32 Thoughts: The Podcast - Exaggeration Season

Episode Date: September 26, 2022

Did you watch hockey this weekend? Jeff and Elliotte give some of their early takeaways from some of the games that took place this weekend around the NHL (1:20), discuss the Nick Hague (8:50) and Jakob Chychrun (11:25) situation, Mike Grier’s comments regarding the season-opening visit to Prague (16:50), and what will see from players in their walkaway year (21:00) including McKenzie Weegar, Bo Horvat and David Pastrnak.They are also joined by the founder of RSG Hockey (a global hockey agency) and the new President of NRX Hockey, Allain Roy. Allain tells the guys why it was important for RSG to branch out and create this new division that would be dedicated to helping hockey players reach their greatest potential on and off the ice."NRX Hockey is bringing together agency, lifestyle and financial advisory services to empower hockey players to maximize their potential alongside global superstar athletes in other sports." - Allain RoyThe guys give a few thoughts on the 32 tour at the end of the podcast (1:03:30) and Elliotte tells us about his war against the rodents (23:55).Music Outro: City Park - RemedyListen to the full single hereThis podcast was produced and mixed by Amil Delic, and hosted by Jeff Marek and Elliotte Friedman. Editing support by Mike Rogerson.The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Sports & Media or any affiliates.

I also want to mention that last night I got home at one in the morning and there was a skunk on the street and you know normally when you drive up and you get out of your car the skunk runs away it didn't it just stayed there and looked at me and that's when I realized that the rodents are about to take over the world. Elliot do you know what time of year it is? It's September we just passed the solstice. But more specifically, as we say in the Atlantic, it's preseason hockey time. It's the time of year where we say things like, Dylan Holloway looks like a player.

Matthew Phillips is looking great with the Flames. Marco Rossi's a safe bet for the Wild. Lucas Stostel is standing on his head in Anaheim. And did you see Vincent Arsenault handed to Adam Klapka, the big six foot eight giant for the Calgary Flames? That's the type of conversation we're having this weekend, Elliot.

And I, for one, love it. I know it's all the preseason, young kids, let's see what happens when they get into mixing with the vets a little bit later on when some cuts come. But I always love this time of year.

Just for some conversations, you look back on and you say, yeah, maybe we're a little premature with our pronunciations about players. But welcome to 32 Thoughts, the podcast. Frege, alongside Merrick and our man Amal Delic, playing the keyboards as always. You got to work a couple of preseason games, Ottawa and Toronto on Saturday.

Any takeaways from you? Jake Sanderson's really good. Shocker. I know he went minus two, but... He's excellent. That guy looks like a player. First of all, I can't tell you how excited I was to work on Saturday, that doubleheader.

I'm really excited for the start of this year. I really have good feelings about the quality of play that we're going to see this season, so it was great to be back. I do have a rule and my rule is I don't care what happens in the first week of the preseason because I think the players who really matter don't start to care until the second week. So I'm very careful about making any big declarations after one week of the preseason aside from if you're not guaranteed a roster spot you better come out hot like one thing i really look at jeff is who has a scoring chance and doesn't score like i think if you're a forward and you're battling for like a depth spot or you're a rookie who maybe isn't you top pick, you got to score early.

You have to score early. So that's one thing I look at is, who has a chance and doesn't bury it. But Austin Matthews had a minute-long shift on the penalty kill. He had less than five minutes of penalty kill time all of last season. So I thought that was really interesting. Lefrenier skating and rangers practice with

trocek and panarin is is very interesting to me and in one of vancouver's games on sunday night the greatest number three in canucks history jack rathbone led them with 26 minutes and you love i do love rathbone and so like this is the kind of stuff I do look for. Who gets the opportunities? Who's maybe put in a role that we don't expect them in? Matthews. And who comes out hot? I really think in that first week, the only thing I really care about is

if you're not one of those guys who's guaranteed a roster spot, do you make an impression? That's the one thing that I look for too. Things that we'll look back a couple of years because a young kid will make an impression. That's the one thing that I look for too. Like things that we'll look back a couple of years because, you know, a young kid will make an impression, whether it's, you know, that, oh geez, Jack Ice made a big impression already on a lot of teams, you know, whether it's him.

And then you see him a couple of years later as a pro and you say like, okay, like, you know, we got a whisper of it before. Like I'm with you, like a little, you know, players that leave a little bit of a, of an appetizer, a little tease of what's going to come next in their career before they, you know, scuttle back to their junior teams or their American hockey league affiliates.

One person that we've been curious about the last little while, and I know we've been on Jason Roberts at watch. Before, before we go on to that, Jeff, I did want to mention a couple of guys who stood out to me, aside from Sanderson and the Ottawa-Toronto games. Sure, shoot. Mark Kastelik. His father, Ed, was an NHL player.

Tough. Like that Mark Kastelik, he's a big guy. He looks like one of those guys who had a beard when they were 12. Like, you know, you always had one kid in grade seven who already had a beard. Like that looks like Mark Kastelik. His dad was mega tough ed was super tough and mark they mentioned he finished second in the sanders fitness testing and he had a goal against toronto and he just looks like a guy who is easily going to be a good

depth player in this league and you know obviously he's someone who puts in the work so i really noticed him and the other guy i noticed was obey kubel from toronto and the hits yeah he he really went after josh norris there's an interesting clip going around netflix is coming out with a documentary it's called the redeemed team it's about the 2008 u.s olympic team so in 2004 that's the first olympics i worked for cbc and part of my job that year was to do basketball and i actually covered the u.s basketball team they had a terrible tournament they lost in the semi-final of argentina and it was seen as like a big disgrace I covered that one and 2018 went back and they won the gold medal and there's a documentary going around and one of the clips

they put out in social media was from Dwayne Wade and LeBron James talking about Kobe Bryant and they had a game against Spain and Kobe Bryant in the dressing room says, first play, I'm going to run through Pau Gasol. Spain's best player, who was Kobe Bryant's teammate in Los Angeles, he says, I'm going to run through him. And the players, they don't believe it. They say there's no way he's going to do it. And on the very first play, I think Gasol tries to set a screen and Bryant just drills him.

He puts his shoulder down, knocks him to the ground. And the other American players, even Gasol's quote is saying, I can't believe that he just did that. But he showed that that was Kobe Bryant's mentality. Like when you read the book, The Mamba Mentality, that was him. You know, I was watching Obey Kubel and obviously he doesn't have history with Norris in terms of teammates but Obey Kubel was decided that he was going to come out and he was going to get noticed and he hit Norris in the first and injured him and I didn't like to see Norris injured but I didn't really have a problem with the play but the second one late in the game I didn't like

that and I remember years ago I think it was Jeremy Roenick who went crazy on a big hit in an exhibition game from a veteran player. I always worry about that at this time of year. I don't like seeing people get hurt in exhibition games for a lot of reasons, but I really don't like it when they're needless. I thought the second Obey Kubel one, like Brady Kachok got really mad and I didn't blame him because I don't like seeing that in exhibition games.

