Barn Burner: Boomer & Pinder with Rhett Warrener - It's Friday Ft. Darren Dreger, Jeff Marek & Mark Noonan | FN Barn Burner - November 8th, 2024

Episode Date: November 8, 2024

FlamesNation Barn Burner with Boomer, Pinder & WarrenerTIMESTAMPS- Flames vs Bruins Recap (2:30)- Rhetts Thoughts On The Game (9:30)- Sabres (14:30)- Flames Upcoming Games (19:00)- West Standings (22:00)- East Standings (25:00)- Mantha IR (32:00)- Dreger Joins (35:00)- Hall Of Fame (36:00)- Nashville (41:00)- Bruins (45:30)- Jeannot Hit (49:00)- Sabres (52:00)- Capitals (54:00)- Football Picks (58:00)- Marek Joins (01:06:00)- Stories (01:07:00)- Joining Nation Network (01:09:00)- Hockey Triva (01:13:00)- Mark Noonan Interview (01:26:00)FLAMESNATION MERCHhttps://nationgear.ca/collections/flamesnationBARN BURNER CLIPShttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLj_bcGtvvo-cW2DHEDZ6dEO5ePDmlhZc9SHOUTOUT TO OUR SPONSORS!!👍🏼 Powered by @bet365. Whatever the moment, it’s Never Ordinary at bet365.Download the App today and use promo code: NATION. http://www.bet365.ca/👍🏼 McLEOD LAW https://www.mcleod-law.com👍🏼 VILLAGE HONDA https://www.villagehonda.com👍🏼 OUTDOOR DENTAL https://www.outdoor.dental👍🏼 ORIGIN BREWING https://originbrewing.ca👍🏼 BeAroused https://www.bearoused.ca/👍🏼 Vena Nova https://venanova.com/👍🏼Alberta Blue Cross: https://www.ab.bluecross.ca/travel👍🏼 Crystal Waters Plumbing Company https://www.crystalwatersplumbingcompany.com/👍🏼Hearing Loss Clinic: https://hearingloss.ca/👍🏼Square: https://squareup.com/ca/en/campaign/biginrst💻 Website: https://flamesnation.ca🐦 Follow on twitter: @FlamesNation @BarnburnerFN @960boomer @PinderReport @warrener44📺 Subscribe on Youtube: @Flames_Nation💻 Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.comFollow us on Instagram @flamesnationdotcaFollow us on Twitter @flamesnation @barnburnerfnFollow us on Facebook @FlamesNationReach out to [e-mail] to connect with our Sales Team and discuss opportunities to partner with us!Produced by: Jack Haverstock & R.J Graham Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We are early. It's an early Hawaiian T-shirt Friday. A lovely day to you. Rhett, good morning. Good morning. What's up? How are we doing? No one shirt.

I forgot to put the thing on the... You look good. You don't have any... No, there's no. I thought there was a glare. Tiny, but not as bad as it was the other day. Whatever you're doing, it's good today. We got producer Jack back.

He told me he's concerned about you. Does he have a reasonable cause for concern? Well, I mentioned that perhaps there was a tickle starting to rear its head and inside my head. Right. I'm happy about it. Yeah. I've been doing the sinus rinse and it's. Oh, yeah.

A little disturbing what's coming out. Yeah, but you got to do it. You're like, wow, it's a half-eaten burger. What's where did that get in there? That's not good. Jack seems like he's on the men. He's feeling better. Good for you, Jack.

I'm almost there. And let's hope that you're not patient number three. I've got a lot of medical background. I'll be able to battle through. What do you call it? quasi-science. Pseudoscience. Well, look, I believe in it too.

Everyone has their pet pseudoscience things. Like there are no studies on earth that prove vitamins do anything. Everyone loves vitamins. Like, okay, I'm in on that. I'm in on vitamins. But, yeah, I've been hammering the vitamin C. It is that time of year. It still doesn't feel quite like we're winter,

but this is absolutely the time of year people get a little sick. So stay on top of that. Let's get right to it. It is our opening thoughts from a Cloud Law, a contest in Boston last night. It's funny, they went on that road trip, and they played Vegas and Utah and got pantsed twice. And both their goalies had their worst start of the year.

The work ethic of the team were the two worst starts of the year. And we came in here and said, okay, the start was cute. That's a rough run of play. Now, how's this going to go if they keep getting blown out? What are the veterans going to do? It's really been none of that since it's happened. You know, they played Jersey really tough.

They played Edmonton competitively. They've got three of a possible four points on the road. They came back in one, including an overtime in Montreal, and they erased a two-goal deficit last time in Boston to get to overtime. This has been unbelievable. Yeah, they don't seem to be as despairing like we are. not as negative as us how's that possible they're not throwing in the towel after you're more optimistic than the three of us so now you got to give everybody credit huska

running the bench obviously getting the message through he said the veteran guy this is about the players and the veterans clearly they're taking ownership of it and the results goaltenders have responded i don't know it's it's a lot of fun to watch it's How long is it continue? Do you want it to continue? The other reason we ask these questions is because we kind of had, for lack of a better term, throwing in the towel on the season and here they are hanging around beating teams. Yeah, I mean, look, they're in a playoff spot and we're, what, almost the midpoint of November here?

Like you start looking at where they could be in a week. I'm not saying they're a playoff team, but I am starting to have doubts they can be a bottom five team in this line. That's exactly. I don't want a non-playoff 15th. Pete Payne is 11th. I've explained. Usually peak pain in the NHL is the first team that misses, like 17th overall because you don't get playoff revenue.

You get the lowest pick of all the teams that miss the playoffs. And your fan base is just like, and that's kind of where the flames lived for a while in the 2010s after you retired and in sort of the lost Jerome years at the end there. But peak pain this year would be to, finish 11th from the bottom because that's when your pick will go to Montreal. If it's top 10, you get to keep it. If they want to actually be good and maybe it's just a work ethic culture,

goaltending structure thing and if they could want to maybe sneak in somehow, I think people are going to be very excited about that. They're not going to be, you know, poo-pooing that. No, no, no, you make the playoffs. But I just wonder if they can hold up this play for 82 games and give them credit. It's lasted longer than we thought thus far. Yeah, and it's, it is a lot about effort and compete. And I don't know what.

They're clearly not giving up. They're outscoring teams in the third. And the goaltending, we were hopeful it'd be good. And it is. It's been better than we could have expected. Yeah. If you wipe away, give them each one mulligan. It's the Utah Vegas games, worst games of the season for each goalie.

Outside of that, they're probably getting top 10 goaltending this season from Vlodar and Wolf, which is a great development for two different reasons. Because one, you wanted to see if Wolf could be a starter in the league. Early indications are, that's not crazy at all. Like, that's absolutely a normal outcome. He could be a one. And then secondly, Dan Valar is up and you love Devon Cooley. Boy, if he played well, you might be able to turn him into something.

