32 Thoughts: The Podcast - What We Could See During The 2021 Season That We’ve Never Seen Before

Episode Date: November 27, 2020

Jeff and Elliotte offer some updates on the NHL’s return, where the owners stand at the moment, salary deferrals and possible tweaks to the 2021 season like taxi squads, ads on jerseys, expanded playoffs and a shortened training camp/pre-season. RIP Fred Sasakamoose This podcast is produced and sound designed by Amil Delic, and hosted by […]

Just to let you know on sort of give you an update on, on what's happening right now between the NHL and the players association and a special message, Elliot, to our friends stateside as well. Yes. Happy Valentine's day. No, it's not. Happy Valentine's day. Oh my God. Start again. Take three. Okay. Elliot, I'm going to go into my best FM DJ mode. We'll start with a double time check. 12.55, five before the hour.

That was always a source of contention when I listened to FM radio. Here's the time and temp. Yeah, just give me the information. Here's the 555-1212. Just give me the information. This is going to be an informative podcast, a sort of snapshot, Elliot, on where the NHL and the Players Association are with returning to play. But before we get there, a special message to our friends stateside. Yes,

happy Thanksgiving indeed. We hope that as safely as you can, you are with family and enjoying yourself. Right, Elliot? Absolutely, 100%. This is not ideal, far from it. The whole world right now is not ideal, far from it. But I know this is a huge holiday in the United States, a very important time. So we hope that you're finding some way to celebrate it and enjoy it with turkey, alcohol, or however else you prefer to celebrate your Thanksgiving. And certainly with loved ones around, either in person or virtually. Elliot, as we begin the podcast, I want to rewind to about a week,

maybe a week and a half ago on Hockey Central, our radio show, our daily radio show, on Sportsnet 590, The Fan. We had Deputy Commissioner Bill Daley booked. It was booked sort of earlier on in the week. And then about an hour and a half, maybe two hours before the interview, he had to cancel.

And that to me was a flag. That to me said, uh-oh, things aren't going well. And here's a deputy commissioner of the NHL who probably is saying to himself, the situation right now is sensitive and i don't want to throw another log on this burning fire would my read be accurate yes i do believe that i think that there are a number of people on the league side and also even some of the players and agents

who've looked at it and said there is nothing good that comes from tossing gasoline on the fire or making this situation any worse also i believe that there's an understanding and a recognition that the general public right now how many small business owners out there are really suffering at this point in time they don't need to hear this stuff how many people out there are working in difficult conditions whether they are first responders frontline workers just generally people who are workers who have to go into situations whether you're a teacher or a blue collar job or anything else where you know there's a danger because you're going into a group but you don't know where everybody's been and i think they realize that r rationing this up in public is a terrible, terrible idea.

And I don't know if it's going to be easy to avoid that all the time, but you have to minimize it. They saw where it was going last week with comments and columns and blogs and wasted bandwidth and sports radio airtime and podcast time talking about it. And they just said, look, we don't want to contribute to it. See, we look at this under the umbrella of how they did the deal in the summer with the Players Association. And that was done, you know, I think as we said there, like an Olympic diver into the water without a ripple.

It was done quietly. It was done away from headlines. It just appeared unlike how baseball did it, where every comment from either side was splashed all over the media. And it was really ham fisted way to get their season started. The point that I've made is the NHL and the Players Association could do that because that wasn't quote unquote hockey time. Like all sports and all sports fans have muscle memory. Okay, at this time, I'm paying attention to hockey. And at this time, I'm not. But right now,

the hockey muscle memory is here we are in November. I'm supposed to be paying attention to hockey. That's why whether they want to or not, I think this is going to end up being some type of public negotiation because the appetite is there. The eyeballs are there. The ears are there right now, but it seems as if the NHL and the players association are sensitive to the fact that they don't want this to your point.

