Ron MacLean: 'Nothing's official' on replacing Stroumboulopoulos as HNIC host

Sorry but as nothing more than a fan of hockey, he just doesn't fit in and no amount of tight pants and idiotic questions will ever change that fact.

Kind of a cheap thing to do to Strombo but they fucked up by changing the format anyway. MacLean's older too now so, despite their antipathy at the corporate level towards Don Cherry, they should have waited until Don decided enough was enough and changed MacLean out then. The brains at CBC might not like it but those two are simply too popular with us great unwashed types who don't live in downtown Toronto to jerk around with them. They can try all they want but hockey just isn't suitable to base a hipster coffee-table gabs-session format around.

I was thinking the same, Ron's getting a bit old.

Still, I want him back.

Strombo is a goof.

Isn't that what all the polls told Rogers? But hey, why listen to your viewers when the demographic you really want isn't all interested in the product your pushing.

Strombo's too smart for the job. Just like Dennis Miller's Monday Night Football failure. In both cases, the failure was more the audience's failure than the host's. Or the management's for overestimating the typical fan's capacity.

The problem with George is he has a narrow base who can relate to him. He looks like a guy who should be running a art gallery. He's intelligent and "cultured", but doesn't draw appeal to a broad base.

This being said, he was a victim of circumstance. If 6 Canadian teams make the playoff and the final four consist of Leafs/Habs in the East and Flames/Oilers in the West, Roger ratings go through the roof and George receives a raise.

One final note, hockey took a back seat in Canada to the run by the Blue Jays and the Raptors. An entire generation hasn't seen any Canadian winners, now, going on 23 years and counting, for an entire country!

Yup, all hockey and football fans be stupid.

Sorry, but that's nothing more than a hackneyed excuse used to make these men's failures someone else's fault. As an announcer or interviewer if you can't connect with your audience it isn't their fault it's yours and claiming that they're not smart enough to "get you" is just pandering.

The truth was that Dennis Miller while articulate and funny spoke down to people and alienated his audience for it. And, Strombo just isn't knowledgeable enough to sit at the table with people who have actually played the game or covered it for most of their adult lives.

Two sports host experiments gone awry is all this is and has nothing to do with it being the fans fault.

Odd that when Dennis Miller, who is still funnier than hell when he wants to be, ended up alienating everyone who followed him on SNL and his own shows when he basically became a mouthpiece for the Bush Admin's massive fuck-ups in Iraq. He's still the only comedian I know of who came close to endorsing some of the batshit crazy crap Glenn Beck was pushing back in those days.

Great Dennis parody account here. Very esoteric and over the head of most folks, just like the way the real Dennis used to be. Here's lookin' at ya, babe.

https://twitter.com/DennisMillerNFL

That's not what I said.


But too many of them aren't smart enough to get it. That's not calling the audience stupid. The audience is, in sum, of average intelligence. That's the definition of average. But Strumbo's (and Miller's) contributions required more than "average" capacity.


No, the truth is that people of average intelligent didn't get Miller, which made them "feel", wrongly, that they were being spoken down to.


It's not the fans' fault for being of average intelligence. Again, any group, if large enough, will have the largest number of members be of average intelligence. It's a normal distribution. Strombo and Miller had a smaller appeal and were not accessible to the majority of their audience. It's no one's fault. It's just the way populations work. It also explains Don Cherry's appeal to the "average" viewer.

Yup, all hockey and football fans be stupid.
quote]

Let's consider a broader, more concerning fact; in 2004 CBC did a massive poll regarding who the Greatest Canadian of all time was. Don Cherry came in 7th. A sports commentator! LOL. He is on once a week for crying out loud.

Really made me consider where Canada is on the world stage when this is our 7th greatest Canadian. He was ahead of John A McDonald, Alexander Graham Bell, Jean Vanier, Rick Hansen and Mackenzie just to name a few.

No wonder we are getting absolutely crushed as an innovative country. With all due respect to Don (where it was warranted in the 1980's), a commentator shouldn't break top 50, let alone top 10. Maybe 2-3 sports athletes should even be in the top 50.

We are really lacking leaders of substance and a nation that stands for something.

Canada is currently ranked as the 12th most innovative country in the world.

And, that is without an proper separation between Canada and the US. Which does cost us heavily, as many of the metrics measured, are submitted by Canadians under the US regulatory systems, so that they can enter the US market first and foremost *so they get counted on the US innovation metric, not the Canadian).

That aside, there is one major freedom, in Canada, that you always fail to mention, and one that applies to you more than I think I have ever seen.

You are free to leave, if you dislike it here so much.

Canada is currently ranked as the 12th most innovative country in the world.

And, that is without an proper separation between Canada and the US. Which does cost us heavily, as many of the metrics measured, are submitted by Canadians under the US regulatory systems, so that they can enter the US market first and foremost *so they get counted on the US innovation metric, not the Canadian).

That aside, there is one major freedom, in Canada, that you always fail to mention, and one that applies to you more than I think I have ever seen.

You are free to leave, if you dislike it here so much.

Don't tell me you are one of those who voted for Don...

Right, there's some fascist logic, "if you don't like being persecuted and terrorized by your government, you are free to leave". I'm sure this was an "option" given to many in history.

How about I just speak the truth and let our allies decide what is what?

Persecuted and terrorized? Exaggerate much? Oh wait, yes, that's what you do. Captain Hyperbole's your new handle.


Why are you so concerned about what our allies think?

Strombo pissed off the Yanks with his witty yet indecipherable banter and they're going to invade?