Well, that could happen too. It doesn't seem like a bad combo to have to run with. And if you are having a chance at a playoff, well, it's going to be on the backs of the goaltending. They're going to have to be good throughout. maybe the back-to-back thing is the way to do it. I don't. It alternated all but twice,

and it was coming off the Vlodar shutout against Jersey. He got to go again against Edmonton, also traditionally very strong against Edmonton. And then last night was the first time of the season that Dustin Wolf has got in back-to-back games. I imagine it'll go back to Vlodar, Buffalo, Saturday. And not because a bad play. Just because the rhythm works.

And then you've got it back-to-back, Monday, Tuesday. That's going to be tough. You're flying all the way back for one game. And then after that, to Vancouver. Tough two games. L.A. Monday. Bring Cooley up. Bring Cooley up. Bring Cooley up. You bring them up. I'm not bringing them up. Oh, he's going to go. Okay. Although there is a say, send one of the goalies straight to Vegas from Buffalo or to

Vancouver from Buffalo. Well, if you just go right now. Yeah. Go. You go to Calgary. And then Danville are after you playing Buffalo, you go right to Vancouver. Use some e-bucks. Who cares? Let's go. incredibly busy show. Jeff Merrick will join us at 11. He disappeared from the 32 Thoughts podcast at the draft. He has been resurrected right here on the nation's network. The sheet. A new podcast will be kicking off next month. We'll check in with him. Get his thoughts on the flames and we'll figure out exactly what the podcast is. He's like a major trivia nut. I've got my two favorite hockey trivia questions. I'm going to ask him. I think he's going to nail him both because he is that guy. But they're fun water. cooler trivia pieces. Also, Darren Dregger's going to join us in about 10 minutes time. And the Canadian Premier League final is tomorrow at ACO Field Red, 11 AM for certain, not 11am. That's the flames game. I'm going to be there at 11. Okay.

Hydrant. I'm okay with that. 11 a.m. Starver is 1 p.m. Calvary and the Wranglers play at night. You can make it a major triple header if you want to, Rhett. It's all there for you. Nice lineup. The commissioner of the CPL, I chatted with an hour ago. We'll play that at the end of the show as well as they're looking at expansion. They look at what Calvaries created here as absolute flagship franchise for the league. And there was an awards banquet last night. I had a crazy night last night.

So it was CPL Awards banquet where they gave away player of the year, defender of the year, coach of the year, all that stuff. Then it was back home to catch the second half of that Thursday nighter. Jack and I have been talking about this Thursday nighter for over a week. It was going to deliver. It was going to be high flying. Boom, tried to throw the wet blanket on it yesterday on the show. it was an absolute banger. Jamar Chase went off for like, what,

250 yards, three touchdowns? He had a season worth of fantasy points last night alone. Jack, it was Game of the year? Game of the year, for sure. I'm glad I didn't get a moment of it. Oh, and we had a lot of overs. We did okay. We really, the accounts flush after last night.

It was attack the passing defense of the, of the Ravens and a bunch of other angles that we talked about on our show yesterday. It was a good night. And then from there, right to the PVR, Flames and Bruins didn't get to see it live, but was impressed with the effort. Down to, they could have easily said, hey, you know what?

The Bruins better team. That's all good. You know, we got to move on to Buffalo, but they keep fighting, man. What did you, did you like the Bruins? Did you like the flames? There was a lot more special teams than I thought I'd see.

I don't know. Boom, poo-pooed the football game, and I don't want to put poo-poo the flames coming back from a 3-1 deficit in the third. I thought they were two, Boston did not look strong. Yeah. I'll say that.

Now, I'm thinking they didn't look strong because maybe I'm under or not giving enough credit to the flames and what they are. Maybe they're better than what I've given them credit for. So, but in my opinion, the Bruins didn't look strong. The flames were more than capable

of hanging in with the Bruins. I think I just expect the Bruins like everybody else to be kind of that upper echelon. Yeah. I don't think they are. I don't know if they're that anymore. And they might be mid-season, but there's a lot of new

faces there. I think they got to figure out what they are. Because they, when we used to watch in the last five, ten years, they would just take over games. And you didn't scratch and beat you down and just control the pace and the play and hard to play against. It didn't look that hard to play against. And when you got the Zad dog out there, every other shift, it seems, going to be tough to get some even strength flow going. It's an adventurous. Coincidentals and minors and punching guys in the head. It was a lot.

Our opening thoughts brought you by McLeod Law. Call Peter Klein. Here's his number, 403, 254, 3864, or visit macloud dash law.com. Social media, it's at McLeod Law LLP. You know, Peter Klein, the injury, personal injury guy. But of course, also, if you're having issues with a disability insurance claim, call them up. Of course, your company is refusing to pay you. Call Peter.

He'll get you the disability benefits you paid for and that you deserve. He'll get you back to peace of mind as well, peace of mind that you paid for, whether it's personal injury, insurance issues, maybe you're going through a separation with your employer. Shane King can help you out on that front, litigation and dispute resolution group.

It's all there at McLeod Law for you. The Calgarians, the people that know how this city works, MacLeod-law.com. I got a deal for you. Inflation's crazy. Everything's expensive. no deals anymore, right? No deals. Can't get a deal.

P.S. You got to work a little harder, though. Now, we got a deal for you right now. Nationgear.ca. It is part of our, it's an early start. It's a little appetizer to the top shelf elf, our annual Christmas campaign that we run. ATB Financial has generously donated 25 seats to the flames and rangers up in the press level, the three huns where the real animals go to watch the flames, cheer their hearts out. Not only is it the tickets, it's also food, drink, popcorn, malt, the whole deal. Every ticket comes with that. This is an embarrassingly low total right now. And last time it was low on the day it got given away, it jumped up about a thousand bucks by the end of the day. How much time is left? Less than

seven hours, we're going to close this. And the leading bid right now, we're talking like less than 15 bucks ahead. That's insane. The food alone's worth closer to 20. Never mind the ticket. Let's get this cranked up. You want a deal. Here it is, Rhett. 25. You and 24 of your best friends, or you go with the RETFlying to Hawaii model. If you want your own section, you don't want to be bothered and you want a lot of popcorn, malt and soft drink, have your own section. Just go yourself. Maybe there's over time.

You might need that extra popcorn in the malt. That's right. I don't want the concessions closing down on me. We've got extra time here. I've got three in the holster here. If we have, in case there's four overtime periods, I got enough malts. And if it's not much, I'm going to buy the damn thing. Let's go.

Yeah, it's peanuts right now. So check that out. Maybe you've got some buddies that are interested in like, hey, if we each find five guys, well, there it is. There's 25. Let's do it. It is nationgear.ca and just click on the top shelf elf auction, which is one of the buttons rate at the top of the screen.

That, I mean, geez, I can't tell you a better deal than that, Rhett. I think I see people spending a hundred bucks a game. It's a secondary market. This is your deal right here, Frank. Screw inflation. That's right. Turn the screws on. And support a good cause.

