By TSM
As the world focuses on the Russian Olympics Jay Leno has, once again been “retired”. So long to the man who made late night an un-funny place (in my opinion).
My weekend question to you is, if you could retire anyone on the sports media side of things in Canada, who’s getting the golden watch and why? The very senior Don Cherry is too easy a choice….
Happy Friday!
COMMENTS
For a long time Pierre McGuire but he’s been gone from the Canadian airwaves for a few years now. Yay! I’ve ignored Cherry for a long time now. He only has two good points, automatic icing and checking from behind. John Shannon should only be used for broadcast related segments.
I guess my choice is a tie between PJ Stock and Glenn Healey. Is it really necessary to have three former players on the broadcast? With Rogers assuming control next season I may get my wish…
John Shannon, for sure. It’s bad enough he has an awful voice and horrendous delivery, but he doesn’t even come off as a nice guy, continually butting in and speaking over others. At least Michael Grange, who is equally poor behind the mic, seems reasonable and decent as a person.
My clear number one would be Cox.
Obvious is Don Cherry.
I would actually think of his sidekick Ron MacLean. MacLean can deliver well on his own and show professionalism, but you put him together with Cherry – Cherry lowers MacLean’s status as a Canadian icon in sports.
Ray Ferraro. The man never shuts up and has absolutely nothing to say.
Greg Millen is another one I thought of…… “No question about that!” How many times does that guy say that during a Leafs broadcast??? LOL!
Bob McGill. New drinking game – every time he says “transpire” take a shot.
Gord Miller..I am sure he not a bad guy but for what ever reason he just get on my nerves
Easy one for me – Damien Cox. Unlikable and uninformed and inexplicably appears to be loved by Sportsnet.
Steve Simmons hands down. Not even a close race
Obviously Cox, his unjustified arrogance is beyond grating.
It’s a tie.
1) Joe Bowen. Calls an excellent game but, oh, how I’m tired of “Holy Mackinaw!!!!!!” and that laugh (at his own jokes, too). Comes across as smug and too much of a populist.
2) Jerry Howarth. Knows a tremendous amount about baseball and comes across as likeable, but his own delivery and lines ( and they scooooooore. The Blue Jays are in flight.) are best suited for amateur baseball. I would hope that Mike Wilner doesn’t now start a campaign to get Jerry in the hall. Just because he’s called games for 32 seasons doesn’t, in my opinion, make him one of the best.
to push the analogy a little further: Leno stayed too long and this came at the expense of the far superior Conan (or so the story goes). Who is currently tying up a spot that should — on the merits — go to someone else?
I’d say Bob McCown is well past his prime, but I can’t really think of anyone else I would prefer to occupy that chair. So I guess I’ll have to go with Wilner. While he might have hoped to raise the bar on baseball discussion, JaysTalk has been consistently Jerry Springer-esque during his tenure. Jays fans deserve a better post game show and I’m sure Davidi or Nicholson-Smith or any of the other Rogers Jays people would quite well.
Ron MacLean. He is harder to avoid than Cox, Healy, etc.
A couple;
Bob Elliot needs to go. Guy kills thousands of trees writing about Canadian baseball and scouts we’ve never heard of or care about. His articles seem like 10,000 word essays. When on radio he mumbles constantly.
I’m starting to think Dave Hodge should go as well. I don’t mind him on the reporters, but he brings nothing to Naylor’s show in the afternoon/evening.
Agree on those who say Shannon needs to go. Although I would say going ‘Jay Leno’ would imply that the person had a run where he was popular. I’ve never been sure of what inside information he bring.
FOB’s
I just heard that Butch Carter (and his ego) will be on tonight’s PTS roundtable so I will vote for him………..apparently Brunt will be on the roundtable too so maybe he will make it tolerable
Other than Butch I would vote for Wilner (of course) and the dead wood at Hockey Night In Canada (PJ Stock, Kevin Weekes, Mark Lee, Cassie Campbell, etc)
Surprised you don’t like Butch. He and McCown interviewed the current Raps coach the other night and I thought he did a really good job asking questions that the common fan would want to hear answered. I don’t think I’d want him talking about much else besides bball though.
Butch can be informative but only if it is in small doses and only if it is about basketball……………I just wish he didn’t talk like he invented the game
When they have him on to talk about various sports for one or two hours as a co-host or as a roundtable guest I find it very hard to take him seriously
I think John Shannon…I really do… I really do.
it’s gotta be Cox or Simmons. Hands down worst in the biz.
A photo finish dead heat tie. Cabbie & Cam Stewart.
Cabbie has become irrelevant since leaving the Score, but he does have potential. I agree with several other posters in saying it should probably be Cox. He should join Marty York in the Toronto MSM sports figures hall of shame.
John Shannon for sure. He adds so little of relevance to any sports discussions.
The title says who should follow Jay Leno. Jay Leno was canned for Two big reasons His age and style. There are two on air personalities I think can share the same two grounds for termination Bob Mcowan, he is old and out of touch with many thing sports and technology, and is pretty much losing the room. Mike Wilner is a homer and this very much stands in the way of a logical jays talk, his go jays go style I think has got to go.
Nick Kypreos, the guy has become unbearably arrogant since the rogers deal. The guy needs to check his ego.
Excellent nominations. Not a bad one in the bunch. But I’d say that Ron MacLean needs to go away. Watched him a bit from the opening ceromonies and he was terrible. Nevermind he compared hockey players to the firefighters on 9/11 during on of his pregame monologues. Can’t wait for Rogers to can him next year or so.
Andrew Stoeten should just go away. He sucks.
MIB: Nice job tying some of the comments here into your weekend Seen & Heard. A common theme seems to be that personalities who used to be occasional guests on PTS to offer insight into their areas of expertise (ie. Shannon, Carter, Grange, Elliott) jump the shark when McCown adds them to his cast of regulars. In small doses, they are OK; as regular voices, they are grating, goofy and downright annoying.
In that respect, a great deal of the blame actually falls on PTS and The FAN 590 for piss-poor management of talent.
Too many to list really. Toronto sports radio (and to a lesser extent, tv; and to an even lesser extent, print) has to have some of the worst “personalities” in North America.
I agree with nearly all the names suggested so far, but I’ll contribute Stephen Brunt and Bruce Arthur to the conversation. Not a huge fan of either. Brunt is terrible at any non-major Canadian sport (e.g., soccer) and Arthur has become insufferable to follow on Twitter.
In his prime Stephen Brunt was a must-read. Unfortunately, that was about 10-15 years ago. In my mind, he is currently riding the coat-tails of his past excellent work by writing for a magazine no one reads and acting as another of McCown’s sycophants.
Bruce Arthur is more difficult to pin down. He has obvious writing skill, but it is too often overshadowed by smugness, self-absorption and a lack of sports knowledge. I stopped following him on Twitter months ago for exactly these reasons.
Lee (Oakville): Absolutely agreed about Arthur. Twitter does not serve his “real” work well; I, too, stopped following his Twitter feed. I did the same in the last few days with Cathal Kelly, whose Olympics Tweets have been nauseating. Do these guys truly believe they are so hard done by? I mean, you’d think their bosses had sent them to the front lines to cover the Boer War the way they are carrying on. It’s kinda embarrassing, actually, that we apparently have such a whiny, sucky class of sports journalists in Canada today.