They don't want this in your point they don't want this in the headlines and they would much rather have this thing go the way of the last negotiation where it was smooth sailing at least from a public point of view absolutely i you know i don't disagree with anything you said i think the tougher thing now too is that everybody's playing right and this is kind of the pressure point is the nba um when did all this talk kick back up again jeff after the nba announced we're playing and what's supposed to happen next week the nba is supposed to begin training camp now we don't know if any of this stuff is going to happen the nfl is hanging on i mean the you know the baltimore ravens

pittsburgh steelers is as we taped this podcast on friday morning they're supposed to play on sunday afternoon but we don't know if they're going to i don't know how many people listen to this podcast are college football fans but they're canceling 20 games a week it's a huge challenge um the second wave is predicted is here and it's massive. So you've got this thing here, you know, you're at the mercy of, but the NBA is supposed to be at its training camps next week. And once again, if the NBA players show up to their camps and we have no such date for the NHL, people are going to be saying, you know, what are we doing here? for the NHL, people are going to be saying,

you know, what are we doing here? What's our schedule? That's a big pressure point there. One of the other things I've heard, Jeff, and I've heard this secondhand, you know, the NBA and its players signed a new CBA about a month ago. And I've heard that the team owners in the NHL that also have NBA teams, which includes,

for example, Toronto, they've seen the NBA deal and they think the owners there got a better deal. Now I'm hearing the secondhand. I haven't seen the full CBA. I don't know if that's true, but that's the early word I'm starting to get that the NBA owners got a better deal than the NHL owners did. And if that's true, you know, there's going to be grumbling about that. So that's one of the things that I think is behind the scenes been a bit of a, an issue here. So then Elliot, give us as best you can, a snapshot of what's happening right now.

Publicly, it looks like the NHL is saying, we need a new arrangement if we're going to get this game back on the ice. There is a financial situation that this sport, well, really, there's a financial situation that everybody is facing right now. And in some regards, it's at critical levels for some industries, where the players are looking at this and saying, we can get back to playing whenever. We just did a deal.

Why wasn't that good enough? Is that an accurate picture of where we're at? Yes, it is. And from what I've heard, the players have said they don't want to make, and the league, what they asked for was increased deferrals and the possibility of raising the escrow caps.

The escrow is capped at a certain percentage in all the years of the new CBA. And they asked for either a raise this year or a raise in years four, five, and six of the deal when the escrow caps are at their lowest 6%. The players apparently, from what I understand, I don't think it was a formal vote, but they have indicated that they don't want to counter, that they don't believe in the escrow raise, and that while they're willing to hear about deferred money, they want to know what they're going to get out of it.

And here's the thing. The league's position is, look, this is a 50-50 deal. We split the revenues 50-50, and if we don't have fans this year and we know we're going to start mostly without fans, it tips way past 50-50. And if we don't have fans this year and we know we're going to start mostly without fans, it tips way past 50-50. So how are we going to make that up? And the player's position is, you know, we signed the deal. That's your problem.

And also the players say, look, we just went through the bubble. We just did all this stuff that we did it for this reason. And we hated the bubble. A lot of people I know who own businesses, they understand where the owners are coming from here. They see quite simply that if it's a 50-50 deal, you have to find it a way to be 50-50. And the players are like, no, you signed a deal, and that's that. And I think where there is some added frustration on the owners is two places.

Number one, Batman and Fear, they were like, we have to save this year. We have to get a deal done to save this year. And they raced to get a deal done. And look, some other things came up and this turned out to be worse than i guess they expected the owners were kind of held out of the negotiation and they're mad about that because there are some owners who feel if i had more knowledge about what was going on negotiation maybe this would have been different. And some of them are squawking about that.

The other thing is, I know there were owners who were really angry last week, and we've kind of discussed it a bit when some of the players made comments like, and appeared in my blog about it, was it's never been cheaper to borrow money. And that really pissed off some owners. It really did. Like one called me and we were kind of laughing about it at the end, but a lot of these guys aren't laughing. They're like, you know, we have major skin in the game here.

