Ottawa radio station secretly hates 53% of its market

It's a little funny, but 89.9 times more stupid.

Make no mistake, an Ottawa radio station trading on a misogynistic, vulgar term as part of a contest is only humorous since it is so grossly adolescent and puerile.

Few in the Ottawa media seemed to have weighed in on the No. 1 station in town among anglophone listeners -- one for which impressionable youth also make up a huge chunk of its demographics -- calling itself "HO 89.9" on air. As in that kind of ho, synonymous with other sexist slurs that demean women. It's kind of striking that's allowed to slide in a town where a grocery chain yanked a clothing flyer after a local broadsheet wondered if its underwear ads were "sexifying" teenagers.So basically it's a story when you can run accompanying art of the underwear ads, but when a radio station is using a sexist slur on air, in advertising and on the web, there's a delayed reaction.

On April 1, last Thursday, the Ottawa station stripped the T from its logo, taking it off its website and its vehicles (their exterior sign at the station was taken down). The morning show has been renamed The Morning Ho Tub (really?). On Monday, the station revealed where listeners have to collect clues to find the missing T.


Playing this off as harmless and an attempt at having some fun is idiocy writ large.

Much of 89.9's listenership is made up of adolescents, girls and boys age 11 and up who are at a critical age for developing positive social attitudes and understanding the connotations of gay or sexist slurs. An over-the-air radio station with that kind of reach among young people using "ho" as if it is acceptable in casual conversation is really irresponsible. It's also a classic instance of white people appropriating black slang in order to perpetuate ghetto stereotypes and feel free to call that an overthink.

Please excuse the imposition of, what's that called, standards.

It's all about the message. When Howard Stern does his thing, it's niche, people are paying to hear it since he's now on satellite radio, and the message comes through that its appeal is to those who are in a state of arrested development (G.A.C.).

This radio station's ill-conceived idiocy is that it is mainstreaming the word "ho," making it seem like a term to be used casually. That's a terrible message to send to young females and males alike. Here one thinks of the Tina Fey character in Mean Girls saying, "You all have got to stop calling each other sluts and whores. It just makes it OK for guys to call you sluts and whores."

Apologies for going off-topic, but someone had to say why these so-called media professionals shouldn't be saying that on air. Total fail, as the kids would say, and who knows what some Grade 4 or 5 pupils who heard "ho" on the radio all weekend were saying at school today.

CFL in Ottawa: Cohon says import ratio could be tweaked

Talk about a Canadian conundrum: The CFL's chances in the nation's capital could rest on American players.

League commissioner Mark Cohon told SUN TV's Casino Rama Grill Room last night that the league of loosening the import rule for the Ottawa Rough Riders begin play. The gist of what he told host Gareth Wheeler was that, "we need to ensure that team can become competitive quickly, and one thing we would look at doing is letting them have a few more Americans when Ottawa comes back into the league in 2012."

It is not the big CFL story of the past couple days, but it sounds promising. The rank-and-file fans whose support will make or break the Reconstituteds (as they shall henceforth be known until it's official they'll be the Rough Riders) likely won't care too much. They're more about Ws than whether the Will linebacker grew up in Waterloo or Walla Walla.

What Cohon said is worth passing on for posterity's sake. The current import ratio is 21-18-3 (Canadians, imports and quarterbacks, who are stateless in the CFL's eyes). There's a risk in crediting it for the emergence of ratio-busters (Canadians who play positions traditionally earmarked for Americans) such as the B.C. Lions receiver Paris Jackson, Edmonton running backs Jesse Lumsden and Calvin McCarty and Kingston native Brent Johnson, who plays defensive end for B.C.

Those players can be few and far between and the eight established clubs will not be eager to part with them via an expansion draft. Tweaking the import ratio to 25-14, maybe for Ottawa's first 2-3 seasons, might help with their efforts. It has been noted previously (April 24, 2009) that putting a team that plays good football on the field will be Job One in Ottawa. The league has had two re-launches within the past 15 years, first in Montréal in 1996 and then Ottawa in 2002. One succeeded beyond everyone's wildest dreams, the other did not.

