McCown’s wet dream

  There’s something icky about a 60ish radio host fantasizing on the air about groping an attractive young figure skater.

   That’s what Toronto Fan590 listeners heard from Bob McCown last week.

   He started by describing Shae-Lynn Bourne, one of the competitors in the CBC’s Battle of the Blades, as “hot . . . smokin’.”

   Then he wondered if he should ask Bourne’s skating partner and scheduled guest, Claude Lemieux, if he had “ever grabbed her in the wrong place by accident.”

   Co-host Stephen Brunt said, “This is one of these great moments in the show where I have no idea where we’re headed, but I’m intrigued Bob…”
   McCown continued.

  ”If you’re a hockey player, most of them got big mitts . . . big ugly hands right? You don’t know what you’re doin’ out there.

  “You got hockey skates on, you’ve never picked up a girl on the ice. Now you’ve got to lift her and spin her, and do this and that, and the other thing.

  “I’m thinking that on occasion, you know, you put your hand in the wrong place!”

   When Lemieux joined the show, sure enough, McCown asked, “Because you’re inexperienced at this . . . surely to God at least once or twice, you’ve grabbed her in an unfortunate place. . .”

 ”It’s definitely part of the deal,” Lemieux said.

  “Part of the enjoyment?” McCown asked, hopefully.

  Right about now, you can almost imagine McCown rushing to the washroom.

  “Not enjoyment,” said Lemieux, declining to take the bait. “But obviously it’s happened. You’re trying these lifts . . .

  “The first show we did, I had Shae way above my head and flying up and down the ice, so you may not always be precise in where you’re grabbing, but as long as it works and as long as she’s in a safe place is what matters.”
  “Alright,” said McCown, obviously disappointed.

  “I know where you are going with this,” Lemieux said. “You really need to come out and I can arrange for you
to skate with Shae…”

 McCown begged off.

                                                 Olympic channel sandbagged

  Organizers of the proposed Canadian amateur television channel are incensed over the CRTC apparently stonewalling its license application.

 “It’s been two and half years,” said one of the organizers. “We’ve spent over a million dollars hard cash, of investors’ cash, and von Finkelstein (first name Konrad, the CRTC chairman) continues to push it to the side. It’s unbelievable.”

  The Canadian Olympic Committee, which applied to the federal regulator for the license, along with the channel’s investors are angered even more by the CRTC blithely green-lighting an influx of American amateur programming into Canada.

  For example, Rogers Cable carries The Big 10 Network and also the CBS College Sports Network, which airs U.S. high school football games.

  “Every other amateur sports-related American programming has been brought into this country and they (the CRTC) will not even listen to us,” said the source. “It’s ridiculous and outrageous.”

  The speculation is von Finkelstein is rolling over for the distributors – Rogers, Shaw, Bell, etc. They’re opposed to the amateur channel, because it would be designated a must-carry and distributors would be required to pay a fee to the channel’s owners, a cost that would be passed onto the consumer.

  But the cost wouldn’t be much and a large amount of the profit would be transferred to Canada’s amateur athletes and coverage of amateur sports events.

                                              Does Leaf coach deserve hot seat?

    If the Toronto Maple Leafs continue to lose, coach Ron Wilson will start taking big heat. However, some in the Toronto media are beginning to ask questions about the quality of the team that Wilson has been given to coach.

  “You can’t take blood from a stone,” Bill Watters of AM640 in Toronto, the Leafs’ radio rights holder, said this week, adding that the talent level of the forward position is weaker this year than last, and the defense is just as bad or worse.

   This is a team that can’t score, can’t defend and can’t stop the puck.

 –  This is hardly a surprise, given it’s coming from Don Landry, the co-host of the Fan590’s morning show, but, “erroring” is not a word. He uttered it twice during a show this week. Error is a noun. Error is not a verb. See Jane run . . . see Dick run.

 –  NHL Network in Canada is now posting a profit of $4-million a year, according to sources, putting it at the top of digital sports networks.

–  This is the best piece we’ve read on that hot, steaming pile of malice otherwise known as Rush Limbaugh, whose bid to become a member of an NFL ownership group went T.U.

 –  Jim Kelley appears to be out as a rotating co-host on Bob McCown’s show. Former TV executive John Shannon will take his spot.