Courtesy the Toronto Globe & Mail

(August 17, 2010) Sports talk radio in Toronto has been locked in a 1990s time warp caused by Bob McCown’s dominance in the 416/905. Occasional hints of change have flitered through via satellite radio, but in Toronto the form has been staid, pat, predictable (Heck, Buffalo’s station was more lively). Give the sweats what they want. Don Cherry. Gord Stellick peddling his Ballard days. Mike Hogan talking Philadelphia Eagles.

Until Andrew Krystal. The former MOJO voice debuted Monday at 9 A.M. on The FAN 590, and it’s clear he will push the bounds of what’s acceptable. Some will be mortified. Other delighted. But he’ll be hard to ignore with his caustic mix of debate, politics, culture and outright provocation. Who knows if it will work, but it won’t be boring.

Monday he hung up on a pugnacious Doug MacLean, he labelled the Ontario premier Halting McWimpy after his flip-flop on mixed martial arts. He called a rude caller a “tool” and he generally stirred the pot for three hours. Which is, after all, the idea of talk radio. Except that everyone but McCown has ignored the fact for a decade.

Krystal’s interviews with MacLean and Damien Cox in Monday’s first hour were bizarre and conventional, respectively. It wasn’t till Krystal began weaving phone calls with MMA or Tomas Kaberle through the final two hours that things got interesting. Tuesday he was hammering the city that works for its $90 million hockey rinks. With his gruff delivery, Krystal will make a potent one-two punch for the FAN if they ever sign Mike Richards to do the morning drive slot. Combining Richards’s irreverence, humour and outright offensiveness with Krystal’s bumptious nature will make for interesting radio.

On the subject of mornings, FAN program director Don Kollins tells Usual Suspects that there’s nothing to report just yet. But with the hockey season hoving into view in three weeks, he’ll have to make his move soon. Fortunately foe the successful candidate, the bar has not been set very high in mornings since Stellick and Don Landry departed.

Brady’s Bunch: Greg Brady also debuted Monday, and while he was a little scattered and nervous, he gave signs by Tuesday that he might do just fine after coming over from AM 640. Brady doesn’t yet have Krystal’s power to provoke, but as a hard-news guy, the cupboard was bare after talking over the Kaberle non-story. Give him a few months and see how he settles in when the Leafs start playing-- and losing.

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