32 Thoughts: The Podcast - Jordan Martinook

Episode Date: April 27, 2023

He’s an integral part of the Carolina Hurricanes and is the Masterton Trophy nominee for the team. Jordan Martinook has played a role on whatever team he’s been on. He joined Jeff and Elliotte to talk about some of his favourite hockey memories, scoring a Gordie Howe hat-trick in front of Gordie Howe, coming up with ideas for the Storm Surge, his relationship with his agent, the ritual he had started with Tobias Rieder that still lives on through Andrei Svechnikov, talks about his love of acting and karaoke (big Nickelback fan) and explains what makes the Caroline Hurricanes so special.Email the podcast at [e-mail] or call The Thought Line at 1-833-311-3232 and leave us a voicemailThis podcast was produced and mixed by Amil Delic, and hosted by Jeff Marek and Elliotte Friedman.Audio Credits: Bally Sports & Roadrunner.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.

Mr. Khan, Mr. Toby. That's how I'm taught. Okay, you know what? Hang on. This sounds like a good story. Don't do the story. Welcome to 32 Thoughts, the interview podcast presented by GMC and the Canyon AT4X.

Today, Jordan Martinuk of the Carolina Hurricanes. Now, work with me here a little bit. This may sound weird or maybe at least a little bit obvious, but Martinuk is a hockey player. And by that, I mean everything about Jordan Martinuk says hockey player. He looks like a hockey player. He sounds like a hockey player. He's from a hockey crazy province, Manitoba, and just really seems comfortable and most at home around hockey. Put it this way.

He's a go-to interview with the Carolina Hurricanes for a reason. And you're about to find out why here in a second. Quickly, a special thanks to Mike Sundheim, the Carolina Hurricanes VP of Communications, and also Michael Brown, manager of communications for the team, for making this interview possible. Now, Elliot and I sat down with Martin Nook a few weeks ago in Ottawa before the Hurricanes played the Senators, and I got to tell you, we knew it was going to be good beforehand. We had no idea it was going to be this good, though.

I had a really good time with this interview, and it kind of goes to some different places. And I'll tell you what, stick around if for only one reason. Martin Nook tells an amazing Gordie Howe story. It's an all-timer. Trust me, you'll love it. So here he is on 32 Thoughts to Podcast from the Carolina Hurricanes, Jordan Martin. Jordan, I want to get the hockey geeky stuff out of the way early. Elliot's eyeballs are already rolling. But the first time I saw you play was probably the first time elliot saw you

play let's go back to 2011 takini arena in whitehorse hockey day in canada was the first time i ever saw you play what do you remember from hockey in whitehorse it It was your Vancouver Giants against the Kamloops Blazers. Yeah, that was obviously a cool game. Being Hockey Day in Canada, it was like obviously you guys were there and I think Don Cherry was there. So it was being a kid playing juniors, that's a big deal. It was like the rink I kind of grew up playing in, but they packed in I think 3,000 or 4,000 people. It was like the rink I kind of grew up playing in, but they packed in, I think, 3,000 or 4,000 people. It was awesome.

So cool experience, and that's cool. I didn't know you guys were there. I remember the flight from Vancouver to Whitehorse. I was sitting next to Ron McLean, and on the other side of it was Pat Quinn. So I was just sitting there absorbing all the great hockey stories. Were you on the plane where we were on the back? Yep. Okay, there we go.

Yep, yep, yep, yep. That's a long time ago. That was. How did Martinook and his teammates behave on that flight? Were they good? Everybody was really quiet. We had Don Hay as a head coach. Don Hay was there.

We were behaving pretty good. Don was the head coach and Pat was on the flight. I remember one of my favorite hockey names of all time. And you were right there when he said him and Ryan Haynes got in a fight. It was West Van Uwenhuizen. West Van Uwenhuizen. And like, maybe like the best hockey name I've ever threw down.

