A Coffee with Mark Connolly, Retired CBC Radio & Morning Show Host

In this special episode, we sit down with the one and only Mark Connolly, the beloved, now-retired host of CBC Radio and the Morning Show.

Mark shares his deeply personal, Edmonton-based story, beginning with his family's immigration from Ireland and his first exposure to the world of broadcasting—cleaning the CBC building for his father’s janitorial business.

Hear about the unexpected twists and turns that led him through his first radio gig in Fort McMurray, a romantic encounter in a community production of Grease (where he met his wife!), and various stops in Red Deer and Edmonton before landing at CBC.

The heart of Mark's story lies in his incredible sports reporting career: from his breakthrough covering the 1995 Canada Games to reporting on 12 consecutive Olympic Games! He recounts thrilling moments, including the 1998 Bobsleigh Gold tie in Japan, before his memorable move to hosting the CBC Morning Show in 2013.

Tune in for an inspiring journey through local radio, Olympic history, and what it takes to build an unforgettable career in Canadian broadcasting.

Let us know your thoughts in the comments and leave us a review!

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Transcript

0:01

Hi, I'm Mark Connolly and you're listening to Coffee In The Park with Jennifer and Cam. Good morning, Jennifer. Good morning, Cam. It's another edition of Coffee In The Park with Jennifer and Cam. Did you know that it's one month until Christmas? Yeah, I don't want to know that, but yeah. Have you done your Christmas shopping? Well, I've started. Really? Already? Oh, of course. Oh, well, that's great. Have you? No, the 24th is always a good day to begin Christmas shopping. You are the 24th shopper. Exactly, I am. Shoppers, by the way, Shoppers, just so people know, Shoppers Drug Mart is open till midnight on the 24th. You know what they are for people like you. I know, for people like me. And I've been to Shoppers and you can get some good things there. Maybe not quite the stuff. Anyway, if you're a late shopper, that's the place to go. Great stocking stuffers there. Hey, welcome everybody to another edition of our podcast. We are coming to you live from the Wall Coffee Roasters in the heart of beautiful downtown Acheson. That's right. So if you hear some noises in the background, maybe some coffee machines whirring or people, no, nobody's yelling, people talking. There's no kids today. Usually say kids screaming. but there's no kids today. Yeah, so that's where we are. You'll want to come to the Wall and check out their. Yes, you will. New holiday drinks. New holiday drinks. Do you remember them? Eggnog? Eggnog Latte. They beat you Starbucks because Starbucks ain't coming out till the 2nd of December with eggnog. Eggnog Latte, Peppermint Mocha, Peppermint Mocha and a Cranberry Espresso Tonic. Wow. Yeah. At a coffee shop, a cranberry espresso. Apparently, I have not tried that one yet. Well, that's pretty well. Yeah, we've got to try that. That sounds pretty cool. Yeah. Anyway, so yeah, that's where we're coming from. And we also want to thank our sponsors. We want to thank our friends over at Wing Snob. Wing Snob. Best wings in the city. If you've never had a Wing Snob wing, you got to have. Hey, I said that pretty good. No, actually, I'm quite proud of myself. Wing Snob wing. Hey, that's really awesome. But if you haven't had a Wing Snob wing, head to Wing Snob. Check them out because they are fresh, never frozen. They have 16 flavors, four different rubs. Four rubs. They have the most amazing garlic parmesan fries. Their cornbread is to die for. And so if you don't know what you're having for dinner tonight, you got to check out Wing Snob. 10 locations in the city of Edmonton. Just opened one in Calgary. They did. Yeah. You don't have to drive to Calgary if you're in Edmonton. But hey, amazing place to go for wings. Absolutely. Check them out at www.wingsnob.ca. And they have their Wing Snob Oilers Game Special. On game nights only. Yeah. Is tonight a game? No, it was last night. So yeah, tonight's a day of mourning. And so anyway, yeah. So check out Wing Snob. They're amazing. Love their product. Love that they're a sponsor on Coffee In The Park. And we also want to thank our friends over at Mprint Sign & Print Solutions right here in Acheson, Cam. They are the preferred printer of Coffee In The Park with Jennifer and Cam. And they are amazing printers. Anything from business cards all the way up to, they will wrap vehicles. Yeah, if you want your motor home wrapped, they'll do it. They'll do it. Exactly. And we say this on a lot of the podcasts. They even wrapped a helicopter. They did. I've never seen that helicopter. I wish they'd show it to us. It's not their helicopter, I think. Jan and Don don't own a helicopter. No. I'd love it if Jan showed up in a helicopter. That'd be just the best. But anyway, Mprint, amazing people, whatever scope of work you have that you need printed. They can do it. They're here in Acheson, but they'll do anything, anywhere. That's right. So check them out at www.mprint.ca. Right on. So yeah, check those guys out. So thankful for our sponsors. They're amazing people. But I think now it's time to get right into it. And I'm excited about our guest today because he's like a pro. He's a pro at this. Well, he's not only a pro, Cam. I will call him another Edmonton legend. True enough. Right? And we've had some Edmonton legends. We have. Barrie Stafford, you know, the list goes on. I know. I just can't remember them. But no, we had Daryl McIntyre. We had the Weather Guy. Josh Classen and we had Gene Principe. Gene Principe. So we have Edmonton legends. I love it. So wherever you're listening to us in the world, and you know, you go, who are these people? Come to Edmonton. You'll meet them. You'll see them. It'll be wonderful. But this voice, Cam, and we'll get into it, is not only an Edmonton legend, but for anybody that has watched the Olympics on CBC, will recognize this voice. So let's get into it. Our guest today is none other than Mark Connolly. So welcome, Mark. Welcome, Mark. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Good to have you. This is so exciting. I love when we have professional broadcasters. Because I just sit there in awe as I look at them and amaze that they're just, the golden voice. Well, you guys are professional podcasters, so it's my pleasure to meet you. Well, thank you for calling us that. Thank you for calling us that. That's the goal, I think. But anyway, it's so good to have you. It's really awesome to have you. So let's go into it. Let's get into it like we do with all of our guests. Mark, tell us a little bit about your history. Where were you born? Where did you grow up? I was born in Edmonton. I grew up in Gold Bar to start. Gold Bar? Okay. My parents were immigrants from Ireland. My mom was actually born in Liverpool, but my grandfather on her side was also Irish. So she spent a lot of time in Ireland. That's where my parents met. My two older brothers were born in Ireland, and then they immigrated here in 1957, and I was born in 1960. When they immigrated here, my father came out first for six months. My mother was in Liverpool with her parents and my two older brothers waiting. Did he come right to Edmonton? He actually came to Nanaimo because he came out. So my dad's name was Patrick Michael Connolly, but everybody called him Mike. And he came with two other guys. Guess what their names were? Patrick. Really? Yeah, Pat Finnen and Patsy, oh, I'm going to forget his name, but the three Pats basically. The three Irishmen, that's kind of cool. They were in Nanaimo because apparently there was some kind of work there that they got, but it only lasted about three months. And then they had a friend who lived in Edmonton, and he said, yeah, come out to Edmonton, get some work here, moved to Edmonton, and brought out my mom and my brothers, and then yeah, I was born three years later. And despite the minus 30 winters, he was good with that. They