"Take that Calgary Puck!" — SN960 and Calgary sports media discussion

[kaddy]

Originally Posted by Cowboy89

Boomer announced around 8AM that he will be stepping down as morning show host. His last day will be Thursday. This is a pretty big blow to the station if you ask me.

This is really a blow, the morning show is the best content they have.

[Incogneto]

oh.....

[TheSquatch]

Ruh Roh Raggy.

I sure hope for Molberg's sake that he simply found something better. But this leaves 960 as a skeleton crew both in terms of talent/personality and actual living bodies.

Bad news, and I doubt it's the last.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by TheSquatch

Ruh Roh Raggy.

I sure hope for Molberg's sake that he simply found something better. But this leaves 960 as a skeleton crew both in terms of talent/personality and actual living bodies.

Bad news, and I doubt it's the last.

Did they ever replace Kelly Kirsch? He had been with the station since the beginning so when they let him go it was a sign that they were shedding salary as then Warrener leaves, and now Boomer. Just running a skeleton crew so they can pack up and shut things down quickly if the broadcast rights aren't renewed with the Flames.

[Moneyhands23]

I have a bad feeling we are going to get a lot more Toronto and Vancouver radio shows on 960.

To bad as there are no good Flames daily podcasts to my knowledge.

[bubbsy]

Wtf man.

Either we see a revamp of the whole 960 setup or it does, and dedicated local content becomes a thing of the past for Calgary.

Really really sucks. Boomer was a great host and facilitator for the show.

[djsFlames]

I get the sense Rogers was making the future sound very uncertain and Boomer was just getting ahead of it.

What the hell is right, though.

[GreenLantern2814]

COVID has crushed that station.

They’ve never had the easiest time of it, post-Iggy. The fan base has never felt like it embraced this new group - between players not living up to expectations (Bennett) plateauing and sharply declining in their mid 20s (Monahan) or being perceived to perpetually have one foot out the door (Gaudreau/Tkachuk), the interest has always felt arms length at best.

Tough to run a radio station like that at the best of times - it can’t be cheap beaming 50,000 amps or whatever all day every day. There are only so many car dealerships to buy ad space.

If I think back to the golden years of the Fan, they had everything:

-killer morning show with Mike Richards - say what you will about him, he was funny. And funny enough to have his bits replayed during the day as commercials.
-prime time US syndicated show - Rome. Not gonna have another Rome fight, but 10-1 works best with a big American name - it just does.
-Afternoons with Joe Sports (RIP) and Rob Kerr - Rob was a community historian. He had a real great sense of what made moments special, even if he couldn’t capture them as a PBP man.

All of it anchored by a Hall of Fame PBP man, Peter Maher.

The single biggest mistake of Kirsch’s tenure was replacing Maher with Derek Wills.

We live in the age of “nothing matters”, where quality is secondary to affordability, where keeping your job takes precedence over being great at it.

Here’s the difference between Wills and Maher: I would listen to Peter read a phone book. Derek calls the game like he’s reading one.

[SportsJunky]

Originally Posted by Moneyhands23

Too bad as there are no good Flames daily podcasts to my knowledge.

I bet there will be. Calgary is home to a lot of broadcasting talent. When these radio stations go down or where there has been mass firings, we've seen podcasts start in Vancouver, Toronto and Winnipeg.

[EM11]

"and....he scores!"

Originally Posted by GreenLantern2814

COVID has crushed that station.

They’ve never had the easiest time of it, post-Iggy. The fan base has never felt like it embraced this new group - between players not living up to expectations (Bennett) plateauing and sharply declining in their mid 20s (Monahan) or being perceived to perpetually have one foot out the door (Gaudreau/Tkachuk), the interest has always felt arms length at best.

Tough to run a radio station like that at the best of times - it can’t be cheap beaming 50,000 amps or whatever all day every day. There are only so many car dealerships to buy ad space.

If I think back to the golden years of the Fan, they had everything:

-killer morning show with Mike Richards - say what you will about him, he was funny. And funny enough to have his bits replayed during the day as commercials.
-prime time US syndicated show - Rome. Not gonna have another Rome fight, but 10-1 works best with a big American name - it just does.
-Afternoons with Joe Sports (RIP) and Rob Kerr - Rob was a community historian. He had a real great sense of what made moments special, even if he couldn’t capture them as a PBP man.

