95.7 ‘The Game’ names Ric Bucher as Brandon Tierney’s next co-host

Bay Area Sports Guy August 29, 2012

The final piece of 95.7 FM The Game’s new lineup was announced today, in the form of a full-time partnership between Brandon Tierney and ESPN’s Ric Bucher for The Game’s afternoon show, “The Drive.” The new programming schedule will debut next week.

Tierney talked this afternoon about the outstanding qualifications of several other co-hosting candidates, including Lincoln Kennedy, Gary Payton, Jon Ritchie and Rod Woodson — all former players. Although Tierney’s former co-host, Eric Davis, played for the 49ers and Panthers, Bucher’s a media guy through and through.

Bucher’s been a part of ESPN’s NBA coverage for years, but that was after covering the Golden State Warriors beat at the San Jose Mercury News. Along with Matt Steinmetz’s promotion from “Insider” to full-time host from 10-noon, The Game’s lineup is much more NBA-centric than it was a couple weeks ago.

Does this mean the Warriors will follow Steinmetz and Bucher, leaving KNBR behind in the process?

I’m still not totally buying it. There’s certainly a chance the Warriors could move to The Game, and they’re probably tempted by the idea of a station propping up the Warriors as their No. 1 programming priority.

HOWEVER, 95.7 still has some issues to iron out in terms of signal strength. Plus, even though KNBR has shuffled several Warriors games off to 1050 over the years, quite a few have been carried on 680 — a far better lead-in than The Game could provide, at least for the foreseeable future. Changing flagship stations would mean the Warriors would go from serving as a bit player to anchoring the daily lineup.

In a way, if the Warriors moved to The Game it’d almost be like when Conan O’Brien moved from NBC to TBS. Well, except without Jay Leno retiring from KNBR, then coming back to KNBR and taking back the timeslot he had supposedly given to the Warriors. OK, maybe it’s not a perfect comparison, but you get the idea.

I’m sure if you asked programming director Jason Barrett, he’d tell you Bucher was his first choice to work with Tierney regardless of whether or not they get the Warriors. Bucher’s a national guy, he’s a frequent guest on Bill Simmons’ podcast, and he makes provocative statements about the NBA. (Plus, he used to work with KNBR … more on that shortly.)

Whether or not Bucher can handle other sports remains to be seen. Tierney mentioned how Bucher used to cover the San Francisco Giants back in the day, and one would imagine Bucher would have to at least carry a modicum of NFL and MLB knowledge to get the job.

In a somewhat related (and uncomfortable) moment, Tierney mentioned to Mychael Urban (filling in this afternoon) during the Bucher announcement about how Urban will still be on during the weekends and how he really respects Urban’s “baseball mind.”

Over the past year or so, Bucher has served as a KNBR “Insider,” appearing as a guest on assorted shows. That arrangement is clearly no longer in effect, although we may get an increase in comments knocking Bucher by Gary Radnich (who over the years has made several references to Bucher previously declining to appear on KNBR without getting paid for his time).

About the Author

Otherwise known as Steve Berman (no, not the guy from the Eminem skits), BASG started Bay Area Sports Guy in January of 2008 with the help of his then-girlfriend (now wife). Since then he's covered college football for CSN Bay Area, gained media access to the Giants, Warriors and 49ers, and built Bay Area Sports Guy into the No. 1 independent Bay Area sports blog. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

50 comments

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Stan

Raddy is now going to host the Meyers gambler commercials every Friday. After years of saying he would never sink that low,and observed many,many,time's that if Meyers really knows about who would win,-why would he ever need to sell the info? Just keep it all for himself. See kids..that's why you can never corner somebody who came to know "Look out for no.1" many years ago. He was doing the old "Its all a joke" now. Your never going to get somebody THAT comfortable with being a shill,feel like he's now reaching into others pocket. Because,in his skin, he's comfortable with that. What next Gare, dealing dope?

James Blank

95.7 The Game has so far out-performed KNBR that the only time I turn on KNBR these days is for the Giants games. The new 95.7 lineup is better from top to bottom than KNBR. Tolebert isn't bad but still lacks polish. He would be good as one of the Rise Guys but by himself, no.

Fitz's Future Unemployment Check

You should just use your real name, Jason.