Great cause. All the money raised going to closer to home, our annual Christmas campaign, helping families celebrate and enjoy Christmas, a way they otherwise wouldn't be able to. So an incredibly great cause there. We're super excited to be partnered with them again for another year. Okay, lots to get to.

We got football pickings. later. Boom's picks are in. He's starting to sweat. Like, he's not just sending picks in. He's giving us, like, here's why, and here's, and like, he's explaining it. Oh, good. Yeah. Pressure's on. You know, Jack's running away. He's almost perfect. You and I have been rock solid.

Dean's under 500, and he's starting to sweat and grip. We'll get to that later. I did want to get your thoughts on a hit. We'll walk through that with Darren Dregor. But first, I want you to tell us about Buffalo tomorrow. Sabers have

kind of been all over the map. A pretty impressive victory last night. Yeah. They walloped somebody last night, was it? And the flames, I mean... It was the Rangers? Rangers. Yeah, they chased Chesterkin. Yeah, they killed.

And that's, you know, this isn't the Sabres Club we torched three days ago, apparently, because the Rangers were sleepwalking or the Sabres have figured some stuff out. They're now one game under 500. They won 6'1, and Igor Shasturkin's night, five on 12th. you. That's probably a rarity, huh? Yep. And we've seen a couple here. I think the first two trips to Calgary, just Durkan got yarded. But, I mean, he might not have 10 games like that in his entire career. One was last night. What are the,

Rhett Warner, what's the network saying about? Well, if we weren't so busy, we should have had Marty Braun on to talk, but he would never shut up and we would never get anything done. So we might be done by puck drop at 11 a.m. tomorrow. Yeah, we'll just let them ramble on. But the Sabers will come to town we'll get Marty on ahead of that you know i don't know what the sabres are they should be better lindy rough was brought in and have a little more make more demands i think the common theme around town was that granado was too soft on the players now maybe it's taken some time for rough to get guys to buy in and and to adapt to his coaching style maybe they're playing a little bit better but

the start was terrible so i don't know i still don't think they're they're not where I don't think they're making the playoffs I don't think they're a playoff team I think they've got some good youth I think they're very young they don't overwhelm you tage Thompson can rip the puck

noodles was talking about some guys yesterday cousins is great you'd love them on your team I just don't know if there's anyone driving that bus right like rasmus dalien is the is the captain that's fine he's a hell of a player

own powers will grow into a great defenseman. But I don't think they're there yet. And I honestly think that's okay. Like I think in years past, except that you're 14 years in. No, I know, I know. But here's the thing.

Like, if you want to go make a trade and give away a young player and lose that trade, you can do that right now. I think the way forward for the Sabres is to just trust that the talent will win out because I look and I don't know that there's many teams with as many players under the age of 25 that I think are really good players.

Like they might have the most in the last. league. But it doesn't happen right away. So it's that careful tight wire of, okay, we can't accept losing. We don't want to losing culture to set in. But on the flip side, we can't be throwing away a Quinn or a cousins or a petrka or a power because we're so horny to like get a veteran here who's going to be no good in three years anyway. Like I want to leave. Yeah. It's a weird spot, right? You have to build a bit of a Winnipeg franchise where you're not going to go and wow anyone in free agency. Like they'd signed that Taylor Hall.

It was a one-off kind of thing. I actually liked the move a couple years back. But you really aren't going to go and be able to, without completely overpaying, have someone coming to Buffalo and go, damn it, this is where I want to be until you get good. And the only way you get good for the savers is just to keep building. And it sucks for the fans, because like I said, I don't think they make the playoffs this year.

it's been 13 or 14 years already. Yeah. But you're right. What else you're going to do? You're going to fast track it. Yeah. The side help. Bad idea.

Yeah. But I still, and I think you're right, I think they do have a base of nice young players, but I don't know who stands out as a star. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Tage Thompson would be or did kind of have that aura two years ago. Last year, he came back down.

to earth. He does have the shot. He's got the skill and some size, but nobody's talking about him in the top 10 type of players in the league category, right? Like, they need somebody to elevate them and be able to, to, I don't know, they're just not a heads and tails superstar that's there. Yeah, and maybe that's what we see emerge over the course of the year. That would be exciting. And I think Tage has that potential. Certainly Dullian Empowers are drafted where they are because they're phenomenal talents. Flames have three points out of a possible four. Two trips to overtime and two games on this road trip.

Buffalo is the third and final. Is the road trip already a success or do you get greedy now? You need four. 500 on the road is a good road trip, so there's no pressure, but I would think going into Buffalo. I think anyone that plays Buffalo is thinking we should win this game. Yeah. Yeah.

The sharks. I mean, you know what I mean? Like I think the flames are probably looking at it going, no, no, no. This should be two points. us. But I actually think it might be one of the tougher ones because you're not getting up to play Buffalo at one o'clock on Saturday afternoon. Yeah. That's, tough. Emotionally, you're going to have to find a way to be a professional about it and drag

yourself into it because it's not a circled game on the calendar where you're excited to go play. Let's look at the standings after last night. We'll schedule first. This is fine. Yeah. So they wrapped the road trip and then it's home for one. The game against the Kings is the first of five of six at home. They will have that back to back where they're in Vancouver on Tuesday night, but the next four are at home. It's going to be a really interesting opportunity for the flames who, you know,

their two worst games of the year of the year have been on the road, the Utah and Vegas roadie. And I have liked their efforts at home. They really haven't laid an egg at home as I'm thinking about it. They hung with Winnipeg. They hung with Carolina, even though they lost those games. But five or six at home.

coming up after Buffalo. This is a chance where if you just keep collecting points, maybe you're not world beaters, but you're just pulling a point or two here or there, it's going to get to a spot where it's like, why not us for a second wild card? If, you know, but this is where you have to win those Buffalo games.

You look at that schedule and you go, you got to win the Buffalo game because the toughest games are going to be the Kings and Canucks back to back once you get home. Then you got Nashville who, this would be interesting to ask some of our guests, what the hell is going on in Nashville? Yeah. And the islanders where if you think you've got playoff aspirations,

those are your three victories that you're kind of. Sure. Would want to put a checkmark beside. Rangers and Wild after that, two very good teams. I think Wild, surprised. But I saw this Kareil Kaprizov stat. Every single road game this year, multiple points. He has more three-point games than he has zero-point games.

