The Carolina Hurricanes may have earned the lovable nickname of the “bunch of jerks,” but it appears not all the jerks are in North Carolina. A fact brought to light on Wednesday when Boston sports radio host Fred Toettcher unceremoniously dumped an interview with a Hurricanes beat writer due to his Southern accent.
Toettcher, host of the “Toucher and Rich” show on Boston’s 98.5 The Sports Hub, invited Raleigh News & Observer sports writer Chip Alexander onto the air on Wednesday to talk about the Hurricanes.
Alexander, who sports a slight southern accent, gave the Boston hosts about 4-1/2 minutes of Hurricanes analysis when all of a sudden Toettcher abruptly hung up on Alexander saying, “I can’t listen to a guy with a southern accent talk about hockey.
“I can’t take it. Hockey and southern accents,” Toettcher said adding, “I didn’t think he was saying anything particularly interesting, and it was getting on my nerves.”
(The hang-up comes about 21 minutes into the clip)
The Boston show’s co-hosts were aghast at how badly Toettcher treated the southern hockey writer.
But that didn’t end the incident. Toettcher went on and on yelling about how he hated Alexander’s accent and also said he was unhappy that the Carolinian was supportive of the “bunch of jerks” nickname.
“If I don’t like something, I don’t like something,” Toettcher said.
Alexander, though, got the last word on the subject by a suitably snide reply to one of the promo tweets from the “Toucher and Rich” show.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston.