Sportsnet 650 cuts staff - Rick Dhaliwal, Jawn Jang & two production-side staffers

[kurtis]

I jump back and forth between both stations. As soon as one station stops talking Canucks I switch to the other.. ! 

[alt kilgore]

On 10/15/2019 at 4:10 PM, Curmudgeon said:

I don't listen to 650 much, but Dhaliwal's Twitter was my FIRST destination every morning and a few times during the day. He's been in Vancouver sports radio for a very long time. I am hopeful he'll get scooped up by TSN so he can maintain his audience. And I don't know about the rest of you out there, but with every passing game, I miss Jason Botchford more and more. Yeah, I know he was a polarizing figure, but nobody has filled his role this season and I find I have nothing to read that interests me after Canucks' games. The Provies are dead, long live the Provies. And no, Drance is not a Botchford replacement. And somebody mentioned Pratt; how can you listen to a guy who takes the Patcast, adds 2 letters and calls it the Prattcast? 

You're not alone.  So sad. He'd be so fun to listen to now that the team seems to have finally turned a corner. Nothing he wanted more than for the team to succeed.  He kind of revolutionized hockey journalism. A sports journalist that actually listened to fans, re-posted their thoughts. Used actual clips to explain plays. He went out of his way to help young sports journalists. But of course he dared to take to task Aquiilini's impossible dreams and JBs compliance in humouring him by sacrificing building "an army" for a revolving door of second rate free agents and trades that was supposed to get Aquaman on the leading float down Robson street. I was continually astonished that such a fan-centric writer and commentator, with a deadly wit, was so maligned on CDC. I suspect there was a bit of piling on by newbies.  He was the only journalist in this town that I trusted to say the truth...and shout it out if he had to. Loved his passion for the team!

 

So they get rid of Dhaliwal and Auld and keep Sat Shah?  Man that guy is so overrated.  Can't stand listening to him for more than 5 minutes.  Talks like a 12 year old girl at a pajama party. Just goes on these long diatribes where he repeats himself at least three  times and doesn't stop for a breath.  And then cuts off his co-host when they attempt to give their opinion back. He was okay as the producer for Bro and Pratt, with the occasional contribution, but he is not a remotely competent broadcaster.

[KoreanHockeyFan]

As a fellow Korean-Canadian, sad to see Jawn go, but also happy that Sportsnet gave him a chance. Hopefully he'll have another opportunity somewhere else soon.

 

I still prefer TSN1040 over SN, but I will give SN credit for having more representation across their media personnel. 

[cannucklehead4life]

I have always preferred team 1040’s program hosts better. If They could ditch sekeres and add rintoul that would awesome. Rintoul is the only host I liked on 650. Dhaliwal is a better insider than host.

[ilduce39]

On 10/18/2019 at 12:57 PM, kilgore said:

You're not alone.  So sad. He'd be so fun to listen to now that the team seems to have finally turned a corner. Nothing he wanted more than for the team to succeed.  He kind of revolutionized hockey journalism. A sports journalist that actually listened to fans, re-posted their thoughts. Used actual clips to explain plays. He went out of his way to help young sports journalists. But of course he dared to take to task Aquiilini's impossible dreams and JBs compliance in humouring him by sacrificing building "an army" for a revolving door of second rate free agents and trades that was supposed to get Aquaman on the leading float down Robson street. I was continually astonished that such a fan-centric writer and commentator, with a deadly wit, was so maligned on CDC. I suspect there was a bit of piling on by newbies.  He was the only journalist in this town that I trusted to say the truth...and shout it out if he had to. Loved his passion for the team!

 

So they get rid of Dhaliwal and Auld and keep Sat Shah?  Man that guy is so overrated.  Can't stand listening to him for more than 5 minutes.  Talks like a 12 year old girl at a pajama party. Just goes on these long diatribes where he repeats himself at least three  times and doesn't stop for a breath.  And then cuts off his co-host when they attempt to give their opinion back. He was okay as the producer for Bro and Pratt, with the occasional contribution, but he is not a remotely competent broadcaster.

On one hand, Botch took an engaging format, interesting content (advanced stats, fan interaction, locker room insight) and put out a pretty easily digestible product.  I also loved him back in the day on radio (haven’t listened in years, even before his passing).  
 

On the other, Botch was shamelessly negative and took an obnoxiously condescending tone towards pretty much everything management did. The current iteration of the Canucks, where I see not only a playoff-challenging group this season but a sustained return to prominence, should be impossible given how he slagged the team.  In that way, he was too in line with the mouth breathing rabble of Canucks Twitter who at the time were just as bad as hf.  He crossed the line from fair criticism into just openly mocking the team and to me, that was too far. 
 