But I'll say this, we noticed Obey Kubel. We sure did. The first time I ever saw Nicholas Obey Kubel would have been at the Memorial Cup when it was hosted in London. He was playing on Val D'or and he was playing on the team mario de roche would have been the coach anthony mantha was leading valdor anthony mantha had between the regular season and the playoffs 81 goals in 81 games it was one of those seasons

where everything he touched went in uh julian goche would have been on that team as well and he was probably i mean he was certainly the feistiest the most energetic player maybe in the entire tournament like every time uh obey kubel was on the ice you noticed him and you couldn't take your eyes off of him like and i've always kind of secretly cheered for that guy i mean he was a pretty high pick he was a second or third rounder with the philadelphia flyers and spent a number of years like three or four years playing in the minors uh wins the Stanley Cup dents the Stanley Cup with the Colorado Avalanche I've always he's one of those guys that I've always kind of low-key cheered for and wanted to see him do well he's one of those guys that you know you know those guys

they win the Stanley Cup and you say yeah I'm really happy that guy won it Nicholas Obey-Kubel for me was that guy. There's a lot of guys on that Avalanche team, but he was one of them. And we'll see. We'll see with the Maple Leafs. I want to get to Nick Haig. We're going to pause at Jason Robertson and what's happening there, talk, because to my knowledge, maybe to yours, Freed,

nothing new, nothing's changed. Until I'm proven wrong, I don't think there's enough room to do a term deal so I think it's going to be you know my prediction bridge three times 7.5 okay what about Nick Hague do you have a crystal ball for this one no I really don't as a matter of fact I've heard Hague is leaving Vegas and going home that was the plan I heard on Sunday

so you know home for him is in Ontario so I'd heard he was going back. So it doesn't sound like it's close. This is just my opinion, but I'm kind of wondering if Rasmus Sandin is going to get settled in the near future. I just think there's too much at stake here. I think Toronto's shown that it's not going to bend too much. This is too big a season for Sandin, for him to miss camp.

I don't think it helps him. If I'm Sandin, I'm looking at this and saying, you know, Lilligren's going to be out, Hernia, you never know how those are going to be, and he's going to be playing catch-up. And, you know, Muzzin, you hope it's not anything serious. The Maple Leafs are downplaying it, but you always wonder when a guy starts hurt, right?

So I think Sandin, it behooves him, which is a good word for the day, to get done. And I think that one gets done. I'm going to make a prediction, you know, two times 1.5. I don't know if I'll be right, but I think that one gets done because I think everybody's starting to see, like, this one doesn't make sense for the player. I think the player kind of feels like he's being blocked too. Isn't that part of the issue here? I think people were sympathetic to

that. I really do. But like I said, now you look at Lilligren and you look at Muzzin, the opportunities are starting to open up for him. It's interesting. I remember last year, or it was either a year or two years ago i said players can miss camp and they're in such shape that they can catch up and i had a couple players reach out to me and say that even though they felt they were in good shape with the more of camp they missed on these contract disputes i don't like to call them holdouts i they're not i call them contract disputes yeah they say you'd be surprised how much you fall behind. And I just think this is too big a season for Sandin. And like I said, the opportunity argument is going away now.

There's injury in front of him. There's a chance for him to come in hot and grab a spot. See what happens there this week. I do want to mention that coming up a little bit later on in the podcast, our conversation we recorded last week with Alain Waugh, who's the president of Waugh Sports Group, RSG, who has now teamed up with North Rock X to launch a new financial and lifestyle division.

Really interesting interview with a very interesting agent who represents, amongst other people, Nico Heischer of the New Jersey Devils. What's happening with Jacob Chikrin? And are the St. Louis Blues involved? You know what? Someone said to me, Elliot, you get on these podcasts with Jeff, and he asks you a question, and you talk in circles and eventually get back to the question.

Yeah. And I said to that person, you're right, and now I'm going to do it again. At least people are used to it. They all see it coming. I think the short answer is I do think the Blues are around there. They have been. Yeah, they've been around for a long time on him.

And I think they would still be. I don't think they're out. But the team that's been hot in the Jacob Chikrin rumor mill all summer has been Ottawa. I don't think it's wrong. I think I've said before that I'm not convinced it's ever really been close. I've had some people who say that it's never been as close

as it's been hinted at times, but the conversations have been there off and on. And I mentioned on Saturday during the early game of the Ottawa-Toronto doubleheader that I think that one of the players that Arizona liked is Shane Pinto from Ottawa. And I think Ottawa has made it very clear that they're not doing that. You know, for example, we're going to do our Ottawa podcast sometime soon. And as you know, Jeff, when we asked DJ Smith if there was a player he was hoping really pushed to make roster decisions difficult for him, he said

Pinto. He said, look, like everybody knows what our first and second lines are, but he thinks there's an opportunity for Pinto to show that he deserves more top six opportunity. And when Dorian heard Smith's answer, he said, that's the guy actually I was going to say. So I think this is a player that Ottawa really values. And somehow this got twisted.

Like, I don't know what was on social media or what was said, but somebody apparently twisted it as I said that Ottawa can have Chikrin as long as Pinto's included, which is not even close to what I said on the air. So I don't know what the path is with the Sanders and the Coyotes, but I do think the Blues are interested and have been interested. The other thing there too is I had another team tell me

it's tough getting a handle. He's had a lot of injuries and he's hurt again right now. And I had one team tell me that this whole Ryan Ellis situation is sending a chill throughout the league. Like everyone's looking at what happened with Ryan Ellis and, you know, no one is accusing anyone of any skullduggery or anything like that. But they're saying that that is a buyer beware situation. buyer beware situation and you know one team just said to me you know looking at chikrin and seeing these hurt again like the the biggest fear that they would have is you is you give up the assets that are going to be necessary to get this guy and then you get what happened with ryan ellis now let me know if you've heard otherwise but i'm of the belief that and i believe this was you know all throughout last

season as well that what the coyotes are looking for is essentially the brent burns minnesota san jose deal which was devin setaguchi charlie coyle and a first so essentially three first round picks when you break it right down but setaguchiguchi was an established player. Charlie Coyle was a prospect. And then you throw in a first-round pick as well. I believe that's what Arizona was and were all through the season looking for. Do you have any reason to believe that that's not the case now? For argument's sake, again, if you're asking for a guy like Pinto, I think that that's kind of the expectation.