hung in there. Well, they got work, so i guess that worked for them. So I guess that's it, right? And there was a good Irish community here that they could lean on. And so I grew up in Gold Bar. We lived in what we called the Low Rentals. Lot of immigrants there. There's still, those houses still, well, they're not houses, they're like townhomes, apartment styles, right across from the Otwell Curling Club. I remember when it was being built. And then when I was seven years old, my parents were able to afford a house, and they bought a house in Otwell. Oh, okay. So then I grew up in Otwell. Okay. And yeah, that's sort of where I grew up. What high school did you go to? Austin O'Brien. Austin O'Brien. A-O-B. A-O-B. Yeah, that's awesome. Irish, have you been to Ireland? I've been to Ireland many, many times. Yeah. And you keep the heritage going. Yeah. Well, my cousins, I'm on a WhatsApp with all my cousins. I've been to Ireland many times. And it's fun because, you know, I have so all our cousins were there except for one who is also in Canada. Yeah. So everybody is there and it's kind of fun to connect with everyone. My father was the youngest. He had seven sisters. Seven sisters? Yeah. He was the youngest. I said, wow. He was the youngest. Yeah. The only boy? The only boy, yeah. Can you imagine how that was? I mean, I just can't imagine. Oh, absolutely. If you're going to be born a boy with seven sisters, that's where you want to be, the youngest of seven sisters. That's pretty cool. Yeah. So I had three brothers. One of my brothers is since past, but I have one sister. My sister was the youngest, so. Wow. I love it. Wow. And so what did your parents do growing up? My father owned a janitor company. When he first came here, he worked at a number of different jobs back and forth. And then I think he landed a job with a friend as a custodian at the University of Alberta. Oh, okay. And he worked there for a short time. His friend worked there all his life after, but my dad decided he would start a janitor company, which he did with another partner named Marshall. So they call it Conmar Janitorial. Oh, okay. It didn't work out. The, you know, Marshall left the company later. My dad ran it. And so when I was growing up, that's what I remember. My dad running Conmar Janitorial, and my dad getting up very early in the morning at 5 a.m. to go inspect his buildings to see, make sure they've been cleaned properly. I thought to myself, there's no way I'm getting up at 5 a.m. That's crazy. Yeah, I don't blame you. So the janitorial business wasn't something you were about to aspire to. That later came to me when I started doing morning radio. I, and through that, my dad, one of the buildings my dad cleaned was the, or his company cleaned was the CBC building on 75th Street. So when my brothers and I were young, we, like I was 14 working there picking up garbage. So that's how I got first exposed to the broadcasting business, and I knew a lot of those guys. So let's, we'll back up a tad. You're done high school. Then what? Where'd you go from there? Well, I was the class historian of my high school, so I gave a funny speech at the, about the history of the high school class. And there was a guy named Hugh Tadman, who was a school trustee, who was at the, at the event. And he was also a radio announcer, Hugh Tadman, along with Peter Tadman, who I later worked for, his brother. Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah. You might remember those names back in the day. And Mr. Tadman came up and chatted with me. You know, I'm 17 years old. Then he congratulated me. He said, that was a great speech. He says, what are you doing after high school? I don't know. And he says, you should think about radio. Oh, so that was the first time I thought about it. And going out of high school, I got a job in a car cleaning place, Dr. Car Care Clean Center. I worked there all summer. And it was interesting because I was a middle class white kid from Edmonton. But all the people I was working with were either immigrants or what you would call the working poor, like people who didn't really have much. I got invited to a couple of houses of people who I thought in the inner city, and they were really super people. I really enjoyed working with them. But I hadn't ever been exposed to, growing up in Ottwell, everybody is middle class and going to do well. And your expectations are pretty high. But then you see, oh, maybe not everybody in the city has the same advantages. Exactly. So it was an interesting experience. Then from there, I got a job delivering oxygen and acetylene. Oxygen and acetylene? Yeah, driving for a welding products company. Those are one of those trucks with all those cylinders in the back. That if you ram into it, it's done. You're done. Yeah. As well as a lot of people around. Aero welding supplies. Aero, yes. Now, here was another one where I had to show up at 5 a.m. and I'm like, what am I doing? It's crazy. So at that point, I decided to apply to Radio and Television Arts at NAIT. Okay. And then I got in. When I told the guys at Aero Welding Supplies, I was going to go to Radio and Television Arts, and they were like, yeah, laugh, what are you gonna be a DJ. They were just laughing their heads off. Oh, we're gonna see you on the radio someday. I said, well, I hope so. They encouraged me to do it. Do you just love it when the people encourage you like that? Yeah, it was pretty funny. But that must have been, I mean, not everybody, well, few go into radio. Yeah, it was, suppose it was hard to get in at the time. You had to do a lot of research and that sort of thing. But I did get in. Yeah? Yeah, I spent almost two years there. And how long were you at NAIT? Two years? Almost. Okay. I didn't graduate. And they wouldn't actually give me my diploma. This is a famous story, by the way. If you're listening from NAIT. I had a grudge from NAIT for years. I've given up. As part of my retirement, I gave up my grudge against NAIT. Yeah. You let it go. You're free. But if you are from NAIT and you're listening, he deserves an honorary diploma. That's all I'm saying. Well, they tried to give me one. Oh, you didn't take it. I refuse. Well, actually, I think they gave it to me on my retirement day. That's when. Oh, okay. I was like, is this an honor? What happened was, I am at NAIT, and at the time, there was a... This is... What year is this? This is 1981. Okay. There are radio stations in every small town in Alberta. Sure. So there's lots of jobs. So I applied in a number of jobs. I got offered two jobs, one in Peace River, one in Fort McMurray. Okay. I ended up taking the one in Fort McMurray. Yeah. And they want me to start the next week. And I'm like, great. Now, I had, I think, two months to go at NAIT. And I said, well, I got a job, so I'm leaving. And they said, oh yeah, we got it. They said, you're gonna have to do all these assignments, these essays to get your diploma. I'm like, essays? I haven't written an essay in four years or whatever. Anyway, I didn't end up doing it, and I didn't get my diploma, but I got a job and took off from there. So I started in Fort McMurray at CJOK. That's awesome. Okay. Tell us about that. What was Fort McMurray like at the time? In the 80's. Yeah. It was great. I loved it. I was 20 years old when I went up there, and I was making $900 a month. Now, a lot of the guys at Syncrude were making $900 a week or more. Yeah, I was going to say. And they had just gone through a bit of a downturn because I think it was the Alta Sands or Abba Sands. I can't remember exactly. One of the big proposals had just been dumped. It hadn't gone forward. So they went on a bit of a dip. But there's still lots of money in the town. There are lots of things going on. It was a cool place to live because the average age was 24. A really young population. A lot of Newfies, right? A lot of Newfoundlanders and all sorts of people. They wouldn't fly in at the time. At the time, it was all about people living there. Lots of people from Nova Scotia, that sort of thing. A lot