Just listened to the podcast of @HalfordTSN & @sadclubcommish and the last words spoken on #TSN1040 were: “Learn how to listen. Because it’s really important in life.” Cruel irony? Not sure, but it seems fitting. Hope you’ll listen here as I reflect a bit (or, mute!) 1/?

Anyone else still really upset by today’s 1040 news? Because I am. Foremost, feeling for all the fine people who lost their jobs unexpectedly, and also angered about the callous, ridiculous circumstances of how (and why) it was done.

But there’s also a profound sense of personal loss, and I think I’m not alone. I want to call it silly but I think that feeling is neither irrational nor selfish, though it’s hard to articulate why. Twitter has felt like a wake today. What are we mourning?

The loss of livelihoods & security of lots of folks—temporary for many, I hope, as good talent will find new places and opportunities. But what died today was an institution and a local flagship and a little part of many of our everyday lives and an idea 20+ years in the making.

What made 1040 such a success is the sense of community it engendered for its listeners. With constant interaction, but also with in-jokes, recurring gags, and generally a shared sense camaraderie—in house, but also broadcast outward and invited in.

“Community” is kinda ineffable, but it was, in this context, constituted by and formed around the myriad idiosyncrasies that had been cultivated and tapped into over years in a truly unique, goofy sports market such as this one.

There was a 20-year history and an institutional memory borne of an evolving mix of personalities working together for many years in different iterations, and clearly having fun doing it. Donnie & BMac giggling to each other is not “good radio,” but fuck it was good radio for us.

And whether a loyal listener, an avid hate-listener, or somewhere in between, you were invited to feel a membership in that institution and a part of the broader community surrounding it simply by virtue of listening to the radio. That was cool.

And there was always a geographical rootedness in our abiding West Coast anti-Ontario-centrism, and a genealogical link to Sports Page and its unique sensibilities. It was quirky and local in ways befitting sports culture HERE. It was often odd and inside-baseball but always ours

1040 worked because it was Vancouver sports radio, not sports radio in Vancouver.

In many ways, 1040 is enmeshed in how I have understood not only sports and the Canucks over the years, but my experience of being a Vancouverite. Radio alarm. Car radio. When I lived elsewhere, podcasts and streaming felt like a bit of warm home cooking.

When you listen for years to the same voices, stories, jokes, all enveloped in our collective haplessness as longtime Canucks fans, the folks on the radio feel like kin, and the station a familiar home. You might not always like home, but it’s always there.

I could say “Would you drather” or “Is this Bob?” or “Basketball Phil” or “Poker isn’t a sport” or “Trev got duped” or “Boat Captain” or “Pop Mart” and most of you would know what I’m talking about, and maybe smile. That’s... well, it’s something. Definitely not nothing.

So when all of that something suddenly vanishes into dust with the latest Thanos snap of a deathly late capitalism that destroys livelihoods and impoverishes our communities in its relentless pursuit of “wealth,” it feels like a personal loss, because it is. We’re all poorer now.

So when the station shuts off unexpectedly after 20 years to give a canned statement of cancellation, BS about corporate innovation, and “appreciation to listeners”, followed by a Green Day song, it’s perplexing, and should rightly make us apoplectic. https://twitter.com/emadagahi/status/1359292989357572107?s=21

So I guess this is a eulogy. Not for the people at the station who will thrive otherwise, I’m sure, but for my pal TEAM1040, who those people built and enlivened. It died an untimely and appallingly unceremonious death today. I hope something of it rises from the ashes anew.

Thanks for the good times to Paul Carson, BMac, Baller, @TheSportMarket @DonTaylor5 @DavePrattSports @mattsekeres @justBlakePrice @SadClubCommish @HalfordTSN @patersonjeff @DhaliwalSports @RobFai @SatiarShah @tmartvancouver @MikeMartignago @karen_surman

@mcletch @andrewwadden @RJHenderson7 @ShantelleSChand @EddieGregory81 @JDylanBurke @pauldebron @JayCanada10 @ScottRintoul @thewhittingham and surely many others I’ve forgotten or never known.