The Franchise was nominated for 2 awards at the 2009 CJLO Diego awards ceremony last night. When the votes were tallied, and the results were made official, The Franchise walked away with the Wayne and Shuster award for Best Team, and the Phil Donahue award for BEST Talk Show! 

The Franchise has gone through a few changes through 2008, and it's great to see that you are happy with the results! The Franchise would like to personally thank the following for all their help and contributions to our success

 Aldo Parise - Host of Reigning in August, and the reason why there is a Franchise in the first place!

Brian "Doc" Hollidae - Program Director at CJLO who put us on air and who provided unconditional support

Chris Quinnell - Station Manager who approved keeping us on air and who provided unconditional support

Ricky D - Host of Sound on Sight, and person who provided us key advice that helped the format of the show, along with Aldo Parise

Rebecca Munroe- Host of Charts and Crafts, who provided the inspiration that allowed us to get training at another mainsteam station. 

and of course, all of our guests and fans that have provided us with amazing content and support! We have come a long way and we have brought CJLO along with us: 

Fully Accredited to the Montreal Impact, Montreal Juniors, XMMA, TKO, XMMA, Freedom Fight, Titans Fighting and Warrior1

Partially Accredited to the Montreal Canadiens, Montreal Allouettes and the UFC

Our Podcast downloads now have a minimum of 1000 per week and growing!

For more information about The Franchise, Gary Whittaker or Nick Murdocco, check us out at http://www.thefranchiseradio.net

 Our awards were by far the most downloaded show so far in the history of the Franchise. While hindsight is 20/20, we stand by all of our choices, even if some of them can be considered highly suspect today (Carey Price...)

 http://www.thefranchiseradio.net/2008-the-franchise-sports-talk-show-awards.html

 Get Ready! Our awards celebrating the best in Montreal Team sports and MMA are on their way! The awards will be done in conjuction with Off The Bench, our contributing writers to thefranchiseradio.net website, and YOU, our adoring fans! The list of nominees is only a few days away, and we will be announcing new award catagories as well. 

Last week we announced that my co-host Nick Murdocco won our 1st leg of the Pound 4 Pound weight loss challenge. Nick was able to lose 20 pounds in only 4 weeks, to my 10 pounds. As a result, I will donate 40$ to the Quebec Heart and Stroke Foundation. I want to congratulate Nick on a job well done!

You can follow our continued progress on our website, www.thefranchiseradio.net, in the "livin' large" section.

You've been hearing Nick and Gary go at each other verbally for the last few weeks now. It's a love/hate relationship, with both of them loving to hate each other. Now Nick and Gary want to see which one of them will be the Pound for Pound champ of The Franchise sports talk show.

Both of them are tired of having so much of each other to make fun of, so they have decided to embark on a mission; to see which one can lose the most weight. With both having at least 100 pounds to lose, the challenge will be done in stages, with the first stage capped at 20 pounds. The first host to hit 20 pounds off will win. While we may not know what the winner will get, we know that the loser will have to donate 2$ per pound to the Canadian Heart and Stroke Foundation.

Make sure to listen to The Franchise every Sunday from 8:30 am to 10:30 am, as Gary and Nick will update you as to their progress. The challenge begins on July 6th. You can also read about their efforts on http://www.thefranchiseradio.net/. Gary recently lost 20 pounds, only to have gained not only them all back, but for some of them to have brought friends as well. This time he plans on being much more serious, and feels like he has the edge, because he knows what it takes.

Nick, on the other hand, feels like he has the advantage because he does have quite a bit more poundage to lose. According to Nick, he feels like he can lose the first 13 pounds easily by just giving up a few of the bad foods he eats.

Feel free to support Gary and Nick in their efforts, by sending us encouragement at thefranchise@cjlo.com, or by giving some feedback on our posts on the subject on the website at http://www.thefranchiseradio.net/living_large/index.html

My name is Nick Murdocco and have been the class clown and supreme know-it-all since elementary school. In kindergarten, the teacher asked if anyone knew any songs and let's just say that the whole class was saved by the bell, cuz I could have kept on going...

I have always been a sports fan from an early age. I have been a diehard Habs fan since I'm 5 and even though my family moved to Vancouver (back in the day when the Canucks had the hockey stick logo and were constantly pummeled 9-1 by the visiting Habs) I still cheered for the bleu blanc rouge!

My Italian heritage forcefully obliged me to follow and play soccer as well as jump on the bandwagon every time Ferrari won an F1 race. Growing up, I have also played football (noseguard) , Rugby (tighthead prop), Baseball (1st base and cleanup hitter thank you very much!) as well as having dabbled with TaeKwon-Do.

This passion for sports has always given me, so I thought, the divine right to express my opinion and insight on whatever sports story (or any story for that matter) happened to be the topic of the day. I never thought the day would come when I would actually get a microphone and be able to voice my opinion to more than just a few friends who tolerated me because I would eventually by the next round....until now !

I am very excited about contributing to this venture called THE Franchise on CJLO.com, as a new guest-host and a contributing writer to the site or whatever Leigh and Gary have in mind...easy boys, I'm a married man !

Anyways, enough on me, I look forward to writing and talking about a whole array of different topics from the Habs and the NHL to Baseball to even some of the "Franchise Featured Artist" if I so choose ! Time will tell !

In the meantime, enjoy the site, enjoy the show on CJLO.com on Sunday mornings from 7-9 AM and pretty soon on an AM radio dial near you and hope to be interacting with y'all soon !!

2008 is going to be a great year for listeners of The Franchise.

In addition to our 2007 The Franchise Awards show for our debut on Sunday morning, we will be playing our interview with Patrick, The Predator, Côté on our Jan 19th show. Patrick Côté will be fighting Drew McFedries on UFC Fight Night on January 23rd.

If you have questions you want us to ask Patrick before interview, let us know at thefranchise@cjlo.com