Anchorboy (17 page)

Even in moments when I chastise myself for not being in
The Week That Was
production offices full time, I realize that realistically I could not have approached the show any other way. I haven’t talked about how much money I was making to do the show, but let’s just say that baristas in Toronto are probably pulling in more in
tips. There was no way I could simply quit
SportsCentre
and go full time on
The Week That Was
unless I wanted to drastically change my lifestyle, which at this point in my life I didn’t want to do. I know it’s not very “artist” of me but it’s the truth. I liked my lifestyle, I loved hosting
SportsCentre
, and I wasn’t willing to give that up to take a chance on a show on MuchMore. In the end, that was obviously the one correct choice I made.

In all, it was a great lesson for me when it comes to putting together a TV show: I needed to be better prepared, to make sure all the bases were covered—it was
my
name on the show after all. I was just so happy that I was finally doing
something
with my spare time following the Olympics that I skimmed over the details. Luckily, not much damage was done to my career, and to this day people still tell me they actually liked the show and wished it was still on. I wish it was still on, too, in the format that I had intended. Every year new shows like
Canada’s Got Talent, The Bachelor Canada
, and
Amazing Race Canada
launch to great publicity across this great nation, and they are just waiting to be skewered. It makes me wonder what might have been.

I see members of our crew for lunch on occasion, and they’re all doing very well. I suppose I shouldn’t have stressed so much about keeping their jobs alive, because they were all so talented there was no question they’d land on their feet. We kick back and reminisce about that one crazy summer in 2011 when we all tried to put a show on Canadian TV and came up just short. Better to have tried and failed than not to have tried at all, I guess. Maybe someday some or all of us will be able to work together again. I’m pondering new ideas.

U
NDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES DID
I ever think I would win an award for my achievements in broadcasting. I knew that several of our most talented hosts, writers, and producers had won Geminis in the past, including my friend and
NHL on TSN
host James Duthie, who had been nominated for several Geminis before finally getting a well-deserved win in 2009. I used to chide him on-air about being a multiple Gemini nominee who was always the bridesmaid but never the bride. Truthfully, it always kind of irked me that CBC personalities seemed to traditionally dominate the event. It obviously irked CTV News so much that they pulled themselves out of Gemini consideration altogether. I had always assumed my broadcasting style was considered too weird and out there for Gemini voters, so imagine my surprise when I was nominated for Best Sportscaster of the Year in 2010, the summer after my Vancouver Olympics stint.

The exposure from the Olympics had obviously helped my cause and brought me to the attention of Gemini voters, and I was grateful for the nomination if for no other reason than I might be able to use it
as a bargaining chip in future contract negotiations. I was up against two people who worked for my own company: the aforementioned Mr. Duthie and CTV Olympic host Brian Williams (I am contractually obligated to introduce him that way), so it was obvious from the very beginning that I would never, ever win the actual award if those two were nominated in my category. Also nominated was a local CBC Vancouver sportscaster named Shane Foxman. In the end we all lost out to Mr. Duthie, who was surprised that he had won over Mr. Williams although he shouldn’t have been. I was happy that James was finally getting the recognition he deserved from others in the industry. Had I actually won the award that year, I’m pretty sure the entire method of awarding Geminis would have been stripped down and re-evaluated. As it turns out, that wouldn’t happen until I actually did win the award a year later.

The year after the Olympics was a relatively quiet one in the industry and especially at TSN. I had been concentrating on trying to get
The Week That Was
off the ground and had not pursued any new sports ventures other than continuing to host
SportsCentre
with Dan every night. However, I had been really proud of the direction Dan and I were taking with the show and truly grateful to my bosses for giving us free rein to make
SportsCentre
into more of a hybrid comedy/sports program. That summer, Comedy Central in the United States launched two separate attempts at doing a show for sports along the lines of
The Daily Show
. One was
Onion SportsDome
, which was produced by the creators of the satirical online news site The Onion. That show was attempting to take the piss out of sports highlight shows in general, and I thought it had some pretty funny moments, but ultimately it did not last.

Also launching in the summer of 2011 was
Sports Show with Norm MacDonald
, starring the Canadian comedian and former
SNL
“Weekend Update” host. To this day I am amazed it is not still on the air. It was clearly cheap to produce, and I thought it was reasonably
funny and would have only gotten better as MacDonald found his groove. My only complaint was that the show was almost a little
too much
Norm, and this is coming from a
huge
Norm MacDonald fan. Probably because of budgetary constraints, Norm not only did a “Weekend Update”–style set of headlines to kick off the show but also went into the field and did stories as well. I thought a little less Norm would have gone a long way: He could have hosted the headlines segment and then passed it on to a couple of reporters who could do the field pieces, sort of the same format as
The Daily Show
. Alas, just like
The Week That Was, Sports Show
was never given the chance to find its footing, and it was cancelled after just ten episodes.

Dan and I were continuing to push the envelope on
SportsCentre
, starting to ad lib around highlights more and write introductory on-cams that were closer to comedy sketches than sports journalism. A little novice hockey player who was taking too long to make a lap around the ice holding a Red Wings flag before a regular-season game was told, “GET OFF THE ICE, YOU LITTLE BRAT!” I made allusions to never quitting my job, telling the viewers they would have to “drag my dead corpse out of here.” I screamed at the viewers at full volume that we were showing NHL pre-season hockey and they should “WATCH IT! WATCH IT!” I basically spent the entirety of 2011 screaming at our viewers on live television, and many of them seemed to enjoy it.

Meanwhile, we were continuing to host the
SportsCentre Morning Rush
on TSN2 throughout the summer, a show I began every day by screaming,
“Ohhhhhhhh …. whatta RUSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHH!!!”
as an homage to the entrance music that the Road Warriors tag team used back in the day in the WWF and the NWA. Occasionally, our bosses would tell us to “dial it back 10 percent,” but for the most part we were given carte blanche to continue cultivating these crazy antics, and I was getting
closer to turning our show into what I always wanted it to be: a true late-night talk show/sports highlight show hybrid, but without those annoying guests. All killer, no filler!

I had made the assumption that, because there were no Olympics to speak of and I had hosted no other major events in 2011, my Gemini nomination was a one-and-done situation. I wasn’t even thinking about it, really. So imagine my surprise when I was told I had indeed been nominated for Sportscaster of the Year once again, alongside Mr. Foxman, and my colleague Darren Dutchyshen.

This created a somewhat awkward situation: Dutchy is a personal hero of mine and probably the biggest single reason I wanted to get into broadcasting when I was a kid. The idea of being nominated for an award beside him was a truly humbling and rewarding experience, but the idea of actually
winning
the award at his expense made me completely uncomfortable. Dutchy alleviated the situation by saying he hoped one of us would win it so that the award would stay in the family. I truly appreciated that.

The evening of the award show, TSN had booked three tables full of writers, producers, talent, and executives, and I took my place among them. Dutchy was sitting at my table, and I ran into Shane Foxman before the ceremony began. He was a truly kind and gracious guy and a real talent with a unique style. I suppose I thought of him as a bit of a kindred spirit. I really didn’t want an awkward situation, not to mention the fact that as someone who had admired Dutchy all his life, I truly believed he deserved to be rewarded for all his years of hard work. In the end, I pretended not to care as they announced that I’d won. Dutchy came over and gave me a big hug and told me he was proud of me.

I meandered up on stage to give my thank you speech, being careful to thank my bosses and giving my own tribute to the network: I spun around at one point and revealed that the letters
TSN
had been shaved into the back of my head, pointing out that
I would never be able to leave the company after such a stunt. (I had just returned from the Kraft Tour, and during the last stop in MacGregor, Manitoba, a young hairdresser was shaving
TSN
into little kids’ heads for fun, so I asked her to do it for me as well.)

I also made sure I saved the most important two people for last in my speech: Producer Tim, whom I acknowledged for “keeping us from getting fired every single night,” and Dan, whom I credited in all sincerity with being a better broadcaster than I was. I tried to pretend it didn’t matter, but just like any award it doesn’t suck when you’re acknowledged for what you do. My bosses were happy, I was happy, and I started to tuck into a double vodka and prepare for what would be a celebratory night. Good thing I never had to work early. The next morning was probably going to be pretty painful.

Then I checked my phone.

A text from Dan: “Where are you?”

“Um, at the Geminis?” I texted back. “I won! Just getting the skill saw out and preparing to cut it in half for you.”

“Oh, that’s great,” replied Dan. “You do realize you’re working tonight, right?”

“What?” I asked.

“Your name is on the schedule. Everyone is wondering where you are. You’re scheduled to work.”

I pondered this for a moment, silently, while my Gemini award was passed around among my peers. Surely TSN would not have scheduled me to work on the same night as the Gemini Awards, would they?

Turns out they would.

And they did.

I wandered over to
SportsCentre
executive producer Steve Argintaru, who was not in charge of scheduling the hosts for the show and at least pretended to be as surprised as I was. One of my two immediate bosses, vice-president of news and information Ken
Volden, was also surprised, but neither of them were exactly floating the idea of me taking the night off. I had to shake off my buzz, sober up with a few big pieces of stale dinner roll, and get my ass in to work. I probably shouldn’t have driven myself in, but my mind was racing and I didn’t want to be the guy who made my producer call another anchor in to work on the show at the last minute because I was getting drunk.

