Talking In My Sleep

Strachan’s a horrible, not talent ass clown. He's the worst columnist in Canada (and that includes Damien Cox).

He is constantly made fun of behind the scenes at most sports networks (and being a TSN Sportscentre alumni - I have seen this first hand).

He constantly makes up NHL rumors and 'behind the scene' rumblings and passes them on as 'factual'.

The fact that he published a rant about basketball, which he clearly doesn't understand or know anything about - shows his ignorance.

I hope the Sun (and CBC) fire his fat, balding ass so that he can join that other blow-hard Marty York on the Metro.

I read that article when it was posted on Canoe and thought one thing: Al Strachan is a [deleted] idiot.

If I saw him on the street then I am quite certain I would spit on him.

burn strachan, burn.

Good post!

Let me qualify everything I'm about to type by saying that I am, in fact, a hockey fan, I just happen to like basketball alot more.

The 'radio time returned to the hockey fans' bit killed me. Have they listened to the fan 590 recently? It's 90% hockey as is....and it's the offseason, when there's nothing to talk about. We need to spend hours talking about Matt Stajan re-signing, really?...How about Tom Fitzgerald retiring?...as if this is impactful in the slightest.

The reality is, the majority of the people that currently work in the media (TV/Radio/Print) don't know very much about basketball, and therefore can't write or talk intelligently about it. This is a prime example of that. That's why you see doom and gloom articles like this....because it's in their best interest, personally, for the Raptors to fail. Otherwise, these individuals face the prospect of either becoming less valuable to their employer...or obsolete altogether.

For a guy like Mr. Strachan, I suspect it would be the former and not the latter, but the fact remains that if he can't report about basketball, and basketball takes up more of his Newspaper, then the Newspaper doesn't need as much from him....meaning they will be less inclined to pay him what he wants in the future.

With the exception of Swirsky's show (obviously) and McCown's show (which is fair to all sports), the Fan's radio content is horribly HORRIBLY skewed towards Hockey. TSN is the worst offender on the television side (don't blink while you're watching Sportscentre, or you'll miss the basketball highlights).

I think what Strachan really wants is those 2 hours of Raptors games on the Fan to be freed up for .......MORE STORMIN NORMAN!!!

(I just threw up a little in my mouth).

AS IS Toronto's media coverage of basketball is minimal at best! If you did up a pie chart it would probably equate to 60% Leafs coverage, 20% Jays, 10% Raps, 7% Argos and 3% Rock...I mean, what more do they want?

As for TSN, it should just be re-named THN...as in, The Hockey Network. I vividly recall watching the 10 PM Sportsdesk a few years ago and having to sit through the first 20 minutes of hockey news, then 10 minutes of baseball and golf only at the bottom of the hour to have the hockey news run through yet again! And before each commercial break they'd include basketball highlights as "what's coming up next"...well 11 PM came and went with none...

Disgusting.

WOW!
I am not from Toronto but I do understand that all of Canada is slanted by their sports coverage. Most of Canadian sports TV comes from Toronto. And I know in Canada hockey is King. But I would like to point out that the Raptors are Canada's basketball team. I am from Calgary and am living in Edmonton and every ratball court I go to is filled with die hard raptor fans and the occasional pheonix suns fan. So many of us bball fans are fed up with the lack of intelligent media coverage for bball.
After reading that article that was linked, any sports fan can conclude that Al Strachan if a f@#$ing moron. It really upset me.
I too am a hockey fan (to a much lesser extent) but I never disrespect other athletes or other sports. That is just plain ignorant. He really makes himself look foolish and further tarnishes a battered image of hockey sports analysts. Hockey is the only sport where analysts take jabs at other sports. It is simply unprofessional. I think this is a result of jealous feelings towards the fact that hockey is unpopular in the United States (comparitively). Al Strachan's rant is something that is typically heard from stupid, die hard Hockey fans. Do they feel threatened? I have never really understood it, but it really bothers me.
PS leafs fans can go play in traffic and this will be the flames year to win the cup

It's just an arragance thing. On a similar note, is golf that much more popular that it will support a "golf channel". Why not a basketball channel?

as i said the other day, MLSE pulled the baby leafs (aka the marlies) out of st john's a couple seasons ago. this had only one downfall - the fact that the raptors wouldnt be returning to the rock...other than that, good riddance...id much rather have a QMJHL team than a bunch of players that couldnt even make the TORONTO maple leafs!!!

living in newfoundland, i cant really comment on the fan 590's sports coverage, but with regards to canada's sports television, i find the score to have the most complete coverage for all sports...although hockey is first on the tottem pole when it comes to highlights, they give plenty of time to the other "big 3" with plenty of enthusiasm to go along with the highlights...the best is watching "court cuts" when tim micallef, cabbie, and sid seixero sit around and watch the best from the nba in the week that was...you can really tell they enjoy it...as opposed to tsn's plays of the week, where you might see a flash of an nba highlight littered in between 20 nhl clips.

much like the other posters, i am a basketball fan first, hockey second, and it's incredibly annoying when i read articles such as strachan's

Datpiff: THN? Sad, but true.

Couldn't have been more obvious during the lockout. Lead item was, "Day NNN. Betteman just ate eggs benedict, looked at phone, cleared throat, didn't call Goodenow. Riveting. We go now to our Hockey Insiders to discuss this important development." Wait... didn't the Raptors play tonight? What happened?