In his absence, media coverage (and fan response) to the team feels a lot more professional and fair.  I know it’s coinciding with an uptick from the team but it’s hard not to feel some of the toxic negativity has been lifted since he passed. 

[alt kilgore]

17 hours ago, ilduce39 said:

On one hand, Botch took an engaging format, interesting content (advanced stats, fan interaction, locker room insight) and put out a pretty easily digestible product.  I also loved him back in the day on radio (haven’t listened in years, even before his passing).  
 

On the other, Botch was shamelessly negative and took an obnoxiously condescending tone towards pretty much everything management did. The current iteration of the Canucks, where I see not only a playoff-challenging group this season but a sustained return to prominence, should be impossible given how he slagged the team.  In that way, he was too in line with the mouth breathing rabble of Canucks Twitter who at the time were just as bad as hf.  He crossed the line from fair criticism into just openly mocking the team and to me, that was too far. 
 

In his absence, media coverage (and fan response) to the team feels a lot more professional and fair.  I know it’s coinciding with an uptick from the team but it’s hard not to feel some of the toxic negativity has been lifted since he passed. 

See, I think most of what you wrote about him is bullcrap.  No offense.  He was very positive and excited when he saw something to be excited about.  But as the non playoff seasons piled up, and JB and owners kept embracing insanity by doing the same thing every off season and expecting playoff glory, he, along with myself and many fans, got frustrated.  Because we wanted to win so bad. He expressed beautifully what I and many others were feeling. We wanted to shout too! Maybe 4 years of missing the playoffs while shedding picks and prospects wasn't enough for you to get angry once in awhile, but some of us just didn't take that kind of deliberate mismanagement nicely. And to have such a brilliant scribe who listened to and used fans contributions the way he did was unheard of.

 

We just played the Rangers. Here's a column after a win last season against them. He was positive when he saw positive play.

https://theprovince.com/sports/hockey/nhl/vancouver-canucks/the-provies-the-flow-abides-positive-power-garys-dunk-and-the-wild-dogs-of-negativity

Full of great quotes, funny takes. informative video clips. He even got some Bettman digs in there.

 

I loved he was the first reporter to have the balls to publicly believe and defend Burrows in a column during the AugerGate incident. As well his great ode to Alex Burrows column, when he retired.

https://theprovince.com/sports/hockey/the-vilification-of-alex-burrows-is-it-justified

"...suggestion made by some, including ESPN, that Burrows may have embellished the pregame conversation because he was “embarrassed at his role in his team’s defeat.”
Embarrassed? He scored two goals and was called for a penalty Auger simply made up out of thin air.
No, Burrows was telling the truth, at least his version of it. There is no other motive to speak up. Whatever your perception, Burrows is an intelligent player who knew he risked being vilified and marked and knew there was little which would come of it all. Burrows spoke out because he felt his team was wronged."

 

Heck, back in 2016 he even mustered up a top ten reasons to feel positive about the Canucks start. This is just from a couple of minutes of googling.

Jason Botchford: The top 10 reasons to feel good about the Canucks' mediocre start:

https://vancouversun.com/sports/hockey/nhl/vancouver-canucks/jason-botchford-the-top-10-reasons-to-feel-good-about-the-canucks-mediocre-start

 

On top of that he was hilarious. He was the only one I think that could shut Pratt up.

 

Was he loud, obnoxious, arrogant at times?  Sure.  But he spoke truth to power. Our cities most revered pro sports team's management at that.  Some just couldn't handle the truth. So they defined it as "negativity".  I guess there are two types of fans. Those that see criticism when warranted, as an overall positive thing if it means pressuring management to get its act together.  And those that theorize that if a reporter is critical of management he is a bad machine. I'm sorry if this word is not allowed, but its the only one that describes him. He had balls. And he used humour to make his points. One of the best we've ever had here IMO. I really miss him and his take. RIP. I'm just sorry that on a Canuck fan board, Jason Botchford, the most fan-centric reporter, who travelled with the team, and got more from the players because of his personality than anyone else, was so misunderstood and unfairly maligned, IMHO.

