Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Jeff Marek: Toronto Mike'd #74

Episode Date: April 4, 2014

Mike chats with Jeff Marek, formerly of Live Audio Wrestling, Leafs Lunch and HNIC radio, and current host of Hockey Central on Sportsnet.

Welcome to the 74th episode of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything, often with a distinctly Toronto flavour. Toronto Mic, I'm feeling on the road. I'm Mike from TorontoMic.com. Joining me is Jeff Merrick, formerly of Live Audio Wrestling, Leafs Lunch, and Hockey Night in Canada Radio, and current host of Hockey Central on Sportsnet. And hosting this audio file are the good people at Core Fusion. Welcome to the Toronto Mic Studios, Jeff Merrick.

This is pretty tasty. See, I do a little podcast every day, the Merrick. This is pretty tasty. See, I do a little podcast every day, the Merrick vs. Wyshynski podcast. You know, the Greg Wyshynski Puck Daddy from Yahoo. And I have the most primitive tie line setup that you've ever seen. This to me, it's funny because I work for Rogers and Greg works for Yahoo. You work for yourself doing this and your setup is like infinitely better than ours you know i i enjoy this i stand impressed i enjoy hearing this because uh i don't you know when i have regular podcasters and i'm always interested in their setups like how do they roll you know i

wish i could describe it to you it's basically a little two channel thing and everything is everything is done uh at the at the studio at the at sportsnet 5 So we just essentially, it's a tile. Actually, I call in on the IP and so does Greg. And we just sort of link in at the studio in Toronto. And then everything gets pushed out from there. So I wish I could tell you how it works. But man, it might as well be Portuguese to me because I don't understand it at all. Yeah, I completely roll my own. You see, I kind of man my board here.

It's good, man. Afterwards, I'll cut it all up and stick it on the web server. See, that's good because you're in charge of everything. Ultimately, that's what I keep saying to – whenever I go and I speak at Humber College or wherever, I'll go and talk to kids that want to do radio or want to be involved in media in some capacity. I always have the same song and dance.

When I started in 1994, there was none of this. You didn't have the ability to do what you're doing now i mean i used to do this overnight show with strombo and macko right right uh and we would have our production time would be from thursday nights from midnight till 4 a.m was the only time we get for production and it was reel to reel it was carts it was chalk it was razor blades and tape and that's how we would do all of our pre-production for a little goofy Friday night overnight show. Now you can do all that in, you know, two clicks of a mouse pad. Yeah. You got garage band and you're on your way. It's amazing. Like that's the thing, like right now you don't need to rely on, like I always talk to people, how can I get, how can I

get in? How can I get into Rogers? How can I get into TSNsn i can cbc sports like you know what just start a podcast yeah just start a blog the way to do it is start something grow it and make people notice you that's infinitely better in a lot of ways than being an unpaid intern for a couple of years and hoping that someone waves their magic wand over like what you're doing look i'm like a 12 year overnight success story okay my overnight success, going back to 94, I know the feeling. Only in this industry can you be 44 years old and be considered a young broadcaster. You know what? I was thinking that with you.

We're going to get to this. I'm going to go in a chronological order, but there's lots of talk about you and Strombo as the fresh new faces. And I'm thinking, I'm younger than these two guys. Fresh new faces? Have you seen the Louis Vuittons under my eyes? I got two kids and I don't sleep fresh faces. That's funny.

It's in their twenties. I'm 44 years old and George is 41. So it's funny the way they're talking about you guys. Like you guys are like 24 and 26 years old. Not even close. I mean, that's flattering. Maybe I shouldn't be blowing the Iggy on this one,

but yeah, no, we're like close to middle aged dudes. I'm waiting for my, if I midlife crisis, my sports car is coming around the corner. That's funny. Okay, so first of all, thanks again for coming in here.

You were a busy guy. Tough to, I think we did the, I did a post like Jeff's coming in next week. Anyone have questions? Did I think you out? That was like, I'm going to say that was seven weeks ago, maybe. Is it that bad? But you're a busy guy.

My schedule. So plus, you know, I basically live, there's like a little line that I live between my house uh we spot two years ago in stovall i lived in high park in the west end pretty much my entire life see that would have been better oh man it was so nice there but we kept getting out bid for houses like we have two young boys and we kept how old we wanted to stay in high park uh tj turns four in june and brody just turned two uh and no i just don't love calgary Flames defenseman TJ and Brody. It's a complete coincidence.

Actually, Brody was, I wanted Brody Quint because my two favorite characters from Jaws were Brody and Quint. And so I thought I could sneak that one under the wire and Claire's like, okay, you got one. You got Brody. It's Brody Quint, not Brody Quint. I got greedy and I went for two.

I went for two, but I got greedy. I used to live in Hyde Park and we just kept getting outbid by houses. I mean- That area is ridiculous. I just bought this because I just re-entered the market after a while. You did, eh?

And yeah, it's absolutely insane. Like, I think I'm here because I could not afford, I couldn't afford Hyde Park. We were the same way. We lived on Indie Road Crescent and then we lived on Parkside Drive. So Parkside was great because I'm a runner.

So I'm like close to the lake and I love running in high parks and some decent hills there as well. Um, so I loved high park running in the, in the summer down the lake shore with the dragon boats going, man, there's like nothing cooler. Right.

Um, but so we were looking, we had our second kid and we're like, okay, we need big, we had a bigger space now. Like we're getting cramped. And so we started looking around and some beautiful houses,

obviously in high park. But like Mike, we weren't getting outbid by like five thousand dollars we're getting outbid by like eighty thousand dollars it's insane it's nuts that we found and so you know claire um you know she's from from bolton uh originally from england um and their but her parents after going to montreal came to bolton and so we just kept looking north and we'd go to richmond hale and we go to aurora and we go'd go to Newmarket, as far north as Newmarket. We kept coming back to Stouffville, Stouffville, Stouffville. And it's not that far.

It's like 35 minutes from my house to Sportsnet, and that's this little track that I have. So that's like my life. It's just going back and forth on this little track between our house and Sportsnet. So this is the other side of the world for you, then. Now it is. Now this might as well be Winnipeg. Yeah, I was going to say Burlington, but Winnipeg sounds even – But it's good.

See, I come down here seldom, but when I do now, I almost have this immigrant nostalgia for the place because so much of my youth is in the west end of the city, completely. I have plenty of – I played hockey with Humber Valley. You played at George Bell, right? Of course. I played George Bell. I played Lampton.

I played Central Arena. I played Lampton. Then I played Swansea Hockey Association. I played outdoor hockey for two years at Swansea. Biggest outdoor league in the world. Is that right? Yeah, Swansea Hockey. It's the biggest outdoor league in the world.

I had no idea. Fun fact. George Bell, my son's there now, and his championship game, well, he's got a tournament at Iceland or something in Mississauga this weekend. Ice sports? Ice sports, the one right across from Hershey Center.

Yep. Okay. But then they have their finals at George Bell Arena next Saturday. Because, with all due respect to Herb Carnegie, formerly North York Centennial, and with all due respect to the Air Canada Center and the Ricoh Coliseum, George Bell's got the best ice in the city.

You know, I never get on the ice. I just stare at the ice. Do yourself a favor. Put on the wheels. Put on the wheels and get out there. I used to play, up until two years ago, before we moved, essentially, I used to play Friday nights there at George Bell. And it's a bunch of guys that I grew up with,

and a number of them work at Great Lakes Bre lakes brewery which is right around the corner here yeah yeah they got the cheap beer yeah mike lackey and the crew right so good pumpkin ale oh that really good pumpkin ale so uh it's all that crew and guys that i went to high school with yeah so they rent ice there every friday nights when it was right after the ryerson game because before ryerson went to the matinee george bell so we played after those guys. And the ice is as good as I remember when I was a kid. They got new lights in there now. It's like all of a sudden the lights were turned on. I don't like that.

I like the – I kind of like – It's for the television audience. I guess so, yeah. Although the old Italian Pro League. Do you remember that from George Bell? No. Global used to air that on Sunday. I was going to say it was Rogers 10, but it's Global?

Global used to – I think – yeah, it was Global. It used to air it because I used to have that on Sunday. I was going to say it was Rogers 10, but it's Global? No, man. Global used to air it. Yeah, it was Global used to air it because I used to have House League practice. I played MTHL and House League at the same time. We'd have House League practice Sunday mornings, and after us, we'd sort of stay and sneak in and watch the Italian Pro League. I can't remember what it was called. I think Jim McKinney might have been one of the broadcasters. Legendary Jim McKinney. Howie's a great man.

Wonderful guy. You know, I just realized this hour is going to fly by because I could talk to you for several hours. So I'm going to get to my notes here. I'm going to the home opener tonight, but I got some stuff to do back. Oh, nice. We can probably go longer than an hour. I'm fine. Tell me about how you got into radio.

So let's go way back to the early days. How does Jeff Merrick get into radio? It was an accident. It was a mistake. Honestly,'s go way back to the early days. How does Jeff Merrick get into radio? It was an accident. Like it was a mistake. Like I never thought, honestly, I never thought I'd be doing this. I was studying English and philosophy at the University of Guelph, trying, Mike, to educate myself out of a job. And I was like, what can I do to make sure that I'm really unemployable one day? But really pretentious and overly red and smug and self-righteous.

Yeah, you would have loved it. I know guys like that. You would have loved me in my early 20s. You would have loved what a piece of work I was. And one summer after I did my BA, I used to do my summers working at Park Lawn Cemetery, which again, it's not too far from where you are here. And that leads into the story.

I heard it once. I was in Humble and Fred's studio. The Ballard story? Yeah, a couple years ago. Please retell the Harold Ballard story. We'll get to that. Don't forget. Don't worry.

That's a plank. That's a plank in my bio. Yeah, but I took a summer job this one summer because every summer I'd work at Parkland Cemetery. I said, you know, I want to do something different this summer. And Bob Makowitz Sr., legendary music programmer and radio personality, the guy that put Q107 on the map, was a program director at 102.1 for a lot of years as well, program director at CFRB. He was running The Fan at that point, and he hired me and his son to work in promotions. And that's where we met Strombo because Strombo was there as an overnight board op, and we worked in the promotions department. The promotion in 1994 or 5 was the big ticket, so you're handing out stuff on the streets, and you've got to listen in at a certain time.

Standard radio, you know, bribe people to listen. Never mind putting out something good. Let's just give them a bribe to try to get them to listen to the radio station. Yeah, it was a radio trick, so I've been part of them before. And I just started hanging around the radio station and spider Jones, uh, would bring me on. Fan fire.

The, one of the funniest things in the world. So this day is trying to get spider Jones to say Arantxa Sanchez, Vicario, still one of the funniest, uh, sports drops of all time in Toronto, uh,

Toronto radio. Um, he, he, I, he would bring me on to be his call screener. So that was my gig gig i would work the big ticket promotion with strombo during the day strombo would work the board for spider jones

and i was the call screener and it was a summer of just goofing around not taking anything seriously fan 590 spider jones show what's your question fan 590 spider jones show what's your question the host is okay don't ask him how he is just get your question please thank you like that was me and it was a blast and i got to meet uh jim richards who now is with cfrb 10 uh new stock 10 10 uh he was doing the uh the saturday morning show one of the most creatively gifted jim was just on the show like two episodes or three episodes jim was jim richard jim richards yeah isn't he a great guy great fantastic guy and i remember him from the fan 590 and he was hilarious he some of the bits that he did like honestly i i don't think jim will ever go back to sports radio but if he did he would kill it he would

completely kill sports radio he is that creative uh and that insightful and that smart and that funny and no one has a better deadpan he's a good one then jim rich is oh god is he funny and so i got to hang out with all these guys and i just you know just rombo and i started hanging out a ton and i remember i made the decision i was like you know, just Rambou and I started hanging out a ton. And I remember I made the decision. I was like, you know what? I'm not going to go after my master's next year. I'm going to put it off for a year and then I'll, and then I'll go back. And so then all of a sudden me and Georgie and Bob have this overnight show at, at 590.

Right. Uh, listened to by about, I don't know, eight or nine people. Ten. Cause sometimes I would tune in. Okay. So you would tune in to games. I was number 10. You made it double digits, Mike.

Thank you for, uh, for tuning in. And, um, and I, and I just hung around and I, so you would tune in to Game Tip? I was number 10, yeah. You made it double digits, Mike. Thank you for tuning in. And I just hung around, and I just kept hanging around the industry, and I never went back. And somewhere along the line, I finally admitted to myself that I was never going to go and do my PhD. That's a very sing-songy ringtone, by the way, that you have there. That's Todd Shapiro of all people. Is that Todd?

Because I'm supposed to go on Todd's show next week. Are you? That was him. I could have answered it on the the radio but you never know what he's gonna say that's actually a very good point that's a good day i i can't wait to talk to that guy again he had uh ron mclean on yeah yeah and i just put that picture on the todd shapiro show.com the oh did you yeah there's a shot of ron mclean and uh i'm gonna see uh ron tonight at the uh the blue jay home opener never met ron but he's a... Really? So Howard, Humble Howard's very good friend, Lumbie, is apparently BFFs with Ron McClain.

Well, they're Oakville guys. I got to get him on the studio. Can you get him in here? Who, Ron? Yeah. I'll see him tonight. I'll ask him. Ask Ron, because the other guy,

I'm just going to do this later, but Strombo. Yeah. I need Strombo in here. Why don't we text him? Toronto Mike is a big fucking deal. Well, let's text him. Text Strombo. And you know Maestro Fresh West while we're doing my laundry list here? I don't know text them? Toronto Mic'd is a big fucking deal. Well, let's text them. Text them.

Strombo, and you know Maestro Fresh West while we're doing my laundry list here? I don't know Maestro Fresh West. No, okay. Well, let's take care of... Okay, hang on a second. What am I... Okay, Strombo doing... This is amazing live.

This is fascinating podcast here. Watch or listen to Jeff Merrickson to text. Well, you know, Alan Cross took a phone call during his interview. Who was it from? Something important apparently because he had to take it. Okay. But yeah, Todd,

I've been helping. Yeah, that would be awesome if you could hook that up. I've been working closely with Todd Shapiro on his new venture. He's a good dude, man. We talk like every day. I want to go down and do his show. The only problem with it is...

It's Liberty Village. I love Liberty Village. The only problem is it's at 9 o'clock in the morning. And I'm in Stouffville. And I'm at Sportsnet until about 2. Last night I didn't get home until close to 3 o'clock. And I got two kids. See, he's got to be live. I can be anytime. I know. See, that's the lovely until about 2. Like last night, I didn't get home until close to 3 o'clock. So getting – and I got two kids. See, he's got to be live.

I can be anytime. I know. See, that's the lovely thing about podcasts. Thankfully, no one wants to put this live anywhere. So it gives me such freedom. Not yet. One day. One day.