of Easterners, basically. And then, yeah, so it was fun. You know, lots of young people. It's a party town, that kind of thing. It's when you're 20 years old. Yeah, it was great. And the radio station, I mean, WKRP in Cincinnati was on the air at the time, and it was a lot like that. Okay, first of all, that's one of my favorite shows. Yes. Amazing. Secondly, to know that your radio station was like WKRP, that is the best. That is absolutely the best. It was. Were you the Johnny Fever of the station? Who was I? I was not Les Nessman, I was somewhere in between. Herb Tarlek. We had a Herb Tarlek. We had a Herb Tarlek. Okay, if you folks, if you've never watched that show, it's worth watching. And the fact that, yeah, the radio station in Fort Mac, this is even better. I would have loved to have been there. Well, my experience of arriving there, I drove up there in February. Oh. And for those who know Fort McMurray, the river, there's a confluence of the rivers, the Athabasca and the Clearwater. And there's a section called the Snye, and that is a piece of stagnant water that they blocked off. But in the winter, it freezes. Oh, yeah. You can skate on it. And they had the Winter Festival going on, and they were having broom ball tournaments. Oh, yeah. So I arrive in town, I go down to meet the news director at the station, and he says, oh, everybody's over at the Winter Carnival, I'll take you over there. So we drive over there, we get out, and we're walking, and they have a little Winnebago, where they sort it out. This guy walks out of the Winnebago, he takes one step and falls flat in his face. Now it's about two in the afternoon, and this guy is drunk. And so Jim, the guy who was with the news director, says, hey Mark, this is our station manager. And I was like, oh, what am I in for here? And it was interesting because some of the people who are in the air had no radio training and they didn't know what they were doing. And I felt a little, because I didn't know what I was doing either, I was 20 years old, I was just coming out of school and I'm trying to read in the news every day. And they were very excited because, obviously my voice has changed over 45 years, but I had a pretty good voice, which is the reason I kind of went into radio. It made sense, right? And they're, oh, yeah, yeah, you sound like an announcer. Which many of the people on the station did not, right? So, it was quite wild. Were you a DJ? Were you doing news? What were you? I was reading the news and I wanted to do sports, so I would do that kind of on my own. And I did a little bit of everything. I did, you know, we do remotes, where you go on location and do advertising and stuff like that. But the first three months I was there, it was very chaotic, very crazy, very WKRP-like. And then the station was sold. They brought in new management. And they took myself, the sales manager, and this one salesperson out for dinner one night. And they told us, just so you know, almost everybody at the station is going to lose their job. Oh. Except for you three. What? Oh my goodness. So I was the only on-air guy that wasn't going to lose his job. I mean, I only started. I couldn't be that bad yet. I didn't learn any bad habits. But the new program director was going to be the morning show as well. So he was very good. And they just brought in all these new people that changed completely. A bit very professional thing, but still small town radio. Of course. It was interesting. Very interesting. And so how long were you in Fort McMurray doing this for? I was there for, so from 1981 to 1985. So a little over four years, four and a half. And it was a great opportunity. I did play by play the Fort McMurray Oil Barons. Oh, yes their Junior Hockey Team. Yeah. So I became, that was their first year in the HGHL. And I became the sports director after six months. So I was six months, I did news, and then I became, I did sports the rest of the time. Okay. Wow. And so with that, is that kind of what you wanted to continue doing, was the sports aspect? Yeah. It was, as they say, the toy department. It was so much fun. Of course. And I was interested in sports, and as I went through my career, I became more interested in the storytelling part of it, as opposed to the highlights. I mean, I never had the opportunity to go, like when TSN came along in Sportsnet, everybody was applying to go there, to Toronto. And I was like, I don't want to go do highlights at a desk. I found that boring. Pretty structured. I wanted to be a reporter. So those opportunities came my way. So you turned down TSN. No, I never got offered anything for TSN. Well, let's just say you turned it down. That sounds better. It sounds great. Mark turned them down. Mark Connolly turns down TSN. That's good. Okay, so from Fort Mac, then you went to... Well, first of all, I met my wife, my future wife, in Grease. Greece? Met her in Greece? Yeah, yeah, the musical, Grease. See, okay. This is our oldest joke. Anybody who knows me knows this one already. Okay, so yeah, yeah, that's going. Here's how it worked. Here's how it worked. So, Alyson graduated from BFA in acting at the University of Alberta. Come on. And she was offered a job in Fort McMurray teaching summer classes to kids camp, summer drama camp. And they said, and this summer, we're doing Grease, the musical at Keyano College. And if you would appear in it, if you take a role, we'll give you, you can stay at Keyano College dorm because over the summer there's no students there. And she said, great, I get free board. That's awesome. Or free room rather. Yeah, I'll do it. And so it's a musical. So she gets cast as Sandy, the lead. And then the director calls me up and he says, Mark, we're doing Grease this summer. And we want somebody from the radio station to be in the play because you're going to hear your voice all through the play as the radio announcer and everybody will recognize your voice on the radio and then you're in a couple of scenes at the end. Wow. Sure. I said, well, I'm, I was playing rugby and I said, I got to fit it in between rugby practice. I can't, you know, be, you know, oh yeah, you don't have to go that many rehearsals. So so I would show, I would go to rugby practice. Then I'd go to rehearsal after I show up in my rugby shorts and my, my kit. And Alyson said to me, oh yeah, yeah, we all talked about that. You and your shorts. And so Alyson and I met there and then, so long story short, Grease goes on and does really well that summer. And Alyson and I start dating. And then I decided I'd been there, as I said, coming up to five years, it would have been in the spring. So I decided, yeah, I got to move on. I applied for a whole bunch of different jobs. And I couldn't, I wasn't getting one. And then a buddy of mine offered, said to me, hey, they're looking for sales guys at CISN in Edmonton. And I said, well, I was selling radio at the time as well. Maybe I'll like that. So I applied for the job and I got it. And I moved to Edmonton, where Alyson was living, and I thought this is good. It lasted like two months, I was like, ah, I hate this. Turns out I hated sales. I liked it in Fort McMurray. You're not a sales guy. Because everybody knew me, they just bought it off me. And that was easy. What was your competition? Yeah, no, you don't. Yeah, no competition, so yeah. Go to Edmonton, it's like all of a sudden, you actually have to be a real sales guy. Turns out I was not. Right. So, but I applied myself. I was in there early in the morning at 7 a.m. before anybody else, trying to get things going. And then one day I went in there and I thought, I hate, I don't want to do something I hate. I don't want to hate a job. So I went to the sales manager and said to him, yeah, I'm, I hate this, I want to quit. He tried to talk me out of it and I said, no, that's not good. Yeah. I said, you want me to give you two weeks notice or whatever? He goes, no, you can go today. I'm like, all right. I love it. Get out. Because they're just paying you commission. That's right. So I go home and go back