OK, so 99.9 The Fan is the Hurricanes’ flagship station. Their hosts usually have it together–Mike Maniscalco, for one. I love the man, even though he’s from Buffalo and (nominally) a Slugfan. Knows his hockey, loves to talk his hockey, and gives some pretty spectacular interviews.

HOWEVER: Mark Thomas, their afternoon drivetime co-host? He needs to learn something about hockey if he wants me to take him seriously–either that or he needs to just admit that he knows dick-all about the Sport of the Gods and is unwilling to learn anything about the Sport of the Gods so that I can just tune him out when he starts flappin’ his yap about the Sport of the Gods.

FOR EXAMPLE:

Today Mark was interviewing Matt Gellatly, the Raleigh boy who just got drafted to Saginaw of the OHL. Among other things, Mark asked the kid about (and I quote) “lighting it up”. G-dude asked him what he meant by “lighting it up”, and Mark’s response made it clear that he was asking if the kid fights or pounds people–and he did an asstacular job of trying to cover himself on it.

WTF?

It’s the JUNIORS, you meathead–the players don’t fight in Juniors these days unless they want a suspension! If you want to fight, you go to Derek Boogaard’s summer camp or something. You don’t go to juniors. And then asking him if he “lit it up” in the RYHA–meaning the same thing? Err….yeah.

I mean, really. Even 850 the Buzz has their shit together and the hosts tend to be fairly up-front about not knowing hockey as well as, say, any fan not named Mike in Cary–but 99.9? They’re the freakin’ flagship station. Their hosts should really have it more together so’s not to embarrass the team whose games they carry.