One day. One day. If you want. But that's a great thing about podcasting too. That's one thing I love about our podcast. Even though we do it benchmarked at 2 o'clock every day, there's no breaks. There's no, hang on, the answer after this. There's no cheesy radio hooks and stuff.

And you've got to do it. And I understand. And I was part of that industry as well. That's a popular podcast. MVSW? It's fun. It's niche. It's hockey.

To me, that's better because you're about one thing and you go deep on that one thing. That's what I like. Yeah, today I'll get hockey guys today because Jeff on that one thing. That's what I like. But for me, like, yeah, today I'll get hockey guys today because Jeff Merrick's on this, hear what he says. But I'll talk about whatever, you know, like it might be about the mayor race. I can't say the word mayoral. Mayoral?

Say it again. It's a tough one. Mayoral. Oh, wow, mayoral. You know what? Because I work in hockey. When have I ever said mayoral? I butchered it three times last week and now I've tried to find other ways of saying it.

But I'll talk about Toronto-centric stuff, or it might be something about just something I observed or whatever. But please continue. Niche is a good way to go. No, niche is good because I've always liked grabbing something and taking it into deep water. Whether it's when I was studying English, like literary theory was my big thing.

You know, I majored in English. You did, eh? I majored in history at U of T, honors BA. Oh, it's smart. And I actually have a job. And I actually have a job. How did you do that? Because I was convinced I was going to be getting that potato chip. You did? English and History at U of T, honors BA. Oh, it's smart. And I actually have a job. And I actually have a job. How did you do that? Because I was convinced like I was going to be

in that potato chip. You know why? Late 90s, I reinvented myself. Reinvented myself as a digital marketer that basically started from the back end and up. So I understood the front end because I was an English guy, good, right? But in the back end,

so basically I became an A to Z digital marketing guy late 90s. So it's like I don't brand myself as English and history major. But that's the thing, like now, and I was saying this off the top of your podcast too, Mike, it's like the tools are all out there for people to go and create their own thing. Like I want to say this on our podcast, like go and start a podcast. Like the world needs more. Like if you're listening right now and you've ever thought about doing a podcast, the tools

are all there. Go and try it. Sorry, you ever thought about doing your own blog? Go and do it. Start it. Try it right now. Because the one thing you'll learn about whether you're successful or not the one thing that i've learned from doing a podcast which is as you know your brain the microphone and the rest of the technology and the audience is you learn a lot about yourself yep like you really and you really learn um how you can back yourself into something when you, when you can have the luxury of not having, you know, seven minute breaks instead of having, you know, hour long, you know, long form discussions, you can kind

of talk your way through points and, and figure out things, not just about what you're talking about, but you figure out a lot about yourself and why you feel that way. And I always take this away from, from, from podcasts. Like I'll finish the podcast with Greg and I'll walk away from it and I'll think to myself, well, why do I feel that way? And it almost becomes an easy way to challenge yourself and realize, you know, where you're bullshit and where you're right on. And that may change too. Like I'll go back and listen to a podcast from three years ago that we did. Man, I was so wrong. Yeah, I got a few of those.

I think we all do, but that's how you grow. It's a great way to learn about yourself. And if you want to get into this field, whatever it is, or however you want to be part of it, that's the best on-ramp. It really is. But you want to hear the Ballard story? Yes, please. All right. So Park Lawn Cemetery, my first day on the job so it was after my uh my first year at university university guelph and me and my buddy dave queely uh we're we're done it's our first day back it's like april 18th and we're walking up and down blur west village trying to find a summer gig nowhere to work we're going to apply at the various coffee shops and future bakery and so i you don't i know that you know i went to St. Pius

at Jane and Bloor. You did, eh? Yeah. You have no idea how well I know this neighborhood. Okay. And I worked at that McDonald's at Runnymede and Bloor

for 18 months. Upstairs or downstairs? It was all the same thing. Because upstairs was just tables. Yeah, exactly. But I used to open the breakfast. So 6 a.m. Saturday, Sunday,

I did the breakfast shift. Homeboy, you sold me hash browns. No, I definitely sold you hash browns. You ever order a big breakfast? That was me, man. I scrambled those eggs, man. Really? Was that your specialty? I was the guy who trained everybody on breakfasts

for 18 months in the... That's some responsibility. Late 80s, early 90s. That's some responsibility. But please continue. That's my hood you're in, so please continue. Alright, alright. So we're swimming in your waters. So we're walking up and down the street and we stop in. We go up to... From Blue Rust Village, we go walking up and down the street and we uh we stop in uh we go uh up to from blue rest village we go walk up to um uh prince edward and bluer and we go to burton ernie's i

think burton ernie's is there anymore it's something else something else yeah so we walk into burton ernie's we have a couple of beers and we're like oh well day's over and we're walking back to go to the the subway station now because we're gonna go to old mill station i know why we're walking down the hill so just going to royal york but we're going down old mill for whatever whatever reason and we're like hey man we're just reading the newspaper at the honestly we're going to go to Old Mill Station. I don't know why we're walking down the hill instead of just going to Royal York, but we're going down to Old Mill for whatever reason. And we're like, hey, man, we're just reading in the newspaper at the, honestly, we were reading in the newspaper at the bar

that a bunch of headstones had been kicked over at Park Lawn Cemetery. Like, oh, that's a real drag. Maybe they need like overnight security or something. Wow. And we're like, I don't know, let's just go see and apply and see if they need any help there.

And so we went and applied and uh who the manager's name was wendy oh she's such a sweet lady too wendy something or other and so she said yep fill out these resume fill out these applications so we filled out some like micro like we're half drunk dude like gobbling down tic-tac before i go in and try not to breathe on it because we've been drinking beer all the rest of the afternoon yeah i'm thinking this is a goof go to burton ernie, basket of fries and some beers. And so we fill out these applications. And then so we get home, start to sober up, and we both get phone calls.

Can you start tomorrow? Well, no, we got some other shit to do for tomorrow. We can start on the 20th. Okay, that's fine. Good enough. So I get there, my first day on the job, 7 o'clock in the morning. Our shift starts at 7. Having a cup of coffee, coffee meet my foreman meet all the guys that i'm working with great bunch of dudes um and the first job is is on that particular day april 20th 1990

they had seven graves to dig only one backhoe so that's pretty big seven graves a lot for a day when you only have one backhoe so they said all, we don't have time to fill in the grave. So your first job today, before you get started on like mowing lawns and pouring cement and digging foundations, you're going to fill in a grave. It's your first day on the job, you know, jumping in with both feet. How do you fill in a grave? Well, you see that pile of dirt with the flowers on it, take the flowers off, dummy, and then throw the dirt on the coffin. It's a fair question. Your first day? I mean, who gets to fill in a grave?

So they sent me up to section AA, which is right at the corner of Prince Edward and Bloor. And they said, all right, here's your shovel. It'll probably take you a while. Take the flowers off. You know, be discreet and respectful about it. And then just start throwing dirt on the coffin. I said, okay, how? It's going to feel weird.

Not many people get to experience throwing dirt on a coffin. I said, okay, how, it's going to feel weird. Not many people get to experience throwing dirt on a coffin. So I get up there and it's section double A and it's right in the middle and I walk by the Sutherland Stone

where the Sutherland family, Kiefer and Donald have a block. Gordon Sinclair is off in another area. Con Smythe is in an area there for all you Maple Leaf fans.

I biked by this place yesterday. So you know it, right? Yeah. You got to look at some of the headstones, man. I got to go in and check that out. I will do that. Some really famous people there and so i like i

remember digging the first shovel full and i throw it on the coffin and say and i had to stop i'm like this is the weirdest thing i've ever like what am i what am i doing like i'm burying someone and then i look up on the headstone and it's ballard wow and i'm like shit this is where harold was buried this is where this is this is the bat and i found out later the ballard family owned part of what they still do own part of parkland cemetery bill actually just passed away a couple years ago um and and that was my story my first day on the job and i grew up a toronto maple east fan and what were the odds uh that's it that's it right like in that anecdote that like i think i was talking to my buddy elvis about this i think

i would use that and every time i met somebody for the first time i'd be did i tell you i buried harold ballard like that would that would i drop that into every bio every conversation like i always say everybody hated the old guy but only one person did something about it everybody complained about it freaking that's the line right there, too. Put on a business card. It's beautiful. It's funny. When I was doing Leafs lunch one day, Bill Waters says, all right, Jeffy, I got someone special.

He's going to come meet you tomorrow. I said, okay, Billy. So we're doing a show live at Wegg Stadium Bar, a big sports bar north of the city. And who walks in to go over to say hi to Bill? Yolanda. Oh, wow. So he says, Jeffy, get over here. Get over here. And so I kind of wander city. And who walks in to go over to say hi to Bill? Yolanda. Oh, wow. So he says, Jeffy, get over here. Get over here.

And so I kind of wander over. And I go, yeah, Bill. He goes, Yolanda, I want you to meet the poor prick that buried your husband. Yeah, yeah. That's great. That's great. That's amazing. So the Harold Ballard story, I had to get that.

Buried Harold Ballard. But wait, so just we're at the fans still? We're at the fans. So I get fired. Me and Macko Woods get fired. Okay, so Macko Sr. is out. Nelson Millman is in. Nelson hates me telling this story, but Nelson and I are great friends.

Nelson doesn't listen. It's okay. Okay, so sorry if you're listening, Nelson, but I'm going to tell the story again, yo, sucker. You don't get away with what you did to me, homeboy. So I get a call from George one day. At this point, Macko Woods and I, Junior, Bob, Bob and I were living together on Engine Road Crescent in a little basement apartment because we were broke. We had no money.

And we get a phone call from Strombo. And I'm like, hey, George, what's going on? He goes, have you talked to Nelson today? I said, no, I haven't talked to Nelson. Why? He says, you might want to talk to him. I said, well, why would we not talk to Nelson? No, it's a program director.

We're like the low man on the totem pole. Why would Nelson want to talk to us? He would we not talk to nelson no it's a program director or like the low man on the totem pole why would nelson want to talk to us he goes um you and bobby got fired i'm like what do you mean we got fired like i like checked my answering machine nothing like we didn't like bob do you hear anything from nelson today no well because dude we got fired what do you mean we got fired and i said george what do you mean we got fired we haven't heard from nelson he said oh because there's a note up on the fridge in the cafeteria. We got fired on the fridge. To this day, Nelson hasn't actually officially fired me. He just put a note up on the fridge.

That's far worse than a text or something, right? Way worse. Way worse. In front of everybody. Effective immediately. Services of Bob Mackowitz and Jeff Merrick are no longer to be needed. We will retain the services of George Ron Balopoulos, who is doing basketball with Barry Davis on the fan 590.

Now, in Nelson's defense, he did hire me back in – that would have been 96, and he did hire me back in 1999. And honestly, Nelson and I to this day are the best of friends. Didn't this guy – he also eventually fired Strombol, right? Never fired Strombol. Strombol left to go to the edge. Why did I – I think – okay. It's funny because that story is –

You know why? He put that out there on twitter he but that was a joke okay see i don't know we don't know though dummies like me think it's uh that was that was not because yeah that's when the big announcement was made yeah and he said uh shows what i know i fired both america and strombo that's right yeah well it's funny because nelson like one of the when you look back on this this era of sports radio in Toronto, Nelson's name is going to be prominent. When you look at all the talent that Nelson Millman has funneled through his station and has nurtured, we talk about mentorship and teaching a lot in the industry,

and a lot of that is lost right now. A lot of times it's a harsh reality for people that want to get in the industry, but you're kind of on your own, folks. By the way, these are great headphones, I've got to tell you, before we go any further. I got to give a shout-out, though. My audio guru friend, Andrew Stokely, recommended these headphones. Did he? Well, bravo, man, because these mics are great,

and these headphones are killer, too. But you look at what Nelson has put into Canadian media, funneling through his radio station, and he ran that station going back to 1995 up until three years ago, I want to say. I mean, Strombo went through there barry davis went through there elliot friedman went through the list is lengthy greg sansoni went through there um you know bob mccowan is still there yeah steve simmons was there for damien cox was like a lot of jim richards was there like a lot of big gordon stalek big name the other richards uh mike richard mike richards

was there of course yeah he was doing uh well he was doing the morning show yeah uh john derringer went through there when he sort of transitioned uh from i'll be briefly from music to sports talk i mean he's put a lot of significant people through that station and i'll tell you almost to a person they will look at Nelson Millman uh when all is said and done and say he was a great mentor and a great teacher for all these people so there have been you know there have been a lot of people that have helped me along the way um Humble and Fred are huge for me um they gave me break after break where I honestly didn't deserve it no clue why those guys would do that but they did they always stuck their neck out for me uh so they're up on my list but so is nelson millman he uh he's he's always and even when i

was gone from the fan the second time i would still talk to nelson even when i was at cbc doing hockey night radio i talked to nelson all the time and asked for him advice and he always had time to have a cup of coffee or a conversation and it's not me. Like if you ask anybody who's ever worked for Nelson, he's always been that guy. Did the live audio wrestling show start on 590 or 640? Started on virtually Canadian. Okay. That's right. It doesn't exist anymore. Don't look for it. 1997 is a lot of venture capital money floating around for the internet. And a lot of the VC ended up at places like Virtually Canadian, which was Canada's first online 24-7 radio station. That was the concept.

Shelley Clink was working with a guy by the name of John Walter. Remember this name? Shelley Clink from 640. Yeah. 640, Shelley Clink. Yeah. And she called me when me and Mako got fired, said, hey, we're starting up this new online radio station. And I went, huh like what's that

let it that i am um so and i had lunch with her and john walthers who passed away some years ago and said here's what we're doing uh do you guys want to come on and and work with us in in some capacity um sure so i ended up god i'm like 26 and i'm the p. Like that tells you like how junior a person they're getting to run this thing because no one from legitimate terrestrial radio is going to stick their neck out to go. Yeah. That's a long time ago. Yeah.

It's 1997. So I ended up running the station and one of the first, we would source programming. And one of the first shows we put together selfishly was that we redid game. Selfishly. So me, Georgie and Bob got back together again.

And we put together a conspiracy show with my friend al navis who uh god bless you al passed away uh four months ago was a wonderful man you might remember from uh the book doctor um on q107 and then the fan used to cover uh rock rock and roll books on q107 i have a little bit of a remembrance here. Al Navis, the book doctor on the fan, Saturday afternoons, long-form interviews, and we talk about sports books. So he did a conspiracy show because one of the leading Kennedy researchers was a consultant on the JFK movie by Oliver Stone.

