Boston Radio Host Hangs Up On Carolina Hurricanes Reporter Because Of His Southern Accent

To preview the upcoming Carolina Hurricanes–Boston Bruins playoff series, Boston sports radio show Toucher & Rich had Chip Alexander, Canes beat writer for the Raleigh News and Observer, call in Wednesday to talk hockey. It wasn’t long before one of the hosts hung up on him, for a very petty reason.

The relevant part starts at about the 20-minute mark. Just as Alexander’s talking about Nino Niederreiter, co-host Fred Toettcher cut the line. “I can’t listen to a guy with a Southern accent talk about hockey,” he said.

Co-host Rich Shertenleib didn’t agree. “That was a dick move! That guy was pretty good!”

Alexander apparently tried to call back into the show, but the hosts instead took calls from listeners with New England accents—that far more appealing regional inflection.

What Toettcher did was very much a dick move, but also a good lesson on how it’s never worth it to be a guest on talk radio. You burn part of your morning calling in to a show where the hosts shout at you, shout at each other, or treat you like crap in any number of other ways, all for—what—“exposure”? A few thousand people are listening; you can get more exposure doing a tweet. If you’re a newspaper guy and a morning zoo–type producer asks if you’d like to go on, counter by asking if they’d like to write your column for you that day, for free, naturally.

Alexander might’ve been cut off abruptly, but he was still able to get in the last word: