[MUSIC] Fan, morning chills, 4759 of the fan, man, and his friend got in. It didn't take very long. Spencer Horowitz, the best, every day. Blue Jays player. Good morning. To the core. They just said it, they just took a while getting the latest piece of it up here. >> Yep. >> Yeah, put them on billboards, put them on signs. I'll wait on the statue, but yeah, nice, nice. Well, let's say start, but restart to a PJ's tenure here. >> And maybe it's too early to be looking at the standings. Maybe it's too depressing to be looking at the standings. >> That's the one. >> But, a guy you covered- >> Thank you. >> Yesterday's three nothing win over the Brewers in Milwaukee at what is it? Family, friendly, fun field of funness? >> I am stuck in 1994 with every North American stadium. >> Bad job by Miller, like, Old Milwaukee, Miller. >> Yeah. >> It's synonymous with the state of Wisconsin to lose the naming rights to the Brewers. >> Yeah, but the stadium. >> Didn't, was it, was it Seelig or Manfred, which, which evil commissioner made them get rid of the beer that Bernie Brewer like went into in the slide, right? Because I used to be the thing, and they were just like slides down. And it's like, I do think that's a massive, that is like a pretty big feature of if you're going to be a booze company, he's sponsoring it. It's like the guy goes into a big thing of beer and you take that away. So- >> Their name is still the Brewers. Anyways, Blue Jays with their three nothing victory in Milwaukee over the, the beastly NL Central leading Brewers, Blue Jays- >> But he myths. >> Move into a tie for a third in the American League East with the Boston Red Sox. They are now the closest pursuer of the Minnesota Twins for the third wild card in the American League already. If they were in the National League, Brent, they'd already be securely inside a playoff position. They're right there, baby. No, don't, don't pay attention to the minus 34 in the run differential column. They do not pay attention to the fact that they are 14 games back of the division lead held by the best team in baseball, the New York Yankees, who just continue to roll. >> Yep. >> Must be said, it's not looking much different than it has this season. They're not erupting for eight runs a game, but they're picking up more victories. And again, have a chance to pull to 500 with another series victory over the Milwaukee Brewers today. >> Hey, if I would have told you two weeks ago that the Blue Jays are going to have a span where they split a series with the O's and then I'll carefully construct this next sentence. Then take two of three against a division leading team. We don't need to get into who it is. You'd say, great, that's awesome. That is progress. And it certainly feels like it, but I also think we need to be realistic about what we're seeing here. I mean, you see how much they're scraping and clawing to still get anything going. And hey, kudos to the pitching. You want to talk about scraping and clawing Kakuchi was certainly doing that last night and Richards fighting out of jams and all of that. So on a one game sample, of course, I know this is a bad term, but we can say about the Blue Jays, tip your cap to them. They certainly did that or you certainly should do that. But I also still believe all the things I've been saying about this team all along. The Blue Jays are where they are in the standings, not because I was wrong about anything I said about them or any of us were. It's just there's, and you've said this a lot before, you said the last year, a ton. So let's just a lot of bad teams and baseball. Oh, buddy. Oh, buddy. Is there ever, and yeah, Rob Manfred is pumping his fist right now because all these crap who said parody had to include good teams. Yeah. I mean, that's basically his MO right. It's like parody, but only with the bad teams. Yeah, it's, uh, there are some good teams, no, the Blue Jays play in a division with a couple of them out there. There is no question. And if you are of the belief, chip in a chair, then Blue Jays still have World Series aspirations. Like we talked about with Frank Caraville yesterday, when it comes to the NHL, I think that you can apply some of that thinking to Major League Baseball as well that yeah, how many times does a fluke team actually win the World Series? Hey, Diamondbacks got there last year against the Rangers. They didn't win the whole thing. By the way, Blue Jays with better records than Diamondbacks, Diamondbacks half game out of the third wild card in the national league, who was 32 and 35 who won the Moreno trade and possible to say, yeah, we don't have to relitigate that. But yeah, Gabriel Moreno, not looking like the guy I know was going to be World Series MVP. Anyways, all right. This game. You mentioned it. Yeah, pitching was great. Yeah. I want to start with the USA Kikuchi. Yeah. Because the guy that we saw load the bases in the first inning and have quadrillion mace runners that were the first couple of innings and throw six quadrillion pitches over the first couple of innings. That guy, this was 2022, like you just put yourself back in 2022, where I may have had a take, but it was not outrageous and it didn't happen early in the season. But by the end of it, I was like, oh, this guy has some costs like might as well just DFA him now. Like this is he's doing more negative damage than any positive that you could ever get out of this guy. And clearly the Blue Jays were banking on a half season of track record he had before signing him to that free agent deal. He's done. So done, done, done. We were saying you can't put him in the bullpen because he's too bad. It's right. Well, you can't put him there even in mop. No, not fair. No, the team. Well, yeah. That's how bad it was. Well, because yeah, as a reliever, you can't come out of the bullpen, not throwing strikes, which he was incapable of doing. The guy that we saw through the first two innings yesterday looked a lot like the guy that we saw in 2022, except in 2022, he didn't make it through five. It was unbelievable. Yeah. We need to like take a step back here. Mm hmm. I don't know. Do pitching coaches make the Hall of Fame ever again? I don't know. Are there any pitching coaches in the Hall of Fame? We've talked about Pete Walker as though he's going there. I want to ask Dan Shulman later on, like, what is the more impressive feat taking Robbie Ray off the scrap heap in Arizona who was, I think in the season