 

 

 

[ilduce39]

8 hours ago, kilgore said:

See, I think most of what you wrote about him is bullcrap.  No offense.  He was very positive and excited when he saw something to be excited about.  But as the non playoff seasons piled up, and JB and owners kept embracing insanity by doing the same thing every off season and expecting playoff glory, he, along with myself and many fans, got frustrated.  Because we wanted to win so bad. He expressed beautifully what I and many others were feeling. We wanted to shout too! Maybe 4 years of missing the playoffs while shedding picks and prospects wasn't enough for you to get angry once in awhile, but some of us just didn't take that kind of deliberate mismanagement nicely. And to have such a brilliant scribe who listened to and used fans contributions the way he did was unheard of.

 

We just played the Rangers. Here's a column after a win last season against them. He was positive when he saw positive play.

https://theprovince.com/sports/hockey/nhl/vancouver-canucks/the-provies-the-flow-abides-positive-power-garys-dunk-and-the-wild-dogs-of-negativity

Full of great quotes, funny takes. informative video clips. He even got some Bettman digs in there.

 

Was he loud, obnoxious, arrogant at times?  Sure.  But he spoke truth to power. Our cities most revered pro sports team's management at that.  Some just couldn't handle the truth. So they defined it as "negativity".  I guess there are two types of fans. Those that see criticism when warranted, as an overall positive thing if it means pressuring management to get its act together.  And those that theorize that if a reporter is critical of management he is a bad machine. I'm sorry if this word is not allowed, but its the only one that describes him. He had balls. And he used humour to make his points. One of the best we've ever had here IMO. I really miss him and his take. RIP. I'm just sorry that on a Canuck fan board, Jason Botchford, the most fan-centric reporter, who travelled with the team, and got more from the players because of his personality than anyone else, was so misunderstood and unfairly maligned, IMHO.

 

I agree that he was an entertaining / engaging... but he was absolutely negative.  20% gushing over Petey and Brock doesn’t absolve 80% aggressively crapping over everything else
 

That article you posted of his, he’s even sarcastically pushing “positivity.”  He didn’t mean it.  It’s a big long winded explanation about how and why they’ve been negative.  There’s some hope Tanev gets traded.  Constant tone that the rebuild has been completely mishandled. There’s smarmy speculation JB would do Lucic straight up. He’s giving Bettman PROPS for throwing shade at JB and Linden.
 

You’re free to consider his slant the “truth” but I’d bet you’re not a fan of how the team’s been managed the past few years. For me, he was playing to the loudest and most obnoxious members of the fan base.  I don’t blame him for it- it was certainly engaging and it’s a ruthless industry.  I fully admit to reading his stuff (before the paywall) but I know the twitter personalities he regularly featured were some of the biggest trolls out there.  It was a pretty clear formula: cheer on any rookie or move that was the in line with a tear down / pick stock rebuild.  Crap on any move to bring in veteran players.  A good number of vocal fans subscribe to that belief system.  To me, he was likely a lot more balanced than he portrayed in his public persona... but the section of the fan base he chose to engage with and occasionally champion is a group I don’t agree with.  I’m not trying to tear down a guy who passed away before his time - full credit as a sports personality - but I really didn’t agree with much he was putting out in recent memory.

[alt kilgore]

13 hours ago, ilduce39 said:

I agree that he was an entertaining / engaging... but he was absolutely negative.  20% gushing over Petey and Brock doesn’t absolve 80% aggressively crapping over everything else
 

That article you posted of his, he’s even sarcastically pushing “positivity.”  He didn’t mean it.  It’s a big long winded explanation about how and why they’ve been negative.  There’s some hope Tanev gets traded.  Constant tone that the rebuild has been completely mishandled. There’s smarmy speculation JB would do Lucic straight up. He’s giving Bettman PROPS for throwing shade at JB and Linden.
 

You’re free to consider his slant the “truth” but I’d bet you’re not a fan of how the team’s been managed the past few years. For me, he was playing to the loudest and most obnoxious members of the fan base.  I don’t blame him for it- it was certainly engaging and it’s a ruthless industry.  I fully admit to reading his stuff (before the paywall) but I know the twitter personalities he regularly featured were some of the biggest trolls out there.  It was a pretty clear formula: cheer on any rookie or move that was the in line with a tear down / pick stock rebuild.  Crap on any move to bring in veteran players.  A good number of vocal fans subscribe to that belief system.  To me, he was likely a lot more balanced than he portrayed in his public persona... but the section of the fan base he chose to engage with and occasionally champion is a group I don’t agree with.  I’m not trying to tear down a guy who passed away before his time - full credit as a sports personality - but I really didn’t agree with much he was putting out in recent memory.

