32 Thoughts: The Podcast - Mark Guy: From The Hockey Industry To The Auto Industry

Episode Date: November 27, 2020

Mark Guy has been an NHL agent with Newport Sports Management for more than 20 years. He’s represented big names like Steven Stamkos, Alex Pieterangelo, Bo Horvat, Travis Konecny, Tom Wilson, and the Subban and Strome brothers. But now he’s getting out. Mark joins Jeff and Elliotte to talk about why he decided to leave the […]

Georgetown Chevrolet Buick GMC. And Custom Truck Center. I've always wanted a truck. Oh my God, you're going to show up there this afternoon. Hey, I was the producer today. You know, Elliot, I think that we fully expect, and welcome back to 31 Thoughts, the podcast, by the way, folks. Elliot, I think we expect this COVID break,

much like other breaks, much like breaks every single season, to cost certain hockey players their career. Like, this will be the last time we see player X in the NHL. But, you know, just, you know, realizing the news that it's not just players that are going to be exiting their professions, but agents, and one in specific, kind of has the industry a little bit surprised. Yesterday afternoon, I was talking to an agent who said,

did you hear about Mark Guy? And I said, no. And he said, we hear he's left the industry, that he's left Newport Sports. We sat down this morning with Mark and talked to him a little bit about his decision. But did this catch you, Elliot, as a surprise? It did to me.

And it seems as if everybody else seems shocked by this decision by Mark Guy. Yeah, it sure did, Jeff. No question about it, because he's a big part of a successful agency. By number of players, nobody's got more than Newport. We keep in touch with a lot of agents. It's part of our job, just like we keep in touch with a lot of executives. And the business is very gossipy. And whenever something like this happens, people start going, have you heard this? Have you heard that? What do you know about this?

What do you know about that? And this certainly sent a ripple over the last few days as news started to seep out that it was changing. And one of the reasons I found it so fascinating was because i think covid and what's gone what we've all gone through as a society has started to change some people's outlook on what they're doing and what's important to them and certainly it sounds like in mark guy situation, it gave him a chance to think and consider, okay, how do I want to proceed from here? And I think there's a lot of people.

For me, it's a very human story because I think there's a lot of people going through that. Absolutely. And Mark, someone, as you mentioned, who has, or had rather a client list that is really elite, whether it's PK Subban or Alex Petrangelo or Stephen Stamkos or Bo Horvat, Tom Wilson, Travis Konechny, Ryan Strom. He's a heavyweight, as you mentioned, and he's also someone with a sterling reputation. What have your dealings with Mark Ibe been like over the years? Well, understated. You know, agenting is a tough business. To me, honestly,

it's probably the toughest business in the sport. It's fierce. You have to protect your clients from other agents. You have to have difficult negotiations. Everybody's grinding for every dollar. You take them from teenagers to adulthood, from being single to their first girlfriend, to their marriage, to married life, to retirement, to successes as a player, to disappointments as a player, to getting sent down, to being traded. There's so much stuff. And some players are so much stuff and some players are very low maintenance and some players are very high maintenance like a lot of the most intense conversations i have are with agents and agents as a group are very much you're with me or you're against me and it's not an easy thing to navigate I always thought that he was one of the guys and we talk about in the

interview, there were very few emotional moments with him. He didn't like that. There's something he says in the interview that I'm going to learn from too. If you're having a really angry, emotional conversation, just stop it and try again later. Like that's something I should do more of.

That's something that really stands out for me from the interview. And I think that's kind of the way he was, is that he never wanted anything to build up to the point where it could cause lasting damage because we're all here, like nobody's going anywhere. So you have to find a way to deal with each other. And here's the interview as he moves from the agency business to the automobile industry. Here's Mark Guy, now ex of Newport. Let's talk about a scoop that we absolutely did not have and had no idea was coming, although we kind of thought it might be.

