Anchorboy (2 page)

I
’M KIND OF AN ASSHOLE.

It’s taken me a long time to come to grips with it, but it’s true. I realize it’s not a surprise to most of you who watch
SportsCentre
. It’s pretty obvious. Even most of my heroes are assholes: Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, David Letterman, the Philly Phanatic … Two people did manage to keep me from turning out to be a
total
asshole, however: my parents. It’s why the two-parent system works. It keeps people from becoming total assholes.

My friend Peter once described my family as “the kind that wears matching ski suits.” Both of my parents were always encouraging and supportive. My mom’s favourite saying was “Do the best you can with what you have.” Unfortunately, she was also the first person to see my penis.

After graduating from pharmacy at the University of Saskatchewan, Dad found work behind the dispensary at a Woolco
department store in Calgary in 1972. They had just purchased their first home: a modest two-storey at a relatively reasonable 17 percent interest rate. I was born two years later and apparently I was a very cute little kid. Unfortunately for my parents, I was uncomfortable with any attention whatsoever and was rather rude to anyone who tried to pay me a compliment. Turns out I was a little bit of a dick-head. Some things never change.

It was a wonderful time to be a small-town business owner, and a few years after I was born, a small drugstore came up for sale in Boyle, Alberta. My parents, my newborn sister, and I made the six-hour drive straight north from Calgary, past Edmonton about an hour and a half or so, right into the village of Boyle, population 700. Mom and Dad had both grown up in small towns, so small-town living was not foreign to them, but they had arrived on a rainy weekend. The village had only gravel roads, and the whole place resembled some sort of apocalyptic
Mad Max
scene. My mom took one look and said, “Let’s turn around. We’ll tell them we couldn’t make it.” Two days later, they bought the drugstore.

We lived in the back of the store for the first year; there was a suite back there, and that’s where we all slept. My sister and I shared a bedroom, and by “bedroom” I mean the stockroom. We would spend the days wandering the aisles and reading the comics. Even today when I wander into a drugstore—with that unique smell combination of over-the-counter medicine and feminine hygiene products—I’m instantly transported back to my childhood.

In Boyle we had three channels, but the only one that came in clearly was the CBC, with shows like
The Beachcombers
and
The Wonderful World of Disney
on Sunday night and reruns of
Three’s Company
and
Happy Days
airing in the afternoon after I got home from school. After the sitcoms ended the local news began.

CBC’s Edmonton newscast was anchored by a stately old codger from Ontario named Alex Moir, the quintessential old-school
broadcaster like the one in the movie
Anchorman
, except unlike Ron Burgundy, you got the impression that Alex actually cracked open a few of his leather-bound books once in a while. I vividly remember Alex lamenting the state of his beloved Toronto Maple Leafs, who were an absolute laughingstock at the time. However, I wasn’t too interested in Alex and the news, and I especially wasn’t interested in the Leafs. I was busy obsessing over the Edmonton Oilers and their incredible young team headlined by The Great One, and during the summers, it was Gary Carter and the Montreal Expos. So the local sportscast was a massive part of my day. This was before TSN, so there were no half-hour sports highlight shows for me to obsess over yet. Little did I realize I was being spoiled with sports broadcasting talent, as CBC Edmonton unleashed a “murderer’s row” of anchors who would later go on to excel on a national level.

First up was John Wells, who anchored the suppertime sportscast and hosted the western feed of
Hockey Night in Canada
as well. John was the first sportscaster I remember watching. His style wasn’t flashy. He grew up in the business, the son of Cactus Jack Wells, longtime play-by-play man for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. John was blessed with a voice as rich and warm as his dad’s. I remember attending my uncle’s wedding at age six wearing my first suit. Apparently, I told everyone at the wedding it was my “John Wells” suit. Everyone at that wedding very likely thought I was going to turn out to be some weirdo, and it turns out they were absolutely correct.