And the other show that we put together with Donnie Abreu and Chris Tidwell was live audio wrestling. And it was not the first show of this this nature but it was one of the only shows that ever treated professional wrestling not for the theatrics of it but for more of the human side it's almost like if you interview tom cruise you don't interview him as jerry mcguire you interview him as tom cruise i could never get my head around the idea that like why would you interview hulk hogan as as Hulk Hogan as opposed to

talk to him like he's Terry Bollea? Like, this idea that you talk to people in character, to me, always seemed a little bit funny. There was this sense like not to tear down that wall. I go back to Hulkamania in 87. I was at Exhibition Stadium for that one. Mr. Wonderful

Paul Orndorff versus Hulk Hogan. That was called the big event. I was there too. Jason Agnew was a guest recently. Good guy. And he told me it was called The Big Event. And my memory, which is only from that moment in time, and I was pretty young in 1987, I remember it as Hulkamania.

Where did that... Was it branded Hulkamania somewhere? I thought my ticket said Hulkamania. I could be wrong. There could have been something on the ticket saying Hulkamania is running wild. It's Hulk Hogan versus Paul Ornish. Do you think the Toronto Star, because I cut out the Toronto Star story and I put it in my scrapbook because I had a scrapbook back then. Could have been. Hulkamania lures 70,000.

Yeah, but that wasn't the image. I mean, Hulkamania was for that umbrella term for what's happening as Hulk Hogan popped the industry again. The big event. The big event. The big event. I was there. You were there too? I was there. I saw you there.

You did, eh? Yeah, I was the guy in the really bad – actually, I was there with Mackiewicz. Me and Bobby went. You and me and, yeah, 70,000 others. Where'd you go? Chris Lang. Chris Lang. My buddy Chris Lang.

All right. And the interesting thing about that one was that it was like one of the great house shows of all time because that was a non-televised event. Now, in the industry now, you don't have non-televised events that are that huge. Like if you have like that many people in the stadium. Yeah, I didn't even know it wasn't televised. I just assumed. It wasn't televised. But that was a funny. I mean, I go back to my first real taste of it was like 1979, 1980.

Oh, yeah. Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling had the affiliation with Maple Leaf. And so, I mean, once a month, my dad would take me to Maple Leaf Gardens to watch a combination of, you know, Tunney's Office, which ran Canadian wrestlers. So it was a lot of Angelo Mosca and Billy Red Lions. Don't you dare miss it. Don't you dare miss it. Billy Red Lions. And this is when he was a Don't you dare miss it. Billy Red Lions.

And this is when he was a worker too. Him and Dewey Robertson, the Crusaders. But also he had the association with Mid-Atlantic. So they sent all that talent up there. So it was like Ric Flair, Ricky Steamboat, Jay Youngblood, Don Cranoodle, Paul Jones, Masked Superstar, Blackjack Mulligan, Big John Studd. I got Ray Stevens, Jimmy Snooker. See, some of these names I don't even know.

But some of these names were big for me. Like Superfly Snooker. And the first match I ever saw, the first main event I ever Ray Stevens, Jimmy Snooker. Some of these names I don't even know, but some of these names were big for me. Huge. And the first match I ever saw, the first main event I ever saw live wrecked all of wrestling for me. The first match I ever saw was a match at Maple Leaf Gardens over the Mid-Atlantic U.S. title between Ric Flair and Ricky Steamboat. I remember going home on the subway with my dad thinking, oh man, wrestling is awesome. Because I'm thinking, all wrestling, is that good? Yeah, of course.

You set the bar so high. That's like the best in-ring feud of all time. Like the best two wrestlers who mesh so perfectly. That was my first main event. And I thought to myself, wow, wrestling is so great. If it's like that, it's not. There's a lot of shit too. There's a lot of shit too. There's a lot of shit. But that spoiled it for me.

My perception is, because I did lose interest in wrestling in the late 80s, early 90s or something. But I remember we knew it was fake. We knew it was fake. But we always pretended like it was real. You were the first show, as I remember, at least the first show I ever heard. And I didn't hear it on Virtuallyadian i heard it on the fan yeah because first it was on the fan and then over to 640 but you guys actually talked about it like this he's turning heel and this is the you talked about it as if it was acting yeah like you tore down that

wall yeah but the thing is we always treat it the whole idea was to treat it like an entertainment property right like to my point about tom cruise like if if you were sitting here and i was tom cruise and you started talking to me as if i was jerry mcguire i'd probably say mike what the fuck are you doing yeah like i am a human being i'm tom cruise here i'm not jerry mcguire you know i'm not that guy like so i always felt it weird i guess i guess because the showmanship is so over the top and to your point i mean kayfabe was so strong for so many years and wrestlers themselves never wanted to sort of no like if you were a macho man uh you know when he was alive i'm sure that he wouldn't i get the feeling like he'd want to be in character like uh him specifically yes i remember i met the one time that i ever talked to

him uh was at a uh a ilio de paulo show in buffalo yeah money yeah it was a fundraiser and would not just refuse to break characters i just can't imagine him getting his head around that no i mean there are some guys that hung on to it for a long time yeah um i the feeling was that if you broke character no one would ever go like for one second we thought that like as human beings okay so you throw someone in the ropes they run back at you with their arms beside them that's true we're all human beings you're like it's true we get what's going on we're just going on it's not unlike watching a movie like no one walked out of titanic and said that boat didn't

really sink that was fake no one said that you just go along for the story and you go along for the ride that's why when people criticize wrestling for being you know oh it's so fake and it's so funny you may argue that it doesn't look convincing and some matches look less convincing than others. You got to buy in. Like, you know, it's a soap opera of sorts. It's a story. Not unlike soap operas, not unlike movies, not unlike sitcoms. You know that really wasn't, you know, the Huxtables really wasn't Bill Cosby's family, folks.

You do know that, right? It's true. He was just pretending. wasn't bill cosby's family folks you you do know that right he was just pretending so okay so this live audio wrestling is on uh web only and at some point how does that thing actually you know what yeah that's an interesting story i'm glad you're brother because i haven't talked about this whole lot the reason why um live audio wrestling actually got on the air in the first place was because of the toronto raptors tell me because uh the fan held the radio rights for the Toronto Raptors, but what they didn't have was the streaming rights.

So during the fan audio stream on fan590.com, when the Raptors game was on, they had to get alternate programming. So essentially our pitch to the fan, Nelson, God bless you, Nelson, Nelson Millman was, you need something in there. You need something, you know, if you want, I mean, here, man, take it for free. We just want to hold back some of the inventory. Like, here's unique programming you can put in there,

niche as it may be, but it costs you nothing, and it satisfies the idea that you're not allowed to stream Raptors games. So that is the initial reason why it graduated from the internet onto a more because it didn't go right from you know uh the internet right to radio there was a middle step there which was the fan that's the gateway more toward yeah exactly that there's marijuana right there that's the next thing you know you got needle in your arm so that was that was that

that was the on-ramp right was getting it on the Fan 590 stream. And then from there, it just transitioned into traditional. It's like a Trojan horse. A little bit. Yeah, we had to sneak up on them. Right. Here's a free web only, and then you're inside now. Look at this shiny thing over here.

Yeah, exactly. Now we'll have four hours a week, both Saturday and Sunday. Thank you very much. So tell me, okay, so Big Daddy Donnie, that was his name, and Chris Tidwell. What happened to those guys? Somebody asked that question. I talked to Donnie on Facebook a while. This is, oh, my God, it's almost a year ago now.

He was teaching in Markham. He has his own show on the internet called The O Show, and he does stuff still with Chris Tidwell. Chris, who is still a dear friend of mine, him and his wife Kelly. Kelly, who works at Yonge Street Tattoos, that does all of my ink. Quick plug, Yonge Street Tattoos. I talk to Chris mainly by text, where he just in the middle of a day, I'll get a text from Chris Tidwell, fuck you.

Like, all right, good to hear from you, Tid. That's good. He still does some work on the indie scene as an indie wrestler. He works out in Cambridge or Burlington. I always get those two confused, but he's out there with his wife and their dog. So Tid's still doing great. And yes, folks, if you know Chris Tidwell, no, he has not changed at all. He hasn't.

So you're at 590, and then tell me if i miss any steps here but at some point mojo happens so am i is there actually from we got to step back okay okay 1999 i'm at 590 and then from there we get an offer ian grant was running uh toxics 40 at that point and they were looking for new programming because they just started discussions about changing the format and doing something a little funkier and they're looking for new programming and ian grant called us and uh and offered us a better deal than we had at 590 i made one of it wasn't just me because all of us but ultimately i'll hold the bag for it because i'll take responsibility i did one of the things you should never do in radio is we left right before a book so So we left 590 right two weeks before the September book started, and Nelson was hella pissed, and I don't blame him.

It was a completely selfish move. Was it a rookie mistake? I mean, I had been in the industry for six years. I knew what we were doing. But you're still one of the young, fresh faces on the scene. I know. 20 years later, young, fresh face on the scene. So we left to go to 640, and Nelson was pissed off and rightfully so.

But, Nelson, you fired me on the fridge, and as I told you then, we're even. There you go. Now you're even. So this is pre-Mojo, right? This is like talk radio or something? Yeah, talk 640. Talk 640. Okay, so you're on talk 640, and that's where live audio wrestling is.

Yes, at that point. It was twice a week, Saturdays and Sundays, and then the momentum started to flip formats. I think it was April of 2001 that it flipped formats. And what was I doing? Still doing just the wrestling radio show at that point. And then it launched in April, Humble and Fred Morning Show Mike Stafford Afternoons

Scruff Connors Mojo Magazine with May Potts and Ripken God I can't remember did I just was that the original lineup? It sounds right to me it sounds right to me

is that what it was? and then I think you hit it they made a change at Mojo Magazine and brought me in in I want to say like September

and joanne wilder to do the uh the mojo magazine show which is one hour a day uh noon to one and that's where i got to end up doing more stuff with humble and fred and i just kind of kept hanging around and stew myers was the program director and i mean i used to love going in early and just like sitting in the studio and listening to humble and fred Always been a Humble and Fred fan going back to 102. And then got to meet them and got to know them and got to talk to them and got to hang out with them and got to drink wine with them. And then eventually they had an opening for Newsreader in the morning. And for whatever reason, man, those two goofballs went to bat for me.

And I don't know why. It was a real neck out move. But they went to Stu Myers and said, we want that guy, um, to do news for us in the morning. And it wasn't like it was, uh, initially Stu Myers, rightfully so said, no, not a chance. But what he did say, and this is, this was, this was the on-ramp. He said, well, we're going to repeat the Humble and Fred show, uh, like best ofs, uh, Saturday morning and Sunday morning.

It's a good idea. Great marketing for Humble and Fred show, like best ofs, Saturday morning and Sunday morning. It's a good idea. Great marketing for Humble and Fred. And good to have that kind of good content on the weekends. So it was six to nine, Saturday morning and Sunday morning, said, here's what we'll do. Put Merrick on the news shift there. So I got to, I was the Humble and Fred weekend repeat newsreader. That was a gig. It's another on-ramp.

But that was the on-ramp. Knowing Humble and Fred well, and I know them quite well at this point. Humble made a fantastic speech at my wedding last June. That's how well I know these guys. Nice.

But knowing them, they're all about chemistry. So once they sense chemistry with this Jeff guy, they go to bad for you. You know who else they helped start to? Can I guess?

Sure. Strombo? No. Was part of it. They had a part of for you. You know who else they helped start to? Can I guess? Sure. Strombo? No. Was part of it. They had a part of it. Okay. Todd Shapiro for sure because he was on the show recently and he was raving about them too.

You might never guess this. I do know. I do know what you're going to say. Nick Kiprios. Yes. I know this story because I've been in the room. Yeah. I've been in this.

In fact, Nick got me into the alumni lounge one night when I was at a hockey game with Howard. Yeah, and he grabbed my ass, and there's a great photo of it. Really? Kipper did? Yeah. Man, you love when your stereotypes come to life. There's our boy, Nick Kiprios. Good Greek boy.

Hey, he was, I mean, I remember when Nicky first started because I would listen to him on the H&F show. And even Nick will tell you to this day, he was choppy and still trying to find his stride and wasn't sure if this broadcasting thing was for him but he just finished his hockey career and what the f am i gonna do next and humble and fred kept this is yeah and he's uh he's spoken quite openly i've heard him talk on this topic yeah he gives a lot of credit to h and f for putting him on line and letting him figure a lot of people through they've put a lot of uh they put a lot of like talented people you know put a lot of talented people through the humble and Fred Yu. Yeah, like Jason Barr, who's now got a show on Hits FM.

Absolutely. Barr's a funny dude, man. And he's intense. I used to play on his team in men's league. Oh, yeah. He's awesome. As a goaltender, every game is game seven. I love those guys.

Every freaking game is game seven. I used to be that guy in men's league, and now I just want to get out with my health and get back to the room and have a game. I won our divisional championships last Tuesday. Congrats. We're playing at... Where are you playing?

What rank? You know, I suck at this. Dixon and... Martin Grove and Dixon. What's that big... Oh, Ice Sports. Ice Sports. Canlan's Ice Sports.

You know, I suck at names. They all sound the same. You know why? All the arenas in the GTA to me sound like Ice Sports. They all have the same name to me. Like a franchise? Yeah, Canlons. And Canlons started out in, I want to say, Calgary.

I know they started out west. And that model they've sort of taken all across Canada. I played at Canlons in Etobicoke. Oh, this is the one, yeah, Etobicoke. Canlons I played in Scarborough. But there are Canlons all over the country. Maybe that's why it messed me up. You know why?

Because Etobicoke chapter Because they get cheap real estate. Here's the model is cheap real estate, four pads, and a bar. Yeah, Thirsty Penguin. We were there on Tuesday night. It's always because it's so hard right now financially to run a single rank. The one thing that you know about your hockey player, ice time is so expensive because ice time is at a premium. And with the growth of the women's game, like every time you go into a four-pad now, at least one of them is girls or women playing hockey.

It's a great thing. But what it's done now with that explosion of women's hockey is it's created a real struggle to try to find ice time. And building rinks is challenging. You can't do it the old model. I mean all the centennial rinks, which is a big plank in the government's platform in 67 in order to celebrate canada we're building rinks across the country that's why there's so many centennial rinks right well there's not the uh political will nor the political money right now to do that across the country so the only way you can really do it is to have i don't

say they're cheaply constructed because they're not they're fine it's actually uh i really i like it i don't know i like them too yeah there's You have to have four pads going in order to make money, and you've got to have a rocking bar. You've got to have guys drinking their weight in beer and telling stories. And it's great, because from the Thirsty Penguin, you can see all four games up there. It's a great model. And when you win the division, they give you $200 to spend at the Thirsty Penguin, because it was all beer and wings on Tuesday night for the Cherry Hawks.

You know why I don't know that? Because I never won you gotta go lower you gotta keep bringing those letters lower that's the trick maybe i gotta stop what letter do you play you're too high yeah come to d and then uh yeah that's where that's where you're gonna be the world's tallest midget the toughest clown in the circus can you do me a favor this because muzzin the captain of the cherry Hawks, would get a kick out of it. Hang on. Any relation to Jake Muzzin?