I don't know that it's changed much, but I know there's teams out there saying, what happens when Chikrin gets healthy? Like, how's this all going to work? Like, if you watched him and you listened to everything that was said last week when the Coyotes opened camp, it's clear it's uncomfortable right so i think some teams are just wondering you know how's this all gonna play out once you know he's ready to go

like i always wonder which are the which are the surprise teams yeah for sure that jump in and we've heard a number of teams interested and then there's always that one just like we saw with johnny gaudreau and the columbus blue jackets boom they jump in right away i always wonder about the surprise teams i think we all do i do too and i'll just say like one other thing it was a seismic week last week in the nba for a lot of different reasons and i don't know where this is gonna go i really don't know if it's going to have any bearing. But one of the questions being thrown around last week was the Phoenix Suns are for sale. Robert Sarver has been a guy who's been a real problem for the Coyotes. And I think people are just kind of wondering if someone steps in and buys the suns are there going to be any ramifications locally you know

good or bad for the coyotes what's this all going to mean like i don't know and i don't want to editorialize one way or the other and guess but it is a question being asked like what is the sale the sun's going to mean for the coyotes if if anything? And I think it's right now, it's too early to say, but I know people are kind of asking that question. Okay, I want to ask you a question about San Jose and Nashville and the Global Series. October 7th and 8th, opening up in Czech Republic, the Czech government essentially saying,

no Russians, no visas, no way. Mike Greer, GM of the San Jose Sharks, saying, no Russians, no visas, no way. Mike Greer, GM of the San Jose Sharks, saying, if we're not going as a team, we're not going. How do you see this one? Well, the first thing I think that we have to recognize is that I think a lot of us who live in North America or don't have direct relatives that came from countries that lived in the Iron Curtain or were threatened by the Iron Curtain, we really don't have a good idea of how personal this is and how deep the emotions and the feelings are. I see Dominic Hoschuk's tweets and Hoschuk's been a big proponent of this kind of move. And one thing I am, I'm always careful. Just because a country does something doesn't

mean everybody in the country agrees. I mean, all you have to do is look at the video coming out of Russia right now, or everybody in the country should be punished. But that doesn't also mean that Dominic Hasek can't have his say and his feelings are right. I had somebody who said to me, like, why should Hasek be able to block Russian players from going in there? They might not have anything to do with this. And I said, you know what? If you were Czech and you either experienced that time or you had family members who did, you have to understand why he feels the way he does. Like both positions can be right. And you just have to deal with the world being the way it is.

So I think we have to realize all that. You know, Mike Greer's comment to me was really interesting because what Mike Greer is trying to do there is build a culture. He's a new general manager. When Mike Greer was a player, he was a true team guy. It was team over self. And that's just the way it was. That's what he believes. And that's what he wants to create. and that's what he wants to create. You know, what that says to me, and I don't know how seriously it was discussed, but I believe it came up in a conversation about this whole situation is, should San Jose and Nashville go and the Russian players not go?

Like just the Russian players, Barabanov, Trenin, Svechnikov, should they be left behind? And I don't know that it was going to happen. And I don't even think it's necessarily wrong. Like when you're brainstorming and you're spitballing solutions to problems, it's not the worst thing to throw out ideas that maybe nobody will agree with, but let's just say, what do we think about this? I think that was thrown out there at some point. I don't know who threw it out there, but I think it was thrown out there at some point. And I think that was just my guesses.

And this is my opinion. That was Mike Greer's way of saying, I don't think that that's right. Like I said, I had a couple other GMs who said to me, if they were in Greer's shoes and you're a new GM trying to build your idea of a culture in San Jose, that's the message you have to send. You have to send that message. Because in hockey, a team sport, you have to create the message that you're all together. I don't know where this is going to go, Jeff. I get a sense that there's a lot bubbling under the surface here in terms of discussions about how to do this, but I don't know how this is going to play out.

I think the other thing too is, and this is probably one of the questions, assuming everybody's allowed to go, I'm sure they're wondering about security. Are they worried about that? So there's lots of conversations being held. That was one of the things that I thought of right away is the security of those players if they do in fact go and how they'll be treated there. Elliot, one thing I want to mention before we get to L.A.

The president of law sports group. What about guys that are in their walk-away year? There are some players who are happy to talk throughout the year. We know that. There are others that say, look, don't talk to me during the year. I don't want to think about my contract. I just want to play hockey. I'm going to throw three names at you.

You let me know whether they're in camp talk to me or camp don't talk to me and we'll start with mackenzie wieger in calgary from what i understand right now i believe wieger's goal is to say we have this done by the start of the season or we stop talking i think there's you know even he said at the beginning of training camp that there was reason to believe it was worked out. And I do think the two sides are taking a run at it. But from one of the things I've heard is that his preference is once the puck drops, shelve it.

I also do wonder about Daryl Sutter too. I wouldn't be surprised if he gets an extension too. Bohorvat, Vancouver. Yeah, this one I've heard mixed things um i really thought at the beginning of the summer and i and i think he did too that this one was going to get worked out in the summer we've talked about it a little bit look i've said this several times i'm not listening to any of the rhetoric here i'm really not like There was a ton of rhetoric on JT Miller. It got done and it got done in days. So to me, this is all noise. Vancouver has shown if they want to get it done, it's getting done.

I've heard mixed things. I've heard that he won't talk once the puck drops, but I've heard that's not completely set in stone. So I'm not committing to this one yet. I still want to believe that this one's going to get done, but I think there's a lot of uncertainty in terms of where this is going. And David Pasternak, the Boston Bruins, that's a fascinating one. Yeah, that's a big one. And I think it's obviously a huge extension for a lot of reasons. You know, one of the things I heard about Pasternak is he's not afraid to continue discussions into the season. I don't believe there's a hard deadline here. Like I think Pasternak from everything I've seen about this guy and, and heard and read

about this guy, he has a real healthy balance about his life and his competitive nature and where he is. I don't think he's the kind of guy who's going to be bothered by it too much. So I've heard he won't be afraid of letting the conversations go into the season. I mean, the other thing too is just because someone says I'm not going to talk during the year doesn't mean they will. It depends on the person. Like Johnny Goudreau held to that.

He said he wasn't going to talk last year and he did. But I remember there was a year, I think it was Sergey Bobrovsky's last contract with Columbus. He said he wasn't going to talk during the season and they signed an extension during the year. But from what I understand about Pasternak, he's not necessarily going to be afraid of having his agent handle discussions during the year.