I want to get the junior stuff out of the way quick. And then we'll get to the NHL. What are your memories of playing with the Giants? I mean, there were, you know, big names around the team and not just on the team yourself from Brendan Gallagher,

but, you know, I mentioned Pat Quinn around the team. Like these were big names. I have and not just on the team yourself from Brendan Gallagher, but, you know, I mentioned Pat Quinn around the team. Like these were big names. I have a picture in my mom's house that I got named captain at Christmas time, my second year when Gally went away for world juniors. So we had a Gordie Howe night, I don't know, about a month after they got back and Gordie Howe was still,

still alive and came. And I got a Gordie Howe hat trick I don't know, about a month after they got back. And Gordie Howe was still alive and came. And I got a Gordie Howe hat trick the night he was in the building for wearing the Gordie Howe jersey. No way. That was a pretty cool moment. I skated to the box after I fought, and I threw my elbow up in the air where he was sitting. Obviously, looking back on it now, that's like typical junior kid.

Hey, that's good. I thought Gordie Howe in the stands, you can do a little something. Absolutely love it. Yeah, that's an amazing memory. I feel bad because we had a couple good teams there, and we just never, ever really did anything with it when you look back at it. But I had a great time there and got me ready for for pro hockey that's for sure being under Don did you see Gordie after the game like that

I we he didn't come down after he was older and yes not in the best of shape but he got we did like a media day before and got to see him and shake his hand and actually in the picture he's giving me like a little shot that's awesome um yeah to be able to have a gordy how hat trick night wearing like the gordy how jerseys with uh with him there was that's that's one of my cooler hockey memories that's for sure it's funny you talk about that kind of thing because you know when i at when we were doing this and i called around one of the things that people said to me is is you have this hilarious knack and it's they said it's probably your best attribute as a person, that whenever something funny happens around a team, you're usually right in the middle of it.

Have you always been that kind of a guy? I don't know. Maybe, I think. I like keeping it light. At the end of the day, we're playing a game, and I always make a joke. This is the best job in the world. I'll say that. If you're not having fun with it, then what are you doing here? That's kind of my mindset, and I try to come to work or not even work, come to play hockey every day and have a blast, and usually that ends up being a lot of jokes and a lot of fun

with the guys around the room. In that spirit, where does the, and give us the story behind it, Mr. Svechnikov come from? Yeah, that comes back from my Arizona days. It didn't even start with Svech. It started with Tobias Reeder. And we had an old parking attendant that helped us get down the ramp in Arizona. And every time we show up i drove with connor and toby go ah mr connor and i missed the toby so then before the game i'd say it to toby i'd go ah

it's toby reader and then svetch obviously when i got to carolina he was 18 years old it was his first first time in the nhl and i i don't know if he was nervous. I thought he might have been nervous, but I just wanted to keep it light for him, and it kind of started, and then I could see he kind of – I don't know if he liked it or if he didn't like it, but he – He didn't really have much of a choice in the matter. Yeah, and then I just kept going with it, and then it's kind of evolved throughout the years, and then now I kind of just went back to the OG with the Mr. Svechnikov thing. But now he's been out, I haven't been doing it.

So no one takes his place? No one takes his place. No, Mr. Natchez or Mr. Aho? No, that's just the me and Svechnikov thing. You don't lose your roster spot due to injuries. You don't lose your routine due to injury. Well, you know, I guess kind of since we're talking about your personality like that, I guess we should go to the storm surge

because you had a key part in that. And I remember, I can't remember who told me this. I think it was one of your former teammates in Arizona. But he said that he thought the storm surge was really dumb. And then he said, when Evander Holyfield showed up and knocked you out or whoever was knocked out, he said, he had to call you and tell you that night won me over. Like that was cool. Yeah. Yeah, no.