before he was acquired by the Blue Jays in the weirdo pandemic season. He was like, he was like six walks per nine that he was issuing in Arizona. Free pass central. What's more impressive taking that guy in a half season and an off season and turning him into a sigh young award winner and then rightly walking away. Although like, I think that was, hey, here's the offer for you and it's the same offer for Kevin Gossman and we'll take the devil we know if you take the money and he decided not to and worked out well for the Blue Jays because they got Kevin Gossman. What was more impressive turning Robbie Ray into that guy or taking you say Kakuchi from what we saw in 2022 and turning him into this guy who's now got a walks per nine that is a career low. He's gotten better each and every year as a Toronto Blue Jays. This is, he's not done anything in his career, anything like what we're seeing this season, even last season, step in the right direction. The walks have been reduced even more and he was rushing it up to a fastball average yesterday that was like a mile per hour above his season norms like what was the more impressive job and I know it's not just Pete Walker, but he's, he's, he's the figurehead of everything that this organization does with the pitchers, which is all great. Like you can talk about they don't hit home runs, they don't score enough runs, which is also true, pitching side of things. Yep. They're miracle workers. They really have been. I mean, we, we talked about, we've talked about it in what we've seen in the past there, the Robbie Ray of it all. That's where my first blush goes that that is the more impressive job. But I think that when a guy reaches the heights of a Cy Young season, and that's not to diminish what Kakuchi is doing, but that's, that's not what we're talking about here. I just tend to take it out of the coach's hands. I feel like the coach set him up or the coaching set Robbie Ray up in a position to then take the steps he needed to to kind of reach where he's at. It's like, I just have to give the player kind of more credit for that. When you reach the, again, the still amazing place that you say Kakuchi's at, but the slightly lesser heights that we're talking about with a Cy Young Robbie Ray season here, then I do look at the, the staff and talk about the position they put them in. I also think there's something about doing it in the same market. It's one thing for Robbie Ray to be taking off the scrap heap and come here. And then he's a different pitcher. It is another thing for Kakuchi to come here completely struggle and basically have to get rebuilt. And that's where, you know, again, I, I don't want to diminish Kakuchi's role in all this, but that's where the sports psychology element of it all comes into play. And it's like Pete Walker, obviously, like pitching coach, yes, it's about, it's about your grip, it's about your arm slot, it's about million other things that I don't understand. But some of it is just that is talking through the ability to get through games and work through those situations. So it's because of that that I say the Kakuchi job is more impressive, but the Ray job is really good too. The Kakuchi job is more impressive. Here's why. Robbie Ray was this at one point in his Arizona career. Like he, it fell off the rails for him, certainly with the command by the end of his Diamondback 10 year in 2017, he finished seventh in National Lakes Eye Young Award voting at a K per nine of 12.1, which led the National League. So like proof of concept was there, they weren't working with just an unformed ball of clay. You say Kakuchi was nothing, right? Like he was just a theory. He was just raw talent and okay, he was an all star, but like I said, that was a half season. The second half of that season, his last one in Seattle was abysmal, it's awful. Every other year as a mariner was brutal, couldn't find the broadside of a barn. He was just a lefty who threw upper nineties and the Blue Jays were like, all right, and I got a rip. I rip them for this when it doesn't work out. So I got to give them kudos when it does is hey, they thought they were the smartest guy in the room that they you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you, you, you think that you've done your best with this, this person that has this tremendous talent, but you haven't seen what we can do with him. And occasionally that that has not worked out on the offensive side of the ledger. But with Robbie Ray and you say Kakuchi, they took a guy who's never done, who's never been an effective starting pitcher, honestly, frankly, in his major league career and they turned him into one of the better, like he's going to be near the top of the pile at the end of the season when it comes to available free agents, the age is going to get him maybe temper his return. But no, it's the you say, kikuchi thing that they turned nothing into a something and they turned out. Why did you spend that much money and free agency on this guy into a like you're brilliant genius people. So the thing, just you saying that made me think of this is that obviously you'd rather them have the ability to do it with both sides of, well, I guess we don't say sides of the ball and baseball, but you're interested when I'm saying you'd like to be able to do it with pitching and you'd love to be able to do it with the offense. But if you had to pick one, you'd rather it be the pitching, right? Because you need so many more guys and offenses not made on one or two guys. But if you hit on one or two guys, I mean, how many times we had this conversation just drop, you know, 2019 Teoska Hernandez in this lineup and how much differently are we talking about everything, but with pitching, you need to have so many more pieces is just more bullets. You need to be able to fire throughout the course of a year guys get hurt so much more in that position that of course you'd rather have the ability to kind of do both. That's how you become the Dodgers. That's how you become the Braves, the ability to, you know, find this talent and say that's where you want to go with it and pick your spots and build guys up. But if you could only pick one, I really do feel like you'd rather have the ability to do that with pitching because you just need so many more guys to get you through a season or honestly through an era of an organization on that side of the ledger than you do offensively. >> Yeah, it'd be