Freddie P's Blog

January 3, 2008 @ 11:01

Yesterday I wrote about the Winter Classic in Buffalo and the scalper’s paradise it had become.

Well there were a couple of other things I forget to mention.

Neighbour John’s sons not only got into the game with great seats purchased by their generous dad, but that got to spend the afternoon with former Buffalo Bills quarterback Jim Kelly.

Kelly had seats right behind the boys and from all accounts he was fantastic with them.

He made it clear that he wasn’t too interested about being bothered by adults looking for pictures and autographs, but when it came to kids he was game for anything.

And I received this e-mail from my good friend and ultra important record executive Ivar Hamilton.

Freddie,
"I wish I knew you were there. I was there with Sam Roberts performance as my ticket in. I parked right beside Mulligans so I definitely would have had a beer with you!"

Category: Sports

January 3, 2008 @ 11:00

Right off the bat, I’ll tell ya, I’m not a big fan of Rosie DiManno.

Granted, the woman can write but much too often I don’t like “what” she writes.

She’s got an attitude and opinion that I rarely agree with and about a year ago I wrote a piece about a DiManno attack on Q-107’s John Derringer.

It was ridiculous and consistent with some other shit she had written over the years.

However, I’ve got to be honest, this morning DiManno writes a piece about the Toronto Maple Leafs and is dead on perfect.

I wish I had written it myself.

Category: Sports | Stuff

January 2, 2008 @ 19:12

Category: Show Biz

January 2, 2008 @ 10:21

I’d like to thank everyone for visiting FreddieP.ca over the past year, it’s been much appreciated.

I started this website in March of 2006 at the urging of my good friend Dan Duran. To be honest, I didn’t have much interest at the time. I was still stinging from my abrupt departure from the radio business and I didn’t feel much like doing anything except getting back on the radio.

In the meantime I’ve kept in touch and kept my mind active by making myself sit down every day and write something on this blog, and the response has been fantastic.

Don’t get me wrong, I could never get rich off this thing but according to those in the know, the traffic I get to this sight far exceeds what most people get to their personal sights, and it rivals what some radio stations get.

As for 2008 hopefully I'll return to the active, daily workforce and believe me, that’s exactly what I want.

Over the past couple of years, so many people have told me how they envy my situation of getting a paid holiday, but everything is relative and to be honest it loses its luster of time. When you love what you do, a job isn’t a job and work isn’t work.

Problem is, in the radio business you can’t just move between jobs like you can in other industries. There are only so many stations with so many jobs and in the Toronto market most jobs are held by talented professionals who aren’t going anywhere soon.

It all becomes a question of timing. You hope the right opportunity pops up at the right time and then hope you’re qualified to do that job. Over the next few months I’ll find out where I sit in the big scheme of things.

In the meantime I’ll continue to write this blog, appear on CHCH Television and hopefully expand the network of radio stations I contribute to.

As it stand I do breaks on stations in London and Windsor on Monday’s and Wednesday’s and I’d be willing to expand that to five days a week. I’m wide open to offers.

The breaks I do on the Craig and Matt Show, and the McArthur and Face Show have been well received and both shows want to continue into the New Year. I plan to post the audio from these appearances so others with radio stations can decide whether you want me to be part of your show.

Believe me; you can’t beat the cost because there isn't any. I like to do it for the exercise and the satisfaction of getting up every day with a focus.

Beyond that, I don’t know what 2008 has in store for me. I’m working on another project that's slowly moving forward but something I won't talk about until there's actually something to talk about.

Regardless of what I end up doing I’m in the luxurious position of being able to be particular. I’m healthy and happy with a grown family, a fabulous wife and very little pressure.

I’m a lucky guy.

Happy New Year everyone.

Category: Stuff

January 2, 2008 @ 10:20

I went all the way to Buffalo with neighbour John and his three sons yesterday, but I didn’t get inside Ralph Wilson Stadium.

I watched the entire “Winter Classic” from inside “Mulligan’s Tavern” which is just kitty corner to the stadium and right across the street from the best pizza I’ve ever eaten.

Here’s what happened.

Neighbour during an early New Year’s Eve toast, John mentioned to me that he was taking the boys to Buffalo the next day for the hockey game and planned to buy tickets from scalpers out front.

