Toronto Appreciation Nite

Toronto Appreciation Nite - Dan Speerin, Vince Kesavamoorthy, Meagan Dingman

Welcome to the first sports podcast, that might end up a condo! It's a weekly look at Toronto's teams, scenes and memes. We'll try and forecast the future, play in the past, and remind you, why you used to like the internet. Toronto Appreciation Nite is like 2010's twitter before Elon made it his yacht, it's your fave reddit thread but with women, it's like late night cable access television, when you weren't that mad at losing the remote. So pull up a chair with Dan Speerin, Vince Kesavamoorthy and Meagan Dingman every week, to celebrate the chaos, creativity, and the cringe that only Toronto can bring. If you like us, spread the news, and help us create a new Toronto neighbourhood, online!

Episodes

  1. Berube Future, Darko Decision, Tempo Draft, PWHL Playoffs And Blue Jays Zen

    6D AGO

    Berube Future, Darko Decision, Tempo Draft, PWHL Playoffs And Blue Jays Zen

    This week on Toronto Appreciation Nite, Dan uncovers the surprisingly weird and entrepreneurial origin story of BJ Birdie. A mascot born out of creativity, and a little bit of 70s/80s "sure why not?" Then it’s a loaded edition of Over/Under Appreciated: Is Scottie Barnes getting enough love in the DPOY conversation, or are we watching a quiet robbery?Would you trust a media company to own your favorite team… or is that the fastest way to ruin sports journalism? We also roll out a full Coaches Report Card: How much blame does Craig Berube deserve for the Leafs’ season?How soon does Troy Ryan need to get the Sceptres a championship?And is Darko Rajaković actually being judged fairly, or just stuck in a rebuild he can’t control?Plus: The strange petition over this Blue Jays walk-up songs (yes, really.)Will thei ripple effects of giving superstars even more time in baseball... yes, Shohei Ohtani we are talking about you. And finally a debate: do we want journalists covering sports… or just fans with microphones? Next, we break down the early momentum behind Toronto Tempo and how the expansion draft, worked out better than we thought. And we check in on the playoff outlook for the Toronto Sceptres. In our appreciation parade, Meg shouts out yelling at Umpires, Vince gives props to the OG's of the WNBA, and Dan talks the good vibes of organic draft moments, when it wasn't a televised spectacle. All that and random CN Tower secrets from our past on this week's Toronto Appreciation Nite

    1h 14m
  2. Is AI about to Change the Leafs, Raptors and TFC forever?

    APR 4

    Is AI about to Change the Leafs, Raptors and TFC forever?

    It's the only sports podcast that could end up a condo! This week on the show we've got Tempo talk, MLSE panic, Jays updates and a debate over baseball's ABS. What if we told you the Toronto Maple Leafs won a Stanley Cup… thanks to a game that technically never happened? This week, Dan takes us back to a 1951 playoff game that vanished because of an old-school religious law while inspiring one of the most famous Canadian songs in pop music history. Overtime hits, the clock nears midnight, and just like that, the game is wiped from existence. No game result. No winner. Just a loophole big enough to change Stanley Cup history. From wartime curfews to the bizarre power of “Toronto the Good”, this is a story where hockey collides with morality laws, and we somehow learn that wrestling got more respect than the Leafs in the 50s.  Up next, we tell you, what we think is over appreciated/under appreciated this week. Including: Are the Toronto Blue Jays actually better than we think after Week One and why is Dan such a buzzkill?Is the ABS just trying to help out gambling? One of us believes umpires should be full stop replaced with robots - should they be? Why Can’t Rogers just call it SkyDome?Remember Diamond? Domer? And the BJ Birdie? Then we take a deeper look at... Little, Hoffman and Dan’s instagram threads trolls. Why are fans booing their fave team, but insisting they’re not booing their fave team? Do we have a toxic fan issue? Vince gives us a look at the Tempo's next month as Dan studies up, to be a WNBA fan. Keith Pelley completely faceplanted his latest press conference, and Meagan has lost all the hope, she never had. Vince is angry for the Raps and TFC, Dan thinks everyone missed the real story, that the retooling is really going to be a rebuild fuelled by AI and data. We get into the mess that is CEO clueness-ness, empty buzzwords and what it all means for our teams. And we wrap up the week, with our Appreciation Parade: Vince is happy Masai’s back, Meagan wants to join Middle Earth’s hockey team, and how Dan learned, baseball can still connect strangers. It’s another week of Toronto’s Teams, memes and past scenes! Pull up a chair and join Dan Speerin, Meagan Dingman and Vince Kesavamoorthy for our weekly Toronto Appreciation Nite!

    1h 17m
  3. Spider Dreams and Women's Teams

    MAR 22

    Spider Dreams and Women's Teams

    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.

    54 min
  4. MAR 14 ·  BONUS

    A New Kind of Sports Show? - A Taste of TorontoAN

    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.

    1h 3m

About

Welcome to the first sports podcast, that might end up a condo! It's a weekly look at Toronto's teams, scenes and memes. We'll try and forecast the future, play in the past, and remind you, why you used to like the internet. Toronto Appreciation Nite is like 2010's twitter before Elon made it his yacht, it's your fave reddit thread but with women, it's like late night cable access television, when you weren't that mad at losing the remote. So pull up a chair with Dan Speerin, Vince Kesavamoorthy and Meagan Dingman every week, to celebrate the chaos, creativity, and the cringe that only Toronto can bring. If you like us, spread the news, and help us create a new Toronto neighbourhood, online!