A couple of quick points, first, to the fine folks at CityTv who lost their jobs today, best of luck, may you find work quickly! Especially Anne Mroczkowski, the 23 year vet. How she loses her job while the town bike keeps her job is beyond me.

This issue with violence in junior hockey- if you want to end it, start with parents and coaches of the littlest kids who play the game. You know the ones, they sign of their kids up for skating and hockey 5 days a week or more at the age of 5. If players at 17 have no respect for their opponents, start with where they learned the game. We as a society are totally nuts when it comes to teaching our kids hockey. Practices, skates, games, hockey hockey hockey. The pressure, the expectations is nuts.

I help coach my son’s team. He plays house league. HOUSE League. You know 1 day a week. The odd practice here or there. Our team is pretty relaxed, but you should hear and see the other kids/parents/coaches. You would think this was the NHL. the yelling, the screaming the PUSHING. These kids are 7!

If you think the hits you have seen in junior have been bad lately, seriously, go to your local rink and take in a pee-wee game. The cement head, John Brophy wanna be’s coaching these teams…..that is where it starts. Parents screaming from the stands at Pee-Wees! It’s nuts. In one of our games the other teams coach literally almost leaped off the bench when the referee (who may have been 11) missed an offside- I thought the coach was going to kill the poor kid!

To me it’s really quite simple.Throw the book at these kids who play like idiots. Every time someone does something like this, throw the damn book at him. Hockey is a privilege not a right. Make that the example. Teach kids to play hard but to play clean. Parents, the odds of your kids making to the show are slim and none, just like they were when you played. I heard a parent ask an opposing coach in my son’s league if they could work on their power play a couple of days ago- We don’t even have penalties in our league!

Now, that that is over…..

Curious, if you have been listening to the radio in this town lately. I know, I was away for a the holidays then I had the knee surgery, but wow- what happened???? Where has the quality gone? It’s really nasty out there.

Now, I will grant you the fact that there is nothing to talk about with respect to the Maple Leafs. They are out of the hunt this year. They have no draft picks this year. They claim to be unwilling to trade their only tradeable asset. What is there to talk about?

Still, man is it weak out there.

In listening to the morning show on the Fan the last couple of days, there wasn’t one segment that I thought was the least bit interesting let alone thought provoking. Do the boys have the post holiday blues? Are they mailing it in until their contracts are up???? WOW

The Bullpen is what it is. It doesn’t really change all that much. I will say this in Mike Hogan’s defence, no one can do what he is doing solo. It’s just not good radio. Toth isn’t the answer, but give him someone, he needs a foil of some sort.

The two lunch time shows are also both so tired. I like Darren Dreger. If he says a team is interested in a player, or something is happening in a room, I believe it. He is not a host. Having him on with Wilbur just isn’t good radio. He doesn’t play well to Wilbur, and he isn’t a good interviewer. More importantly, he really doesn’t share an opinion. Down the dial, it’s the same shtick every single day. The names change, but the ripping on Kipper for this, talking about someone’s basement hockey jersey’s and MacLean interrupting to talk about how much money he has…..

I am warming up a little bit to the gameplan. It’s a little bit forced and only because they can’t talk NBA/Raptor basketball all day. If this was a market and they could talk hoops for the entire show it would be good. In another market it would be good. You do your hockey show, your NBA show. These guys would be fine.

The shows that I think are suffering the most are the drive homes. Here’s a bombshell for you- I miss Mccown taking calls. I do. I thought it humanized him a bit. His screeners did a good job of blocking out most of the crap for him and to be honest he didn’t kiss anybodies butt and it was good to hear his opinion.

Today was painful. I know Jim Kelley is unwell, and I wish him the best of health. McCown talked to him today for over 30 minutes. Kelley just isn’t that interesting to talk to for that long. It was, in a word, awful. AWFUL. It wasn’t interesting, it wasn’t compelling and it wasn’t funny. It was more like let me talk to my buddy down the road to kill time cause I don’t want to speak to the fans.

To top it off- Brunt is away again this week and we are graced with John Shannon. Now, clearly the guys at Rogers (probably the same ones who fired Anne Mroczkowski and not the bike) messed up the memo. Shannon, I would think would make a fine replacement for Nelson Millman, NOT Jim Kelley! Have you seen the Sportsnet promo on Shannon? Touting him as an INSIDER- it’s INSULTING. Shannon is a television executive. He is a damn good one at that. He is not a sports radio co-host. Again, he’s not funny, he’s not interesting and he’s not informative. Unless the topic relates to, sports broadcasting, television rights or camera angles.

Up the dial, with the Leafs in their predicament, Wilbur has no ammo. Is it just me or is Bill Watters the real life Cosmo Kramer? He talks about all these guys with funny names or nicknames. Today for example, he is talking about a former colleague who passed away. I thought, here is Wilbur going to show that he is human. Instead he rambled on about some other guy Cheech ( I was praying he was going to then refer to Chong- at least that would have been funny). Bill Watters isn’t every guy. The every guy can’t relate to him. Yet he rambles on as if we do.

To finish it off you have the after hours on the Fan. Does anything make you hit the flip button faster than Lajoie, Faulds or Eric Thomas? Seriously, the fan finally has some younger guys that should be all over the air during these hours- hell do round-tables. On espn radio on Sundays they would have a bunch of guys talking about the games going on. Do that. Anything would be better than what I have been listening to lately- the Fan has gotten stale my friends.

Well, there’s my rant for the day- We sports fans in Toronto are getting screwed with our sports radio. We deserve better.

I feel better.

TSM

@yyzsportsmedia

William Houston had it first on his blog so give credit to the maven. Word is on the street, and multiple sources are telling TSM at this hour that Mike Toth has been advised that his services are no longer needed by the folks at Sportsnet. Toth wasn’t on the Fan 590’s Bullpen with Mike Hogan this am. Sources are telling TSM that Toth is gone from Sportsnet and what that means exactly for his duties for the Fan 590 has yet to be decided.

Let’s be clear, I am not a Mike Toth fan. I don’t think he is very good at what he does. That’s just one guy’s opinion, no more valuable than the other. Having said that, I feel for Mr. Toth today. He clearly enjoys what he does and is passionate about it. More importantly, time are tough out there and he does have a family. So in the pre-holiday spirit I offer Toth the best of luck in securing another job- perhaps in another market

More as we hear more.

@yyzsportsmedia

So the numbers are in for the first month of the fall ratings on the radio. This is the new People Meter System which should deliver a more accurate account on who is listening to what.

Here are the highlights as I know them:

Men aged 25-54..Total Share Of Audience

John Oakley — 7.7
590 Morning Show – 6.3
CFRB – 5.7

Cumulative Audience

Fan 590: 158,000
640 Toronto: 111,000

So fair is fair and fair is unfair- there is only one sports show in town and the closest comparison is Oakley…

Mike Stafford — 7.4
The Bullpen — 2.9

Same story here as the Bullpen is the only sports show in town. I suspect this isn’t that surprising to the folks at the fan. It’s not the best time of day, the show appeals to a very small but dedicated group of people. No one else talks ARGO football/ CFL and then, well there is Toth….

Leafs Lunch — 6.3 – older demo (35-49) 4.0
Hockey Central/baseball show (only 12-1pm) — 4.3 older demo (35-49) 5.4

leafs lunch — 18-34 4.6
HC/BC ——-18-34 2.6

weekly cumulative: 25-54 fan 590 152,000 640 101,000
daily cumulative 18-34 fan 54,000 640 30,000

640 has fewer people listening longer which leads to larger share of the audience

I seem to recall this being reversed. To be fair, again, HC didn’t have a full month. The baseball show in a baseball dead town took on half the month. This is a good sign for Dreger though. I am most interested to see this number in the coming books.

Prime Time Sports 9.0
The Bill Watters Show 4.6

PTS cumulative 207,000-weekly 75,000 daily
BWS Cumulative 138,000 weekly 39,000 daily

Mccown has a big lead. BWS makes in roads in this space there is no question. However, Mccown is Mccown.

