The Score's Drafted: One guy's dream come true

I'm still not sure if The Score's Drafted: The Search for Canada's Next Sportscaster was a unique way of hiring staff or a thinly disguised excuse to let a sponsor (Gillette) plug its products in the middle of a show week after week.

But Drafted made for pretty good television at times, especially when it demonstrated that being a sportscaster isn't as easy as it looks. And any project that attracts more than 3,000 entries certainly served to raise The Score's profile.

The winner of the series is Paul Brothers, who gets a full-time job out of the deal and some sort of contract to plug Gillette products. Apparently, with Tiger Woods on the outs, sponsors are looking everywhere.

For Brothers, who beat out four other finalists Tuesday night, it's a dream come true.

``It's the culmination of a 15-year journey," says the 28-year-old native of Bishop's Falls, Newfoundland, a town of 3,000 he says is so small you have to leave town to buy socks. ``I’ve wanted to be a sportscaster for a long time."

The journey began when he launched an FM radio station at his high school. After Ryerson University rejected him as a candidate for its radio-television program, Brothers worked in radio and television news before landing a job as a videographer for MuchMusic in Halifax.

He enjoyed the jobs, but says they couldn't fill his ``passion bucket" the way sportscasting could. A big Bob Cole fan, Brothers says, ``I probably know more about sportscasters than I do about athletes."

He's pretty familiar with one athlete, though: his girlfriend is Jillian Mouzar, a member of the reigning national mixed curling team.

Brothers was laid off last November and has been looking for work ever since. He accepted a job selling insurance, but changed his mind after his father told him he was meant for better things.

Through it all, he never gave up on his dream to be a sportscaster and that's when The Score came along. Like most of the contestants, he showed some rough edges (no doubt easily treatable with any Gillette skin-care product) but stood out for his down-home personality.

The Score says he'll be on the air soon, though his role hasn't been specified.We can presume that he'll be clean-shaven and have supple skin.

THE MADNESS CONTINUES: The NBA announced Wednesday that CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer will be ``a guest tweeter" for the league's Twitter feed during Thursday's Wizards-Celtics game. It didn't explain why. ... Canadians who enjoyed the work of Peter Gammons on ESPN baseball broadcasts won't get an opportunity to see him next season. Gammons is now with MLB Network and NESN. ... November was a great month for the Canadian Football League online. The league reports that its website registered more than 1 million unique visitors in November, a record for cfl.ca. In all, visits were up 78 per cent over last November. Add that to soaring television ratings and 2009 was a very, very good year for the CFL, the Toronto Argonauts excepted.

Comments

[brent upshaw]

Nobody watches The Score so who cares...
I recently got a suvey from the BC Lions and they asked where I got my TV sports information from...
The options were TSN,Rogers,CBC,CTV,Global,etc
The Score wasn't even on their list...
Last year the Vanier Cup on The Score drew 1/4 of what TSN drew this year.. The Score is a huge joke...
Home for the hardcore...more like home for the irrelevent..
Mindya..If you were an American visiting Canada for a short time...you'd probablly love The Score... All the NCAA stuff that no one gives a damm about is on The Score... What a joke.

[George Jetson]

Cabbie is worth watching.

[John Merritt]

Thats really great if you have a face and voice for TV. I was made for radio, especially since I am a 'timberland's' type guy. Flannel shirts, jeans and boots is my regular attire. Something about wearing a buttonup shirt and a tie that restricts the flow to your brain is not real appealing to me. BTW who thought of ties anyway?

Congratulations Paul, 28 years old and already has his dream job, if that is not cool. Now he doesn;t have to travel far to buy his underwear and socks. Merry Christmas.

[brent upshaw]

Yes.. Cabbie is awsome... The rest of the network is not.

[bill]

brent upshaw...you are who exactly? For someone who hates the Score, you seem to have a very strong opinion about the network.

[Chris in Whitby]

Hey Chris,
You may have addressed this before on your blog but when is the MLB Network going to make an appearance in Canada? Somebody (read: Rogers) must have the Canadian rights but when will we be able to see it? (Mind you, I have yet to see the MLB Network...have you? Is it even worth asking about?)
Thanks.