Sports Logic

By Wayne Coristine
I woke up and started watching coverage of the trade deadline and something really struck me. No matter how awful the Toronto Maple Leafs are, TSN feels the need to make whatever story they can about them. Before 8:30 am, they not once but twice spent time on Dominic Moore - including interrupting Bob MacKenzie, who dared talk about the Buffalo Sabres, to go to Cory Woron. Woron broke the "big" news that Moore and the Leafs broke off contract talks.

TSN is a decent source when the trades do break, but at this writing there is one move: Columbus trades G Pascal Leclaire and a second round pick to Ottawa from Antoine Vermette. Yet, they started their broadcast a 4 am Eastern time with enough insiders, analysts and the dead weight Reporters table to field a four-team softball tournament.

I tired quickly of the third line centre talk of a terrible Leafs team, so I flipped over to Sportsnet and realized how little I like that network. Outside of Doug MacLean, Rogers has done little to improve from their Pizza Party two years ago and I grudgingly returned to TSN in hopes that they might be onto something new. No dice, but at least I got to watch guys in the background on Blackberrys no doubt playing games and texting.

Mercifully, The Score's show started at 8 am and I was able to watch something entertaining. They do a great job where they don't focus on the also ran Leafs...they realize the league has 29 other squads. They have Al Strachan working as the insider along side the hilarious Tim McCallef (we'll check the facsimile machines - does anyone even use fax machines anymore? Dick Duff was just traded for Bill Hick!). They talk about everything from how the cap works to the needs of teams in and around the playoffs. The Score even went as far as talk to the NHLPA about the placement of the deadline. The best think about the score is they split screen the talking head with a rotating graph of each team's salary situations, needs and free agents to be.

When it comes to personalities, each network has its good and bad. TSN has James Duthie, Darren Pang, Pierre Maguire, Bob MacKenzie, Gord Miller, Matthew Barnaby, Peter Laviolette, Jay Feaster, Ray Ferraro and Jay Onrait on the good side, but unfortunately we get to listen to Keith Jones, Darren Dreger, Dave Hodge, Damien Cox, Thteve Thimmons, Michael Farber, Darren Dutychen to negate the good. That doesn't count the beat reporters James Cybulski, Cory Woron, Jermaine Franklin, Ryan Rishaug, Brent Wallace, Claude Feig, Sarah Orlesky, John Liu and Farhan Lalji.

The Sportsnet crew is awful outside of Doug MacLean. Darren Millard as host annoys me like no other. Nick Kypreos, Bill Watters, Mike Brophy, Mark Spector, RJ Broadhead, Gord Stellick with reporters Louis Jean, Roger Millions, and the awful, awful, AWFUL Gene Principe to turn a professional broadcast into a high school production. Not to mention Evanka Osmak in Afghanistan to talk to Lanny MacDonald...because where better to get trade scoops than in the middle of a war?

The Score, on the other hand has hockey encyclopedia Steve Kouleas, the always entertaining Steve Ludzik, well connected Al Strachan, Tim McCallef, Adnan Virk, and the always annoying Mark Osbourne. They have their reporters like Tony Ambrogio following the teams as well. The difference is...the Score guys try to have fun and make it entertaining with stories and humour when the moves aren't happening.