And let's be honest there that first year there was a couple we're running out of things to do. It was just, we'd sit at pregame meal and we'd be grinding for that first year there was a couple we're running out of things to do it was just we'd sit at pre-game meal and we'd be grinding for an hour and a half trying to come up with ideas and we'd get fans writing us we're like hey we did like a fan vote or let's give us some ideas and i think out of 150 ideas they gave us we could use maybe two of them so it was it was a lot of work to come up with these things and um a couple of them just kind of fell into our lap like the holy field one with him coming to the game it was like when justin williams came up to me before the game and he's like hey you're gonna be the main character of the storm search tonight and i was like okay great what am

i doing he's like you'll see i'm like what do you mean i'll see like i kind of need to know what i'm doing he's like no no he's like you'll see and then obviously when he came uh holyfield talked to us before the game and i was like okay that's what i'm doing and then he brought it brought out some boxing gloves and i did a little acting in my high school days so i tried to act it up a little bit and here comes the four-time heavyweight champion of the world, Evander Holyfield. Martinuk might be out of his weight class, John. Just slightly. No official weigh-in for this one.

And Martinuk is also going right into a rope-a-dope early look at this Evander Holyfield Jordan Martinuk that's it yeah that first year obviously with the storm surge and just the way our team was, it was kind of a fitting thing for the way our team was. We felt like we were kind of, I don't know, the underdogs or the team that shouldn't have been there, and we're doing this wacky new thing. Yeah, it was a cool year.

Now, I have a lot of follow-ups out of this question. Number one, did you ever imagine that you would make the NHL and the thing you would be spending most of your time on would be what we're going to do with the storm surge tonight? Yeah, no, exactly. I think that's why we couldn't continue it as much as the fans wanted to, just because

you can't do say you win 70% of your home games. It's hard. So basically the storm surge ended because the hurricanes are too good. You run out of ideas too fast. I think if the way you put it like that, I think the fans can appreciate that.

So we'll put it that way. Now what? Okay, you mentioned. We still do a little. Yeah, I understand. Believe me, creativity is. It's not the. I believe me. Creativity is hard.

Like, I get that. But you mentioned you got a lot of suggestions you couldn't use. What was one suggestion that you wish you could have done, but you couldn't? Or maybe the wildest suggestion a fan sent in. They wanted us to shotgun storm brew, like the beer that they have for the hurricanes they wanted us all to shotgun a storm brew on on the ice i thought that was that one could have been pretty fun but oh that would have been awesome that highlight would have been played forever everybody grow yeah i thought that one could have been fun but didn't happen this is a fascinating team i want to talk about the Carolina Hurricanes.

Like I look at this Canes team and I say, this is a team that is a combination of new school skill and old school tactics. Like this is a team that a lot of the decisions are run based on how your crew measures the game and analytics specifically. Yet when I watch the Carolina Hurricanes play, it doesn't look like a team that's being led by analytics.

It's a Rod Brindamore coach team that has analytics as its fuel to govern how the roster is put together, for example. How do you find that balance? When we're clicking and we're humming as we should, it all kind of every i feel like everybody will say this but it stems from our work ethic and it doesn't matter if it's aho or me or stall or anybody it's everybody's working their butt off and i feel like once you once that

gets going then you can see our the skill of our team kind of take off and our team we want to break them down and you can usually see when we're playing our best it's we're dominating down in their end and we might might not score every time or we might not we'll get a lot of chances but then they're not coming back at us and i think i think that's probably one of our main strategies is we want to make them as tired as they can because they're not coming 100 mile an hour at us and then you can roll it over and they just they're it's fun to watch when teams you can just see their tongues hanging out and they're coming up the ice they're like oh they're coming at us again and you talk to guys playing against guys that we know and stuff it's like they come into Carolina they're like oh boy we better like everybody just knows it's like here

here they come here they come it's I feel like that's something that we try and hang our hat on and we always say our work ethic will be first and foremost and then the skill takes over from there from a player's point of view because I know it's easy to say and the story's been well told about you know Rod Brindamore sets like a standard on this team but as far as players go like who sets the work rate like who sort of dictates like guys this is the level we have to stay at well i it's definitely roddy is his it just starts from day one that's it's his speech that you walk into training camp you do your medicals and he does a speech and you're he says either you get on the bus or you're getting