to bed. Wake up at nine, I call Alyson, and I go, hey, I quit my job. This is on a Monday. And she goes, what? Why did you just quit your job? I said, yeah, just like that. You're just going to walk away from it? I said, yeah, what are you gonna do? Well, I'll get another job. And how long had you been together at this time for? Six months. Six months? Yeah. So I called around a few radio stations, and CKGY and Red Deer was looking for a news announcer. So I said to the guy, yeah, I'll drive down there today and see you. And he says, all right, so, or the next day. So I drove down to Red Deer. So I walk in and, now, for those who don't know, I'm six foot two, 210 pounds. Yes, he is. He's very tall. Yeah. I'm a big guy, an athlete. I can attest to this. So at the time, I'm 25 years old, and just been playing rugby. So, you know, I walk in his office, and he goes, hey, do you play slow pitch? And I'm like, well, yeah, I've played slow pitch. He goes, oh man, we got the best slow pitch team. I love it. In Central Alberta, we play it all. I'm like, okay. I said, what about the job? And he goes, oh yeah, I heard your tape. You're fine. We will hire you, but you'll play on the slow pitch team. Oh my goodness. That's hilarious. I said, yes, I will. They wanted you for slow pitch. Basically. Yeah. You were the ringer. Yeah. So I started working there and I worked there for six months and I enjoyed it in Red Deer. It was an interesting place and a small town in Alberta. I mean, I grew up in Alberta, but in Red Deer it was a little bit different. And then I applied. I got a job at K-97. Yes, K-97. Yeah. So that was That was one of the hottest stations around. And that was me coming back to Edmonton. Yeah. Okay. And then slowly worked my way into, a friend of mine, James Monsese, I worked for the K-97. One day he shows up wearing a sports jacket. Now we never got dressed up in radio. I was gonna say, I don't see K-97 as the sports jacket type of... I said, what are you doing? He goes, oh, I'm going to audition at ITV. I said, for what? He goes, oh, a part-time sportscaster. He said, you should come. Go home and get a sports jacket. I said, all right. So I went home, got a sports jacket. Him and I went to this audition. Every radio guy in Edmonton was at the audition. And at the time, there's probably eight radio sportscasters. CHQT, CJC, Ched, everybody had more than one. So we're all auditioning. I'd never done television before, although I had at NAIT, we'd done some. So we auditioned, and the job they were looking for was like a weekend anchor. And so James actually got it. Peter Tabman, I think, was the news director that hired him. But they called me and they said, hey, we liked your audition. He said, would you like to work part-time? Would you like to go to games and stuff and do post-games sometimes? I said, sure. So I started working there part-time. I'm working at K97 full-time. So I'm working sometimes seven days a week. And then I'm there two years part-time doing everything. And then CBC calls me and says, we got a weekend job open. Would you like to audition for it? I said, sure. So I go over there, and Chris Cuthbert had sent me to his producer. So I did an audition, and she goes, okay, great. Yeah, it looks like you got good experience, you got good on tape. So can you start right away? And I said, oh, aren't you auditioning anybody else? She said, no, Chris said you can do it. This is great. I said, all right. First, you're hired for Slow Pitch. Yeah. Then there's nobody else auditioning. You got the job. I got the job. That's fantastic. So I started doing weekends at CBC. So now I'm working every Saturday, Sunday at CBC, and Monday through Friday at K-97. Were you still working for ITV? No, I had to leave ITV. Which is fine because CBC paid me twice as much a shift as ITV. Right, I mean, we won't get into that, but yes, I can see that. Okay. I think it went from $75 a shift to $150. Wow. Something like that. That's pretty cool. It was good. So that was in the fall of 1989. Couple months down the road, I'm working every day, this kind of thing, and my news director at K-97 says, you know, we really don't want you to work on CBC anymore. You're working too much. And I said to him, well, I think it's pretty good exposure for me and for the station, that kind of thing. And to be honest, I enjoyed working there more than my full-time job. And I was making almost as much part-time as I was in CBC. So I said to them, I said, well, if you want to give me a raise to what I'm making at both places, I'll do that, even whatever. And they were like, they offered me $200 more. Anyway, I went home that day and I said to Alyson, I think I'm going to get fired. Like, they don't want me doing this. So, yeah, she was like, this is a few years after I quit my job. And sure enough, a month later, they fired me. And it turned out to be a good thing because all of a sudden, I was available to freelance on CBC, which is what happened, and eventually, that worked into full time. The rest is CBC history. That's a great journey. It is, isn't it? Because you know, I love, like, Mark's story is like, we had a few other TV personalities and people on. And for those, it's a bit of a tough slug. It's a grind, for sure Oh, yeah. You know, like you say, you don't start, everybody wants to start out in Edmonton. Well, you don't start out in Edmonton. Lots of people come to me and they, you know, young people and they'll say, when I was hosting the morning show, which I think is a great job. Yeah. I mean, it's the, on radio, the morning show is the number one job. Yeah, for sure. And you probably, you know, that person usually gets paid the most. Yeah, yeah. Things have changed in radio, so it's not quite as lucrative as it might have been at one time. But that's the job, right? So if you're in radio, you're going for that job. And people say, well, I want your job. And they say they're 22, 23. I say, that's great. I got my job when I was 53. So think about that. You got 30 years of slugging it out. You better enjoy all these other things you're doing before you get to that dream job, because it's not going to happen right away. That's a good word, because again, for all these dreamers that are going into it, thinking we're going to start out at the top, it doesn't work that way. No. It's a tough slug. Is it a real competitive market now, in terms of cutthroat almost? Well, I don't know about cutthroat. Private radio can be, and I think that private radio has really gone through a really tough time in the last 10 years. You can see just how many radio stations don't even have local announcers. Yes, exactly. It's brutal. And how many have we watched in Edmonton in the last while just go by the wayside? They just closed. Stunned. And so I think that it's very tough for young people to break in to that business. However, the other part of that is there's all kinds of other venues, like podcasting, YouTube, almost every young person I know who's in broadcasting or aspiring has got some kind of thing they're doing on their own, on the side, getting that experience which is valuable and could lead to something. So hey, if we want it to be radio announcers, we're one up. You are. We've already got a podcast. We can go ahead and say, we've got a podcast. We'd be canceled in no time. We'd be fired. That's the thing about having your own podcast. Nobody can cancel it. That's what we said. Who's going to? Yeah, anyway. Anyhow, we won't go down that road. Okay, so now you're at CBC part time or full time? By this time, so now I'm working weekends, but I'm trying to fill in the week doing freelancing. And I work for a whole bunch of other people too. Like because I wasn't full time at CBC, I think for about two years, I was freelancing, doing all kinds of things. The CFL at the time didn't have a contract. They lost their CBC contract. So they were in between. They formed a company called the Canadian Football Network. And they had independent stations running their games like ITV at the time. And so a friend of mine