Alex Petrangelo signing in Vegas, a seven-year, $61.6 million contract. Earlier this week, we reported that the Lightning had made an offer to Stephen Stamkos. Sometime in the last few weeks, it's just believed that the average salary of that offer is $8.5 million. Obviously, I'm extremely pleased for us to be able to announce that, as you know, we've signed Stephen Stamkos to an eight-year contract extension. He is the future of the team, and the Canucks made that clear today, signing Bo Horvat to a new six-year $33 million contract.

Travis Konechny and Chuck Fletcher got the job done. We signed him for six years. $5.5 million A-A-V, and it comes out to $33 million. Subban and the Habs hammered out a deal today for eight seasons and $72 million.

What it's evidence of, Jamie, is just how hard these two negotiated on this deal. And ultimately, P.K. Subban drew a hard line with the Habs. He was willing to go through the arbitration rather than accept less money than he wanted. And I think, you know, once everyone had a minute to cool off after that hearing, the Canadian front office decided that they would meet his demands, give him that $9 million per year over an eight-year deal, and move on. And that's why it did ultimately get done today. Mark, thanks so much for joining us. And congratulations on making the move.

I think it's caught everybody by surprise. I was talking to an agent friend yesterday afternoon who mentioned it to me, and I was shocked and surprised. Should I have been shocked and surprised that you made this decision to transition to a different industry? Well, thanks, Jeff and Elliot, for having me on, first of all. And, yeah, I think it's safe to say that quite a few people were shocked and surprised, including people within my own family and very close circle of friends. So as I've said to a few of our clients along the way here, the interesting thing for me and for us as a family is that for the last 24, almost 24 and a half years, I've spent, as most people do in this industry and you guys do as well, you spend a lot of time away from your families on the road and lots of time in hotel rooms. And while it's been fantastic and I've really enjoyed it, at the same time, COVID has kind of allowed a lot of people to step back and look at where things are at for them personally. And I spent, in the last eight months,, I spent more time at home than I probably

have in the previous 10 years combined. So I really enjoyed that. And I was fortunate to get an opportunity here that was going to allow me to continue to spend more time at home and spend some time with the family that I haven't been able to do. And tough, difficult decision to make the change and a lot of sleepless nights going through the process. But in the end, it's the right thing for me and for my family. So I'm really excited about it. I have a relative, one of my sisters, she lived just north of Toronto and her and her husband decided that they were going to go, they were going to sell their place and they were going to go to Collingwood. Their skiers, you know, the way that the office is going now, a lot of it's going to

be done remotely. And they just, they made a similar decision to you, quality of life. We're making this call. And so I think you're far from the only person, Mark, who's decided to do this. And, you know, first of all, how did you bring it up to your family? And then how did you bring it up to the other people at Newport? Did anyone try and change your mind? You know, it was, so I'll give you a little bit of the backstory. So I've, my wife and I have a place in Grand Bend and when COVID hit and the office shut down,

we transitioned into Grand Bend. So through March, from March really through till probably July, we were spending every day in Grand Bend, which really was its own little bubble and very few visitors coming in. And there's about 3,000 residents there. And Elliot, you would know it well from your Western days probably. So great place to go and isolate. And one of my very good friends from business school, another Western grad, Ryan Finch, who's the owner of the auto group that I'm now partnered with, him and I would get together in our little bubble and talk a lot about different opportunities and different things. So he raised it with me through COVID near the end of just prior to coming back to the office when we opened up again.

And both my wife and I have known Ryan for almost 30 years and know him very well. So we were kicking it around and not really seriously considering it for the first part. But then as the more we thought about it and the longer COVID went on, the longer we were at home and enjoying being together. And fortunately, those things can go one of two ways, right? Your wife can realize very quickly that she likes it a lot better when you're on the road or she can enjoy your company. And luckily for me, it was the latter.

