The Toronto Tempo have had an admittedly rough first year in the W. Plagued by injuries and currently boasting a record of 11 and 31, the WNBA’s only Canadian team has been put through the wringer this year. But, on court pain is not the only type of suffering that Tempo players seem to be experiencing.
In August, Marina Mabrey tweeted the following:
For those of us who are also Rogers customers, this
is a familiar plight. The 2022 Rogers Outagewas a horrific example of this, leaving 12 million people (including myself) without connection, and while things haven’t gotten to that level since, it seems that the Canadian tech giant is still being lackadaisical when ensuring the delivery of quality service. The CBC reported that over the past two years, Rogers has been reducing the size of its customer service department, a decision that is now having ripple effects in the sports world. This is all the more embarrassing when you consider that Marina Mabrey is not only the WNBA’s all-time leader in single game points, but also, from New Jersey; not quite the impression I want to give a non-Canadian star of the functionality of our infrastructure. The guy can score 53 points, but somehow, couldn’t get a call back from Rogers.
What makes it worse, however, is that this seems not to be an isolated incident for the purple and blue, with Kiki Rice tweeting out on Saturday that she hadn’t had Wi-Fi in three days.
Marina responded to this, posting her own message, asking for someone to “Plz send help for Kiki”.
Rice has averaged a solid 12.8 points in her rookie season on respectable shooting splits, and is someone who could contribute in a big way to the Tempo for years to come. While we’ve got her under contract for now, nobody likes bad internet, so who’s to say whether this might be the nail in the coffin for her wanting to stick around in Toronto? The Tempo need stability, and Canada’s basketball teams have historically had serious issues keeping stars and good players around, so bad luck with Wi-Fi is the last thing we need when we’re trying to build a competitive roster. It would be my worst nightmare to watch a podcast in five years and see Kiki dogging on Toronto, telling a host that her dislike all started when Rogers wouldn’t fix her internet. I shudder at the thought.
Now, Rogers does not own the Tempo — that’s Larry Tanenbaum, amongst others — so perhaps this was an oversight caused by lack of ownership. And thankfully, word came from Mabrey on Sunday that Rogers had indeed fixed her Wi-Fi, noting that currently, “it works perfectly.”
Can the Tempo afford to take the chance on bad Wi-Fi next year? Maybe the team needs to bite the bullet and switch over their players to Bell, before things get worse. Now, I’m not blaming Rogers for the team’s .262 win record, but I’m just saying, it probably helps to have high speed connection when you’re trying to watch tape before gameday.
A lot of things need to change for the Toronto Tempo next year: better health and tougher defence, for one. But, let’s add to the list, improved connection: and I’m not just talking about chemistry in the locker room.