was doing all the features for them. So he hired me to do features on the Eskimos at the time. And so I would do that, as well as I'm doing the weekends. And then I was doing some radio for CBC and a bit of this and a bit of that. And then eventually, I was in a four-man sports casting group. Chris Cuthbert with the Six O'Clock Anchor. Al Nagy was a reporter. And Gordon Miller was the 11 O'Clock host. But eventually, Chris, not long after I started, he went full-time with CBC Network. And then Gord got hired by TSN when they were starting. He went with them. So then there was just Al and myself. Al was the 6 O'Clock anchor. And then they hired me full-time. So I was doing weekends and 11 O'Clock anchor. And then eventually, Al left. He went to CFRN and did play-by-play of The Oilers. I don't know if you remember that. Oh, Rod Phillips. Yeah, on TV. Oh, on TV. Because for two years, CFRN did the TV. It went from ITV, then it went back. Remember that, yes. So Al leaves and then I'm the only guy there. And so I'm the last man standing and yeah, here I am. So I've become the sportscaster, de facto only sportscaster at CBC Television. Man, you must have been going 24/7. Yeah. Yeah, it was great. Especially in a town at that time where sports. Oh my God. Sports is still big at Edmonton. You had the Eskimos, the Oilers, yeah, Oilers were, yeah, that's incredible. I think we still had the city of champions sign at that time. Yeah, that's right. That's gone now. They've removed that because we can't seem to quite be the champion. Anyway, that's another podcast. But okay, so you're full-time now, CBC, you're doing everything, and sports is great. What happens? You want to... 1995, Alberta got the Canada Winter Games in the Grand Prairie. That's right. So CBC used to do the Winter Games, and they would do it like an Olympics in a smaller sort of way, but they would bring all the network sportspeople, producers and announcers would come in and do the Canada Games. Right. And then my boss said to me, I just talked to the producer of the Canada Games, and they want to use local sportscasters in Alberta. Right. So they want you to come up and do the Canada Games. I said, great. So I went up to Canada Games, and I did a bunch of different things, recording and play by play. But it's not quite the same because it's not live. Yeah. And you get to know all those producers at that network level. You get to know all the guys who are like Scott Russell and Scott Oak. All these guys are there doing the Canada Games as if it's the Olympics. Yeah, the big guys, yeah. So that was in the winter of 1995. So later that summer, I sent a note to the producers I met. I said, I know next year the Olympics are coming in 96. I'd be interested. They said, thanks for your interest. And then at some point that year, I got a call and I remember the phone call. I remember that day I'm sitting in the newsroom, not many people around and the phone rings. I pick it up and it's my boss in Calgary because our boss had just left. So my boss was in Calgary and I knew him really well, but I've known him for years. And he said, Mark, hi, it's Laurie from Calgary. He says, I just got a call from so and so in Toronto and they want to know if you want to do the Olympics next year. And I'm sitting in my desk and I stand up on the phone. I'm like, this is great. And I have this feeling in my body. I'm just like, my whole life feels like it's changed. I feel like this is the moment. You've made it, this is it! Yeah, did you feel like this was the moment, this was it? Yeah, it was. And I was like, well, I'm like, yes, of course. Of course, yeah. And I'm like, oh my god. No, I'm busy, sorry. And so he tells me, okay, they'll send you all the stuff you gotta know, blah, blah, blah. And then, yeah, you're gonna be off for a month, basically, next August to go to Atlanta. I'm like, all right, all right, I'll hang up. So then I pick up the phone, I phone Alyson, and I said to her, they just called me, I'm going to the Olympics. And we both started crying. Oh, that's great I love it! That's fantastic. Yeah, it was life changing. Yeah, because I guess in the broadcasting field, that would be the pinnacle, right? That would be it. Yeah, I don't know where much more you get to. Yeah, exactly. Unless you're a play-by-play guy calling it the Stanley Cup final, things like that. Yeah, but even, I don't know. I listened to well actually, I was listening not long ago to an interview, and a player who had played on Team Canada and won the gold, and who'd also won the Stanley Cup, and they asked him, what was more, what was it? And he said, well, without a doubt, it was Team Canada. He said, you win a gold medal for your country. Like, that's phenomenal. Great cup, yeah, it's super, but you've won that for your team and your league, but when you win this, you're winning for Canada. And he said, I love my Stanley Cup, but I love my gold medal way more. So yeah, that's pretty cool. So it was a great experience there in Atlanta. I didn't know what I was doing. Big year in Atlanta. Because of the bombing in Atlanta. And with that, I was in the park half hour before the bomb went off. So the way that worked, the broadcast center, when you go to the Olympics, the Olympic broadcast centers where all the broadcasters are, it's a huge, it would be like, if you did it here in Edmonton, it would be at the convention center. And on the floor, they would divide it into all kinds of different offices, depending who, NBC would always, or CBS, or wherever the American broadcaster would have the biggest one. CBC was fairly big. So we're there, and you would finish your day. So then I walked back through the park because the transportation was on the other side of the park, and I'd take the transportation back to our hotel. So I'm on the bus, and I get back to our hotel, and I go to bed right away, and that's the bomb went off. Sometime in that time. Now they start phoning everybody to find out where everybody is to make sure. So nobody called me, but anyway. Did you feel left out. So the next morning, I get up, and I get up, and I put my gear on. I'm going to go for a run or for a walk, and I go outside, and one of the, I see somebody from the van say, hey, where were you last night? And I said, oh, I don't know. I just came home and went to bed after the thing. He said, did you hear about the bombing? No, and they told me. I was like, wow, it's crazy. So then I phoned Alyson and tell her, I wasn't at the bombing. Yeah, so it was a bit crazy. So that was, I mean, it was an interesting perspective because I did, I wasn't assigned to a specific sport when I got there, but I ended up doing tennis. Which I didn't know that much about tennis, to be honest. So I was, yeah, and I made some mistakes. It was interesting. But you know who I was sitting next to, and I could show you a picture of him, but the NBC crew was right next to me. And I'm not kidding, we were sitting like, because you're at this, if you can imagine you're at a table at the broadcast thing and they're on different levels. The Australians were behind me and the Americans right here. And then right next to me, now his name has now got out of my mind, but he was the play by play guy with Mary Carrillo. And they were sitting this far from me. They never got on the air. Now I was getting on all the time. They were suddenly shooting at me and I was doing this, and he was just saying, wow, this is crazy. And they had about eight guys and women as a crew, and I had myself. And you were one guy, yeah. Yeah, and then I had to recruit a color commentator, which I did, and then we called a few more matches, but it was interesting, interesting time. Wow, so first Olympics, fantastic, came back home. What happened, that must've opened some doors. I said to Alyson, I don't know if I'll get to do another Olympics. I don't know, there's no guarantee. I'm not part of the network, right? Because most of the network people did it. I said, I don't know if I'll have that chance. The following year, I still work in the