Nice Rink!

Just a few thoughts regarding the new arena:

1) After being at three events there in three days, I'm still having difficulty actually believing that it's here. I caught myself on each of the three days thinking "wow, this is really Kingston!" It's an awesome facility, with a very motivated and energetic staff. Even the Fronts have taken their game up several notches.

2) Kingston people have needed the ability to drink beer at their seats for sporting events and concerts for far too long. At the Hip show on Saturday, one could hardly get to one's gate for the long lines of thirsty music fans waiting in line to buy beer. During the show, people in our row kept going back for more. At five bucks a cup, it's not only one of the best prices downtown, but it's also going to dig a huge chunk out of what we owe for making this place.

3) The Fronts games will slowly become better-attended. The thousands of faithful who said they'd never go "all the way downtown" for a game? Well they came. Hundreds more were at their first OHL game in a long time (or ever), and they'll come back. It's excellent hockey, and it's cheap!

4) The people who cried about how the parking was going to be a disaster have gone back to complaining about other things such as expensive gasoline and the fact that they'll never stop using the word "township" to describe parts of our city. At the end of the Bulls-Fronts game Friday, I waited at my seat for about 15 minutes to let the crowd die down, fully expecting the streets to be crazy with people. They weren't. I was home in the west end just 15 minutes later. It was even more efficient after the Hip concert Saturday. Sunday was even better. The arena will not be the source of traffic headaches. CFB Kingston/RMC/every government office, all spilling out at exactly the same time will continue to be a far bigger problem. This is where I could tell you to use Kingston transit, but I get the feeling you're just not listening when I say how easy, cheap and efficient it's become.

5) Downtown bars, restaurants and shops are LOVING the response to having an arena downtown! Even after the game on Sunday afternoon, it was tough to get seated in some places. The best thing that could happen is more great restaurants, bars and shops opening to take advantage. Perhaps our old derelict Police Station would be the anchor in a block of cool new places running down Queen from King Street.

6) Wolfe Island people will love how easy it is to get to and from the arena. In the summer, Marysville residents won't even need to take their cars! However, they'll be unhappy that some will continue to park on the ferry dock instead of paying for the incredibly cheap parking that's available.

7) It still needs a name. Maybe the Drivec? I'll keep working on that.

Did we lose a bet or something?

My first impulse was to puke.

After getting up at 3:20am to work myself through a 65 minute bike spin in my basement, the last thing I needed was to see a note from my wife saying "Are you ready for ten years of The K-Rock Centre?"...gag!!!" At first I thought she was doing that thing she does. You know, keeping me on edge, so I don't let down my guard for the inevitable bad news that could come at any time. (she feels that perhaps I tend to react in a rather sagiune way, and need the occasional SCARE)

But she woke up at 4:30 to tell me that it was indeed true, that K-Rock had been declared the sponsor of the new downtown arena. She and my politically savvy daughter stayed up ridiculously late to watch city council make the declaration live on channel 13. Both of them found the news disturbing, off-putting, even creepy. My daughter's instant concern was that NONE of the groups she'd go to see would ever come to Kingston now. We eventually calmed her down.

When I got to work, it was obviously even worse. Our morning staff were reeling over the news, and the notion that we had to deliver it in some way that a) informed our listeners, yet b) didn't give a competitor any publicity. Second-guessing, speculation and rage dominated our off-air activities. We put our GM Greg Hinton on the air to give the company line, and got our fair share of indignant emails from our audience, slamming city council, the mayor, the arena management group and just about anyone else involved for making such a stupid decision.

As for me (glad you asked), well, it was a challenge. First off, a lot of my friends know that my easy-going, sometimes stoic demeanor is a total fabrication. My temper is so quick that it catches me off guard sometimes. But, I work hard at "not letting things get to me." When I do my "who gives a crap" schtick, it's usually in an attempt to hide my feelings of "who can I strangle?"

