I agree with a lot of what's already been posted. It's too bad Bower & Co need to look for new employment. Unfortunately, their absence isn't going to make much of a difference in my radio listening habits.
I haven't listened to them in a few months, and while I'm on board with a lot of the criticism, I think they tried to do a good show, but missed with a lot more than they hit with. Some things that stand out from their run:
Very early on, Eddie George was a passenger in a car that was pulled over for suspicion of DUI. The driver was a female pro tennis player. This minor news story served as a comic set up for Bower as he came up with the premise of "What would the last 5 songs that Eddie George would want playing on the radio when the car he was in was pulled over?" If you're not laughing about the possibilities of this now, imagine this set up being beaten into the ground for at least 5 minutes before he got around to even naming one song.
Bower and Jeff were discussing prospects before last year's NFL draft and spent some time talking about Margus Hunt, a defensive lineman from, I think, SMU. Bower decided to talk about the player in an Irish accent, with lots of "faith and begorrah" kind of stuff. This would have been fine if Hunt was from Ireland or even if one of his parents was. He's actually from Estonia. I'm not sure if an Estonian accent has the same comedic potential, but at least it would have made sense.
Bower being adamant that the Bruins loss in the Stanley Cup finals would be remembered as one of the biggest choke jobs in sports history. I watched that series and less than a year later, I can't tell you if it was game 6 or 7 or any other details except that Boston gave up 2 goals late to lose the game/series to Chicago.
Hopefully, if we get a local replacement, they opt to focus on the NY/New England pro and college sports, mixed in with the national stories. Obviously, I'd love to hear plenty of UConn talk. It doesn't have to be pom-pom waving, but not Jason Page-level trolling, either.
On a different note, I've found that I have nothing to complain about with Van Pelt and Russillo's show. They don't have dumb shticks, they don't take themselves too seriously, and they cover a lot of topics.
