Let’s talk about 35 candles for TSN and the creation of the Man Cave

Tuesday morning coming down in 3, 2, 1…and, in honor of its 35^th birthday, I was going to list 35 things I like best about TSN, but I stalled when I couldn’t decide between Kaylyn Kyle’s hair and Jeff O’Dog’s butt cleavage and his food fight with Tradey…

Once upon a time, those of us who live in the colonies derisively referred to TSN as the Tranna Sports Network because, you know, it was like that old zen koan: If a tree falls outside the Republic of Tranna and there’s no TSN camera crew on site to record it, does the tree actually fall?

But, hey, just look at TSN today. No longer Tranna-centric.

Except, of course, for the daily Drake updates during the NBA season, the daily updates on Auston Matthews’ grooming habits, the daily Where’s Mitch Watch (which is the offspring of last year’s daily Where’s Willy Boy Watch), the daily Mike Babcock speaks-but-says-nothing feature, the daily Vlad the Gifted still isn’t speaking English report, the annual Day Of The Long Faces when they breathlessly and bitterly recount the night Wayne Gretzky used the blade of his hockey stick to part the hair on Doug Gilmour’s chinny-chin-chin, and the annual retro look at the Joe Carter dinger.

So, ya, TNS remains on Tranna overload, but at least they now have a camera handy if a tree falls in the colonies. And they even let Sara Orlesky or Farhan Lalji talk about it.

Okay, just kidding. I like TSN. A lot. It’s terrific, flaws and all.

Tradey up to no good.

I would rather, for example, listen to their natterbugs on all matters Planet Puckhead as opposed to the squawk boxes on Sportsnet, even if it means staring at O’Dog’s butt crack while he’s brawling over a bagel with Tradey.

I’d like to say the same about the Grid Guys, but they lost me last year when they morphed into teenage groupies with their cringeworthy, Beatlemania-like fawning over their favorite lousy quarterback, Johnny Manziel. By the end of the season, I believe Rod Black and Johnny Rotten were actually dating, although I haven’t been able to confirm it. The Transcona Kid (that’s Blackie) is still gushing over Johnny Train Wreck, so there’ll be more therapy sessions and, hopefully, Dr. Phil can have him detoxed by the time the Canadian Football League playoffs commence.

In the meantime, they’re celebrating 35 years on air, and I’d like to salute TSN with my personal Top 10 Reasons Why I Watch(ed):

Jim Van Mustache

10. Jim Van Horne, who let it be known in a recent tweet that he represented ground zero for TSN talking heads. “I was the first commentator hired by TSN. We hit the air 35 years ago today (Sept. 1). First media conference I went to with my TSN blazer was met with ‘what the fuck is TSN?’ I think the question has been answered. I had 17 yrs of fun there. Congrats to those who carry the banner proudly.” I recall golfing with Jim Van Mustache and the late Billy Powers in a charity tournament during the early 1980s, when all three of us worked in Calgary. I swear, at one point Jim was rolling on the ground, literally, in a fit of laughter. It was the funniest 4½ hours of my life.

9. Matt Dunigan. I sometimes wonder if Matty has tossed back a brown pop or two by the time the red light is switched on, but I get a kick out of the “let’s get ‘er done” former quarterback who often forgets that he’s in a TV studio or broadcast booth, not a locker room.

8. Skins. No, I’m not referring to the amount of flesh TSN’s bevy of cover girl teleprompter readers are told to flash. I’m talking curling. The made-for-TV Skins game was introduced in 1986 and it’s been must-see TV for us Pebble People ever since.

7. The women’s World Cup soccer panel of Kaylyn Kyle, Clare Rustad and Diana Matheson. Imagine that. Allowing women to do more than read a teleprompter. They were actually allowed to provide opinion. Strong opinion. So strong, in fact, that apologists for the Yankee Doodle Damsels were squealing in protest. What an overdue concept.

Kaylyn Kyle and her hair.

6. Kaylyn Kyle’s hair. Rapunzel ain’t got nothing on our soccer girl. Kaylyn’s mane is longer than a Winnipeg winter. And much prettier, which is okay to say because Kaylyn and her gal pals discussed makeup and girl crushes during the World Cup, so I don’t want to hear from the PC Police.

5. Jeff O’Neill, aka Jeff O’Dog. What can I say, the guy makes me laugh out loud, plumber’s cleavage and all.

4. The CBC did a dirty when it kicked Chris Cuthbert to the curb, but TSN was there to scoop him up, for which all Rouge Football fans should be grateful.

3. The CFL. I’m not sure Rouge Football as we know it would exist today if not for TSN.

Vic, Linda and Moosie.

