[MUSIC] >> Ungained, nearly lost in Pangay, did Lewis it? And Sunday is up there, two bullets on the night. >> Right. >> And Sunday wins the game with 500 in this trip from the premiere. The crowd with another maple and substance crowd going nuts. And they are proud of the center. Sunday, a metric, and number five, Hunter. >> Gilmore back to the net, they were chucked in front of Worshevski. And it is now we're winning, winning around the net, wait 80-0. [MUSIC] >> Gilmore, so just, and he's wanted in a second overtime period. [MUSIC] >> And Friday, and fan morning show, sports at 5.9 in the fan. Ben and S. Brent Gunning, good morning to you, Brent. >> Yeah, good morning to you, Ben. How are we doing on a Friday? >> Doing well, so Bob Cole, listen, there's lots to get to today. And we will get to it as we head towards game four, leaf spruins, tomorrow. We got lots, and we finally have some information on William Knee Lander. >> Yes. >> Which we will get to in the coming moments. And yeah, full slate of action in the NBA and Stanley Cup playoffs yesterday. But we got to start, we had a draft as well. >> We had an NFL draft. >> This is a lot going on. >> Where the Atlanta Falcons are, I don't know, they're loading up on quarterbacks. Maybe they're about to trade Michael Pannock's Jr. >> Yeah, maybe it's also very fitting that like with what we're about to talk about, that everything is happening. >> Everything is happening. Bob Cole, the voice of not a generation of hockey fans, of like multiple generations of hockey fans, has died at the age of 90 years old. And everybody giving their remembrances of Bob Cole will do the same. >> Yeah, that's, to me, that's it. He's the voice of like the guy spans Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Connor McDavid, Boston Matthews. He was able to call not the entirety, obviously, of the last two guys' career. But like, it's just he's hockey. If you're a person under the age of what, like 35, maybe you're not familiar with Bob Cole, but like anybody over the age of 30, hey, I think 30 might be actually. >> I think 30's the bar because I'll just put it bluntly, I'm 34 and that's my voice hockey. So yeah. >> 34 and above, that's all your seminal hockey moments are voiced by the great and legendary Bob Cole. >> Yeah. I mean, we mentioned all of the NHL moments there. I mean, the one, one of the ones that always jumps out to mind when we think of like great Bob Cole calls is not even him calling the action, it was him calling a team capitulating in the action. The 66 super series, the Soviets come in and the Broad Street bullies rough them up. They're going home, home and then they came back and then they got, they got sent home with the loss. Eat it, Red Army, but it's amazing. Then you got the Joe Sakic in, in Salt Lake. I mean, God, he calls the heartbreak a shiny in Nagano and yeah, like that's my vintage. Those are the ones who jump out to me, but you're seeing all the great calls. It's the greatest goal of all time from Mario Lemieux where he goes through the whole team. It's pick your poison of any Wayne Gretzky call. He is, you know, you're so lucky in this business. If you get to be the voice for like one person, you and I, we step to the mic every day and you know, like we do this because we love sports. But if we're lucky enough that one person thinks about like people talking sports at you or that guy gets to be it for a country for, yeah, no, I think three generations maybe it is insane, the longevity he had, the different players that touched his career. I mean, there's all the other stuff as well. Like he, of course, he curled in the briar, which just feels so perfectly on brand. Yeah. It's like, it's, I don't want to say it's not a sad day. Of course it is when you lose somebody like that, but it really just feels like, you know, we've all been to funerals where something happens and it's, oh my God, this person's 34, but we've also been to ones where it's like, Hey, this is truly a celebration of life. And, you know, obviously condolences to the Cole family. It's, you know, but for all of us being able to look back on this, he just has such a body of work. We can sit here naming our favorite Bob Cole calls and not, we'd run on a runway before we could talk about William Newland or any of the everything that was happening last day. Yeah. And it was only 2019 that he called his last game on hockey night in Canada, which is crazy to think about it. It's also crazy to think about that was five years ago. But yeah. For me, Bob Cole and the sound of his voice and re-listening to some of the all time great calls. It harkens back to, yeah, watching hockey with my dad, right, sitting down on a Saturday night. My dad used to crank up the volume for the hockey night in Canada song, like all throughout the house was like, the walls were shaking. He wouldn't crank the volume on the song so loud and we'd sit back and listen to Bob Cole every Saturday night. I mean, we talked to Burnlungquist a couple of weeks ago. And to me, there is a, there is a through line between the two in, in an era in which everybody has their own, their own thing, right? Everybody wants to be over the top and make a name for themselves and it's, there's just, there are more voices. So it's harder to break through. It's harder to become as great as those guys were with the economy awards. That's it. Like you listen to those two calls that we play the, the Gilmore over time winner, the Matt Sundine over time winner for goal number 500 and how many words are there? Fewer than 20. >> Yeah. >> But it was the cadence. It was the accepting of, hey, I'm part of this moment, but the moment itself stands on its own. You just need a little bit of support to that. That's, that's it. It's just very rarely in play by play, will you, will you see that type of, that type of approach where it is an economy awards? >> Yeah. I mean, you know, I was watching like a lot of you is watching everybody tell all the stories yesterday and it was Rom McLean who mentioned that he often, and you know, like play by play guys will have done this. I'm sure before Bob Cole and obviously are still doing it to this day, but he would often just kind of, you know, box out Harry Neil, like, come on, pipe down, let the crowd take this special moment, let them do it. Not that, you know, not that we all didn't love hearing from Harry Neil. It's like that is truly, if we want to pinpoint this exactly, it's like Bob Cole, Harry Neil, that is the sound of hockey to me. But just that understanding of the moment, I mean, again, when