Jeff

And yet, Radnich is STILL on KNBR....

erick

Bucher is excellent. My guess is that, intentionally or not, Bucher will eventually replace Tierney who is terrible. Not bad - Terrible. Tierney is just too self-righteous, and consistently makes the dumbest comments I have ever heard on radio by a major sports program.

Erick - that's the Tierney shtick. When you don't have anything new or any real insight, you say something completely dumb and off the wall on purpose just to rile the audience and "move the needle". This worked great 20 years ago, but the audience is much more educated about media today and can see through the BS. Look at things that have happened with other radio hosts, like Imus for example. You hardly ever hear about the guy and then he says "nappy headed hoes" and boom, he's getting press all over. Tierney doesn't care that he's wrong. As long as 30 people text in or 40 people post on the page pointing out how he's wrong, he can use the response to defend his job. When Tierney says something stupid and there is no response, that's when things will change in a heartbeat. No one texts in to agree... it's only when it's clearly wrong that will move people to be vocal and that's what he counts on. It's pretty transparent. I just cannot listen to the guy and I'm proud to say I've been Tierney free since the end of April. Once more and more people see through his shtick, he'll be shown the door.

Otis Byrd III

I'm not sure if Bucher will replace Tierney, even though I wouldn't mind that. LOL. Townsend should've replaced Tierney on The Drive, but as has been mentioned earlier, Townsend is on 95.7 quite a bit with his A's duties and being the A's insider. He's the busiest guy on that station, but they should've moved him too The Drive timeslot. I agree with you about Tierney though. The more you listen to him, he is terrible. When I first heard the Tierney and Davis show last year during football season, I'll admit, I liked it, but that might've been more because him and Eric Davis had good chemistry, and also it was a good alternative to The Razor and Mr. T at the time. One time I thought Tierney was a lot like Damon Bruce, even though I thought Damon was better. Now I think and feel that Damon is WAY better than Tierney. As I read more negative commentary on Tierney on here and on the Facebook page on 95.7, and the more I listened to Tierney, I agreed with those negative comments. Tierney really isn't that good, at least not for this market as others have mentioned. Yes, Tierney does have good passion and he's not afraid to ask the tough questions, especially to the A's FO, when he asked and somewhat grilled Beane on why the A's didn't trade for Hanley Ramirez when they were rumored to trade for him. He also grilled Lew Wolff on the A's wanting to move to San Jose. But yes, I'll give him credit for asking the tough questions or the questions that fans want to hear, when Tierney has someone from the FO of one of the Bay Area teams on, but you're right, Tierney does say a lot of dumb things on the air. I'm sure he lost a lot of people, especially A's fans last month or earlier this month, when he said that the A's should look into signing Johnny Damon and Derek Lowe. LOL. The Yankees ended up signing Lowe, but both of those players are past their prime. Johnny Damon is done. The A's weren't going to sign both of them, let alone either one of them. A lot of Tierney's personality might be because of his NY sensibilities, but he does say a lot of dumb things. He did say a couple of weeks ago that he's a contrarian, so that really explains a lot of his schtick on his show. He says things to get a reaction out of people. Tierney could be good, but he relies too much on his schtick, which makes him not that good. Maybe it will change since he's still new to the Bay Area and talking Bay Area sports, but I'm not sure if he will change. But yeah, Townsend should've been moved to The Drive timeslot..... I actually thought Roxy Bernstein and Mychael Urban didn't do a bad job on The Drive, filling in for Tierney today. Yes, a lot of people on here don't like Mychael Urban, but he was good with Roxy Bernstein today.

Otis Byrd III

*95.7's Facebook page

formerKNBRemployee

But who will KNBR book as a guest on every show in the same day now?

Otis Byrd III

haha. Yeah, that's a good question....I thought Rusty Simmons until it was brought up that Spears comes on a lot too, which I forgot about, but yeah, I guess Spears and Simmons will be the NBA guys that KNBR has on a lot, now that Bucher will be on 95.7. At least Warriors GM Bob Myers comes on quite a bit on KNBR too, and a lot of times he calls in to the Gary and Larry show, so KNBR can always have him on to talk Warriors of course, as well as the rest of the NBA, since he was an agent, and can speak from a players point of view on a lot of things, since he represented some of the players who are in the NBA today.

Stan

Yep,Radnich had him on all the time and always made sure Ric acknowledged that Raddy is God.