So Ryan can propose this as a potential opportunity for us. So the close circle of friends and some people that I really trust in that friend group who also have some experience in the auto business knew and to say they were surprised would be an understatement. They were certainly shocked, but very supportive. And by the time I got to the decision that I was 100% going to do this and with all the support of my family, and I sat down with Pat Morris and Donnie Meehan at Newport, who I have the most respect for in the world, it was difficult. I spent my entire professional life with Donnie and Pat and the group at Newport

and certainly a little bit of choking up as we were going through the discussion, but they were extremely supportive. I didn't position it in a way that this was something I was thinking about. I made it clear to them that I'd made the decision that this was in our best interest and great opportunity for us as a family. And both Donnie and Pat were shocked, but extremely, extremely supportive. Your last contract was the Ryan Strom deal.

When that was put to bed, did you already know that that was going to be it, that that was going to be your last deal? Yes. So I'd had the discussion a few weeks previous to the arbitration season with Donnie and Pat, and the decision was that, and this was important to me as well as it was to Newport, that I wanted to do as much as I can to finish off the contracts that we needed to get done for our players that I'd worked with for a long time.

So we did that. And in fact, after we had the settlement with Ryan and Dylan Strom, we had Dylan on the phone and Ryan in the office, we told him immediately after the settlement that that was the decision. So he was the first player to hear about it, and it was important to get that done. I would have loved to have been able to get everybody done. I still, from my side of things, from the NHL perspective,

we still have Corey Perry, who's without a contract right now, and Dylan Strom, who's going to be a player that needs to get done, and Michael DelZotto are the three NHL players that I was still working with that needed to get done. But just from a timing perspective, we had to make the announcement and make the change. And the group at Newport are certainly well prepared and experienced to handle that without me, but I'll stay involved to some degree with those guys along the way here until they get signed. But officially, I'm in the office at my car dealership here now. Officially, I'm in the office at my car dealership here now.

So Mark, A, who fought the hardest to say, are you sure? And B, what was the most emotional, I don't know if goodbye is the right word, but what was the most emotional goodbye? Probably, I would say Pat Morris from the business side of things. Pat and I have grown extremely close over the years. And Donnie obviously is the president and leader of the company. And we worked very closely together. But Pat and I would travel a lot together through Ontario in the early years. And he mentored me on the business. So real close relationship. And most of the players that I work with that come from Ontario, Pat and I would work with together. We worked as a team there,

so it wasn't always just one person on the file, or very rarely was it one person on the file. It was always a group effort. So Pat and I were real close. So I think he probably took it the hardest and telling him and Donnie was real difficult. I would imagine that you're not going to miss the 2 a.m.

Mark, I just lost my wallet. What should I do? Phone calls. But what will you miss? I've been reflecting on this a lot, guys, over the last little while. To me, the best part about this business, the hockey business, not the agency business, but the hockey business, are the people. The hockey business, not the agency business, but the hockey businesses or the people. Some great times over the years, traveling and telling stories at night and dealing with watching young players develop from going through their OHL draft right through to being NHL superstars. So the relationships and the friendships that you build with the players and their families.

And then in addition to that, there's obviously some phenomenal people on the other side of the business that you battle with when you're dealing with negotiations, but you certainly build some friendships and relationships there. So the camaraderie part of it, the ability to spend time with those great people and the friendships that I've made, those will be the toughest things to deal with out here going forward. But fortunately, in 24 years, I've made a lot of great friends that will remain, remain great

friends. And, uh, I don't see that changing very much. All right. So you kind of hinted it there. So let's go with this. Which person did you wake up and say, I'm glad I don't have to see their face across the negotiating table ever again.

I'm sure you'd love me to answer that, Elliot, but out of respect for everybody that I've worked with and against, I won't answer that. But in reality, there's some real difficult times that you go through in negotiations. And there's times where the phones get hung up or you storm out of a meeting, either side of it. And that can happen because it's emotional and you're trying to do what's best for your client and they're trying to do what's best for the team. But ultimately, at the end of the day, once that deal is done, they're good people. So I don't think there's anybody, honestly, on the other side that I could sit back and say that I never want to see again or that I'm really glad that I don't have to deal with them again.