2. Vic, Moosie, Russ, Linda and Cheryl. Show me your top game broadcast crew, any sport, and I’ll one-up you with TSN curling’s Vic Rauter, Moosie Turnbull and Linda Moore, followed by the current team of Vic, Hurry Hard Howard and Cheryl Bernard. Moosie’s left us, but he was one of my all-time favorite people, and it’s no coincidence that he called Winnipeg home.

James Duthie

1. James Duthie. As the Pepsi ad said (with the help of Tina Turner), “Simply the best. Better than all the rest.”

(FOOTNOTE: Many thousands of years from now, when archaeologists dig and sift through the ruins of our civilization, they will discover numerous subterranean hideaways full of sports memorabilia, nacho leavings, discarded pizza boxes, empty beer cans, flatscreen TVs the size of a Royal Family dinner table, and scientific proof of intense male bonding between members of the long-lost Jockosaurus species, who thrived in their secluded habitat without female companionship. After carbon dating, they will determine that—YES!—TSN and history’s first Man Cave arrived at the same time, on the same day, Sept. 1, 1984.)

About Captain F-Bomb and Paul F-riesen…fabulous is also an F-word, and that’s Brooke Henderson…Commish Randy’s street buskers…of Drake and Burt…annoying commercials…Pebble People ahead of the trend…and other things on my mind

Monday morning coming down in 3, 2, 1…and—language advisory—today’s essay is brought to you by the letter F…

Let’s talk F-bombs, kids.

Should Blake Wheeler be telling a news snoop to “fuck off” just because he doesn’t like the tone or substance of a question?

Of course not. It’s unprofessional and rude in the extreme.

Captain F-Bomb

Yet that’s the route Wheeler, captain of the Winnipeg Jets, chose to travel scant seconds after he and his mates were issued their ouster from the National Hockey League Stanley Cup tournament on Saturday night in St. Loo.

Early in a post-skirmish scrum, he had this exchange with Paul Friesen of the Winnipeg Sun.

Friesen: “In an elimination game, you guys probably expected your best. What happened?”

Wheeler: “Fuck off.”

How utterly offensive. Clearly, the ‘C’ on Wheeler’s jersey doesn’t stand for ‘classy’ or ‘charming,’ and it leaves me to wonder if that’s how all the workers in Puck Pontiff Mark Chipman’s squeaky-clean True North Sports & Entertainment fiefdom talk to guests. I mean, is there a section in the TSNE employee manual that instructs them to be foul and vulgar?

Paul Friesen

I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised, though, because Captain F-Bomb has a history of being a dink with news snoops. Mind you, Wheeler always stopped short of telling anyone to “fuck off” until Friesen had the (apparent) bad manners to toss the potty-mouth capitano a totally reasonable question on the heels of a totally unreasonable performance.

Fact: Les Jets soiled the sheets in an elimination joust vs. St. Loo, dropping a 3-2 verdict that looked a lot more like 7-2. Rather than deliver their best, it was their worst effort in six games.

So, ya, I wanted to hear the captain’s thoughts on the pratfall.

“Fuck off,” Captain F-Bomb snarled. “Please, come on, man. This is a tough trophy to win and, um, you know, maybe our best just wasn’t good enough today and, you know, their best was pretty darn good. Um, you know, in situations like that you look for the resolve in your group, you look for how guys fight and, um, we played to the last whistle, so…you know, that’s the way I see it.”

He couldn’t have said that without telling Friesen to “fuck off?”

Look, I understand sports and athletes. Been there, done that. So I realize that Wheeler was dealing with a raw wound. He was PO’d. But, hey, we all have bad days at the office. That doesn’t grant us license to tell the butcher, the baker and the babysitter to “fuck off.”

I don’t want to hear anything about an inappropriate question at an inappropriate time, either. That was the right time and the right place for Friesen to ask Captain F-Bomb, and others, for an explanation. It’s part of the captain’s gig to man up to the media, and if the surly Wheeler isn’t comfortable with the duty he can hand the ‘C’ to someone with a civil tongue in his head.

Paul Maurice

That’s quite the collection of salty-tongue leaders the Puck Pontiff has assembled. Paul Maurice is Coach Potty Mouth (“I can make you cry in that fucking room;” the players are “horse shit.”) and Wheeler is Captain F-Bomb. Charming men.