Interestingly enough, the Watters show surpassed Mccown with the younger demographic, 18-34 men: BWS 4.8, Mccown 3.9

In the older demographic men aged 35-54: Mccown 10.2, BWS 4.4

I don’t think that is totally surprising either.

TSM spoke with Nelson Millman, the boss over at the fan about the latest “book”

“It is fine, not hugely different than what we have seen. Our cumulative are up, honestly it will take 6 months for this all to shake out and we can identify some trends. No programming decisions will be based on personal people meters. No one should rip their rotator cuff off padding themselves on the back from one month under the new system.”

Over at 640, Program Director Gord Harris offered this “Leafs Lunch has been a market-leading program for some time, and we are thrilled that TSN’s Darren Dreger, as the program host, has extended our lead over other news/talk and sports/talk competitors in both the Male 25-54 and Male 18-34 demographics. In fact, AM640 is the number one AM radio station in the Toronto market in those demos during Leafs Lunch. We are confident that, as the exclusive radio partner with the Toronto Maple Leafs, the only radio reporter who travels with the team to every game, and our unprecedented line up of hockey “insiders” (including TSN’s Darren Dreger, Bob McKenzie, Ray Ferraro, Pierre McGuire, and CBC’s Scott Morrison),

We are also very happy with the strong growth we have seen for The Bill Watters Show, going from approximately 10% of our competitor’s share of listening in Male 25-54 demographic before we launched the show, to over 50%. That in just two years since the launch. Even more gratifying is the tremendous growth we have enjoyed in the younger male demographic (18-34) where we lead both our news/talk and sports/talk competitors. As the host of The Bill Watters Show, Greg Brady brings not only a wealth of sports knowledge and experience to listeners, but a youthful enthusiasm and humour – because sports is, after all – fun!”

Interesting times at both stations for sure. Let’s see how this looks next month.

TSM

@yyzsportsmedia

The Fan 590 is reporting that Wayne Gretzky has stepped down from his position of head coach with the Phoenix Coyotes. Mike Toth and Mike Hogan relayed the story on The Bullpen a few minutes ago.

TSN has also reported that Gretzky is done in Phoenix, where he has been absent from the start of training camp.

More to follow, with TSM’s take.

-DL

In addition to an off-ice personnel complete overhaul(perhaps only the PR folks saved) at the Toronto Maple Leafs, I am hearing from multiple folks in the industry that changes are coming to the Fan 590 (amongst other outlets). There is a lots of talk out there in general. How much is concrete? I have no clue. On previous occasions I have inquired of management about the truth of these stories and I have been told that they don’t comment on rumors. In this case however, there seems to be some consensus in what I am hearing on a couple of points:

Don Landry doesn’t appear to be sticking around for too much longer. Word is that if he leaves it will be his own doing in that it he isn’t loving the morning gig all that much anymore (anyone else think it shows?)

Hogan appears to be very safe. His work is steady and his overhead – reasonable. Not only that, there aren’t too many around who can do the Argo thing.

There is no consensus on Toth, in what I am hearing at all.

Some out there believe that cutting at the Fan could be deeper and include the night time guys, cash can be saved by going to either repeat programming or international programming (ESPN/FOX etc), same with weekends.

The most common thing I am hearing is that despite the beating Hockey Central at Noon is laying on Leafs Lunch, there is going to be a change here. It sounds like Doug (Richie Rich ) MacLean is going to be joining Kypreos and Millard for the show which may run from 12-2 in a the new world order. Almost everyone who contacted me about a change had this same scenario.

Following that show would be the Deacon, Doug Fairway from 2-4. Notice that MacLean and Armstrong’s show disappears??? Notice that Armstrong totally disappears except from Raptors broadcasts???????

Mccown obviously isn’t going anywhere but there seems to be a common belief that Jim Kelley won’t be staying at his favourite Marriot on Bloor much longer.