Old Susanne Marie Greyhound, now LA King? I like Jake Muzzin, yeah. It might be a relation somewhere. 26 minutes last night. Wow, yeah. He's going to be a good one. Can you give a big shout-out to the Cherry Hawks? Go Cherry Hawks.

Division C? No, D. D. Division D champions. Free beer and chicken wings for you boys. Well-deserved. Win or lose, hit the booze. That's the men's league mantra.

I'm going to cut that out and send it to him. It'll make him a happy guy. How'd you come up with that freaking name? That's his name. First of all, we all like, and I know for good reason, we all like the Blackhawks jersey, but we can't be Blackhawks because we're all Die Hard Leaf fans. So I think he just took Don Cherry.

He was a big Don. He still is, and we all are Die Hard Leaf fans. So I think he just took Don Cherry. He was a big Don. He still is. And we all are a Don Cherry fan. And we'll talk about that in a bit. Took Don Cherry and merged it with the Hawks on the jersey. So we wear Blackhawk jerseys and we're called the Cherry Hawks. Do you wear like tartan jerseys?

Is there anything sort of tartan on the jersey? No, nothing tartan. It's a complete Blackhawks traditional jersey. And it's all Canadian made equipment, I hope. I hope so, yeah. I hope no one's wearing like, no one's wearing Jofa. No Jofa's out there.

No one's wearing Jofa equipment. Was that Matt Sandin who was wearing that? Sure, man, Matt Sandin. It wasn't Gretzky wearing that or no? Oh, yeah, Gretzky wore the old Jofa, Marty Mixon. Essentially, which is a glorified napkin on your head. Like, I don't know what kind of protection you really get from those things.

It's true. Although, you know, I have a collection of them. I have a collection of old Jofa helmets. Do you? Really? I used to bid, man, I had too much time on my hands when I was single. I would bid on eBay for old Jofa helmets.

And there was this one. Unbelievable. A pink one that I really won. And I lost. I tapped out at, I think, about 150 to 160 bucks. I lost to a guy in Red Deer who wanted, I'm like, who the F wants maybe it was ron mcclain joe for helmet that's right from red deer the old red deer weatherman um maybe i don't know that

ron shares my love of joe for helmets as much as he loves the love of graph skates is that what he he's got the old t-blade okay don was actually talking about him on coaches the other day he's got the t-blades he can't sneak up on anybody the men's league men's league hockey skate uh speaking of freddie p a moment ago uh he was on this podcast and he spoke very warmly about mojo and said it could have been a great format and they didn't give it a shot 100 agree when you have a format like that you're essentially doing to your marketplace what you do to a golfer when you try to change his swing it's it's uh uncomfortable and at times it's painful and at times it's awkward. But, you know, it's the right thing to do.

And I thought the Mojo format, you know, had a lot of room to grow and had a lot of room to grow up. I think it started as, you know, talk radio for guys and there's a lot of, you know, beer and broads and parties and laughs and all that. And I thought sort of under that umbrella, you know, the way you grow that and they never let them do this was you know you can mature it up and it's okay to talk about things like politics because that's what guys do but the mantra for mojo from day one is oh no it's uh it's too heavy you know was it like trying to be maxim magazine basically 100 yeah that's the vibe you nailed it this had to be maxim maxim magazine and i think they actually used that at the launch party i think that's kind of how they described it this is maxim magazine on the radio maxim comes out once a month and you look a little

bit of jiggle and then you put it away i never even 24 i bored it bored me man at least there's better articles in playboy absolutely true and because they were thoughtful like there's only so long you can smart there's only so long you can chew bubble gum like after a while you want to actually have a meal you could dig uh hot chicks and smart i remember because we would do and uh freddie and humble and i would get in these conversations every now and then on their morning show like i'd be in the newsroom and this is when you know the the imminent invasion of iraq was happening and we'd have these discussions me a little pinko boy saying oh there's probably no wmds here and let's listen to what hans blix has to say and right and you know and and it's funny because freddie mentioned

saying yeah you know what, years later realize that you're right and all that, blah, blah, blah, blah. Oh, at least he did that because he never does that with me when I'm right.

On his podcast. He thinks I'm a pinko so I'm taking your spot, baby. Okay, you're the new pinko. You're the new Merrick. The new pinko in town. But like, we would have like,

you know, conversations about it on the air and coming back always from programming was, you know, guys, can't you just, you know, talk about like cars or something? You know is morning radio people don't want to think

but the thing is like that's what sticks to it that's what makes you stick to a radio station like if you can if you can make someone you know i always thought that if you can tell someone something they didn't know that they keep coming back from look at the numbers for metro morning uh do you ever listen to metro morning? I love Gallop, man. Listen to, yeah, he's great and Barry was great. And you look at those numbers, those monster numbers, people, because they make you think and they provoke thought and make you, teach you things.

I love that show. If you can take something away from a program and make it your own, and then that night, either to your wife, to your husband, to your coworker, to anybody, to your cat, to the neighbor, if you can take that information and make it your own, you'll keep coming back for more of that. Yes. Like that to me seems like a sound business model. Like it doesn't have to have like a pretension around it.

Like it really doesn't. Like one of the best podcasts out there to learn things and challenge yourself is the Joe Rogan podcast. Like one of the best podcasts out there to learn things and challenge yourself is a Joe Rogan podcast. Like Rogan's podcast is, and he gets written off as, oh, he's a, you know, a heavy ink and, you know, shaved head, you know, a UFC guy, blah, blah, blah. But it's one of the most thoughtful podcasts that you will listen to with like a wide range of guests. Like some of the times it's just like comedians and it's having fun and Joey Diaz comes on. and it's having fun and Joey Diaz comes on. It's one of the funniest things you'll ever listen to. Between that to having like Honey Honey Band on or having, you know, someone who's, you know, talking about treating post-traumatic stress disorder

with MDMA and the use of psychedelic drugs. Like it is a fascinating podcast to listen to. Like there are so many, there's so much information out there. I remember Bob Lefsetz talking about this at a talk once. You know, there's a lot of information out there, but people are really busy in their lives. They need a place that brings it all together or as much of it together that resonates with them as possible. And I think if you can do that as a podcast or as a radio station or as a radio department or anything like that, that it's a, it's one of the sort of surefire ways that

you're going to develop an audience more so than handing out the big ticket at the fan 590 back in 1995 come listen to our radio station so they pulled the plug on this mojo too early didn't let it too soon but you know one of the problems was though i mean i it was when when when h and f left like in a lot of ways that was the entire spirit of the radio of of the radio station and i think you know when when when humble and fred left i think that was the moment where i was like all right i think we need to really redo something because there's a lot. I always thought that that was going to – like Humble and Fred were going to take Mojo Radio from talk radio for guys to talk radio for men. And that was going to be the eventual evolution of Mojo Radio, and it was going to grow up with his audience. Like radio stations have to make a couple of decisions as to what to do with their demographic.

have to make a couple of decisions to what to do with their demographic. Do you stay in one place and just have that demographic come through and be with you for a little while and then move on? Or do you take where you are and grow up with them? I mean, CFRB did that for years. And last time I checked, it really worked for CFRB. And they're still dining out on that reputation of being that talk leader. And I always thought that mojo could do that too and that's where the it had room to grow from talk radio for guys to talk radio for men and as much as you think of uh of howard and freddie as you know the the funny goofy guys that make you laugh those are two fucking smart guys and i think they could have taken that to talk radio for men absolutely absolutely uh tell me about the uh your role with bill waters on leafs lunch like so that's post Is that post?

That's after Mojo, right? You've changed the talk. There's so many program directors. There's so many format changes. This is your life, Jeff Merritt. I know, and I can't even remember half of it. Damn you, drugs. Damn you, alcohol. This would have been 640 Toronto,

I think it was branded at that point. I can see the logo now. They had the Maple Leafs rights, and they wanted to do as much with the Maple Leafs as possible. And actually, part of this was an idea with John Shannon, who was running Leafs TV at that time. And Bill Waters had been dismissed as assistant

general manager. He was a free agent, has a background in broadcasting, also an agent before that. He used to do Maple Leafs play-by-play with Joe Bowen. And so he became a free agent. It was a little bidding war between 640 and the fan for Bill Waters' services. 640 got him. And John Shannon had this idea of taking this idea of a noon-hour radio property

and simulcasting it on TV, on Leafs TV. And it's going to be Monday to Friday, two hours a day. A great way to create what we know. I mean, how many radio shows are on TV? Well, now Tim and Sid are on TV. Keep going, man. Bob McCown. Bob McCown. Howard Stern used to do that way back hours a day. Great way to create what we know. I mean, how many radio shows are on TV? Well, now Tim and Sid are on TV. Keep going, man. Bob McCown. Howard Stern used to do that way back in the day.

Yeah, I mean, in New York City as well, like on WFA. I mean, the Yes Network has all that kind of stuff as well. So John, rightfully so, said, you know, there's an appetite for this. And so that became that property. And I was, at that time, still with 640 uh running this tiny little sports department which essentially was me talking to all the affiliates for the maple east radio network trying to gouge a couple hundred bucks out of them to take our games which i always got met with uh no uh we'll just give you the airtime which was fine because we had plenty of you know sponsors

to go along with it so uh 640 made its money back and so that became uh that became my gig after when it when it was first sort of done demo style the original hosts of leaf's lunch because it was that summer they tried it out were andrew crystal and jim koshan for about a month before that ended they picked it up again with with me and billy waters and sort of rebranded that hour cool and that was a lot of fun that was a good time. And then I did that until 2007. That September I got a call from Scott Moore, who I've known for years, and he was the head of CBC Sports at that time,

saying, you know, we're launching a new property called Hocking. This is all done at Dunn's, by the way, Dunn's Restaurant on King Street right near John. So he said, hey, Jeff, I want to have breakfast with you one day. And so we picked a day and met him at Dunn's restaurant on King Street right near John. So he said, hey, Jeff, I want to have breakfast with you one day. And so we picked a day and met him at Dunn's and I show up and there's Scott. Expect to see Scott and there's Joel Darling beside him. Okay. Like, we need to speak to you confidentially about something.

I'm like, holy shit, what the F is all this about? They want to talk to you about that Harold Ballard thing. Yeah, so yeah, exactly. It's come to our attention recently. And so he laid out this plan for uh hockey night in canada radio um satellite service on sirius uh daily two-hour show with uh people from hockey night on it so kelly rudy and cassie and ron and don and uh simmer and all the people you see on hockey night uh and they were looking for a host and would i be interested and at that point the uh the afternoon show was just launching with bill uh the bill waters show um and i was

sort of at a point in my career where i kind of said to myself i kind of need to do something by myself at this point like i can't i can't just be second banana or whatever i can't i want to i want to try to do something on my own and i want to try to do something that's that's just mine as opposed to being and jeff you know i wanted to try to get the and in front of my name out of in front of my name right right and try and try to do something else and so that was that was a nice challenge plus you know mike how the hell do you turn down hockey night in canada like that's the big brand because yeah and it was like so the the job description was um was threefold it was do the radio show it was do i think it was five or six rinkside games for hockey night rinkside i remember

i remember seeing you on the crazy yeah saturday night there's jeff i remember my first uh december 29 2007 uh ron mclean i'm in ottawa doing the the capitol senators games and 6 32 mclean throws to me i'm doing interview bench side with ovechkin, and I had that pause for a second like, holy shit, I'm on Hockey Night in Canada thanks Ron, so Alex but there was a split moment where like, your whole life you never think that's going to happen, and I kind of died

so it was the radio, it was the he was doing Hockey Night in Canada TV show, and it was also doing the Beijing games, which CBC at that point still had the rights to. Oh, and you did judo. I did judo. I did.

I was contracted for five sports. But what you realize when you do the Olympics is that's just a starting point. I ended up doing like 12 different sports. Okay. Like by the end, I was doing – I remember my last – I ended up doing gymnastics. I ended up doing trampoline, table tennis, which I freaking love. Those guys are rocks. If you can do table tennis in any Olympics, do it in China

because those guys are Beatles come to America in 1964. They get out of freaking limos. The prime minister is there and the place is packed. It's a big deal. It's huge. And I ended up doing – by the end, I was doing like – I ended up doing rowing. A lot of it is just mixed zone stuff.

Three-meter springboard diving. I'm like, what the hell do I know about three-meter springboard diving know about three meters okay here's my i know this is kind of on topic here so you're mr uh wrestling guy okay and you're like this authority on wrestling and then you did an amazing job of rebranding yourself as like this hockey guy like all of us but i've always been a hockey guy that's the thing so so you were always a hockey guy and you were always a wrestling guy or it's funny because maple leaf Gardens to me, because I would go to Maple Leaf Gardens all the time. My dad would take me to see Marley's games, Maple Leaf's games,

and Toronto Toro's games. Toro's, right. I was a huge fan of the Toronto. That was my first hockey love was the Toronto Toro's, going to see those games. Loved it. And I would also go to wrestling at Maple Leaf Gardens. There was the tiny shows that would run,

and then once a month on a Sunday, Sheik would run, Iron Sheik, mainly main events like Tiger Jeet Singh and Bobo Brazil. So I always looked at Maple Leaf Gardens. It's funny because some people look at it as like the mecca of hockey in Toronto. And it is. And other people look at it as the mecca of wrestling because it is as well. And I always kind of looked at it as both. And so I was always living in both those worlds. Like one afternoon, I'd go see the Marlboros play the sudbury wolves and then later that night i was coming back to watch the iron chic face off

against you know uh bobo brazil that's not a bad uh not a bad life uh it's great that's great you think back but it's a funny thing too is like i'm like nine years old and mom and dad like yeah let's go take a subway go on here's a couple tickets that's cool and we're this what neck of the high part at that point i've been a high park guy my whole college okay there was one one two years where i bought a house out in the beaches um when i was dating josie die of the edge we bought a house and well you're gonna come back to this point you know yeah she's a uh polarizing figure she is in toronto radio we'll get her i hate her i love her okay we're gonna get to this but um okay so i i just you know because high park my kid played baseball there for years are you in Toronto Radio. Love her or hate her, I love her. We're going to get to this. High Park, my kid played baseball there for years.

Me too. Yeah, it's a beautiful field. He was my coach, him and Dick Perry. Me and Bob Mappas, they coached the Orioles. They cut me and I got cut from the majors at High Park. I went off and played softball, by the way. Softball's fun. Any sport you can play and eat at the funniest stories. I went off to play softball, by the way. But go ahead. Softball's fun. Hey, man, that's cool. Any sport you can play and eat at the same time.

I'm all for that. Dick Perry and Ernie Keith. So did you have either of those guys as coaches? Never. Did you know them? No, I got cut. Oh, you got cut. I got cut.