Dane C

I only heard a little of the Bucher/Tierney preview, Tierney just is a real tough listen. Bucher, being a national guy is a solid choice. Even the I dislike the SF crap, I will still move to Tolbert frequently as a little Tierney goes a long way. It's funny DB3, Teirney is always talks down on Bayliss - yet does come off just like him in a way. His whole schtick just doesn't play here.

DB3

I can't wait to hear all the ways in which Bucher puts Tierney in his place. B.T. comes from the "Skip Bayless School of Sports" and blows everything out of proportion. Bucher is pretty level headed (so was Eric Davis) and will be constantly knocking Tierney down a notch or two.

devnull

Ah, I see now -- *that*'s why I've never liked listening to Tierney: his Skip Bayless upbringing.

devnull

I'm not very familiar with this Bucher fellow, but if 95.7 was going for contrasting hairstyles with Tierney, job well done.

TommyJ

Wanted Bucher or Kennedy and am very happy. Outside of not getting rid of Lund (at least he's on one less hour and has Papa permanently, the only co-host I can stomach him with), these are all positive moves. Tierney right or wrong is their big gun and they want to try to make it work. Bucher wont take his "Noo Yawk" crap and has called BS on him which I like. Steinmetz/Townsend should be good as they are both agitated personalities. The 7:00 pm thing is no big to me because that's when married people like myself actually have to pay attention to the Mrs sometimes and/or watch sporting events. 95.7 has two nights of NFL weekly plus the A's on night from April-Sept so why the big fuss over 7-10 content? You can listen to Artie Lange butcher sports and the english language on 1050 (or not!)

If Tierney is the "big gun" for the Game, someone made a massive error along the way. For every 1 positive Tierney, I see 10 negative ones on their FB page. Look at all the comments on the Radio Wars posts here at BASG. Pretty much every comment about Tierney is about how bad he is. And I find it comical that every one of those posts get a couple thumbs down, yet there are no comments that are pro Tierney. We've all seen the laundry list of Tierney's flaws... I'm dying to see someone convince us of why he would ever be worth listening to.

Danny

I'm happy Bucher is the new co-host of the Drive, although I'm kind of surprised he was able to be the full time co-host since he's probably a busy guy with all his ESPN duties. But I'm glad, because he's entertaining, and him and Tierney had good chemistry when Bucher filled in. As for the Warriors moving their flagship station to the Game goes, I don't think it's a done deal, but it could happen for a few reasons. (1) KNBR always moves the Warriors to 1050 when they have an afternoon east coast game. (2) KNBR only has a Warriors postgame show on weeknights and never during the weekends. (3) A lot of ppl like to bring headphone radios to games to listen to the radio broadcast, and AM never comes in in arenas, but FM does. Would this also mean that 95.7 would have to have a Warriors insider show like KNBR does now?

So much for getting the W's.... KNBR has signed a four-year contract extension to continue as the flagship radio station of the Golden State Warriors. Dubs games have aired on The Sports Leader since the 1976-77 season and will now continue to be heard on KNBR through the 2015-16 season!

Stan

And I left out that THEGAME is now so white,they even have hosts who call themselves "Whitey".

Fitz's Future Unemployment Check

Overall, I think these moves point to trying to lure the Warriors. Seems like a desperation move on the part of Jason Barrett, as his job might be on the line sooner than later if he can figure out how to make a dent in KNBR's market share. Overall their lineup is full of East Bay guys and numbskulls from out of market. Fail.

Steve

But the reason people hate KNBR is the overabundance of SF talk, wouldn't it make sense to have East Bay guys to draw in listeners?

Tru

Who on the Game is an "East Bay' guy? Papa does the Raiders, but he also works with the Giants. The Rise Guys are all Giant fans. Tierny and Rick aren't East Bay guys. Towney is from the South Bay. Rick Tittle is the only East Bay guy and frankly, they should have him on more.

Fitz's Future Unemployment Check

Dibley has lived in the East Bay forever, and regardless of rooting affiliation, he sure seems to prefer Raider and A's talk. Similar for the other two, not nearly as much though. Towny LOVES the A's, doesn't matter where he's actually from. I'm referring to rooting affiliation. Papa does Giants stuff, but he's best known for the Raiders by a long shot. Lund is useless, same goes for Tierny.