cross, work and everybody is saying, hey, I want to go to Nagano 98. And they call me in the summer and they say, yeah, not going to happen. The winter Olympics are smaller, so we have a smaller crew. We just don't have enough sports to cover. So you won't be going, all right. So I found that out in August. In September, I got a call, and what had happened is they had women's hockey that year. That was the first year of women's hockey. Yes. And Ken Daniels was going to do women's hockey. You had the Hockey Night in Canada crew doing the men's hockey. Right. And so Ken Daniels, who was a network announcer and done Hockey Night in Canada, he was going to do women's hockey. But in late August, he got hired by the Detroit Red Wings to be their play-by-play guy. And Ken is still there to this day. He's still there. I don't know if he's going to retire or whatever, but he's at that age and he's done it for 35, 40 or whatever it is. And what happened is Mark Lee, who was doing bobsleigh, got shifted over to hockey. And they called me and said, you want to do bobsleigh? I'm like, yeah, I'll do bobsleigh. So I had a crash course in bobsleigh that fall. We did a couple of shows on the network, and I met my color commentator, Clark Flynn, who was a former bobsledder. And then we went to Nagano in Japan and did the bobsleigh. It was fascinating. Yeah, that must have been incredible. Well, the incredible thing about it was that we were going into the fourth run of bobsleigh. There's four runs in a bobsleigh, and it was very tight between Canada and Italy. So the Canadians were Pierre Lueders, who's from Edmonton, and Dave MacEachern, who's from PEI. And so we covered them all year, and they were very close. It was like hundredths of a second between the two of them. And we're preparing to call the last race, last run, and I said to Clark, hey, did they ever tie? Because it's so close. And they only went to a hundredth of a second. In some sports like luge, they go to a thousand. And I was like, I don't know why bobsleigh only goes to a hundredth. So Clark says, well, actually, they had a tie. In 1968, there was a tie. But the winner was determined by a count back. So whoever is leading at the third run. I said, oh, okay. He says, but no, no, they changed the rules. If they tie now, they both get gold. Really? Really? Okay. What happens? Of course, they tie. Really? And they tie, and I'm calling it, and I know the exact numbers, and they tie, and I look at Clark. Oh my God. That's incredible. They both get gold. But I was hesitant. I was like, oh yeah. Do I say this? Do I not? That's incredible. Now, even more incredible. So I covered Bobsleigh right through the 2018 Olympics in South Korea. In 2018, exactly 20 years later, Canada ties with Germany for the gold. So that was the best. What's the chances? Those were the bookends of my Olympic winter of games. Pretty good bookends. Pretty good bookends. Two ties in Bobsleigh. It's crazy. It's wild. Holy smoke. So in total then, Mark, how many Olympics did you do? Twelve. 12 Olympics. Summer. Very lucky. Yeah, because in 96 or 94, they switched to alternating. Right. Yes. They used to be in the same year, winter and summer. Yeah. Then they alternate, which was great for me, because every two years, you're going to a game. You're going to a game. And in 2020, when Tokyo was supposed to happen, it was derailed by COVID. Didn't do it till 2021. And because of that, they said, okay, we're going to do a lot of it from Toronto. So we're not going to travel to Tokyo. Previous to that, I'd always traveled to the country, which is a fantastic experience. And then, so that became the way it was going to go. We did Tokyo from Toronto for the most part. We had a few people in Japan. But, and then we came up to Paris, also did that in Toronto. So it's not as fun. No, it's a different experience. I would say, yeah, going would be the experience. But it's still exciting to call races and that sort of thing. And also, one of the interesting, I think, parts of it was that I called Gold Medal for Canada in cycling in women's sprints, right? That specific, on the velodrome. And the first women to ever win for Canada, actually first Gold Medal for Canada in cycling was Lori-Ann Muenzer from Edmonton. And then in Tokyo, another Canadian from Edmonton wins the Gold and wins everything again. And I get to call that one again. Yeah, that's great. Wow. So out of all of those countries that you were able to visit, is there one that stands out? Is there one Olympic where you thought, wow, this is great to be here? Well, they were all great. I got to tell you, I never had a bad Olympic experience. It was just fabulous. But I got to say, one of the most fascinating was China in 2008. Because there had been a whole emergence of China over that time. And then there's been a regression since. And so it's really a strange, it was an interesting place to be at the time. Really interesting. And I had my color commentator was Clara Hughes. And interestingly enough, in 96, she had won her two bronze medals in cycling. And I was there to interview her after her medal. And so I had a connection with Clara. We've done the world championships already together and that. So I knew her, I'd known her for a long time. Wow, that's great. All right, so you've done the Olympics now. When did you start doing the morning show? That was in 2013. And what kind of switch was that going from sports? What happened is, I went from sports in 2010. I came back. They asked me to anchor the news in 2010. So I went from sports. I was kind of done with covering local sports. I was kind of like, okay, I'll move on to something else. So they offered me anchoring the news, which I did. I did it for three years. I hated it. Because the difference is, like when I was doing sports, I would go out to say practice or whatever. I would look at what's going on. I would decide what I was going to do. I would interview the people. I would bring all that back. I would edit it myself. I'd write the story. Then I would edit it myself. Then I would go in the air. I'd present it. Here's my story and this thing. And I would decide what's all that thing. When you're the news anchor, you are participating in producing the newscast. But when you're doing the actual news, you're reading it. Like you're reading it. You want to do it so that it doesn't sound like you're reading it. But that's what you are. And I found it kind of boring. So when the morning show came up, I was really interested in doing it. And so I got that in 2013 in the fall. And that was very exciting. And from, I think we were, well, CBC had been rated between five and eight in the ratings during that time. But they were interested in getting more listeners. Now, you don't sell anything at CBC. But it was more of relevance. Like you want people to be listening. And in 15 months, we went to number one. Oh, wow. Phenomenal. Yeah, it was quite, I mean, because we had a great staff, and everybody's ready. Maybe I was the final piece of the puzzle. And so that was obviously very gratifying. And all through my tenure, we read their number one or two pretty much. And it was really rewarding. It's a wonderful, wonderful job. That's really cool to be one or two in a city, like Edmonton, who I think, having grown up here, radio listenership was very picky. Yeah, it was very, like... Well, it was very strong. Lots of people listening. Yeah, and you were loyal to who you were loyal to, whether it was CJCA or whatever. Good thing you weren't on during the Bill and Bill Show for those days. Well, I just heard from Bill Jackson, actually, about that. We were just talking about them. He sent me a note on LinkedIn and said, hey Mark, I heard you were doing this. I said, oh, I hadn't heard from him forever. But yeah, when I worked at K97 CJCA. To be number one, that's incredible. And so the studio for CBC was right downtown. Yes, we moved there in 2003 from 75th Street. And it's a nice location. You've got the windows out on Churchill Square and that sort of thing. But the