By Ami Angelwings
4pm hour – Bob McCown hosting
First segment: Interview with Doug Smith, Toronto Star basketball reporter
- Smith talks about the rumored Boozer for Bargnani trade, says that they talked but neither side was interested, thinks Boozer is not a good fit for the Raptors
- Bob and Smith talk about the Raptors having trouble keeping leads, Smith believes it’s really important for them to be able to hold leads for a few games in the remaining games of the season to gain confidence that they can
Second segment: Interview with Glenn Healy, CBC hockey analyst
- Healy talks about the Islanders trading for Tim Thomas, says it’s just to get to the floor
- Bob says that it’s amazing after all of these CBAs they don’t fix that loophole, Healy says it’s an attempt to punish teams who try to cheat the cap, but it’s also used to reach the floor
- Healy talks about the Leafs and the importance for Kessel to score his first goal
5pm hour – Roundtable discussion with Bob McCown, John Shannon, Sid Seixeiro, Neil Smith
First segment: Can a young goaltender play in the NHL without extensive minor league seasoning to build him up?
- Bob says goalies and defensemen aren’t different from forwards and if you’re good enough to play in the NHL you are, you don’t need to go to the minors just for your position
- Shannon and Smith are against this, an argument ensues
- Bob and Shannon argue about the styles goalies play these days, Bob is against the butterfly style where you cut off angles
Second segment: Discussion about the Raptors possibly trading Bargnani for Boozer
- Bob thinks this is a good move and that he’d trade Bargnani for anybody
- Bob wants Boozer more than Gasol
Third segment: Is there a problem with letting teams get to the floor by signing players who aren’t going to play?
- Bob thinks the system is broken that teams can do this, Shannon says this is within the rules and okay
6pm hour – Roundtable discussion continues
First segment: Discussion of the match fixing scandals in soccer revealed by Declan Hill
- Bob wonders if this will hurt the popularity of soccer, Seixeiro says it won’t because he believes the top leagues are still clean, Bob says that they’ve already gotten to some players
- Bob asks what would happen if the NHL turned out to have rampant match fixing, Shannon and Smith say that the league would shut itself down and that fans wouldn’t watch if they felt the results were fixed
Second segment: Discussion of the Australian doping report
- Seixeiro believes this all started at the Sydney Olympics and the win at all costs mentality
- Bob thinks it’s antithetical to be bribing guys with PEDs to throw games because one is used to play well and the goal of the other is to play badly, Shannon thinks that they used the athlete’s PED use to extort them into throwing games
- Seixeiro says he would shut down Australian sports for 2 years to clean it up
Third segment: Neil Smith’s game fixing story and Prime Time Bullets
- Smith talks about playing junior hockey on a team with Doug MacLean, who was captain of the team
- Back then, the first place team played the third place team and the second played the fourth, so it was better to be fourth
- Smith says that he accidentally put the puck in his own net, and the opposing team thought they did it on purpose to lose, so they scored on their own net, and it started a chain reaction where both teams kept trying to score on their own nets
- The referees called the game and the league tossed out both teams from the playoffs
- Only bullet is about Ray Lewis getting a statue in Baltimore, Bob is against this because he believes Lewis had something to do with the murders
- Shannon disagrees with Bob that the national media has ignored his bad side and only some have
Thoughts:
At the beginning of the show, Bob mentioned that he came in early today because he was told one of the new executives wanted to meet with him, but it never happened. Part of me (semi-facetiously) wonders if they did that to make sure he’d come in today and not call in sick.
I don’t blame Brunt for not coming in today because he has to drive from Hamilton and I think anybody driving that distance in today’s storm wouldn’t go into work if they were able to call in.
John Shannon with his sidekick Neil Smith hurt my ears today. It was hard to listen to because when it comes to hockey things, Smith is like a second Shannon and they were tag-teaming Bob for the first segment. Also Bob and Shannon seemed to be arguing all show with Seixeiro occasionally popping in.
The thing I did enjoy was Smith’s story about his team and the opposing team trying to lose on purpose.
Outside of that, I didn’t enjoy this roundtable very much and there was a lot of voice raising.
Photo available here