How or when this all shakes out is anyones guess. It’s one thing when one person emails or calls me about this type of thing. When it’s 2 or 3 I start to notice. 4-5 I am pretty sure that where there is smoke there is some fire… Let’s keep our eyes and ears on the folks at the fan for the next little while.

The one name that keeps getting mentioned as the new Marlie coach is…..drum roll…..Craig Hartsburg….. Don’t be overly surprised if he becomes the next coach of your Toronto Marlies….

Good morning from sunny hot las vegas! Arrived at 1030pm local time last night to 30 degrees C weather. The good news is it’s a “dry heat!”
Took the car with 7 of us (2 guys, 5 ladies) to our hotel and made the obligatory stop at in and out burger. Get this, 7 of us ate dinner (burgers, fries, shakes) for a grand total of……drum roll please….. $20.25!!!!! I seem to recall someone out there not being a fan of the in and out burger, but from my seat, the Double Double Animal Style (no tomatoes of course) was superb!

After fighting with the moron check in lady at our hotel, we took to the streets. Our hotel is sold out. The casino was DEAD…no one in it. We were told that over 90% of the guests at our hotel are attending conventions and they don’t gamble or eat at the hotel. That’s gotta be good for business. We walked the strip and there were quite a few people out and about, especially for a Wednesday night. I am curious to see what its like tonight through Sunday.

Now obviously I am not listening to the radio in Toronto, but many of you have emailed me that the following was just uttered my Mike Hogan on the Fan 590:

“Not looking forward to the pittsburgh-detroit matchup”

Again, I didn’t hear it, so I don’t know the context in which it was said, so I can only comment on it standing alone, but I am fairly surprised by the comment. This is a great matchup between the Detroit Red Wings and the Pittsburgh Pensguins. There lots of compelling stories and both are high powered up tempo teams.

I am curious to see what the scoop is on the series in the sportsbooks here. I will post some prop bets when I can.

Can you imagine the irony if the Pens beat the Red Wings to Hossa. He took a deep discount to play in Detroit, only to lose to the Pens in the cup one year later when the Pens offered tons more money???

Be sure to checkout Dan’s baseball podcast today, and I am trying to get info up on the radio ratings book too.

From Vegas, TSM

Tomorrow should be a very interesting day for those of us who enjoy sports radio here in Toronto. Tomorrow is the day the final ratings book comes out before the dog days of summer book. Very few people judge the summer book as very few people listen during the summer and most of the on air personalities, at least in this town take a lot of time off. The next book comes out in September and the one after that isn’t for awhile. The end result is that the numbers advertisers see tomorrow will be the ones that the channels are stuck with for some time. Also, the September book will be the first one under the new rating system as opposed to the current journal system which is clearly outdated.

Why is this HUGE? Well, with the current state of the economy, and downward ad spending, companies are going to be very careful with how they spend their precious ad dollars. A program director who may be loyal to certain hosts may have his or her hand forced if the ratings go a certain way. Similarly, a host who shows good numbers in this book may save him or herself their job for a few months. Any trends over the last books will also be looked at for future ad prices and rates. For a reminder of the last book, you can read my review here . Some highlights from the Star’s Chris Zelkovich:

“Morning show: 5.8 (Down from 6.0, a negligible drop)

Bullpen: 4.4 (Off 21 per cent, which may or may not say anything)

Director’s Chair: 5.4 (Up 4 per cent, but not really comparable to the `08 lineup)

Game Plan: 4.3 (Down 17 per cent from Chuck Swirsky’s audience as Armstrong and MacLean break in their show)

Evenings: 2.9 (A 39 per cent decrease, no doubt thanks to lame Raptors team)

Overall: 4.7 (An 8 per cent decrease, but still maintaining 6th place among adult males)

640 TORONTO

Evenings: 2.3 (Down 4 per cent as the Leafs continue to struggle) ”

Keep tuned for updates tomorrow.

TSM

Zelkovich’s article is here

The Jays are tearing it up, 2 Stanley Cup playoff game go to OT last night, a Toronto Area Billionaire is trying to bring a second hockey team to Toronto and what do you hear on the Fan 590 this morning?

