For the first time in its history, the oldest sports radio show (it began in 1972, on CKAC) is hosted by a female duo. Every Friday evening this summer, Isabelle Ethier and Patricia Ann Beaulieu will use their experience and passion for sports to entertain and inform listeners of 98.5.
Published at 00:31
Updated at 6:15 a.m.
“I can’t believe I’m going to be co-hosting this show,” Patricia Ann Beaulieu told me. “I wasn’t even born when it started. Isabelle and I know how lucky we are. It’s not nothing.”
The professional relationship between these two women is recent. And yet, we already perceive a great complicity.
The first one starts a sentence and the other one completes it. There is no doubt that their presence on air will be highly dynamic.
Listeners to 98.5 were recently able to hear Patricia Ann Beaulieu, who has 25 years of experience in the media world, as a collaborator of Sports fansWe have to go back to childhood to discover his keen interest in sports.
PHOTO ROBERT SKINNER, THE PRESS
Isabelle Ethier and Patricia Ann Beaulieu
“I would fall asleep listening to Open Lines and Marc Simoneau,” she says. “At home, there was no one to influence me. I was the one trying to convince the family to watch sports on TV. My friends listened to MusiquePlus and I listened to games Expos. My girlfriends were into the Backstreet Boys and I was into Gary Carter, Tim Wallach and Andrés Galarraga. I play several sports – tennis, hockey, running. It’s really part of my life.”
As for Isabelle Ethier, she became known for her platform Femme d’hockey, where she gives a voice to those who gravitate in various ways around this sport. “I come from a family where sport was very present. My father coached Mike Bossy when he was a Pee-Wee. The first time I saw my father cry was when Gilles Villeneuve died,” recalls with emotion the woman who for a long time made an interminable bus journey to follow the sports-study program at the Pierre-de-Coubertin school in Montreal North.
Like other shows, Sports fans has made more room for women in recent years. The two co-hosts acknowledge that things have changed. “On this subject, we must highlight the openness of our male colleagues,” says Patricia Ann Beaulieu. “Integration is going really well. Mario Langlois, Jérémie Rainville and Jeremy Filosa are very inclusive guys. We feel supported. We have taken our place. We have reached this point. There have been giant steps since Chantal Machabée.”
Isabelle Ethier shares this point of view. “Has the media environment changed in the last 10, 15 or 20 years? Yes. Have we reached parity? No. That said, it is true that things have changed.”
When I see a full Bell Centre for a women’s hockey game, I find it encouraging. We are asked to host a sports show and to do it our way. It is still a sign of great openness.
Isabelle Ethier
Indeed, when the management of 98.5 asked Isabelle Ethier and Patricia Ann Beaulieu to host Sports fans Friday, They were told to do it with their colors. “Of course, we’re going to cover the news, but we’re also going to talk about sports differently,” says Isabelle Ethier. “We’re going to go for topics that are off the beaten track. The way men and women look at sports is sometimes different, we have to talk about that.”
The segment “Both Sides of the Coin” will also bring together a male athlete and a female athlete who compete in the same sport. Their points of view will be crossed.
“I think Isabelle and I agree on one thing,” adds Patricia Ann Beaulieu. “Beyond the statistics, what interests us is the athlete, the human being. And then, there’s everything that goes with it, the lifestyle, the food, the fashion.” “Sport influences a lot of things in our daily lives,” continues Isabelle Ethier. “We don’t always realize it.”
The upcoming summer will be marked by the Paris Olympic Games. That’s great material for the two hosts. But they also intend to leave plenty of room for tennis, football, basketball and baseball. “And we’re definitely going to talk about hockey,” says Isabelle Ethier. “In Quebec, we have to talk about hockey all year long.”
Among the collaborators who will join the tandem, there will be Katia Aubin, Bruno Gervais, Annie Guglia, Louis Jean, as well as Jean-Philippe Cyr and Chef Oli who will talk about cooking. And then, of course, we will give the floor to the listeners. What would be Sports fans without a good phone-in? “We’re definitely going to open the lines,” insists Isabelle Ethier. “And throughout the show, people will be able to text us.”
Sports fans, Monday to Thursday with Jérémie Rainville, Friday with Isabelle Ethier and Patricia Ann Beaulieu, 8 p.m., at 98.5
