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Calmer, gentler Virk takes reporting role

This may come as news to many, but there is only one Adnan Virk.

By Chris Zelkovich

Fri., May 2, 2008

This may come as news to many, but there is only one Adnan Virk.

The hyperkinetic, jive-talking guy who delivers scores while entertaining some and driving others to distraction on The Score is the same person who delivered insightful reports and asked intelligent questions during the Raptors' short playoff run.

And we're about to see a lot more of the latter as Virk moves into the spot vacated by the likes of Elliotte Friedman and James Cybulski.

"We want to be able to tell more stories and Adnan is a guy who can really do that," says Score programming head Greg Sansone. "He did an excellent job courtside with the Raptors. It put him in a different light."

Depending on your tastes, that may be good news or bad. Virk's been one of those love-him-or-hate-him guys in his anchor role.

"The people who like me will say it's because I have my own style and I'm irreverent and energetic," says Virk. "Those who don't will say I'm self-indulgent and over-the-top, trying too hard."

Regardless, a different Virk will emerge soon at The Score, reporting and filing features on big events.

"If somebody finds me a little too abrasive as an anchor, they might appreciate me as a reporter," he says.

Virk's career path has followed a non-traditional curve, which in many ways matches his life.

Born in Toronto to Pakistani immigrants, Virk grew up in tiny Morven, Ont., near Kingston.

"My brother and I were the token minorities like Token on South Park," he recalls.

After taking TV at Ryerson, Virk worked as an intern at TSN but longed to be in front of the camera.

He auditioned unsuccessfully for those offbeat between-the-ads commentaries at Omni but showed enough to be offered a spot on the channel's Bollywood Boulevard.

The problem was he was no fan of Bollywood movies, but managed to do the job anyway. Then he moved on to Omniculture, a daily show whose floor director was the cousin of then Score programming head Anthony Cicione.

Virk says he almost drove Cicione crazy with phone calls, "like Robert DeNiro in The King of Comedy."

Virk says being a minority – "a brown guy," he calls it – has worked in his favour.

"I remember Mark Milliere at TSN always told me never to deny my ethnicity," Virk says. "It's such a competitive environment, so whatever edge you have to have to use that.

"Toronto is a changing city and television is a visual medium. Being brown will help you at one point."

When Cicione hired him, Virk says he joked that the channel could always use a minority.

"I kind of laughed it off, but a few years later I asked him if he hired me because of the colour of my skin," Virk says. "If so, I'd find that a little bit disturbing.

"But Anthony told me it didn't hurt, but that my talent and work ethic were the main reasons."

Now that talent and work ethic will be put to the test, which might present a problem for The Score. Both of Virk's predecessors are now working elsewhere.

NEW LOOK: Rogers Sportsnet broke in its new studios at the downtown Rogers complex this week. Everything will now be in HD, says president Doug Beeforth. The facilities will give Sportsnet access to more highlights faster than ever. The centrepiece is Sportsnet Connected's 8-by-74-foot projection screen. . . . TSN has all Canada games at the world hockey championship, with the FAN 590's website providing radio coverage. . . . Despite the Jays' poor start, ratings are up 17 per cent on Sportsnet.

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