somebody might try to describe the everything that was happening, we all got eyes and he's gonna tell us in our ears and just, well, sit back, relax, everything is happening. >> I don't need to describe a whirling pervish in the corner. And look, like, I mean, who doesn't say old baby to, I mean, you're watching a hockey game, you say old baby. >> You walked in this morning and I said it to you. You can't, you can't not there. And again, it's just he's such a feature of hockey. You think of him like, God, like where my parents live in the city, there's like a Donnie Brook street. And every time I would walk past, I go, oh baby, there's gonna be a Donnie Brook, cuz it's like you just, you think of him. And to have to be able to, to be able in a job where your job is to tell stories about other people being great and highlight the feats that they accomplished. It's very fitting and not that we haven't had these days when he called the last game in 2019 or orders of all this other stuff, there've been moments to reflect. But yeah, in a world where he was so good at telling us how great others were, it's kind of nice to be able to return the favor in like five percent is good away. >> Well, of course, yeah. I never met him. I've been in this industry for two decades, I never had the good fortune to meet him. It's great to read some of the stories and Steven Braun with an excellent obit on sportsnet.ca yesterday, I assume it's still there today. And part of what I heard through the, through multiple intermediaries and it's at the end of the Steven Braun piece is that this is a guy that was very serious about his craft. And there were times where that he, I mean, he was a very sweet person and I think Erash Meddani told a great story, wrote about a great story about him bringing him in for his favorite Captain Morgan and Coke to celebrate his order of Canada. So like there were people that got close to him, but it wasn't about the work, right? And if you came between him and the work, or he thought that you were distracting or taking away from the moment and the seriousness of what he was trying to do, which was convey these incredible moments to the millions of Canadians that were listening to him on the Saturday night, he wouldn't put it up with that. >> Yeah. I love that aspect of it, right? And I think that that's, you know, maybe you and I look at this differently than everybody we're talking to about this now, because it's, you know, closer to what we do. But you love that. I mean, we've all worked with guys and people in this business who it's like, yeah, roll it a bit. Yeah, okay. I watched my highlights. Let's have a chat about it. You know, it's not the way you need to do things. And Bob Cole to hear those stories about how, you know, not overprepared because you can't be overprepared if it's something you love and you take seriously. But yeah, that's, that's awesome to hear. And I do love that a guy cares as much as it feels like he did when something can come. So again, I don't think it came naturally to him again, like you can't teach the voice. You can't teach the voice, but you hear stories about him, you know, talking with like getting advice from like foster Hewitt about, about the four levels of cadence you should have in a game. So it's not to say that he just, it came naturally to him. But I think often, and we do this with athletes all the time, you're like, Oh, how easy is it to be Conor McDavid? It's like, yeah, there's a little something touched by God there for sure, but you got to cultivate it. You got to work at it. Like, especially with athletes, we all, we all know that. And I do think sometimes with, you know, somebody like a Bob Cole, especially when you've been doing it forever, it can seem second nature and it was, but obviously he didn't take it as such. Yeah. Some great stories also told by Elliot Friedman, another article on sportsnet.ca talking about how they went through multiple different coaches and, and translators did to get the upper enunciation correctly. I mean, Harry Neil's screwing them over by telling him to sit in Bob Cole's seat on a bus. I used to do some great stuff. Just, I mean, I would implore everybody to read, listen, watch everything that there is in regards to the great and legendary career of Bob Cole. Speaking of Elliot Friedman, no surprise, no, he gets the scoop on William knee lander. It's migraines, which like in retrospect, it's like migraines. Of course migraines, we talked to Scott Hartnell and was like, hey, what could this be? Have you ever just woken up one day and you couldn't move? And he told the story about his oblique and how he tweaked it just with like an innocuous pass up the middle? Yeah. That made sense too, but migraines makes the most sense, especially considering, I wasn't totally familiar with his history of migraines that he had, you know, changed his visor at one point in years previous. I know people in my life that have dealt with migraines and boy, I know people that have dealt with serious migraines, where it's like two and three days where they can't leave the bed, like it's awful. It can be debilitating. Thank God. I've never dealt with them. But this makes all the sense in the world. Yeah, I migraines are a weird thing to your point. There are people who, I mean, you know, I know, I know people have like missed months on end of school because of it myself. I deal with them very, I mean, it certainly doesn't feel minor when I'm in the throes of one, but I get them on occasion. And yeah, I mean, I once tried to do a radio show a mere hour after experiencing one with you when I was connected via the tie line. It was really nice you guys to let me go because could not do it. And I couldn't imagine that was me sitting in a basement talking, not trying to go play in a hockey game. It makes a lot of sense. I think that it is a my honest to goodness first blush reaction on this is I'm so happy it is not 1986 because I feel like we'd have some very different takes about a guy having a headache and missing three playoff games that then we would have now. Yeah, I think and especially specifically that guy. Sure, sure, sure. Yeah. And I think anybody, listen, I again, I've never had a migraine. I've seen people deal with them. And I've had a headache, although very rarely if I had a headache. And God, it's like a headache all the time I had to pound two Advil before I came in this morning. Is that true? Just pounding. Yeah. Yeah, maybe you should look inwardly about like you're the way like Admiral, you're your nutrition. I