All of it anchored by a Hall of Fame PBP man, Peter Maher.

The single biggest mistake of Kirsch’s tenure was replacing Maher with Derek Wills.

We live in the age of “nothing matters”, where quality is secondary to affordability, where keeping your job takes precedence over being great at it.

Here’s the difference between Wills and Maher: I would listen to Peter read a phone book. Derek calls the game like he’s reading one.

[PuckSlap]

Originally Posted by SportsJunky

I bet there will be. Calgary is home to a lot of broadcasting talent. When these radio stations go down or where there has been mass firings, we've seen podcasts start in Vancouver, Toronto and Winnipeg.

My how the turns have tabled

Take that, fan 960

[Moneyhands23]

Listing this am and realizing tomorrow is Boomers last day sucks.

I live in Victoria and often turn it on at 5am while having coffee in bed. Just not going to be the same.

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by GreenLantern2814

COVID has crushed that station.

They’ve never had the easiest time of it, post-Iggy. The fan base has never felt like it embraced this new group - between players not living up to expectations (Bennett) plateauing and sharply declining in their mid 20s (Monahan) or being perceived to perpetually have one foot out the door (Gaudreau/Tkachuk), the interest has always felt arms length at best.

Tough to run a radio station like that at the best of times - it can’t be cheap beaming 50,000 amps or whatever all day every day. There are only so many car dealerships to buy ad space.

If I think back to the golden years of the Fan, they had everything:

-killer morning show with Mike Richards - say what you will about him, he was funny. And funny enough to have his bits replayed during the day as commercials.
-prime time US syndicated show - Rome. Not gonna have another Rome fight, but 10-1 works best with a big American name - it just does.
-Afternoons with Joe Sports (RIP) and Rob Kerr - Rob was a community historian. He had a real great sense of what made moments special, even if he couldn’t capture them as a PBP man.

All of it anchored by a Hall of Fame PBP man, Peter Maher.

The single biggest mistake of Kirsch’s tenure was replacing Maher with Derek Wills.

We live in the age of “nothing matters”, where quality is secondary to affordability, where keeping your job takes precedence over being great at it.

Here’s the difference between Wills and Maher: I would listen to Peter read a phone book. Derek calls the game like he’s reading one.

Sports radio was always terrible for the most part but it was competing with other radio stations as you had no other options to entertain yourself at work or in the car besides the radio.

The radio hosts were either guys screaming for whatever reason or older 'legends' who were phoning it in. And then you'd get people calling in suggesting awful trades.

Now they have competition in terms of podcasts and Spotify/Apple Music where you can listen to what you actually want to. Its a dying format.

[smithtofuhr86]

Originally Posted by GreenLantern2814

COVID has crushed that station.

They’ve never had the easiest time of it, post-Iggy. The fan base has never felt like it embraced this new group - between players not living up to expectations (Bennett) plateauing and sharply declining in their mid 20s (Monahan) or being perceived to perpetually have one foot out the door (Gaudreau/Tkachuk), the interest has always felt arms length at best.

Tough to run a radio station like that at the best of times - it can’t be cheap beaming 50,000 amps or whatever all day every day. There are only so many car dealerships to buy ad space.

If I think back to the golden years of the Fan, they had everything:

-killer morning show with Mike Richards - say what you will about him, he was funny. And funny enough to have his bits replayed during the day as commercials.
-prime time US syndicated show - Rome. Not gonna have another Rome fight, but 10-1 works best with a big American name - it just does.
-Afternoons with Joe Sports (RIP) and Rob Kerr - Rob was a community historian. He had a real great sense of what made moments special, even if he couldn’t capture them as a PBP man.

All of it anchored by a Hall of Fame PBP man, Peter Maher.

The single biggest mistake of Kirsch’s tenure was replacing Maher with Derek Wills.

We live in the age of “nothing matters”, where quality is secondary to affordability, where keeping your job takes precedence over being great at it.

Here’s the difference between Wills and Maher: I would listen to Peter read a phone book. Derek calls the game like he’s reading one.