John soon moved on, perhaps the most high-profile on-air talent lured away from CBC for the launch of TSN in 1984. He was replaced by Chris Cuthbert. The same Chris Cuthbert who called the gold-medal game in men’s hockey at the Vancouver Olympics and currently calls NHL and CFL games for TSN, including the Grey Cup. Before Chris got his big broadcasting break, however, he was anchoring the suppertime sportscast at CBC Edmonton, and I
was watching about two feet from the TV. It was amazing whenever Chris told my co-host Dan O’Toole and me that he loved to watch our show. Not to mention the fact that he’s one of the nicest people in the business.

After Chris moved on he was replaced by Gord Miller. Yes, the same Gord Miller who currently splits play-by-play duties with Chris for the
NHL on TSN
and serves as the lead voice for the World Junior Hockey Championship, one of TSN’s marquee properties. Gord grew up in Edmonton, and I believe he may have joined the CBC at nineteen or something, like the Eddie Murphy of Canadian sportscasting without the leather suits (as far as I know; it
was
the ’80s). He looked barely nineteen years old but his talent was obvious, and it was no surprise to see him eventually move on to TSN during the network’s early days. During an e-mail exchange with Gord during the 2012 Stanley Cup playoffs, he mentioned to me that he enjoys watching Dan and me every day on his Slingbox while he’s on the road calling games, and again, this was an incredibly flattering revelation for me.

After we’d been in Boyle for five years, another slightly bigger store came up for sale in the nearby town of Athabasca. I remember Dad sitting me down at the kitchen table and telling me we had bought the store and we were moving. Just as he did when Mom insisted he tell me about “the birds and the bees” because a girl in our high school had become pregnant and I was asking questions. His approach was always simple and direct: “You know those times when your penis gets stiff? It will fit
inside the vagina
.”

I was excited about the move to Athabasca for one important reason: They had cable TV.

It wasn’t like we were cut off from society in Boyle or anything, but suddenly a new world opened up to me. Around age twelve or thirteen I started to watch
CNN Sports Tonight
with Nick Charles and Fred Hickman, my first introduction to a big-time American
sportscast.
Sports Tonight
was a simple half-hour highlight show hosted by two solid, straightforward broadcasters who wore
killer
suits. Looking back on those suits now, it was as if the two of them had raided Steve Harvey’s closet: all wide lapels and bold colours and bold ties.

Sunday nights on TSN I was splitting my time between
NFL Primetime
with Chris Berman and Tom Jackson and
Trans World Sport
, a weekly show featuring sports highlights from around the globe voiced by a pleasant English woman with a posh accent. Many in my business now remember the hilarious way she would introduce NHL hockey: “Turning to North American ice hockey competition …”

Also airing Sunday nights on some random American channel on our cable was
The George Michael Sports Machine
, which managed to stay on the air for over two decades. George Michael (not the Wham! frontman) was a veteran sportscaster who dressed like he was christening a yacht alongside Judge Smails in
Caddyshack
. He would stand in front of a set that looked like the bridge of the
Enterprise
on the original
Star Trek
series from the ’60s and ramble on about whatever highlight he was about to show you, and then he would actually reach down and push a button on his “sports machine,” which was supposed to “roll the highlights” for him. This ridiculous gimmick continued for the life of the program, even after they brought on some young girl to be paired with an aging George to go after the young male demographic well after the show had run its course. There was something simple and endearing about the original
George Michael Sports Machine
to the point where I expect someone will make a movie about the show someday starring Christopher Plummer.

I was also fully addicted to NBC’s hot new talk show,
Late Night with David Letterman
. I set the family’s VCR on a timer to record the show every weeknight, and upon returning from school I would
watch it, absolutely mesmerized. Dave was the first to “take the show out of the show” and peel back the curtain to reveal just how cheap and fun TV could be. Sending his stage manager Biff Henderson to the World Series, dropping objects off tall buildings, wearing a suit of Alka-Seltzer and stepping into a giant tub of water. Everyone I knew loved the show as much as I did. Dave was proving that television could be taken in another direction. He was acknowledging what the viewer at home was thinking in a way that had never been done before. Instead of trying to cover up his show’s mistakes and shortcomings, he was deliberately pointing them out.