“I really like Bruce Springsteen, who in the sports world do you like?” (he only mentioned the Boss about 28 times today)

A Caller- “I really like Al McInnis” Hogan “Why” Caller ” I don’t know, cause he was really good.”
A Caller-” Can say someone I like who isn’t in sports?” Hogan “Sure, have at it” Caller ” I really like Karen Carpenter” Hogan “Why?” Caller “Everything she went through”

That is how Hogan started the show. ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME???????????????? THAT’S THE BEST WE GOT IN TORONTO??????????????

But wait, it gets better (or worse, depending on your view)

Toth shows up. Now remember, Toth is the guy who doesn’t want any of us watching BIG sporting events unless we actually go to the smaller regular events. So you can’t watch the World Juniors unless you actually support your closest team by going to the games on a regular basis. Clearly you can’t watch the Kentucky Derby unless you go our to woodbine all the time either. In any event, Toth joined the show and started by saying that he was in a bad mood. Why was he in a bad mood? “He had a nightmare last night”.. Riveting radio I know. Then he went on to say how pissed he was at the OHL game last night becuase it was so busy he had to park far away! YOU ARE SUCH A HYPOCRITE! YOU BEG PEOPLE TO GO AND WHEN THEY DO YOU GET PISSED???????

How bad does this show have to get before a change gets made??? Someone please tell me.

TSM

We mock that which we don’t understand. Like or loathe modern technology, despite what my father-inlaw thinks, the internet is not a fad. For Mike Toth and Mike Hogan the world is passing you by.

Based on the ratings, no one listens, so maybe it doesn’t matter, but Nelson, if you want to know why the ratings suck, listen to today’s show and you will have the answer. Who could possibly be listening to the radio between 9-12? You have bums like me who are still in the morning commute because I had to drop the kids at school, you have people who drive for a living, you have people who don’t work and are listening during those hours and then you have folks who can listen at work or school, whom the majority of which I bet are doing so on a computer. So what do these two moron’s do? They go out and bash bloggers and those who use twitter! Talk about biting the hand that feeds you! How stupid is that?? It’s bad enough that not one interesting thing is ever said when these two guys are on but then to go out and shit on your intended audience????

As far as media sites go in this city, the Fan’s twitter account is one of the best managed. It is for the most part current and has some humor in it. Hogan called anyone who uses twitter a twit. How original. We mock that which we don’t understand. I know I have said this a million times but the handsdown winner of deadline day in terms of media was twitter. So mock all you like, but rest assured Mr. Hogan that there are people WAY smarter then you who spend a lot of time on twitter (and that doesn’t include me). That Obama guy is a real Twit eh Mike? Even if it really isn’t him, he is smart enough to know that he had to be there come election time. Maybe, just maybe if you were the least bit innovate you would have a ratings report that was worth more then toilet paper.

Then, Toth has the nerve to say that his blog is the exception to the rule because it is on a credible site. Are you kidding me???? There isn’t one thing credible about ANYTHING you say or do Toth. You, have the BALLS to go on the air, telling your audience that they have no right to be in love with the world hockey championship because they don’t support the junior teams like you do, but then you go on the air and ask Stan Butler (brampton gm) last week at the end of the interview if he could have two tickets put aside for the Sunday playoff game for you and your kid…..YOUR A FRAUD! A TOTAL AND COMPLETE FRAUD. You rip people for not going to the games that you ask teams for freebies for ON THE AIR???? Your so fucking lazy you can’t pick up the phone off the air and kiss ass to get free tickets? But your blog is different because you are on a credible site?? Are you nuts??