Tru

Kriedler is a Giants/Raider fan. I don't know about Whitey. Dibbley lives in Oakland, but has bagged on the A's and Raiders since the KNBR days. Towney does love the A's, but he also has done 49er, Giant, Raider shows. He's a San Diego guy at heart. Also, while Papa is known for the Raiders, he is pretty hostile to the A's as of late, preferring the Giants (probably has to do with his A's break up.) The point is, only Tittle is a full on "East Bay" guy. Pretty much all of the other hosts are a mismatch of allegiances. Now compare that to KNBR which is all SF all the time.

TSL

Clearly this is a good hire. Ric Bucher comes across very well over the radio. He is comfortable in front of the microphone. Now, maybe there is hope for The Game. Let's work on improving that signal strenght.

Ah, who gives a damn. As long as they still have a crappy signal, replay their content constantly, and continue to employ boring hosts like Lund and Tierney, this station will be pummeled by KNBR on a regular basis so big deal. Listeners have told them over and over what they want and they continue to be ignored so screw 'em.

Greg Papa's Aqua Net Bottle

If this doesn't expose the fact that "THE GAME" is getting the Warriors I dont know what does! This may even vault them past the 30th station station in the market! (Probably not, but one can dream!)

Stan

I didn't think it was possible to get any whiter then KNBR. This smells of "Desperate Program Manager"..only concern is base demographics..and why when you have that you have Tom T's chinaman,Kruegers Carribean rant and Radnich hate of Emerald Yee,Wendy Tokuda and Rick Quon.

Tru

I was partial to Kennedy, but Rick is a solid choice. His interview skills will have to be brushed up though, as his Beane interview questions were pretty amateurish. It will be interesting to see if he can talk NFL in a capable manner. Still, they could have chosen a marmot as a host and it would be better than KNBR.

sleepyfloyd

you alluted to things twice, is that like a cross between salluting and alluding? lol.

Don't forget Papa. Papa can talk hoops if needed.

Otis Byrd III

I think this is a great move! Tierney's new co-host should've been either Bucher or Kennedy as a lot of us and a lot of people on Facebook, alluted to. I'm happy that Bucher got the job. When he co-hosted with Tierney earlier this month, he wasn't that bad, and he actually had passable baseball knowledge, since they were talking a lot about the Giants and the A's. He will definitely be useful come basketball season though. LOL at Tierney's comments about Mychael Urban. I agree that must've been uncomfortable. At least Urban still has his Saturday baseball show in all this. The only thing that sucks about this, and I alluted to this before and BASG touched on this, and that is, Bucher probably won't be a guest on KNBR anymore, specifically Damon's show, Gary and Krueger's show as BASG mentioned, and the Morning Show. Damon had him on quite a bit when the NBA offseason started. You kind of feel bad for KNBR in general in this since Bucher will be yet another guest that they lose to 95.7. I guess they could always have Rusty Simmons on to talk hoops. Bucher gave you that national scale though as some have mentioned. Simmons can too and he's well versed in the national NBA scene, but Bucher could go more in depth about what's going on around the NBA, and tell us how people think of the Warriors nationally. But yeah, great move for 95.7, and a great addition to Tierney's show!.... Will Bucher still have his ESPN gig? I guess so.

I imagine that the smart money is on them giving Urban the 7-10 slot since they love to overuse him so much. We can only assume that if Urban has nothing but the Saturday show during the MLB season, that he absolutely flat lined in that 95.7 survey.

Blaster

I really hope you're wrong on that one AJ. You're probably right. But I really really hope you're wrong. Urban is almost as bad as the Guru.

Jeff

They still get national perspective from people like Marc Speers who goes on regularly. I think this will force KNBR to get Tom a fulltime cohost soon though even though I do not think this move the needle TOO much ratings wise

Otis Byrd III

I agree that this move will probably force KNBR to get Tom a permanent co-host too. Yeah, Byrnes or Ratto can work with Tolbert, but does KNBR seriously think that one of them are the answer to be Tom's permanent co-host? Yeah, Tom really could do that show by himself, but if they really want him to have a co-host, they might need someone stronger. I guess Damon would be good in this spot as others have mentioned, and I think Damon would be able to work with Tom since Tom seems like an easy guy to work with, but Damon is so much better by himself. He even said yesterday that if he had a co-host, his show wouldn't be as authentic or something like that, and he would be forced to do certain things that he doesn't do on his show basically. I'm guessing Damon probably doesn't want another Gary-Damon fiasco if he co-hosts with anyone, but I think he could work with Tom if they ever were to be paired up together, even though Damon is better doing a solo show. Krueger could be another good co-host to Tom, but I think Gary would probably fight to keep Krueger on his show, so Krueger being paired up with Tom probably won't happen anytime soon. I'm kind of surprised that KNBR hasn't found Tom a permanent co-host by now, since Ralph's been gone for like 4 months now, even though it feels and seems like Byrnes has been Tom's unofficial new co-host.

