sj-roc wrote:I also want to comment on the audio file that I mentioned early on in our debate. I'll put this in a separate post to break things up a bit.
Ok, so my review of the audio file from 1040's archives was key to my stance. It is rather unfortunate that this particular file seems to be somewhat corrupt, in the sense that despite numerous attempts it would not download properly like so many other files that I have D/L'ed from them in the past (kept stalling at the 91% mark). I finally had to play the file directly in my browser to listen to it, which was rather frustrating as it had no running clock where I could have pointed out, JT said
this at
this time and
that at
that other time. I could only transcribe the words and I had to "rewind" it several times for this and not having the running clock to know where to re-cue the file further hampered this process.
Fortunately I succeeded today in D/L'ing it, by alternative means: after loading it into my browser to play as per above, I saved the webpage to desktop (clicked File > Save Page As on Firefox) and I was able to snag it this way.
I don't know if you ever plan on listening to it KIA, and I suppose that's your prerogative one way or the other, but should you decide to do so, I can now give you some key times to cue up. There's only about three minutes in total that you really need to listen to altogether, but it happens to lie in two distant chunks, basically just
9:30-11:30 and
26:50-27:55. I'll quote from my first post and add some cue-up times in bold italics for various points of the dialogue:
sj-roc wrote:(9:30)Matt Sekeres is talking and awaiting the start of JT's daily press conference, and just as he stops to cut into it live, (10:00)a reporter whose identity I cannot establish (prob doesn't matter), apparently knowing that John Tortorella is originally from Boston and a New England Patriots fan, asks him what was going through his mind regarding the Pats comeback over the Broncos the previous (Sunday) night. Tortorella is initially uncertain whether his comments are "for the paper, or are we just talking? Or for whatever you guys do, whatever... ?" Anyway he goes on bantering about the Pats/Broncos game with some of the reporters for a while, rehashing what a great game it was and singling out Wes Welker for blame in the Broncos' loss.
(10:50)Eventually a reporter (perhaps the same as the first one, again doesn't really matter) brings up the Grey Cup, "Did you watch the football game earlier in the day? The one up here? Something called the Grey Cup?" At this point JT utters the contentious remark:
JT: "That's not football." This draws some howls from the assembled media. He continues:
JT: "Yes. Yes. Yeah, the end zones are as big as a regular football..." [it sounds like "field" is going to be his next word here, but he pauses and changes tack at this point] "I don't know all the rules, but I'd just better leave this one alone. (chuckling) I'm sorry, Ben." (Wait a second. Who's Ben? It's not clear at this point but the answer, as I get into below, goes a long way in explaining things.)
Reporter (or perhaps the addressed Ben, doesn't matter much): "There's something called a rouge in Canadian football."
JT, repeating: "I'm sorry, Ben."
Presumably Ben: "I'm outta here."
JT: "Well if I do that and you're outta here, I'll do it more often." (more chuckles and howls from the media)
Reporter: "Did you see Tom Hanks last night?"
JT: "No." [This is about (11:26) by this point]
At this point the conversation turns to hockey and the matter of football never really comes up for the rest of 1040's coverage. Eventually they throw back to Matt before the presser even ends. He defers discussion of anything JT has said to discuss some other matters for the rest of the segment (specifically, the dominance and greater competitiveness of Western conference teams in many sports over their Eastern counterparts: CFL, NHL, MLB, NFL).
They cut to commercial and return, (26:50) with Canucks' 1040 colour man Dave Tomlinson joining MS for the next segment to rehash JT's presser (which is still going on even at this point).
(27:35)MS: "(JT) was having a little fun there with Ben Brown, the Canucks communications manager who is from the province of Saskatchewan."
DT: "Well, actually, Ben was sitting three rows in front of me out here in the stands so he was alluding to Ben."
MS: "Oh, really? (He) wasn't even there..."
DT: "He wasn't even there."
MS: "...to defend his province and his team?"
DT: "Yeah, (JT) was having some fun."
MS: "Gotcha." [This is about (27:55) by this time] At which point MS & DT leave the football matter and proceed to discuss hockey from this point.
So for yourself and anyone else who might like to scrutinise it, hope this helps.
Also worth mentioning, which I have NOT thus far at any point: toward the end of this same audio file, there's a segment with Glen Suitor starting around
(38:55) and running through to about
(49:00). Given GS's reaction to TG's "curing cancer" article it might have been interesting to get his take this time on JT but the topic never comes up in the whole segment. The fact that it never comes up also makes me think it was never intended as a big put-down on JT's part, because it might have made for good radio to get GS going on it (not quite Jen Mather on Pratt but you know what I mean). Instead, they mostly just re-hash the Grey Cup game played the day before and agree with each other in lamenting the league's decision to keep confidential the protected lists for the upcoming Ott expansion draft.
Well, this turned out to be a whole lot more than I initially planned on saying today on this topic! But I think this should wrap it.
Sports can be a peculiar thing. When partaking in fiction, like a book or movie, we adopt a "Willing Suspension of Disbelief" for enjoyment's sake. There's a similar force at work in sports: "Willing Suspension of Rationality". If you doubt this, listen to any conversation between rival team fans. You even see it among fans of the same team. Fans argue over who's the better QB or goalie, and selectively cite stats that support their views while ignoring those that don't.