don't know something something about like having multiple headaches, probably not maybe it's your like thousands of coffees every day. It's the it's the mixture of living life strictly in pure stress and black coffee is why yes. Okay. I guess there's no way to change that there really isn't it's well, no, like in in as soon as four days, the stress part goes away immensely. It's like, okay, okay, you stress even in these off days, the extra off day helps give it like yesterday was like a non stress day today, though. Okay, so is this? Okay, I want to separate this from like the personal element of William E. Lander dealing with migrants. That sucks. And I legitimately feel for the human being, there's no amount of money. No, you can give someone where it's like, yeah, well, that's okay. I just I deal with constant migraines, irritating. Yeah, but at least I have a billion dollars that I can't enjoy spending because I'm in a dark room and I have to wear glasses indoors, like obviously, like that's that sucks awful. But if he's able to get over these, and it does seem like he's trending in a correct direction, isn't this like good news as far as his physical ability to play like once he gets over this thing. And again, this is just me assuming right that at some point they will be able to put this in the rearview mirror because they dealt with it before. And I guess the the gray area comes in if this was concussion related. Yeah, but let's just say it's some medical condition where he has migraines and maybe with the correct medication, he can return to normalcy. Is this not a good thing? I mean, like, initially we thought it was just like the guy tweaked his back and couldn't move. It was like what version of William Neil and are you gonna get when he gets on the ice? If he's able to play, doesn't it sound like a guy that's gonna be close to 100%? Yeah, that is I honestly hadn't gone that way. I mean, he's still going to be diminished in the fact that he hasn't been. I mean, we've all seen the practice videos and I have it out there. Some I highly doubt they're like, all right, go play possum out there, Willie. And then you're running wind sprints with a parachute on where nobody can see I don't think that's happening. So if there is any worry there, it's the conditioning stuff that he hasn't gone hard in a week or whatever it's been since that last Tampa game. But that's an infinitely better situation to be in than if it was the Scotty Hartnal oblique or if it was a back or I don't know, like, you know, obviously a high ankle sprain has such a longer track record, but with some leg injury or something, guess what? He wouldn't have been able to push himself in conditioning to be in shape the exact same way. So I think it's yeah, you're right. And there's no such thing as a good scenario that sees William Neilander with a mystery illness that we are only now finding out missed the first three games of the season after playing in the like, there's no good version of that. But this is as silver aligning as you can kind of possibly find in it for sure. Yeah. And does it change the way he's deployed? I think that's like the interesting question. Because we are having all these conversations about like, what do you do with Neilander? Do you put him on? Do you put him do you load up the top six? And I think a lot of people's opinion on that was predicated on, and not to say one way or like, I think you can believe he should go in either spot, but want to know what version of Neilander you're getting. I think William Neilander ready to go as much as he's going to be. That's a very different conversation than putting in a, okay, you're getting a 70% of William Neilander back in the lineup. And again, I don't know that they were ever going to do that. We didn't have any clarity, but we were all wondering. Yeah, I think it's a, it's a bigger question if that second line is going good gravy, right? And I know they score the goal and Mitch Marner has the assist, which it was quickly forgotten, right? Nice, nice, nice, good moment and have more please. But in an overall sense, that was not a dominating second line. And the Matthews line wasn't as dominating as they were in game two, obviously in game three either. And this was a diminished version of Austin Matthews, who we believe is dealing with some sort of illness. I mean, I guess the theory would be if it's a diminished version of William Neilander, you want to insulate him with great players. And maybe there's a more likely case for him to be on the second line and less likely to throw him on a third line where he's like, okay, now you got three lines that are capable of scoring with all your incredible offensive talents spread out. But I would, like honestly, in both scenarios, I think I want them on, on a loaded up second line because the second line hasn't been good enough. If he is, if he is like back full force, capital W, capital N, William Neilander, then I want him on the third line, getting spot starts up to the top six. That's what I want to see. But I do agree with you. There is an element of if you're worried about what version of them you're going to get, then insulating him makes a lot of sense. Because I also think that the version of William Neilander, you're going to see, not say I think he's going to start the game tentative or hesitant and presuming he plays on Saturday. But I think the version of William Neilander, you're going to see about the third period is a very different one than the first. Like he's going to have to get his feet wet. It's going to be, he's going to be jumping on a treadmill. That's going it. I don't even know what like the settings are on them. You, you feigned treadmill use occasionally. It's like, what's a fast one? 10? I don't know. Is that fast? Yeah. Yeah. 10 would be fast. Kilometers an hour. I don't know. I don't know. They, they, they, the numbers correlate to a speed. I thought it was just like, you know, like one faster, like one. No. No. Okay. It's actually speed. Learn something new every day. Yeah. The point I'm trying to make is you don't want to jump it out of the treadmill. Very fast. Yeah. Very fast. Yeah. Or at least start slow. Yeah. Then build it up to fast. I mean, when you said tentative, first thing that came to mind was like, Oh yeah, like what's that first hit going to look like? What's it going to feel like for us? And especially if this is concussion related, like we do, we don't even have official word that it's a migraine. I think Sheldon Keef and his answers and his responses to the reporting