Okay, so before we get to Alain Roy, before the podcast, you were going on and on about this encounter with a city animal, a city sk skunk would you like to share that with the audience elliot after the second game of the double header i went to meet gary galley i haven't had a conversation with gary i used to work a lot with gary gary's awesome yeah i haven't had a conversation face to face with gary in a long time and we went and sat down John Cipalla actually joined us for one non-alcoholic beverage and then he packed it in the director great director of Hockey Night

and then Gary and I chatted for about two hours it was great to catch up with him I hadn't seen him in a long time and I drove home and when I got home there was a skunk on the road one driveway over from me one driveway east and i shine my brights at it and it just sat there like normally my experience is if you see one of these things and they see you they like kind of run away scamper away but not this one and as you know jeff i've had a lot of problems with raccoons at my place yeah like in Like in the last few weeks, I've taken to mixing cayenne pepper and water and hot sauce and water and spilling it around my place. I am the Walter White of making this mixture. And it's actually really helped.

But this skunk, it looked at me and it didn't move. It says, I don't care. You can shine your lights at me. You can park your car and get out. I'm not moving. And that's when I realized that humans are doomed. We are doomed to be defeated by our rodent overlords. And this was one of the day I realized that we are losing control of this planet to our rodent overlords.

Okay. So that's a city skunk. planet to our rodent overlords. Okay. So that's a city skunk. Now you do have a big problem because city skunks have, have grown a spine much like many animals in the city have grown a spine. The coyotes are everywhere now and they're

coming out in the mornings. Yeah. That's no big deal. Yeah. See up here in the country and I'm about an hour, hour and 20 minutes out of Toronto. So I'm surrounded by wild turkey. See, I saw a Fox this morning when I was

walking my dog. That's not a big deal. Yeah. Do you worry for your dog in those situations? No, not at all. No, no. The Fox will go. My dog's a German shepherd and like he's,

he snarls up and he bristles up pretty good. Okay. Cause that's what the city people are worried about. Like with the coyotes, they worry about their dogs. Yeah. With smaller dogs for sure. Cause what the city people are worried about like with the coyotes they worry about their dogs yeah with smaller dogs for sure because what the coyotes do will they'll lure smaller prey like cats and small dogs like hey come on buddy come back to the pack and then

they'll just turn on them yes like we've heard it like every single night that i go to like tonight when i go to bed after this podcast i will hear coyotes just like you hear cars whizzing by i hear coyotes that's what i fall asleep to every night. Around the corner from me is Durham Forest. There's plenty of bear sightings there. But the thing is about animals here, unlike the city, Elliot, animals here know their place. The problem with your animals in the city is they don't know their place

and they're getting tough. A lot more than here. Every animal here knows what the pecking order is and they know when to flee and they know when to stand and dig in city animals don't know that but country animals up here know it so basically what you're telling me is during the upcoming human rodent war the city is going to lose but the the country is going to win. Country will win all day long. Our animals know their place.

It'll be like the Hunger Games. There'll be like the districts. Have a thought on Alain Roy. I am really interested as I've gotten older and I start to think about retirement. I think more about the choices I made when I was younger and the choices I didn't make. One of the interviews that really changed my outlook that we did in a lot of things was Alex Petrangelo.

And the reason was that, you know, when we were doing our research into him, I couldn't believe how many players told me what a great sounding board he is for advice. That when, you know, players players have questions like he's one of the people you go to you know he gives you good answers and what did he say on the podcast i think he said if i don't have an answer to your question i'm going to go find an answer to your question so i think a lot about you know the choices athletes make and you only have so many years

where you can be an elite level athlete and your highest earning power. So what do you do with that? So when this came across my desk that Alain Roy was starting a new venture here, I just wanted to ask him a lot of questions like that. So to me, it's not only about, okay, here's an agent starting a new venture. It's also about what kinds of questions is he asking? What kinds of questions is he being asked? What are the things he looks to?

And what are the things that he warns his clients about or he's concerned about? And there was a lot of that in here. There'll be a written portion of this too in my 32 Thoughts blog, which is going to start next week, by the way, returns next week. Thanks for the warning.

And I talked to,nt burns is an individual who's used the firm before that atlanta is joining and burns talked a lot about like his ranch everybody knows about brent burns ranch and when he played his 1000th game you know the the sharks gave him a couple of, uh, Amarillo's right. And we were like, it was just, it was, it was great stuff. And he told me like, even when he was doing the ranch, like all the questions you need to ask about how to do this correctly and who are the proper people that you, you hire to answer these questions for you.

And he said that, you know, North Rock were one of the people that really answered those questions for him. I like having these conversations. I really do about what kinds of conversations players have about, hey, we've got a limited time here to have maximum earning. How are we making sure? Because as you know, Jeff, what's the hardest thing for an athlete to do? Retire.

It is by far the hardest thing. The regimentation of your life is gone. You're home more. How does that affect you, your relationship with your partner? There's so many things. So how do you make sure you're making the proper decisions to ensure a smooth transition? And that's why I like having these conversations. decisions to ensure a smooth transition.

And that's why I like having these conversations. I always think about what it must feel like the first time September rolls around for a hockey player and they don't have a camp to go to. Yeah. I always wonder about that. Anyway, here he is the president of RSG hockey and also now the president of NRX hockey, L.A.

Waugh on 32 Thoughts the Podcast. Alain Roy is one of hockey's most prominent agents representing players such as Nico Heischer of the Devils, Philip Grubauer of Seattle and Jake Allen of the Montreal Canadiens amongst others and now he's branching out teaming up with North Rock X to launch a new financial and lifestyle advisory division he joins us now Alain how are you today? Thanks so much for this. I'm good. Thanks for having me. The pleasure is ours. And I think Elliot and I are both curious about how this comes together and what this means. The joining, I suppose, of WA Sports Group and North Rock X to form NRX Hockey. In broad strokes, how did this come together? What does this mean? And what does this do?

Well, I started in this game in 2000, 2001 was my first season. So this will be my 23rd season as an agent. And from day one, we've always had kind of ancillary services for our clients and looking to become as much of a one-stop shop, kind of holistic solution for all of our clients so that they can focus on their craft. And once I met the North Rock guys out of Minnesota, I figured I'd found exactly what I was looking for. They are a top family office for about 120 families worldwide. They offer a lot of best of brand services that we need to bring to our clients. A big part of our job is answering questions. And a lot of these questions sometimes have nothing to do with hockey, but they are often questions from young men trying to figure out their life off the ice.