Otis Byrd III

Oh yeah, I forgot about Marc Spears. My bad. Thanks man!.... Yeah, he's pretty good and Damon and the other KNBR guys have him on quite a bit as well. Hopefully Spears doesn't go anywhere to where they would have to replace him too.

Jeff

Sorry for the double "though" in my comment-- where is the edit after posting button BASG? :)

MLB guys, NFL guys, NBA guys... as expected, this station will never acknowledge the NHL even with their sister station as the Sharks flagship. I fully expect Tolbert to wipe the floor with Tierney in the ratings without even trying. However, as BASG stated, it looks as if the Game is clearly working on trying to bring the W's over... which is just more time I will be tuned into a different station.

Steve

AJ, we get it you are a hockey fan. If you hate the station that much why do you consistently opine on it and bash their FB page?

Steve - Why do I bash the station? When they came on the air just over a year ago, there were a lot of claims made that they have failed to live up to. The mantra at the Game is "we cover all Bay Area teams". They don't and to continue to claim that is a lie. Excuse me for reminding them of that. Honestly, I opine about it and bash them in hopes that they will live up to their claims. I was excited when I heard that KNBR would finally have some competition. After hearing their claims, I thought it would be such a breath of fresh air to hear about other teams that don't get much press like the Sharks or Quakes or Sabercats, not to mention the college teams. A year later and they still don't cover any of those teams. And it's fun to remind them of that. I would never expect them to give the Quakes the same time they give the Giants as that would obviously be idiotic. However, I would rather hear 10 minutes about the Quakes during a 4 hour show rather than hearing an interview again that they just did 15 minutes earlier. Maybe if more people call them out on their claims and flaws, they will finally address them and this station will become a real competitor to KNBR. It's not as if I'm the only person on the BASG site or the 95.7 FB page that calls them out. Obviously, you can't please everyone all the time, but as a business, wouldn't you cater to the hardcore sports fan that will listen 5-6 hours a day rather than a few who tune in for 20-30 minutes? I'm sure the advertisers wish they would. On this site and their FB page, many people have told them of their biggest issues so it's not like they are not aware. I would happily tune in regularly, recommend the station to all my friends, and never complain again if they just fixed 5 things that are simple fixes that would vastly improve their product and potentially improve their ratings and competition with KNBR... 1) Drop all the silly team days. There's no need for "Raiders Monday" or "Giants Tuesday", etc... When Tolbert has Remenda on every Wednesday during the NHL season, it isn't "Sharks Wednesday" at KNBR. Just do the show. I also think show names like "the Wheelhouse" or "the Drive" are stupid too, but whatever. It's just like those nightclubs with theme nights like "interactive" or "plush" or whatever and they all just play the same music. When you're better than the other guy, you don't need shtick. 2) Drop all the dumb, gimmicky segments. Townsend has the double shot. Damon Bruce has the "nooner". That's all you need. The last time I listened to Lund's show, there was "daily dilema", "truth or trash", "5 stories", "good for ball", "overreaction/underreaction", "truth machine" etc... and those are off the top of my head. I'm sure there are probably at least 3 more I'm forgetting. Listen to his show one day from beginning to end and you will hear half the show wasted on gimmicky segments or promos for a different gimmicky segment. If you're going to do a segment, spread them out through out the week or just pick one and open your show with it everyday. Barrett needs to throw all the structured segments out the window and allow them to be more free form. 3) Take callers and actually engage them. Team1040 is great at this. The hosts will go back and forth and educate the callers who need it, call out the idiots, and many times get a POV they hadn't considered which can make for compelling radio and good debate. What does the Game do? They let the callers spit out a sentence or two and then cut them off. I remember hearing a caller say "I have 2 points that I'd like to hear your thoughts on...". They let the guy get his first point out and then cut him off. Why? 4) End the repetition. I have never heard a station repeat content so much in my life. I remember listening to Tierney interview Estes around 2:30. The guy literally played pieces of the interview 2 minutes after it was over. I went back to Damon Bruce. I tuned in again around 4 and he was playing the same damn interview again. The Game is great at posting interviews for download on their page so there is no need to ever replay one. Listen to any full length show that Tierney does and he will repeat the exact same things he did earlier in the day which brings me to my final point. 5) Fire Tierney. The guy has an annoying stutter. He constantly repeats content. He's a contrarian for the sake of sparking empty debate and can never defend his position when he does it. He interrupts co-hosts, talks over guests, and cuts off callers. This has nothing to do with his NY background. I have several friends from the east coast and none of them have the ego this guy does. On the rare occasions the guy is actually right, the puffs his chest and spends 20 minutes saying I told you so. When he's wrong, he sweeps it under the rug and acts like it never happened. You can't respect a guy like that. Simply put, the guy is boring and unlistenable and his ego will not allow him to adapt. Sorry to drone on, but I'm passionate about sports... and I also hate to see potential pissed away when the fix is so obvious. I think Barrett would do well to have a listener panel. His quarterly chat is a nice offering, but he side steps a lot of questions. I think he would be far better served if he brought in 20 random listeners for a round table panel. It would probably really open up his eyes more than a random survey.