Some of our businesses are getting pounded. Like there's some owners who've done, I think, well during the lockout, like some people have like Amazon, but there's a lot who've done, I think, well during the lockout, like some people have, like Amazon, but there's a lot who've been completely hammered, particularly if you're in the kind of hospitality business. And I think they saw that comment as like just riled them up, infuriated them. So I think that set everything back. them so i think that set everything back so at the end of the day i think we're going to play jeff but the feelings are a bit raw right now and some of the owner's position is you know hey what do you want in exchange what you want is we're going to play and you're going to get paid and you're not going to lose a year of salaries and to the players that's not enough but i have i have some

ideas on i think what the players should ask for it's funny um i spoke to one agent last week and i said you know this does look like a takeaway deal right now this is the owners saying listen we need more money deferred kick that down the road. I said, what can the owners offer the players by way of a carrot to get this new deal done in exchange for further salary deferment? And he said, if I was a player, I'd say, get the cameras off the blue line and get rid of the puck over the glass. Go after the rules right now. This is your chance to get it what type of ideas do you have well that's the way i kind of think too not specifically the rules but how can you think about some other things like if i'm a player what i'm asking about is how do we increase revenue yeah

and because the commissioner apparently has asked for $300 million this year, neither deferments or escrow changes or whatever. And if that's what you want, if I'm a player, I'm saying, okay, if you want me to defer, I'll defer, but I want some commitment to growing revenue. And for example, there's two things the league has been unwilling or uncomfortable with doing that I think would raise revenue. Number one is ads on jerseys. Now somewhere Berkey's having a coronary because he's one of the people that really hates this. And Bettman feels has said in the past, the number has got to be worth it.

And we're not talking about European hockey jerseys where you look like a 1950s bumper sticker it's like a something small in a corner but enough that you know it's there but it's not ridiculous hang on unlike europe so not on the pants not on the socks, if you look at the NBA, there's, there's a small little logo near the top of the jersey and you can see it like anytime you see a play, but it's not all over the place, but it's enough that, you know, it's there. It's tasteful. I guess that that's the word I'm looking for. And, you know, Bettman has said in the past, you need to hit a number to make me do that

with teams like the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Montreal Canadians, and the New York Rangers. But if I'm a player, I'm saying, yeah, I understand, but it's time. No more of this. It's tradition. We don't want to touch these jerseys. If the Boston Celtics can have it, the New York Knicks can have it. But if I'm a player, I'm simply saying it's time. If you want us to agree to give back money, you have to agree to maximize the revenues. And the other thing, Jeff, is the expanded playoffs. You know, the NBA just put those in. They're part of the new CBA. They tried it last year in the bubble and they said it's in the CBA. You and I, I mean, you know how good Bettman feels about this. He's not a fan.

It shouldn't matter anymore. Here's the thing. You ask any team owner, the difference in your revenues, ticket sales, everything else, make the playoffs or miss the playoffs. Yeah, maybe it's not technically the playoffs, but if you give four more teams a chance to compete in that round, how many of them are going to be able to say, okay, our season tickets are going to go up next year. Our revenues are going to go up. Our sales are going to go up. If I'm a player,

that should be the only determining factor. And there's a new TV deal coming up in the U S isn't it more valuable with more meaningful games an extra playoff round even if it's two out of three or two games total goals or two games and if you're if each team splits then you play a sudden death overtime it's more meaningful games more teams in the race more like if i'm the players that's what i'm saying here. Okay. You want this from us? What we want in return, you have to maximize the revenue. No more saying we like only 16 teams in the playoffs. No, we're going for 20 to increase the revenues. No more saying I understand the tradition. You don't want to put ads on the Leafs or the Canadians or the Rangers jersey,

on the Leafs or the Canadians or the Rangers jersey. But no, we have to do this because we're coming out of a pandemic. We need to grow our revenues and these are the ways we can do it. Competitive games. Let me pick up on that. Something I've wanted to bring up with you on this podcast for a while, and this is probably the right place to do it as sort of things are on the table now as far as negotiating points. What do you think of this

idea? Because I'm with you on competitive games. And we always see this, you know, down the stretch, usually after trade deadline, when some teams are out and it's fire sale for players and that's it. And it's call-ups in the American Hockey League. And you're playing a lot of empty calorie games and you're just playing out the stretch. We all can recognize it. We get it. They've tried to dissuade it by having a draft lottery. That hasn't always worked. We saw, you know, Detroit really try to get Lafreniere's this season. We all remember what Buffalo did trying to get Connor McDavid. How about the idea of tying revenue sharing in with wins. I.e., if you are a revenue sharing team, you don't get your money unless you hit X amount of wins

or the amount of revenue sharing that you get is married to how many wins you accrue. Yeah, that'll never happen. Why not? Well, because there's going to be situations where you're going to have to rebuild or start over and it's legit. And should you be penalized for that? Should you be rewarded financially for it?