All the relationships are unique, but there's some really good people on it. I'll tell you a quick story and one that relates back to my early years. Pat Morris and I were working for Mike Van Ryan. Mike had been drafted by the New Jersey Devils in the first round of the draft, and he was playing at Michigan University. He won a national championship. first round of the draft and he was playing at Michigan University, won a national championship. And back then, if you were a college player, you could leave college as long as you still had junior eligibility and come back and play a year and major junior. And if you did that,

your rights would become free. So you could become an unrestricted free agent. If you stayed in college at that time, the NHL team would own your rights. I think it was for four years. I can't remember at this stage now, but it was a long time ago. So we were dealing with Mike in New Jersey and negotiating with Lou at the time to try to get a contract. And we weren't thrilled about the position that Lou had for Mike. And we knew what his structure was and where it was in place. So we had a lot of discussions with Mike about that. And this was in a time when entry-level contracts were very different and signing bonuses were much larger and bonuses. So what you were able to get in your entry-level contract is different than it is today.

So after lots of discussion and debates back and forth, Mike made the decision that he was going to leave Michigan and go play in the OHL in Sarnia for his overage year, which from our contention meant that he would become an unrestricted free agent at the end of the year. We went through that process and Lou obviously was not happy with that decision and was adamant that Mike's rights shouldn't change. And we ended up having a hearing about those rights at the draft. I can't remember where it was now. I think it might've been in St. Louis. We had a hearing that we had to go through with that. And at the end of that hearing, the arbitrator decided that everything that Mike had done was allowed under the rules and that he

was an unrestricted free agent for the purposes of that. And he subsequently signed with St. Louis. Lou was extremely upset. I didn't really understand that from a business perspective. He was losing a great prospect and a first round pick that he invested in, but it made sense for Mike at that stage and we went forward. So that I could only imagine at that stage, and I don't know for sure, but Lou certainly wasn't our biggest fans. And subsequently the league went on and the NHL Players Association went on to change the rule and there's a there's

actually a rule called the Mike Van Ryan rule where players can no longer do that they cannot leave university just to go and play their overage year in junior and have their rights changed so it was part of uh of a new a new rule so as I mentioned, Lou certainly was not our biggest supporter or fans at that time yet. And we talk about great people in the business and I have the utmost respect for Lou as anybody who's ever met him or dealt with him, I think would agree. A few years later, when my father passed away, as I was dealing with some issues with my mom and her health at the same time, I walk into the funeral parlor and there's a massive arrangement of flowers sent personally to me and my family from Lula Amarillo. So there's great people in the business and that's going to be the toughest thing.

You know, we know that this industry, the representation industry is more competitive than it's ever been. And that's not changing ever. But from the time you began to right now, what are some of the biggest changes you've seen? It's a good question. It's something that we've talked about a lot in the office internally. Probably the biggest thing, Jeff, would be just the age at which people are recruiting nowadays. And I guess in concert with that is just the expectations and the demands that families have on agents at such a young age nowadays. I don't think we've done any favors as an industry with going out and recruiting 13, 14 year olds. To me, it doesn't make a lot of sense.

It was one of the things that I really struggle with in the business. I know it's one of the things that the entire group at Newport struggles with, that there's really no need for anybody in our industry to be recruiting 13 or 14 year olds. And I think it sets a really bad example for the players. I think it sets expectations that are unrealistic. And, you know, as we've seen,

as you, you know, you look at minor hockey in general and, um, no, this isn't meant to be a blanket statement, but it's, it's certainly something that we see when,

