Dan O'Toole has been to a lot of Canadian communities the last two summers as part of the Kraft Celebration Tour.
He claimed he wasn't just pandering to the Mercury readership when he cited last year's trip to Outlook as one of his favourites.
"The mayor's wife cooked the entire crew lunch. He called her a southern belle. He met her playing hockey down in Georgia," O'Toole said in an interview on Friday. "She cooked us southern fried chicken, collard greens, peach cobbler, it was unbelievable."
If Estevan defeats Swan River, Man., in this year's voting, O'Toole and his comedic cohort Jay Onrait will visit the Energy City in late August for a SportsCentre broadcast.
He said the tour is the highlight of the year for TSN anchors, who have met life-long friends on their various stops.
"We can't wait to get on the road and get paid to go across Canada," he added.
He said he doesn't know a lot about Estevan, but he Googled it and found that it's close to the U.S. border. He added that he's hoping for the city to win because of the flooding it has endured.
"It's just Canadians being Canadians, they aren't doing anything special. Sure, they want to make their town look great, but we're pretty good judges of character and these people don't have to pretend to be nice.
"Estevan, if they are successful, will be exactly the same, I know it for a fact. Every stop has a defining moment and we can't wait to find out what the moment will be."
Onrait and O'Toole have become accustomed to making Canadians laugh every morning, but that wasn't the original plan.
"That was one of the phone calls we'd always get from our boss when we first started out. His line was, 'Guys, this isn't the Ha Ha Hut.' I guess if he opened a comedy bar, that's what he would call it, the Ha Ha Hut," O'Toole recalled.
"We never had anything planned when Jay and I got together, but we turned it into a show in which we can't wait to get to work because we know we're going to have fun."
He said his favourite parts of SportsCentre are when the duo gets off-topic during a highlight pack.
"We don't even talk about what's going on and one of us usually ends up losing it until we're laughing until we can't breathe anymore. We're not pretending when we're laughing.
"That's almost what it's become, is who can crack the other person up. Nothing's scripted when we go on our little diatribes. Jay is one of the funniest people I've ever met."
O'Toole joked that they don't pretend to be something they aren't because "we both realize we're lucky to have jobs.
"Once we were on Off The Record and Michael (Landsberg) says, 'This is an act right?' We said, 'Landsberg, if you'd talk to us outside your show maybe, you'd see this is who we are! Get out of your bubble Landsberg!'"
Another focal point on-air is the running references to Producer Tim, whose face is never shown.
"Tim's a real person, sadly. He's a very grumpy human being. Everything stresses him out. He literally pulls his hair out at work," O'Toole said.
"Tim does not like us, but our boss likes us paired with him because he keeps us in check. With someone else we'd go too far and we'd probably be fired by now for something we did on the air."
Meanwhile, a TSN crew was on hand Thursday afternoon at a Rider Pride rally held in the Co-op parking lot. Bouncy castles, a bean bag throw and other kids' activities were set up, along with a booth selling T-shirts.
Footage from the rally will be aired on TSN on voting day, July 19.