So having a team around us now of lawyers, accountants, financial experts, we can really kind of have the right people offering them advice. Because as an agent, I'm sure you both have seen that you kind of have to be a bit of a jack of all trades. I don't think people realize how involved we are in some of our clients' lives outside of hockey. So this helps bring a holistic solution that we really feel is going to give us an advantage in the market, but also give our clients some peace of mind knowing that they have experts to go to. You know, I had a chance to talk to Brent Burns today a little bit about it. in the market, but also give our clients some peace of mind knowing that they have experts to

go to. You know, I had a chance to talk to Brent Burns today a little bit about it. He's used this company for a while now, and we were talking about the ranch. And when everybody thinks about Brent Burns, aside from his hockey playing, they think about the ranch. And he talked about all the decisions, all the questions that had to be asked about financing it, buying it, putting up the fences, getting the animals and, you know, all the things, nevermind a hockey player wouldn't think of, but a lot of average people wouldn't think of. And I wonder, Alain, what's the biggest mistake that you see young people make that this can help address? Well, I would say the biggest mistake is not

understanding budgeting and cash flow for the young players. Whenever we sign a player to be represented by us, we go through the stages of a player's playing career and life and what's going to happen more than likely financially and how to plan for it. And there's really kind of three stages, right? You have the entry-level guys who will sign anywhere between one to three a year, depending on their age. And a lot of them will have to play in the minors for a while. So they're not making great money, but this is also a great way to set them up to be disciplined financially. A big part of what we try to do is educate them on everything financial. I hear about some agencies or financial firms out there

that kind of do everything for the players. And I've inherited some of these players over time, and they have no idea where their money is or why it's there or what it's doing for them. So I think number one, education is key, good communication, but also giving them a sense of control. We have an app that we use that clients can basically keep everything in one place, but also have real-time connection with their investments. So I've seen it a lot more in other sports than hockey, but the financial, I guess I would say, irresponsibility that happens with a young athlete if he's not educated is dangerous. So for us, the way the NHL system is set up,

it almost gives us an advantage in that sense because we can teach discipline early. And then when they start really kind of making real NHL money, they understand why they're doing what they're doing with their money. And I think that's really important. I always wonder, like, what's the first thing that a player will say, a young player who gets maybe their first big entry-level deal or anything like that, and you have to say to them

or other agents have to say to them, whoa, whoa, whoa, slow it down. Is it cars? I would say cars is probably number one in the NHL. Some guys have a, you know, you'll love this, Elliot, because you're probably the swaggiest member of the media out there, but some guys have a fashion you know, you'll love this, Elliot, because you're probably the swaggiest member of the media out there. But some guys have a fashion fetish, right? And they want to spend a lot of money on their clothes. And so those are conversations that we do have.

Yeah, it's interesting because every guy's like the other one that I've seen a lot, more so in the last like five years, is shoes. But like the rare shoes, but like the, the rare shoes, like the Nike limited edition stuff, right? Like the air Jordans and things like that. Yes. Yes.

It's, it's very interesting how many guys are into that world right now. And that's a whole like subculture where people are trading shoes. And I mean, they treat it like artwork. So yeah, those conversations we do have and we need to have and you just once you put it on paper in front of them it makes a lot of sense and you know

the fact that they get paid only during the season some guys don't understand where they start right they think they're getting paid 12 months a year so those are all you know they seem obvious to us but when you're you know 19 years old and you just came over from another country and you're playing the NHL you need some help you know I don don't I don't think any of us are even disputing that that's true. Pretty obvious as well. You know, with all the horror stories out there of athletes that have squandered their money, do you find that you have players coming to you now more so than ever saying, I don't want to end up like this guy. I don't want to end up like that guy. I know on the calendar, you know, every month date one and 15 are really important, but we know that that's not always going to continue. I'm curious about the maturity level of athletes that approach

you now. I guess it's a double-edged sword. I think the older players in the league, they're looking for a different kind of help, right? Right now, the younger generation of players coming in, and the league is getting younger and younger every year, they really need some guidance, but also need to understand patience. We live in this social media world where it's instant gratification in every possible way, and no one has really any patience. And it's much tougher to have conversations about this stuff with the younger generation because the attention span is just not quite there. So you have to find creative ways to have these conversations.

And it seems like the catch phrases of the day now, you know, you're talking about NFTs and crypto and you have to be able to explain it to the player in the world that he's going to understand. And for a 35 year old player, it's going to be a lot different than a 19-year-old player. That's why I'm really glad that we are surrounded by experts with this merger, because it may not be me that's going to have that conversation, but somebody else on my team that has more experience. And crypto is a great example. If you don't understand it, a lot of people who've invested in crypto right now are regretting it. Is it going to bounce back? It likely will. But I don't know enough about it.

I can't give that kind of advice. But we do have people that can. And to me, as much as it's important for us to explain, sometimes saying no is even more important. Being able to say, listen, you can't afford this. Or you can't give that much money to your family right now because you don't have enough money to give them that much money. So we exist for many different reasons, but one of them is giving them the exact good information and making sure that they make the right decisions, but the decision is always theirs. You know, it's funny you say that, Alain, because I will say myself, some of the biggest trouble I get myself into is you want to donate

to something. And I have found that for my own budget, that I lose track. I've tried to be better at spending like on things like shoes, as you talk about. But I do find that sometimes I lose track of my spending, especially coming out of the pandemic where a lot of people are struggling. You want to help people. You really want to do some things. And I find that that is one of my weaknesses

that I often lose track of my budget here and there. It's interesting to hear you say that. Cashflow and budgeting to me are two of the key things that young players need to learn when they get in the league. And it's sad when you hear about pro athletes going bankrupt and the fact that no one in their surroundings really kind of explained to them that, hey, payday is going to stop one day. The other really important aspect is just building your brand while you're popular, you know, really getting out there and networking business-wise and meeting the right people in the community that can help you once you're not playing anymore. We try to have that conversation,

explain to players that, you know, it happens very quickly. One day you're, you know, you're Joe Smith, the hockey player. As soon as you retire, you're just Joe Smith. And a lot of players have a really hard time with that transition. So we start having those conversations when players are in the prime. That is the best time to build your brand. And whether it's social media branding or setting up a charity foundation, which we actually have an arm called Foundation X that does that within the company, the timing of those is super important. Because I've noticed probably more so in the past, maybe five, seven, 10 years ago, a lot of players, they would think it's like bad juju for us to have that conversation about retirement. And what are you going to do after hockey?