when you have eight and nine and 10 year old kids being recruited to other teams to leave their teams and the recruiting starts in November of a season and they've got to play the rest of their year and you have other people in other organizations recruiting kids. It just sets a bad example for what the game should be about. And in a lot of ways, it's driven by winning, it's driven by money and coaches being paid. And then certainly when it gets to the older ages and you get 13 and 14-year-olds that look like they're going to be a good prospect, it's driven by the money side of things on the agent side. So to me, that's the most difficult and maybe one of the most damaging things in the game today. it's too easy for the expectations of these young players to be set that they're the best things in the world and that there's no issues no issue that they can't solve by just switching teams

and moving to a different scenario so starting so young is a for me is a real difficult thing I think that there should be something in place that prevents agents and people on that side of the business from recruiting until an age that everybody agrees upon. When I first started, I think my first, I started in March of 97 and I had done some stuff with them before that, but I had started officially in March of 97. And I went to, I remember going to at the time, I think it was called the Kobe Cup, which was the OHL pre-draft tournament.

And at that tournament, there were very few players that had representation already. And that was only a few months before their OHL draft. Nowadays, you'd be hard-pressed to walk into a Bantam game in Toronto and find a player that didn't have representation or didn't already have people all over them. Is there a way to fix it? Can it be fixed, Mark? Well, I think they've done a really good job in Sweden, as an example, where Sweden has implemented restrictions that you cannot approach a player until January of their 16-year-old year.

And I think that's worked very well there. The difficulty here is, you know, there here is there's obviously a lot of competition. There's a lot of people that work for agencies that are just kind of bird-dogging or helping. So it's going to be difficult to ever eliminate that side of it. But I do think that there's a way that you can put something in place that players can't be recruited until at least their OHL draft year or their Western Hockey League draft year or whatever it is that it may eliminate some of it.

The hardest part though is how do you police it? And I know it's a discussion that a lot of us have had with the Players Association at different times. The reality is the Players Association has a lot to deal with as it is and certainly very difficult in today's day and age for them to be overly concerned about what happens prior to players get to the pro level is something that's hard to manage. So I think that something has to be done. It would make the game a lot better in my view

and certainly make the industry a lot better. Now that you're out of it, I want to ask you this question. What was it like having a two-sided business card? On one side, you're listed as an agent, and on the other side, you're listed as a family advisor. For me personally, the majority of the players that I worked with, Jeff, ended up playing major junior hockey.

So probably that's just a reflection of the players that I worked with, Jeff, ended up playing major junior hockey. So probably that's just a reflection of the fact that where I was centrally working out of Ontario here, most of the players knew about Ontario. But our goal always was to speak to the families and to the players and provide all the options to them. Let them know about all the options on both sides of the border. players and provide all the options to them. Let them know about all the options on both sides of the border. Let them know what's available and then let the family make their decision once they had all the information. So family advisor agent at that age, to me, doesn't really make much of a difference other than you want to make sure you're preserving the NCAA eligibility for your players. Once they make the decision as a family, then it shifts. But the professional side of it

and the business side of it really doesn't start until you're negotiating contracts for them. I did want to ask you about two negotiations you were involved with. And you can tell us how much you want to go into this, but Alex Petrangelo was a big one this year, and one of the biggest was P.K. Subban in the arbitration hearing with Montreal. What can you tell us about those two very high intensity, high profile negotiations? Well, first thing I would say is that it certainly wasn't just me or my involvement only at Newport and both of those cases.

only at Newport and both of those cases, Donnie Meehan was lead on both of those negotiations with myself, Pat Morris, Craig Oster, Rand Simon. We were all involved in those. In PK's case, the arbitration situation, Rand Simon from our office does all the arbitration prep work and the brief preparation and actually argues the cases for us. So that one was really interesting because we had negotiated right up until the time that we walked in for the hearing. We obviously weren't able to get anything done and then Rand did an outstanding job on the arbitration itself. And we came out know expecting that pk was going to be on a two-year deal and and then we would move from there and um if i remember correctly it wasn't it was about a day later there wasn't a ton of outpouring of support from the the montreal fans

