Hell has officially frozen over. Bob McCown not only dedicated a considerable segment of PTS to TFC today, but he was actually genuinely interested in what James Sharman had to say about their progress this season and their success thus far in the playoffs.
Although McCown often presents an antagonistic attitude towards soccer, in private moments he admits to liking Tottenham Hotspur. Not hard core but a casual follower.
Good laugh watching Joe Tilley work the teleprompter for his by-rote recital of facts in his game report. Lance Brown apparently fainted when asked to lead off with TFC coverage.
Originally Posted by ManUtd4ever
FORMER FULL TIME KOOL-AID DRINKER
Some possible good news for a change on the media front:
Check out this tweet at https://twitter.com/lauraarmy/status/796004097463816196
We shall see, hopefully she will still be on the soccer beat, and will be assigned to cover more games & other footy stories than was often the case. That's a decision their management makes. It was pretty quiet from the Star for long stretches this season, and it was nice to read more from Laura again the the past few weeks.
The guys earlier on the FAN (around 2:30 p.m.) were having a bit of a soccer laugh and playing up their ignorance. Because that's a thing.
One asked why the break is so long between last round and next. Can someone please tell me?
Other responded that they're stretching it out so soccer can be on all the time .... because soccer is on all the time.
Then they were talking about the home date. Oh, it's on a Wednesday? Maybe I will watch because it's not on a football day.
The usual .... knee-slappers, I tell ya.
Last edited by GBV; 11-08-2016 at 11:25 AM.
Funny how things work out.
I think seeing a side-by-side comparison between CFL engagement vs MLS engagement in the same stadium really opened up people's eyes in the sports news world.
Doesn't matter what day of the week, weather conditions, game time - TFC sold out the stadium - whereas with Argos every point was an excuse why the stadium wasn't packed.
There's a shift happening in Toronto sports landscape - I wouldn't be surprised if in 3-5 years we could very well see BMO field be a SSS once again.
This really is MLSE's second chance to make this right and bring soccer to the forefront and solidify itself as the #4 sport in the city.
yah, it is a thing appparently
kinda like when hear ppl call it EYE-talian food , or down south and they call it EYE-raq.
sounding ignorant is cool!
fill in the north!
HAR!
Not only does almost every other NA sport take most of the calendar year to finish with sparing only 2-3 months off but...
Wednesday WILL be a football day! Get it? Every sporto loves to talk about what to call the sport you kick a ball with your foot. Rrrrrrright?
HAR!
enter John Cleese...
FORMER FULL TIME KOOL-AID DRINKER
Moderator
I'll be honest, I'm really liking the exposure the club is getting on radio. Greg Vanney and Bez have been making a lot of rounds on the morning sports shows I'll usually listen to coming home from work. Sportscasters who aren't soccer fans are making note of the fact that they're legitimately excited for an MLS Eastern Conference Match.
Sure, there's always gonna be the guys who just won't like the sport and don't care, but I think in general the exposure has been good.
Last edited by Cashcleaner; 11-08-2016 at 01:14 PM.
Absolutely, Cashcleaner. It's amusing to watch those who used to snicker at soccer have to deal with presenting positive developments in the game. Especially when it's the fake enthusiasm of TSN's Darrel "grain silos for goalposts" Dutishynyn.
But it's disappointing to see an entity like Sportsnet get lazy and use someone like Michael Grange to write weak material about TFC when they have abundant resources to draw on who know the game intimately. I like Grange's work in hoops and baseball. But his situational report on their website was the first time I've ever seen him write about soccer.
Pretty sure you mean Darren Dutchyshen or "Dutchy"
Yeah, that's the guy. Don't they call him 'Dooshie' for short? Is it true he used to keep a blocking sled as a pet?
Have to say a page has turned, in today's Globe and Mail, the entire inside page was about footy, two TFC articles and one for yesterday's Canada South Korea friendly. You can not get as main stream for the entire country as the Globe. Still does not compare to what we are used to with Kurt, John etc, but still great to see, epsdcially considering there is still over a week until the first leg.