essentially confirmed that it's a migraine. But if it's concussion related, yeah, it's, it's a nerve wracking thing. And yeah, certainly you're going to be clutching your pearls every time he gets slammed in the boards is pretty good at avoiding those things necessarily. But I mean, just to bring it back to the reporting element of this, because it's, it's, hey, we don't want to reveal exactly the nature of the injury because there's a potential targeting of that area of the body. I don't know. Is there a potential targeting of the head? I get in, in, in even my deepest, darkest thoughts about what people would do to win a Stanley Cup. Are we thinking about a guy who's missed three playoff games because of migraines related to a concussion and Brad Marsh and his elbow in the head to knock him out of a playoff series? First of all, that's going to clear an egregious penalty and a suspension that have to call it. Obviously, as we know, well, we'll get to our odds on Brad Marsh and taking a penalty tomorrow night, it's going to make arena. But yeah, I don't, I don't, does it change it that it's a head injury or not? Or is that that make the most sense to you that you would protect the rest of the hockey world from knowing the exact nature of the injury? Yeah, they should protect the hockey world from knowing the exact nature of the injury. Cause it doesn't have to be, I understand what you're saying that even, even as like Brad Marsh on is like putting on the foil before game four, he's like, but don't target his head guy. Like I think in a conscious thought that for a lot of people, you're right. That is a bridge too far. You know what else they think? They would love Brendan Carlo to hand out the exact hit Simone Benoit handed out on David Pasternak. Just go do that. You don't do anything egregious. I didn't target the head in that moment. No, hit him hard. He blew him up. Revo did the exact same thing as Akka. Why would you not? If these guys are willing to block shots with their face, you think just, if they're willing to sacrifice their own face for the Stanley Cup, how much do you think someone on Boston cares about William Newlanders? And I don't say that to say they're sitting there and this is like a New Orleans saying circa bounty gate meeting where they go back to the bone until you can see blood. Don't stop. I don't think that's what's happening, but it absolutely is. Finish every check on new vendor. And if you get a chance, finish another one on him too. And they all and guess what? Every guy in the room understands what that means as well. So I it's it. Is it icky? Yeah. Is it gross? Yeah. It's the Stanley Cup playoffs. I mean, they would do anything to win that thing. Yeah. Yeah. I think what you're describing is, I mean, what the series has been altogether anyways, right? Exactly. I just I don't know if that changes because, you know, they make a point of getting every lick they can in on him. I mean, game three had the most hits through 40 minutes as any playoff game in more than a half decade. Yeah. I mean, I wonder if that enters the equation too when when putting William Neelander out there. It's it's the postseason and he's just gotten this huge extension. This is this is not for the faint of heart though. No, it is the postseason. So it's not like this is a surprise. But this series in particular is heavy hitting nasty. Yeah. Yeah. I wonder if that enters the equation. I would like to think that yeah, William Neelander all indications are like if he's dealing with severe migraines, the fact that he's on the ice like he's wearing sunglasses literally indoors and still trying to get on the ice and play in these games that he's doing whatever he possibly can to make it right to put himself in that situation where he can play in that game tomorrow night. But I wonder if there's anybody in the periphery who's saying, yeah, man, like the guy with the the head thing that might be related to the concussion thing. Maybe this isn't exactly where we want you. I harken back to I've mentioned before, if you if you missed it, go check it out. God, hey, it like pains me to do this, but it was a good interview. Go check out the interview bunk had with Clojullian. And he talked about he asked him about the difference of playing through something. And when the medical staff is holding a guy out, and this feels like the worst injury for that conversation, because it the general overlying thought was, if you can make it worse, if you can potentially damage it further in, and there's a likely or somewhat likely chance of that, that's when the medical staff will typically hold the guy back. But if it is a pain, tolerance, threshold thing, then it's again, my favorite usage of the words for him, then their mind is what he said. And I think doesn't this feel like both? Having the very limited understanding of biogrades, I do I can easily see a world where a big hit knocks him back a step in, not the recovery of migraines, because if it's an ongoing issue, it's a medication thing. But if there is any belief that this could have been related to a concussion, or I mean, the neck bones connected to the migraine bone, I think, I don't know. I will say that like, there's cancer. God, we sound like idiots, like talking about the medical aspect of this, but like the medical research that I've read and the things that I've led to, okay, but understand God, this sounds like 2020 all over again. I've been doing my own research. Okay, so we've come a long way in in our the way we evaluate concussions, right, and diagnosing them and understanding, you know, when somebody suffered them. But the brain is still one of the most mysterious organs of the human body. God, does it? Okay, so if we're like, yeah, maybe 50 50, this is related to a concussion. I feel pretty certain in saying that, yeah, you suffer a concussion or a head hit. It's probably is not gonna help migraine issue. Yeah, I wonder how and the medical practitioners, maybe it's a little different when you work for a professional hockey team, but I think probably not. Like you do err on the side of caution, right? Like if this is, if the medical personnel with the Toronto Maple Leafs are given their brothers, I'm sure they're always like, well, don't play anyone, right? Because where our job is to protect the health of the human being. It's not healthy to be in a game in which the first 40 minutes, the most collisions in the sport have happened. But I wonder how much you give them the decision-making power when you're dealing with a head injury here. Like how