and the media about pk's situation and i think there was some some pressure on Montreal to try to make sure that he was not in a position that he'd be leaving town in two years as an unrestricted free agent. So they reached out and we were able to work a deal out on a long-term basis for PK after that, prior to the arbitration award being handed down. And that was the interesting part about it is that you only have 48 hours following the arbitration to, or it's up to 48 hours where the arbitrator can make a decision. So if the arbitrator had given his decision while we were negotiating with Montreal, the arbitration deal would have been binding. So there was nothing that we could have done,

even if we were in the middle of negotiations at that stage. So that was an interesting one and a lot of fun to go through. And the arbitration processes can be a difficult one, but it's a great process too, because it forces both sides to get together. And as you see, in most cases, very few of them actually go through the whole process. Alex's was a different situation. We had a lot of discussions with Alex throughout the course of, really from the time that he won the Stanley Cup a year ago through all this season. I think it's fair to say, and it's certainly common knowledge, that his preference throughout this season was that he wanted to remain

in St. Louis and continue to grow there. Unfortunately, we weren't able to come to an agreement that made sense for both sides. And as we got closer and closer to the ability for him to become, I was going to say July 1st, but that's not the way it worked this year. But as we got closer and closer to free agency, Alex became more and more intrigued with what might be out there. And we see that a lot with players. If you're able to do something early on an extension, it's great.

It eliminates that kind of curiosity that a player may have. And as we continue to go through the season and get closer and closer to free agency, Alex and his wife, Janie, became more and more interested to hear what might be out there. agency, Alex and his wife, Jeannie, became more and more interested to hear what might be out there. And fortunately for him, one of his first choices that he'd looked at wanting to play for if he wasn't going to remain in St. Louis was Las Vegas. And they came to the table once he became a free agent and we were able to get something done for him.

I wanted to ask you a little, you mentioned with PK, and I remember that, like the Montreal fans drove up the pressure. How much has the social media era changed your job? We asked a little bit earlier about what some of the changes have been and that's certainly one of them. There's a lot of positives to it from a player standpoint and PK's situation was certainly one of them. to it from a player standpoint and PK situation was certainly one of them. There's also, you know, you run into situations now where players have to be very, probably more cautious and more careful of what they say and who they say things to that they want to remain private and confidential.

So there's a lot of training and a lot of discussions with our clients from a young age and how to make sure that they're careful and cautious in what they do with social media. As you guys know, being very experienced people on the media side of things, there's a lot of blogs and tweeters out there that come across as being legitimate media personalities, but they're not. And it can create some issues. And the one great thing about dealing with you, Elliot, over the years and with you as well, Jeff, is that we always know that when you guys are doing something, you're doing your research, that you've done it properly, you've added everything,

and you know that we may not always like or agree with what the story is that you're going to put out there, but at least you've done your research into it. In social media times, obviously, there's no need for those background checks and it can create some issues. Can you share with us what the Stamkos process was like before he ended up re-signing with Tampa? A very interesting proposition by the Toronto Maple Leafs, a big presentation, corporate sponsors involved as well, the lure of Stamkos quote-unquote going back home. What do you remember from that process before Stamkos resigned with Tampa? Yeah, I can share a little bit with you, Jeff, but Stephen's a very private individual. So I think that he's made it pretty clear that it's not something that he wants made public and wants to go through.

But at that stage, we'd had negotiations with Steve Eicherman and the group in Tampa. And again, we weren't at a position where we were ready to make a decision or Stephen wasn't at a position where he's ready to make a decision to accept their offer. And he had the right under the CBA to explore what else might be out there prior to becoming a free agent because we had the interview period back then. And Stephen met with a few teams, Toronto being one of them and probably the most public of all of them. They made a fantastic presentation to him and did everything that they could do from their end to try to lure him back to his hometown at the city. But at the end of it all, when Stephen sat down with his family, he made the decision that he'd, you know, he grew up as a player in Tampa. He had a great situation there. I know for him at that time, one of the most important things was that he was going to be in a very