I'd ask for examples, as I produced, to back up your assertions, of his being "negative" in an unnecessary way, but I'll just accept that you are convinced of that, and we agree to disagree.  Part of the exasperation that he and fans who agreed with him that built up was that management didn't learn anything from the Eriksson signing. They continued to convince themselves that even before Brock came over, before Pettersson, before Hughes, they were under the delusion that all we needed was a few more cast offs from other teams to have a shot at the Cup.  Its all hypotheticals, but we'd definitely have a larger stable of prospects, and probably still have our #1 pick we got for Miller if we'd have gone down the more traditional stable way to rebuild, as I suspect Linden was pushing.  Sure we are in good place right now with our luck (and good scouting) in the draft the last few years. And who knows, if we'd finished worse in 2017, and had a higher pick, we may not have picked Petey. So maybe it all balances out somehow. 

 

But even though at present we have a nice mix of good goaltending, young stars, and competent support players, we've sacrificed a lot of that next wave that must come up to both to start developing and to keep the team able to retain its young stars in coming years, with cheap entry level contracts for those new prospects. Instead we are even borrowing from future #1 picks. We still will need an army. Sure we have a few promising prospects down the pike, but we'd have been in an even more depth position if we'd have started stocking and gone full rebuild earlier.  So I'm a bit worried about what happens in a couple of years from now.  But I'm resisting fretting about that problem and enjoying the present. Glass half full. 

 

All of these new signings have to work out. (I'm looking at you Ferland) or we are kind of hooped. We've spent to the cap, with no real space until Louie leaves. As we know, no one wants players that are underperforming, and we may need to trade up for better support players if we are truly cup contenders in a couple or even one season. We simply won't be able to carry any more useless cap weight going forward if we truly want to start to perform at or near the top of the league again. So everything has to work out, no room for mistakes.  JB has painted the team into a corner. A pretty corner for now. We have to believe. No other choice. I've accepted that. I don't want to relive past mistakes. I was hesitant to even defend Botchford. I know I'm in the minority. 

 

But in giving management a clean slate, I also can't just dismiss the past mistakes. And Botch lived through the worst of it.  You may have defined him as the voice of the loudest and most obnoxious, but I think it was of the silent frustrated majority.  Can we agree that he wanted the best for the team? Even if you did not agree with his methodology? His passion was to see them succeed. I also trusted his opinions because he actually travelled with the team, was close to players and what was going on. As opposed to the lazy radio jocks that had much less credibility IMO. As far as his exuberance,  I want my radio sports personnel to be Larcheids. Passionate and biased. I want them to say what they and Canucks fans are really thinking and screw the NHL.  Botchford nailed that for me.  But I can accept that he wasn't everyone's cup of tea.  Man I can't believe how long of a response I'm typing out.  I just wanted to briefly back up a fellow CDCer about appreciating Botchford.  I'm looking forward now.  We'll need a bit of luck to solve some issues in the next few years, but team success can ease a lot of pain and boost trade value of any superfluous pieces riding the coat tails. Go Canucks Go!

[NucksPatsFan]

Yes Botch was fan-centric - the "Canucks Twitter" fans.

 

He summed up the overall tone from "Canucks Twitter" aka negativity about every move and published it.

 

Yes he had great bits of brilliance sprinkled in to his work as well - I subscribed to the Athletic just for the Athletties. 

 

He was funny, he used colloquial language, he posted screenshots of Tweets from during the game (I always aimed to try and make it into the Athletties).

 

But I also can't ignore the fact that, as someone above mentioned, he was 80% negative towards everything this team and management did, and 20% over blown positive with Petey and Boeser. 

 

Sometimes media forget that they don't know as well as the actual people involved in hockey operations and coaching do. They've never played the game, they've never coached or managed at any level. They simply just don't know. Just like Travis Green wouldn't tell Bill Gates how to run Microsoft. 

 

Yes part of journalism is to appropriately critique the team you are assigned to, but it's not to use your public persona on Social Media to create a cult like following of overly negative fanatics.

 

Just my opinion, and it may sound harsh, but if Botch was alive today (and God rest his soul, taken way too early) he would be blasting out so much negativity over the Myers signing (before seeing just how great he's been for us), blasting the Ferland signing, blasting Ferland's play, blasting Goldy and Baer being down in the minors, blasting Stecher's ice time, and disregarding Miller's top line play because we gave up a 1st round pick that may or may not equate to an NHL caliber player.

 

In the end, my opinion falls re: Botch at that he was extremely talented, and used his persona and skill to create this aura of negativity. You could see his talent in his writing, and I just wished I could've read some more positive pieces. It's a real shame that that opportunity was taken from us as I'm sure he'd struggle to find negativity when this team eventually became a cup contender.