Here was the strategy. Given that 71 thousand tickets had been sold, and the weather forecast wasn’t the greatest, the chances of getting reasonably priced tickets were pretty good.

I thought about it for a while and they told him I’d come along. I like notable sporting events but thanks to my long and “storied” career as a sportscaster not too often did I ever have to pay for anything. That has changed and I’m slowly getting my head around it, but only to a point.

When we arrived in Orchard Park about 11:30 we started talking to scalpers and the early prices were high. The cheapest face value seat we saw was 53 dollars and the scalpers wanted two hundred.

We laughed it off and went on to the next scalper who was obviously working for the same network as the first guy. He wanted two hundred for the 53 dollar ticket, but he was willing to be more reasonable for a two hundred dollar club seat. He only wanted $350.00 for those but he was holding firm.

Neighbour John and I quickly determined that we’d have to wait these guys out. We’d wait till after the bloody puck was dropped if we had to, but there was no way we were going to pay those kinds of prices.

We walked around for awhile, and then at about 12:30, John got lucky. He wanted to make sure the boys go into the stadium before the game to see the spectacle of it all and he ran into a guy who wasn’t scalping he was a regular guy who had a few corporate seats left over and he just wanted to get rid of them.

He had three to be exact, just enough for the boys so John paid him $450 for three, $220 seats, expensive, but based on face value, a pretty good deal.

John and I walked the boys to their gate and made sure they were through and we went back to the street with a new strategy. We would buy singles. It’s harder to for scalpers to get rid of singles but we decided we’d buy them at a reasonable price and then hook up inside.

It was game time now and the puck had just been dropped when John hit pay-dirt. It was another guy with corporate seats and he had one club level seat left. John gave him $90 for the $220 seat and I urged him to immediately go into the stadium because the game had started and I knew he’d feel better being inside with his boys.

It didn’t matter anyway, because I felt pretty confident I too was going to get a good deal within the next few minutes. Wrong.

First of all, I couldn’t find a “corporate” guy and unfortunately there were way too many people like me who thought they could beat the scalpers by waiting them out.

Turns out there were a lot more people like me than there were tickets available so all it did was drive the prices up even more. The scalpers stood there with people from Buffalo, Toronto and Pittsburgh desperate to get inside waving money around.

Those $53 tickets became $250 and the club seats held their value, and then the clincher came for me.

A scalper showed me a ten dollar ticket. A ticket that was only good for getting into the stadium. The view was next to non-existent and they were printed only for those who wanted to feel the atmosphere without really seeing the game.

Perfect I thought, I’ll buy one of these and then weasel my way to where John is. I asked the guy “how much” and was floored when he said one hundred bucks. But as I took a few seconds to ponder getting sucked in this bad a young woman reached over my shoulder with a hundred bucks and it was gone.

That was it. I was done. The scalpers only had the expensive stuff left and they were getting their way with every transaction.

I walked across the street to “Mulligans Tavern”, but not before buying a piece of pizza off a vender in one of those big trailers. New York Pizza it was called, and it was absolutely delicious. Especially the crust which was fresh, soft and tasty.

And oh yea, on the way home we stopped off at the Anchor Bar.

Category: Neighbour John | Sports

January 2, 2008 @ 10:19

During the afternoon on New Year’s Eve I had the opportunity to spend some time with Craig Venn.

I’ve been doing bits on Craig’s morning show in Windsor every Wednesday at 8:40 and it’s been quite enjoyable. In fact I was on this morning and told my scalper story.

Craig, who was raised in Brampton, was home for the holidays to visit his in-laws, and it was great to see the young bugger.

He’s enjoying life in Windsor while building a morning show that has to complete on some level with stations in Detroit and that ain’t easy.

We had a few beers at a neighbourhood bar called TJ’s and we talked about the good old days at CFNY, where he was jack of all trades before moving on to become Derringer’s producer and sidekick.

Craig says in some ways he misses Toronto, but in other ways he likes the pace of a smaller market and he plans to stay in Windsor for the next several years because it’s a good place to raise his kids.

If you want to catch a little of the Craig and Matt Show on the Rock in Windsor, go here.

Category: Friends | Radio