morning. some news from my family today. We're thrilled to announce we're joining @GoldenKnights organization and will be moving to Vegas
We are seeing more and more reporters leaving the volatile media world for more secure individual team positions. Ed Tait and Ian Hamilton other recent examples. Although one can only imagine the Alouettes hiring Herb Zurkowsky.
Winnipegers can probably comment further on the apparently controversial Lawless, but I always enjoyed his CFL reporting.
Sad news (for CFL fans) as he was a great voice for the league in the media and knew how to make the league sound "big time" in his reports ( a trait that far too many of his contemporaries either didn't have or didn't want to have).
Lawless should rent not buy, after seeing the poor fan support in Las Vegas for their first pro football team. Not sure what league the GoldenHawks will play in, but Vegas will make Phoenix look like a hockey hotbed.
I still and will never understand some posters dislike for Rod Black.
OK, I find it annoying during every RedBlack game , that he has to explain that " before the Redblacks Ottawa had the Rough Riders and Renegades. Then talk about the son of Carter :roll:
Other than that, he is a real good Play B Play man.
Rod is terribly weak as a football pbp man. He’s OK at other sports and he’s glib enough to serve as a reasonable host for various ice skating & Olympic style events. Not quite in the same league as Ron McLean but McLean is super slick and knowledgeable. Black is like J. Paul McConnell in Vancouver - million dollar voice, 10 cent mind. In plain terms he’s UNACCEPTABLE!
Gooner Lawless should fit in in Vegas super well. Looks like Al Capone's side man - a guy who's head is about 6 x the normal man - and yet he's only 5'11" and 260/270
Lots of rumours he got into trouble a year or so ago on TSN.CA and TSN radio - when he called for Bobby Hull's head and led the charge to remove Hull from the Hall of Fame in Manitoba - leading Hull to refuse induction into said Hall of Fame and state he's never gonna come back to Winnipeg cuz of how Lawless, Hussler & others soiled his name.
Lawless's rant was that Hull beat the living crap out of his wife Joanne whilst living in Winnipeg. Also got into scraps in Chicago after his Jets career ended. Yet, no charges were ever laid. Hull was either set up or framed.
There was speculation Hull caught his wife in bed with a local druggist named Jeff Kronson (can't be sure of the guy's first name) and beat the living crap out of Kronson. Kronson was connected to the local sports community (Jets bought drugs and tape from his drug shoppe) so he decided NOT to press charges. Yet a wide mouth like Lawless was allowed to run rampant with false charges that not only denigrated a great man (who's now about 78) but get the community to turn against Hull.
Pipsqueaks like Bob Irving and Kelly Moore stood idly by as all this happened. There were no real men in the Winnipeg sports broadcasting/journalism community so Lawless was able to get "his" job done.
Evidently Kronson died a few months ago, a broken and deranged man - so the real story may never emerge - as Lawless soon flees Winnipeg for the gambling capital of the world. :cowboy:
Casinos alone will buy up a quarter of a stadium for NFL games I am sure. Vegas entertainment wise it will be one of the cheaper tickets in town in all honesty. 2/3 of the NFL team tickets are <100 a seat, while the overall league average ticket is 82 bucks or something like that. That is less than any headline or decent show in Vegas. I also know a couple people that are buying season tickets and they live in Canada, myself included, or at least I am considering it and threw down the deposit…
At 67 or 68 Bob Irving does a very good job with bomber play by play. A guy like Black could learn lots - but unfortunately Black was never really trained in the nuances of football broadcasting - and it shows!
Bob chose to weasel away when Lawless & his TSN radio buddies were lambasting Bobby Hull. As someone whose job (and large income) was made possible by Bobby Hull planting himself in Winnipeg for nearly a decade and putting the WHA on the map - I find that reprehensible. But I can understand an old guy like Bob deciding he’s had enough - and not using his old platform at CJOB to counter Lawless’s barrage of allegations re: Bobby Hull.
However, it is not Bob Irving’s job to stick up for Bobby Hull or get in between others disputes or accusations.
He would have nothing to gain , but perhaps something to lose.
More to the point, not his battle.
Yet, you are in Winnipeg so you are much closer to the situation and history of all that.
As for Black, we will just have to agree to disagree.