The guy is on absolute heater, and he's doing it on the road. road. He's one of those guys where it's like, yeah, this guy played in Montreal or Toronto or Chicago or New York. You'd hear a lot more about him than you probably do because he plays in Minnesota. But he's a megastod. Like this is one of the top five forwards in the league, I think. Well, they kind of had that down year last year, the year prior they'd have impressed and maybe sometimes that's just how it goes, make a coach and change. Although I thought Evanston is pretty good coach. So let's look at the West here. Flames in that top wildcard out. after the win. Suddenly, you know, they're not far back from Vancouver,

who do hold two games at hand. They'll meet Tuesday night. Jets, another win last night, Rhett, 13 wins in their first 14 games. This is absolutely bonkers what's going on in Manitoba. They got to be happy there. I'm just looking at the whole thing. Look at the bottom if you want to talk. Yes. That is, that's not going away. Another loss last night for Nashville. And, yeah, there are 14 games. Samco scored us fourth. Roman Yosey's on. the score sheet. It seems like a disjointed group.

And I don't know that Barry Trots can or wants to play the coach card. But you also can't let things status quo rain here. It's not good enough. They got to get this turnaround quick. Can they turn it around? It just does seem dysfunctional. Again, we're so far away from it. In a way and I want them to fail because I kind of said,

I think they're doing the stupid things by trying to fast track this. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's, you're, you definitely were on that side of it. I also just think, look, there's too much talent for them to be that bad. Something's not right. Like last year's team without three veterans added, it was way better than this. So, you know, is this a bad run of, of goaltending and shooting percentages?

What the hell's happening here? I don't know. Colorado's starting to pull up their socks here. You can see there within two games of 500, within three points of the final playoff spot. They did get Kail McCar back last night. There was some concern he would miss some time. they are obviously a team we expect to get in there.

Oilers, ditto, and then I don't really know how to feel about the rest. I mean, maybe there is, if Nashville is going to be an epic flame out, is that the one spot that opens for a Calgary, a Utah, or, you know, a St. Louis, someone like that. Well, I don't know. I mean, those teams that are in right now, you start, it's funny because Nudel said it yesterday. And when you look at it, you're like, man, Nashville's in the last. They're terrible. Well, if they put together a good week.

Yeah. They're back in it. It's so early on that. You went three in a row. Look at them. They're a point out of the playoffs. Yeah. I know.

It's not that simple. But yeah, it's, they're a good run away from being right where everyone thinks they should be. That's the scary part with the flames is you, you've got Edmonton and Colorado, I fully expect at those two teams at minimum are going to find a way. Nashville's down there. The rest of those teams, I think you can. compete with and beat. But if those guys get going, how are you going to stay in that playoff hunt?

Let's look at the East Jack, if you got a moment, just because we talked about the Sabres and where they're at. They're kind of hanging around better than we thought. Back-to-back wins will help with that. They're two points out of a playoff spot with a game in hand on Boston, but it's a pretty muddled pack in there. Detroit's played only 12 games. Rangers in a wild card. The caps looked legit through their first dozen games. Nine and

three. And I still think Florida is the team to beat given how good they've looked. They took two off of Dallas in Europe. They have handily beaten the Bruins. They've looked all the parts. They don't take their foot off the gas pedal. It doesn't look like, right?

No, I think they beat Vegas as well. Yeah. It's a club that certainly doesn't look like they had a short offseason. There's a group of teams there. Somebody's going to make a plan. You start to wonder about Boston. You know, just watching how they played last night.

It doesn't seem overly inspired. But anyway, I'll tell you what, if you saw a top 10 goalie last night, there's no overtime. Like I didn't think Corpusillo was bad, but we got to remember what their goaltending's meant to that group. Yeah, that's true. They were basically a top three team the last three years for goaltending. Jennings, Jennings. Yeah, and now it's like, oh, Corpusallo's anything like, huh? That guy's a duster.

And maybe he'll be fine this year. but, you know, it's not Olmark and Swayman at the top of their game. Like the Olman won the, Ommon won the Vesna two years ago. Swayman's got the money. You expect him to round him to form, but maybe that's just the missing thing. You get Zadarov out of the box a little more and get more saves. Sounds simple, but goaltending usually answers a lot of these riddles.

We ask ourselves. Sure does. If you run a restaurant, you're too busy for this ad. If you're thinking about how to get more orders flowing, of course, you're thinking about new locations, how to get customers, coming back, more customers, all that. So really, you're already thinking about Square.

Square has restaurant tech that helps more than 400,000 restaurants already. They do all these things plus more. So when you're thinking about your restaurant, think bigger and think square. You can maximize sales by making it easy to process orders, whether that's in-house with a kiosk or a mobile POS for table side orders. Also, they do online ordering, takeout, delivery. find out why Square is so good at restaurant tech. Go to square up.com to see why Square is awesome

at this 400,000 restaurants are already using Square tech. And again, if you think you're too busy to think about Square in this ad, nope, you already are thinking about Square. We are expecting our NHIll Insider Darren to join us. He's usually a 1015 or I hope he's not busy. Is he just so used to us being late that he's now just wheeling in a 1030, Jack? Yeah, he's usually around 1020 to 10.30. But yeah, to be fair, we do start late.

I know last year he'd just pop up when we hadn't even started. Oh, boy. Yeah. I wonder what common thread is. Somebody missing today. Have we had any up bids on the... I'll check. On the greatest deal in Calgary? Again, the inflation buster.

It's already up, yeah. It's small increments, but it's moving. We got a bit in the right direction. Come on, folks. Let's go. Let's go. Bring those phones. I did want to ask you about something here.

Eric DeHatchik announced that he is hanging up his pen, so to speak, or his typewriter or keyboard. He's done all of those. Yes. He's lived through some different eras in media. Most recently, a long run at the athletic, where he's written on the NHL nationally. But of course, back in the day, he was a scribe for the local paper covering the flames. I always looked up to Eric. I was a huge sports fan in the city growing up, really keen to read his articles, a guy that was always dialed in. I remember seeing him on the satellite

hot stove after 40 minutes on Hockey Night in Canada as a regular. Eric was the Calgaryan that had a pulse on what was going on around the league. His final article is up at the athletic as he says, thank you and goodbye to an incredible writing career. Did you have many interactions with Duhah? Well, the problem for our interactions was I was not hire. on his list of people to need to interview and talk to. He was busier with the Jerome's and the Mika's, so to speak. Yeah, it may have had better, more impactful players that he was trying to get some feedback from. But I do remember watching them on CBC and TV and doing all kinds of different stuff and reading the articles, absolute.

Yeah, yeah. So at tip of the cap on the east west with Morganty. Yes, that was epic too, the East West hot stove. Dooha and Morganty. We used to have Morganty on the morning show. God, was he good. And like very different styles. But if you had Duha and Morganty,

you got the full pitcher in terms of what was happening around the league. Always dialed in and a huge Barnburner salute to Eric DeHatchik on an incredible writing career. I don't know that anyone has done the equivalent in this market that what Eric's done in this sport. So congrats to him on a great career. And I hope he can enjoy, you know, some less inky hands or whatever, the sore typewriter fingers. I don't know what it is.

It's a new arm. My kids do all the talk to text. They don't even type. My wife does that too. Oh, yeah, Siri. Tail Row and I'll be a little bit late there today. All right, man. Yeah, I get a lot.

