Toronto Appreciation Nite

It's our first Blue Jays opening weekend episode hang, where we celebrate and appreciate 50 years of the Toronto Blue Jays! We've got childhood stories of sleeping on the World Series, sitting awkwardly with Premiers in the 200 level, and a story from 1977 that involves a tarp, rain and the weirdest win, in Blue Jays history.

Plus, Meagan hit up opening night, and reports back on everything from how great ABS works, new nostalgia, collectable cups, and other tales from the snack bar scene.

Then it's our Blue Jays themed Over/Under Appreciated

• Okamoto's debut
• Jeff Hoffman as a closer
• Ernie Clement meal plans
• Barbie Night
• The 2020's Rogers Centre
• Best Seat Location?
• The first ever robo-ump call at Rogers Centre!
  
  After our 7th inning stretch, we'll go back to the future - as Meagan, Dan and Vince look back at 50 years of Blue Jays and give their ultimate eras rep. From the OG Ex years, to the 80's rise, the World Series parade days, the WhyDome? era, all the way to the return of the playoffs. Do you agree with our picks? Who do you remember the most from the first 50 years?
  
  And finally in our Appreciation Parade, Dan demands birthday love, we love the dunking of Sid's terrible banner take, and Meagan loves a good seat mixup.
  
  Calling all Jays fans, our season begins now!

This week on Toronto Appreciation Nite, Dan digs up the bizarre story of the “Walking Man Contest". It's a Toronto tale of a CHUM promo so cursed, it went from hipster hype to historic downtown nightmare.

Then it's time for Over Appreciated/Under Appreciated:

• Are we really doing the “bring Kawhi back to the Raptors” thing again, or is our mass nostalgia hitting delusional levels? Dan & Vince disagree.
  
• Public grocery stores in Toronto: Think LCBO but make it food? Smart policy or bureaucratic fever dream?
  
• Tipping at fast food counters: Do Canadians feel emotionally blackmailed by an iPad?
  
• The Leafs and Raptors were catching heat for not standing up for their own. So. is it a lack of toughness or an outdated idea of what sports should be?
  
  AI announcing is here. Val Kilmer is back (sort of), but a sportscaster beat him to the zombie era of revival. Are we about to hear ghost voices calling games forever?

And we finish it all off, with our Appreciation Parade:

Vince delivers a birthday message, Meagan leans into the absolute whimsy of minor league weirdness, and Dan celebrates a rare Toronto trend: actually celebrating our own history for once.

Pull up a chair and join Dan Speerin, Vince Kesavamoorthy and Meagan Dingman, for our weekly group chat about Toronto's memes, teams and past scenes.

This week on Toronto Appreciation Nite, Meagan, Dan and Vince unravel a legendary Toronto “spider dream” saga, a story so unbelievable it survived 1990 tabloids, the entire internet listicle era, and eventually led to a minor-league stunt involving a very real tarantula in 2017.

On this week’s Over-Appreciated/Under-Appreciated, we get into Toronto’s aggressively polite ferry-naming contest, the Leafs’ annual emotional roller coaster of failure, and whether anyone at city hall has checked if the Rogers Centre roof actually opens in winter. Spoiler alert: not so much.

Then in Seeker’s Corner, we zoom out to a much bigger story: the explosion of women’s sports in Canada. It's a booming market that’s racing toward half a billion dollars in Canada. We get excited as it looks like we will ACTUALLY GET the 2026 Tempo season. We deep dive the PWHL’s momentum, and why this moment feels different from every “this time it’s real” moment before it. As expansion looms, we talk where should they go next and explain why it’s possibly a U.S. city that might hold the key to growth. And, forgive our politeness, but is it the Canadian thing to do, to hope for another team to make the playoffs, so the game can grow? 

Finally, for our Appreciation Parade, we hand out praise for charity bra tosses, the paralympics making your kids fall in love with hockey, and why if you’re not fond of AI slop, this one simple fix, can help fight it.
 

This week’s episode tip: If you’ve ever needed an excuse to miss work, we highly recommend you try “caterpillar nightmare”. 

Welcome to Toronto Appreciation Nite.

Toronto once lost the Olympics, because of a plane crash and naturally... a missing form?

So, yeah. We start there.

This week on Toronto Appreciation Nite, we dig into one of the most unbelievable “only in Toronto” stories ever, plus Mel Lastman’s all-time soundbite fail, that even made Jon Stewart's radar back in the day.

Our weekly, Over-Appreciated / Under-Appreciated is where we put the city on notice.

This week's topic, Mitch Marner. Daylight savings time. The never-ending Line 5 saga. The 2026 Raptors. “Shovel ready” promises. World Cup planning insanity, and whether John Tory disappearing from the mayor's race, is actually a bigger deal than people realize.

But underneath all of it is a bigger question, this week:

Why have we accepted USA brainrot as a compass for Toronto? Dan explains how he believes we failed the Blue Jays, the city and each other, because we've gone full "80's USA" and forgotten what's important. Elbows up? Sure, but here's the first step.

Pull up a chair to a weekly chat table about Toronto's scenes, memes and teams. It's a Toronto morning show but at midnight. Join Meagan, Dan and Vince for the beginning of our weekly weekend show: Toronto Appreciation Nite.

Did Trump and Auston Matthews ruin our launch?

If you have ever quietly muttered "SPORTS, why do you make it so hard to like you?" then we have a show for you.

We spent the past month and half getting ready to launch a program that is a celebration of our city, called Toronto Appreciation Nite!

It's a creative digital town square, that celebrates teams, memes and past scenes. A weekly friend hang, with a seat at the table open for you... and then American politics entered the chat.

Learn about our hosts Dan Speerin, Vince Kesavamoorthy and Meagan Dingman, and their long history of existing as the friendliest outsiders in the Toronto media bubble. From being ghosted by Rob Ford to being the left ones, left out on right wing radio, you'll get a better and more introspective look on the hurdles of just trying to be a fan, when you aren't the chosen profile.

Instead of dropping the usual trailer, we gave you our group chat. Listen as we vent about fandom, Canadian media, and why the future of sports media, depends on new voices, and more perspectives.

On this special episode zero:

How can so many talking heads in Canadian media, look the other way, with Team USA's MAGA field trip?

How do you feel about a TSN panel mocking the controversy?

Why women and bipoc folks, find hockey and sports fandom in Canada, a less than friendly place.

Can love for a con man, stay cancon? Will Canadian fans boo their captains?

Can Toronto Maple Leafs captain Auston Matthews really believe he didn't do something political?

Dave Bidini was right, this was cowardly - but where was this opinion on tv or YouTube, in the days following the event?

Can a sports show cater to a different audience? Or is sports media doomed to be dominated by guys who like to call each other O-Dog?

And deeper dives.

Before we launch the show, please accept our invitation to join a new kind of sports show.