And I ended up playing at Rennie Park. It's a softball at Rennie Park. No offense. Just keep going. Keep running for that ball. That's perfect for me. So it's a Sunday morning baseball practice. It's 9 o'clock in the morning.

And Dick Perry's there. And we're waiting for Ernie Keith, our other coach, to show up. And so me and Bob are throwing the ball back and forth, me and Matt Kowitz. And Ernie finally shows up. And Dick goes over to him and goes, oh, man, you look terrible. What did you do last night? And me and Bob are standing beside him. And Ernie goes, oh, man, rough one. How's it a barbecue until 5 o'clock did you do last night? And me and Bob were standing beside him, and Ernie goes, oh, man, rough one.

How's it a barbecue until 5 o'clock in the morning last night? And Bob looked at me. We still do this to each other. Bob looked at me and goes, Jeff, who can eat until 5 o'clock in the morning? It's true. You learn later on, yeah, I just get hammered until 5 o'clock in the morning. And coaching baseball like he's Buttermaker in the Bad News Bears. That's funny. Who could eat until 5 o'clock in the morning. Then coaching baseball like he's Buttermaker in the Bad News Bears. That's funny.

Who could eat till 5 o'clock in the morning? That's good. Okay, I was going to say, actually, I'm from Jane and Annette. Okay. That's where I was raised, Jane and Annette. You're new to Baby Point. Yeah, absolutely. Did you ever meet Yuri Sira, former Maple Leafs goaltender?

No. You live on Baby Point? He lived there? Yep, good friends of mine. Do you know it's Bobby Point? I do. It sounds pretentious, so we all say Baby Point. I know. It's Bobby Point. It's a French guy. Spadina, not friends of mine. Do you know it's Bobby Point? I do. It sounds pretentious, so we all say Baby Point. I know.

But it's Bobby Point. It's a French guy. Spadina, not Spadina. I heard it's called Spadina House, but for some reason I thought the street was Spadina. But there's a Spadina House, but I could be wrong. But Bobby Point, it was a French guy, and he was definitely Bobby, not Baby. Bobby, not Baby. Right.

The other great Spadina slash Spadina store, you know One Spadina Crescent? Yeah. He's part of the U of T building. You know what that houses the world's largest collection of? No. Ready for this? Yeah. I love this.

I learned this from – it was an online magazine. It was a trespassing magazine. What was it called? Oh, damn it. Infiltration.com or.ca. I don't think it's there anymore. One of the guys died doing an infiltration deal and breaking in somewhere, but great e-zine. It houses the world's largest collection of,

and think about this, Mike, every time you drive past it. I'm ready. Human eyeballs. Oh, I had no idea. Vats upon vats upon vats. We could have spent all day guessing. I wasn't going to get to that. Of human eyeballs. So next time you're driving down College Street

and you look up and you see one Spadina or one Spadina Crescent, you see that big old gothic-looking place. When I was at U of T, I didn't eat eyeballs, but Papa Chios, I think that's how you pronounce it. There's a looking place when i'm at ufp i went to i didn't eat eyeballs but uh papa chios i think that's how you pronounce it there's a pizza place there called papa chios and i went there like at least once a week what's the other because there's two there's two in a row yeah papa chios was it wasn't the one that me and mackowitz always then the other one i was but they were two in a row because there was one of them there oh i remember this is the funniest the funniest pizza order i ever had yeah it was

um it's like three or four o'clock in the morning and uh me and mackiewicz and someone else they're all hammered up and wanted to order a pizza but no one was delivering at that time right and we called one of those places what's the other one called damn it as we called one of those places and like you still delivering goes oh yeah for sure you can tell he's the owner right sure old italian guy and so we placed it. We're like, oh, sweet, man. We're getting pizza. The best line of all time.

He goes, okay, it's going to be, I don't know, like 23.50 or something like that. And then we said, how long is it going to take? He goes, ah, 30 minutes or it's late. Yeah. Not 30 minutes or it's free or 30 minutes. No, just 30 minutes or it's late. That's a great slogan. That's great.

30 minutes or it's late. That's great. Okay. So now, oh, yeah. oh yeah so josie die real quick so now there's a new morning show on 102.1 branded diamond and die yeah i got a tweet from diamond i had he's a scottish guy yeah i haven't heard i talked to josie a week before we still talk talk all the time um i talked to her about a week before it happened and she told me that hey man she uh she got the excitement when I did the thingy with Rogers for the new gig. She says, hey, I may have some big news soon. Give me a buzz in a couple weeks.

And so I called her up, and I'm like, what's going on? She's on her way to her cottage. She's like, yeah, it's starting next week. We got the morning. I don't know Diamond at all. No, I don't know. Apparently, he was on Q107 or something, and he left. She told me that, too.

I think I've heard him before. I only know from comments. I write an entry about this, and then commenters fill me in on all the crap I had no idea about. So yeah, apparently Diamond was Q107 and then, yeah. I've learned more stuff just by putting up a tiny little tweet. Like that's the wonderful thing about the internet. It is the greatest. Innocent feedback.

Oh man, it is like such easy research. God bless you people. So Josie, I had no idea you dated her. like such easy research god bless you people so josie i had no idea you dated her so uh because i get i'm i've become sort of this like guy people comes to to for toronto radio stuff okay i just somehow has evolved over the last 11 years and particularly 102.1 because that was my station for a very long time so i write a lot about it a lot i write about fearless fred i'll write about whatever dean blendel whatever uh martin streak all this stuff people come to me right tell so josie die uh people some people just can't

stand her and they can never articulate why yeah and i mean i think i think it's because she's an attractive blonde and i think they've given there's some kind of and i'm gonna say it i feel like because she's an attractive blonde they're deciding she's ditzy yes agree 100 and you know what jose is um a really fun loving person um who likes to who sort of attacks every day with an authenticity and an energy about her and she isn't shy about the one thing i'll always say about josie is she goes at everything without fear and she will take a lot of chances and that's how she grows as a person that's the best way to grow is go and fuck up a lot of shit go and really you know really really mess up and josie whether it's you know singing an anthem and messing it up yeah which i posted that one yeah

right yeah like she but she will go and do it like and i remember talking to her after i was like oh god i'm so embarrassed and i was like i was talking to him like talking to her off the ledge i'm like josie like you went and did that like everybody who's you know slamming you for doing that how many times have you jumped out of a plane and she went back to to do it again right yeah totally like she josie is this wonderful person who puts herself like she's always been the first person like she's worked harder for whatever she's gotten and she sacrificed a ton and she's like put up with a lot of crap in her life in order to get where she is and she's fought for all of it the fact that she still is as optimistic a person as she is right now and can be that person not just on the air but off the air to me is remarkable the amount of shit that she's

gone through and the amount she's been on that station a long time for radio that's an eternity she i mean not that everything is all about q scores and stuff but i mean she she like not that everything is about focus tests because please don't get me started on right the bane of radio and all the media really but um but people overwhelmingly like her but the people that don't are really vocal about it like your point is right she's a galvanizing like she's one of those people that if you know her you can't not like her because she's just that person and if you like her like hey man i like josie die i'm gonna listen to josie die but if you don't like that it's passionate oh man which is the howard strewn effect it's it's it's that's good it's better than indifference it's torches of the castle gate i couldn't agree with you more yeah like the worst thing you know the word because i mean i work in sports and when people

complain about me i like it because the minute they stop then I've become irrelevant listen I as I told you I got my finger on the pulse not many people and maybe you'll be disappointed to hear I don't get any Jeff Merrick complaints are few and far between but trust me dude when I drive the national package in the ditch next year yeah well we're gonna get that in a second after the cliff I'm going over time and you said I could so I have you on the record again. And I gotta get back to Josie but Mike Wilner, okay, ever met him? Yeah, I see him all the time around the station.

That guy, I get daily, I get comments to the site or emails about how much they can't stand him. Because he has an air... The nature is an arrogance. He's got an arrogant tone where a caller will call in and he'll say that's not true and

there's some kind of people say it's condescending i'm just going to quote people yeah a condescending tone that's not true he hit 462 against left-handed batters on saturdays all last year and then people keep bringing up and then i don't i wouldn't hold this against him because my crystal ball uh never works as well as it should but he he was against the batista signing in 09 okay based on his previous history which how can you fault a guy all you have is previous history you know you can't predict what happened to batista so a lot of people find out the bottom line is arrogant that's the vibe i get that's a continuous threat is uh condescending arrogance yeah see i i try to look look past it's

hard to look past tone and i think a lot of people sort of but i like i like the condescending arrogance because i to me he he's an authority like he he does talk numbers it's not like vibes and feelings he backs it up with numbers and there's maybe it's cocky i don't mind an authority person having that swagger yeah when they have the numbers to back up what they're saying that's fair i mean i go at things a different way like when i talk talk to someone or I, it's maybe it's, it's, it's phony, but in the back of my mind,

um, whenever I'm, you know, doing the podcast or wherever I'm on less, less so on television, cause that's more of a presentation than a podcast. We really sort of mining for things and trying to figure things out. Um,

I go into sort of every conversation in my life, like, and I'll do the same thing with you, Mike and anyone that I meet. And I'm in Chicago this weekend, meet a whole bunch of new people. I'm going out Saturday night with a crew from the Blackhawks. I know the exact same thing.

I go into every single conversation. This is why I would be bad at call and radio. I go into every conversation with sports fans specifically thinking this. You know something that I don't know. How can I find out what that is? I go into every conversation saying, because I'm not arrogant to the point where I think that I know everything cause I know that I don't.

And I'm eyes wide open about where I'm at as a broadcaster. And I think that my pitch is too high. And I think that I speak too fast and I'm probably speaking too fast. Your pitch is too high? A little bit too nasally. Howard called me a woman for the first 10 episodes. But I go into every conversation thinking that I can learn something from everybody. And I think for, I mean, for me that works because that's why I don thinking that I can learn something from everybody. And I think for,

I mean, for me that works because that's why I don't think I can ever be, you know, the authoritative voice of anything because shit, I don't know anything like compared to like, I still think I have a ton to learn and I got a lot to learn from you. And I got a lot to learn from anyone. I talked to you from doing this podcast.

I got a lot to learn from someone I'm going to talk to at the blue Jays game tonight. Like I go into everything thinking, all right, I'm gone fishing. But what do you do when that guy, when the fan comes up to you and says, why don't we package just Gardner, Kadri, and a first rounder for Duchesne? Or something like that.

Like, what do you say to a guy like that? Say that Patrick Watt would never make that deal. So you just... I think that... Because Wilner would probably say something like... I don't know i'm not going to quote what he might say but something a little more condescending than that yeah i mean i i would i would look at and i'd sort of say okay well so what are you exactly offering for matthew

shane and what sort of okay what first of all what quality do you point on someone like matthew shane who still hasn't reached anywhere close to the player he's going to be right like look at that skill set and then i would say now imagine if mat deshane were already on the maple leafs would you trade him for cadre and gardner if they were on the colorado avalanche i'd say you know just just flip it because and it's not listen they have their leaf blinders on and but the thing is that's true of every market i know because we live in the air in the market that we think oh it's leaf blinders but you know what but red wings fans overvalue their assets penguins fans overvalue their assets kings fans vancouver canucks fans everybody overvalues what they have

so the two i want to chat about this rogers deal because that's the big sexy thing everyone's talking about in 2014 you're directly you're just see me on that on that podium i saw you on the stage i was i was it was like i was watching a tennis match. There's Don? There's George? Bit player, this modesty is good. You're a key part. I was at the Todd Shapiro show last week and they do it on the same floor as Hockey Night in Canada radio.

I was going on the Todd Shapiro show and Hockey Night in Canada has this floor and there's these massive posters everywhere and you're right there just an FYI so you're all over really yeah

that's hilarious the Sirius XM on Liberty Street no way so I don't know if you're going on Todd's show but you'll see yourself

you're there well look how oh look there's my navel oh yeah I have posters all over my room of myself so okay

now we're going to get to Rogers how long did you date Josie Dye for? A couple of years. And how long ago? 2005 to 2007. She's a fox.

I'm not surprised you scored a fox. I'm just... Oh, I'm shocked. You should see Claire. Claire's gorgeous. I know what she's doing slumming it with me. Oh, I'm not even...

Yeah, I wouldn't... I've never met your... Shallow charisma will get you far. Trust me. That's about it. Speak quickly. Speak quickly. Speak quickly. Yeah, Josie's gorgeous.

And you know what? She's got – honestly, the greatest thing about Josie is outside of the person that she is, and she's gorgeous. But her family – But if this girl's so wonderful and gorgeous, how come you're not with her today? What's that? That is another great question as well. Why did you buy a house and then and then sell it i mean everything has a life expectancy um and this was two years this was ours ours was

ours was two years ours was two years but the thing about it is like to this day mike like we're awesome like we talk on the phone like once every week or once every two weeks send text that's close like we're good friends and the great part part about Jo's too is her dad is one of the funniest guys I've ever met. Bob, Bob Dye. Everybody should meet and have a beer with Bob Dye. Okay. Everyone should meet him. I'll put him on the podcast.

Get him on the podcast. You want to know what a passionate hockey fan? Yeah. I don't think I've ever met anyone who's as passionate as Bob Dye. Okay. Hands down. Cool. I mentioned earlier Cherry Hawks coach Mike Muzzin, who's a friend of mine,

and he's been on my show. He said to me, he doesn't like Dan Faneuf, not alone. A lot of people don't like Dan Faneuf. He speaks well of you, Mike. Why don't you say that? I actually don't have a problem with Dan Faneuf, but Muzzin says Faneuf should be the,

this is a quote from him. I could extract this audio if I weren't so lazy. He should be the fourth best defenseman on the Leafs. He doesn't say that. So I don't understand how, because I admit he's not Team Canada worthy, but I don't understand how you could ever put together a team where Phaneuf is your number four. I think he can play on the second pairing.

Put it this way. i remember i had a conversation i'm gonna i'm gonna go i'm gonna go around yeah yeah go ahead go ahead go around for a point because i gotta ask what his contract too maybe you can incorporate that in there but i mean they're what are you gonna do like go of a defenseman like these it's the hardest thing you don't like lower defense this is this is it yeah okay so let me go around a little story so bobby hulik is a good friend of mine i've known bobby for years you know former devil ranger thrasher um great guy uh i remember talking to him we were having dinner about a year and a half ago and we're out we're talking about the new york situation how he you know uh his then agent mike gillis you know cut a you know bid sort of played toronto and the

rangers off against each other and drove up his price tag to like $9.5 million on a long-term deal as well. And I said, how come things never really worked out in New York with the Rangers? I mean, you're Stanley Cup champion with the New Jersey Devils. By the way, the first time he ever had a drop of alcohol in his life was when the Devils won the Stanley Cup and he sipped champagne from it. It's only the first time he ever drank alcohol. So he said, because I was like, you're so wildly successful with the New Jersey Devils. And Matt Sundin wants you on the Maple Leafs.