Does it. Even her Siri talks with an accent. I don't think you can do that. Jeez. Good luck to that, Chuck. Good for you. Yeah. Congrats.

Awesome. Let's talk football picks. We're not going to do them right now. Boomersen is in. You've submitted yours. Jack is the absolute he's on a heater. It's unbelievable. A two in one week feels like a real letdown for him. He's strung so many three and a weeks together. You wanted to audit the bills with Rhett. He's very concerned about this line. Bill's what? Only favored by four and a half over Indy? What that's happening? I think it's

four on the road in Indy. Joe Flackle looked horrible last week. What's going on there? Why? Is this a trap? Don't overthink this, Jack. Don't overthink the bills. Are you allowing me to this week? Because you've asked, Jack, and you've not been feeling well, I'll give you the joy of the bills being one of your picks. I'm still not allowed to take the bills.

I don't touch the bills. You're too chicken s to pick your own team. Staying away for the bills. Yeah, Jack, don't overthink it. Although we should be asking you. Yeah, I don't know. That's the one that was looking at. I'm like, I can't wrap my head around this.

I feel like. Didn't we feel the same way in Seattle two weeks? school and they just absolutely something. Yeah. Yeah. Like sometimes there's just a line. You're like, this ain't right. Like what are we doing here? Now, usually we're the ones that are wrong and Vegas is right, but there are a few

where you're like, this just doesn't pass the sniff test. Yeah, there's a lot of road favorites too, which is interesting. There are. There are a lot. And I took a few. Yeah, we all. We're all pretty heavy on road favorites. Jack's team is actually.

They're dogs. An interesting dog with two and a half points against. Commanders. The Washington's. And Jane Daniels has been an absolute superstar. They run the ball well. They're starting to make plays on the defensive side of the ball. I'm excited for this weekend.

And, yeah, well, you're, Bill's, how do we feel about Indy? I mean, just lock it in another double. I don't feel anything about Indy. Joe Flacco, that's supposed to intimidate me. I'm trying. It's not working. Yeah, no, I saw Joe throw an interception last weekend. Sorry, Joe.

Sorry, Joe. Loved you in Baltimore. Actually, I didn't, but. You remember him. Yeah. No. There's transaction since we last spoke. Anthony Mantha placed on IR.

Should probably mention that. Did you reach out, get the gist, like the breakdown of what happened? Lower body. It's a low body. Weird. Weird. And we saw kind of the skate blade go into the boards.

Never really a great sign. No. We'll see. a minimum of, I believe, what, seven to ten days retroactively. And they did have to call someone up. And I was kind of thinking, okay, who would be fun to call up? Well, you got Peltier, the young guy who's working hard. You got Hansik, who you just sent down.

Maybe you want to let him cook a little longer. Hey, Stromgren was a really nice story in development camp. Maybe this is his chance to get a debut. Oh, Walker Doer, great start, scoring lots of goals. Rory Karen's probably not ready yet. Dryden Hunt is back, baby. Because guess who trusts Dryden Hunt? the head coach.

So it'll be potentially the Kirkland Rooney Hunt type players rounding out the roster. I know it's always, you want to get your paws on these young prospects, but not this time. Hunt will come back up. And I actually thought he was the best version of Dryden Hunt we've seen last year when he came up. I'm not saying he's a world beater, but if you need someone to play fourth line minutes, he's been absolutely fine.

So we'll see if he gets in on tomorrow morning against Buffalo or with those back-to-back games Monday, Tuesday with travel in the middle if he makes his season debut for the flames. Time to get to our insider hotline. We do that for Crystal Waters Plumbing Company. Crystal Waters, your crystal clear choice for all residential plumbing, heating, and cooling services with over 23 years experience and over 30,000 projects completed. They're going to deliver premium quality equipment and services. Safety, comfort, product longevity. That's what they're focused on. They want to be the guardians of your homes. mechanical heart. Welcome in on the insider hotline from TSN and the Ranger eggs podcast. It is

Darren Dregor. Happy Friday, sir. How are you? I'm doing okay. You know, got an interesting weekend ahead. As you guys know, it's Hall of Fame weekend. And I don't historically partain over the years and the ceremonies that go along with it. But in the last number of years, we do regionally the Hall of Fame game. So that's Detroit and Toronto. And, you know, You know, it's always fun being around the Hall of Famers. And tonight is going to be extraordinary because any time you give Jeremy Rona to live microphone, I can just buckle up and let it go, man, because it's going to be entertainment. So that's what I got going on tonight and heading into the weekend.

Okay, so tell us about the class and what are you excited for beyond JR. Careful now with that microphone. There are people who record. Yeah. Yeah. You know, a little bit of everything. I think of Shea Weber. I mean, Rhett, you played against this man.

You know, he just typifies what it was to be a good, clean, mostly clean physical presence out there. Who had the bone crushing slap shot. Just ultimate leader is probably used too much. It sounds cliche. But it also feels appropriate when I think of Shea Weber. So I look forward to seeing him going. in, Pabaldatsuit, man. I just, I can't imagine again what it was like to play against him.

Not fun. I can imagine the deception. And I always love the comparisons of players who are now in the national. Oh, he reminds me, like the most recent one. And several hockey people have made this, not media people, of Mitch Martinard of Pavl datsuit. Come on like, okay, I get it. He's, he's shifty.

And, you know, he's quick. And he's got great intelligence. and creativity and all that. There's only one Pavel Datsuke. There's just one. Yeah, then beyond that, you know, we talked a little bit about JR. For me, it's long overdue. I think he's aptly deserving of attention in the Hall of Fame.

You look at the ladies going in Natalie Darwitz, Chrissy Wendell-Poll. I mean, Chrissy Wendell-Pole, as Ray Ferraro talked about this, we just gave up a career because she wanted to start a family. You know, this is a woman with a decorated playing resume. So that's nice. And then you've got the two builders. So you've got Colin Campbell, who's been involved at every level of hockey in the National Hockey League forever. And then you've got David Boyle, who, again, he's just, he's one of the true gentlemen, gentleman of the sport.

So because of TV, so you can blame us, because of TV, there's a short window. It's a five-minute maximum that each of the inductees have to, to, to, you know, just thank everybody and acknowledge some of the great points in their career. I mean, have you guys ever had a conversation with Colin Campbell? There's zero chance he's getting that in in five minutes. And likewise, David Poil, who it might take him five minutes to just acknowledge the principal people in his life around hockey. So anyway, it's a real good class and I am looking forward to it. Brett, give us a Datsuk anecdote.

You kind of made the joke. Not fun. He was, the deception was through the roof and really, uh, well, it felt like keep away, didn't it?

