my father might like to know that the person using them had alienated pretty much every single person around him and that he might want to think twice about who he gave his tickets to the next time.
âMr. Tuele gave me his number,â explained my dad. âI suggest you get on the phone with him now and apologize.â It wasnât really a suggestion.
âGot it,â I replied sheepishly.
Mr. Tuele was actually very gracious. âI appreciate the fact that you called, Jay,â he said. âWe just want to make sure that everyone who comes to our games can have an enjoyable time.â
I wished I couldâve asked Mr. Tuele to join me in our sectionfor a game sometime. Iâm not sure if he would have seen everyone enjoying themselves.
Dad punished me by taking back the rest of the yearâs tickets; and he decided not to renew them the following year. Soon after, I moved to Ontario to begin my career in broadcasting, but I watched with great interest when the Oilers made their surprise run to the Stanley Cup Final in 2006. Sadly, they lost in a heartbreaking seven games to the Carolina Hurricanes. On the bright side, though, watching from across the country I could seeâanyone could seeâthat the atmosphere in the Oilersâ arena was absolutely incredible.
On one particularly memorable night, as the Edmonton crowd sang âO Canadaâ at full volume, led by longtime Oilers dressing room attendant and local legend Joey Moss, the camera focused on NHL commissioner Gary Bettman. The look on his face said it all. He simply could not believe that an NHL building could be so loud. It could be that way every night if we wanted it to be.
Chapter 7
Christmas at MuchMusic
B ack in my days at Ryerson, in my second year of radio and television arts, I took an English class alongside a kind and beautiful student named Monita Rajpal. Monita was one of those focused and driven students who had it , and you just knew she was going to succeed in the industry one day. She went on to read the news for CityTVâs CP24 Cable news channel, which led to a job overseas at CNN International, where she works today as one of the lead anchors for the worldwide news network out of their Hong Kong bureau. I love the rare times that I get to check in to an overseas hotel, flip on the television in my room, and see Monita, having not aged a single day, deliver the news in between episodes of Amanpour and Parts Unknown with Anthony Bourdain . Itâs always nice to see good, hard-working people succeed just as you hoped they would.
Back in second year, however, Monita was just a student like me who would take any volunteer gig that she thought could make adifference after graduation. At that time, Monita was volunteering in the CityTV newsroom, likely fetching coffee and making copies. Then, one fateful day in December of 1995, she was tasked with recruiting other students to serve as unpaid waiters for the CityTV/MuchMusic Christmas partyâa party that took place on the top floor of a bar called Montana at the corner of Richmond and John streets, right behind the City/Much building. I had zero experience as a waiter or bartender, but I was willing to take pretty much any volunteer gig offered to me. So, one Friday night I put on a pair of black trousers and a white shirt that I had ironed in my dorm room and walked to Montana for my first and only job in the hospitality industry.
A very nice but stressed-out woman was put in charge of the volunteers, and upon gathering us together when we arrived she set out to determine which of these ragtag students actually had any serving experience. I obviously had none, so they quickly decided that I would man the door and take entry tickets. This meant I would be the first person to greet such City/Much luminaries as Gord Martineau, Anne Mroczkowski, Ben Chin, and Steve Anthonyâa longtime Much VJ whom I became friends with just before my time working
âMr. Tuele gave me his number,â explained my dad. âI suggest you get on the phone with him now and apologize.â It wasnât really a suggestion.
âGot it,â I replied sheepishly.
Mr. Tuele was actually very gracious. âI appreciate the fact that you called, Jay,â he said. âWe just want to make sure that everyone who comes to our games can have an enjoyable time.â
I wished I couldâve asked Mr. Tuele to join me in our sectionfor a game sometime. Iâm not sure if he would have seen everyone enjoying themselves.
Dad punished me by taking back the rest of the yearâs tickets; and he decided not to renew them the following year. Soon after, I moved to Ontario to begin my career in broadcasting, but I watched with great interest when the Oilers made their surprise run to the Stanley Cup Final in 2006. Sadly, they lost in a heartbreaking seven games to the Carolina Hurricanes. On the bright side, though, watching from across the country I could seeâanyone could seeâthat the atmosphere in the Oilersâ arena was absolutely incredible.
On one particularly memorable night, as the Edmonton crowd sang âO Canadaâ at full volume, led by longtime Oilers dressing room attendant and local legend Joey Moss, the camera focused on NHL commissioner Gary Bettman. The look on his face said it all. He simply could not believe that an NHL building could be so loud. It could be that way every night if we wanted it to be.
Chapter 7
Christmas at MuchMusic
B ack in my days at Ryerson, in my second year of radio and television arts, I took an English class alongside a kind and beautiful student named Monita Rajpal. Monita was one of those focused and driven students who had it , and you just knew she was going to succeed in the industry one day. She went on to read the news for CityTVâs CP24 Cable news channel, which led to a job overseas at CNN International, where she works today as one of the lead anchors for the worldwide news network out of their Hong Kong bureau. I love the rare times that I get to check in to an overseas hotel, flip on the television in my room, and see Monita, having not aged a single day, deliver the news in between episodes of Amanpour and Parts Unknown with Anthony Bourdain . Itâs always nice to see good, hard-working people succeed just as you hoped they would.
Back in second year, however, Monita was just a student like me who would take any volunteer gig that she thought could make adifference after graduation. At that time, Monita was volunteering in the CityTV newsroom, likely fetching coffee and making copies. Then, one fateful day in December of 1995, she was tasked with recruiting other students to serve as unpaid waiters for the CityTV/MuchMusic Christmas partyâa party that took place on the top floor of a bar called Montana at the corner of Richmond and John streets, right behind the City/Much building. I had zero experience as a waiter or bartender, but I was willing to take pretty much any volunteer gig offered to me. So, one Friday night I put on a pair of black trousers and a white shirt that I had ironed in my dorm room and walked to Montana for my first and only job in the hospitality industry.
A very nice but stressed-out woman was put in charge of the volunteers, and upon gathering us together when we arrived she set out to determine which of these ragtag students actually had any serving experience. I obviously had none, so they quickly decided that I would man the door and take entry tickets. This meant I would be the first person to greet such City/Much luminaries as Gord Martineau, Anne Mroczkowski, Ben Chin, and Steve Anthonyâa longtime Much VJ whom I became friends with just before my time working
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