morning show is really interesting. What I found is that having been in television a long time, people recognize me all the time walking around town, that sort of thing. But when I started doing radio, people treated you slightly different. They felt like they really knew you. Like it's more intimate. They're like, Hey Mark, they want to talk about things and really... Because it's the old Marshall McLuhan thing. He said about television, it's a cool medium. And why is that? It's because you watch television. You don't watch the radio. The radio comes right into your brain. So it's a different... You focus differently. It's deeper, I think. Yeah, for sure. Wow, so now you're everybody's friend. Everywhere you went, they wanted to tell you their problems and about their dog and all that kind of stuff. Well it was interesting. Yeah, and I really enjoy... I thought we did really good work on that show and I really enjoy doing it. You meet lots of different people and you talk to them. Yeah, I would imagine. People would be nervous coming in to do interviews. I think the morning show would be a good show. Oh, I agree. Yeah. The only downside is waking up at 3.45. I was gonna say waking up early. Yeah. So what time do you have to wake up at? Three? No, I woke up at 3.45. 3.45. I would get up and I would watch a little bit of The National from the night before, and then I would have a shower, I would get sorted out, head in to work, get in there about quarter to five. We went on the air at 5.30, so I had a pretty good idea what was gonna be on the show that day from yesterday, the day before, but then I would go through the scripts, chat with the director, get ready, start drinking my coffee, and then off we go. How many years you do that? Twelve years. Twelve years. Twelve years. Getting up at 3.45. Yeah. And the last couple of years were hard. So, I retired two weeks after my 65th birthday at the end of July. But I gotta say, as I got older, it was harder. And not, it wasn't hard waking up, it was just hard functioning all the way through your day. The cobwebs out of the brain. And that three hours, the three hours you're on the air, you're in performance. That is, you gotta be on the whole time. I don't think people understand. Three hours of talking basically nonstop. And you gotta be engaged. You can't buy half an hour in your head, be going, well, I'm pretty much done for the day. So three hours of talking and listening. I'm not talking the whole time, but I'm talking, I'm asking people questions, and then they're talking back to me. And I have to be actively engaged, listening to them. And at the same time, I'm talking to you, you're telling me your story. I know that at 7.44, I have to get to the business guy, so I need that person to wrap up. I'm looking at the time, the director is talking to my ear. I got the person next to me getting ready to do traffic and weather. And all these things are going through your head. And you get used to it, and it's something that you have to be good at, and it's probably one of the hardest things for a lot of people to come in and do. Too much pressure, it's a lot of pressure. Yeah, and you can't think of it as pressure, you just think of it as this is what you're gonna do. And then you go and you have to do it with a softness, with a relaxed sort of way. You can't be frenetic about it because people listening, they want you to be relaxed. That's right. They don't want you to provide them with any tension. Yeah, conversation, that's what they want, yeah. So that is a thing for people who are going on radio or TV, is to capture that ability to be energetic and at the same time relaxed. It's a bit of a dichotomy. So you did it for 12 years. Yeah. And then you just thought. Then you retired.

Well, I was turning 65 and I was ready to move away from getting up at 3: 47:54

45. And so it was a good timing for me retirement wise. And then at the same time, I really enjoyed what I was doing. And one of my friends said to me, what are you going to do? And I said, well, he says, because you think about it, you've never been better at what you do than you are right now. Why would you just stop using those skills? So that was my, plus my wife, she's still working and she still wants to do her thing as long as she can do it. So I had to get busy and do something. How many years you've been married? Thirty-seven years. Yeah. Kids? Yeah, two boys. Two boys? Yeah. A dog, I believe. Yeah. Patrick and Jack, and Artie the dog, yeah. And have the boys followed in your footsteps? A little bit. Are they going down that road? Yeah. Our oldest son, Patrick, went and did a, he has a creative writing and English degree from UBC. And then he later went and got a master's in journalism and creative writing from Dalhousie. And he is the senior assignment producer at CBC. Really? So he followed me there. Yeah. He got a job. One of his friends actually who I introduced him to had hired him on the weekends and then he just worked his way up. We never worked together because we were sort of separate things. And then our second son, Jack, is at the University of Calgary in computer science. Okay. Wow. And then Alyson's job is she is a... So Alyson was an actor for ten years because, as you say, we met in Grease the musicals. So for ten years she was an actor, professional actor in Edmonton, worked in musicals and plays in the local Edmonton area. And then when we had Patrick, she did one more show and she said, That's it, yeah. And so she was home with the boys, but at the same time she was teaching drama, later did these artists in residence at schools. Right. And then at 50, she went back to get her masters at the U of A in theater voice pedagogy, which is the teaching of voice. Yes. But she wasn't interested in working in theater anymore, she wanted to work in business. So she established herself as a public speaking coach and trainer. And it's been 10 years now, a little bit more than 10 years. That's cool. And she's been phenomenally successful. She goes into businesses and she'll do it with 10 people or less, a three hour workshop to teach them public speaking, whether they're speaking to a big audience or 10 people around a table. And she does one on one coaching as well. That's awesome. And did you hear what he said? At the age of 50, she went back to do that. Yeah. I love that. I love those kinds of stories. Because she wasn't winding down, she was winding up. Yeah, exactly. And that's why she has no intention of retiring. And plus, as I said, she doesn't work 40 hours a week, right? She gets to pick and choose. That's the beauty of it, right? Because of her expertise, she might, she's working with, say, four people in a week for one hour, or then she's working with a group for three hours on a workshop. There's a lot of preparation goes in that sort of thing, but she's got it sort of nailed down. That's kind of wild. Because we're a little bit in common in the presentation part of it, that sort of thing, so we have a lot to chat about. That's cool. From that point of view. What a life. What a great life. Amazing career, amazing life. Yeah, so, I mean, that's pretty incredible. But I want to know, tell our listeners, you are retired, but you were just showing us your calendar, and it seems like you're busier now, Mark. Yeah, every square, every square had something going on. So, tell us, what are you doing now? So, when I was leading up to retirement, and Alyson and I were talking about, okay, what am I going to do? And so, the most obvious thing was, like, I did a lot of live emcee work. And I really enjoy doing that. It's a lot of fun. So, I said, that's what I'll do. We were out on a dog walk, and I said, how am I going to market myself? I said, how about this? Hosting, toasting, and roasting. Because I tend to have a certain sense of humor, so I don't mind roasting people a little bit. And so, the day I retired, the next day on August 1st, I launched my website, markconnolly.ca. Hosting, toasting, and roasting is my little byline. And I'm doing emcee work. And