It did feel like keep away. And you got to remember at the start of his career, he was very much criticized for being soft and not caring and not engaging. And then all of a sudden it's like, who, what are you talking about? This guy is one of the best of the best of the best. I always loved his shootout goals where he just did the,

the flip over the goal into the net. So I mean, every time I played against him, I made sure I changed real fast and got off the ice. I'll look this one, fellas. So I remember years ago, so Braden Shen was going into his first year as rookie year in the National Hockey League. So that's how long ago this was. For some reason, I got invited to Las Vegas as part of a tourism boondoggle.

And I went there with Brent Wallace, who at the time was with TSN. And so it was, I got to think, we got invited to a certain adult. Saleh show and then backstage. So it was Pavl Dax, Pavel Datsu, Braden, Shen, and somebody else. I can't recall. I couldn't believe how good Datsuk's English was at the time. Because every media availability,

every scrum that I had ever been in around Pavel Datsuk, he could barely speak English. Right. But then all of a sudden, you get him away from the prying eyes of media and he's behind the scenes. And he's having a full cover. conversation in English with one of the athletes at Cirque Disl.

And I'm like, all right, I'm on to you, Pavel. I've got it. He still plays that card. Yeah, that was the classic Isha Rosesuki thing. He'd always be like, no English. And then you'd see him when the media wasn't around. And he's just like, I may as well be like reading English literature. Like the guy was absolutely fluent.

No sweat. Just didn't want to do the media, which probably good PR move. Yeah. Hey, look who's in the comments here. We got a question. I know you're covering the Hall of Fame game. What about the Hall of Fame Old Timers game? commie wing and drags you got a horse here what are you got i can i don't even know who's playing

is he's playing i was just as if he's asking i i'm curious who's coaching because there's a certain candidate that would make that very entertaining oh boy hey dude by the way let's get commie going here you see there was a uh mike babcock citing recently no that the laval rocket game the american league game. Now, in fairness, doesn't soundly he's working for anybody or doing anything. I think he was there as part of McGill alumni, and they had an event. So he just went over and watched the game. But no, Mike Babcock will not be anywhere near that old-timers game. Tommy's offended. You've lost your insider status. You don't know the old-timers games rosters. You haven't memorized that. I have no idea. I have no idea who's playing.

I believe he taught me to bring him in as an insider, but it can't be anything like current NHL. It's going to be like, who's on the next U.S. Rider Cup team or like top 10 golf courses in Scottsdale? This guy's got to figure it out. I'll tell you what. He better hope that Wendell isn't playing Wendell Clark. I saw Wendell late in the summer at the Maple Leafs charity golf tournament.

Yeah. I mean, he dropped maybe 20 LBs, maybe a little bit more chiseled. I mean, he literally looks like. like that rister could get pulled out on the mothballs and find its way home in the national hockey league. So let's see. If Wendell's playing, how about a little showdown, Center Ice, old school, Mike Commodore and Wendell Clark, see how old turns out? Mike has the reach, but I don't know. I like Wendell there for some reason.

You mentioned David Poyle. He was an architect of the franchise here in Calgary we followed back to the early days in Atlanta, but more famous for his incredibly long and successful tenure with the National Predators. he stepped aside. Barry Trots is now the architect. What is Barry Trots' demeanor? And what are the texts like he's getting these days? Another loss last night for the prets. Yeah, everybody's throwing him a life preserver, right?

Every NHL general manager, hey, we have the perfect fit. We can help you out. It's going to cost one of your three first round draft picks and one of your top prospects, but we've got the answer for you. I talked to Barry before Wednesday's game against Washington, and that was after he had done Nashville radio. where he dropped the R word, the rebuild word. And, you know, in fairness to Barry, it was misinterpreted.

That's not what he meant. Like when you think traditional rebuild, you're thinking, okay, you're tearing it down, you're taking it to the wood, and you're drafting, developing, and years and years and years of pain and suffering. It's not what he meant. He meant maybe he has to investigate whether they need help kind of in the middle part of their lineup. So they bring in Braden, Brady, Shea. He replaces McDonough.

They bring in Stamco's and they bring in John Marsha. And his hope was that those three guys, given their experience, would be able to hold down the fort. You know, they could lean on him, they being Andrew Burnett and the rest of the team, while some of the younger guys earned the experience. And maybe by the time you get to the playoffs, you know, some of these younger guys are ready to take it up a notch. Well, the problem is they're probably not getting to the playoffs. Well, they're not the way they're playing right now. So when he said rebuild, what he meant was, you know, I might have to dangle one of those first round picks.

It's got two seconds. They have a lot of good young prospects coming and good young NHL players. Maybe I've got to package something and make another bigger trade or a bigger move and get in some help. So we'll see how that plays out. Again, it's still relatively early. He probably isn't going to be able to do that until closer to the midway point of the regular season. but that's what he meant when he used the rebuild word. So what are they shopping for?

Second line center? Is it the middle? Yeah, that's in a perfect world. That's what they would add. You know, something with a little bit of creative punch there. But, you know, like who's giving up a two center with any level of hockey smarts or creativity? Nobody, not at this point. And that's that's a frustration.

Like there's no way that Barry Trots and Andrew Burnett expected that they would be in the mud the way that they are right now. They just didn't. And, Rhett, you made the point a couple of weeks ago. You thought that, you know, he pulled the Louisville off his shoulder way too early, you know, swung for the fence with Stamcoast and Marcia So, and the group isn't ready. And you're 100% right. And now the general manager can see that. Unfortunately, he's the guy who did it.

And everybody's calling for Andrew Burnett. Well, that's grossly unfair. Don't do that. No. I mean, Andrew Burnett was a hell of the coach last. I mean, we're talking to him in the coach of the year category, right? And you know, and you look at the year Ryan O'Reilly had last year. Terrific.

This year, I mean, he called himself out the other night and said he doesn't think he's played a worse game in terms of his inability to generate anything. But there's a guy that's been there, done that he's seen it all at the NHL level. So I just, again, I believe based on the conversation I had with Barry, that he's going to try and bring in some help before he does any dismantling coaching or otherwise. Okay, Rhett, I want you to, we saw the. Rooms last night, Flames were in Boston, another wildly entertaining game on the road for the Flames. They erased a deficit in Montreal, winning overtime with Coronado starring. Last night, they erased a two-gold deficit with Cadry and Sharon Govich playing big roles. Dustin Wolf played in both of them.

He's looking all the part of his starter. Yeah. I think this Flames team, we would all be on the same page. They've surprised us. They've impressed us. Tip of the cap to the veterans, the coach, the young players. What are we seen on the other side of the ice? Because Boston, all the whole.

Hallmarks that we've seen over the last half decade or decade haven't been there. They don't have anything that they seem to be great at. They're not great on special teams. They don't score a lot. They haven't been getting great gold sending. They don't look like they're terribly well structured. Ret, maybe you start with what you maybe know or what you're asking questions about

Boston and then Dreggis will get to you. Yeah. Well, you've got a bunch of guys again, the team that brought in guys that paid a lot of money and you expect Boston because of the history and the way they've played over the last decade or so that they're going to be upper echelon. Yeah.

