I haven't felt the need much to go on here lately--more than a year since the last post--but today's sad end to a run of really good Vancouver sports radio can't go without comment, and I don't think anyone reads my Twitter much.
Bell Media is another Toronto corporate giant that swims in the same septic pond as Rogers, Corus, and a few others. Bell and Rogers own MLSE, which in turn has all the Toronto sports franchises of note, and Bell, last time I heard, is also a minority owner of the Canadiens.
TSN isn't much west of Manitoba. Once they lost any rights to NHL teams west of Winnipeg, they lost interest in pretending that Western Canada meant anything to them. While Sportsnet identifies their sub-networks by region: Sportsnet Pacific, Sportsnet West, etc., TSN was merely TSN1, TSN2, and so on. Whenever they broadcast an NHL game in Toronto, Montreal or Winnipeg (maybe Ottawa as well?), they have to black out other markets.
TSN 1040 was, for a while, the radio rights holder for the Canucks. They lost that a few years ago to Sportsnet, and the new (Sportsnet) radio station managed to hire away a few TSN personalities like Scott Rintoul, but still always managed to sound a bit amateurish compared to their local TSN counterparts. They brought Andrew Walker from Toronto, and he's good, but still their overall line-up isn't really bringing the same energy that the three TSN shows (well, at least Halford & Brough and Sekeres & Price) managed to generate.
It probably doesn't help that they're the rights holder for the Canucks, and as such have had to temper their commentary when it comes to criticism of Orca Bay and the Aquilinis or Jim Benning. (Although they would probably deny that fact.) Now, they're the only sports radio game in town. It will be interesting to see if any other local radio stations take up part-time sports talk, like Dan Russell used to provide late night in the 90s, back before satellite and internet radio were things.
Today's sudden wiping out of TSN 1040 is a loss to those who appreciate honest, no holds barred sports commentary. I compare it to the end of Usenet. In the 90s and early 2000s, Usenet groups were places to go for unmoderated fan forum discussion. alt.sports.hockey.nhl-canucks (or something like that) was home to all manner of characters and opinions. We regulars knew one another, and some took part in meet-ups to watch games at various local watering holes. We were free to jump into other teams' newsgroups as well, even though flame wars might ensue.
This was nothing like the insipid moderated commentary that current fan forums like forum.canucks.com provide. The new breed of fan forum allows only positive comments--critics who dare be a little harsh in their assessment of the team will likely be banned. Only pollyanna opinions are welcome. "Jake will break out" and "Do you have as much hockey experience as Jim Benning? Then how dare you question anything he does?" are what pass for the hot stove league in 2021, and I can't stomach it.
Now the radio evolution is upon us, and as a regular texter to Halford and Brough, I won't be running over to listen to excuse radio any time soon. I hope that Halford, Brough, Sekeres and others will soon be running regular podcasts, and if they somehow form up an online radio presence of sorts, I will gladly foot the bill for a monthly account to be able to hear good Vancouver hockey talk once more.
Meanwhile, I am looking over my own media consumption, and making sure whenever I have an option to drop a Bell product or network, I do so. They are a shit company who treats their employees badly, and can't see anything west of Thunder Bay. The CRTC are a toothless anachronism that has no power to make the giant media entities do anything but continue forcing Toronto content down our throats.
With the absolute chaos that passes for Canuck hockey right now imploding nightly before our eyes, and now no decent media to process the train wrecks the morning after, I may--after following faithfully for the half-century of the Canucks existence--take a pause in my fandom for the first time. Nobody is going to call out Aquilini for his meddling, and unwillingness to hire a decent GM who might actually want autonomy. Being a slumlord who traffics in unsafe truckloads of underpaid immigrant farm labourers does not mean you are qualified to stick your fingers into every Canucks decision, and when you do, we get Luongo's contract penalty, the Erikson contract fiasco, and countless years of overpaid Beagle.
Good luck to all the hosts who no longer have jobs, as well as all the producers and other staff who are unemployed. You all deserve better than Bell's treatment, and I hope to find you back in the media soon!
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