nice to have both. >> No, no, like please, a little less pitching for just a little more hitting. I'd take that trade and give them what they've done. >> It is, it is. Okay, listen, I'm not putting Spencer Horwitz into the Hall of Fame, but good. It's not surprising. It's not surprising to see him do what he did at the minor league level in brief time at the major league level. This is a guy that has a very predictable bet and some of the stats that he's come up with minor leagues have been against high velocity. So the idea of people throwing an upper 90s at the major league level and him still getting hits, him still getting on base, not necessarily surprising. He is a 24th round pick. >> Davis Schneider is, sorry, before we launch into Horwitz, I just have one little more thing on Kukuchi. This is just funny to me, and obviously, like there is obviously a language barrier, he wouldn't have an interpreter come out with him, is how emotive he had to be when the trainer came out, when he took the like barely grazed comebacker off the leg. It's just so emotive, his hand gestures and fine, no, just a little bit, I'm okay. He cracks me up. Like he is everybody's favorite Bluejay right now, and I just, I thought that was just like high physical comedy from you say Kukuchi, not that he was trying to do it. But again, it's like he's trying to stay in the game, he wants to show them no, you can come out here, just a lot of hand gestures, my thoroughly enjoyed it. >> Good hand gestures. >> Yeah. >> Anyways, Spencer Horwitz, a 24th round pick, Davis Schneider, a 28th round pick. And neither guy, like I said, neither guy is going into the Hall of Fame, I don't think, right? But they are, if you're not putting him there. I think at this point, we can all agree that they look like, especially on this team, every day players, that you've locked into two everyday players, two of your nine players. And we'll see if they play Spencer Horwitz against lefties, I was looking at his minor league splits yesterday, they're pretty pronounced, righty lefty, but he gets on base and he hits for a high average against lefties, like whatever limited power he's shown, it's even less so against left handed starting pitching. That you've locked into two guys that are just like, they just appeared out of the sky, they just manifested out of nothing. Like at one point, there was no player and then just, by sure, a happenstance, nothing that you necessarily did because if you really believed in those players, you would've selected them before the 28th round. But those guys just like emerged and popped into your system and are now hitting at the top of your order. And that's still like getting mana from heaven in the form of those two players, that this is a bottom 10 offense in all of baseball and being a team that's a top 10 team in baseball and payroll is shocking, shocking, shocking. But yeah, they've been basically handed by the baseball gods to guys for free for nothing that they put no investment in that are everyday players, unbelievable. >> Yeah, when you're able to get that, they're nice stories to have, but this is the problem about having a team, they've kind of tried to build an offense of those guys, right? And I don't mean of found pieces, but of, well, we'll scratch it together. And if you have, you can have Davis Schneider's and Spencer Horowitz is on your team and in your lineup, it's just, they shouldn't be expected to be this for your offense, Horowitz comes up and he's leading off, he's hitting second, he's right there in the mix, he has half their hits the other night in Milwaukee, it's just you shouldn't expect, or I shouldn't say expect, you shouldn't need so much from these guys, and it's just damning of everything else around them. >> Yeah, it's bad. It's found money. The Horowitz thing is interesting just in terms of position, I do, I suppose they see him as the kind of second baseman, although like the, you can put him at first there. That's the interesting part about it for me is that when the team struggles to hit as much as they have, it doesn't matter you find a spot for both those guys, but it's just again, it goes to how this team is kind of swaying from their initial vision. If I would have told you, hey, they're gonna have these two guys who must play, but they don't really have a position to say, that's not the way the Blue Jays are trying to build this thing out. But that's where they've kind of found themselves, and that's what they have to do with these guys. >> Yeah, they're making decisions more in line with putting the best offensive team on the field on any given day instead of the defense, which is, yeah, it's not what you envision when they made the shift to defense a couple of years ago by Trading Way Taeoska Hernandez and Lordis Grille Jr., but beggars can't be choosers at this point. What are you gonna wish? So Vladimir Grille Jr., still over in this series, okay? May still happen where the OPS was over 1,000, but with the over in the series, his OPS for the season is lower than it was a season ago. Almost across the board, outside of batting average and on base, like slugging percentage is lower, the home run rate is lower. I mean, he's showing more positional versatility, so that's good. The war projection is higher. Where are we on Vladimir Grille Jr., because it felt like the narrative completely changed with that incredible May that was built on the power of no power. And yeah, he hasn't carried that over quite to the same degree in June. He's high exit Vilo Luis Arise, and honestly, if I was going to tell anybody, they would have had a two time batting champ on the team. They would have gladly taken it. I just don't think that that's where we envision Vlad. This is the ultimate place. But if he was Luis Arise, that'd be sick, that's not even that. No, you're right. That'd be awesome. Like if you're Luis Arise, that's awesome, awesome, awesome with like some walk potential. Sure, be that. Yeah. Not even that. No, he hasn't, he hasn't been that. There was the, I think the problem is is that every time he has a stretch where he exceeds I wouldn't even say expectations because he has not done that yet, but where he exceeds what he is showing, we all, and I am just as guilty as anybody else, can't help but envision or wonder if this is the thing that allows him to see the ball better and it starts traveling and the doubles turn into homers, but the doubles aren't even