I know Friesen. If you don’t appreciate his scribblings, I’m partly to blame, because I spearheaded a move to pry him away from CJOB and join us at the Sun, and when we last saw each other he wasn’t holding it against me. He’s a terrific guy and terrific at his job. A lot better than Wheeler was at his job on Saturday in St. Loo. I can also assure you that being on the receiving end of Captain F-Bomb’s f-bomb won’t give Paul a moment of bother. Guarantee he’s heard worse, like from readers suggesting he perform physical acts that are impossible. So he doesn’t need me to defend him. He’s a big boy. I’m simply calling out Wheeler for what he is—a Grade A boor.

Unless I miss my guess, Friesen will make light of his exchange with Wheeler, and that’s fine. But it doesn’t address the larger picture. News snoops should be allowed to conduct their business without being bullied by boors.

Brooke Henderson

Moving on from the churlish to the charming, give or take a Kaitlyn Lawes or Tessa Virtue is there anyone on the Canadian sports landscape more totally fab than Brooke Henderson? Fabulous—now there’s an F-word worth speaking. Our girl Brooke topped the leaderboard at the Lotte Championship in Hawaii on the weekend, bringing her win tally on the Ladies Professional Golf Association Tour to eight, and no homebrew has ever done it better. Or with a brighter smile. Brooke’s only 21, so it’s a cinch she’ll pass Sandra Post, Mike Weir and River City’s George Knudson on the hoser all-time wins list, but I like her because she’s a delight and appears to be everything that’s right with our youth.

Annoying TV Commercial 1: Is there a rule in advertising that men must come across as total tools? I realize men can be real goomers, but seriously. The guy in the ad for a Hyundai Santa Fe is made out to be the all-time nincompoop, driving his very pregnant, very in-labor wife and her mother to the hospital, and he forgets they’re in the car when he hops out and races solo to the emergency entrance. As if that’s going to happen. Well, okay, a guy might be dense enough to forget his pregnant wife is sitting in the back seat, but there’s no chance in hell he’d ever get away with leaving the dragon lady mother-in-law behind.

Commish Randy

Canadian Football League players say they’ll stay home and twiddle their thumbs if there’s no Collective Bargaining Agreement in place by May 18, when the large lads in pads are scheduled to begin grabbing grass and growling. Not to worry. Commish Randy Ambrosie, remember, spent the off-season galloping the globe and slapping palms with folks who don’t know a rouge from Rihanna, and I’m sure he’s convinced league owners that he’s discovered enough Mexicans, Germans, Austrians, Italians, Scandinavians and Frenchmen to fill their rosters. If not, he’ll just go back to Europe and round up every street busker with a valid passport.

Sarcasm aside, I’m getting bad vibes about the CFL-CFL Players Association negotiations, now on hold until the end of the month. Not sure what little games Commish Randy and the bankrolls are playing, but I don’t like it. Our home and native football needs a shutdown like Winnipeg needs another pothole.

Can you imagine the reaction across the land if there’s a CFL work stoppage? It’d be huge, front-page news in eight of the nine CFL cities. Meanwhile, in the Republic of Tranna, they’d be too busy gabbing about Auston Matthews’ chin whiskers, John Tavares’ pajamas, and the Drake Curse to notice.

That’s right, rapper Drake is now a two-sport groupie, giving news snoops in The ROT the opportunity to fawn over him at Raptors and Leafs games. But, hey, maybe that’s what we need in Good Ol’ Hometown—a celebrity groupie to attend Jets and Blue Bombers outings. Do you think we can pry Burton Cummings out of Moose Jaw? Better question: Why is a rock and roll legend living in Moose Jaw?

Annoying Commercial 2: I really wish that very angry guy in the white bath robe would quit pouting about the lady in his life sharing his Old Spice body wash. Every time I see it (which is far too often), I get the feeling they’re heading for divorce court to squabble over custody of soap or, worse, he’s about to give her the back of his hand upside the head. The ad has a sinister tone.

Linda Moore was in the booth in the 1980s.

Damien Cox of the Toronto Star/Sportsnet notes the number of female voices we now hear drifting from the Tower of Babble in men’s sports. “Cassie Campbell, AJ Mleczko in the (NHL) playoff booth, Dottie Pepper’s analysis at The Masters, Doris Burke calling NBA games, Jessica Mendoza at the ballpark, Beth Mowins calling NFL play by play,” he tweets. “The era of female sports broadcasters in more prominent roles is upon us.” Interesting, but not surprising, that Cox would ignore curling. Pebble People were about four decades ahead of the trend, that’s all. Vera Pezer and Linda Moore worked men’s games for TSN beginning in the 1980s, and now we have Cheryl Bernard on TSN and Joan McCusker with Sportsnet/CBC.

And, finally, it’s hard to believe that the Winnipeg Jets are done before Jennifer Jones, Kerri Einarson and Mike McEwen. When did curling become a 12-month sport?