But players are more open now to being more well-rounded individuals. And they understand that. I mean, let's look at the innovations of the last 10 years in social media, building your brands at a whole different store than it was 10, 15 years ago. last 10 years in social media, building your brands at a whole different store than it was 10, 15 years ago. So it's easier to have those conversations with that younger generation. And they seem to be buying in a little bit more because that was always a tough one. Okay. Let's drill down a little bit on that. I'm always curious about then and now you go back 23 years. What was the athlete like then? What was the athlete like now, just in terms of, you know, what they want, what they need, and maybe just in terms of you know what they want

what they need and maybe more importantly how you handle them I think from everything from training and nutrition to you know now we have to have a library of nutritionist skills coaches one-on-one video coaches you name it you know I'll face, access to biometric data, access to custom supplement development. I mean, you're talking about some very detailed stuff that's just on the playing side. So the complexity of the game has evolved, but even more so off the ice, the complexity of the player's life has evolved even more, which is why we've come up with this concept because they're getting bombarded from everywhere. And it's so easy to have access

to players now because of social media and because of how the world works. It's sensory overload for them. They're getting hit up from either family members or friends with business plans. Here's a great investment for you. Can you loan me some money? So we can act as a buffer. We have the right people that can give them business advice and actually read a business plan and say, listen, this has no chance, or actually this is a pretty good concept. But at least give them a chance to process, step back, and then make the right decision. I really think that's a big, big part of what we do is being able to give them that sense of like, okay, I've got somebody I can talk to about this. Let me kind of step back and I'll give you an answer. And it's not always easy, especially if it's family. So we can also act as that buffer.

We can be the bad guys that say no, just like we're the bad guys that bring up a prenup or estate plan. So it doesn't make us the popular person in the room, but these are conversations that need to happen, right? And prenups are another one that we have the conversation and we have the right experts to help them and push them in that direction. is done to write a book about it, to sort of, you know, fill in some of the blanks, fill in some questions people may have to give people a more sort of well-rounded idea and snapshot of what hockey is or what hockey was when that person ran an organization. I've always kind of felt the same way about agents as well. We have a lot of books from players, a lot of books from coaches. We have books from referees.

Nothing really comes from agents. So I'm always curious to talk, you know, on this platform with agents and get their thoughts on things. What do you say? And I guess it would probably depend on the age of the athlete. But what do you say when a family first approaches you about representation? Number one, you know, you have to gauge who's going to be leading the journey. I'm trying to find the right words to say. Leading the journey is probably the right way to say it.

You meet a kid who's, I don't know, anywhere between 14 and 16 with his parents within 20 seconds, you can pretty much tell like who you're going to be dealing with for the next 10 to 15 years. And, and if it's one of the parents, that's dangerous.

Yeah. And I'm sure, you know, you work in the hockey world you hear the stories sure the helicopter parenting is the worst it's ever been the wanting instant gratification and the impatience is the worst it's ever been uh yeah you got parents and kids they're playing ban them it's like hey like okay what are you going to do for me it's like wait a minute that conversation never used to happen 20 years ago.

Now all of a sudden it's like, okay, well, these guys are offering this and they're offering this. And you can't incentivize to get clients. You need to get a client based on your reputation because there's one thing I've learned in this business is if somebody buys a client and it incentivizes them, they're eventually going to lose them because they're going to get bought again. So you hope that people have good values and they're there for

the right reasons and loyalty and all that stuff. But I would say the first couple of meetings with the family is for as much as it is for them to feel us out and hear what we're doing. And I'm very proud of what we're doing. And that's why this is a big step in our journey is adding all these services. Because now we can say, listen, we can have conversations with you about this stuff and point you to the right way early on in your career so that you don't fall into the pitfalls. So I would say that's going to be a big competitive advantage for us. But it's also very much a meeting for us to feel them out.

And have I walked away from clients before? Yes. Have I walked away from families and said, hey, I don't care how good this kid's going to be. I don't want to deal with this for the next 20 years, you know, because then you take your, take yourself and your resources away from your clients that, that really need them to service somebody who's never going to be happy. You're better off walking away. So that to me is, you know, when we meet with families, what we sell is a, we're a hockey centcentric company. Everybody involved in our company is myself. I've got 12 staff members in North America, plus now the NRX platform.

Everybody's got a deep hockey background. And we're about getting you to achieve your potential from that age of like 14 until you turn pro. And then when you turn pro, we're there to help you extract as much financially as you can from your career. But along the way, we have to protect you. Okay. My next question here is just the new world, the crypto, the NFTs. What do you think about this world and where we're going here? It's a little scary. I think so too, to be honest. It's a little scary. I think so too, to be honest. It's a little scary. It's challenging. It's challenging for us to stay on top of it

because it's ever-changing. It's challenging for the players because they are getting inundated. And the locker room soapbox guy seems to get as much credibility as the guy who's an expert in whatever field they're talking about. And you know what I'm talking about there. There's always one or two guys in every locker room who's invested in this. They only tell you when their investments make money. You never hear when they lose money. But they're usually the loudest guy in the locker room and they get the most airplay. And that is very dangerous for young players because I've seen guys get kind of led into some bad areas financially listening to that. The best way to counter everything that's happening is just to step back, take a breath and talk to an expert.

Talk it out before you make that decision. But that's not the nature of a young hockey player. Everybody wants it now and everybody wants to earn 20, 30% of their money every year from their investments. And they want to sign that big contract. So having those conversations and being able to kind of calm it down and have them understand it, but also hear them out. I mean,

I remember being that age and signing my first contract and, you know, it was your early twenties, late teens. You don't want to ask a question that's going to make you sound stupid because you're a young guy, you know, so you don't ask the questions. To me, there's no bad questions, especially when it comes to that stuff, especially when it comes to your money and protecting your legacy. There's not enough of that going on. People are kind of blindly following whoever's the loudest in the locker room,

and that's not a good thing. The other thing I want to ask you is Anthony Parker is one of the players who did this here. And I remember from the Spurs, he had some issues in the past with some of his own financials. Is it much different in hockey than other sports in terms of player interest, the way players manage their money? terms of player interest, the way players manage their money from just your limited time talking about it, Alain, do you see much comparison between hockey players and say NBA players or football players or sprinters or anything like that? Yeah. You know, I have friends who are agents in other sports like the NFL and the NBA. The one thing with the hockey guys, they tend to be more conservative with

their money. And even hinging on the word cheap, some guys are, but I'd rather see that than the other way around. They tend to be a little more slow moving in making those decisions. I hear a lot of impulsive decisions in some other sports. And again, I think a lot of it goes back to the locker room. The lifestyle is different. You have a sport where you probably have five or six guys that are super highly paid and then the rest are paid quite a bit less. In the NFL, kind of same thing, right? Certain positions get paid a ton of money. Others don't. But you know what? Those guys hang out every day together. They go on the road together. They're in the same locker room. You're eventually going to see the guy who's making a million a year

looking at a guy making 20 million a year and be like, I wish I had that. And most of the hockey guys usually are conservative enough to say, okay, I can't do that. Some of the guys will be a lot more impulsive. Elliot, something that Elliot and I were talking about on the podcast a couple of weeks ago, what happens when the salary cap finally goes up significantly? One year, two years, whenever? We had a conversation earlier on this interview about the new athlete and what the new athlete is like and how the new athlete is programmed differently than the athlete when you started in the industry. Do you have a sense of

what's going to happen in hockey with contracts when the cap goes up? Will players be, you know, we haven't seen a player, you know, get the max under the cap yet. We haven't seen that. Maybe that's on the horizon. Traditionally, players have always, you know, taken a little bit less to, you know, leave some room to have a competitive team and kind of share the wealth as much as as much as they're comfortable with. You know, do you think we see a player maybe finally ask for and get the max? Do we see players say, look, we just went through a terrible time. I need to try to recoup as much money as I can here. Now the cap has gone up.