Everyone hates playing against you. These big body lead on guys. And he said, because Bobby, his eyes open wide about who he is, what kind of player. He's a really honest person about everything around him and himself. He's a wonderful guy. Everyone should meet Bobby Hulik in their life. After Bob die. After Bob die, you got to meet bobby holic we'll start sending

the podcast guests so and strong holic tells me yeah i'll see if strong we'll text it back hold on um holic tells me it says jeff it's really simple if bobby holic is your third line center and that was new jersey if bobby holic is your third line center we're going to win the stanley cup if bobby holic is your first line center we're're going to win the Stanley Cup. If Bobby Hulik is your first line center, we're not going to win the Stanley Cup. And that was the difference between Bobby Hulik on the Devils and Bobby Hulik on the Rangers. And as that relates to Dion Phaneuf, I think Mike's got a point in that if Dion Phaneuf is your number one defenseman, you're probably not going to win the Stanley Cup. I mean, that's like Drew Doughty territory.

That's Duncan Keith, Sudeno Chara territory. That's the way the Stanley Cup. I mean, that's like Drew Doughty territory. That's Duncan Keith, Zidane O'Chara territory. That's who wins the Stanley Cup. But if Dion Phaneuf is a secondary pairing guy and doesn't have the C, which is a really galvanizing thing for people, then I think people are more palatable with Dion Phaneuf. But I think that if he were your second best defenseman, that you would have a pretty solid blue line. Good chance, yep. Because, I mean, I don't know if he ranked these, but what... And here's a question, too.

You have to ask yourself, too, for all the Dion Phaneuf haters out there, how much is his game hampered by playing with Carl Gunnarsson? Like, let's not forget here, this isn't Leach and Zuboff. Like, he's not playing with an elite level defenseman, right? He's not playing puck on a string here. So I don't like Dion Phaneuf in his own zone. That's my main problem with Dion Phaneuf in his own zone is I think his recovery time is too slow.

But I say that about every Maple Leafs player. Cody Franzen may be worse, but I find for Dion Phaneuf is number one. But you see that assist on the first Boston goal last week. Oh, I know, I know. It's a thing of beauty. And I told my son was there watching the game with me, and I said, you know, I'd be so disappointed if he made that same play. Oh, I know, I know. It's a thing of beauty. And I told my son was there watching the game with me and I said, you know,

I'd be so disappointed if he made that same play. Like, use the boards. But like, FNF is interesting because this is what happens when you force something onto a marketplace.

And there was no hue and cry for Dion FNF to be the captain. And I'll tell you exactly when it happened. Tell me. The exact, because I talked to someone who was in the room. Okay. The moment the Maple Leafs made Dion Phaneuf captain

was his first game as a Maple Leaf. Which I was at. Okay, so Montreal Canadiens, yeah. No, the New Jersey Devils game. Oh, yeah, well, I remember being at his first game, because it was also Jaguar's first game, or am I merging history here? I'm pretty sure Because it was the game against New Jersey

and I'm almost positive... Okay. It might have been New Jersey. I know that I was in... Because Ford Canada gave me seats and I was thinking, this is a shitty game because it just wasn't looking forward to it.

And then the big trades happened. Right. More than one because the Jaguar trade happened too. Yes. In my brain. And I remember Jaguar started and FNUF, I remember,

he got a penalty and I took a picture. I was right beside the penalty box and I remember Jaguar started, and FNUF, I remember he got a penalty, and I took a picture. I was right beside the penalty box. And I remember tweeting or blogging that it was FNUF's first game as a Leaf. Really? Yeah, I got to go. Okay, so maybe it wasn't. I do have the internet here.

I can probably check this out. I know, if we weren't so freaking lazy, we could just check it out. We're pretty freaking lazy. Okay, but it is against the New Jersey Devils. Okay, okay. In my tiny little pea brain, I have it against the New Jersey Devils. Okay, that's possible. But I'm dumb.

You know what? I'm dumb, too. I've it against the New Jersey Devils. Okay, that's possible. But I'm dumb. You know what? I'm dumb too. I've drank a lot of my brain away. So, Dion Phaneuf steps up and hammers Colin White. And they throw down and Phaneuf owns him. Like, starches Colin White. No, it's Colin White. Okay? It's not Donald Brashear. It's not

George LaRock. No, it's not like Bob Probert. It's like, it's Colin White. And Brian Burke comes down after the game and says, that's our captain right there did you see that game the big hit fight and that was it boys we can't do it right now but that's going to be our captain and i think the entire like there there was a groundswell for dougie and wendell and matt definitely those three guys when they put the C on Dion Phaneuf, I think the whole marketplace went, why?

Yeah. Like, where is it? And it really felt like it was forced on Maple Leafs fans. I think you're right. They hold that letter sacred. I mean, all markets do. But in Toronto,

they really hold that letter sacred because you're carrying on a tradition, you know, that goes, I mean, Armstrong, Sittler, Keon. Like, it's pretty, like, like Matt said, like, it's a big deal. Armstrong, Sittler, Keon. It's pretty like the Matts. It's a big deal.

Even, like you mentioned, Wendell, Doug, and Matts. A recent note. Like, that's it, right? Yeah. So, Kennedy. There's another one. Peter. Yeah.

So, it almost seemed as if Leafs fans were in some ways kind of offended that they would put that letter on that player. Like he hadn't earned it yet. At that time. Like hadn't earned it yet. At that time. Like, you're right. Like, give him a couple years to establish a rep. All right.

Yeah, we're cool with that guy being our captain. And I think right from there, he really got off on the wrong. And it wasn't his fault. Right. Like, how do you turn down the C? You can't. You can't do that. So it's almost as if he got off on the wrong foot, almost from the get-go with Maple Leafs fans.

And as we've seen before countless times, and Ackie Berg, I'm looking your direction, Larry Murphy, Brian McCabe, for whatever reason. Whipping boys. And it's always a defenseman. Maple Leafs fans always pick a defenseman to beat on relentlessly. And Deion has just sort of stepped into that line right now. That's right.

I did sound smug when I said that. No, you weren't. That was not Mike Wilner-ish of you. By the way, my entry, did you ever read my site ever? Toronto Mice? Yes, of course. I wrote a whole thing. Am I the only one who likes Mike Wilner? Sometimes I feel like

I'm the only one who likes him because you never hear a good thing about Wilner. Everybody's shitting on him. It's weird when I hear comments about other broadcasters because and I understand that everyone doesn't have this relationship with them but I see these guys all the time. I know them on a different

personal level, not a performance level. There's a Rogers family. And there's a Bell family and there's a chorus family and like we all know people everywhere you know like i'll catch up with like bob mckenzie like you know we're tweeting when all the rogers stuff initially happened and like this idea that there are sort of walls and no one talks to each other is stupid like everybody does i'll remember the uh the kiprios he thought it was a dm but it went out on twitter uh about those fuckers at tsn keep trying to discredit me my favorite tweet of the year i think it was his angst yeah i think it was bob mckenzie who wrote him back and said uh that wasn't a dm and last and last year i think bob uh referenced that in his farewell uh tweet uh as he as he shut it down for the summer to go to his cottage so

that that is tweet that lives in infamy. And you know what? Kipper still laughs. Every now and then we'll just be sitting around the green room watching games and it'll just come up and we'll blast Nicky about it. Let's go down this, just talk about this Rogers deal now to get this out of the way. I couldn't have you

in my studio without doing this. So, okay, so in our chronological history of jeff merrick we have you now at host of hockey central and sports net so that's today right uh yeah and i mean i do the merrick washinsky podcast i host hockey central and whatever other various regional games for sports net so one quick question when you jumped from cbc to rogers um there was some talk that you might wind up at tSN. So I guess one question is what goes into the process of deciding

where's the best fit for Merrick? You don't sleep for about a month and you talk to everyone from your partner to your German shepherd on long walks. Who I've met, by the way. You know, both sheps have passed away. No.

How old were they? They were both 11 and 12. have passed away no we had two two great shepherds uh they were both uh 11 and 12 caesar passed away of cancer and then actually schultz our other german shepherd passed away one day before we moved which one did i meet big prop you met uh you met caesar okay you met caesar great dog yeah i know i love those german shepherds we have a husky now uh deacon who's another great dog uh we'll get german shepherds again somewhere down the road because those are the finest dogs man i love chefs um so what goes into that decision is best opportunity more than anything else. Like when I left CBC, like I could have stayed at Hockey Night in Canada and still done like the iDesk, which was like 20 seconds a weekend.

Talk over scenic, throwback to Ron, which was fun and great and it's cool, man. You're on freaking Hockey Night in Canada. How do cool man you're on freaking hockey night in canada and how do i deserve to be on hockey night in canada i i don't what i needed at that point in my career was the opportunity to get more reps to get more reps on television i've done radio for a number of years and i was still a really amateur television broadcaster i still think i am like i still think i have a lot of things to learn i have a lot of things to learn. I have a lot of things to pay attention to. I have a lot of opportunity. I have opportunity. I have areas to grow.

Hopefully, I can get there if I work at it. But Sportsnet offered me that opportunity, whether it's doing the Hockey Central show, like the recap show, whether it's doing regional games, whether it's doing specials. They had position for me to do all that. Where TSN is, I mean, that's a full shop. Like they, and that's a loaded hockey department. So what it ultimately came down to was where was I going to get the most opportunities to get at bats?

And that was sports. And plus I have a fierce loyalty to Scott Moore. Like I have a intense loyalty to Scott Moore who initially brought me from 640 to CBC in the first place. Scott Moore. Like I have a intense loyalty to Scott Moore who, uh, initially brought me from six 40 to CBC in the first place. And then when he went to Rogers, uh, or back to Rogers rather brought me from a hockey night,

uh, to the Rogers mix. And then now with this latest thing, this is the hat trick. He's put me on this sort of level as well with strong. Well, Ron and Darren. So,

yeah, so that's the deal. So this deal happens, this mega monstrous Rogers NHL deal. Yeah, so that's the deal. So this deal happens, this mega monstrous Rogers NHL deal. Yeah. And then, like as a guy who knows you a little bit, like we've never gone for a beer, but we know we have mutual friends.

I like beer. We know each other. I like scotch too. I tried scotch. Never got into it. Single mouth. You know, I've got this 18-year-old Glenn Livet at home. And I'll tell you what,

you're going to come over to my house one day. I'm going to pour you a glass. In Stouffville? Sure, yeah. Come on over. Get on your bike. We'll let Mazda protege make it to Stouffville. The rolls can hardly.

Rolls down one hill can hardly make it up the next. I'll get it there. I'm going to pour you a glass of scotch. I'm going to say the same thing that I say to everyone. I pour a glass of scotch of the scotch too. I'm going to say, Mike, one day you're going to die. And when you go to heaven and you meet the big guy, this is what he's going to have on his breath.

And then you'll have the 18-year-old Glenn Lividt, and you'll realize, oh, yes, this is what happens when you die. Right. What are we talking about? I know. I'm envisioning that. I can't wait. Okay, so this is basically the perfect situation for you.

When this deal was announced, I'm like, that fucker Merrick is in the right place at the right time. But that's my whole career. So you got horseshoes up your ass. Honestly, dude, I keep saying this. I didn't go to school for any of this. I wasn't trained for any of this.

And now you're on Toronto Mike to the podcast. Now I'm on Toronto Mike for crying out loud. I was never trained to do this. This wasn't what I was thinking I was ever going to do. Like I got into this career very accidentally. I got into this career because I just finished my BA and I didn't want to go back to work at the cemetery for the summer. And I took a job in promotions at the fan.

And I just stayed around. I just didn't go away. I just hung around. I just kept working. Like throughout my 20ss i'm working for like no money um scraping by eating ramen noodles every day while i'm watching my friends start careers yeah and get married yeah and have families and like a life and i'm doing this goofy overnight show for 30 not individually 30 collectively with strom and McAwish that's actually unbelievable

I just hung in there it has all been I don't take any of it for granted that's why I work as hard as I do because I have been honestly the luckiest guy in this industry I've just been standing in the right place at the right time that's all that this has been

they did roll you out with all the big wigs I guess Don and Ron, Strombo, your old friend Strombo and you reunited in this new Rogers NHL empire. That's what I'm most excited about is I get to work with Georgie again. Except he's a Habs fan. Hey, man. You know what? Georgie's eyes open. Did we ever check for the text?

Oh, yeah. Let's go check. Let's check the text here. If I can announce, start promoting Strombo as a future guest on Toronto Mic'd tell him it's just uh you know southwest Toronto not too far from him not yet not yet okay let me know I just got a note from from Bob Mack was because

he had Tyler Dello you know Tyler Dello MC 79 hockey no analytics guy real smart dude and he just sent me a note saying love Tyler Dello. So that's good. And there's a note from Ed the Sock. Oh, yeah. I reunited him with Howard.

They had a falling out over Ed the Sock. Because Howard Glassman. Yeah, he used to be the host. And I reunited him. You did, eh? Yeah, I was like, I brokered the deal. They're all cool now? They have cool chats now, yeah. I guess, yeah.

So he's, well, Strombo's closing up shop now, I guess. You know, Freddie P's son works on that show. I thought he was at the score. I'm pretty sure he's with the Strombo show. He's at the Strombo show now? Yeah. Are we allowed to say who his girlfriend is? Yeah, go ahead.

Sophia? Yeah, was she on TSN? No, she's with us, you chimp. Come on, Billy Ghost. I don't know. Sophia made me feel really old one day sophia yerkstevich who is this beautiful dear sweet person she's like an unbelievably nice person so uh i'm at 640 with uh i'm doing the bill waters uh program the leaf

lunch show and so we get a new intern and it's sophia oh nice nice to meet you what's your name she's uh sophia yerkstevich hang on a second here because how many times you meet a yerkstovich said your dad isn't a math teacher by any chance and she goes yeah he as a matter of fact he didn't teach at humberside did he goes yeah he's a math teacher he was my grade nine math teacher and mike we all have moments in life where there's the moment where we go from like okay we still think we're young to now we're either getting older are old and that was my moment when my high school met grade nine math teacher his daughter became my intern that was the moment where i said it's official that's now jeff merrick is old my ex went to humberside by the way really what years uh she's now she's 38

so uh so she's younger than me yeah so would have missed her yeah yeah Humberside yeah and I think my kids might go there I loved it I loved every moment of Humberside

it's a I think they're gonna end up going there because they got to go there they had to be bilingual so now they're fluently

they're taking French immersion just to get in because they're Garnet Gray and White is that Garnet Gray and White I went to Michael Powers so I don't know

these things oh you're one of those okay well this podcast is over this podcast is done oh look at the time Garnet Gray and White. Is that right? Garnet Gray and White. I went to Michael Powers, so I don't know these things. Oh, you're one of those. Okay, well, this podcast is over. This podcast is done. Oh, look at the time. Boy, I got to fly Jay's home opener here in a few hours. That's true.