On the way to work I formulated an idea for the opening of the show that night. Word had already travelled back to the newsroom about my win that evening. As soon as I arrived, after receiving many wonderful congratulations from everyone in our newsroom, I sought out our biggest and burliest writer: Guy Desormeaux, who looked like a guy who would have done a mean clean and jerk at the 1952 Olympics.

“Could you carry me?” I asked Guy. “Like, in your arms?”

He laughed at me. Yes, he could carry my scrawny ass, probably for miles without much effort.

That night the show opened with Dan sitting alone at the desk, commenting on the fact that he would likely be hosting the show alone that evening and that he had no idea where I was. Suddenly, triumphant orchestral music played and I emerged—carried onto the set in the arms of Guy, who let me down gently in my seat.

“Could you get me a cucumber water?” I called out to Guy as he left the set.

“Nice to know this win hasn’t gone to your head,” said Dan.

Dan suggested later that I keep the Gemini in my fridge as opposed to on a coffee table or a mantle. His reasoning was that if I had people over and they went to the fridge to grab a beer they would be met with a pleasant surprise. About two weeks later the
Toronto Star
contacted our communications department and asked if any of our recent Gemini winners kept their trophies in an unusual place. Our communications manager, Chobi Liang, whom
I had recently started dating, informed them that I kept my Gemini in the fridge. Next thing I knew, the paper had sent over one of their staff photographers to take a picture. He set up the camera in the back of the fridge and got a great shot of me reaching for a beer with the Gemini in the foreground. The beer company saw it, and I got free beer out of that shot. It may have been a greater accomplishment than the Gemini win.

A year later I was told that the Gemini committee was consolidating several awards and that Best Sportscaster was being eliminated. I tried to pretend it wasn’t because the Gemini committee had concluded they’d made a major mistake in giving me the award the previous year, but it probably was. And I am very much okay with that. Either way, they can’t take away the statue in my fridge. The beer, however, is long gone.

T
HE
K
RAFT
C
ELEBRATION
T
OUR
was supposed to be a one-time thing, a chance to celebrate the network’s twenty-fifth anniversary in the summer of 2009 by travelling across the country and putting on our show in front of a live audience. TSN viewers were encouraged to nominate their community, and those nominations were eventually whittled down to two per province. Then, those two nominated communities went head-to-head in a direct voting competition, with the community that collected the most votes declared the winner until we ended up with ten stops across the country. One crew, led by Darren Dutchyshen and Jennifer Hedger, would travel westward; the other crew, led by Dan and me, would go east. We would put on five shows each. The first year was such a success that despite the fact it was supposed to be a one-time thing to celebrate our network’s anniversary, TSN and Kraft decided to extend it for two more years, and then another three years after that.

Dan and I looked forward to the start of the Kraft Tour like kids waiting for Christmas morning. The first year, a crew of about
twenty crammed into one bus; by year three, the crew had expanded to about forty and we had three buses. The country’s very best sports production freelancers all vie to get on the tour, not just because of the money but also because it’s a hell of a lot of fun to be on a road trip like this one. Although it’s always a damn good party, we also put on an outstanding show in every town. The smaller the community, the more fun the shows tend to be. Everyone in town rallies around the event, and we try to make it as memorable as possible.

We usually ask the organizing committee to suggest some activities that Dan and I can participate in that might be unique to the town or area. In the past, such activities have included hanging off a speedboat as it powers down the North Saskatchewan River near Devon, Alberta; racing combines at the Agricultural Museum near MacGregor, Manitoba (I lost); and shooting watermelons from a cannon and milking goats against the clock near Armstrong, B.C. (I lost again and had to drink the milk in my pail—pretty good actually).

The activities are always a lot of fun but never as much fun as the show itself: a real outdoor rock stage, usually set up in the middle of the community, with giant screens projecting the show for all to see. Our backs were facing the audience so we could have the crowd in the background on TV, but early on Dan and I decided we needed to turn around and acknowledge the crowd as much as possible before the show and during commercial breaks. We wanted to make it a real show, not just another edition of
SportsCentre
, so about an hour before we go live across the country, Dan and I hopped on stage and started dancing, singing, and generally trying to get the crowd to go as crazy as possible. We loved to get everyone to sing along with us to “Don’t Stop Believin’” by Journey and “Livin’ on a Prayer” by Bon Jovi, as well as whatever new songs were hitting the charts that year. Every stop we made was so much fun, and it was a truly unique way to see this massive country we lived in. Not to mention the lifelong
friendships we made with our outstanding crew members along the way. It was one of my favourite parts of the job.