or we'll find somebody else and then you you're like, okay, well, if I want to be a part of this, this is what I've got to do. And then obviously you look at Jordan Stahl, what he does night in and night out. His game doesn't change. If Roddy could design a player, I think that's who he's designing. So I think Jordan definitely leads the way. And then you've got Aho, who's our best player that hates to lose

more than anybody I've ever met in my life. And he works as hard as anybody on his game and just every aspect. So when your captain leads the way and your superstar leads the way, you just follow. That's kind of how it works. Is Bryn Mawr still the biggest animal in the room among the or in the in the gym among the organization or is like i remember stall seeing him at 19 and the penguins put like one attach one of those sleds to him he's pulling the weights along and and they said at 19 he was the strongest player on pittsburgh so is it them or is there

someone else who kind of runs the gym a bit gi Giordo is definitely, he's just an ox. He's just a beast. And then Svetch is probably our next strongest guy. And obviously, Burnsy is still a beast too. And then, yeah, Roddy's in there all the time. So he's up there also. If you don't, it must not, when he says get on the bus or we're going to get rid of you,

it must not be too hard to get on the bus when you've got four people like that and one of them is your head coach. Yeah, exactly. And I just think that when people come to our team now, obviously since Roddy took over, everybody kind of sees the way we do it and everybody talks

about culture and standard and all this stuff and I it's something we've we built for five years now and it's um obviously it starts with Roddy but the players that have been here we take a lot of pride in that as well is there competition in the gym well for our training camp, we have a competition. So for basically all your summer training, we are the captain's draft teams, and we do a little competition. And, okay, who's the most competitive and who wins? Well, for that, everybody's the most competitive because you get your name on the wall, and we have like the fittest hurricane, C5 hurricane they call it.

So guys are trying to be that. So you're the fittest guy in camp pretty much. And then like Giorno picks a team, I pick a team, Slavo, Fishy, or Aho picks a team, and we want our team to win. So this year it came down to three-on-three overtime and shootout winner by myself. So my team wins. And what's the prize?

Oh, I don't know if I can tell you that. You can tell us. Well, you get one day off practice. Yeah, so we had whatever day you want, you can get a day off practice. Did you take it? I took it. That's awesome.

That's awesome. Fascinating thing about the carolina hurricanes like when when this team is on and clicking and how many it's a beautiful thing to watch and everybody seemed like every line seems to fit really well and the line mates really click what's your like in your mind in your conversations with rod brindamore what's your position on this team? What does he expect out of you? I feel like I try and lead the way with my work ethic, and I try to make sure my motor doesn't stop running every time I'm on the ice. And obviously we have a mix of Europeans and Americans and Canadians, so I try to be a pretty big voice in the room.

And for the most part, we, we don't need a kick in the butt too often, but sometimes you need it. And yeah, I, I just try and lead the way in the standard that we do it. And, um, obviously when I, when a voice needs to be heard, sometimes it's my voice. Was there ever a problem with like, I don't know, like, I don't know if cliqueyness is the right word, but did you ever have that? Never ever in my time in Carolina. That's good. Yeah.

I've never ever had a guy that I didn't like playing with here. I don't know if it's just the way the management targets. They target good players, but they also target good people, which is something that's nice as a player. You never have to deal with anybody that you don't want to deal with. What's Burns been like since he got here? Awesome. He's awesome, yeah.

It's fun. I feel like I've sat with him at a lot of team dinners, and sometimes on the bus he has five backpacks that he brings, so sometimes he usually sits at the front because he doesn't want to lug them all the way to the back. So he'll come back and we'll have a longer bus ride. And it's just to hear Chatham up about, not even hockey stuff,

just some of the things he's done is pretty cool just to pick his brain and hear all about some of the things he's done. Can you give us an example? Well, he did this, like the shooting thing in i was at utah or wyoming and it was like with ex marines or ex uh like high ranking army people and they had it was like teams of four and they it was like a three-day camp they had to go out and it was almost like a competition like kind of like not like a hunger games thing but um they had to go shoot from 1,000 feet away, and they had to hit it.