competitive team for years to come and, uh, and wanted to continue to, to grow with, with Tampa there. So, uh, it's, it's difficult when you, you know, talk about Alex earlier and, uh, and Stephen is great examples, both captains of their teams. And it's difficult to leave the city that you've been with from day one. And for both of those guys, starting at 18, 19 years of age, you know, you've all your roots, everything you know about your professional career has been a one place. So I think that's why we see a lot of players do end up staying in their,

in their cities when they have the chance to become unrestricted free agents. Okay. I have a couple more and then we'll let you get back to overseeing your new employees over there, Mark. First of all, I have been on the other end of intense phone conversations with many of your coworkers at Newport, Don Meehan, Pat Morris, Craig Oster, Wayne Arnott, for sure. You have always liked being understated. I don't recall ever having a really intense, angry phone conversation with you.

What is the angriest you ever got in this business? Probably my approach in most things is, as you said, to be understated. I'll tend to listen and go through everything that I hear before reacting to things. So in my case, a lot of times if I get to a point where we were at a boiling point, we would just end the discussion and then revisit it another day. But there are times when you have to fight hard for your players. And I know there was a few specific situations where I felt that players were being either mistreated or mischaracterized and you get into some pretty heated screaming matches with management or

coaches on the other side of it. Probably the biggest blow up that we've ever had as far as negotiation goes would have been back in the Drew Dowdy negotiations with Dean Lombardi. the Drew Dowdy negotiations with Dean Lombardi. Those, those were pretty heated and there was a lot of superlative thrown around that probably wouldn't have, wouldn't have been good for primetime TV. Actually, they would have been great for primetime TV,

especially now people love that. Let me, let me jump in quick here, Mark. So Elliot can't remember ever having a heated discussion with you. Can you ever remember having one with him? No, I'd have to think back to our Western days when he was running the Western Gazette, I think it was called, Elliot.

And I was playing. Did you play under Reg Higgs? Were you there when Reg Higgs was there? Okay. So there is a story here, Jeff. So Barry Martinelli was the head coach at Western for most of my time there. Very good man. I really like Barry.

One year, Barry did a sabbatical where he went to coach in Norway. He got the opportunity to coach a team there. And he got replaced by Reg Higgs. Reg Higgs was a guy who was part of the Mike Keenan group. He coached with Keenan at times. And Reg coached for a year, and the players loved him. And I guess a couple of players told one of my coworkers that they wanted Reg to stay,

and they felt he should have been the permanent coach. And my coworker, a guy named Gary Davies, who's still in the business, he wrote a column saying that, and it was kind of a nasty column and craig donaldson who's been on this podcast who's done an unbelievable work as a doctor during covid he stormed into the office and wanted to rip our eyes out now i don't know how you felt about that mark but craig was really mad look craig is uh is one of my very good friends and uh was fortunate enough to play with him at Western for three or four years.

He was actually the captain there before he relinquished the sea because he was going into med school and didn't think he'd be able to put all the time into it. So it tells you a lot about what he is as a person. And I ended up becoming the captain after that, fortunately, and had some good years there and really enjoyed playing for both Reg and Barry. But yeah, we played group and Martinelli had done a lot for all the players there in terms of just helping them get into school, helping them get set up. I know for myself personally, he toured me around town and helped me get into some housing

in different areas. So he was really well-liked and well-respected. But when Reg came in for that one year, he was just a different character than Barry, and he had a way about him that just made everybody feel real comfortable and guys really liked him. So ideally what we wanted was to have both of them stay and be involved, and they did for a while, and it worked really, really well.

But it doesn't surprise me that Donnie, Greg Donaldson would have done that because he was very protective of everybody around the Western Mustangs. I just wanted to ask you about now. You leave at a time, Mark, where there's a real challenge because of COVID and the league and players, we thought there was a CBA.

