On the 25th anniversary of Sportsnet, SPORTSNET.ca's Brad Fay dives into the beginnings of the network under the headline, "Hair gel and humble beginnings: Behind the anchor's desk for Day 1 at Sportsnet." Along with a "limited number of production and management staff," only three on-air people have "remained with the network for the entire 25 years" -- Rob Faulds, Jamie Campbell and Fay. The mass of television sets that served as the studio backdrop, "like the Brady Bunch opening on steroids," set the network apart from TSN, "as did the hope that we would provide a little more irreverence for the viewers." Early reviews, "as you can imagine, were mixed." For every young sports fan "laughing along with our antics," there were as many "'serious' fans who, if Twitter had existed back then, would have told us to shut up and 'stick to scores.'" Perhaps those early days were "stressful for those on the executive floors," but those on the airwaves "weren't thinking we were fighting some battle to keep the network afloat" -- they were just happy to be there. A quarter-century later, Fay "still won’t argue with that."
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