I have no problem with you not being on twitter. I have no problem with Hogan not having a blog. It shows your out of touch. It’s funny you both rely on the web to get information. Predictably Hogan went on for 17 minutes this am about the idiot fans at the Jays game last, saying how much research he did last night on what other stadiums websites say about throwing shit on the field. Newspapers are dying, the entire medium is about reaching out to the customers. Jeff Blair’s live blog from games is AMAZING. Damien’s blog kick’s Damien’s articles ass. Same with Richard Griffin’s. Lyle Richardson’s Spector’s blog is one of the best reads in hockey period! You don’t want to do it…fine. But take your head out of your ass before talking about shit you clearly can’t identify with. You just don’t get. Your ratings suck. They suck because you don’t get it. You shit on your intended audience and they aren’t going to listen to you. It can’t be that difficult. When you both get gonged and you will, eventually you may want to take a good long hard look in the mirror and think, huh, I wonder why people didn’t listen…Oh yeah, I know, cause I shit on my intended audience…

TSM

It wasn’t that long ago whenever major news broke (and I am not talking of the sports variety necessarily), I used to really try to stay up and watch Ted Koppel and Nightline. No matter what the anchors had to say, or CNN’s coverage was at the time, I really wanted to know what he was going to do on the topic du jour. The same applies to Bob McCown. I remember when various items that were newsworthy in the GTA occurred, trying to find a radio to listen to see what he would have to say, fully knowing he would have an opinion AND that one of the key figures in that news would be on. Bill Watters, when it comes to matters of the Leafs and the NHL is in that same group of experts who’s opinion or take on certain things I would really like to hear. However, once you have heard something once, you don’t need to hear it again, or again or AGAIN. That, my friends is exactly the scenario that 640 Toronto finds itself in today.

You see, when Watters “left MLS &E” he was very well connected, very opinionated and a true insider. Wilbur was wooed by the good folks at 640 and signed a contract for oodles of cash. The folks at 640 turned that into All Watters All The Time. So you get your morning Bill, your lunch Bill and then (drum roll please) 3 hours of afternoon Bill. That’s a lot of Bill. The problem with that is two-fold. First, if I happen to catch him in the morning, or at lunch, there is no reason to listen to him in the afternoon. Watters is good, but he isn’t so good as to keep his comments and opinions fresh three times a day. No one is. The second problem is there just isn’t that much to talk about in this market for Bill Watters (or anyone for that matter). 640 Sells the guy as the Leaf and hockey expert, quite frankly what he thinks about the Jays, NFL etc. is really of little consequence. Even if you disagree with that, there just simple isn’t enough for one guy to talk about and not be repetitive. It’s just not possible. By having Watters on multiple times a day they are killing multiple shows potential audiences. More people would listen to him in the afternoon if they hadn’t already heard his take. If you know you are going to listen to him at 4, why bother listen at 12? I may listen at 4 and 12 if I am going to hear something different, someone different.

This was a bigger problem at the beginning when he was with Jeffy. At that time, all Watters did was yap about how much he hated the powers that be at MLS&E. So, you have your brief stint of Wilbur in the am bashing MLS&E, then he and Jeff were on together at noon, bashing MLSE and then again for 3 hours in the afternoon, bashing MLS&E. I am not going to get in to whether the bashing was warranted or not. Too much of anything isn’t good. When it is so negative it becomes totally predictable and unlistenable. Fortunately for 640 Jeff decided to leave and enter Mr. Brady. Not in that Brady is god’s gift, but he certainly mixes it up, I know certain folks don’t like some of the shtick, but at least it’s not the same old, same old. Also fortunately for 640, Burke came to power. The anti MLS&E isn’t as discussable anymore either. They have, for the most part been quiet. There isn’t much for Watters to bitch about of late.

That leads us to yesterday’s radio ratings book. I know. The system sucks. Guess what? It’s the only one we got. It’s also the only one that advertisers use when they decide where to spend their precious dollars. So, it is what it is, but it’s meaningful. The question that I think people in the industry are asking today is why is Hockey Central at Noon killing Leafs Lunch? It is more confusing when you consider that Watters is making some headway against McCown. So, without further ado here is my 2 cents:

1. Watters is on too much. He should be on from 4-7pm. That’s it. I understand if there is breaking news you bring him in (don’t tell Arron Brown of CNN that though ). They call McCown the franchise; he is on one time per day. There is no reason to over expose him. Why shoot yourself in the foot by having less people listen at lunch AND in the afternoon by putting the guy on so often?