I better get going. Let's see if we can hit this 90-minute mark. So you talked a bit about FNUF. The contract, you think it was too much? Yeah, but what are you going to do? This is my feeling. What are you going to do? You let that walk away and then replace it with what? I think Morgan Riley is going to be a better defenseman than Dion Frenup.

Some would say he already is. But how do you bank on that? We're all speculating about Jake Gardner. We're speculating on Morgan Riley. Right now you have an NHL defenseman who is playing top two minutes on a National Hockey League team. Is it too much for Dion Furno? Probably too much. He's breaking down a bit here.

Probably. I mean, a guy like Dion Furno, I don't think he's well-served playing 28 minutes a game. But, you know, when you have, you know, when you have Morgan Riley and you have Jake Gardner developing and you have, you know, what really helped to decrease the workload for Dion Furno was bringing in Tim Gleason. So Tim Gleason comes in and all of a sudden Dion Phaneuf's ice time is kind of where it should be. Right? I mean, honestly, you can't let go of defense.

Do you overpay for defensemen? Yes. You know who else overpays for defensemen? Let me help you. Every single general manager in the NHL. If you look at one position, all right? If I said to you, Mike, what is the one position where everybody overpays? It's the

blue line. Look around the NHL. Everybody overpays for their blue liners because it is so valuable to have horses back there. You just cannot win with them. And when you get one, you don't let them go. No, you lock them up long term. That's why Jim Rutherford used to always say, I'm not going to draft defensemen

the first round. I'm just going to buy them when they're 26 27 years old well good luck finding one that hits the market right because once sedano chara hit the market and it messed up the ottawa senators and it catapulted the boston bruins into a different stratosphere oh yeah they chose red and they won the stanley cut they chose red red instead uh that that the whole marketplace looked at that and said if there's one area we can't let go of players it is on the blue line you just don't do it until they're like i mean dan boyle's gonna hit ufa this year he's 38 years old sure chemo team and it's gonna be ufa you know he's in an advanced age as well but when

they're in that sweet spot of the bat regardless of whether you feel there are one two three or four you don't let go of those guys you can't because it is almost it is almost certain death and francis taking a step back, right? This guy was better last year. It seemed, eh? Maybe I'm just thinking too much about last night because I really wanted the win and then we had the early goal to take the lead. You got the win last night. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But we have the 1-0 lead. It's like a must-win and Franson great pass right at whatever it was, a Marchand or whatever. Right up the gut. Right up the gut. You just don't do that, right? Pizza right up the middle. I don't know. It's interesting because I play defense in men's league, right? Okay.

So I'm not comparing my play to the NHL, please. But I think pretty much everyone listening to this podcast has played hockey before. Sometimes things can reveal themselves for a brief moment and then that window is closed. And so you think, oh, I've got a brief second here to make this pass up the gut and then it's gone then it's over i got the that's the beauty of sports and when you're an athlete i mean you sort of train yourself to have certain instincts and then at the same time you have to understand that the only way it's a high risk move what's that

that's a high risk maneuver it is a high risk move in any league yeah i know i know but okay okay but you talk okay i'll give you another example why it's not a high-risk move um this year in the women's game the united states for the past two or three years has owned canada you know how they've owned them every defenseman on team canada the women's team shoots left so what did team usa do they dumped the puck in the right corner and flooded it all right right. So you're Kevin Dineen. You've taken over this program, right? Here's what the USA is doing. They're dumping it in the right and they're flooding it. And that's what the puck is turning over. USA gets possession

and it finds the back of the net. What do you do? Kevin Dineen did. And you saw this in the gold medal game against the United States. And you saw this in the preliminary round game against the United States. The United States never changed. What did they do? So they cut off the hard pass along the boards. USA would do that. That lane is shut off. They put two on one into the corner. So what do you do? Where do you go?

You know what Dineen did? Tell me. Had the centerman drive. Kevin told me this with the strategy room. How did you get out of that? He goes, we thought about it long and hard. It's a dangerous play, but it worked every single time because usa never adjusted they took the centerman and dropped the centerman down right in front of the net and the first pass you look at the first pass out of canada zone was

always right up the middle right beside the net the most high risk play you can make was the way we beat the americans because we couldn't do hard rim around the boards we're getting flooded so it couldn't be soft chip to the winger We put it in front of our own net. We went up the gut on a short pass right away, and the centerman carried it out up the middle of the ice. That flies completely in the face of everything we've ever been told about hockey, namely in your own zone, keep the puck to the wall. Keep it out of the middle of the ice.

Yeah, well, let's see Dineen try that with an NHL team. I don't think that's going to work. I think you're going to have your centerman low, but I think it's going to middle of the ice. Yeah. Well, let's see. You didn't even try that with an NHL team. I don't think that's going to work. I think you're going to have your sentiment low, but I think it's going to be up the gut. Okay. And before we leave my Leafs, Clarkson, David Clarkson, I got to ask you a question.

Go to Tobacco, boy. Yeah. He's like, yeah. And he takes me on 24 seven. We saw him on the rural York. He takes the subway, right? How can you not root for this guy? You want a quick story about David Clarkson?

Yeah, of course. Okay. Cause I've got to know David the past few years, and I really like him, and I really feel bad for what he's going through this year, and I think next year he comes out, hopefully, a better hockey player. Can't be any worse.

He's someone that needs a structured game. But here's a great story about David Clarkson. So David Clarkson is playing with the Belleville Bulls of the OHL. He's a 16 or 17-year-old player. And he's not getting any ice time. He's fourth line, even if he does get in the lineup, and he's not getting any ice. And so Christmas time, he goes back home,

and he's talking to his dad and says, Dad, what i think i'm i think i'm done with junior hockey i think i'm giving up the uh the nhl dream i don't think it's ever gonna happen for me i'm frustrated i'm cranky and i'm i'm just not enjoying myself and his dad says so what you're telling me is you want to quit and david says yeah yeah i want to quit he says well that's fine you can quit but before you do that you have to pick up that phone and you have to call your grandfather who served in the war and tell him you want to quit.

Call your grandfather who served in the war that you want to quit hockey. Nice move. And David said, I can't call grandpa. He fought in the war. I can't tell that I want to quit hockey.

He says, then you're going back to Belleville. And he went back and they traded him to the Kitchener Rangers, Peter DeBoer's team. Next thing you know, he's winning him a World Cup into the NHL. I mean, he earned it. He was never drafted. And it's turned into a nice story for David Clarkson. I really feel bad for that guy because I know that

you get to know someone personally and you really feel bad for them because you know what they're going. You don't just treat them as robots. I know as a member of the media, you kind of should, but i'm always sort of air on the side of uh humanity versus i don't want just you know robots um i've really really bad for it you mentioned earlier uh larry murphy you mentioned earlier and i i get that vibe from here this this this feels a bit like that where i i know that uh it's you know i don't ever blame a player for the contract, I guess.

Get as much money as you can for as long as you can. Blame Dave Nones. Nones, yes. Blame Dave Nones. Don't yell at him. It might be a ridiculous contract, but that's on Nones,

not on Clarkson. I agree. But Clarkson seemed, and I don't know if Carlyle is utilizing him properly or what, but he just seems to be trying to do too many things at once. He just doesn't seem to,

he doesn't seem comfortable out there. We've seen this countless times. When players ring the bell on the first really huge contract, they struggle the first year. They always, I don't say always, most times they do because… But do they rebound in the second year? Most times. Promise?

I trust you. We'll see. Your crystal ball looks good. I hope so. I don't know. My crystal ball isn't bad, dude. That's why I don't gamble. But the first year of a new contract

especially with someone coming in you know and he's known in the city and he loves the Maple Leafs and he's grown up he's always wanted to be a Maple Leaf that's been his dream

and he chose 71 after the son Wendell Clark and like all the mythology and all of it like man that's a burden like

just play like in New Jersey he could just play he got a lot of power play time and stuff in New Jersey right and mind you he was playing with Patrick Iliash. Yeah, he doesn't get a sniff. Who did he play with? Kuhlman?

Yeah, he's not going to get that. And he got off on the wrong foot with a 10-game suspension. It hasn't been a smooth ride for Dave Clarkson. And everyone will tell you the same thing. Every general manager and coach will tell you the same thing. We just wanted to play his game and shut all that other noise out. All the expectation and, you know, it's funny too because, because normally you think, like, you know,

the local boy goes home story is always a good one. Most times it's not. It's a disaster. I was talking to Down Goes Brown on a recent episode about this, and he says, no, it's the worst thing you could do. Ask Joffrey Lupo what happened. Fort Saskatchewan guy, what happened when he went to Edmonton? Ask Sheldon Suray what happened when he went.

The local boy comes home story because all of a sudden your day isn't just I can focus on the game. I can be my – do my preparations and be ready. It's endless phone calls for tickets and meeting and someone shows up and there's always relatives around. Your life really becomes noise. It really – it was really tough to be a hometown hockey player. I know Don is always on about this. More Toronto boys on the Toronto Maple Leafs. It's really tough to be a hometown hockey player. I know Don is always on about this. More Toronto boys on the Toronto Maple Leafs. It's got to happen.

I understand where that comes from, but I think it does disqualify this idea that is very real, that when you play in your hometown, it's not easy. It's really hard because there's a number of things off the ice that can really distract you.

Well, here's hoping next year is better because A, I want... I like Clarkson as a guy. I want him to... Me too. And let's face it, it we're stuck with this we can't give this contract away let me ask you this let me ask you this about yeah this is what i personally feel for the game that he wants to play in the game that he plays he's too lean i think he needs honestly i think he needs to i think he's too lean like he's like you saw him on 24 7 like dude you can like matches off the guy's abs yeah like he looks to me to be too leaned out.

I know hockey players now, you don't do curls because it's bad for your shot and all that. You don't need bulky beach muscles. But he just looks too small for me. No one's going to think he's going to look like Milan Lucic or anything. But don't you think that he needs more? He was bigger before. I just think he's lost too much weight. We've got to go back to the way he was before

and get him back to playing with Ilyash. That's it, playing with Ilyash and double fisting cheeseburgers. That's right. That's exactly right. Good, okay. Now, are we toast, the Leafs? Well, because I know mathematically

there's a possibility, but it's pretty remote, right? You know who St. Jude was? Yeah, the saint of worthless causes or something? The patron saint of lost causes. There you go. It'll be tough. I think that, listen, if Boston would have won in regulation last night,

it would have really been over for the Toronto Maple Leafs. A couple of the Columbus Blue Jackets win. Yeah, because it's Reimer the rest of the way. Which I don't mind. I like Reimer, but he had a rough stretch there. It looks like it's going to be Reimer. We're not sure. I guess Bernier had the MRI this morning.

I heard my score, the score app on my phone, popped're not sure. I guess Bernier had the MRI this morning. I heard the score app on my phone popped up and said he's out three weeks, which is this season. Is that Bernier's? Yeah. I haven't seen that,

but if that's true, then it's up to James Ryan Ripper. That's a Toronto Mike exclusive, everybody. I got scooped. You scooped more than ice cream, Mike. The app scooped you.

Did you watch ice dancing at the Winter Olympics? Ice dancing is a sport you would ever watch. I didn't. That's just for Elvis because he made fun of me for watching. I didn't. I didn't watch ice dancing. It's funny. I'm not a big fan at the Winter Olympics? Ice dancing is a sport you would ever watch. I didn't. That's just for Elvis because he made fun of me for watching. I didn't.

I didn't watch ice dancing. It's funny. I'm not a big fan of the winter games. I like the summer games a lot more. Oh, I like both, actually. I think, by the way, hockey should be a summer sport, by the way, which it originally was. And then basketball could be a winter sport. That's fine.

We'll do the trade. Basketball is played indoors and basketball is played during the winter. So it doesn't matter. Yeah. I'm with you. That makes sense because then they don't have to interrupt our NHL season anymore. Bingo. There you go.

Final question, put you on the spot. Have you ever listened to an episode of Toronto Mic'd before? This is my first one that I've ever been part of and I haven't heard the podcast before. I appreciate your honesty. Yeah. Honestly, I have so much crap that I have to listen to all the time. I don't know why I always blast off what other podcasts listen to, but I will make you this promise.

I want you to give me a list. If I want to put you on the spot, I want you to give me a list of your top five podcasts. And I am on my way to Chicago tomorrow. And when I get to Sportsnet tonight, I am going to download them, and I'm going to listen to them on my way to Chicago. Consider this done.

The Jonathan Torrens episode is in there. It's great. Jono? I was on his podcast. Him and Taggart. I was on their podcast a couple weeks ago. Oh, my God. That's right.

They've only done five so far. But yeah, I did hear you on this, because I'm listening, too. So he did mine. You didn't listen for Leahy, who was not after me, a goof. I don't even watch the show. You don't watch Trailer Park Boys? No, I know. I thought I was the entertainment insider. I I don't even watch the show. You don't watch Trailer Park Boys? No, I know. I thought I was the entertainment insider.

I think I had to tell J-Rock I don't watch Trailer Park Boys. He's a funny dude. They were on the Shapiro show like yesterday. Oh, no, Taggart and Torrance? No, the Trailer Park Boys. Oh, yeah, because they were in town. It's on with Strong Boys. Yeah, they're doing some promos and stuff.

Nice. Any final thoughts here? Or you want me to dismiss you so you can enjoy the J's, the Juggernaut 500 J's? I know, I know. It's a big day. Well, you know what we're doing tonight? I think it's one of these, like, because we're all in the Rogers box. So it's me and Strombo and Ron.

What time should I meet you? And Darren Millard. Yeah, exactly. I think they're doing one of those, hey, look who just happens to be at the ball game today. I think that's the shot that they're doing. Because I've got to go to SportsCenter and get all suited up before I go. We're used to that. Like when I see Jerry D at the Saturday

Night Leaf game and it's just Jerry D. Oh, and by the way, if you watch Mr. D. And Mr. D debuts on Friday. You understand. It's great cross promo. That's a place where Bell is really dined out. Bell has always done CTV has done such a great job of

cross promoting and Rogers is that used to be the one place where Rogers was really lacking in cross-promoting their properties, but not so much anymore. So, I understand why they do it. And, oh, Lowest of the Low? Yep. Oh, dang. I always close with Lowest of the Low. See, if I had listened to the podcast, I would know that.

Yeah. What did you think of that opening theme? That's a custom. Yeah, who did that? His name is Ill Vibe, and he made that for me, special. Hey, where are you at on the real statics? You're in Tobacco Boy. Yeah, the great Ballad of Wayne Gretzky.