there. This is what this player is. We have now a pretty consistent track record that he can mash the ball as hard as anybody else. It's a barrel rate that's up there with anyone else in baseball, but for whatever reason, the power just does not come with it. And he's some of that bad luck. Sure. He hits the ball last night. That's like 108 off the bat right at willy-a-dom as, okay, tough. Like welcome to baseball. It's happened a million, it's been happening for a million years, it'll happen for a million more. I think that I'm kind of coming to my realization what this is and I feel, I feel one way about that in season, I feel a very different way about it, though, and we're kind of extrapolating it out to what are the blue jays going forward? What are they building around and what do they do with Vlad? Because I think that's where the rubber is going to meet the road here is that they can envision a world where this player is very helpful to them and this player can be a part of things. It's just this player can't be making what I imagine his camp is going to think they should make if he's not going to have any power to go along with it. Yeah, it's not ideal. He can recapture what he had in May going forward. Maybe Boba she had a couple of hits yesterday, maybe that spurns him on to recouping what he did in the second half of 2022 as well. But the blue jays have currently two players and I know David Schneider didn't start in yesterday's game and I know he's going through it a little bit offensively. They have two guys that just appeared out of nowhere and are providing more than the guys that are a year and a bit away from free agency who are, I mean, in their own minds going to break the bank. Kevin Keermeyer, the foul ball off his leg there and stayed in the game and then left the game. I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility to imagine him going back on the IL, which means like, okay, it might have been Nathan Lucas, but apparently he's on the minor league IL right now. So it means maybe the return of Addison Barcher's second go around first go around didn't go so well. There were moments where I was like, oh, hit into some tough luck. Yeah. Oh, he looks hit or issues was a tale of Justin. No, it was Kevin Barker who said he loved the iteration except the hits didn't come. Yeah. That's like unfair to put that on a guy in such a small sample. I wonder if it's a different deal for him if he arrives this time, not being the guy, right? Like when he arrived, he was the guy. It was like we had David Schneider, but it was like he was just emerging as an everyday player and he was known commodity, but it was a team that wasn't producing offensively. We had all these guys going berserk in Triple A. And it was like, wow, here is perhaps the savior, right? You don't want to put it on that guy and he was hitting at the bottom of the lineup. But like a lot of attention on Addison Barcher when he first arrived, and then we have that out of the way. Yeah. And now that the shiny object of Spencer Horowitz has arrived and produced well at the top of this lineup and apparently unfazed by being at the top of this lineup with the expectations that exist around that. I wonder if we get a different version of Addison Barcher if he's the guy that comes up. Yeah, I could see that. I understand you have to do it, and this is where these guys opportunities come from. I just worry about a similar thing happening to him that happened last time where, okay, Keir Mar goes on the IL. It's a relatively quick stint and Barcher has, you know, he's not going to, they're not going to bring him up and he's playing every single day. He's going to have some days off in there that again, he's going to get his reps. But I just worry about a player coming up and having another kind of quick cup of coffee and then Keir Mar is back healthy. And then all of a sudden you're kind of back to the minor leagues without accomplishing much. I would just like there to be kind of more of a clear roadmap here. We saw the trouble they had getting Spencer Horowitz up here and again, Barcher comes up and breaks, breaks, breaks, they'll find a way to make it work. But I just would like there to be maybe like a little cleaner kind of entry point for him given how quick his soldier and what's here last point. That's not to say like you're trading guys to make room for him, obviously you need to see it. That's my only concern with it. I think it'd be encouraging and I think people would like to see it and everything you said about it, not feeling like all eyes will be on him. All that would be a positive, but yeah, I worry a little bit about the kind of up and down nature of it. But I guess that's what it is to be this kind of or the at this point in your career. Yeah, he's not complaining. No, no, whatever. No, I'm not saying whatever, not saying he's complaining. I'm just saying you want it. Get me on the bus. Yeah. Like I'll take an Uber wherever, wherever you are, wherever you're going. I'll walk to Milwaukee. That's what it takes. With the bindle. Like a little like handkerchief. The whole thing. Yeah. Yeah, he'll do whatever. Anyways, Blue Jays have a chance to take their second straight series on this brief little six game road trip and finish it up at four and two and I don't care about the opposition. You'd go four and two on a road trip. That's a good job by here here. And they would, if they win this afternoon, two o'clock, Chris Bassett against Tobias Myers that be back at 500 with the day off tomorrow, welcoming in the Cleveland Guardians for a weekend series. All right. Santana coming to Budweiser stage this summer on June 26th with County Crows as part of their oneness tour. We have tickets to give away to enter. Listen daily to the fan morning show over the code word then text the code word to 59590 to enter today. Text the code word supernatural to 59590 again, that's supernatural to 59590. If you don't win with us, tickets on sale at ticketmaster.ca. When we come back to yesterday, I took my eight year old to Shini, the local arena in June. Yeah, I was on the ice as well with mine. Yeah. Okay. Apparently we're outliers because the Canadian press with a report that has some pretty damning numbers about youth participation in the sport of hockey. Why is that? We'll get into it next as the fan morning show continues. And as Brent Gunning sports at 590 the fan dive deep into Toronto sports and the NFL, the