Should you be subsidized by the rest of the league? If you're rebuilding, that's what I would come back with. I think that's a terrible argument. Like Jeff, you've had some stupid arguments over the years this is the dumbest hang on i'll put this one to the court of public opinion that is twitter send in your thoughts on marrying revenue sharing dollars to wins here's why i disagree with that senseless argument although good for podcasting debating because's, there's times in your organization's history where it is perfectly legitimate to say we tried or we won and we got old and now we have

to start again, or we tried and it legitimately, and it didn't work and we have to start again. You shouldn't be penalized for legitimately rebuilding. Like I look at Detroit, should Detroit be penalized for last season? Now they're a big time revenue team, but say they weren't. Should Detroit be penalized for last season? I don't think so. I don't. I think their situation was legit. Now, maybe what you can say jeff like i'll humor you maybe if you've been an under 500 team for five straight years yeah now we're talking about

something but like say you're like a legit team that needs revenue you've been good for a really long time maybe your guys get old. Maybe something happens. You say, you know what? It's time. You shouldn't be penalized for being a good team that says we have to do the other part of the cycle. I don't believe that. Last time I checked, the tickets weren't discounted based on whether at the top of our winning

cycle or rebuilding. Honestly, Jeff, I get all that. But my point is that rebuilding can be a legitimate thing i mean you take a look at minnesota minnesota is a perfect example of this they've been a dreaded middle team for so long and you know what does it get you what does it get you yeah being a dreaded middle team well first, first of all, they have tried. Yeah, I'm saying they've been legit. Parisi-Suter, the fact that it didn't work,

well, okay, that's fine. So if you want to rebuild, that's fine. That's also your choice. But if you're interested in a competitive product, then I think the rest of the league should look at that and say, okay, this is a team that's being competitive. This is a team that has a certain threshold. You get your full complement of your revenue- money but i would flip back and say why should

the rest of the league subsidize a rebuild because it's perfectly normal well just because it's always been done doesn't mean that it has to be done that way i know i'm not even saying that i'm not saying it's always been done like i don't like that we've always done it this way so we're still going to do it this way i think that's a terrible argument my point is that rebuilding is legitimate like how for example look at the red wings okay we brought them up but the hand down that's that's that's fine you could no hold on hold on hold on hold on i would argue with you that their commitment to the playoff streak hurt them more than a rebuild would have. In what sense? They kept on saying, we're not losing the streak.

We're not losing the streak. And everybody felt that. Ownership, management, coaches, players. Zetterberg, remember, talked about how this playoff streak is not ending on my watch. But that's the trade-off you make as a team. It hurt them. That's fine, but that's a decision they made. If you want the peak to be at a certain height, if you want a high peak, then your value is going to be lower.

There's no argument there. I think that this is just a terrible idea. Okay, you don't like it. Let's see what people on Twitter think. I'm curious to see. And trust me, the tweets will come in. The smart people on Twitter will say this is a dumb idea. And the dumb people on Twitter will say, Jeff, you're a genius.

The forward thinking visionaries will agree with me. The people with scabs on their knuckles will agree with you. Okay. Let me throw one more out at you. As we're talking about different streams of revenue, remember, I think the agent was Rich Winter. You'll correct me if I'm wrong on this one. Remember when Grant Fuhrer was with St. Louis

and he had to deal with Pepsi to paint his pads like Pepsi cans? Yeah, I believe that was Rich Winter because he wanted to do something like that with Thomas Focoon too, I think. Okay. How about that? We should be able to cut our own deals and personalize our equipment based on corporate sponsorship that we get ourselves.