Wendell Clark. Wendell Clark. What did I say? You know why? The Pursuit of Happiness has the Wayne Gretzky song. That's right, yeah. In my head, they converted. See, I'm like the biggest, because one of my favorite shows of all time was Real Statics

and Lowest of the Low. And I play hockey on a team called the Morning Stars. I haven't played for a while. And Stephen Stanley from Lowest of the Low is on the team. Yeah, he was just quick. Dave Bedini, I know called the Morning Stars. I haven't played for a while. And Stephen Stanley from Lois of Lois on the team. Yeah, just quick. Dave Bedini, I know. Yeah, okay. I know.

And Tim Thompson's on the team, the guy that makes all those great openings for Hockey Night in Canada. Oh, yeah, I love those. That's Tim Thompson. His montages. Tim Thompson. Love those things. Who played with the Niagara Falls Thunder of the OHL

and then played some minor pros. The whole show should just be this. I play Lois of Lois and you do frenetic fast facts. Yeah, it's like hockey Tourette's. Yeah, well, for the ADD and us. I have like hockey Tourette's. I'll just start spitting out, you know, facts about Orlin Kurtenbach, the Vancouver Canucks in 1970. No, you can keep going now.

That brings us to the end of our 74th show. That's it? Oh, no, dude. I give you another. I got all this web space. Core Fusion has given me all the web space I want. Is that right? Yeah.

What's the longest podcast you've done? This one. This is? I always aim for an hour, and I think we're at 143. What time is it? Dude, this is the third inning now. The J's in the third inning. It is 2.47.

You want to go to three? Want to do 13 more minutes? Yeah. Let's make a nice round number. Okay, tell you what. Now that I have a fader, it's an elegant fade out. That's a good fader. It's going to happen. How about this then? Want to do 13 more minutes? Yeah. Let's make a nice round number. Okay, tell you what. You have to have a fader. It's an elegant fade out. That's a good fader.

It can never happen. How about this then? Can you do this on the fly? Can you download and play for the extra? Can you do this? Depends what you say next. Rheostatics, Dope Fiends and Boozehounds. It's a song all about growing up in Ontario, in Etobicoke.

Yeah, I can play anything. I might pull that off YouTube though and see. That's fine, yeah. See, I don't know if they have the studio version or the live version of it. I just love the song. One of my favorite real static songs. Again, so before it was me texting on the podcast,

which was very exciting for everybody. Yeah, Dope Fiends and Boozehounds. Because it'll be like Claire and Record Body Count and stuff. Record Body Count is amazing. There's a record body count that's gotta be their I would say that would be their most

ah Claire is well Claire might be the most radio played song but the I don't know it's hard to say but those the real real statics fans

like record body count cause it was off of Melville try Dope Fiends and Boozehounds yeah we're gonna just what do you got here okay so give me a studio version that's the live version

this is the live version yeah no it's not studio oh like come on dude like just play the whole song and talk over this done it's one of my favorite songs it's a beautiful band beautiful people in this band too they got the video the ballad of wendell clark has the uh remember the old mill donuts place that's now a second cup. Okay, because I went to Michael Power, right? Which was the old location, though. Because we almost bought it when I was like

seven or eight years old. We almost bought a house right around the corner from there. Where? Tell me. I can't remember the name of the street, but it's right around that area. Like you go down past,

like you're going west on Dundas and you just get past Islington and you do that Wiggly Road, right? Well, you have the McKenzie House? McKenzie Inn? The old inn or whatever? dundas and you just get past islington and you do that wiggly road right well you have the uh mckenzie house mckenzie the old the old haunted inn yes yeah yeah that's there so you're saying

beyond then you go past that it's like a private school king george or something that goes up there and there's a big huge house on the right remember yeah uh my parents were gonna buy it but me and my sister like wildly protested because we didn't want to move and be away from our friends. God, we were assholes. If you keep going on Dundas, you're going to get to a place called Gooch Avenue. It's just before the bridge over the Humber River, or after, actually. And if you go down Gooch, you end up in the valley, like the Warren Park Valley. My mom lives down there today.

Hang on, in the Warren Park Valley? Because I played Lambton for Warren Park. Dude, before I went to Swansea, I was at lampden because we grew up in that area this is a different house but my mom went back to the area she liked it so much but uh down in that valley i biked over at lunch to my mom's yesterday because i'm doing this heavy duty bike training so i'm trying to get yeah like i'm doing a 220 kilometer ride to conquer cancer i was gonna say what's wrong with you but that's awesome yeah now you feel bad i feel awful for for I was going to say what's wrong with you, but that's awesome. Yeah, now you feel bad for not saying what's wrong. I feel awful for trying to say that.

Because I'm going to do, I'm hoping to do, we'll see, because I really messed up my back in the gym a couple of days ago. I'm hoping to do the waterfront marathon. I did the half last year. You can run it. I got to the end of it, and I'm like, I want more. So I'm going to do the full this year.

So you just referenced Kipling there a second ago. Yeah, no. And the funny thing is is when I confused him briefly with the Wendell Clarks, the Ballad of Wendell Clark, which is real statics, I confused with Wayne Gretzky Rocks. How dare you. Which is terrible. Except that Moe Berg, I used to work at the Galleria Mall,

at the grocery store at the Galleria Mall. So I used to bike all the time. The one on DuPont? Yeah, the Galleria Mall at Dufferin and dupont yeah i worked there for five years five years after one of my greatest experiences as a kid was there you know why tell me my dad took me to meet batman yeah dressed up as batman was there some promo for like kresge's or some whatever was there and i got to meet batman i don't know what it became it was zellers i think yeah could have been zellers because i used to go, there was that Zellers and those Zellers at Bloor and Dundas.

Yeah, well, yeah, yeah. And that's where I used to park. Sometimes I'd park there to take the Dundas subway. And I always wanted to go to the Rondon Tavern. Remember the Rondon Tavern? Right on Dundas. Oh, yeah. Is this a sports place now?

No, no. You're thinking of Joe Mercury. Joe Mercury, yeah, yeah. This was like an old school, like, die. Like, David Wilcox used to play there in the 70s the bear cat yeah me and mac which used to because mac was used to live on bousted and we used to always say man one day when we're old enough we're gonna have it one day when we're old enough to have a beer man we're gonna go there it was fun you know it's cool going to mac which this place because bob's dad yeah used to run q107 so he used to have a q107 van like park like a residential

street and there's a Q107 rock van out in front like pictures of Ted Nugent and Van Halen dude I used to listen to the Top 10 of 10 that was my back when

just when Appetite for Destruction was released so you know it so I'm a kid I'm like 9 years old and I'm going to Bob's place to pick him up for baseball at High Park

and I walk in and the Q107 van is out front and I walk in open the door and who's sitting on Bob's couch waiting for Bob's dad to take him to Q107 to do an interview Kim Mitchell David Lee Roth and I'm like open the door and who's sitting on Bob's couch waiting for Bob's dad to take him to Kona 7 to do an interview?

Kim Mitchell. David Lee Roth. David Lee Roth. And I'm like, I go upstairs and I'm like, dude, is that David Lee Roth on your couch? He's like, yeah, I know.

I'm so embarrassed. Just get the fuck out of here. The best story, David Lee Roth, is the M&M's story where they had it in their, the venue had to get rid of, I can't remember,

get rid of brown M&M's or something and then they would go to the venue because there was all this complicated shit that had to happen rid of, I can't remember, get rid of brown M&Ms or something. And then when they would go to the venue, because there was all this complicated shit that had to happen to save their lives, like dangerous stuff, because they had a very sophisticated setup. So when they got to the venue,

if they found brown M&Ms, they knew they didn't read the rider. So they knew the other shit would be wrong too. Because you knew if you did the tiny little things right, all the big stuff you'd have. And that's all it was, was like an early warning system. My favorite David Lee Roth line of all time, we're doing game,

and so it's me and Macko and Strombo. And just play this again, like when it's done, until the show's over. So Strombo's trying to sell us this line about David Lee Roth and how tough of a martial artist he is and all this kind of stuff. And so Strombo says on the air, you know, David Lee Roth is like, you know, one of the most dangerous men in the world. And McAvoy goes, well, maybe if he had an STD,

he would be. But other than that, I really can't see it, George. That's funny. He was an EMS guy for a long time. He went into like, he became an EMS guy who would ride along with the emergency. Yeah, David Lee Roth. Yeah, I'm not making this up.

He, I could google it too but yeah let me restart my uh go back don't feel some boot sound it's all about growing up in tobaco where we're sitting right now the uh for sure david lee roth became an ems worker lives in japan now and he uh and he still does like sword training every day heard him on a podcast like like uh actually almost exactly a year ago when I was in Montreal. And he was talking about his life. He, like, lives in Japan. He's, like, on his own, his tiny little place in Japan. Like, he's got, like, bank.

But he just lives in a tidy sort of humble spot. And he does, like, sword training every day. And I think he's living his own podcast or webcast show. He's probably got a Zen garden and he's a happy guy. Man, if he had, like, stupid money, I would totally live like, honestly, I would probably do the same thing. I think I'd give a ton of it away and I'd live like a totally simple life. Yeah, why not?

I'd do away with like, I might just go like complete Luddite and do away with all technology. Would you still come on my podcast? I would still come on your podcast. Via Skype? That sounds too high tech for me. I don't know that I'd live in a more, I was thinking about this the other day because we've had a particularly harsh winter. Yeah, we did.

And I keep thinking, oh, that's it, I'm done with winter, I'm going somewhere, I'm going to move somewhere. I don't know if I could. That's always... I've got too many things anchoring me to the city right now, but if I didn't have those things,

it's a good question. Would you go somewhere? And if so, where would you go? I don't know, maybe somewhere in Europe. I go to Europe a lot lately and I like the vibe over there. It just feels different. Live and let live. I'd go to Europe a lot lately and I like the vibe over there. It just feels different. Live and let live.

I'd go to some hippie place, man. Because you're a pinko, man. We'll start a commune somewhere. I would be in some hippie place, honestly, where I could just do my yoga, do my meditation, do some goofy drugs,

call it a life. We'll start a commune like that, and then we'll still tune into, like, Leaf games. Just so we can get frustrated. Just to piss ourselves off or whatever. You know what'll happen, ironically? See if we can reintroduce anger into our lives. The minute we decide to leave this continent or whatever

and start anew, they'll win the cup. Because you're of an age, I'm doing the math quick. 44, 1969. Yeah, so you've never been. Okay, yeah, so you and I are in the same boat. 44. Yeah, so you've never been. Okay, yeah, so you could. So you and I are in the same boat. No, never seen it. Never seen it. Never seen.

What gets me is we've never been to the finals. Like, we've never been to the finals in our lifetime. I still maintain that if they didn't tear apart that 1970s team, they're about two pieces away from being what the Islanders turned into. Because when you think about the foundation, it was like Palmatier and Sittler and McDonald and Thompson and Jones and Butler killing penalties and Turnbull and Salming. They weren't that far off.

But you had the Canadiens juggernaut that had to kind of play out. And then you had, yeah, the Islanders juggernaut. But Toronto would have been in that conversation. But the problem, here's the problem. If you go back and look at the 70s, and this is the WHA factor. If you look at all the teams that bid against the WHA and kept their players versus the teams that didn't and let players walk to the WHA, Toronto let players go.

Like their entire young blue line. Okay, like all of it. Like Ricky Lee, Jim Dory, like all those guys. They let them all walk. Okay, all of them. Brad Sellwood, all those guys walk. Boston Bruins, let guys walk. You know who hold on to their Sellwood, all those guys walk. Boston Bruins, let guys walk.

You know who hold on to their talent who bid against the WHA? The Islanders, the Philadelphia Flyers, and the Montreal Canadiens. There you go. All kept their guys.

And what did they do? Oh yeah, they won Stanley Cups. Yep. They didn't just say, oh, WHA, want to go there for a couple extra bucks?

Yeah, go ahead. What do you think about 93? You think we were one bad call away from winning it all? No, because that call washes out because Doug Gilmore didn't get called for headbutting Marty McSorley. No one talks about that, right? Which Maple Leafs fans never want.

They always want to talk about the high stick on Doug. They never want to talk about his headbutt on Marty McSorley. That should have probably caused the Maple Leafs. That one's been buried in the history books. Oh, dead and gone. But let's not forget, too. It wasn't as if the Gretzky high stick was in Game 7. That was in Game 6.

And I always say the same thing to Maple Leafs fans. If I told you at the beginning of the LA Kings series, it wasn't going to be a best of seven, it was going to be a best of one, and they played it at Maple Leaf Gardens, and you were the home team and had last change, would you take that? Yeah. That's what you got.

I know. That's what you got. And know. That's what you got. And then Wayne Gretzky had one of the best games of his life. Yeah, it's like one of those things where like in 86 when the Bo Sox and the Mets were playing and then when the Mets had that miraculous comeback in 86 of Mookie Wilson through the legs of Bechner. Seven didn't matter. It's like

you lost it in game six. I know. There was a game seven to play, but it was like you'd already lost. That's the way sports works. It's almost predictable. And that's what I love about sports, man. I love you can't in game six. I know. There was a game seven to play, but it was like, you'd already lost. That's the way sports works. It's almost predictable. And that's what I love about sports, man. I love, you can't script this shit. I love sports.

It's the, it's the, the original reality show. Absolutely. Really? I mean, and what it proves to me more so than anything else is,

because, you know, sports fans always get knocked on for, oh, all you care about is sports, and you want to treat real things in your life as sophisticated as you do about sports.

What it does is reinforce that, as much as people might think it's a distraction, I think it sort of reinforces that people really can learn and go deep on something. And I know that the same way that I look at hockey, and the same way that I'm attracted to it, that the same way that I, you know, look at hockey and the same way that I'm attracted to it and the same way that I think about it, I try to take that exact same, you know, sort of frame of reference and desire to go deep on it and try to apply that to other elements of my life.

That it's not just soda pop for me. You know what I mean? Absolutely. I don't want to say that exists as metaphor in my life because... Dude, this is your English and philosophy coming right back. You need to write an essay on this. I'll just stop. We'll start talking about Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida in a second here

and bore your audience to death. When in doubt, just quote W.B. Yeats. That was my secret. Can't go wrong with Yeats. A little bit of Joyce for a little bit of sprinkle. That's right, Joyce, without the punctuation, though. This is the end of our 74th show. You can follow me on Twitter,

at Toronto Mike, and Jeff, at Jeff Merrick. Thanks for doing this, man. My pleasure. A lot of fun. I want to come back and break my record. Dude, anytime. Do you ever have to cover the Leafs at that practice facility

at the Kipling and Lakeshore damn it I was going to say you could drop by no I could just sneak by right after but yeah no that's not my beat

I'm married to that studio if it's Mount Pleasant that's far away we'll see what happens next year I mean we're moving into the CBC building next year

so I'll be a little bit closer we will figure it out man yeah man it's been a pleasure thanks dude take care bye everybody see you next week From their old familiar yard.

The best thing in heaven is supposed to be the sign That shines