Do you have a sense of what the landscape is going to be like when this thing finally goes up? First of all, I'm hoping it goes up a lot more next year, but I don't think that's going to happen. I think that's wishful thinking. Yeah. I mean, the proof's kind of in what's been happening lately. You see some teams locking up some of their young stars. I think understanding that not next summer, but the following summer, we should get a decent bump in the cap. Now, is it going to go up one mil this offseason and then $8 million the following one? If it does, there's going to be a disparity there. So that's going to be maybe a little bit dangerous.

And maybe the union and the league will try to even things out between those two years. Because if you're a guy signing this summer coming up, and it goes up by, let's say, $8 million the following year, you kind of lost out. I don't know what the solution is going to be there, but I assume there's going to be some conversation around that. As far as the triggers for the cap going up, I would venture to say that sports betting is going to play a big role. I think biometric data and who owns it is going to be a hot topic in our next CBA and probably the next couple of years. And I think just the game as a whole, I think, is doing better now that we're hopefully past COVID and all those issues and we bounce back. I think two seasons from now, the league should be in very good shape.

A couple of agents have told me they're hoping one million next year and then a bump, but a couple of teams have told me they think it might be one million, then another one million, and then a bump. What are you expecting? I'm expecting a bigger bump after this offseason. So I'm expecting a million now and then a bump and then a bigger bump in that year three uh and again you know is the smart thing to try to even those out or do we let them play out uh organically like uh well that's the plan right now in the current cba unless either side decides to make that change right uh because it does kind of throw off certain players that are at certain points in their career i mean you you saw some guys pre-coVID take kind of bridge deals,

hoping to get the big bump. And if you time it wrong and the bump doesn't happen, then you've taken that bridge for no reason, right? And I think that's happened to a few players. It has nothing to do other than timing and world events. But I could see the same happening there, but we have a bit of a chance to control it because if we decide, okay, you know,

if the league and the union both decide, let's kind of even this thing out, happening there but we have a bit of a chance to control it because if we decide okay you know if the league and the union both decide let's kind of even this thing out then i think everybody's going to be a little safer i just want to add one thing to this discussion i i wonder how many players because i'm just thinking elena about what you just said about you know the one player who you know signs a long-term deal when you know they're they're one year away from the cap explosion do you get a feeling that maybe players will be more interested in one year deals and do the longer term deal when the cap gets a significant bump, as opposed to just trying to ring the bell the first chance they get?

I mean, that's, uh, that was NBA style, right? Like that, that was a big topic in the NBA. It's a gamble. You can buy insurance, you know, and, and, and cover yourself and make sure that you don't lose that money, but that's also not cheap to do. Again, I think based on the mindset of the hockey player versus other athletes, I don't know that a lot of guys would do that. I think some guys would. If I'm a betting man and somebody's staring at a one-year deal, probably going to get a big pop afterwards. Or you say, here's a long-term deal. Yeah going to get a big pop afterwards, or you say,

here's a long-term deal. Yeah, it's a little less than what you thought it was going to be, but here it is. I would venture to say that some guys would pick the security. I'm curious, you were on the Sharks GM list last summer. What happened exactly? I was approached by a few teams in the last couple of years to basically just kind of start the conversation, see if I want to interview. To me, the timing wasn't good because I was working on this project with NRX and really kind of trying to build a super agency where we really kind of cover all bases. And I feel like we're there now. So that was a big project for me. I love my job.

My clients are like family. So, and also the people that work with me. So I really, it wasn't the right time. And I don't like wasting people's time to interview when I know I'm probably not going to take the job. But it's very humbling to be on those lists. But at the end of the day, I got a lot left to do in the agency world.

I want us to be the best agency, not by the number of clients, not by revenue, but by what we bring to our client, by reputation. That's what I want. What do you think about the whole idea of agents becoming GMs and vice versa? Some agents, I know they don't see a big issue with it. Other agents see it as treason. I'm just curious to know what you think of the whole idea. Treason, that's a pretty heavy word. I figured I'd really lay it on pick. You know, that's what I figured I would do. I would say, I mean, I don't see it as treason. To me, it's almost like a natural progression. Not for every agent.

Some guys have the right temperament. Some guys, I'm like, that guy would never be a GM because nothing would ever get done. But I do think that when you're looking for a candidate for one of those jobs, I mean, we pretty much are GMs of our own agencies, right? So you manage people. You have a staff you manage. You have to be on top of the CBA. You have to understand where the game's going economically and how contracts work.

So you bring somebody in like that as a GM job, you've got probably 90% of all the checkboxes checked. So it does make sense. Is there a bit of a conflict? I think so. And I don't think there's any perfect way to do it. It happens in other sports too. You know, you have clients and you leave your clients behind.

You either sell the agency or somebody takes it over. But then once you get to the other side, you often see those GMs bring in their guys, you know, that they used to represent as players. Is that a problem with the league? I don't think so. Like, I think everybody's kind of above board on how they're doing those things. And of course, you're going to try to sign players that you know better. Well, you're not going to know players any better than the

ones you represented. So I understand it's an organic way of building your team. A lot of the agents that became GMs for me are a little easier and more efficient to deal with because they kind of know where you stand. Like they've been where you were. The negotiations or the conversations maybe take a little bit of a different bent to them. First of all, is there anything else you want to talk about when it comes to this particular announcement? On the hockey side, we're still heavily going after some innovation there and whether that's mental health, whether that's physical health, and being able to have a gauge on how they're feeling and why. The advances in

science and technology are crazy good, but I can only imagine the next five years how much better they're going to get. And to me, that's something I've always had a big interest in. It's going to bring along the debate on data and who owns that data and players wearing wearables should they wear them during games should they wear them every day in practice and if they do who owns that data and i know in the mlb cba that was a big debate the players ended up kind of holding on to the data but i do think that's going to play a big role for us in the next five to 20 years it is really interesting like one of the things that i know agents have told me before and this has been going on for years now is that this kind of information even at practices will be used to determine hey a player's slowing down or a player's aging poorly or this player's

aging well and you know i remember talking to some players associations about it and they were saying to me, you know, this horse is out of the barn and there's probably nothing we can do to stop it. But that doesn't mean you don't try to protect yourself as best as you can. That totally makes sense. And you're right. It cuts both ways. You can have great readings and the guy's 35 and he wants to sign a four-year deal.