I'm curious about it. I know I'm putting you on the spot on this one. Yeah. You know, like, like I don't want it to look like tacky, right? So I think you should be able to police the look. But the other thing is like how does goaltender equipment work? You have to pay a fee, right? So like how is that going to work?

You pay the player and you have to pay a fee to the league or the team? Okay, so let's just say for argument's sake, we're talking Henrik Lundqvist, okayist okay because he's hugely marketable goaltender he goes to washington and um let's just say it's it's coke says we want to sponsor henrik lundquist capital pads because your color is red and we want red coke pads and what if the capitals have a i don't know if they do i'm totally making this up don't tweet at me capitals fans if this is wrong and what if the capitals have a i don't know if they do i'm totally making this up don't tweet at me capitals fans if this is wrong but what if the capitals have a building deal with pepsi yeah i get should lundquist be allowed to do that absolutely if you have you want to make

them like a miller light cans and all of a sudden the team's got a sponsorship with budweiser i get it but like you know i'm willing to consider that's not as stupid as your other idea i'm willing to consider the other idea is great this your other idea. I'm willing to consider the possibility. My other idea is great. This one's more ripped off than anything else because it goes back to Grant Fuhrer and the St. Louis Blues trying to put some money in his own jeans. But I'm talking about like if you're looking at what the players might want, if you're looking at what the players could ask for in return, like what could get them to saying, hold on a second, sure, we just signed a CBA four months ago, but I wonder if things like this help get it there. Because usually when you empower the individual to make more money himself based on something he can do on his own, that tends to

sort of nudge opinion, doesn't it, Elliot? I think the other thing too, Jeff, is that we're heading into a generation where personal branding is going to be more important than your team branding. I don't know how much I like that all the time, but at some point we're going to have to deal with this. Yep. That's common. Yep.

And hockey is usually the last sport, and it might be here, but you're right. It's common. Yep. That's, and hockey is usually the last sport and it might be here, but you're right. It's, it's common. You know, you mentioned a couple of seconds ago, you know,

the impetus for the owners to get this thing on the ice. And one of the things they keep coming back to, so I always look at this and say, okay, so generally deals get done at pressure points and you can understand the pressure point from the players because listen, if they don't play, then the money from the season is zero. And that's sort of been the argument thrown at players so far this season. Hey, guys, the owners can just say we're not playing.

And so, okay, so you take a 30% haircut. That's better than 100% of a haircut. I understand that. But you look at it from the owner's point of view, what type of pressure is there on them to get this thing on the ice this season, to get some type of season going? We've talked about the NBA is going to be going. NFL is going. There's going to be a Super Bowl. Maybe NHL owners are saying, wait a minute, how come we can't get our shiny toy to marketplace? But I do wonder as well how much getting a season in right now is important to bring the NHL one season closer to doing the new US TV deal. I think that's a huge thing for Bettman that they know that they have to get this

deal season done because so they can start the new deal. Like, I think there are some owners who look at it and say, it would be better financially if we didn't play this year, especially without fans. Like, look, I hate politicians. I don't really want to get into this too deeply i'm i'm not a fan of any politician of any identity or party i know that the story this week that canada might get the vaccine later was not well received in nhl circles because so much of the revenue comes from canadian fans and butts in seats in Canadian buildings. So there's concerns about that.

We'll see how that all unfolds. You know, I've asked how many owners don't want to play. I've had someone say to me 10 to 12. I had someone say to me, that's too high. It's more like six to eight. But I've heard there are surprises. However, I've also heard there are a lot of owners who think that, you know, if they don't play what it'll do to their franchise valuations, which is what these people care

about probably the most would be devastating. And I think they recognize that. So I think they, they want to go. And I think the NBA is, is a big pressure point. We've seen it once. We'll see it again if the training camp starts on time. And I think that's a big deal. I also have a theory about NHL training camps. And I think they're going to get crushed. People say, okay, too late for January 1st. And generally, I agree with that. But someone made a really good point to me. They said,

why, if you can't have fans and exhibition games, you're not making money on them. So do you really need them? You know, we had one exhibition game per team before the playoffs. How many do you get in the NHL this year? One, maybe two, maybe two. So that's something that's a good point. Secondly, you're not going to be inviting 60 players to training camp this year. As a matter of fact, I've heard there's talk of capping it at 35. All the players are skating now, Jeff.