And all their team members had to be a part of it, and they had to run up hills. Wow. It was like an Iron Man for shooting, pretty much. Wow. And you had to go with your team. And yeah, you said it was insane. And then at night, they'd obviously make camp with all the teams and get to hear stories about all these guys and some of the missions they've done.

And he's met some cool people. That's for sure. Wow. You know, you mentioned, um, targeting good people and not just good players. Your team targets fins a lot.

It's a lot of fins on the Carolina hurricanes. I'm curious from, you know, playing with, uh, with a lot of Finnish players, is there something that you can discern that's distinctive about the way the Finns

play hockey or are we at a place now in hockey where players are more similar than they're different and it doesn't even matter where they come from? That's a tough question actually. I don't think that they do anything more different than we do over here.

Obviously, I think you look at our two, Walt Teravine and Aho, they got a lot of skill, and I feel like Turbo works on it a lot. We'll see videos of him in the summer just out on the ice, just working on his hands and stuff. So I don't know if they maybe do a little more skill work over there, but we talked earlier, you've got a 12- and a 13-year-old or 11- and a 13-year-old. Wherever you are right now, I feel like if you're not working on skill

and skating, you're getting passed by people. So I think it's the way hockey's going. If you're not working on this stuff, you're getting passed by people. So I think it's the way hockey's going. You're not working on this stuff. You're getting passed. So our Finns are doing it, our Swedes, our Russians. I'm doing a little bit. It's good. But they're great.

They're great guys. All speak good English, so it's good. I was going to say, because one of the things I found is I think Finnish is the most undecipherable language. Oh, yeah. We were talking to Hintz and Aho and Heiskanen, and we asked them to count to five in Finnish. And I was like, normally you can kind of figure out what the numbers are. I had no idea what those guys were saying. kind of figure out what the numbers are.

I had no idea what those guys were saying. They'll be, say there's three of them, and there'll be another guy in the room that doesn't speak Finnish. They'll talk English, which is a nice thing. You don't have to be like, okay, what are they saying about me? You were mentioning before that you did some acting in high school. What was this? What play or whatever were you in? I'd have

to call in a i'd have to do it use a lifeline to call my mom because she knows the names of them but we did these things called one act so you were just with one i had a girl that we did uh it's just you and her and you're just a one one-on-one person kind of play and i can't remember that i know i remember her name her character she was Jane Marwood but yeah it was uh I actually they moved the show the one night because I was I was supposed to play hockey so we moved it to Monday I think or Sunday or so I could be a part of it my drama teacher was unbelievable so he I ended up doing it for four years four years of drama they actually made a new class for me they called it musical theater so I could take another semester.

Because me and my drama teacher were, he was awesome. He was the football coach too. So we got along really good. And I was, I felt like I was pretty good at it. So this is my thing now. Are we like your post hockey career? Is there acting in your future? I wish, but yeah.

Would you have done, if hockey wasn't possible, would you have been a theater person? Maybe. I don't know. I would have seen where it went, but I don't think I would have been. I would have known that my dream wasn't maybe going to be a reality. Can you sing?

I can't sing, no. I love to sing, though. I try hard. A lot of karaoke. What's your karaoke song? You want my whole set list? Sure. What's your top one? I Want to Dance with Somebody by Whitney Houston. Really? Follow Me

by Uncle Cracker, and then I usually finish with my favorite Nickelback song. Maybe Rockstar, Animals. You know what, that's right, because you were at the Halloween party this year. You and your wife dressed as Nickelback, right? Yeah, big Nickelback fan. Were you jealous that Conor McDavid got to do that? I was very jealous. Oh, my time in Carolina,