much of this is William Neil Anderson, I'm fine. I'm good to go. I can do my best. Like even I saw Shane O'Brien say, like maybe just throw him out there on the power play. Like if he's only capable of just shooting and scoring and maybe not skating at full strength, maybe it's just put him out there on the power play. If he could do that, I'd take that deal in a hard way. Well, I mean, it can't be any worse. But I wonder if there's somebody who's physically putting their body in front of William Neilander and getting into a postseason game here. Yeah. And the head part of it, obviously, is what makes that such a finicky conversation, because I mean, I don't take this as me making excuses for him. But I think it's pretty safe to say that if a doctor had to say is Marner like zero percent healthy or a hundred percent healthy, he wouldn't be saying a hundred right now. But I think different when you're dealing with an ankle as opposed to your brain and an ankle is a pain threshold thing. Like David, think about how long ago that injury and again, this isn't me making an excuse for him. Think about how long go that injury happened. There's still some lingering effects, but at a certain point, okay, like you're it's going to heal up or it's not. You want to sit out till June? I didn't think so. So tape it up. Get out there. You can't tape up your neck. You definitely can't tape up like your eyes to keep the light out. That would certainly make you a much, much less effective. Only McDavid, I think, and that's actually that's next year. That's how it'll be fair. Him and Kuchra have to play with their eyes shut. We'll see. We'll see what happens. Well, Nathan, we can't run away with the hardest one. What would happen there? But I look at it and I think that you the other part with this that I think is so interesting when Neelander is that and obviously, you know, you're a team player, you play the game. If that's what's been happening and he has been saying, get me out there. Get me out there. I can tough it out or whatever. And we have no idea if that's the case. How frustrating must that be for him to be completely gagged to have nobody saying what's going on. I mean, we now have the report, but I mean, Ben, like, you know, like, I'm not pretending I'm free here, but it's like, you hear things or scuttlebutt around. There was nothing around this one like there really wasn't. And that is the part that I think is so interesting from like a messaging reporting standpoint is, can you imagine your William Neelander? And no one's doing it publicly. Like, nobody with a platform is like, I think this guy should tough it out and play. But that was happening in group group chats across the country for the last week. Sure. And again, it's such a he has done enough, I think, to change the perception of this player. But go back 18 months ago, we're having this conversation. Could you imagine? So I think that's the other interesting part about this is like Neelander. And again, we don't know the machinations, but there's a version of this where he's proving himself to be the biggest team player possible, not shouting from the rooftops. They're holding me back. I want to play because I can only imagine how much you would want to dampen whatever negative perception there is that I think now, even the hardest of people who were, you know, most annoyed by a goal. Okay. It's pretty tough to play through migraines. And by that, I mean, impossible. Yeah, migraines. And then yeah, the head stuff is especially in this era of pro sports and what we know about concussions and the lingering effects of those things and how they can impact your post playing life. Yeah. But yeah, if it's just a migraine, if it's not concussion related, if he's able to get treatment for it, which apparently he's dealt with before and he's, you know, we're talking about a guy changing the tint on his visor a couple of years ago and just had a 98 point season. So God assumed that he was able to manage these things. I fingers crossed that he's able to do so in time for tomorrow's game. Can you imagine we see William Neelander come out there looking like Eric Weinrich with like a yellow visor or something? Whatever it takes, man. Oh, no, I would have zero qualms with it. It was just, let me tell you, there'd be some upset uncles if he like bailed out of a, like, and again, he's not even this type of player, but a guy wearing like a tinted visor. I don't know. It's just it's ripe for disaster. Again, you say yellow visor. And that reminds me of a Christmas gift my, my dad asked for. Okay. It was so good. I'm so excited. All right. They used to have these things. Yeah, there were goggles. Okay. That were tinted yellow. Yeah. But the, the hook was that the certain type of tint made golf balls more visible that you could find them in the deep rock. Our mutual friend, Andrew Walker has these glasses as embarrassing. Yeah. I got as he was asking for, I was like, are you sure like this is stupid? Yeah. What's he going to ask for a chipper the Christmas after? Yeah, no, it's embarrassing. Yeah. No, the glass is more embarrassing. Yeah, I guess you're right. Like it's like your chipper is what it is. Like it's a club, but I don't know. I'm just thinking, I'm doing the test of like, if the like the assistant pro came onto the patio and was like, Hey, I have like they're holding up both. Which would you be more ashamed to go get? And it's a percent. No, I'm way more embarrassed to go get like, well, I guess the argument would be the glass that you'd be like, Oh, those are my prescription glass. Like I have migraines. Those help me with my migraines. Me and me and Willie. Same guy, baby. Anyway, I love that. We'll swing back around, maybe at least after seven o'clock. But I love you. I love when you sneak a like golf story and your father in here. Oh, I thought you're just you just said, I love you. Oh, that's what you said. No, I love when you know you missed and when you you said I love you. Well, that's back to today. Well, today I'm liars who lie me because I do not. I like you. You're a good guy. Maybe we can grow to love one another. No, you said you love me. No. Okay. I actually want to wait and start my day on a Friday. We have to get Francisa back because I feel like he would think I see did too much ground to you on that. And now there's like no getting getting over in this partnership. Wow. Okay. Brent, in the next segment, we'll continue talking about how much he loves me. And then we'll talk about the Blue Jays losing a game that they had no chance of finishing despite the fact that they played through rain and then it stopped raining and they stopped playing. So okay, that makes a whole lot of sense. And then we'll get set for a weekend series that there are no tickets for. Yes, like none. No, not even for us. Like no, no, like nowhere. If you see Ben out in the public, don't go, hey, come on, Ben. I know you got a ticket for me. He doesn't know. Shoyo Tony and the Dodgers in town starting tonight. That and more next, the fan morning show continues. Ben and a sprint gunning sports that five night of the fan. Hey, it's Aylish for a fire. And I'm Justin Cuddford. Join us as we discuss the most important sports stories of the day and tee up the biggest games of the night. It's the fan pregame. 