Don Taylor’s got jokes. Even when he’s talking about scaling back his work commitments, he’s got jokes.
“Four days a week with Rick Dhaliwal is enough,” Taylor quipped about his co-host when asked about forgoing his Friday shift this season on CHEK’s Donnie and Dhali — The Team.
That chemistry between Taylor, Dhaliwal and cohort Ryan Henderson is key to the appeal of Donnie and Dhali. You get your sports news at 10 a.m. every weekday, but the show never takes itself too seriously. It always feels like you’re sitting around with your buddies at a pub talking about the game, and you’re in on every single joke that comes up.
Taylor also just turned 66, and he’s contemplating when it’s time to retire, when it’s time for him to mention for a final time on TV a player wearing Sheldon Kannegiesser’s old No. 5 or a Nikolai Khabibulin making one save with his Khabi and then turning away the rebound with his Bulin.
Going to four days a week is part of the process to see how he feels about it all. He still raves about Donnie and Dhali’s collective fun-loving personality and about its independence, with how they’re not handcuffed by being a part of one of the big national companies.
He’ll re-evaluate what’s next for him at the end of this season for the show. In past years, they’ve gone on hiatus after the NHL wraps.
“I’ve got no knees, everything else is falling apart and I need one extra day a week to put everything back together,” said Taylor, who was one of the central figures of the legendary Sports Page TV show as well as a TSN 1040 host at other stages of his career.
“I’m not the youngest guy in the world anymore. It’s a nice way to back off a little bit in a time I think I should.
“I’m also at a stage where I’m surrounded by people in my life who are really happily retired or are sick. They either love their lives, or they’re hurting. I’m aware of all that.”
At play in all this as well is that Taylor is keen on Henderson getting a chance at a bigger role. Henderson takes over the co-hosting chair alongside Dhaliwal on Fridays now.
“Ryan’s a young guy, knows a lot, not scared of anything,” Taylor offered up in a scouting report. “I think he’s got a lot of potential. I’ve felt that way for a long time.
“You can look at people as a rival or realize that somebody did something for you way back when. You hope that good karma rubs off, and an older person will help my kids with whatever profession they get into. It’s a karma thing. And I just think it’s the right thing to do to help young people out.
“We have a riot at work. We have a lot of fun. Rick and Ryan and I all think the same way. We find there’s a sameness to every show out there and we want to make sure we do things differently. The Page was like that and I’ve got two guys with me now that think like that.”
Dhaliwal maintains that the show is a “grind,” and that “I know there are probably people out there who think we arrive at 9:59 and we’re done by 12:01, but we all put in the work to make sure that we’re getting better all the time — we don’t ever cheat.”
If four days a week is what works for Taylor right now, Dhaliwal says he’s very much earned it.
“When you are a Hall of Famer like Don Taylor, you can make those kind of decisions,” Dhaliwal said.
* First star: Hazel Mae, for her efforts in the Toronto Blue Jays’ post-game report after the series win against the New York Yankees last Wednesday.
Mae neatly navigated a raucous Blue Jays clubhouse, getting interviews in the midst of music blaring, people swearing and champagne flowing. She even managed to do her best to remind players that it was live television in a bid to cut down on the foul language.
“It’s pure anarchy in those situations,” explains Global TV’s Jay Janower. “Players are going bananas.
“She’s been covering that team for years, so that’s an advantage, but there’s so much going on all around you at times like that. You could easily get rattled, but she stayed composed. I thought she had some really good conversations.”
* Second star: Hockey Night in Canada analyst Kevin Bieksa for his take on Edmonton Oilers defenceman Darnell Nurse grabbing former teammate Evander Kane after the Vancouver Canucks winger’s check on Oiler defenceman Alec Regula Saturday.
Bieksa explained the challenges of trying to stand up for his current teammate with a past one. Bieksa said he only dropped the gloves with one former teammate in his career, and that was Pat Maroon in a Feb. 9, 2018, game between Bieksa’s Anaheim Ducks and Maroon’s Oilers.
As clips of that fight aired, Bieksa recalled how Maroon had asked him about having a fight in the warm-up, how their wives were sitting together at the game, and how when the linesmen broke it up Maroon told him, “Oh, that was really fun,” and Bieksa replied “OK … that was weird.”
* Third star: Sekeres and Price podcast for their take Monday on physical play in the Canucks’ first two games.
Matthew Sekeres brought up how the Oilers didn’t feel the need to go with the typical instant scrum and retaliation mode after Tyler Myers’ open-ice hit on Trent Frederic on Saturday.
“Frederic got right up, recognized it was a clean hit and everybody carried on,” Sekeres said. “That’s NHL hockey is supposed to be played, right?”
Price continued: “Yeah, last time I checked it’s a full-contact sport.”
Price followed by bringing up how there wasn’t a backlash from Canucks fans, either, about the hit on Elias Pettersson by Calgary Flames defenceman MacKenzie Weegar.
“Everybody was like ‘Really bad impact, but the hit’s probably OK,'” Price relayed. “There was objectivity there.”
Sekeres added: “I think there’s been objectivity on all the physical plays through the first two games.”