Our third stop on the 2012 Kraft Tour was Bathurst, New Brunswick. It ended up being one of our best-ever crowds, around 3,000 people lining the water just off the downtown strip. We were treated like royalty from the second we arrived. They whisked us around town and took us to the Big D diner for lunch. A classic old-school burger joint that first opened in 1969, it was the kind of place where waitresses in roller skates would bring food out to your car as you waited. They are still bringing food to your cars at Big D, but the roller skates are long gone. We also stopped at McLean’s Fish Shop and were promptly shown the proper way to crack open and eat a lobster, the owner promising to ship me lobsters in less than twenty-four hours if I called him directly. The stop was shaping up to be one of our best.

The day of the event, Dan and I woke early and went to a local radio station for a quick interview followed by an autograph signing at a local Superstore that was so poorly attended the store manager apologized to us. I just told him it was good preparation for my eventual book tour, when I would be sitting with stacks of
Anchorboy
and looking forlorn as customers lined up with their copies of
Fifty Shades of Grey
and ignored me.

We had stopped at the Big D diner for the second time in two days, and by the time I arrived at the show site I, uh, really had to go
number two
. (Sorry, trying to make this as pleasant as possible to read. I realize you’ve already had to sit through a chapter about poop in this book.)

Dan is always adamant that he will never do a “road trip”—that is, have a bowel movement anywhere other than home or in his own hotel room. I just do not have the physiological makeup to put things off that way. So, I was faced with a bit of a conundrum. There were porta-potties, but I don’t think I need to explain why
that idea was disgusting. There were toilets on the tour buses, but using them for anything other than
number one
was a complete and absolute non-starter—the worst violation anyone on the tour could commit. On the first year of the tour, someone dared break that rule and went
number two
on the bus, back when we had only one bus and not three. To this day, no one on the crew has fessed up to the crime, but Dan witnessed the rage that the bus driver displayed upon learning that someone had dared soil his septic system with solid waste. The culprit would probably have been better off to just shit on the bus driver’s face.

That afternoon, however, nature called and she was not about to be ignored. Near the show site I noticed a cluster of industrial-looking buildings, and outside of one of them three gentlemen were gathered at a picnic table enjoying their lunch al fresco. Surely they wouldn’t mind my using their company washroom, especially if they were all outside for the next hour. I gingerly approached them and hoped I wouldn’t be recognized. I could just imagine the stories now: “Onrait was in Bathurst last week. He took a dump in our bathroom. It was epic!”

As I said, I hoped I would not be recognized. I approached the picnic table.

“Onrait!” yelled the oldest of the three men.

So much for that.

I thought “Guys, can I please drop the kids off in your pool?” was perhaps a little uncouth, so instead I broached the subject with a bit more trepidation.

“Hey, guys, coming over to watch the show today?”

“You bet! Do you think you could get me a T-shirt? I opened the gate for the buses and trucks when they first arrived,” said the oldest gentleman again. The other two guys at the table were around my age, but the self-designated orator of the group looked slightly older than my parents, somewhere close to seventy perhaps.

“I wish I could, my friend, but
I
can’t even get one of those T-shirts.” This probably sounded like an outright lie, but it was actually true. Those T-shirts were harder to come by than a Honus Wagner rookie card. “I
could
get you a hat, however, but I need to ask you a favour. Do you think I could use the company washroom? Ours is a bit crowded right now.” I tried to force a laugh at that point.

“Sure!” replied the older man immediately.

Wow, that was easy! What a nice guy. I glanced over at the picnic table and noticed there were six empty beer cans, and they were each working on their third brew of the break.
Wish we had these relaxed rules about drinking during our lunch break!
I thought to myself.

“I can show you where it is,” said the older gentleman.

“That’s so not necessary. Just point me in the right direction and I will be out of your hair in a minute,” I offered. But the old man was having none of it. He wanted to talk about TSN and the show and whether I really couldn’t get him one of those Kraft T-shirts, and I was happy to oblige in some idle chatter for the chance to use a real washroom. He was clearly a hard-working, hard-living guy, and I wanted him to remember me as someone who took the time to chat for a minute or so before soiling his company’s likely pristine washroom facilities. We entered the building and he led me upstairs to what I assumed were his offices. I had neglected to ask what he and the other two fellas actually
did
for a living, but I made the assumption that since we were in an industrial park, it had to do with auto parts or construction or something else I would never understand. The old man walked a few steps ahead of me.