6 p.m. weekdays on sports that sports at 590 the fan and wherever you get your podcasts. I think first and foremost, I think that the entire day was handled, you know, kind of poorly, just in starting the game. What was set out there was the fact that the field was unplayable. And didn't want to continue the game. My opinion, the field was significantly better than it was in the third, fourth, and fifth inning. And made that very known to Chris and the crew. I think they were respectful and understand, you know, they understood that. S***y way to lose a game. First things first, you don't want to get anybody hurt. You know, we obviously wanted to play. And if it was being playable, we would have loved to continue to play. But I think, you know, the league and the umpires, they don't want to, you know, have anyone be injured kind of on their watch at this point. We totally get that. And, you know, the same could have been said in the third quarter, fifth inning when we're playing through it. Fan Morning Show Sports at 590 the fan Ben Anis, Brent Gunning, that was Blue Jays manager John Schneider. And he's right. That was a slot fest in Kansas City. Kyle Isbell still somehow able to make an unbelievable catch in center field off the bat of Isaiah Connor Folefa that might have been a lead off triple and might have tied this game and might have had the Blue Jays in position to at least resume this game at some point. If not, win it in that moment. Anyways, he makes the catch. And because baseball is the only sport where you can have an official game, only playing half of it. And you know, it's cool because everybody makes the playoffs. And like, if you are complaining about the one game that you didn't win over the course of the regular season that kept you out of the playoffs, you stink anyways. Yeah, the Blue Jays won 89 games last year and made the playoffs. Like that Blue Jays team stunk and we saw it in the two games against the twins. If this is the game that keeps them out of the playoffs, okay, you stunk anyways, but it is hilarious. That's like, that's not a baseball game. They played half of it. No, it's not a baseball game, but it's like, this is what happens when you welcome weather into your sport. Occasionally, like Wyndham Clark won a golf tournament this year, where he played 54 holes. He went to bed going, all right, I got to close this thing out tomorrow. They woke up and it was raining. And they're like, you know what? How about three million bucks? So thank you. So it's happened. I mean, I think we had, I mean, we had the arguments this year about the cold game. And I don't know, like maybe they shouldn't play that game in Kansas City with the dolphins. See is how people had to like have like appendages cut off afterwards because like frostbite and things like that. So yeah, you welcome elements into your sport. It's going to happen. I agree with Schneider. The ruling makes no sense. But yeah, this is like, this is par for the course when you're going to welcome the elements into your sports. Why I'm so happy we have a roof at Roger Center. I know company show. I know nobody wants to give up of the potential to win a baseball game. But yeah, I mean, when it did start to rain as hard as it was raining in the third, fourth and fifth innings. And John Schneider is right. Like like Bobosha did have to feel the ground ball to a lake. That is not good stuff. We joke a lot about like, oh, he couldn't swing. He couldn't hit that with a boat or boat just needed a boat or he's like, can I have one of those? Just in case. I will say, I'm thank you to the Royals for starting that game because nothing's more infuriating to me who is like, Hey, it's gonna maybe sort of kind of rain at some point later. So we won't start the game. Despite the fact that it's like beautifully sunny and, and I mean, it wasn't beautifully sunny to start the game, but it wasn't raining to start the game and the rains got increasingly more and more heavy. And it's one thing to like, I thought honestly immediately upon the Blue Jays completing the top of the fifth inning, we were gonna see somebody step in and say that's enough of this. We're good. We did it. We got through the official portion of the game. Maybe that's too craving. And then maybe John Schneider has more of a case where he's like, what the hell is this? Like, what are we doing here? You're playing through this slop factory just to, you know, get this one in the books and we have no chance. Also, it's just hilarious, right? Like in baseball, you know, you have you have 27 outs and you know that that's the finish line, right? Like that it's like not over until the 27th out. It's like, who is this the last inning? Is it not? Do you have another chance? So they did have another three outs. But at that point, in that fifth inning where they the Israel makes the incredible catch, you kind of thought maybe that was the end. And then you have this three and a half hour break. And then it physically stops raining. And the broadcast, because they see the the attendance on the field, prepping the field for the game to resume, obviously on sports and saying 20 to 40 minutes away from the resumption of play that it would have stopped raining. And the conditions, obviously, I don't care how sloppy it was. It wasn't as bad as it was in the third, fourth and fifth innings. Yep. Probably not great. And probably there was a risk of injury, but not that there wasn't during the third, fourth and fifth inning that you kept everybody around and you opened up the possibility of resuming play and then don't. Yeah, I think he's got a legit argument. Yeah, Schneider has a legit gripe. If I'm looking at it not from like the J's perspective, but from Major League Baseball, like, what do you think is more important prioritizing the the integrity of the