"Montréal got an established team ... which was competitive right off the hop. The terms of the expansion draft should reflect that the overall growth of an underdog league trumps Edmonton or Winnipeg's depth chart. There is no obvious, less direct way to break that to Westerners. The league also said in 2006 it would "place an emphasis on assisting Ottawa to field a competitive team upon its return."

Again, we'll see how this holds up once Ottawa rejoins the league. CFL owners' generosity only extends to far (propping up a struggling Southern Ontario franchise, good, letting the new kids on the block raid your roster, bad).

It is at least something worth pursuing. The point will remain the same, though, the terms of the expansion draft are going to have to be more generous than they were the last time around. It is one thing to let the Reconstituteds dress a few more Americans, but if they're all rookies or newcomers to the Canadian game, it would be self-defeating.

Fronts: Now that was a Super Sunday

Sunday was a good one for a follower of the whole durned human comedy which is the Kingston Frontenacs. They owned the Ottawa 67's in an 8-6 win, while their no-account owner and GM got owned by the out-of-town media.

In between periods, coach Doug Gilmour had a sort of cryptic, kind of cocky response to question about the team's appearance before Kingston city council about its (wink) marketing plan. "It was all a miscommunication," he told Rogers TV, breaking eye contact with the interviewer. "And something that, uh, you know we – we have a lot of pride (in) how we want to build this team and the fan support and everything else that we had. So, uh, we stated our case. It was easy. It's over with. It will never happen again." (Emphasis mine. This is a team which has still yet to win two games in a row all season.)

Meantime, the out-of-town media went to town on owner Doug Springer and ceremonial GM-for-life Larry Mavety for not taking questions from Kingston city council last week. Ed Hand, the host, wouldn't even let Lee Versage hedge one bit, saying, "It doesn't look good. The owner should have been there and the general manager should have been there answering the questions – and they weren't."

Versage added, "I thought, unfair to put those two guys (Gilmour and marketing director Jeff Stilwell) in that situation ... The owner and the general manager, they kind of weren’t there and deflected it off.

"It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out that the owner and the general manager should have been there and they’re trotting out the marketing guy and the coach because he's a big name," Versage added a few moments later.



It is not necessary to reiterate the argument about Springer and Mavety that have been made here since the tailend of the 2006-07 season. It is hilarious to see announcers in another OHL market criticize the owner and GM unaccountable, and Sunaya Sapurji of Loose Pucks call Kingston "the capital of OHL crazytown."

There is a phenomena involved when one's hometown junior hockey club is cursed with tragically bad management. It is like one has to wait until they're playing for pride before he's able to abandon himself to cheering for them. Fortunately for a Frontenacs fan, that point arrived before the official start of winter this season. It was obvious by late November that all that was at stake was how high their draft position would be (no worse than No. 2) and how many season-ticket holders they will lose once it became known Mavety will be back. At least Gilmour said "it wouldn't happen again" with respect to being frog-marched in front of city council.

In other words, watching Sunday's game from seats behind the Frontenacs bench was so choice. It started well, with rooie Erik Gudbranson beating two forecheckers to launch a scoring rush for the first goal. It was capped with the Limestone City's Light Brigade scoring five goals in the third period to send Ottawans home crabby. Ethan Werek was all over the ice and was rightly named the first star despite having only two points, albeit one of them coming on the go-ahead goal with 4:01 left in the game. Big defenceman Taylor Doherty delivered some huge hits and Mavric Parks, even though he gave up six goals, made some huge saves to keep his team in the hunt after it went down 3-1 early in the second period.

The afternoon was catered to Kingston. Ottawa had only 10 forwards and was playing its third game in three days. The goal which tied the game 5-5 in the third period came about thanks to a chintzy delay-of-game penalty when an Ottawa defenceman flipped the puck over the low glass, putting Kingston on a 5-on-3 power play.

That was just details. It was one of those games where both teams went up and down for 60 minutes and pretty much yielded to the flow of the game. It was nice, for lack of a better word, to see your hometown team lighting it up, as was the case in December when Kingston blew out the 67's 7-3 at the Civic Centre, also on a Sunday afternoon. (From the strange but true files, both of Kingston's highest-scoring games this season have come with yours truly in attendance.) It made someone prone to overthinking banish any thoughts of Doug Springer and Larry Mavety for 2½ hours, which you readers will know is saying something.

It has 475 days since Doug Springer promised to do "whatever it takes" to bring a winner to Kingston.

Related:
Cuma out, 67's fall to Fronts (Chris Stevenson, Sun Media)

Kill the pig! Bash his head!!

All Sean Avery! All the time!!
Below the jump. Updated constantly.

See if you see anything missing from the Dallas Stars roster.

Edit: As I type we are about 30 minutes away from the start of Sean Avery's meeting with Gary Bettman in New York. It's likely an hour or so from when the suspension will be announced.

I've heard some experts predict that he will get as much as 15 games, which would make it one of the all-time longest suspensions.

With that in mind, it's useful to look at the history of how the NHL has handled racial slurs (the closest parallel to what Avery did. Today's progressive feminism is a new thing for the league, I guess) . Bnet has a nice little summery here.

Three games has been the max. And, that was with Chris Simon, a man that was about as popular as Avery. Speaking of Simon, I'm still looking for a history of how the NHL has handled incidents of of racism towards natives. I suspect I'll be looking for a while.

Edit 2: No word yet as of 12:20 p.m. EST. About 10 minutes ago Hockey Central at Noon's Daren Millard had these two gems back to back.

First: "I hope they give him 15 games," said with disgust dripping off the tongue.
Then: "(paraphrasing) The only thing I've heard is maybe they should have let him play against Calgary so that justice could have been served on the ice," said with barely hidden regret.

So, let's review. Using the term "sloppy seconds" is grounds for the 12th longest suspension in NHL history, yet openly wishing that the Flames had the chance to beat the snot out of him — something that would, it always needs to be said, land you in jail if it happened on the street, is perfectly reasonable. It's puckhead thinking at its most embarrassing, illogical best.

Sloppy seconds is more stupid than it is truly offensive (although there is an element of flippancy to the term that is offensive. It's saying that women have no worth other than as conquests for men. She's nothing but someone I once had sex with...). A suspension in line with what others have received for similar things (see above) is likely in order. Some sensitivity training? Why not. But, 15 games? It simply isn't justifiable. Not with the NHL's past history it isn't.

Edit 3: (Puck Daddy has a very comprehensive post.)

Edit 4: So, it's 5:11 p.m. EST and I've yet to see a NHL press release show up in my inbox with the title "League suspends Dallas Star..." So, it might be tomorrow before we get a ruling on this. Late tomorrow, as one can expect with any touchy press release.

Of course that means we have to listen to the puritans in the working puckhead media for another day. So, what a delay accomplishes God only knows.

The other possibility here is that the league's lawyers are working overtime to find a way to justify a lengthy suspension. 'Cause, as stated, it isn't really justifiable and Avery doesn't strike me as a good soldier that will lie down and take it if Bettman and co go all medieval.

Edit 5: Did everyone see that the Ottawa Sun's Bruce Garrioch wrote that it is, "Time to ban Sean Avery from the NHL for life ...

"Make an example of this guy. Ban him for life. Classless. Conduct detrimental to the game is about the least of the worries. Enough of Avery already. Bad actor. Bad act. Time for him to go. For good."

Edit 6: God love Colby Cosh:

A surprising number of sportswriters have had no problem with the league’s instant invention of a retroactive campus-style speech code to deal with Avery’s outburst. Perhaps it’s because their own freedom of speech is hostage to abusive NHL front offices; your average hockey writer bites his tongue so much that the damn thing drops right off about a week into his career. The rest of us, however, have no trouble understanding what is wrong with a business that is not in the opinion trade monitoring an employee’s off-duty speech and punishing him for it

How refreshing to see a MSM article -- albeit from a guy that only writes about hockey peripherally -- that actually tries to defend Avery a bit. Yes, he's an tool at times, but my God...by the reaction you would have thought he had hunted down an opposing player in a premeditated fashion, jumped him from behind and slammed his head into the ice so hard it broke his neck. It's a good thing you never see that type of behaviour in hockey and the worse thing Gary Bettman has to deal with is Avery's (who has never been suspended before, by the way) potty mouth.

Edit 6.5: Glove tap to Mr. Cosh himself who sent me this link in an e-mail exchange. Some are starting to break through the Group Think.

Edit 7: It's six games. By three games, it's the longest NHL suspension for non-violent behaviour in history. It likely won't satisfy the majority of bloodthirsty puckheads in the media and in society.

It goes without saying that if the league treated actual violent behaviour this seriously there would be a lot less players with eight-month long headaches.

More reaction to come, I'm sure...

Edit 8: Here is the NHL press release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE / DECEMBER 5, 2008


STARS’ AVERY TO SEEK PROFESSIONAL ANGER MANAGEMENT EVALUATION SUSPENDED FOR
SIX GAMES

NEW YORK (December 5, 2008) -- Dallas Stars forward Sean Avery
has been suspended for six games, without pay, as a result of inappropriate
public comments that he made Tuesday in Calgary. Avery has agreed to seek a
professional anger management evaluation and, if necessary, structured
counseling in response to a pattern of unacceptable and antisocial
behavior.
Avery met with Commissioner Bettman at a hearing in New York
yesterday. Also in attendance were NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly, NHL
Senior Executive Vice President and Director of Hockey Operations Colin
Campbell, NHL Associate Counsel Jessica Berman, Dallas Stars co-General
Manager Brett Hull, NHLPA General Counsel Ian Penny, NHLPA Director of
Player Affairs Glenn Healy and Avery’s agent, Pat Morris.
“Mr. Avery has expressed remorse for his recent comments and has
sought a professional anger management evaluation,” Commissioner Bettman
said. “I will require that he follow through with that process as a
condition of his returning to the ice and that he complies with any and all
recommendations.
“Mr. Avery has been warned repeatedly about his conduct and comments,
which have too often been at odds with the manner in which his more than
700 fellow players conduct themselves.
“Playing in the National Hockey League is a privilege, requiring a
high standard of personal behavior. Mr. Avery forfeits that privilege for
six games.”
Avery was suspended in accordance with the provisions of NHL By-Law
17 and Article 6 of the NHL Constitution for conduct "detrimental to the
League or game of hockey.”
In addition to the two games already served, Avery will miss
games Dec. 5 vs. Colorado, Dec. 10 vs. Phoenix, Dec. 12 vs. Detroit and
Dec. 13 at Nashville.

Edit 9: People close to the game, of course, have always held deeply progressive feelings about the place of women in and around it:


So, the league's reaction to Avery is just really keeping in that tradition.

Snark break ...

Starting today, we try to inject some substance into this feature ... hey, where's everyone going? Substance!

Does everyone realize that the UFC's parent company, Zuffa LLC, is in deep water financially with its casinos? Mixed martial arts is here to stay, God love it, let's hope it's in Ontario soon, but as TheSavageScience points out, it's bound to hurt UFC when Station Casinos (just do a Google News search) is chin-deep in debt. Meantime, fight fans are ticked that MMA axes good fighters for flavours of the month.

Brian Burke travelled out to L.A. to see the Leafs play the Kings last night. The Toronto media would have you believe he flew without a plane.

Seriously, why not just give Burke the reins of the Canadian government in Ottawa while he's at it? Red Kelly played for the Leafs and was a member of Parliament at the same time in the 1960s.

Two words for anyone following the situation with the New York Giants wide receiver Plaxico Burress after his weapons charge: Ray Lewis. This is a Vicking. The Giants' best linebacker, Antonio Pierce, is getting the kid glove treatment for his role in the Darwin Award-worthy discharging of a pistol.

From National Lampoon's Sports Minute (which you can follow on Twitter): "Notre Dame has not yet decided what to do with Charlie Weis. But they did ask him to go party with Plaxico Burress."

The above was worth nothing, but this is worth noting

• USC Trojans coach Pete Carroll is going to give up one timeout per half so Souther Cal can have wear their red uniforms on Saturday against UCLA, instead of road team white.
• Atlanta baseball writer David O'Brien believes A.J. Burnett will sign with the Atlanta Braves:

  "... they have a much better shot at landing Burnett than Lowe, and partly because they want a power arm who can dominate opponents to be the guy at the top of a rotation that includes budding stalwart Jair Jurrjens and, well, fill in the blanks.

  O'Brien is a big Warren Zevon fan, so that makes anything he says credible.
• The first all-blues station in Canada, DAWG FM in Ottawa, is in a pinch. Rob over at Salt Water Music explains how you can help. (Crying the blues over the Senators or Leafs does not count.)