Twenty years after Sports Page's demise, Yulin' with the Page still resonates

It’s become a Christmas time tradition for sports fans of a certain vintage — lamenting the loss of Yulin’ with the Page.

The much beloved Sports Page has been off the air for 20 years now, with the last show running on CHEK TV on Sept. 2, 2005. Yulin’ was one of the Page’s staples. It was must-see TV or at least must-record TV over the holidays, with its highlight packs interspersed with skits and appearances by local sports types. 

Yulin’ readily comes up on social media this time of year. To this day, people are still posting episodes on YouTube.

Former Page host Don Taylor says that sports fans love “great visuals,” and believes that “there’s nothing like seeing a great play or seeing somebody screw up on a big stage.” That was part of the Yulin’ appeal, but so was the fact Yulin’ featured moments like Trevor Linden going around the Vancouver Canucks dressing room and asking the likes of Gino Odjick and Pavel Bure what they wanted for Christmas.

That wouldn’t happen these days. It just wouldn’t. The access to athletes and teams isn’t the same now. Sports has become bigger business. Teams have their own social media channels they can fill. Athletes have their own personal ones, too.

“It speaks to a time when sports wasn’t taken as seriously and was probably a lot more fun,” Taylor said. “You don’t see a lot of that today. You do see a lot of Best Of (highlight packs) … but we made sure we edited in a lot of things that weren’t necessarily sports. It was heavy on the humour and that spoke to a lot of people.”

Barry Macdonald was another longtime Page host. Ask him his favourite Yulin’ episode and he’s got one instantly — Page boss Paul Carson baking cookies at home, while Macdonald, Taylor and John Shorthouse went around town singing Christmas carols. The attendant at a Petro-Can on Burrard Street appreciated their efforts enough that he offered to buy them a drink. Cue the camera shot of the guy filling up three cups with gasoline.

The attendant’s name was Fish. Macdonald recalls that to this day.

Shorthouse points out that Yulin’ was originally planned as merely a way to give staff a couple of nights off during the holiday season. Its popularity took off instantly and, as Shorthouse says, “became synonymous with Christmas, much like the world junior hockey tournament.”

Shorthouse says that Taylor was the “brains behind the entire project.” And, in fine Page fashion, Shorthouse chirped Taylor about it, maintaining that it became a “running joke how much more of his time Yulin’ took up with each passing year.”

Along with Taylor (CHEK’s Donnie and Dhali — The Team) and Shorthouse (Vancouver Canucks TV play-by-play broadcaster), other Page alums with prominent gigs in sports media include Dan Murphy (Canucks TV game host), Blake Price (Sekeres and Price podcast) and Dave Randorf (Tampa Bay Lightning TV play-by-play).