Memo To: The cast and crew of CBC's Hockey Night in Canada.
Memo From: Garth Winklesnap, Rogers Communications vicepresident of hockey broadcasts, ringtones that sound like old-timey car horns, and making sure no one calls it the Skydome anymore.
Re: Hockey broadcast protocol.
Congratulations! With Rogers Communications' $5.2 billion acquisition of all hockey broadcast rights in Canada, your program will fall under our control starting at the beginning of next season. We here at Rogers like to be proactive with our synerginistic synergy, so I've taken the liberty of crafting a game plan that will make for a smooth transition from your crew to our crew controlling the editorial content of Hockey Night in Canada. The good news is: you're all not fired! Some of you will be reassigned to one of our customer service call centres, as long as you attend our mandatory training seminar, "Your call is important to us and other clever lies."
The rest of you will be allowed to continue doing the magic that has made you the home of Canadian hockey for the past 61 years. Everything will remain the same save for these minor changes:
• The show will now be called Rogerball Night in Canada. Technically the sport is still called hockey - for now - but we just paid $5.2 billion for it. Commissioner Bettman assures us we'll be able to call it whatever we want.
• You will no longer be broadcasting games for God's Team, the Toronto Maple Leafs. Those will all be aired on Rogers networks. You will have a steady dose of the Ottawa Senators. Please note, we respectfully ask you to refrain from calling them the "Ottawa Who-Gives-ARat's-Ass," at least while the cameras are rolling.
• On-air personalities will now be required to learn how to pronounce at least half of the names of the Vancouver Canucks. We understand that "Kevin Beeksa. .. Bieska. .. Bie-whatever-the-heck" is almost impossible for our Eastern tongues to pronounce, but you really shouldn't be caught off guard by names like "David Booth." We know the Canucks are mere ice slugs compared to God's Team, but apparently some folks out west seem to like them.
• Ron MacLean will continue to host Coach's Corner and we will even give him a Rogers-branded watch so he won't have to ask his producer "How much time do we have left?" every 30 seconds. MacLean will also be allowed to continue making his clever puns at the end of each segment, although he will be strictly forbidden from any references to the ownership situation, including but not limited to descriptions of how the Hockey Night in Canada crew is now just "phoning it in." In addition, MacLean will be dismissed immediately if he ever once utters the phrase "unsatisfactory Rogering."
• Don Cherry will of course keep his seat beside Mr. MacLean as the comedy relief on Coach's Corner. Rogers, however, prides itself on being an open and transparent company, and so Mr. Cherry will now be required to finish all of his thoughts in a way recognizable to English-speaking humans. For instance, analysis such as this: "You know. .. I talked about this last year. .. if only they'd listen to me. .. all you kids watching. .. you see this guy here. .. watch now. .. OK, back it up a little. .. when I see stuff like this it just makes me. .. all you kids at home. .. don't ever do. .. now here's Dougie Gilmour. .. what a beauty. .. Afghanistan Troops, these guys are over there. .. it's a shame. .. it eats me up inside. .. ya know. .. the great Bobby Orr!" should now be summed up as, "I don't like it when players dive." Mr. Cherry is encouraged, however, to continue playing piano on his desk. Thumbs up!
• Everyone on the crew will be given a free phone from Rogers! Included will be a special employee contract giving you free texting on weekends and evenings between 10 p.m. and 3 a.m., as well as unlimited data on Tuesday mornings. All other data is at our special rate of $47 per kilobyte. Contracts, $89.99 per month, must be paid in full. This price is non-negotiable - we may have just dropped $5 billion on the ultimate Canadian luxury purchase but hey, have you heard our scary ads about the CRTC? Times are tough for big telecom companies.
That's all for now. We at Rogers are thrilled to begin what will no doubt be a great partnership. Your cute little program has done OK over the years but we know we will be able to turn it into a real winner, just as we have done for our many other corporate holdings such as the Toronto Blue Jays, Raptors, Maple Leafs, Toronto FC, and The Shopping Network.
We can't wait for puck drop. In the words of the great Stompin' Tom: "Hello out there, we're on the air, it's Rogerball night tonight."