Look at my data, top shape, had very few injuries. Give me that four-year deal. You get another 35 year old and the team somehow has access to his info and it's not as positive. It could really affect the negotiation. So like I said, it's exciting, but it's also dangerous for both sides. And I think having some kind of guardrails is going to be needed, just like sports betting. If you sign a deal like the NBA did with the MGM, how much info are you going to give those guys? And if someone's betting on sports and they find out that the player so-and-so didn't sleep well last night, it's a 2 p.m. game. They may change how they're going to bet on that game, right? That type of information is intriguing. Where do you draw the line?

That becomes an ethical question. And then you get in the U.S. and you have HIPAA laws, you know, that protect medical information. Well, now you're starting to tread closely to that stuff being medical information. So, you know, who controls that and how do you keep it safe? You have some business you have to take care of number one on that list is jake allen where does it stand between the canadians and allen at this point in time kent and i have talked uh but very preliminary and uh we're gonna keep

talking uh you know probably the next week or two here as the training camp goes and we'll see where it goes but you know jake's been a big part of that team. What's happened with their goaltending there, they need some stability there too. He's such a good pro and a good leader. It's just a matter of what's the right fit there. I wish all clients were as easy as him. Do you have any other business you've got to take care of at this time?

Do you have any other business you've got to take care of at this time? Yeah, I do have some RFAs that are ending their contracts this year. Some good young players like Dillon Cousins and Nils Hoglander. So some of those guys' teams will start, you know, as the season starts, they'll start kind of feeling out the process and seeing where things are at. But it's exciting for those guys. It's exciting for us when they're such good young players to see where it's going to go. I mean, this past free agency, I would expect,

is going to push a lot of people to sign extensions. You know, trying to gauge where the cap's going to go is going to be the big question. I was talking about earlier, it's not just a million dollar bump that may help a lot of players. But this past summer, I've never seen anything like this free agency. It was very eye-opening

to see how the economics are driving the game. The guys who are getting crunched are the guys in the middle. The big players, big star players are still getting paid, and the entry-level guys are getting pushed through a little earlier, and teams are squeezing the guys in the middle. That's one thing I was wondering about a guy like Cousins. I know the Sabres fans will want him to sign an $11 billion extension.

And Jeff asked you this before. Do you think term? Do you think bridge? And I think this is going to be a fascinating time for a lot of teams, players, and their agents. Yeah. for a lot of teams, players, and their agents. Yeah. It's interesting because I've seen the change in the climate of the contracts,

which is teams used to pay for what guys have done in the past, probably overpaying. Now we're looking at teams paying for what are you doing today? But now you're starting to see teams starting to pay guys for what their potential is going to be,

what they're going to do in the future. And they're trying to time it with the cap and trying to get ahead of it. And like we talked about earlier, some of these larger deals that young players have signed, I mean, teams don't usually give you a long-term deal unless they think they're going to end up on top of it at some point. GMs aren't going to give you a deal thinking they've overpaid you. aren't going to give you a deal thinking they've overpaid you. So I do think that a lot of these longer-term deals, bigger deals for young players, is based on the fact that teams are betting on the cap

going up quite a bit in the next two to five years. Alain, thank you so much, bud. I really appreciate your time. Thank you, sir. Pleasure as usual. I'd like to thank Alain Watt for stopping by the podcast this week, and we wish him all the success in this new venture. Elliot, before you wrap up, if you're listening to this one on Monday, tonight we are in Kitchener.

Tuesday we are in Kingston as as the 32 thoughts tour continues and before we go any further i just want to thank everybody for coming out and that is both people who you know bought tickets and showed up and all of our guests as well everyone who showed up for the uh the first two legs of the tour uh we kicked it off in london and then friday followed up in markham. Honestly, I'm blown away by this. I really am. I am. And I don't like to speak for Amal and Jeff, but I know in this time I am speaking for Amal and Jeff.

We are incredibly thankful and we are incredibly appreciative. When you do these events, there are two groups of people that you want to make sure are happy. events there are two groups of people that you want to make sure are happy number one are the fans and the people who buy tickets and show up and number two is the sponsor of the event in this case Boston Pizza and in the first two shows in London and Markham both the fans and the sponsor left happy and when that happens you know that it is a success. And, you know, this week we have three stops. During the week, we're going to be, as Jeff mentioned, in Kitchener. Then we're going to Kingston. And then we're going to Trenton.

And then next week we're in Peterborough and Hamilton. And I hope it continues. You know, one of the things, unfortunately, is Hometown Hockey is no longer on Sportsnet. They did an incredible job getting out in the community and being our representatives and uh on a smaller level i'm hopeful that we can do the same thing i think it's really important jeff that we are out in the community and showing our appreciation so for you know these fans to honestly enjoy it it's uh it's incredibly

meaningful to me one thing i do want to mention as well because we've had a lot of messages about this a lot of tweets about this as well yeah you know this tour is exclusive to ontario we kind of had this idea you know brainstorming before one of the one of the podcasts and the only way we could really put it together quickly and efficiently and still you know make ourselves available for work duties and be close to our workplace, which is Toronto, was just to do it in Ontario. I don't know about you, Elliot, although I'm pretty sure I know how you feel about this and so does Amal. There's nothing I'd like more than to take this coast to coast to coast and go right across the country to say nothing about the one day being able to take this to the United States as well. So I'm just sort of looking at this as this is us dipping

our beak into the fountain a little bit here to see if it works. And then hopefully, fingers crossed, Frege, we love you Boston Pizza as well, blow this thing out a little bit more. You know what, Jeff? You know what you don't want to be? You don't want to be like someone who books a tour, like a singer or an act that books a tour you book the biggest venue and then you realize you can't sell tickets so you have to cancel and say you've got a sore throat we don't want to do that so we wanted to show that this could work first and you know hopefully as you said soon we'll be in a position where we can do some of these. If this continues to be a success, we'd love to go more places.

Selfishly, Elliot, I just like talking to people that love hockey the same way I do. I love hanging around after. And just as much as I love the actual show part, the part after just talking to people is equally as thrilling for me. That's a real trip. So thanks to everybody who came out to London and Markham, as Elliot mentions.

Three big tour stops this week. Monday Kitchener, Tuesday Kingston, Thursday in Trenton, Ontario. Taking us out, a fun R&B duo from Amsterdam who closely collaborated with painters and artists in their circle to create this scenic playground you hear in their music.

With Remedy, here's City Park on 32 Thoughts, the podcast. Enjoy. It's a memory To have been moved on since 90 Terror qualifies for a late night out Never stay without For now We are gonna be conquered by our skunk overlords Does she really see me? We are going to be conquered by our skunk overlords. I'm not ready for more.