1. basketball 2. baseball 3. hockey 4. football in my mind, but come on. Labour strife over actual games (from a 'home town' team...)? I don't care what order you put them in, you don't want to see a collective bargaining update first unless you are a lawyer. That was just horrendous.

Unfortunately, Al Strachan proves a point I've been making for eons. Most sports Columnists have the IQ of several dozen monkeys with half a dozen typewritters. I mean lets face it, they were Jock wannabes in highschool that couldn't make their team, so they wrote for the school paper. They weren't smart enough to get a real job, yet just smart enough and passionate enough to be a "Journalist" (that's what you get for having a "Street & Smith" in Bed and memorizing every stat for hours and hours on a Friday night, because they couldn't get a date!)

Would you trust these guys to do your taxes? Would you want them writing public policy on foreign affairs? Would you want them writing your TV Guide? Has anyone ever kept track of how often a scribe is wrong with their analysis? What about their predictions for a "winner" of a game? These ink stained wretches are right as often as Calderon hits his threes. Oh wait, maybe I'll have to put it in terms that Al can understand - as often as Kaberle shoots the puck on a powerplay.

Is Al, actually trying to say, the Raptors are losing $200 Million? I like the over generalizations that he makes to try and draw a point: "The Raptors spend more on defunct coaches and acquisitions who never played a minute than the Leafs have ever paid a player in their history." Now is that a fact?

He doesn't address that ACC would sit empty on 40+ dates and lose revenue there (yes I'm sure we can fill it up with 50 Britney Spear concerts - puuhhleeeaase).

He doesn't address that the different business streams operate individually and independently.

He doesn't mention that MLSE didn't have the Raps at one point and still had one of the highest ticket prices in the league.

He doesn't mention, that if MLSE weren't making financially sound decisions, that the teacher's pension fund would create the loudest chalk board scratching noise ever until MLSE did what they wanted.

Lets just get over this, the Sun wanted to stir something up, the more we talk about it, the better job they did. Suck up our insecurities and get back to hoops talk. The NBA CBA guarantees that teams will make money, so they aren't going anywhere.

I dont even watch TSN or Sportsnet news. Why bother? Perhaps if more people just rejected it then they would have to change their ways.

Al Strachan is now known as Weirder Al Strachan . He's obviously approaching senility . Imagine his prop to allocate more radio time for hockey. It's like adding more sales tax aside from GST and PST !

don't worry, the leafs aren't even going to make the playoffs this year while the raps are going to finish with homecourt advantage.
then we can all look back on that lame article and just laugh.

from Hali myself and i dare say there are more bball fans percapita there than TO (where I lived for 6 yrs.). with all the things to worry about in the world it's a bit ridiculous to worry about media sports coverage, yet i do get sickened by the lack of attention to bball in canada. nothing worse than having bball playoffs play 2nd fiddle to reg. season snoozefest baseball.

on a side note, i just watched estonia make a 4th q comeback over croatia, live, and it was a blast. euro ball is a lot of fun. raps should check out a couple of these estonian guys (yeah i said estonian, but hey it's worth a look), especially their PG Kriis, who single handedly won the game with a clutch 3 plus the harm, and half court steal and 2 more free throws. it almost mcgradyesque.

I read your most recent blog entry ("Talking In My Sleep") and made a note to self never to wear my Leaf's toque in your presence. Despite how adorable it is...

My other, slightly more intellectual comment, was in response to this:

"And I guess it's also why if you look at a list of the world's fastest growing sports in terms of youth participation, you'll see basketball along with soccer and lacrosse near the top right?"

My guess is that, with the exception perhaps of lacrosse, basketball and soccer are growing rapidly because you can be dirt friggin' poor and still play basketball and soccer. All you need is a ball and a basket, or a ball, field, and net. And for the thousands of kids in ghetto America, where pavement prevails, basketball seems the easiest way to spend one's time for free. It doesn't require an ice pad, or pads of equipment, or a suburban van to transport oneself to the ice pad.

Not that any of that properly justifies my love of hockey. In fact, it almost makes it look immoral, since I've suggested that hockey is a wealthy white man/woman's game, and in a world still struggling with wealth and race, the words "wealthy white" bear bad connotations.

Your point, however, is valid. It occurs to me that Toronto media does favour the Leafs to the Raptors. Although, fans are fickle, so all it would take is another cruddy season for the Leafs and a comparatively better one for the Raptors to turn things around...

Happy Monday.

Not necessarily true, Feist. I think Franchise is referring to the article that came in the Star a month or so ago. It looked at sports in terms of participation as well as interest, and basketball was atop hockey both times, among the youth. So, it's not just a matter of easy access. The fact is that basketball is slowly challenging hockey in its popularity, but with Canadian media coverage, you would never even realize it. It's such a contradiction, especially when you hear about sports shows wanting to attract the younger demographic. Yet, they fail to acknowledge the sports that these demographics are more interested in.

Someone said that it's because these analysts lack the knowledge and fear a diminished role if basketball/soccer recieve more coverage. That certainly makes sense (and explains why they belittle other sports so much). But, I also believe that it is because these networks/papers are afraid to alienate their traditional audience, by distributing time/space more evenly. It's a shame, because they end up dictating the public's interest in sports, when they should be answering it.

Strange to complain about the Leafs commercials on Raps TV(which I also hate) when on your very own homepage there is a Leafs ad too!!