And have they accepted that maybe they aren't anymore? I mean, there's all that talk about the goal, the coaching too. And I have no idea because how do you go from one of the best records that or the best record ever two years ago? Yeah. To not liking the coach and making these changes. I guess one of the questions I would have is did they sour things in a off season with the treatment of some of the players.

Or vice versa. Where some of the guys like Marchand going, listen, I've played here for cheap because I want to play on a good team. And now you're going to take these guys to the cleaners. Did it change the dynamics in the room? That's what I can't. It could have. I mean, there's no doubt that Jeremy Swayman negotiation or lack thereof

was a distraction. And it negatively influenced the group coming out of training camp and coming out of the preseason. I just, honestly, I just don't think the Bruins are good enough. You know, they've got a handful of good players. You know, I mean, David Pasternak is elite. We know that. He's proven that.

You know, Brad Marchand scores the overtime winner last night. Good second effort there. But he's coming off three surgeries. And he's an older player. Like, he's clearly in the back nine of his career. But we just talked about Nashville wanting a potentially second line center. Look up the middle of the ice in Boston. And so you see Pavel Zaka.

You see Lindholm. We actually thought it was pretty good last night, right? Like, you know, Linome isn't that edge of the seat type of centerman, right? He's not. He's a good two-way center. You've got Charlie Coil. So those are your three guys up the middle. Well, the one thing that they seem to lack is exactly what we talked about, creativity.

There's nobody there with that sort of buzz or excitement. Now, they've got Justin Brazzell playing top six right wing. I mean, this guy and I like him. I mean, he's an enormous guy. I can appreciate how you look at him and you see a project. You see a project. Not that long ago, he couldn't play for the Toronto Marley's. Now he's in your top six in the National Hockey League with Boston Bruins besides

Brad Marchand and Lindholm. So I feel the frustration of Jim Montgomery. People are criticizing Jim because of how often he turns a blender on. I mean, when they were winning games that they shouldn't have won last year early on, he did the same thing. You know, a line would score, and the next time the two forwards are out, they'd have a different winger on the other side. That's just the MO of Jim Montgomery.

So it might just come down to the Boston Bruins time without Bertram, without Crachy, without some of the other pieces, just catching up to them. They've got some good young talent. I'm drawn to Matthew Parker watching that kid play. I think he's going to be a really good NHL player, but they need that cushion. They need help to get them through. last night, a bit of a hit that will,

is going to get a second viewing from the Department of Player Safety as we saw Tanner, you know, a guy that plays his game on the edge, probably wish you could take this one back. There's Brock Besser, who is one of the great goal scorers on the Canucks. I want you both to react to it. We showed you at once before the show, and now you see it another couple times. What's your first reaction before we get to Drags?

Well, I guess my first reaction is you don't need. to. Yeah. It feels like one of those ones where it's pretty clear that the league is told everybody, don't do it. We don't want to see it. The guys don't need to be. We get hypocritical about it because we want hard-nosed hockey and physical hockey.

But to me, that one's a bit of a cheap shot. Yeah, I'm with you, man. And he had opportunity because of distance traveled. If you feel like you've got to complete that hit, he could have changed it, right? he could have gone shoulder on shoulder and he doesn't. Yeah, anything. Full body, however they want to describe it, inside the Department of Player's Safety,

the opportunity for Geno to complete that hit in a better fashion was there. So now you start looking at some of the little details that go into it. Does he drive the shoulder up? You know, it appears in the five times I've looked at it, that there's the point of contact his head. That doesn't always matter, but in this case, it probably will. To me, that's a line crossed.

and I'd be surprised if he isn't suspended. However, then you flip it again. And I wouldn't say that Besser was admiring a pass or making the play. But when you're drifting through the neutral zone like that, you're allowed to be hit there, right? But it does come from the blind side and there were other paths and the contact could have been different. So I think it's probably suspending.

Yeah, this is one of the many I would file into totally normal hit. in the mid-90s and one that the league and the players aren't okay with now. A, the players not expecting it. And B, what are you accomplishing here? It's just unnecessary, right? You said it. What's the point? Well, and Jake's made a good point, too.

You can finish that. Yeah. Better, yeah. You should low. Yeah, why are you going to, where are you going with that contact? So if I see two games, you go over under or just right? Yeah, two, three, maybe. Okay.

I always hate guessing at the numbers. I know, and it's in the wheel. We always joke about it. It's been the wheel of justice. Like, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, 10, 5, 3, 2, 1. Oh, it's 2, there you go. But, yeah, I mean,

when you slow things down and there's all these different comps, I can find comparables that didn't get suspended. You can go find some more than 2. But it just feels like that safe spot for the Department of Player Safety is a couple games. King's been good. Anyone else that's caught your eyes,

surprisingly out of the gates? Washington has been stunning. I mean, not just, hey, the results, smoke and mirrors, but their underlying metrics are phenomenal. Give me your take on Buffalo, too. We play them tomorrow, and I do not know what to make. I said, I don't think they're going to playoff team. I felt, and they've kind of climbed out of a bit of a hole, but are they, where are they at in your opinion? Well, I mean, they're closer to where I thought they'd be.

And, I mean, they're not going to roll over teams like they have in the last couple. I don't think that that's reality. But they were better or are better than what they played up to, you know, in the previous games of the regular season, to be fair. And because of that, it conjured up all sorts of rumor and speculation, you know, around that group and what might come. There's a reason why Kevin Adams wanted to bring Lindy Ruff back. And there's familiarity there, obviously, with the Buffalo Savers. But I think that he also felt like they needed somebody who's going to stabilize. And just as importantly, make sure that that young defense, he is taught the right way,

how to defend and do it on a consistent basis because up until now, they weren't seeing that from some of their young D. You know, the gold tenting in Buffalo has been a question mark for the last few years. Maybe it's less so now. But in fairness to that group, on paper, I thought that they'd be better than they were. So maybe the last couple of games is an indication that they're finding the right way and they're learning how to get the job done here. We like that they're young.

We like a lot of the talent. You just hope they don't panic. I feel like they've done this too many times to do it again. But this is not the time to go overreact and trade a young star who's going to be better elsewhere. We've seen that a bit with Buffalo. And Washington. Yeah, Washington. And then we'll get you out of here.

Yeah, Washington is a surprise for a number of different reasons, right? But, you know, we had Spencer Carberry on the podcast recently. And he talked about the benefits of him having coached some of their younger guys like Protas, McMichaels, another one, right? Like this kid has just blossomed this year. And it's almost the perfect recipe for what they needed, you know, based on what they've got in the elder statesman. And of course, you think of a fetchkin.

You know, Tom Wilson is still at times dominant player, but maybe not the offensive threat that he used to be. Hold on a second. Yeah, you're good. So all that combined with good goaltending. I mean, I still think they're going to come back to the pack a little bit, but, man, they've been good to this point. Surprising for me for sure, right?