A couple things to keep in mind, Mike Richards ditched the fan with little to no notice and took off in the middle of the night sort of speak to Toronto to the next shiny new thing and that was to help kick off the new TSN radio 1050 in Toronto. He admitted as much years later after they turfed him at TSN, he was apologetic and then the Fan960 was kind enough to give him a afternoon segment back once a week with Rob Kerr where he would come on and talk about a variety of things in the sporting or non sporting world.

Maher retiring sucked but not sure what other options may have been out there I guess. Kirsch or the Fan network went with Wills, it is what it is I guess. I personally try not to let the commentator ruin what is the most important and that is the happenings on the ice where it really matters.

I hear you about the afternoon show, loved Joe Sports, he did tend to fill a lot of time at times by taking phone calls but he loved interacting with fans but....you can't go on a speech like yours without mentioning Pat Steinberg. He has at times carried that entire station on his back. He has done it all, him and Ryan Leslie were an awesome 1 / 2 when they worked together and Nault used to run the board (less Nault was better than what we are stuck with today) but after Rob left recruiting Leslie back to Calgary to be near his girls and away from the desk at Sportsnet was a huge catch for Kirsch. This was around 2014, I believe a tight budget ran him off the air but he quickly & fortunately re-surfaced when Roger Millions job opened up on TV.

[Major Major]

Originally Posted by smithtofuhr86

A couple things to keep in mind, Mike Richards ditched the fan with little to no notice and took off in the middle of the night sort of speak to Toronto to the next shiny new thing and that was to help kick off the new TSN radio 1050 in Toronto. He admitted as much years later after they turfed him at TSN, he was apologetic and then the Fan960 was kind enough to give him a afternoon segment back once a week with Rob Kerr where he would come on and talk about a variety of things in the sporting or non sporting world.

Maher retiring sucked but not sure what other options may have been out there I guess. Kirsch or the Fan network went with Wills, it is what it is I guess. I personally try not to let the commentator ruin what is the most important and that is the happenings on the ice where it really matters.

I hear you about the afternoon show, loved Joe Sports, he did tend to fill a lot of time at times by taking phone calls but he loved interacting with fans but....you can't go on a speech like yours without mentioning Pat Steinberg. He has at times carried that entire station on his back. He has done it all, him and Ryan Leslie were an awesome 1 / 2 when they worked together and Nault used to run the board (less Nault was better than what we are stuck with today) but after Rob left recruiting Leslie back to Calgary to be near his girls and away from the desk at Sportsnet was a huge catch for Kirsch. This was around 2014, I believe a tight budget ran him off the air but he quickly & fortunately re-surfaced when Roger Millions job opened up on TV.

Who was the guy that ran with Steinberg before Leslie? All time awful sports radio guy. They binned him when Leslie came.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by Major Major

Who was the guy that ran with Steinberg before Leslie? All time awful sports radio guy. They binned him when Leslie came.

Brynn Griffiths?

[MrMike]

Rogers also cleared house today at Kiss Fm in Vancouver. One rogue employee left the station only playing Rage Against The Machine “#### You I won’t Do what You Tell me” on repeat if that has anything to say about what was coming to Rogers Radio

[Moneyhands23]

Originally Posted by MrMike

Rogers also cleared house today at Kiss Fm in Vancouver. One rogue employee left the station only playing Rage Against The Machine “#### You I won’t Do what You Tell me” on repeat if that has anything to say about what was coming to Rogers Radio

Yikes

[Harry Lime]

Originally Posted by MrMike

Rogers also cleared house today at Kiss Fm in Vancouver. One rogue employee left the station only playing Rage Against The Machine “#### You I won’t Do what You Tell me” on repeat if that has anything to say about what was coming to Rogers Radio

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by MrMike

Rogers also cleared house today at Kiss Fm in Vancouver. One rogue employee left the station only playing Rage Against The Machine “#### You I won’t Do what You Tell me” on repeat if that has anything to say about what was coming to Rogers Radio

He must have been channelling the C&W DJ who spent his last day at work barricaded in the booth, playing ‘Take This Job and Shove It’ for his entire shift.

I must admit I kind of get a kick out of stunts like that.