Things I don't like (as much... anymore)

So here it is, full confession: things I have discovered in my middle aging that I no longer have as much "like" for as I did in my younger days. Which admittedly is not that long ago. OK, ok, I'm riffing on Mr. O'hara's previous post. So sue me. No, don't. Please?

1. NHL hockey. Yes, I am STILL a pretty big Habs fan. But four things have now mitigated my once-intense love for this game. First: Concussions concussions and the very unfortunate habit of those with concussions to suffer devastating life challenges moving forward from said concussions. Second: My three children. All of whom I hope never want to play contact hockey. See? Four things. Now Go Habs Go!

Chicken Wings

2. BBQ Chicken wings from restaurants like Buffalo Bills, Wild Wing and everyone else who makes chicken wings. Heartburn! When the hell did I start getting heartburn? Lately. So no more chicken wings. Or take-out pizza. Or KFC (yes, technically chicken wings territory, but still.) Where's the Pepto?

Jazz

3. Jazz. I think I used to like it more when I was young, because it was supposed to be "cool" and "not rock". But you know, I just don't get it. Well, except for Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue". That shit's the shit.

4. If you're from Montreal, you know Premier Moisson breads. And man, I used to love those baguettes like Tim Tebow loves Jesus. But lately, living the last seven years in Toronto (where we do have access to Premier Moisson breads) I gotta say, I think there's better. Namely, Ace Bakery baguettes. Awesome!

5. Crappy classic rock stations. I was listening to Q107 here in the Big Smoke yesterday and I turned on the station three times during the day. I swear, I heard "The Logical Song" each time. That's not cool. I used to like that song. I'm sure the same crap happens on classic rock stations all over the place, including beloved CHOM FM with a renewed, slimmed-down Terry DiMonte. Yes, I'm well aware that classic rock is no longer being made, because it was all made back in the classic age of rock. But GEEZ! Guys, start playing more "deep cuts" from albums or something, it's becoming so... fucking... repetitive.

6. Mondays.

7. Facebook. Yes, it still is my essential reminder of all my friends and acquaintances' birthdays and I get the occassional tidbit of news or interesting video post from someone's update. But with this new Timeline function set to take over all our accounts, I just can't be bothered as much anymore. Zuckerberg, figure out a way to re-coolify your little program. It's gettin' stale.

8. Coffee Crisp. Just lost the taste for it. Don't know why.

9. Endless blog lists.

Here endeth the lesson. What say you?

FOOTBALL!

There are three things most associated with Thanksgiving. Turkey, beer and FOOTBALL! Oh, and family, and being thankful, yada yada, yada. But today was football day in Montreal and I was right there in the thick of things at McGill's majestic Molson Stadium to watch the Canadian Football League's Montreal Alouettes hand it to the Toronto Argonauts. Today marked an historic moment. Not only did Montreal's starting quarterback Anthony Calvillo lead the Alouettes past Toronto 29-19, Calvillo also became the all-time leading passer in professional football history.

I am not talking about a Canadian record, I am talking about a professional football record. Calvillo passed all the pro-ballers that came before him and moved to first on the list.
The Top 5 are
5 - Dan Marino - (NFL) 61,134 yards
4 - Warren Moon - (CFL/NFL) 70,553
3 - Brett Favre - (NFL) 71,838
2 - Damon Allen - (CFL) 72,381
1 - Anthony Calvillo - (CFL) 72,384+

The next active QB on the list is Peyton Manning, who is approaching 60,000 yards. Just before the start of the 4th quarter CFL Commissioner Mark Cohon and Damon Allen were on hand to congratulate Calvillo in person. Over the giant screens, videos of Dan Marino, Warren Moon, and broadcaster Chris Berman played, congratulating Calvillo on this feat.

The Als take to the field

It was an amazing day for football in Montreal. Sunshine and 24 degrees, well above the average temperature for this time of year. Hell, it often starts snowing by the end of October. My friend Elena won tickets and invited me to the game. She knows I have a blog and as far as I know doesn't read it so I have some latitude here in what I write. I'll expand more on her driving habits another day, I'll leave it for now by saying, I drove today because she scares me when she drives.