JD Bunk is podcast, subscribe and download the show on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Good morning, show sports at 590 the fan band, Brent Gunning. I feel stupid. I got a lot of the time. I agree. Yeah. I feel stupid. That's correct. I felt like uniquely stupid yesterday when I found out that there's Shini for eight to ten year olds. Like, yeah, it's Canada. Like obviously there's Shini. So like, I was talking to the other dads and like some of them, yeah, one of them has a kid on the same team as my kid. Yeah. He's like, yeah, you know, we come here. There's one on Friday to come here twice a week. I was like, oh, wow, that's cool. He's like, yeah, it's just ice, like if there's lots of people that want to come. Not as many as in the before days. We'll get into that in just a second, but like as a kid, so I don't know what level hockey you played. I never played in the night. I played house league, but like I played it throughout my youth every year. Yeah. You ever go on the ice? Like in June, I've been on the ice with my kid in July for the life of me. I cannot tell you that I ever said foot on an ice service in the month of June, July or August. I feel like if it happened, it was like maybe once and I had like buddies who were like, hey, we're going to go to power skating. I'm like, okay, but we're going to go power skating. You had buddies who were like, let's get in the car. We're going to go power skating. Yeah. They had a spot in the group they were in. They were like, do you want to come? I was like, hold on. A group that goes power skating? No, no. Like it was like they had a like set of lessons booked up or whatever. Like it was like part of a like series of like, I don't know, you like sign your kid up for six lessons, whatever it was, it's like they had an open spot to like come with. Yeah. And I was like, and then I'm like, what am I doing? Power skating in July? Yeah. Sure that there's baseball to play or something. Yeah. But no, I was not doing a lot of that. But but much like you, I, yeah, it's like, I know. I have a three and a half year old that was on the ice yesterday and it's, but I am. I feel this is like where my Canadian hockey parry parent guilt comes in. Apparently, I don't know. And a lot of you out there out there aren't feeling this way, but I was like, haven't had him on the ice in like a month and change. And again, he's three and a half and it was June, but yeah, it definitely is not something that was part of my lexicon when I was a kid, but yeah, is very much a part of it now. Yeah. He just loves hockey and super excited to go play a chitty yesterday. He loves it, loves it, loves it. I just open the door. I'm not pushing my kids any direction. You don't have to buy sports at all. If you don't want it, that'd be weird and kind of, it'd be disappointing for sure. But like that's, that's your deal. Hardly agree. You got to do something. But yeah, if you don't want to be, if it doesn't want to be sports, it doesn't have to be sports. But yeah, he loves hockey again, outlier, apparently, because the Canadian press with the story that's on sportsnet.ca right now that youth participation in Canada is down huge over the last decade and a half. I mean, the biggest indicator of this that you need to know is that in 2021, the United States passed Canada in participation when it comes to youth hockey. Now the population's obviously outsized, but like, come on, our national identity very much associated with the sport of hockey in 2022, Hockey Canada reporting that just over 340,000 kids younger than 18 were participating in sport. So that's a 35% drop from when it was over a half million people, just 13 years prior. So that part of that is pandemic. But yeah, it only rebounded in 2023 to 360,000 kids that are playing. And that's still 15% below the pandemic, pre-pandemic levels where it was like it happened. So like, people are not participating in hockey at the level that they used to as recently as a decade and a half ago. And other sports that had dips during the pandemic, like soccer and tennis, those of all completely recovered. So hockey has not, there's just fewer kids that are given their brothers playing sports, like the parents, like me, who are like, they got to do something and it's probably a good idea to do something athletic in the sporting realm and more kids than ever before are saying, thanks, but no thanks to hockey. So there's a couple of different reasons why that may be happening. And I don't think the least of which is like cost, right? That's the first one. You think so? I do. I mean, it's not insignificant, right? Like, it's a huge part of the conversation. Other sports aren't super cheap though, like if you're, if you're, especially if you want to have your kid in some higher level, you know, program that their team goes to tournaments and travel and yada, yada, yada, and I understand like equipment that you don't need equipment to play soccer or as much. That's it. It's that by the time you're, and I don't know, maybe I'm an outlier here because it's like, again, I have a three and a half year old and again, I'm not forcing him, he wants to do all this people. Okay. But it's like we have had him in every league you could possibly have him. But the, by the time you're getting to the travel or, you know, you're going away to tournaments, it's like those kids have already had reps of being on teams for, you know, generally speaking, you don't immediately jump into, I'd like to try this sport. Let me join a travel team that's going to tournaments all the time. So I think you start with the house league level and then that's where the biggest barrier entry is. It's like the cost I'm trying to think it's like I don't have it all in front of me and I actually haven't signed my kid up for hockey, but the cost across leagues, be it T ball, be it soccer, be it ball hockey for me has been relatively consistent for the league registration. But I then didn't have to go to sporting goods store X and buy the $200 starter equipment packet kit. I bought shin guards for soccer. I bought him a helmet that he already had in gloves for ball hockey and the same shin guards he uses for soccer. But if I want him to play hockey, which he wants to, yeah, there is it's, I forget what it is. But it's like, I think it's like pretty much a $200 box. You get the set, whatever. I'm sure there are cheaper ones out there, but that is that is