Sportsnet Keeps Up the Bashing

Its quite sad that a sports network whose main properties are the dying Blue Jays, the who cares Raptors, and poker, has to resort to bashing the CFL.

First it was some yahoo named Ian Mendes who tried to tell us the Grey Cup wasn't as important as baseball.
Now its some guy named Perry Lefko trying to tell us the league has a "PR disaster".
Making mountains out of molehills to try and prove his point.
He even brings up Eric Tillman, a story that is what, already a year old?

Then there was the Score, which barely mentioned the Grey Cup game in its highlights.
Even though 14 million people tuned in? Crazy eh?

When are these Tranna based sports stations gonna give it up?
Rogers bet on American based sports, and its costing them big time.
But to try and knock down the CFL with these idiotic articles to make their sports look better?
To me its an act of desperation.

I mean would you rather be showing Saskatchewan-Montreal CFL game, or an NBA game in Canada?
Rogers thought NBA, and is paying big time for it.
But I say enough already. Contrived articles like this used to get me mad.
But now they're just downright boring.

I've removed my links to Sportsnet and don't post on the forums there any more. Perry is just trying to drum up business, good for him, whatever, I'm starting to not care what they do anymore. They lost out on airing the CFL, they weren't interested, that's fine, they're jealous of TSN but I'm sure at some point they'll get over it. 8)

In fairness, if I had invested 78.5 million dollars, which I wont be getting a return on due to my arrogance and stupidity and owned a baseball team that nobody gives a rats tail about, one who is in essence a small market (budget) team, I`d also want to bash other networks properties.

IE the CFL on TSN. TSN is by far and away the best sports network in this country, I wouldn`t worry for two seconds about Rogers.

It is desperation, after the regular season in Hockey, nobody watches Sportsnet. That`s a fact.

I haven't read Lefko's story so I can't comment on what he said, but I tend to think that CFL fans can be a bit over sensitive and defencive at times. Considering the crap and abuse we tend to suffer from those who "know better", I guess that is understandable. Just don't go confusing a story leveling legitimate criticism with one that just out right bashes for no reason.

As far as Sportsnet goes, I like them for their coverage of World Cup Skiing and their much to infrequent coverage of CHL hockey. They do a good job with the Memorial Cup. Other than that,....

True enough deer. Sportsnet is a bit all over the map because it is regional in nature, the assumption they make is that Ontario and Toronto isn’t interested much in Canadian football. In the morning when I get up early, I like the west coast Sportsnet, they interview Brent Johnson and Gino what’s his name, I like him, from the Leos and it’s a great interview. The problem I have is with Ontario, if it weren’t for the TiCats you wouldn’t think any other team in Ontario exists. They want to bury the Argos deep in a coffin from what I can see.

Yes, CHL hockey is great, NFL forget I watch TSN and the US coverage they bring with it which I like. Hockey is ok but still TSN does a better job with the NHL IMHO.

Bottom line for me with Sportsnet, they don’t have a focus with the CFL in Ontario, too confusing and not enough, so I’ve turned them off as a sports news channel for the most part except as I say in the morning with the Leos thing. But all my sports news highlights go to Sportsnet and some to The Score. Sportsnet Ontario is going down the drain in my books for the most part. Now if Hamilton had an OHL team, which it should but the city screwed that one up, thanks Hamilton, good job, now let’s see you drive Bob Young out of town, wouldn’t surprise me in the least. I’d be fired from my job if I did what the city of Hamilton has done with sports. Incompetent imbeciles.

I haven't read Leftko's most recent one, but I have enjoyed his articles in the past. I'm not sure he'd be negative just for the sake of being negative. He has never really shown a tendency to do that from what I can tell.

But all my sports news highlights go to Sportsnet

Oops, mean't to say Sportscentre, TSN with this.

Perry is just with the wrong company, he is a great CFL fan from what I can tell but makes more to a story than need be to try and get people to post there at Sportsnet, and more often than not it just doesn't work. He should get out of there and get with a more CFL focused company. I'm now having a hard time taking him serious and that's a shame, he's ok and better than that.

But it wasn’t a very flattering article. No Canadian journalist is allowed to publish unflattering articles about the CFL. If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all, as my dad used to say (he wasn’t talking about the CFL, mind you). That is the rule. Haven’t you been paying attention?