Blaster

I agree 100% with EVERYTHING AJ just said. I, too, have called out the Game on their FB page. Bucher was a good addition. They got the show half right. I still won't listen as long as that one trick pony Tierney is on the air. He just gets under my skin. Townsend is wasted in his current slot. I enjoyed listening to him in the evening. I hope they decide to put Tittle in that 7PM slot. Jason Barrett... I know you read these blogs. CAN TIERNEY'S ASS NOW!

Otis Byrd III

I'm sorry man, but MLB, NBA, and NFL are the sports here in the Bay Area, that "move the needle" as they say. If Tierney was to have a hockey guy as his co-host, his ratings would go down the tubes. Who knows how bad his ratings are now. Yes, hockey is important here because of the Sharks success and the high expectations that Sharks fans have for them, but a lot of people don't really pay attention to hockey until around playoff time anyway. Yes, you can say that about basketball too, but a lot of people pay attention to hoops around Christmas time or after the Super Bowl when the NBA playoff races really start to heat up and the games mean more. For hockey, people pay attention throughout the season, but it seems like it has that buzz come playoff time....Hockey possibly having another lockout doesn't help their cause either in all this. As we all know, everyone loves the Warriors here in the Bay Area, and people are going to want to start talking Warriors around October when training camp starts. Bringing in Bucher was a smart move from that standpoint. I mean, yeah, it would've been good if they would've considered having a hockey guy on with Tierney, but hockey just doesn't move the needle here in the Bay Area like baseball, basketball, and football does. As far as Tolbert wiping the floor with Tierney, that probably could happen, but with Bucher as Tierney's new co-host, that can at least provide some competition to Tolbert and Byrnes or Tolbert and Ratto. Tolbert is better than Tierney by himself though, if you put up Tolbert against Tierney, and have them battle it out in a solo show.

Fitz's Future Unemployment Check

Pretty much agree. I don't expect them to get NHL guys, but at least get someone who can talk intelligently on the subject. Towny is the only one in the regular lineup who can do so and now with a two hour show in the morning he's probably gonna get a lot less chances to talk puck. KNBR for how crappy it is, and for how Giants centric it is, still manages to have more meaningful puck talk than 95.7.

Otis Byrd III

You're right that KNBR does talk more hockey than 95.7 does. They always have Drew Ramenda, Randy Hahn, or even Hentican (sp?) on sometimes, throughout the NHL season.

OBIII - I didn't mean a hockey only guy. I mean I would have preferred adding someone who at least knows the game and can provide intelligent contributions during the season. I would have preferred someone like Townsend or Tittle who clearly love more than just NFL, MLB, and NBA. Tierney has clearly proven that he's an NFL and MLB only guy so it's not shocking seeing him paired with a NBA guy. But for a station that claims to cover all the bay area teams, they sure do the same crap over and over while ignoring half of those teams. We all know hockey doesn't move the needle like NFL, MLB, and, to a lesser extent, the NBA. But I think it's also a case of "we don't talk Sharks because people don't call in for it" and the reason people don't call in for it is because they don't talk it. When the Sharks had a post game call-in show when they were on KARA, they always had a full board of callers. The fact is that the Sharks sell out every game. You would think a local sports station would show a little effort to cater to a group so loyal.