They're playing or they're skating. They're ready to go. I really wonder, like these seven teams that didn't make the playoffs are supposed to get extra time. I think they'd like to do it, but if they had to compress it and rush it, I could see them getting tossed.

I can't see it. Like somebody told me that training camps are going to be short this year. You won't have as many players. You won't have as many games. Nobody's going to want to sit around and do it. You know, I'll tell you this, what someone said to me,

and this makes a lot of sense, is you have the players show up for camp right after christmas and you play like january 6th would make sense to me i've always thought the training camps are too long to begin with and i could see that and i hear also they're talking about the possibility of a taxi squad for some of these teams where players are paid their AHL salaries, but they get NHL per diems. That's what someone told me has been discussed. Okay. That's what I want to get to here with this, the way that we're looking at right now. And we've all seen what's happened in Vegas, in Columbus, at the World Juniors and Red Deer as well.

We talked about the baseball model over the past couple of podcasts, about just get started and then adapt along the way. If you get trucked with seven positive tests and you have to quarantine, et cetera, the idea of expanded rosters is out there. The idea of taxi squads is out there. But what does that do to your salary cap? Do these players become exempt from your salary cap? Yes, I think so.

And that's why I think they're talking about AHL salaries, right? How do you get players if you're in the Canadian division and your AHL affiliate is playing in the United States? Yeah, there's three teams there. And they talked about those three teams playing in their arenas. Yeah, there's three teams there. And they talked about those three teams playing in their arenas this year,

but it was too expensive. They're not doing that anymore. So I think they're talking about taxi squads. I look, I don't know if that'll be what happens, but I've had a couple different people tell me that they are talking about taxi squads. You mentioned the owners as well. And how many want to play?

How many don't want to play? Is this the most fractured that the commissioner has had his group of owners? Because generally, whether we're used to lockouts going back to 94, 95, at least publicly, they are all, you know, singing from the same hymn book, all marching in the exact same direction. Is this the first time they've been as publicly fragmented as, as they seem to be right now? Well, they haven't done it publicly, but privately. Yes.

This has been Bettman's biggest challenge. Like there's no doubt in my mind. Like, you know, I've had lots of people tell me, you know, they don't blame Bettman or fear for this. I think internally, I think people get mad at Bettman or they get mad at fear, but I've had lots of people tell me that, look at everybody's having trouble with this. Now, I don't know, like I said, I don't know internally if people feel the same, but I've had a lot of people tell me that there are a lot of people suffering financially much worse than they expected or anyone expected.

And I have spoken to people who absolve Bettman in fear of blame because of that. I've spoken to people who don't, who say that, well, when you're a leader, that's what comes with making the salary of a leader, whatever. I mean, there's a lot of positions out there but you know jeff like we're all doing this on the fly we are and one final thing from the players point of view i want to get your thoughts on a couple other things before i wrap up this podcast uh from the players point of view uh i spoke to one agent this past week and i said where are your clients at with this proposal from the NHL? And he said, we've all talked about it. And if it's put to a vote right now, my guys will agree to it. Is there any type of consensus amongst players?

I just think they're really mad. Like I said, Jeff, I think they've made it very clear. They don't want to make a proposal. They don't want to be seen as negotiating them against themselves. They want to hear, okay, if we say no to this, what's the league going to come back with? I think they're mad that it happened so late. The other thing here is don't forget the teams paid the players a paycheck on October 31st. Are they just going to throw that money away? I find that hard to believe, but I just think the players are riled up right now. They're like, why couldn't we have

done this sooner or whatever? Maybe they would have complained then too about, oh, we just signed a deal three months ago. I don't know, but I've had some people say, why couldn't this have happened sooner? I think everybody's just really frustrated. I don't, I just think that some point next week they're going to talk again. And like I said, if I was a player, I'd be talking about, okay, I want the expanded playoffs and I want ads on jerseys.