Remember The Man, The Legend, The Goal 5-12-07 and All That #9 Left On The Pitch, Thanks For The Memories !!!
The sportscaster on the local Toronto CTV channel wow what an idiot, I'm watching the nightly sport cast and you can tell he hated the fact he had to start with a soccer and TFC story about the game tonight just by how quick he was getting through the story and by his body language I think his name is Lance Brown what an idiot, suck it up you soccer hating old fart!
Lance Brown is the fucking worst. He's a complete tool and acts like soccer is the plague that will bring down this country.
He's pushing 60 and from Northern Alberta...deep in the un-globalized sticks. They were probably making fire by rubbing rocks together till recently too. Poor guy!
Well this is certainly neat.
Check out this tweet at https://twitter.com/JustinTrudeau/status/801228067721060352
Lance Brown believes the world revolves around hockey, curling, and the CFL. Always has been a douchenozzle.
TORONTO FC, 2017 MLS CHAMPIONS!!! (Still the greatest in league history!)
Even Damien Cox tweeted about the 2 away goals
Well shit eh
Here's another one of yesterday's men, TSN's Dave Naylor, with a rambling column on why the Grey Cup is such a dud event in Toronto. He blathers away about various reasons and even mentions how the sporting landscape is changing in Toronto.
Not once does acknowledge how this city's demographics have changed in ways that work against the CFL or mention Toronto FC or MLS or the decade-upon-decade growth of soccer consumption in Canada and how that competition is not only eroding the CFL's presence in Toronto, but also in Montreal and Vancouver, the most vital markets in Canada.
Interestingly, though, he suggests that the Grey Cup should not be brought back in Toronto anytime soon. It's hard to imagine one of the frontmen working for the CFL's official broadcast organ being given leave to make such a comment if the league itself wasn't giving it serious thought.
--
There was a time when you could be as sure to have a successful Grey Cup in Toronto as anywhere else in Canada. In fact, the Grey Cup was a virtual staple of the city’s sporting culture for a very long time, with nearly half of the previous 103 editions of the game played right here.
But there’s been an enormous about of change across the Canadian sports landscape over the past three decades and it’s been a while since you could plunk Canadian football’s big showcase down in the Big Smoke with any real degree of certainty that it would sell itself.
Which is why bringing the game back for the third time in 10 years seemed like a risky play from the outset and has proven every bit so.
A lot of this is circumstantial, although when you’re talking about selling Canadian football in Canada’s largest city, it should be understood that the circumstances probably need to be in your favour.
Nine years ago the 2007 Grey Cup game in Toronto was in danger of being a non-sellout until the Saskatchewan Roughriders won the West Division Final and a good part of that province up-and-arrived in Toronto, buying up all remaining tickets and injecting their unique spirit into the party.
Five years later, you had the attraction of it being the 100th Grey Cup game, the Argonauts playing in it and the National Hockey League conveniently shutting itself down in a labour dispute, thus giving allowing the CFL to own more of the spotlight than it would otherwise have garnered.
It would have been a mistake to conclude based on those two events that the Grey Cup in Toronto was something that should be revisited every few years. Although you can certainly understand why the Argos move to BMO Field might have seemed like a perfect opportunity to showcase their new home and drive interest that might help rejuvenate the team.
However, the Argos had a horrendous year on the field and the response to their playing at BMO Field wasn’t near as strong as the team had hoped. Throw in a late start at selling tickets and you had a formula where local enthusiasm for the run-up to the game has been hard to find. There is also the fact that Toronto seems to be going through a degree of big-event fatigue, after back-to-back playoff appearances by the Blue Jays and an extended run to the Eastern Conference finals by the Raptors. The World Cup of Hockey was met with mild enthusiasm and even the World Junior tournament and Maple Leafs centennial outdoor game have been harder sells than expected.
There was of course, a reason the CFL went without staging the game in Toronto between 1992 and 2007. And that was that the 1992 event, featuring a game between Calgary and Winnipeg, did little to excite the local populace and was considered a disappointment.
