These two phrases seem to dominate the vocabulary of some of my favourite sports broadcasters on Canada's TSN (The Sports Network). I have to believe that when you are asked to talk about sports all of the time, you do run out of new things to say and ways to talk about that subject.

One of the annoying things about specialty channels is that since they are limited to one major subject, there is a lot of repetition in stories and features. I tend to leave my TV on this channel as more of a background provider of information not unlike the old fashioned radio which I knew prior to the days of television. But radio did one thing in that the announcers were mostly limited to a specific time period during the day.

Sports announcers seem to be tied to specific sports so if you watch the shows on hockey, you will hear these two phrases unlike the ending phrase of one of the do everything when people are on holidays or don't want to work that shift. "Make the final...." is his phrase.

I remember the phrase from a number of players in a golf tournament for a sports production company. They do not invite any of the "poodles" to the tournament except for the guy that does most of the voice work for promotional content. The concept of "poodle" is in reference to announcers that are considered high maintenance and high strung just like the dog show poodle. Even in the sports world you will find poodles. Maybe that's why they show dog shows when there just isn't anything else to show for sports content.