more. But that hasn't changed, right? So that's always been the case, right? It's always been more cost prohibitive because of the equipment required to play hockey, right? But it was the same. It's the same today, maybe while it's a little more expensive today because everything's more expensive today than it was 13 years ago. So yeah, that's part of it. And maybe people are more conscientious about their spending and that's part of it. But like that has always been a part of hockey and putting your kid in hockey as opposed to another sport. Yep. So I'm not discounting that. Yep. But like what's so different now than 13 years ago? I mean, there's a couple of things that come to mind for me, like I can speak from my experience. My kid now plays rep hog as the lowest level of rep, but like he's only ice four times a week. I do people who have listened to the station and listened to me the last couple of years know that I tried to make an outdoor rink a couple of years ago. I remember. And we got two days and it was like not even the two days we got was pretty lame. He does it. And I understand there's a big country out there like nobody in Edmonton is having this conversation. I would just say there are a lot of people in this climactic region, you know, the part where all the people in the country are who will tell you that, yeah, man, creating free ice in the winter ain't what it once was. You can't do it. There are no pawns to go skate on anymore. Yep. Like that's just a fact that maybe maybe we're going to have a reversal of the climactic things that are happening here recently. But I could just say anecdotally they're I will take those wagers just for the record. I don't think that's happening. Okay. So that's part of it. I think no, no, that's that is such an important thing. And it's the I actually think the structure of it all is and, you know, I obviously everything's different when we're kids, but it's like I grew up in Toronto and now live in a different municipality. So maybe things are a little different there. But even the, Hey, I want to go to this outdoor rink, everything is so structured. I remember when I was a kid, it's like shout out Valley Field in Toronto is a tennis court that they just flooded in the winter and play out there all day. Yeah. Pizza Hut right around the corner, we go walk and get it, come back, slam some wheels, go play more pizza. Then I got older, maybe some pops and snow as it got later in the night. Like it was the best, but those types of things are not even as readily available before. So it's that it's the structured. I think that's such a big part of it is that everything is so structured. The idea of even if we had the climate to just, okay, Lake Ontario is frozen. Pick a spot. Go nuts. And if we had it, it feels like there'd be a world where, well, we got to check that which I'm not saying it's bad to check the ice and be safe and all that. But when you include more. We live in a city where like just until a couple of months ago, you weren't allowed to hit a home run at a baseball diamond. I actually think you're still not allowed. Oh, they took the sign down. Okay. But I guarantee you someone's going to be complaining. No. Yeah. I think that's part of it. Here's, to me, the biggest reason, though, okay, there have been no real Canadian hockey moments over the last 15 years. There's been not a one 2010 was factually 14 years ago. Oh, my God. I mean, 2010 was unbelievable. I was at Young and Dundas after the Golden Goal, the stick of Sydney Crosby. Yeah. And I just went to the Olympics after that, but that was like the moment. The next one I watched with Rob Ford at Real Sports. I was dispatched. Oh, nice. That's perfect. And then since then, no offense to our good buddy, Jason D'Murs. Yeah. That also participated in the Olympics, but it's not just that, right? It's not just that. That's a national moment. And I know there's disagreement as to whether the Oilers are Canada's team and whether, you know, they are not anyways. And yeah, the Canadians made a run to the Cup final in that pandemic season. There have been no NHL moments and more specifically, again, like I get it. It's a big country out there. All the people live here. The Toronto Maple Leafs are killing youth hockey. Wow. I just, frankly, how many kids watched the Raptors run in 2019 and said, man, I got to do that. Well, like, how exciting was that? Yeah. I'm a Raptors fan for life. Yeah. I just went. So my kids like golf. I've gotten them involved in golf, sitting with me, watching Nick Taylor drain the 72-foot pot. Good job, Ben. Joe Dale went with me to Saturday at the Canadian Open. I can attest your boys were into it. They followed Mackenzie Hughes, cheered him on. He had a chance to win. That was exciting for them. Like for the subsequent week plus, almost every day I've been asked to go to the driving range. These are important moments for children to be interested in things, to feel a level excitement, to see proof of concept. There has been nothing. If you're of my kid's age, what do you have? Oh, it's like, wow, exciting. The Leafs got to game seven of the first round multiple times. That's it. There's been nothing, there's been no extended run. It's been out of sight, out of mind, for the majority of the year. I mean, combine that with the no NHLers at the Olympics. I'm just, I'm telling you, there are just more indelible sporting moments with those other sports for kids than there has been for Canadian hockey. That's, man, it's so fascinating to hear you bring it up that way because honestly, I'm just thinking of it. I'm trying to rack my brain of, obviously I remember being a kid and loving the Leafs and getting excited for big moments, but I remember loving hockey apart from that. But it's impossible. There's too many choices now though. Well, no, you're, no, but you're not, but the thing I'm thinking of is, you know, just my age, I've been honest about what I am, 34 years old. It's like, you know, I remember idolizing Dougie and Wendell, but I don't remember being D three, I was four years old, but was it the spark that lit the match in the city of Toronto? And then my parents were like, Hey, you got to go learn to scale like I, it's, I don't ever remember having that connection. But you're right. How can you not be foisted on by those moments? I mean, I've done this with my own kid, right of being there watching, Hey, man, Canada's at the World Cup. I've been alive