I did a dance to one of the Nickelback songs. And I usually, I always say Nickelback is Canada's best band and they all give me a hard time. And then they seen that Connor was doing their Canadian Hall of Fame thing and they're like, I can't believe they didn't fly you in to do that. I was like, yeah, me and Connor could have done it together. You're their American hype man. I know. fly you in to do that i know i was like yeah me and connor could have done it together you're the america you're their their american hype man i know man call you in yeah no we we when i was in arizona four of us got to go see them and we got to meet meet chad and stuff it was a lot of a lot of fun that's awesome you know before the interview we were talking about you and

your teammates watching uh ufc uh that anything like growing up boxing mma wrestling anything like that for you uh it did like a little boxing just for training hockey training wise but um just wrestle wrestle your buddies now and again i i think uh i went on my my cousin's bachelor party when i was 18 and they were i think he's seven or eight years older than me. So all his buddies were almost late 20s, early 30s. And I ended up wrestling like half the bachelor party and didn't lose there. So that'd be my only MMA, I guess, experience. I'm always curious, you're a professional athlete.

They're professional athletes. What do you think of when, like last night, for example, you're watching UFC. I've always wondered what the feeling is like when you hear the gate close, like what goes through your mind psychologically. But you're a pro athlete. You face danger on a consistent basis. When you watch UFC, what goes through your mind as an athlete?

We actually talked about the step on last night. We were watching it. He's like, why is my heart racing so much? It's like, you're not even, you're watching it and you're, you're like, you just get on the edge of your seat and your heart's going.

I think just the fact that there, it's just one person in there and you're one-on-one, it's like one-on-one combat. And that guy, if he hits you, yeah, it's just, it's crazy.

The fact that they, what they do to put their life on the line, but that guy, if he hits you, yeah, it's just, it's crazy. The fact that they, what they do to put their life on the line, but that's, that's the way they're going to make a living. So that's what they got to do. Last one for me, Jordan, I heard, I heard a really nice story about you. I wanted to ask you about your representative is Jeff Halperl, right? So you're, you're in the second year of a three-year deal, three years. And I heard that when this deal got done, you went and you took him out for a very special meal. Like this was a big contract for you. I didn't get to eat with him. You didn't?

No. No, I set it up with his wife. So I set dinner up for them. Yeah, he's obviously my agent, but I've built a pretty great friendship with him throughout my time and just very fortunate. You hear a lot of stories where guys are, oh, I don't like my agent or this and this, and I've never, ever had that feeling.

He's been amazing, and he works really hard for me, and I wanted to give a little back for him. Yeah, I set it up with his wife, and they went out for a nice dinner, and I'd do it every night if I could, but he drinks a lot of wine. And not the cheap stuff, right? Yeah, he likes the good stuff. Last one for me, is it cup or bust for the carolina hurricanes this year all right once you get to this point where you're making the playoffs

consistently every year it's that's the end goal and we're going to do everything we can to get it and obviously we're i i don't know what that's that is i don't i don't know what bust means if it's if that means blow it up or anything. No, I'm thinking like that's what's going to determine whether, again, you're right. You guys are there and have been there for a while. Well, we've been knocking on the door, and I feel like you want to continue to grow and make the next step. And I feel like we've been there, and we've been around it, And we just, yeah, it's, you guys know it. You kind of got to get lucky and everything's got to fall into the right place.

And it's an exciting time. Everybody always talks about, like, the second season. Get and go on and we're ready for it. Thanks so much. Thanks for joining us. Yeah. Yeah. I feel bad for you.

Listen to the 32 Thoughts Podcast ad-free on Amazon Music, included with Prime. That's Jordan Martin, look at the Carolina Hurricanes. Hope you enjoyed that. And, like, look, between you and me, I told you that Cordy house story was a, was an all timer, right? Was I wrong? No, that was great. Thanks to Jordan Martinuk for making himself available. That was recorded on a Sunday afternoon. They were skating that day as well.

And he spent a good part of his morning slash afternoon with me and Elliot. So for that Jordan, thank you very much. Also, you can watch the full video of that interview on Sportsnet's YouTube channel. And that's also part of our season-long hockey pop-up series, which is just so delicious. I love it. Hope you enjoyed Jordan Martinuk on 32 Thoughts, the podcast. Have a good rest of your day. you