Soon, local Edmonton station ITV (which would eventually become Global Edmonton) launched their own half-hour nightly sports highlight show following the local late news. They called the show
Sports Night
and hired a guy named Darren Dutchyshen to host it. “Dutchy” was quick to let everyone in Edmonton know he was from Porcupine Plain, Saskatchewan,
and
of Ukrainian descent. Since half the population of Alberta at the time was from Saskatchewan and the other half was Ukrainian, he was an instant hit. Plus he had a mullet, that long, unruly, shaggy, unkempt tuft of “short-in-the-front, long-in-the-back” hair that he sported upon arrival. Similar to the long, unruly, shaggy, unkempt mullets that so many of us viewers were sporting at the time. He was one of our own.

Dutchy hit Edmonton like a rocket. He was loud, brash, outspoken, and funny, and he had just about the most unique delivery of any sportscaster I had ever seen up to that point. His personality played particularly well in blue-collar Edmonton. This was a guy you could actually imagine playing most of the pranks on your beer-league hockey team.

After a few years flying solo on
Sports Night
, Dutchy was joined by another young broadcaster named Perry Solkowski. Anyone who grew up in the late ’80s and early ’90s in the Edmonton area and who cared about sports has fond memories of Dutchy and Perry
hosting the show together after the late news. I remember my first year at the University of Alberta. Every weeknight would end with me and my roommate Trevor flipping on ITV, watching
Sports Night
, and laughing at Dutchy and Perry. No, we were not getting laid much.

Dutchy and Perry were having an absolute blast. It was obvious just watching them.

I
WAS UNSURE IF I
really wanted to go on and pursue a career in broadcasting because I had heard that all Canadian broadcasters ate ramen noodles for dinner because they were so poor. Then the summer after my first year at the University of Alberta, I was working at my dad’s drugstore in Athabasca and in walked Trevis Belcourt.

Trevis was a few years older than I was, and he and his younger brother Aaron were pretty unique in that they were the only guys I went to high school with who would come into my dad’s store and ask if the new
GQ
magazine had arrived. While most guys in that town were reading
The Hockey News
or
Metal Edge
, Trevis and Aaron could probably have told you who Jay McInerney or Bret Easton Ellis were at the time. They were hugely into hip hop. They were not destined for life in a small agricultural town in northern Alberta.

When Trevis graduated he went straight to Toronto to attend Ryerson’s radio and television arts program. He was back that summer,
having just finished his final year of school, and he stopped by the store to chat. Suddenly I was captivated with stories about how much fun he had at Ryerson and how much fun Toronto was. I had already committed to attending the University of Alberta for a second year that fall, or rather, they had agreed to let me return after grades that could be described as “barely adequate.” I had plans to get better grades, apply to pharmacy, and return home to take over the family business. After talking to Trevis, however, I began to ponder what it would be like if I decided to make a 180-degree turn into broadcasting.

My dad was well aware of my interest in broadcasting, and he also encouraged me to look into schools, perhaps sensing the inevitable. To that end he purchased a book called
What Color Is Your Parachute?
, a self-help bible somewhat appropriately written by a pastor, Richard Nelson Bolles. Bolles’s philosophy is based on one simple fact: Everyone likes talking about themselves. The idea was to cold-call a person in the industry that you emulate, then ask for five minutes of their time over coffee. At this point said person may try to answer a few quick questions for you and then explain that they have to get back to work. Your goal is to prevent that from happening and try to get the person one-on-one. By getting the person one-on-one, you are putting a face to that cold-calling voice and hopefully establishing your first “contact” in the industry.

