Being a Vancouverite, I would like to thank you for relegating Jim Rome to a ‘floating’ evening timeslot. I am sick of hearing sportscasts that pertain to anything except the Vancouver Canucks, Vancouver Giants, or BC Lions.
On a day that featured no real news, being that Mike Gillis did not make any trades at the deadline, I applaud Blake Price for avoiding a non-Vancouver story like T.O. Being released by the Cowboys. Instead, I felt far more entertained by two sportscasters with no relevant copy, engaging in a three hour PMS fest about the rip-off artists known as Ticketmaster.
Bravo. Ripping T.O. would be far more entertaining, and if I want a festival embracing P.M.S. I think I’ll either piss off my better half at that time of the month, or opt for a voluntary lobotomy first.
TEAM 1040, admit you massively fucked up, don’t listen to your audience, and be entertaining again by bringing Rome back to his usual timeslot.
Blake Price, why don’t you just disappear already.
To start this onslaught, I present to you the following rant from Canada’s [ahem] SecondGreatest Living Canadian:
I can’t say this outburst surprises me. And before going there, I do have to say, in general, short of certain subtleties (and suit choices), I tend to agree with Cherry’s slant about hockey. I fully agree fighting is a part of the game and should be encouraged, if to serve as part of the entertainment along with lessening more serious injury caused via stickwork. But this rip on Ovechkin is nothing more than bias. Consider it this way.
Turn on sports news. Sports radio. Especially hockey. Especially now, considering how close we are to the trade deadline, and the frenzy final few hours prior to. With the addition post lockout of the salary cap, the subtext of almost every trade is money money money. Clearing cap space. Is this player worth that much. Rental or keeper? Resignable after this season? Dollars dollars dollars are in the forefront of the hockey talk for the next three days. And therein lies the rub.
With the complexities of a cap based revenue system in the sport of hockey, the true evil of greed sometimes can get lost in the mix of the bigger, team picture. For example, Alexei Kovalev, of my beloved Habs. Never have I seen such an indifferent shithead of a player. No real passion for the game. It is clearly evident that he is all about the Benjamins, and nothing else. The same could be said about Scott Gomez and Chris Drury, amongst others.
Now enter Ovechkin. Cherry says his antics are uncalled for. It’s over the top ‘entertainment’. I say this. Any serious in depth report on Ovechkin proves one thing. The kid just LOVES to play. He has pure passion for the game. Maybe, Don, just maybe, the ‘antics’ are not showmanship directed towards the fans. Perhaps it could be a genuine expression of his joy. In a game filled with money driven sell outs, I find a player like Ovechkin refreshing. Cherry, I fear you lost perspective a long time ago. Fuck me, your commentary, as your broadcast location, is Toronto-centric. Having been in America Jr. for quite some time in my life, two things are constant. First, the hockey is shit. Secondly, the environment, media, fan and team for hockey is not amped up like a contender. It’s more like a relaxed country club. And Don, you and your comments fit right in. Is it any reason Toronto is so horrible? They are geared much more for April golf, not the playoffs.
Still, it could be worse. Here, in every rainy Vancouver (okay, this winter has been unseasonably dry, but generally it rains) we’ve had to endure weeks of speculation as to whether or not Ohlund will waive his no trade clause. Can we re-sign the Twins? And now today, will we offer up Alex Burrows as trade bait (which, in not only my but every other Vancouverite’s opinion is an idea spawned from a Hastings and Main crack addict)? It gets tiresome. January was lynch Vinnie Vigneault month, as the Sundin signing was looking like a flop. February was Vigneault is a genius for putting Kesler with Sundin and Demitra and Burrows with the twins. And our sportscasters talk about nothing else. 21 hours a day (if you’re even more a vampire and night owl than myself) of the same, repetitive story. Just 9 AM to 12 PM as a break. Thank you Jim Rome for adding variety. Can’t Rick Ball talk about NCAA Hoops? Can’t Scott Rintoul stop being a pint sized geek and talk Major League Baseball? Fuck, we do have a former AL MVP from our parts (Justin Morneau). Rome definitely covered a more diverse athletic spectrum than our home grown ‘talent’.
Well, now Rome has been relegated to ‘another time slot’ that Team 1040 has not decided to announce (which probably means late night). All in the effort to ‘give us more Canuck hockey coverage that we asked for’. I don’t know about anyone else, but I asked for less. FAR LESS Canuck coverage, if what constitutes coverage is regurgitating the same two minute story ad naseum for 21 straight hours per day. Now we have Blake Price and Dave Tomlinson repeating the same, homogeonized stories in the time I’d rather hear Rome rip ‘John from Kansas’ or some other clone or clone wannabe. Hell, if the Team wanted some research, it almost seems the majority of Rome’s emails come from Vancouver. Listen and count.
Fact is, I bet the Team 1040 are ultimately appalled by one aspect of Rome’s broadcast. He speaks his mind, and bows to no specific authoritative power. No network mandate, no FCC bylaw. He lays the smack, and frankly, he tells it how he sees it. No other personality on the Team 1040 does that. And maybe there’s the rub. Where Cherry, the former Bruin coach and later supporter has turned coat to be a closet Leaf fan (among other closet habits he may or may not have come clean with yet), Rome won’t change his spots for the good of big business broadcasting. Though in Vancouver, it means he has a right shitty timeslot. One I will probably take a few weeks to figure out. But as for the Team, I can genuinely say this. I, along with all the Rome fans in Van will NEVER, EVER listen again between 9-12 until you fix this atrocity.
Before I start though, I do have to say I love listening to Jim Rome in the morning while I work. This early clip started the lifelong enjoyment of the current king of smack:
If I wasn’t so self assured, I might have a problem with Rome. I am a Star Wars fan. Enough to the point I have collectibles, know all six films inside-out, and even looking at my desk or blog might convince Jim I am Star Wars guy. Maybe even after looking at me he might coin ‘Battlestar‘ guy. Fair enough. If he (or anyone else) wants to try to lay the smack on me because of my fandom, so be it. I simply won’t rise to the occasion. Though the practicum may execute itself a bit differently, we do live in a just and free society, in which we are allowed to like whatever we want. Period. Rome and the clones don’t like sci-fi. Whatever. To each their own.
I do agree with Rome on a great many things. There’s too much shit going on in the world as a whole (the sports world notwithstanding), and the media, the press are just not telling the right story. There’s far too much responsibility to the advertisers and very little to the truth. Rome really cuts through the cheese, IMHO, gives credit where it’s due, and lays the smack with the same moral compass.
And best of all, he’s fucking funny as shit doing it. Watch the clip again. And again. And again. And so forth.
Occasionally though, he gets his facts wrong. Like when it comes to hockey. Yesterday. After shitting on a fellow Canadian for wearing a Rush T-Shirt but admitting he only knows one song (Tom Sawyer), then following up with his [an American's] vastly superior knowledge of the greatest ever Canadian band, Rome decides to make it up to his Canadian listeners by talking hockey. As in Gary Bettman’s cover-up of the milking of player’s salaries to ease the economic uncertainty of the league by ‘re-investigating’ the fighting issue.
What issue? Oh, we mean the issue the asshats who actually never watched the game or care for it, that have to spew out because the fighting makes hockey as violent as gladiatorial combat from Ancient Roman times? The players don’t want to remove fighting. The coaches, GM’s and owners don’t. The league doesn’t. And mostly, the fans don’t.
And Rome was right about the two reasons. First, there’s the sense of vigilante justice. It’s not refined, but neither is hockey. But it works. It worked in the wild west, and it works now in the NHL (and all other levels of hockey for that matter). You go after my top scorer, I’ll fight you. Is there any reason that Wayne Gretzky, a relatively small man among his peers, never had any major injuries in his prime? Two words solve that issue. Dave Semenko. Two more words would be Marty McSorley. You hurt our star, we punch you. Again. And again. And again. And so forth. And it works. And it’s a fuck of a lot safer for the players than a skate or stick to the neck or head.
Very much like a chapter out of the book of the second greatest living Canadian, Don Cherry. And Rome gives loads of praise to the uniquely dressed hockey analyst. Almost too much. It’s like his take on hockey is verbatim to the former Bruins coach.
Which explains the logical disconnect to the second point. Rome starts it right. Fighting has a high entertainment value. Absolutely correct. Though it’s close to the lowest common denominator, it’s what will grow hockey into uncharted markets. Everybody loves a good fight. Even the grannies who say fighting is not Christian, not moral, not the right thing to do, they gawk, cheer, and even egg on when watching a good row. Fighting sells. There’s no denying that.
And that’s where his point finishes it’s logical course. Rome then goes on to say that hockey does not translate well to television, that Fox Sports needed to put the ‘Fox Puck’ in a lame attempt to help the average Joe follow the game, and so on, re-iterating that it’s an untelevisable sport. Well, he’s half right.
First, here in Canada, we have this show called Hockey Night in Canada. It has run for 57 years and is consistently one of the highest rated shows for the entire Canadian market. So don’t give me that shit that it doesn’t translate to television. The reason hockey fails in the US is this. You’re right in that the average American has trouble following the game. We big goons from the North all played since our very tender youth. All of us. We got up at 5 AM every freezing Saturday to practice, or to some tournament 4 hours out of town, to go into a freezing cold arena wearing a t-shirt, underpants and our hockey equipment and skate into each other at high speed for the better part of 10-13 years of our childhood. Most people from So-Cal can’t claim that. Or Phoenix. Or Atlanta. Or Miami. Is it any wonder why hockey really does well in markets like Minnesota, Detroit, Boston, Chicago, New York or Pennsylvania?
Simple. It’s fucking cold here. Hockey is a byproduct of living in the cold. Jim, it’s time you got that. Don’t blame the system. Don’t blame TV. And for the Gods sake, don’t drink the Kool-Aid Bettman’s serving.
Still Rome, you rock. Call Jim Everett Chris for me.