game and the fairness or not getting done and not injuries? Like that. I think that like, if you're just looking at it from a baseball operations standpoint, it's like Schneider has every gripe in the world. And I'm usually the king of saying, you know what, quick complaining. Don't complain to me. Go complain to your team about how they hit is normally what I would say to him. He has every right to be upset about this one. But I also kind of understand where baseball is coming from. And the idea of, okay, we made a bad decision to play on that because we were trying to get it. And if you don't like the idea of an official game counting at five and a half or whatever it is, then that's fine and get rid of it then. But that ain't happened anytime soon. So as long as that threshold exists, you're going to see moments like this where they try, especially last game of a series. And you know, I know they're playing each other and there was a mutual off day that they could have no one wants that. No one wants to be fun. You think John Schneider, as much as he does like that, he wouldn't have liked flying into Kansas City for a one off to play five innings or whatever. Yeah. Yeah, given his brothers would, yeah, he preferred to fly back to Kansas City for a couple innings or play in the slop fest that probably was the Kauffman stadium field. Yeah. After a three and a half hour delay, it would have been playing on that field. But yes, it's just silly when you make everybody stand around. It is. And I'm not, I'm not sympathizing with anybody because that's their job. And they're being paid handsomely to sit around and play cards or whatever they were doing for three and a half hours. But yeah, to get everybody prepped for the resumption to play and then stops raining. You don't play is a weird one. Anyways, it's just one game. No sympathy for the Blue Jays, little sympathy from me for show Ali. I have had to tap dance through rain drain delay programs. I actually once had to do it when he called in sick and then I lost my voice during a rain delay show. So so like I've been there. I've done that. And yeah, that's yeoman's work. It's like harder. Let me tell you, I never would say the broadcasters working harder than the players. But in that moment when those guys were playing youaker or whatever it is they're doing, yeah, yeoman's work by and I don't know who the Kansas City guys are, but have fun tap dancing through that as well. It's no fun. So good job. All right. No such issues this weekend. It is going to rain here, apparently, but yeah, there is a big old roof over Roger Center, which will be in use, I imagine. Maybe Sunday it opens up. I don't know. If I had to guess I would say Sunday might be might be the first day we see an open Roger Center. Anyways, see the sun. I'm like, well, I've seen it just not from in there. No, no, uh, show, hey, Tony, the Dodgers in town. Will you boo? Texas fight? No, I think it's pretty safe. Um, I guess, okay, I was going to ask you that. But so this, this whole series is sold out. Um, it's a weekend series against the Dodgers against show you Tony. Is that just like normal stuff or is this, this is an event, right? Like how much of this is related to the off season? Yeah. And how much of this is just show you Tony and the Dodgers? I think 70, 30, 70 of it being the off season stuff. I think 30% is, you know, the Dodgers aren't the Yankees or socks or even Cubs where I feel like you just see a ton of fans, but they're one of those public teams where there's just fans of that team everywhere. So there's some element of that. But no, this is about Otani and the off season and everything that happened. And I think that I think people before everything that happened to Jason Otani, this was a must watch series in and of like forget, I understand everyone here got burned by Otani. But if you can park that for a second, he was also the guy you had to be in the park to see when he was an angel because you had to see it. He was a unicorn. But it wasn't to this degree, right? Like, I don't think they were selling out those if like this was a year ago. It's the angels in April on a weekend. Are they selling out all three games? It's not all three games, but I'm trying to think back and I don't have it in front of me. But I seem to remember the show. Hey, start like, because he started one of those games and it was that one was pretty impossible to get a ticket to was my recollection. I could be wrong on that. But you're right. I mean, the angels, they are not the public team in the way the Dodgers are. And Mike Trout for as great as he is. I don't think I shouldn't say that. There are definitely baseball sickos who were saying, I have to go down to the park to see Mike Trout. He's the greatest player of this generation. But it doesn't capture the imagination. Even the way I think, you know, like somebody like when Ben Yama coming in and the NBA, there were people go, I need to see this. I don't know that Mike Trout does that. So I don't think it's the exact same, but I think it's, I think they're kind of three key tenants of why this is. It's the Otani Forget the Blue Jays of it all. Just Otani is the singular figure. You, I think people want to see him. You absolutely now want to go boo Otani and the Dodgers are again, not the at the forefront of it, but one of those public teams. So I'm looking at last year's schedule and they played the Angels in Anaheim in April last year and then played them in Toronto in July in a weekend series where they had 40 plus thousand and all three of those weekend games against the Angels in July. July is different than April. Kids are out of school, yada yada yada. I understand the weekend that kids don't go to school on the weekend generally. I got to find a better school. My kids started next year for the weekend schools out there. Let me know. Yeah. I guess that's like boarding school. I won't do that. Those April series had high attendances. I guess, okay, like at the end of April, there was a series against the Mariners, which is maybe a particular draw where they drew over 40,000 against all. For all three of those series, April 14th through the 16th, also a weekend series against the Rays, less of a draw and only one of the three series was over 40,000. So I think there is an Otani thing and there is an off season thing happening there. You joked about it because you think it's so obvious that Choyotani is going to be booed vociferously tonight. Like, I mean, does that in the moment when we got the Instagram post from Otani that he was going to