Bolles also suggested you speak with a professor or instructor at a post-secondary institution you think you may want to attend. No point in subjecting yourself to a terrifying cold call if you decide after speaking to someone who teaches in your chosen profession that you actually have no interest in pursuing it at all. I called the radio and television arts department at NAIT (the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology) in Edmonton. I was immediately connected with the head of the RTA program, and he graciously agreed to meet me in his office one weekday afternoon in the summer of 1993.

Much to my surprise and delight, many of my favourite local TV news personalities had gone through the NAIT RTA program, but one name stood out: Perry Solkowski. “He went here?” I said in disbelief. I don’t exactly know why I was shocked, but for whatever reason it opened a mental door that had been completely closed before:
I could go to NAIT and end up working alongside Dutchy and Perry at ITV
. I was suddenly possessed of a single-minded focus to try to pursue a career in this business.

I told the NAIT professor that I was attending the University of Alberta, and he informed me that local news producer Pat Kiernan also attended the U of A and was building a successful broadcasting career. He went on to become the mega-popular morning news host on Manhattan’s NY 1 news station. “My suggestion would be to get in contact with Pat,” he said.

Pat agreed to meet me at Earls on Calgary Trail Southbound in Edmonton, the original Earls restaurant in fact. It happened to be right by the ITV headquarters on Allard Way, the same studio that had been home to SCTV in its third and fourth seasons. Pat was not only the producer of ITV’s
News at Ten
but also the host of the
Your Money
financial segment. He was not even thirty years old. For whatever reason, Pat appreciated my initiative and told me I was welcome to come by the station any time I wanted while he was working. He said he would be able to teach me “how to write news” and that I could help out around the newsroom, but that obviously I wouldn’t get paid. He had me at “how to write news,” and that summer I was driving into Edmonton three nights a week, often nodding off at the wheel of my 1970 Buick Skylark on the hour-and-a-half drive back to Athabasca.

Early on during my brief tenure at ITV I was speaking to a veteran camera operator, and he was telling me about his job, the hours, and the fact that he would be working that weekend while his wife and kids were at home. He wasn’t complaining because
that is what he signed up for. He said, “Remember one thing about broadcasting: You will always be working when everyone else you know is off.” Having someone explain the bizarre hours and lifestyle of this business before I even fully committed to it really helped me make the decision. Plus, I liked working nights; if anything, that was a bonus for me.

I spent my afternoons and evenings at the station combing the CNN television news feeds and watching
CNN Headline News
, searching for any funny and light, yet universally appealing, stories that might be good to finish off the nightly news, aka “the Kicker.” I was also in charge of watching Jeannie Moos’s daily report from New York, which was always quirky and hilarious. She had a unique reporting style that made her popular, covering misfits and strange characters and situations from the Big Apple. Once in a while Pat would allow me to write the copy for the Kicker. Every day that I worked, Pat and I would grab lunch with his actual NAIT broadcast intern, David Ewasuk, now a reporter at CTV Edmonton. We’d chow down on Wendy’s drive-through and talk about the business. Slowly, over the course of the summer, I understood what it was like to work in the TV news biz.

All the while I was writing and learning about news, I was getting a chance to meet my heroes Dutchyshen and Solkowski in person. They were both friendly but ultimately didn’t have much time for me, which was completely understandable. It was great watching Dutchy saunter around the newsroom joking happily with the news anchors and seeing Perry’s casual demeanor and friendly attitude. They seemed to be having more fun than the news people.

That fall I was accepted into Ryerson, and I flew down a couple of days before my first class with a suitcase in each hand like Balki Bartokomous arriving in America from the tiny island nation of Mypos on
Perfect Strangers
. Ryerson was right in the heart of downtown Toronto, and while I didn’t expect to see so many hookers
on the boundaries of a university campus, I immediately felt like I belonged. I’m pretty sure all those hookers were happy for me. Welcome to Toronto, prairie boy.