Originally posted: March 31, 2017
Funny, thought provoking and insightful.
Billed as “a night of ball-talk nerdery with the coolest of cool”, and hosted in the Underground at The Drake Hotel, my first time attending Hoop Talks Torontodid not disappoint.
The evening kicked off with host Ashley Dockingof the FNTSY Sport Network taking the stage with Raptors veteran reporter Doug Smithfrom the Toronto Star. The witty banter between Ashley and Doug was both entertaining and insightful and their discussion of the Toronto Raptors was a hit with the audience.
One of the best parts of first panel was bet that Doug made with an audience member – Demar, the audience member, has Golden State and Doug has the field with $50 going to the charity of the winners choice.
Up next were Willian Lou from the Score (and Raptors Republic), freelance writer Alex Wong and Anupa Mistry from Fader who participated in an interesting panel on diversity in sports media. The panel was described best described by one attendee as “insightful, funny, uncomfortable and insightful panel on diversity and media”. Next up were some intermission funnies...
The final panel of the night consisted of Michael Grange from Sportsnet and the Raptors radio duo of Paul Jones and Eric Smith. They started of with a lively conversation on who should be the MVP (*cough* Kawhi Leonard *cough*). The conversation also ranged from an insightful conversation on the “rest issue”… link... and Cleveland’s chances of coming out the east again.