, that is one of the great experiences. Cool. Here's an interesting one from Chris Black. Yeah, I think I know who he is. Around 12 years ago, he told me not to go into print to find a job in broadcasting. What would he tell a recent grad today? Well, I certainly would say don't go into print. You know what?

To be honest, and I'm asked a lot, and I've spoken at a lot of J schools and university classes in general and sports-specific classes and all that stuff. I don't know what to say anymore. You know, it's just, I think that there's, I think we're cranking out a bunch of people for jobs that don't exist. And look, the best and the brightest will always do fine.

You can find your way in. You know what I usually say to them now? Invent something. Like not invent like a widget but you know create content create your own content you can do it you again you you have access to you know that you know the only way you could access an audience or readers at one point was you know you had somebody had to let you be in their newspaper in their magazine or on air at their station now you can do it yourself and i think there are all kinds of cases of people

who have managed to do that. And some really good content comes out that way. Andrew Stoughton, who's an odd character, but Drunk Jays fans. I think he's one of the most astute baseball writers out there right now. I really do.

And he's not an insider guy. I don't read him for that. But he invented something. I really do. I, you know, and, and he's not an insider guy. He's not, I don't read him for that, but you know, he invented something. Um, I'm not sure what the future of Blue Jays Nation is where, which is his platform right now, but he's writing for Vice and he's writing, I don't know if he's done stuff for the athletic or not, but I believe so. Yeah. But, but there's a guy, you know, he created something, he and his, he and his buddies created something. And, and I, you know, I, I think a lot of the more interesting content pops up in places like that. So yeah, what I would say is if you're really good, you know, that's the way to go. I, I just, it's just so hard to, you know, and entry level stuff is tricky and there are a million people competing for everyone. And, uh, yeah, I, again, I wish, you know, I gave Chris good advice cause he's done okay. He's done really well. But I'm not sure.

Honestly, I kind of shy away from it these days because I don't have a kind of a nice uplifting answer for folks. I mean, I have people like yourself who have been around and have interesting stories, but I also have people who just starting out who come in sometimes. And just hearing their stories when we're recording and then the stories after we stop recording i really it does really feel like there's a big glut of people looking for very few jobs and getting smaller all the time like and

then what you said about inventing something i mean the fact is we're right now we're going to be heard by many people in this podcast and this i don I don't work for Rogers or Bell or Chorus or anyone, CBC or anything. This is something that I invented. And that's it. Yeah, and I think that's what you do. And whether that turns into something big or not something big,

or whether eventually you sell it off to some great corporate interest and go off and live on an island somewhere, I think you kind of take advantage of the opportunity that exists, which is, as I say, anybody can's, yeah, you kind of take advantage of the opportunity that exists, which is, as I say, anybody can, anybody can be a publisher. Anybody can be a broadcaster now.

Now we're going to kick out the jams, but before we play the song and you tell us, you know, what you love about this song, uh, can we spend just a couple of minutes talking about my favorite band of all time? Uh, the Tragically Hip. Yeah, sure. I read this morning, uh, on Twitter of all places, I read, uh, Gord's got a new, uh, the Tragically Hip. Yeah, sure. I read this morning on Twitter of all places,

I read Gord's got a new album coming out late October. It's about the most important people in his life. It's going to be a heartbreaking record. Yeah, I don't know where to start. I saw the hip like everybody saw the hip. I saw them in some funny places. Blair and I went to see them. We were covering a World Series in San Diego.

The Yankees and the Padres. They were playing in a club down there, like a 1,500 seat club. There were 750 people there to watch them. 687 of them were Canadian. The classic hip story. I saw them play private shows for Olympic athletes. Then Gord came out. he played writers at Woody Point,

our festival out in Woody Point three years ago. So yeah, one of the greatest moments of my life. There again, another one. You always have to put aside the marriage and the kids and all that stuff. But yeah, I looked out the window of my little house in Newfoundland and Gord Downie was walking up my driveway wearing a white shirt and white pants and a big white cowboy hat carrying a ball of scotch and a book for me wow um he's a cool guy man he's uh yeah and he played so he played these little tiny shows it's you know it's writers at woody points the festival right and I get to say

I booked the music so and we've we've had some you know we've had some neat people play it yeah Jim Cuddy played this year. Sarah Harmer played it. Ron Sexmus played it. But Gord is Gord, right? And, yeah, he's – you know, I'm very honored. I very briefly appear in the new hip doc, you know, because they interviewed people all over Canada the night of the last show. And we were in Woody Point.

So we did a thing. We went out and, like, about, well, a tiny group of, like, 275 of us during the festival went out to the place. We do an event during our festival where people hike to this kind of beautiful clearing by an estuary, and there are readings, and there's music, and Gord had played there

with Josh Finlayson from Skydiggers, right, and he was in Gord's on all Gord's solo records and so we all went out there and we did kind of a we we did our kind of fake choir choir choir version of Ahead by a Century which was a blast and then that night we we watched the show like a lot of people did and and so you know I was one of the people that got talked to about, you know, there it is. And, yeah. And what I said in the film is, you know, you've got this kind of straight ahead,

like the best rock band you'd ever hear in a bar. And then they're fronted by this, fronted by a poet. And I'm not sure there's anything Canadian about that, particularly, but I would like to think there is. Man, you just gave me chills. The video essay is almost written. It's right there. I don't want to write that video essay, pal.

