Fox Sports 1’s great Canadian sports broadcasting experiment is over.

The network has cancelled Fox Sports Live and won’t be renewing the contracts of Jay Onrait and Dan O’Toole when they’re up in March.

There is already speculation that the pair might return to TSN, where they were beloved by Canadian viewers as they honed their irreverent take on sports as the late-night hosts of SportsCentre from 2003 to 2013. Calls to Onrait and TSN for comment Thursday weren’t returned.

The pair once ruled the roost in Canada with their offbeat style and chemistry, often compared to the ESPN tandem of Keith Olbermann and Dan Patrick. A 2012 article in the Wall Street Journal asked: “Why can’t we have Canada’s Sportscentre?”

From there, Onrait and O’Toole worked on TSN’s London Olympics coverage and were up to their usual antics when they were approached by Fox executives, who were planning to take on market leader ESPN with a dedicated sports channel. FS1 hired away the pair — plus producer Tim Moriarty — in 2013, with Onrait and O’Toole moving to California for the launch of Fox Sports Live, that network’s flagship show.

In 2013, during an interview with theStar for his first book Anchorboy, Onrait knew the challenge ahead: “It’s the reverse of what I’ve been doing up here. TSN had a 15-year head start and Sportsnet still hasn’t caught them. Down there, ESPN had a 30-year head start, so we’ve got way more of our work cut out for us. Way more. It’s going to take a long time to really make a dent. I’m being a very realistic about it. My only hope is that our show is unique enough that slowly people trickle over to us as appointment viewing, kind of the same way as SportsCentre here.”

Out of the gate, Onrait and O’Toole received rave reviews in the U.S. but it didn’t lead to big ratings. They tried several changes. The most recent incarnation had them effectively doing a late-night talk show.

Fox Sports Live’s last show aired Wednesday night, and the cast and crew were reportedly informed of the decision Thursday morning.

“We’ve been committed to creating programming that resonates with sports fans. As part of that commitment, we are constantly assessing all of FS1’s studio offerings, and despite changes to the format of Fox Sports Live and the popularity of Jay and Dan as individuals, we’ve made the difficult decision to move forward with other projects.” Charlie Dixon, executive vice-president of content for FS1 and FS2, said in a statement to SportsBusinessDaily.

Online, many Canadian fans expressed hope that the pair would return to Canada, and author James Miller — who wrote the oral history Those Guys Have All The Fun: Inside the World of ESPN — tweeted: “Silver lining for @JayOnrait after cancellation of @foxsportslive — Hearing he will be returning to @TSN_Sports in Canada.”

FS1 has moved toward more opinionated hosts debating topics, and Onrait and O’Toole’s humorous take didn’t fit in with that plan. The speculation is that they will be replaced by Katie Nolan, another FS1 personality who has had a weekly show called Garbage Time with Katie Nolan, which aired Wednesday at midnight and features pointed commentary on sexist attitudes.

Nolan raised O’Toole’s ire on Twitter last May when she said that she’d like to host a show that aired at 11 or 11:30 p.m. — Fox Sports Live’s time slot. O’Toole took umbrage, tweeting; “Hey @katienolan, great to see you are a team player. Can u feed my kids once you take our time slot? Thanks!” He was criticized, but noted that his show’s “ratings were better” than Nolan’s.

TheSportingNews broke the story that Nolan would be expanding her role.