That's two of the things I'd be looking at. And revenue sharing based on wins. Okay. So that's a snapshot, folks, and sort of where we're at right now heading into this weekend. Okay. Two thoughts on two things.

The Tampa Bay Lightning and the Mikhail Sergeyev deal. There is still a knot there to untie, but the rope got a little bit looser this week. Yeah. So I have to say that it looks like that deal was, i don't know if in the drawer is the right answer but they kind of knew what it was going to be not long after the stanley

cup final um it's sergachev and and the team agreed on the term and then if you look at the comparables who include charlie mcavoy and zach waransky you knew what the deal was going to be so whatever reason Tampa did the deal now when they knew about it for some time and you look at Tampa's history Kucherov bridge Vasilevsky bridge Stamkos bridge they do bridges a lot point they do bridges that's what they do they do bridges so you've got to assume that Sorelli and Cernak, they're looking at the exact same thing too. Look, I think Kalorin's going to get dealt, unfortunately. I don't think they want to do it.

I think they may have to do it. I believe that Tampa has gone to almost all, if not all of their guys who have no trades and said, not Hedman, not Kucherov, not Vasilevsky, but just about everybody else, they did it with Stamkos, who has a no trade or a no move and said, would you consider it? I think the answers were overwhelmingly no. They've tried to work with Johnson. I think they've resigned themselves to the fact they may have to do Killorn. Would they have to do Coleman? Would they have to do Goodrow? They're to do coleman would they have to do good row

they're probably going to do something they don't really want to do to get this done but it sounds like breeze walk kind of knows what he has to do i think we should talk about johnny boy chuck for a second sure wraps up the career eye injury johnny boy chuck 400 games in the American Hockey League before he really made it as an NHL-er. It's a great story. Like a funny story about Boychuck. During the 2011 Stanley Cup Final, Boston and Vancouver, Jen Nezel, who works for the NHL,

used to work at CBC. Yeah. And at the time, she was working for Lululemon. And so she invited us into the Vancouver Lululemon store to buy some stuff. And this is the infamous story where I wore my wife's pants on the flight. But we walked into that store and Johnny Boychuck was walking out. And Oak was there and I was there. So he recognized us.

And he had this look like, pretend you don't know me. Like, I don't want anyone to know in Vancouver that who I am, but Johnny boy, Chuck for a guy who was a total long shot, Stanley cup champion made himself a lot of money, like hell of a career. And you look at those tributes from Anders Lee, like those guys loved them.

And I will tell you, when the announcement came out from the Islanders that he wasn't going to play, there were a lot of comments about texts from teams like, Lou does it again. Islanders violate salary cap. Robita Island. Robita Island. Yes, yes, yes.

But I'll tell you, it was tough watching that Zoom. Boychuk was really emotional. Hey, Johnny, what did they diagnose you with? What did they say? My peripheral vision is pretty bad, actually, I guess. And there's some, I think they said optic nerve damage and some other stuff. It's been hard to process everything at the same time. But, I mean, I went and did all these tests,

and it's just been hard, actually, really hard. But it's when somebody tells you that you're not going to play again or you shouldn't or else you're going to get seriously hurt. It's been really tough. Do you feel like your everyday life will be okay? Will you be able to play with the kids and be fine just on an everyday level yeah but i i notice it every day um yeah could be a lot worse to say the least that was a guy you had to drag off the ice like you had to drag him off the ice but that's going to be a big help for the islanders to get uh their stuff done i know they were talking about

boy chuck i i heard at one point they thought they had a deal. I don't know if that's true. And Lamorello is certainly not going to tell me. I heard at one point they thought they had the deal. It didn't happen. But Johnny Boychuk, like that guy had a hell of a career. Yeah. Congrats on a great career punctuated, as you mentioned, with the Stanley Cup victory with the Bruins in 2011.

