Sporting Madness

To follow up to my initial piece on the Jerod Morris / Raul Ibanez controversy from this past week, I figured I'd discuss the reaction of the guys on Prime Time Sports on Friday. For those not familiar with it, Prime Time Sports is a radio/television program broadcast across Canada daily on the FAN 590 and its affiliates as well as Rogers Sportsnet. It's probably comparable in reach to ESPN's Around The Horn (a show I've complained about previously ), but is generally much more insightful. The regular broadcasts tend to feature host Bob McCown and Globe and Mail writer par excellence Stephen Brunt interviewing top-tier guests from the media and sports worlds, and often have some great stuff. The Friday shows are more of an Around the Horn feel than an interview show, with a couple of other Toronto media personalities joining Brunt and McCown to discuss sports, but the emphasis still tends to be on thoughtful discussion over yelling and extreme opinions, which ...

Reports of the death of fans' interest in the Toronto Maple Leafs have been exaggerated. Bob McCown and Jim Kelley spent the first 15 minutes or so of Prime Time Sports ' 5:00-6:00 hour today discussing the idea that no one cares any more because the team isn't in playoff contention, and offered two major arguments as to why this was so; the Leafs' game story from last night was on the fifth page of the Toronto Star 's sports section, and there have been less callers than usual who want to talk about the Leafs during their 4:00-5:00 call-in hour. This is a flawed analysis, however. First, let's examine the placement of the story in the Star. I don't have the print edition handy, but you can see the listing of the stories in today's paper here , which is generally organized by importance. The top story is about hurdler Perdita Felicien 's return to competition, which is a reasonably big deal; she's a well-known Olympic athlete and the Star is k...