32 Thoughts: The Podcast - A Brief Statement

Episode Date: October 29, 2021

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Starting point is 00:00:00 okay so as you know friday is usually a podcast drop for us and we were planning on doing one a full one for today you know the joel quenville news came down late on thursday night and we're going to see what happens with kevin cheval day off and his meeting with the league on friday so jeff and i decided to wait until that was done and then then we'll basically do something Friday night for Saturday with all of our thoughts about the week and everything that went down. For those of you who listened to Jeff's radio show, you heard how emotionally he was on Thursday. And I wanted to give him a break tonight because I wanted to make a quick statement and I did want to do it by myself. And I did want to do it by myself.
Starting point is 00:00:46 Look, I'm not feeling great. You know, I accept all criticism and complaints for how you feel or don't feel. I handled this over the past few weeks. I don't really look at social, but I'm not going to block my replies or send any angry DMs or mute or block anyone, you know, whatever criticism there is, I take it. It's that simple. And I feel terribly about everything, to be honest. You know, I think people wonder, you know, are you afraid of losing your access or potential sources? It's not about that. It isn't. I get into plenty of battles over things much smaller than this. I don't think, nevermind, I don't think, I know that was never the issue. Where I think I messed up here badly was I made bad decisions
Starting point is 00:01:42 on use of my time and what my priorities were. And that's a terrible mistake. There's no other way to say it. Last year, when the story broke in May, we're in the middle of the playoffs leading up to the draft and free agency. And what I should have done was picked one over the other. And I think we all know which one I should have picked over the other, but I tried to do both and you can't do both. It's not that I didn't work on
Starting point is 00:02:12 the Blackhawk story. I did. I had several conversations and I did push towards things, but I was always behind because I was also working on my other duties. I was in a situation where other things I was chasing were getting done and getting out. I always felt behind and I got frustrated and felt I wasn't contributing anything. Then we get through the Stanley Cup, we get towards the draft, big moves happen. We get to free agency, big moves happen. We get towards the draft. Big moves happen. We get to free agency.
Starting point is 00:02:44 Big moves happen. I took vacation for the first time in two years. I just let it slide. It's that simple. And I'm not making excuses. I'm just being honest and saying what happened. And a few of you heard me during this saying, it's not going away. I had been told that whatever came out of this investigation, it wasn't going to be hidden. It was going to be out there and there was the potential for it to be very raw.
Starting point is 00:03:12 So I was confident there would be time to react to that. As I said, and I said several times now, it wasn't the right decision. And if I could go back and do it over again, I would change it. But you can't change history, unfortunately. So when I read the report on Tuesday, it was very raw, obviously. There were things I was expecting in there. There were some really hard things that I wasn't expecting, and they hit you terribly. And then I saw the Kyle Beach interview on TSN on Wednesday night.
Starting point is 00:03:49 And there's something about, you know, words on a computer screen or words on our computer screen. And as difficult as those are, it's nothing compared to the emotion and the passion and the pain we saw in Kyle Beach's face. It just takes it to another level. And of course, we had to air the TSN interview on Rogers. And I don't have any problem with that. I think it was 100% the right thing to do. But it was also embarrassing for us. And I'm a senior person at Sportsnet.
Starting point is 00:04:23 A lot is asked of me. A lot is asked of me. A lot of it is expected of me and I have to wear a lot of that. And I do. I feel terribly about it. Like I said, I do. And there's going to be a lot of talk at our place about how to make sure this doesn't happen again.
Starting point is 00:04:43 And it's not only about what other people need to do, it's what I have to do. And, you know, there's consequences for this beyond how badly I feel. And, um, I've learned in life, you don't make decisions when you're emotional. And right now I'm still very emotional and, uh, I'll come down from that, uh that over the next little while and I'll make some decisions then. But I just wanted everyone to know that I know what happened here. I appreciate all your listenership in good times and bad. I appreciate how much you read in good times and bad.
Starting point is 00:05:22 And I will be better. Thanks for everything, everyone. And thanks for listening.

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