Like this year, the Argos of 1992 had a dreadful season on the field, while local sports fans turned their attention to other things, such as the Maple Leafs and Blue Jays which were about to embark on their most successful seasons in a generation.
As a result, the 1992 Grey Cup festival went largely unnoticed by the people who live here and the CFL responded, appropriately so, by staying away for a decade-and-a-half.
Thanks to some creative marketing and a late push of ticket-buyers from Ottawa – suddenly the CFL’s most enthusiastic and youngest fan base – this year’s game will be saved the embarrassment of having empty seats on Sunday night.
And the festival of events, frequented by a mass of CFL fans who travel to the game each and every year, will probably be just fine, especially when the folks from the Nation’s Capital hit town this weekend.
But here’s guessing that when all is said and done this week, there’s also going to be a sense that we won’t see the Grey Cup back here anytime soon. That an event that is largely failure-proof in much of the country probably belongs where it is wanted and where it’s going to be celebrated by the local populace just as much as those who hit town for the party.
It has been recognized by everyone that reviving the Argonauts in this city is not going to be an overnight phenomenon, that it’s going to take lots of hard work and commitment to fill their stadium and bring them up to par with support elsewhere around the league.
Hard to think that Canada’s largest party should be back here again before that happens.
Last edited by greatwhitenorf; 11-24-2016 at 03:07 PM.
For the life of me I don't understand why a company like Bell has a 1-sport expert host in Dave Naylor hosting a general sports talk show. Often times when the topic of MLS/TFC comes up, his response is to: a) Try to tie in the CFL somehow, b) Barely talk at all (this happens when a soccer expert is on the show) or c) repeatedly state that he doesn't understand the sport. Option B is typically best and is the tactic used by other veterans broadcasters such as Bob McCown.
Naylor has to win the award for tunnel vision.
All those paragraphs about Grey Cup and Toronto and nary a mention of TFC, soccer or MLS. The elephant in the room while he wrote this must have been close enough to crush him.
Who does Naylor talk to? Where is he located? Is he aware of anyone in the GTA under the age of 80?
Revive the Argos? Hard work and commitment? Might that involve actually acknowledging the team that is the #1 tenant in this year's Grey Cup stadium?
I heard that dinosaur Bob McCowen on the radio yesterday giving 15 minutes to the wrongly painted field. Even had on James Sharman who I seem to like less and less the more I hear from him.
If Jim "Shakey" Hunt were still alive today, he'd probably kill himself at where the status Canadian football is today.
TORONTO FC, 2017 MLS CHAMPIONS!!! (Still the greatest in league history!)
He fails to understand a lot about the sport. Or is it he chooses not to understand? He doesn't understand the 2 legged system (thinks it's confusing/weird). He is very ignorant in his commentary. Thankfully Landsberg calls him out on his closed mind about soccer. Landsberg even once said he couldn't care less what Steve Simmonds thought about TFC (even when it was a positive tweet). But Naylor, as a host of a show with a slogan "Raise your sports IQ" can come off sounding like an idiot when he steps out of his comfort zone. Just the other day he was railing on MLS for the season being too long. While I partially agree, he was making ridiculous comparisons saying MLS was 9 months long and the NHL was 6 months long. Yeah let's include the playoffs for your measurement of the MLS season, and leave out the playoffs from the NHL season that goes into June.
thank god im sleeping when these horrible morning shows are on?
Sports radio can kill your brain cells. Pick and choose what you like rather then actually listen to it live.
Sorry Dan Riccio, I like you, but I am not the target market. I am not interested in the Leafs or the Jays or the NFL or the Raptors so 98% of sports radio talk stuff in this city is useless to me.
Agreed. I've been dreading becoming a car commuter again but if I do I'll make sure to just listen to my podcasts with trusted talk on my game. I don't see the "supporting the local guy that needs to appeal to every type of sports fan" as a way to keep my sanity.
When they catch up to my needs when it comes to footie talk I'll listen live. Otherwise, UGH.
FORMER FULL TIME KOOL-AID DRINKER
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