So, at work I was the most peaceful, objective, even thoughtful person for most of the morning. I slipped a couple of times on the air, but it was barely noticable. Then I eventually went home, and thought about the whole thing some more.

I watched John Wright on the CKWS 6 o'clock news. He said that this would be "good for the city, and good for everyone" which I guess means: "screw all the other media, I got the rights, too bad for you." Mayor Rosen told us it was time to "move forward" though I'm sure what he wanted to say was "where were the rest of you cheap bastards when your buddy Johnny here came to us with some real hard cash?"

And that's when I started to see things as they truly are.

Is having to deal with the major sports and entertainment venue being branded with our direct competitor's name for ten years going to be challenging? Yes.

Did city council make a bad decision? Yes, but they had guns held to their heads, and would have been just as wrong if they'd turned it down too. These people made the best choice humanly possible under very very diffcult circumstances.

Does anyone care about the impact of other media pulling some of their support for events at the new arena? Probably. But I'm not 100% convinced that is ever going to happen.

Our radio business is not easy to understand from the outside. We're constantly defending our brands, while changing our product to attract more listeners, more clients and more money. We live and die by ratings, which are driven by how successfully we get our name recalled by as many people in the listening area as possible. It doesn't necessarily mean they listen to us, just that they remember us. By which we can prove ourselves an efficient and economical vehicle to get our clients' products and services recalled by these people. Which means we have a steady revenue stream to afford us the resources to do it all over again.

Spending huge piles of money is rare in this biz. It's even rarer in a market this size.

The fact that a national arena management firm, a very thoughtful and skeptical city council and a non-network owner all came together to create a radio sponsorship on a 42 million dollar project, means our business is still for real.

No internet station...no TV network...no satellite "radio" provider has of yet been named as sponsor on a valid entertainment venue.

Thanks to John Wright and whatever means he had to use to get this to happen, everyone in our business feels just a little bit more valid today.

Get Me Outta Here!

Some time after Christmas it started. The first thing I noticed was how difficult it was to get going after napping (when you get up at 3:30am, napping is normal...try it). Then workouts were getting "missed." Cooking started to become a chore, and the very thought of leaving the house after coming home each afternoon was, well, appalling.

All that should have added up to "something's wrong" but I still didn't get it. It wasn't until I found myself one Friday night on the couch, watching TV (no not a show, just something on the tube) that I realised what was going on. I was getting depressed!

For weeks the newspapers and TV have been filled with stories about SAD. When the daylight wanes, and the fun of Christmas is long past, our bodies naturally react by going into a kind of light hybernation. I can't remember it ever getting to me before now, but then again, I've always been either too busy with work, or too lazy to work out, so there was no opportunity to actually sit motionless and feel totally bummed.

That awful Friday night, I ripped myself off the couch, put on my stuff, and did a 45 minute spin on my bike. It wasn't great. I was still stuck in the basement, sweating like crazy, and going nowhere, but at least I was getting out some agression.

Last week it started getting to me again. The crazy snowstorms and flash freezes didn't help, as they gave me just another reason to put off going to the pool, riding my bike or going for a run.

So I did something about it.

My son and I piled a couple of shovels in the car, and headed for my sister's place. We spent over an hour and a half digging out an enormous pile of snow from her drive. It was hard. It was cold. It was wet. In fact it was potentially the least pleasant thing either of us could think of doing at that time.

It was brilliant!

Three important pieces of my life came together: vigourous exercise; a team-oriented task to accomplish and being outdoors! By the time we were done, both of us had pulled outselves out of the SAD doldrums, and were ready to sleep like dogs.

I applied my new-found psychological knowledge the next day by going for a run in the snow with a good friend who was also feeling seasonally down and out. The holy trinity of movement, accomplishment and outdoors came together, creating...two bummed out listless individuals.

Stupid psycho-crap.

I'll try again tomorrow, but right now I just need a nap.