TORONTO – Popular sportscaster Jody Vance has left Rogers Sportsnet.
The well-known, bespectacled 6 p.m. Sportsnetnews co-anchor (with Jim Van Horne) recently asked out of her contract early and her last public appearance for the sports channel was on Sunday.
“Jody went to (management) recently to ask out of her contract early and her request was granted” said Sportsnet spokesman Dave Rashford. 
The move was on her mind for some time, Vance (right) told www.cartt.ca this afternoon. “I’m really up for a change,” she said. “I received a couple of offers over the past few years where people said they saw me doing news or going back to radio, or an entertainment reporter.”
“I turned them down right away because I was at Sportsnet, but it got me to thinking,” she added.
So, after years of doing four shows a week, Vance says she is taking August off, at least, and then will see what the future holds. She insists she has no firm offer on the table from anyone in broadcasting and won’t be leaving Toronto (her husband Bart Given is assistant director of baseball operations with the Toronto Blue Jays).
What she said she’d like to do is be a reporter at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver (her home town), for example, or “ideally, I’d love to do a Barbara Walters meets Bob Costas” type of interview show, she added.
A trained chef, the 37-year-old Vance started with Sportsnet in 2000 as the host of its live morning show (which was cancelled a couple of years ago after Vance’s replacement, Hazel Mae, took a job in Boston) and quickly graduated to the dinner slot.
According to her bio, Vance started as a broadcaster for Vancouver’s CHRX Radio in 1988, moving to television with BCTV in 1996 and later, VTV.
She’s also done some fill-in and guest work at The Fan 590 in Toronto and commercial voice-over roles.
One thing Vance won’t be doing? “Another Quiznos commercial,” she said, referring to her sandwich spot along side Don Cherry. “I don’t aspire to be an actress.”