“My place is just up here.”

Your place?

“I live alone, so it’s a bit messy in my apartment.”

Your apartment?

Was I really about to take a shit in an old man’s apartment?

It appeared that, yes, I was about to take a shit in an old man’s apartment.

But there were other questions: Was I walking toward my impending death? Was I about to be chopped up into little pieces and thrown into the harbour? How would anyone from TSN ever find me here? Perhaps more importantly, how would Dan do the show all by himself?

I figured now was a good time to abort the mission. I called out to him as he made his way up the final steps to the third floor, his floor. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize this was your apartment building. I thought you worked here. I sincerely apologize. I should probably get going.” At this point those porta-potties were looking pretty good.

“Nah! Don’t sweat it. You might as well use it. I’m not using it!” he said with a laugh. This logic made a surprising amount of sense to me at the time. I followed him toward his front door. This was really happening. “Stranger Shit 2012” was on.

What was the worst that could happen? That he might kill me and leave me for dead? I realized it was actually pretty difficult to tell from the appearance of a person whether this was a possibility unless that person was wearing a hockey mask and you were at a summer camp. I decided to just go for it, finish the job as quickly as possible, run back to the show site, get him a hat, and pretend this entire thing had never happened.

He opened the door to his apartment.

Now the porta-potties were starting to look like bathrooms at the Bellagio.

The place was, for lack of a better term, an absolute pigsty. It had likely never been cleaned in the entire time he had lived there. Open cans of food and empty cans of beer littered the filthy kitchen. The stale smell of smoke, lager, and musty newspapers and magazines permeated the air and hit my olfactory nerves like a rocket. It smelled exactly like my grandfather’s basement, only this place
didn’t fill me with memories of my childhood. This was likely the place I was going to die.

At least the smell of my rotting corpse wouldn’t affect the neighbours too much. It would probably be weeks before they noticed. By then the Kraft Tour would be over, and Dan and my other fellow employees would have assumed I had simply abandoned the company to marry a Maritime girl and lead a simpler life in New Brunswick as a morning radio DJ.

The old man led me through the small, extremely cluttered one bedroom. Hockey cards were everywhere, and literally hundreds of hats. Baseball hats to be specific.

“I collect them,” he said. “I have a few worth a lot of money.”

Perhaps the old man’s love of collecting baseball caps would be the one thing that kept me alive that afternoon. I made sure he knew what was waiting for him if I lived through this ordeal. “I’ve got a TSN hat with your name on it! I just have to go back to the show site and pick it up.” I was trying to dangle a carrot in front of him in the hopes he wouldn’t kill me. I just wanted to poop and leave. I was actually going to do this. I was going to have a bowel movement in a complete stranger’s dirty bathroom.

And it
was
dirty.

“Take your time; I’ll be out here,” he said.

“Sounds good, thanks!” I replied. This was turning into some bizarre
SNL
sketch. As soon as I shut the door to the loo, I realized he was not going to make his way to the other side of the apartment. Instead, he decided to continue our conversation as I sat on his throne.

“So, have you ever met Wayne Gretzky?” Yes, I had met Wayne Gretzky, I replied, as I glanced over at where the roll of toilet paper
should
have been.

The holder was completely empty. There was one dirty towel flung over the shower. This was a dire situation. “Ever interviewed Sidney Crosby? We love Sid in the Maritimes,” he continued.

Was this really my life? I continued the conversation as if there wasn’t a door separating us while I pooped in his toilet and wondered how I was going to wipe myself. By now the rest of the crew were probably also wondering where I had disappeared to. Why didn’t I just crap my pants? At that point I really, really wished I had crapped my pants.

As I finished my business, I realized there was only one option.

I flushed the toilet—thank God
that
was working—and I hopped up on his bathroom counter, sat directly in his sink, and turned on the water. Then, employing a method used by millions of people in South Asia and other parts of the world, I used the handsand-water technique to clean my undercarriage.

“Everything okay in there?” the old man called out.

“Just great, thanks,” I replied.

Yeah, just great. This is
exactly
what I had envisioned when I entered the Canadian television business: sitting in the filthy sink of a filthy bathroom cleaning my filthy ass while having a conversation with a complete stranger and potential serial killer on the other side of the door. This must be what people were referring to when they talked about “the Golden Age of Television.”

I finished cleaning up and was grateful to see a bar of soap on the counter. After washing up, I realized there was nothing I could use to dry my hands or my undercarriage. I pulled up my shorts anyway and immediately decided this was better than having
not
cleaned myself at all. Then I exited the bathroom to find the old man staring straight at me. “Everything okay?” he asked.