my whole life and have never seen this. You should watch this. Right. I think that's why he's playing soccer on Saturday mornings, but how is there not a little bit of connection there, right? The women's runs that they've gone on ad nauseam kind of in, in this last few years. How can that not have spurned things? Honestly, hadn't connected it. The Canada stuff I definitely thought of, the fact that we have not had a moment since again, 2010, really, but the leaf thing you're so right about. And I think the reason why it's hard for me to always connect the dots to is that when you hear these kids, you used to hear kids get to the NHL major league baseball. And you still do hear it occasionally where they go, wow, I loved being a blank fan, but these kids are so professional. The kids who get there are so professionalized by the time they're nine years old or 10 years old that they don't grow up with that. But I think sometimes we forget about, okay, that's great for the kid who's trying to get exceptional status in the OHL when he's 15, but there is a massive pile of kids beneath that who have a whole sporting life to enjoy. And I think we do sometimes kind of forget about how those moments can affect those. Cause I think, I think of the kid who's, you know, if there was a kid living in Toronto who's going to be the next SGA that was alive for that Raptors run and he was nine who's going, yeah, that's great. I have my game tonight. Like I think that those kids that are that are going to get to those heights are already locked in there. The kids with the cycle parents, we don't think about, but we forget about the kids kind of beneath that pile and it's such a, such a problem. Yeah, again, anecdotally, no, I think you're bang on the, the, the reason I'm in the baseball and into sports in general at 92 93, like I saw a Toronto sports team win a championship and how that felt to follow those two teams and the excitement and the conversations you could have with adults at the time. And it was like the, the only thing anybody was talking about. And I mean, we saw it with the rejuvenation of the Blue Jays in 2015 that those people are that there, they were, a lot of them were formed in the early 90s and just needed a reason to come back out. Yep. You're just like, where are the moments, man? Like where are the moments? Okay, there's some Montreal Canadiens fans from 93. Yeah. But like where, where are the, the, the GTA hockey moments? And again, like, yeah, the Olympics are a big part of it, but just even the professional Toronto Maple Leafs moments, it's just been such a dearth of postseason success for this, this franchise. The most important franchise, the Toronto Maple Leafs are the most important franchise, professional franchise, in creating hockey fans in this country, there's notabate and they have one series of victory in 20 years. Yeah. And guess what? It's because it's passion that elicits like emotion and it's emotion that makes people care about things. And you know what? The only thing is that like we would love more than the Leafs run is everyone else who hates the Leafs hating it. And that's still an emotion. Like the idea of like somebody's dad in Western Canada going, ah, so sick and tired of watching these Leafs all the time. And then the emotion of it, you've learned to, you know, sports rivalry, you learned to hate. It's just as important as learning to love in sports, honestly. And I think you are, you're really opening my eyes a lot with this because, you know, I was a kid who, like I very much got myself into sports. It's not to say my parents weren't involved in that, but it's like, you know, what got me into baseball, you mentioned the J, it's like, what got me into baseball was twib. It's like this week in baseball. I just remember loving it so much, and even things like that, it's like, I guess you just have to go out and find it. And I do wonder how much that is a part of it as well. Like we've talked about this, the idea that, and you've told me this, that your eldest is an outlier in this regard as well, the ability to just sit and watch a game. That creates fans of sport as well. And when everything is in such bite sized, you know, like, I know I'm sounding 8,000 years old here, but it's like, when you just watch the game on Instagram via highlights, it's kind of hard to have the attentions. Cause no matter what sport you love, be it golf, be it baseball, be it hockey, some of these are more kind of ever flowing and some are more stop and go, there are boring parts of even playing sports, especially as a kid, if you're not super locked into it. And I do wonder how much of it is a little bit of kind of attention span stuff as well. Yeah. No question about it. Like, yeah, getting a kid to sit down for two and a half hours to do anything. Yeah. It's very difficult. Yeah, like I'm lucky in that, you know, like, I'm going to watch you just open this weekend on Father's Day. My guy is going to like be bored of it. But when he gets bored, you know, he's going to do, he's going to pick up his golf club to start swinging. Ah, it's nice. It's the best. All right. Last thing on this. Doesn't matter. Like, is it important that that kids participate in hockey? Is it important that we're still for me or for the children? No, no, for this country's identity, like honestly, because I don't know. You ask somebody that it doesn't live in North America, even. I think I think in North America, you have a better understanding of what this country is. But I think like a person from, I don't know. Okay. I have the perfect story for you for where you're going with this. When I was. When I was on my honeymoon in the Bahamas, I was not wearing a leaf's hat. Yeah. I just mentioned like my wife and I or the cabbie was like, Oh, where are you from? blah, blah, Toronto. And this was when this was right before Kneelander signed his deal in on December 1st or whatever it was. And the cabbie asked me, you heard about Kneelander? Yeah. So that's the level of identity that it is. Well, so, and I think what we like to do is, especially again, people from the GTA, we're like, well, we're more than that, right? Like we look at our, the number of great players we have in the NBA. Yeah. Yeah. Look at all the top 100 golfers we have, we're more than hockey. But that's because we have been so good at hockey. We also haven't seen best on best in a while and it'll be maybe an eye opening experience next