then, I've had a couple of opportunities to do podcasts. And it's funny, I've learned about all these different podcasts in Edmonton, because everybody asked me to be a guest. There's a lot, there's a lot of podcasts. We're the best. I was on Terry Evan's podcast. You're the best, but these other guys are trying as well. Oh, they're good, too. And then I was on Andrew Gross' podcast, and a few others. And then Ryan Rishaug, who does the Got Your Back podcast, we had chatted before I retired about whether I would like to do something in sports. And so we got together, chatted about it. He said, well, I said, I don't want a full-time job, I don't work every week, I just want to do something, something. And I want to remain and do something in sports. So Ryan suggested, how about a monthly interview with an Oiler alumni? Cool. And well, drop it into my podcast. We don't have to recreate anything. No, no. It's in my podcast. I said, that's great, let's do that. And so I had to run out and get sponsors, which I did. I got my brother's steakhouse, Ruth's Chris. I got my friend, Grant Fedoruk, who is my physio, Leading Edge Physio. I got Grant to sponsor me. And I got the Running Room because John Stanton and I have been friends for 35 years. And so they sponsored me. Ruth's Chris! I know, there you go. Favorite steaks, right? Do they want to sponsor anybody else? Do you get free steak? I really had to lean on my brother. I'm not even getting any free steaks. They don't even have to pay us. Just give me a steak. So that was great. And then another friend, Dennis Nolan from Bar End Investments, he said he would go in and just help me get it started. He made a bit of an investment in that so I could get all the equipment. And then we started like three weeks ago, and last week we dropped our first podcast with Devan Dubnyk. Okay. To try to do one a month and do that. And then the Realtors Association of Edmonton called me and said, we want you to host our podcast. I said, well, what's that about? And then surprisingly, it was about realty. And so we're just starting out. And I said, well, I'd be interested. And then so they hired me to do that. And that starts next month. And I think the first ones are going to drop in January. Is that a daily podcast, a weekly? It's going to be two per month. Two per month. Yeah. Right. Okay. And so basically, it's one session. I'll go in and record two at once. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Along with my friend, Brynn Griffiths, who's helping produce it. Wow. Yeah, they're great. And they're great to work with. They have a really good idea of what they want to do and how it's going to work. Welcome to the podcast world. Oh, thanks. There's only five million of us out there. Yeah, exactly. But you'll do great. And you're probably, yeah, you will. I think we need to have a little podcast convention right here in Edmonton. Yeah, we should have. There's enough of us. Oh, you could. There are so many people. We should get a little get together. We should. Actually, Brynn was on a, he told me he was on a webinar with a whole bunch of podcasters and producers from all over the states. Oh, okay, yeah. He learned so much from what people are doing and how they work. Well, and that's it. You got to just see how other people do it and listen and figure it out. But anyway. Well, it's amazing because here, we're in our little coffee shop. You've got these three microphones plugged in to your Mac. Yeah. And you're producing it. Yeah. That's right. It's amazing. Yeah. It'll be good sound with the exception of the vacuum that was going off. Exactly. What was happening there? Roasting coffee. What are you going to do? Because we're at a coffee roaster. Well, we say that. Yeah, we say that. Yeah. So yeah, you're not slowing down, obviously. No, I've been quite busy. That's really great. It's been fun. It's amazing. This has been just- 55 minutes. I know. Phenomenal. I know. Sorry, I didn't- No, no, don't be sorry. This is brilliant. No. This is brilliant. We could talk all day, I think. I mean, so anyway, but- We have one final question, Mark, that we ask all of our guests. So share with us maybe the best piece of advice that you've been given either personally or professionally that you still carry with you to this day. Well, I think it's something that, it's funny, that just was said to me by my son, my son Jack, on my retirement. And he said to me, you know, so obviously the boys grew up with me being in the public eye. And hearing lots of people talk about their dad and, oh yeah, you're Mark Connolly's son, that sort of thing. And you know, they got used to that sort of thing. But Jack said to me when we were having a beer at my retirement, just him and I at the table. And I said, what did you think about all the stuff, you know, because everybody's doing these tributes and stuff like that, giving you gifts. And he goes, well, you know what I really liked was that everybody who talked about you, talked about how kind you were. Wow. And I said, wow. Yeah. I hadn't really thought about it. And I don't know, I was never what you would call like a hard ass with people, like, you know, demanding. I mean, I had a producer say to me, you know, we can get rid of anybody you want. We could fire them. I'm like, what? No, I'm not. What? I don't want that. And so when Jack said that to me, I was like, wow, that, I really appreciate that. And you know what? Yeah, be kind. Because in the end, what do you accomplish if you're a jerk? And if people can look back and say that you were kind, I think that's a great accomplishment. And what a legacy to leave. What a legacy. I hope so. That is just so perfect. What a way to end because that is so, so perfect. And I'll say it, Mark, the fact that you took time out of your day to come and do our little podcast. Well, I'll admit that when you said Coffee In The Park, I thought it was Sherwood Park. Which would be like 10 minutes from my house. Yeah, sorry about that. We're a little further in Downtown Acheson He's driving to Acheson, going these guys duped me. I'm in King Edward Park and you're what? Yeah. And what you just said, we hear a lot of, but that's the way it is. I can't believe, like this is such a beautiful coffee shop in the middle of an industrial park. I am flabbergasted. It is gorgeous. It's kind of our little oasis here. Good for you guys. And that's why we've had offers to go into studios and all that kind of stuff. And we just thought, you know what? This is coffee and conversation. You can have coffee and conversation in a studio, but here you have real coffee and conversation. And we feel it brings a little bit more out of people as well. But the kindness part is so true. The fact that you would come and do this for us. I can't thank you enough. It's amazing. Well, congratulations on what you're doing. This is wonderful. I'm sure this is kind of an unexpected thing, right? Like you started doing it and you don't know where it's going to go. And look how far it's come. Quite honestly, Mark, we thought maybe our families would listen. Yeah, we thought oh yeah our family will listen and that's about it. And then they'll get bored and we'd stop. Yeah. But here we are. Here we are. And it's grown. And it's because of people like you being willing to come on our program, our show. And we really appreciate that. Thank you, Mark, from the bottom of our hearts. You're welcome. Thank you, everybody, for listening. This has been absolutely great. Don't forget wingsnob.ca. And Mprint.ca. And if you need to print and do wings at the same time, then just go to both of them. Exactly. It'll be awesome. But hey, thanks, everybody, for listening. Make sure you tell everybody about the podcast. Tell your friends, tell your neighbors, tell your coworkers, tell your enemies. If you don't have a friend, make one just so you can tell them about the podcast. That's right. And yeah, thank you for listening to us. Thank you for listening. We really appreciate it and we'll see you next week, everyone. See you next week.