be a Dodger, I think there was a lot of rage. I think it's subsided a bit. Like, how much do you think is still roiling within Blue Jays fans? I think if you're somebody who was saying, oh, the Dodgers are in town, I have to get a ticket to go see this. I think you're going there to boo. I can't put myself in the headspace. I'm not saying these people don't exist, but I can't put myself in the headspace of, you know, I was so gutted the way he toyed with the Blue Jays and teased us this off season. But God, his best friend stole his money and feel so sad for him now. I didn't even enter my mind. Then I don't know what could have happened between now and then. It's just like the passage of time. It's only been three months or something along those lines. It's not, it's literally never happened yet with him coming here. I think by the next time this happens, you know, if the Dodgers come to town next year, I don't think it's as much of a thing. But right now, 100%, I think the only thing kind of saving it from not being the fulcrum of or the like focus point of the game is that the Jays have been okay to start the season. If they would have been the team that was coming back here for the first homestand or we thought was going to come be coming back here very different because then it's Shohei, you know, like how different could have been with him, yada yada. And there's obviously still some element to that. But yeah, I think I think he's getting booed pretty handily. Well, and I think he should. Yeah. And the Blue Jays return home 500 after a three and four road trip through San Diego and Kansas City. Did you think the Royals had like a potent offense? Maybe, maybe not. And obviously, Bobby Whit Jr. is having a star turn right now. Very good. That's the best offense the Blue Jays have played this season. Wow. And they're just outside the top 10 and run scored. The Dodgers are second. So the Blue Jays do factually have a good starting staff. Like there's just no question about it. It is good. How good is it? I think we're about to see it get a test it has not yet received this season with the Dodgers being obviously formidable at the top of their order. But just up and down the damn thing. Second most runs in all the baseball and we can talk about all the Yankees and Juan Soto. Aaron Judge was a child when he arrived here. He like had the big hit against Demaza. So like over nine with seven strikeouts in that series before that big hit that won him the finale of that series avoiding the sweep. The Astros are like, they're already having conversations in Houston about the sell off. That's about to ochre there. The Mariners like that's not exactly the 27 Yankees. The Rockies are abysmal. Hey, the Padres. Okay, they got a couple of they have not faced an offense like the one they're about to face this weekend. And I believe in the Jose Barrio season, obviously he's not going to factor into the series having pitched yesterday. I believe in Chris Bass, its ability to mix and match and change speeds and you say Kikuchi upper 90s. He's not walking people anymore. And you know, the Ariel Rodriguez all like, that's all well and good. Let's see it against the best. I know it's the second best, but like, it's hard for me to call the Dodgers the best offense baseball. Let's let's get a real test of where this starting pitching is. Yeah, the other thing is that the Dodgers floor offensively is kind of in your ceiling. So the pitching is going to have to be that I would I'd love to be proven wrong. And I know Dalton Varshos is going to be able to carry his weight. What a strange sentence to utter in the year 2024. But the the blue Jays are not going to go win these games. Eight, six or nine, seven. I mean, it's baseball, anything can happen. Maybe one of them ends up like that. But it's going to have to be nails starting pitching. And the other thing that I think you're going to, I mean, not that we haven't talked about this a ton is that this is where the mistake will kill you. They've been able to kind of skirt the errors here or there or not taking the extra base or like just the little little mistakes we've talked about. They don't have the room for error to do that against the team as good as the Dodgers this weekend, especially with how tough it is to score, how easy it is for them in the grand scheme of things. That's yeah, I have a feeling when we're talking J's on Monday, there's going to be a costly error or two that we we end up talking about. I hope I'm wrong, but it's kind of where my head goes. I mean, I disagree. There's a really, really good defensive baseball team. It's been the reason why they've lost a couple of games in Kansas City against the Royals. But the whole strength of this team is incredible defense to go with. It's no offense and it's incredible starting pitching. Um, last thing is also just thinking about like a one player does not a baseball team make. But like you do sub in a show. Oh, Tony, who wants Soto into this lineup? One guy. And I guess you could say that Dalton Vartio has been that one guy. Well, Dalton Vartio was that one guy and they won some series like he almost single handedly won them the series in in San Diego. And maybe if they were able to play that thing out, he wins it again, or at least splits the series in Kansas City hard not to think about what this Blue Jays offense looks like with show. Hey, oh, Tony in the middle of the order and nothing against Justin Turner, who's been one of the few offensive right spots for this Blue Jays team. But yeah, man, they did feel at least one bad away. But one bad if it show you, Tony, does make a world of difference. Yeah, it is. It is funny to say that it's like, are you sacrificing Justin Turner? Like you obviously easily like you would gladly make that decision. But if you have show, hey, you probably don't go do that just because of the DH spot. And he's been one of the more consistent bats for you. The idea of, yeah, if you just plug in a, you know, a guy who can DH or play a play an outfield spot. And if he can hit, well, to your point, we see that with Vartio, add one more of those guys. Yeah, would have changed a lot, a lot, a lot. All right, when we come back, game four tomorrow night, Scotiabank Arena coming off an old for five performance on the power play. Maybe that gets a boost with the addition of William Neelander. But if the Leafs lose this series and it's because of the special teams, who's going to wear that? That and more next as the fan morning show continues, Ben and his Brent Gunning Sportsnet 590, the fan.