Incidentally, I noticed that the Canadian English dictionary plug-in for Firefox considers CFL to be a misspelling, while NFL is considered to be correct. Friggin’ anti-CFL pro-NFL dictionary, buying into all that over-hype. Does this mean I have to stop using Firefox? Or just the dictionary? I hope not, because my spelling would be terrible without it.

Perry has a mandate to make people read his articles, he and Sportsnet can't do it with "proper analysis" like a more respectful and classy outfit like TSN that has put their money where their mouth is with covering all CFL games on TV. Sportsnet is "reacting" to the CFL whereas TSN and BellGlobeMedia is "proacting" to the CFL and Canadian football, huge difference.

Like I say, Sportsnet Ontario is all over the map and doesn't have a clue what they are in this province.

What I didn't like about this article is the guy was trying to turn molehills into mountains to prove some point that the CFL is facing some kind of off season catastrophe.
He dredged up the Eric Tillman affair as an example. But this guy is no longer part of the CFL. It'll probably get settled out of court. And thats it.
But there are no catastrophe's out there. As much as Lefko hopes there'll be.
But when you couple Lefko's article with what some bufoon named Ian Mendes wrote about the Grey Cup, you definitely see an attempt to smear the CFL.
After awhile you start wondering why they just don't give it up?

berezin, most people know what Sportsnet is up to and don't take them seriously anymore over there. Like I say, I don't go there much if at all anymore. Not worth my time a guy like Mendes.

I agree Earl.
Sportsnet’s personnel is made up mainly of Ryerson grads who haven’t travelled outside of the 905 area code.
I think they actually beleive what they write about the CFL.
They just don’t know any better.

I didn't know Sportsnet was still relevant. :?

Yes berezin, most wouldn’t know for example that the city of Edmonton is the capital city of Alberta. And I’m not joking.

Take that Calgary!

. . . and there’s really no excuse for such lack of knowledge. At least in Canada, most all Provincial capitals are the major city in the Province.

Not like the USA where most state capitals are NOT the major city in the state (e.g. New York State’s capital is not New York City, but rather Albany; Pennsylvania’s state capital is neither Pittsburgh nor Philadeplhia, but Harrisburg; California’s state capital is neither Los Angeles nor San Francisco, but Sacramento. . . and so on and so on).

I’d say it’s 50/50 obvious/not-obvious for the provinces. For 5 of the provinces, the largest city is not the capital city.

BC - Vancouver is the largest. Victoria is the capital.
Quebec - Montreal is the largest. Quebec City is the capital.
Aberta - Calgary is the largest. Edmonton is the capital.
Saskatchewan - Saskatoon is the largest. Regina is the capital.
New Brunswick - Moncton/St. John/Fredericton. Moncton has the largest metro population, and St. John has the largest population. Fredericton is the capital.

For the rest of the provinces, the obvious city is the capital. Likewise for the territories.

Regardless, there are only 10 provinces and 3 territories, so there’s still no excuse for such a lack of knowledge.

One of the requirements to work for Sportsnet Ontario is that you DON'T know the names of anything Canadian outside the province of Ontario and more specifically you must state that anything that is worth anything in the province of Ontario resides in the city of Toronto. :wink:

Another gem from a Toronto reporter.
This one from Damien Cox.
This guy actually wrote this about the 2005 Grey Cup in todays Toronto Star:

"Finally, there was the 2005 Grey Cup Game at B.C. Place in Vancouver. The CFL had barely avoided extinction, due largely to the fact TSN decided to turn the league into one of its key properties. This was an attempt to go to one of the country's largest cities and see if the Grand National Drunk still had a pulse".

So thats it eh?
TSN saved the CFL?
They brainwashed all of Canada into watching Canadian football according to Damien Cox.
But gee, the Grey Cup was on CBC. Oh well, so much for facts eh?
It seems these Toronto sports types are trying to one up each other in stupidity.
Sad thing is they believe what they write!

I think the there should be a new weekly award on this website.
Call it the "Say What?" award.
We can all vote on this award, which would go to the media type who makes the most outrageous
head shaking statement about the CFL during the week.
I think the Week 1 nominee should be Damien Cox!
Do I hear an "aye"?