February when we get the four nations got anyways, is it important for our national identity to still be hockey number one, like the, the possibility very much exists that we're going to be a country where it's like, we still produce hockey players at pretty high rate. But like the other sports are higher participation than hockey and that these trends continue. I think it's, for me, it is important. And I think that it's going to continue for a very, like even in a world where this participation drop off continues, we're still generations away from not having the Americans will pass Canadians eventually in terms of total numbers in the NHL. It's just math. It's going to happen. But I do still take an immense amount of national pride. And you know, this is me, but I don't imagine this goes for everybody, but I imagine it goes for a lot of people. And we always have, and I get to say we, because I'm talking about Canadians, as much as America's pumping out talent left, right and center, and there's tons of other great countries that can produce skies. Canada is still the country that always produces the one, wainer to Sid, or sorry, sorry, wainer to Mario to Sid to Connor, to Connor question mark, but Dard can be this guy. And that matters to me. That actually matters to me more than the total participation numbers. I still want to live and breathe a country where we all love hockey and it is our national identity, but that is my national identity is us always still producing the one. I, you know, I kind of think of it to, and I'm kind of talking on my ass a little bit here. So, you know, I'm not as well informed on soccer, but it's like, I feel like Brazil. It's like they don't need to have all the guys and it's obviously populations different. They don't need to have a million amazing, so you know what they need to have an awesome national team and one of, if not the best players in the world, that's kind of in their MO. And again, like I'm not trying to do a perfect comparison because quite frankly, I'm not as informed on soccer, but that's the way I kind of look at it is I will still feel that immense pride so long as we continue to produce those ones. But if the number drops off, it's only more and more likely that that kid somewhere is going to slip through the cracks. Now, it's amazing just how the pendulum swings, right? Like again, like I've been victim of this as well. It's like, hey, hey, we don't live in igloos, okay? We don't, we don't, I don't know, we don't eat moose. Although I'm open to it. I've never had it. You're doing the old, I am Canadian commercial. Right. Yeah. Right, exactly. I mean, it's about, yeah. And marketers obviously created those commercials because they understood that there was a feeling that we're trying to tap into amongst a sect of Canadians, right? And they said, hey, we're more than that. Just true. And I love, I love the fact that we have such a diverse field of professional high-level athletes across all sports. That's great. It's like, what's better than having now an MVP candidate in shagil just Alexander after having Steve Nash and what's better than having a bunch of Canadians that have a chance to win any major golf and have won our national open. That's awesome, great, great stuff. But a national team in soccer that's going to World Cup, don't worry, we know you appreciate everybody. Yeah, okay. It's great. Okay. Well, let's not take our eyes off the prize here. Like, this is still a hockey nation. And that's a great part of our national identity is that we're the hockey country. It's my favorite thing when they put the graph of North America and where all the NHLers are from, and you just can't see Lake Ontario because there's so many dots around the GTA and the, you know, Southwestern Ontario. It's my favorite thing. Yeah. And I do take immense pride. I mean, just frankly, I'd be pretty sad if we got to a point, which again, if these trends continue, and if you're talking about a generation to come where like they didn't grow up playing hockey and there's no impetus for them to pass that down to their kids, and this continues and it's like, yeah, it's just like another sport for the people of this country. But we'll be sad because that's it's like just intrinsically entwined into our national identity. I think I agree with everything you said. I thought this was so good that I am actually going to submit. I don't know who I have to talk to about this. Like, I don't know who the chief is at Canada hockey these days, but when we inevitably have the summit when America beats us at the four nations face off, you get to, you get to go to hockey Canada and say, guys, the Leafs have to win a cup to save hockey in this country. Honestly. And what I would give, I need this like on a live YouTube stream so everyone can comment and be angry at you. That is what I need. Because you're right. Yeah. No one wants to hear it outside of this. Honestly, if people in Edmonton and Calgary and Vancouver and Winnipeg, they want hockey to remain our national identity. They should be doing everything. Everything in their power to have the Toronto Maple Leafs have a run of posies and success and win a Stanley Cup. Conor McDavid has to come home to save hockey in this country. You said it. And I agree with it. Buddy, you've connected the dots on that bad boy. Alright, speaking of hockey, Rodgers announced an exciting new national contest brings Stanley home to send Rodgers customers and hockey fans from across Canada to the Stanley Cup final in Edmonton. Rodgers customers have the chance to win 10 VIP trips for two to attend game four in Edmonton on Saturday, June 15th, the prize. Also including travel and accommodation plus premium viewing at a game day concert featuring Shania Twain outside of Rodgers' place, visit rogers.com/stanleycup to enter for your chance to win and for more details. When we come back, Blue Jays win, they only score three runs, you know who would help with that? Juan Soto, guess who's available? That guy. This offseason. Oh, he's gonna say not now. No, no, no, no. This is this coming off season, unless the Yankees have a surprise sell-off coming before got tight in the purse strings, the July 30th trade deadline. We'll talk about Joel Sherman's expectation the Blue Jays will be involved in the bidding for Juan Soto this offseason. That and more next is the fan. Morning show continues. Ben Anis, Brent Gunning, Sportsnet 590, the fan.