She has never watched am North American style football game before so I spent most of the game explaining what was going on. I was tempted to explain things wrong but didn't. (Eight quarters, 6 hour game, cheerleaders double as special teams).

So, the Montreal Alouettes won, Toronto Argonauts lose, Calvillo breaks a record, it's Thanksgiving, I'm drinking beer, and I will now go eat some turkey. Happy Thanksgiving!

The Als and Argos lining up

The Devolution of Sports Radio

So there I was, sitting trapped in my car - again - in merciless Toronto rush-hour traffic. All I wanted to do to take my mind off the real world was hear some insightful, informed, provocative sports talk radio.


And in Toronto, that typically means tuning into The Fan 590 during the drive home show with legendary host Bob McCowan. So I tuned in, as I normally do. But he was on a jag about golf, and I just ain't no golf fan. Frustrated, I remembered that Toronto now has two dedicated all-sports talk radio channels. The second is the recently launched TSN 1050. It's being marketed with the tagline: "The Evolution of Sports Radio." Now, I'd heard some bits and pieces of 1050's drive home show hosted by James Cybulski (the show is called "Cybulski and Company". The "company" part is comprised of ex-TV host Gareth Wheeler, who also produces the show) off and on over the summer and just felt "meh" about it. And I should mention that every time I had tuned into 1050, for whatever length of time it was, inevitably the hosts were talking equal amounts of sports and film. And not sports-related movie trivia or some such thing. Nope. Just films the guys liked or actors in films. But I didn't think much of it, guessing they were trying to find some sort of groove and had fallen back on their outside interests in film. They're both pros, so it'll get better.


Well, it seems the 4p.m. drive slot on 1050 in Toronto has gone even further down the path of the cinephile. 


Now let me make clear one thing, I think Cybulski and Wheeler could be great on-air hosts. But what I heard blew my mind. While McCowan was busy interviewing and speaking about some major golf happening, James and Gareth were pontificating on the merits of some obscure film that had nothing to do with sports. And they wouldn't let it go. Seriously, the conversation went on for like 10 minutes. Anyone wanting to hear some sporting news was not getting it from these guys. Again, no disrespect to their broadcasting abilities, but the dudes were just waaaaaay off base with content. 


That was day one of the week. Monday. I decided to test my theory: that Cybulski and Co. were sorely lacking in sports topics and were using a safety net of pop culture discussion to get by and fill time when they had no real guests or sports news to report. And on it went. Tuesday - movies. Wednesday - TV stuff. Thursday - sports movies (OK, this one gets back to the realm of sports... but still!!) and Friday... well, I missed Friday because I left work early.


All told, I'm still a Fan 590, um, fan. 


Word to the wise to the TSN 1050 drive slot folks - start lining up more sports personalities and guests. Drop the pop culture conversations by about 50% and evolve into an actual sports radio show. Because as it stands, in my opinion, you guys are dropping the proverbial ball. 

TSN Montreal, TSN Winnipeg

Fan 590

Football and Other Profanity

I'm watching the home town Montreal Alouettes squad take on Toronto Argonauts in CFL action on TSN. On a second down drive, Montreal running back Avon Colbourne takes a hand off from quarterback Anthony Calvillo and breaks through the Argos defence. Did I hear correctly? Did the colour commentator comment colourfully? He said "Holy shit".

But that's not all. As they tend to do in all sporting events, TSN showed a replay not a few seconds later. With audio.

"Holy shit."

Thirty seconds later, as they tend to do in sports programming, a replay of the last scoring drive was shown.

"Holy shit."

I don't usually post on the fly but I thought this was worth mentioning. I wish I had a PVR. I probably got the plays wrong. But it doesn't matter. Ha ha. Montreal is winning 41-10.

Anthony Calvillo