Quick final thought and congratulations, both the Kendall Coyne Schofield and the Chicago Blackhawks. She is hired as a developmental coach for the Hawks. Well, I think also we should mention Megan Hunter who got promoted and I understand as a podcast listener, she got promoted too. And Eric Condra, a really good solid player

who's going to be in the development group too like kendall coin scofield to me it shows she is a perfect example of the difference of uh things like title nine and women's sports and the last generation of women's sports like we've talked about this before jeff i grew up with four sisters they were never ever ever encouraged to play sports like you know we were all born from 1969 to 1974 um at that age you know girls were really encouraged to play a lot of sports and now they are and you know what kendall cohen schofield like people saw what she did at the all-star game a couple of years ago in the fastest skater competition. Now she comes from a generation of women who don't have to convince men that they can teach them something because they have the skills, they played the sport and they saw

what she could do firsthand. So I think that's the difference now and you know when we were kids is that you see firsthand what female athletes can do and you see that you can learn from them and sometimes it just has someone to have the guts to hire them and say okay we're going to put you in this position i think that's an easier one because of what everybody saw her do i'll tell you when ever down the road the history of hockey gets written again that lap is going to go down as one of the biggest moments this sport has ever seen that's going to be one of the ultimate highlights that lurched that game forward and moved it forward in a huge way. And I'll tell you,

you know, we had Aaron Ambrose on the hockey central radio show last week. And I asked her, I said, you know, of all the players that are playing now, who can you see taking that, you know,

that next step into, into management, uh, working for NHL teams etc and the first name out of aaron's mouth was kendall coin scofield much much akin to she can pretty much do whatever she wants uh congratulations uh to both her and the hawks final thought heading into the weekend elliot well we should absolutely mention the life and legacy of Fred Sasakamoose, one of the first indigenous players to play in the National Hockey League for the Chicago Blackhawks in the 1950s. You know, Ron DeLorme, who spent the last 38 years with the Vancouver Canucks, he was claimed on waivers by them in 1981, is now their chief amateur scout.

By them in 1981 is now their chief amateur scout. He grew up in North Battleford, Saskatchewan, or actually he was born in North Battleford and grew up in a town called Cotian, which is just outside of North Battleford. He played with Freddie Sasakamoose when Ron was a kid. Fred was his idol. He told a great story of how when he was 16, he was playing in a tournament with Freddie Sasakamoose, who was older than him. And some of the players were kind of roughing him up a bit. And Fred came to his aid. He said he was supposed to be the best player. He was fighting the other guys to protect me. Uh, there was a long friendship, you know, last year at the Heritage Classic in Regina,

he dropped the ceremonial puck. You know, he also was there. He presented a, I guess, I don't know if the right term is a figurine or a statuette of himself to the commissioner, Gary Bettman. And Bettman was like speechless. He doesn't get speechless too often, but he was speechless when he got it. It meant a lot to the commissioner. I was telling someone this week that that presentation

was supposed to last about three or four minutes and it went about 20 and nobody was complaining. It was a beautiful presentation. Also, Mark Chipman, the owner of the Jets, and John Bean, the CEO of the Flames, the two teams that participated were presented with star blankets. They were beautiful. It was a beautiful presentation. I think we all have people in our communities who are our heroes, the people we grew up idolizing, and you don't recognize the influence of people if they're not necessarily in your community.

and you don't recognize the influence of people if they're not necessarily in your community. It took me a long time to understand the true worship and love for Freddie Sasakamoose. And I really thank Ron DeLorme for allowing us to tell his story because I know he was on the radio with you the other day. It was great. Because just the passion. And he said it true.

Like if, if, if it wasn't for COVID, that would have been a huge funeral, a proper huge funeral. And unfortunately right now they can't have it. Do yourself a favor. Everyone listening to this podcast, learn more about Fred Sosakamous, who played with the Chicago Blackhawks in 1953. Learn more about Henry Budd Maracle, who played with the New York Rangers in 1931. Learn more about Jimmy Jameson, who played a single game in 1944. Learn more about someone like, when we talk about pioneers, Larry Kwong, who played with the New York Rangers in 1948, played that one game. There about pioneers. Larry Kwong, who played with the New York Rangers in 1948,

played that one game. There are pioneers. We know a lot about Willie O'Ree, and he was a pioneer. Learn more about Henry. Learn more about Jimmy. Learn more about Larry. And learn more about the late Fred. Condolences to his family and friends. Thanks for watching.