I'd like to see Gord again. Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, like, Tim Thompson was just in here last week. Tim actually put together the trailer for this, the movie that came out a long time, Brian. Yeah, I don't know if people have seen it. It is, it's fantastic. It's heartbreaking.

I've been warned, like, I've been warned, because I'm going to see this. I've been warned that just bring some tissues. But, you know, it's triumphant, right? Like, the beauty of it is turning it up really loud, you know, in that last show, and it is triumphant. Yeah, it's, like, you know, there is going to be a great big ripple

through our culture in the next months or years. And especially generationally, there's going to be, you know, because it's not going to be just about one guy. It's going to be about mortality for a lot of people. So, yeah, I am, you know, I say you kind of dread the moment. But I love what he's done the last 15, 16 months. The Secret Path is unbelievable. I say this new record is going to be tough and very intimate, but I think it's great. And I'm forever grateful that they did those shows.

I didn't see any of them live. I was away. I was watching it. I watched from afar. I watched it all played out from Newfoundland. But I'll tell you, if you walk through my little town out there and ask them about Gord, you'd hear everybody say, oh, yeah, Gord. Yeah.

He came out with his family. He came out with two of his kids and with Billy Ray, who's his longtime guitar tech, aide-de-camp. He's in the film a lot. And yeah, it was a real, yeah, it's one of those experiences in my life that I feel very lucky to have had.

It's funny. I was in Inganish when the final concert from Kingston aired, and I watched it in Inganish because the final concert from Kingston aired. And I watched it in Inganish because I never got to Newfoundland, but we went to Prince Edward Island. You didn't get close, yeah. I got really close, but I didn't have time.

We were driving. But I do, by the way, it's on my list. I definitely am making that trek to Newfoundland. Yeah, come out to our little festival, man. No, it sounds amazing hearing you talk about it. I'm like, I have to go see this. 200-seat room, you know, Bruce Coburn in the 200-seat room, Gordon in the 200-seat room. Bruce Coburn in a 200-seat room. Gordon in a 200-seat room.

Great writers. Yeah, and a real kind of... I talk about that. It's my church. It is where people are their best selves. It's a real... Plus, it's a hell of a party, I've got to say, which is part of that. But yeah, it brings

out the best in humans. No, it sounds beautiful. It sounds beautiful. And we're now going to play your jam. Yeah, this is a weird one. I'll start playing it, actually, and then I'll fade down. I did this with Blair the other day because he likes to play stuff, right? And so maybe before because it does go on for a while. But I got Derek Brandeo, our great producer,

a tech guy, put this on. Maybe I'll start it. Yeah, you can start it, sure. So I was working for the London Free Press covering music. There was a bar in London

called Fry Fogles, which was run by a guy who I think was a drug dealer on the side. But he brought in great acts that he loved. And he brought in this guy. So this would be

three years after the breakup of the New York Dolls. And I guess I wrote about this show. I don't remember writing about it. And there may have been other factors involved in my state of mind that night. But I remember it as the greatest live show I've ever seen. So yeah, this is the great. this is the David Johansson band. So this is from Post Dolls solo, David Johansson. I need in a luncheonette

Just one glance So let's just dance I can't get the kind of love That I want or that I need, so let's just dance. You come on like it's all natural, darling, but you know, oh, it's really only natural, it. Oh, it's really only natural, it's just like all your leathers, darling, they don't scare me. I know it's really only leather, it's just like all your leathers, darling, they don't scare me. I take it down, go wash it down. I knew this guy as Buster Poindexter.

Yeah, that was a little too twee for me. The band's going to kick in here in a second. This is what Blair couldn't wait for. This is about where he got impatient. forget I want you to come in my kitchen and have a kitchen and I want you to come

in my dining room now my dining room I can't get the kind of love so let's just dance and have a kiss I'll give you the kind of love that I want or that I need So let's just dance Let's just dance Let's just dance

I said let's just dance Let's just dance Let's just dance Let's just dance Let's just dance Remember how we walked, darling We were marvelous Yeah, we were marvelous Firstly, Blair missed out.

And secondly, this is way better, way better than that Buster Poindexter shit I was hearing to me. This is rock and roll. I also walked over one of the great opening lines of rock and roll, right? You call this love in French. It's just French hat. I've been to France.

Let's just dance. Yes. A guy named Tony Machine playing drums. He was just one of the great kick-ass rock and roll drummers, too. You're going to love kicking out the jams, man. It's just an hour of this. Well, I'll come in and play Miles Davis. You never know.

Yeah, Bitches Brew. Let's do it. It's just what you plan It's just dance I think it's the kind of love That I want But then I think It's just dance It's just dance It's just dance So tell me, Stephen, did you enjoy your appearance?

Yeah, I had great fun. Yeah, it was good. I got to say, I so appreciate this because not only did you come and give me your time, but I took over two hours of your life here. Oh, man. Okay, now I'm going to be in the heat of rush hour going back to Hamilton. I'll never get home. Well, we don't want that.

So let me fade out David Johansson. Yeah, I don't think he's actually talking about dancing there, by the way. If you saw him live, you would understand absolutely that he was not talking about dancing. And that brings us to the end of our

269th show. You can follow me on Twitter, at Toronto Mike, but you can't follow Stephen on Twitter, so don't even go looking for him there. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer, and propertyinthesix.com is at Brian Gerstein. See you all next week. Thank you.