Ryan's Rant (Volume 1, Episode 2)

Many people believe there is a perfect balance the universe maintains for itself. We are taught early on of these opposing forces, for every action there is an equal an opposite reaction, yin and yang, light and dark and so on. Take a look around your own world and I’ll bet you can find your own examples. How many times have you stepped in a pile of dog shit on the sidewalk by accident, only to have some insensitive prick stand there and laugh at you until he gets hit by a falling piano which crushes his skull into small pieces leaving little spatters of brain on the sidewalk? What? It can too happen!

Well, this universal balance has also found its way into professional sports. How else can you explain why Canada can produce the best hockey players in the world, and can also produce the most inept, uninformed, and annoying hockey announcers/analysts? It’s a goddamn paradox of epic proportions.

Terry Jones of the Edmonton Sun is so fat that you can use his suit as a replacement sail on the Bluenose. Really. No Joke. He’s so fat that all he can seem to find for a job is to write about how awful professional athletes are in the city of Edmonton. Who’s the dipshit that decided this would be a good job for him to have? How do these professional athletes take him seriously? Can you imagine training 6 or 7 days a week, eating right, and working your ass off for a team in Edmonton only to have your intensity questioned by a guy whose idea of a good time is spreading a small vat of KFC gravy of his wife’s’ back and then licking it off. He is an absolute joke of sports journalism.

Pierre McGuire, where do I possibly begin? It’s not that he’s the dumbest, it’s not that he’s the most inept, and it’s not that he’s that terribly uninformed. It’s that he is, by a large country mile, the most annoying sot ever to be put on TV. He is so desperate for his (ugh) “monster” catch phrase to become part of our language that he has resorted to using about 15 to 20 times during a broadcast. Hey, we get it, ok. It’s your thing. That doesn’t make it suck any less. It hasn’t caught on because it SUCKS, ok! Believe me, I laughed my ass off when your bald melon got whacked during that game you called from between the benches. How come that’s never made it on to a TOP 10 list? Pierre, stop trying so hard.

These 2 guys pale in comparison to our last entry, who wins going away. As is far away, as in the left coast away, as in not good enough for the large sports-crazy fan base of the eastern time zone away. Don Taylor of Sportsnet Pacific is the worst broadcaster in Canada. Yeah, I said it. The worst now and, quite possibly, ever. Don has somehow managed to shoehorn his head so far up the Vancouver Canucks backside that he, without fail, manages to make them the top story of any broadcast. I mean any broadcast. It doesn’t even matter if they are playing that night, in fact, the Canucks are the lead story in the middle of July most times. He also manages to bad mouth future Hall-of-Famers that play against his precious Canucks. It’s like watching a car wreck happen right in front of you, on a nightly basis, I just can’t turn away, it’s that bad. At the time of this writing, the Canucks are mired in a 7 game losing streak during the beginning of the stretch run to the playoffs. Their Savior, Mats Sundin, has personally cost them 3 games with stupid penalties and has scored only 3 points. In fact, the Canucks are 1-8 with him in the lineup. Just when I think there’s no justice in the world, along comes the overrated and over hyped Mats Sundin. I guess the perfect balance does truly exist. Spin that one Don, you useless egomaniacal ass, in the grey suit sporting the black and white trim, ugh.

Although I know picking the worst sports broadcaster in Canada is a subjective process, I stand by my picks. An honorable mention is given to Harry Neale of CBC fame whose “Perspiration is the cologne of achievement” line during the 1995 Stanley Cup broadcast gets his some serious consideration for one these 3 coveted spots. And finally my “Balls on his Sleeve” award goes to Dave Hodge who blasted CBC during a HNIC broadcast because they were returning to regular programming instead of continuing to follow the game into overtime. A move which promptly got his ass fired and secured his spot as one of the most ballsy announcers ever.

This rant is mine. There are plenty of rants out there, but this one is mine. Without my rant, I am nothing. Without me, my rant is nothing.