There was one actually, but now there's a discussion about potential change and will there be any. What's your advice to the players? Where do you think we're going? So I've been transitioning here for the last little while, Elliot. I haven't given much thought to it,

so I don't even have an answer for you. No, I'm just kidding. So just so you know, I didn't leave the industry and come into the car business because of the times we're going through right now. That really had nothing to do with it. So just so I didn't leave the industry and come into the, into the car business because, because of the times we're going through right now, that had really had nothing to do with it.

It's just coincidental and really more of a family decision from my end. But these are tough times. And the, you know, one of the things that we talked about as a group and spoke to a lot of our players about prior to the bubble and prior to reaching the new CBA that we're working under was that everybody has to step back and look at this and say, yes, we're all paying a price and you guys as players are paying a significant price by not playing or having to

take deferrals and increased escrow. But you also have to look at it and look at it from the owner's side of things. And all they see, not all they see, but a lot of what they see is what they're doing with their own business in terms of the NHL and their franchises. But a lot of those owners are involved in other industries that have been dramatically, dramatically hit by the COVID situation. So you look at all of them that are in the hospitality business and hotels and airlines and those things. So there's a lot of pain on both sides. And I think at the end of the day, what they did was come up with a fair agreement that allowed hockey to play.

We had some great playoffs in the bubble. And it gave everybody some optimism that the next six or seven years, there's going to be some labor certainty. And as much as nobody felt great coming out of it, at least we had that set and we knew that we were moving forward and get Seattle coming in. So there was a lot of great things to look forward to. It's disappointing on our side of the business

or on that side of the business now to hear that there's a thought or a push to try to renegotiate things and move forward. I know from the players' perspective, a lot of them feel that they gave up a lot to come back and play and to play in the bubble. They put themselves through an awful lot to be away from families and be in a hotel for eight weeks to try to do things to get the season back and did all those things on the understanding that they were going to have labour certainty for the next six or seven years. So it's difficult. I can understand both sides of it. I hope that this situation that we're in right now doesn't last very long and everybody's suffered

on both sides of it enough. And let's just hope we get back to playing hockey again in January and, and under the terms of the, the agreement that was negotiated a few months ago. Listen, this has been a lot of fun and real interesting. Congratulations on a wonderful career and best of luck with the new career. This is a, this has been great catching up.

We'll definitely stay in touch. Good luck with the new endeavor, Mark. We appreciate it. And Mark, we should let you promote it like what absolutely yeah you should be able to you came on promote the new uh the new home well if uh if you guys are ever looking for a new vehicle please come see me so i've uh i've partnered with a very good friend of mine as i mentioned uh ryan finch from from london elliott you may know that name, the Finch Auto Group. Ryan and his brother Jordan have been great in asking me to come in and join them.

I'm the managing partner of Georgetown Chevrolet Buick GMC, so just northwest of Toronto, and have an opportunity here to work about five minutes from my home and run a car dealership. So we've got a great group here, lots of great employees, and really looking forward to learning a lot about the business. It's a massive change and a big challenge at this stage of my life, but I'm really looking forward to it.

Good for you for making it. Mark, thanks so much for this. We appreciate it. Thank you, Mark. Thanks, Jeff. Thanks, Elliot. You guys take care. And that's Mark Guy. And once again again we thank him for his time um and to plug his business it

is georgetown chevrolet buick gmc if you are in the area and we suspect our producer emil delich may just make that phone call by the time you hear this podcast speaking of this podcast uh we do have some more on the horizon. An interview with Rick Vive talking about his new book, Catch-22, My Battles in Hockey and Life. That was a really interesting interview. Hope you can listen to that one when it drops. And also

more podcasts are on the horizon. So like a vertebrae, we are back with more 31 Thoughts, the podcast in the upcoming days and weeks. Thanks again for joining us on this snappy little pod. A little Nash Rambler was following me about one-third my size. The guy must have wanted to pass me out as he kept on tooting his horn. I'll show him that a Cadillac is not a car to scorn. Beep, beep. Beep, beep Beep, beep

His horn went beep, beep, beep