2. Dreger is on too much. Again, Dreger is good. He is an insider. What he needs is a Millard. He needs someone to lighten it up a little bit. Dreger by himself just isn’t that entertaining unless he has a ton to talk about. The problem here is that he is with Wilbur AGAIN and he then is also on most nights for a couple of segments. 590 doesn’t put Kyreos on every night, or nearly as often as Dreger is on BWS. It’s just too much. I think they need to get him a good co-host at lunch to lighten things up and then only allow him on at nights 1 or 2 times a week maximum. If something big happens you call the audible and bring him on. It’s not so dissimilar to how the Fan is using Doug Maclean.

3. Mix up the guests on both the afternoon show and the lunchtime show. There are other good people out there; they don’t use them enough, when they use others too much. Ray Ferraro was great when he was on the other night. Add him to the weekly rotation; add Kelly Hrudey, or another guys who can bring some league wide coverage. Neil Smith would be good (he is on with McCown I guess) and I think Al Morganti (rarely on anymore) or someone else who is out there to mix it up and bring in outside information.

Ok, over to McCown. Last night was pretty damn interesting on PTS. I didn’t catch the 4pm hour. I did listen from there on in. McCown was telling Kelley how he has been in the radio business for over 30 something years and yesterday was the first time he can remember that the Toronto Star didn’t have a story about the previous night’s Maple Leaf game on the cover of the sports section. McCown then explained how he doesn’t get Maple Leaf phone calls anymore. He used to get the Leaf lovers calling and then the bashers calling and now the city is apathetic to the Maple Leafs. A discussion then ensued as to what the Maple Leafs need to do in order to rid our town of this apathy.

Let’s get one thing clear. McCown has never been one who likes to talk to “Moro from Maple”. I mean no disrespect to Mr. Moro,or those from Maple, but McCown just isn’t that guy. McCown is the one guy who doesn’t do much Maple Leafs at all. His guests run the gambit of sports, on the business side, legal side, baseball, college sports etc. The fact that McCown isn’t getting the calls is as much a result of the fact that he doesn’t want them as anything else. Look, a caller will get away with more on 640 then with McCown if they want to talk about last night’s game or a trade rumour. That’s a fact(Jack). If you want to hear more about the legal troubles of the owner of the Nashville Predaotrs, McCown is your guy. That, for the record is one of the reason people love McCown’s show (see above). To now try to turn that into a news story, that it is us ,the fans who don’t care enough to call his show is a far cry from the truth. Die hard Leaf fans aren’t going to listen to McCown because he doesn’t provide die hard leaf fan coverage. That is okay. I have no problem with it. There are many a night when I know Watters and Brady are going to be talking to a member of the Marlies, or a Maple Leaf player where, to be honest, I could care less. I don’t listen to them. When McCown is talking to Burt Sugar, I turn the dial. That is okay too right? Wilbur’s show is eating into McCown’s rating because this is, first and foremost a Maple Leaf town. It is not a hockey town. It is not a “sports town” per se. It’s a Leaf town first, second and third. Does that mean that the Raptors, Jays, Argos and TFC don’t have a following? No! I know this is contradictory to the ratings at lunchtime, when 640 does Leaf Lunch, and got killed in the most recent book. I think I have given a pretty good explanation on why that happened. If McCown want’s to talk to the diehards, then he has to starting speaking to them more often on his show. I don’t think it is necessary, but as a colleague used to say, you can’t suck and blow at the same time…

I will say this again, I find it hard to believe, given all the evidence to support it, that Nelson Millman can’t do better with the Bullpen. I simply refuse to believe it. I don’t know Mike Hogan, I don’t know Mike Toth, I bet they are both great guys. The show is not listenable. The proof is in the pudding. There has to be better talent out there somewhere. Nelson, I can arrange a great show for you, for next to nothing if you like!

TSM