I still think that they're going to have to scrape and claw like they did last year as a playoffs draw closer. in the second half. But, you know, the other thing that you're hearing from inside that dressing room is how tight that group is. And you kind of see it in the pregame. You see they're mucking around and they're having fun and it's ovechkin with the old guys and all that kind of stuff.

But maybe that does matter. You know, when you've got that connectivity in the room and off the ice and guys want to come to the rink because it's fun and you're winning games, which makes it that much more fun. I mean, maybe they do. And guys, I think we're also learning. Betzer Carber is a hell of a coach. Yeah.

He really is. So they might have something going there. No question. Dregs, enjoy Hall of Fame weekend. You're our Hallfamer. We love you. Thanks for coming on weekly. Appreciate it.

Get a glass of water and get going on those old-timer rosters. Always something. Always something going on. All right, boys. Have a good weekend. Thank you. There's Darren on the Crystal Waters Insider. Hotline, whether you're a home builder,

looking for high-volume professional mechanical subcontractors, a homeowner seeking installations, replacements, repairs, or maintenance, or a property manager, real estate owner, their experts offer comprehensive mechanical solutions. Make sure your home is ready and safe for winter. Let Crystal Waters inspect your plumbing and heating equipment to ensure your home is ready for the cold months ahead. Also, Crystal Waters, your burner, you're a Barney, you're a fan of the Barnburner show. Let them know they'll give you discounts on water heaters, air conditioning, furnaces,

up to a thousand bucks in value. Crystal Waters, plumbing and heating is your crystal clear choice for home comfort. Give them a call 403-2100 or check them out online at crystal clear calgary. com. Ah, yeah, lots there from Dregs. You're not out for Hall of Fame weekend. What's the hell? Totally forgot it was Hall of Fame weekend.

I mean, not that it's circled on my counter. Something normally attending. I did get invited last year when Vernie went in. That was. Were you there for Jerome's as well or no? Nope. No. It's funny because there's a lot of guys to get in,

but it's way later in life, and they've probably just forgotten about it. And there's other guys that are slam dunks and you know they're getting in first ballot like Jerome, but that's a big deal out there. Like if you're in that Ontario area, that's a huge event that out here kind of sneaks up on you, not out there.

Yeah, I think it's a lot of fun that week. And I remember a bunch of, of the guys, the alumni with Flames, guys, with Bernie going and stuff and lots of great stories. Everyone seems to enjoy it. I've never been to it, so I can't really comment on. How the hell, I don't know how the hell Commodore is getting invited, but whatever. Yeah, the old-timer game's not all Hallfamers, that's for sure. Hall fame here, maybe. Let's get to our football picks every week, a ton of fun. We're trying to reel in Jack. Boom's trying to stay above water. We do it for Bet365, the world's largest sports betting platform.

open an account today with Bet365, and you can bet on a huge range of markets. Download the app today. We got a bonus code. Look at it. Nation. There's your bonus code. Nation.

Use that when you sign up. So whatever the moment, it's never ordinary at Bet 365. Jack, you are a club host leader. Let's take a look at the records here. It is a preposterously excellent 20 and 7 on the season. One of Jack's key to success, staying away from his beloved,

Steelers, he's off to a hot start. He has the floor. Jack, what do you like this week? I really wanted to take my Steelers this week, but I can't do it. Can't mess with the formula. I can't jinx them. I can't jinx my record. Yes. So we'll start off here with the bills heading to the Colts like we talked about earlier. I don't get the spread for like I feel like the bills could play a bad game and

they'd still win by four. Very confident there. We got Sam Fran getting McCaffrey back. Oh, yeah. Debo's healthy. They're kind of getting their squad back together here. It feels like all right. Coming off by. Coming off by.

Time to make that playoff push and get back up there with the Super Bowl contenders. The bucks, they fight, they play hard. I love Baker this year. He's doing all the things right, but they're just so short-handed. I think the Niners can easily cover six and a half on the road. And then Detroit heading to Houston. Houston didn't look good last week. No, no Nico, no digs.

their offense is stale without those playmakers. Detroit's the best team in the NFL. They handle their business in Houston minus three and a half. So I got three road favorites. That'll be a theme. Ret, let's get to your picks, road favorites. A lot of them on the slate this weekend. Retro, we know you're going to go bills.

What else do you have on your tickets? Well, I know where my bread is buttered. So I'm going to copy Jack with the Niners pick. I just, they're getting those guys back. I think it's time for those Niners to get rolling. Your boy McCaffrey. Here we go. Yes.

Finally, I've got a, the Niners have a team, and the Ratt's fantasy is finally finding away. Just in time. Have a chance. Get out of the moss pit. Love it. And I like the Vikings. I don't think the Jaguars are worth a hot bag of poo.

I think the Vikings can get some stuff done. So I've got to go Vikings on the road. I, yeah. And interestingly with the Jags, Trevor Lawrence, very unlikely to play this week. Might be done for the year. We're talking about with the old New England quarterback. Mac Jones.

Matt Jones at the helm here. That's, it's been an ugly year for the Vikings, for the Jackwires. It might get worse. Mike's a good football team. My picks, I got an overlap with you there, Rhett. I also have the Vikings. Another road favorite.

I like the Falcons. Falcons have been good to me. And I don't think they're getting the respect they deserve. What's New Orleans done since week two? Zip. Always. They're off. And they've lost their top two receivers.

They're trash. Atlanta's been very good. They're finally using all those weapons in the offense. Drake London, Bison, John Robinson, Kyle Pitts, even Darnel Mooney's putting up some legitimate numbers. I don't think this is close. That line looks wrong. Falcons will soar in New Orleans.

I also like Minnesota for the reasons you did, uh, Rhett. That that line was four before they lost Trevor Lawrence. I think that's still nowhere near enough. Vikings take care of business here. And the Eagles at the Cowboys, it's a lot of points, but the Cowboys are reeling. Is it Cooper Rush and maybe no CD Lamb? I like the Eagles by seven probably anyway. if they had Dak Prescott there, Eagles, run that ball, go get a big win.

I got to cover the full touchdown there. Three more road favorites. And the boomer picks, here we go. Do you have his explanation? He says it's very chalky. There's a lot of road favorites, but he also says that's what's worked well this year. He's actually taking a home team, the Chargers against the Titans. That's a big number, but the Titans have been absolute trash.

The Chargers are starting to look for real. It's surprising even me. Giants on the road against the Panthers. Interesting spot here. That's in Germany as well, I think. Thank you. That makes more sense. And it does sound like Jonathan Brooks will make his NFL debut,

the running back, who torched his ACL in college last year. And he's also on the Vikings in Jacksonville against the Jaguars. So I don't know if we call the Giants a road team there. It's more of a neutral site. But the theme of the week, road favorites. Let's hope we're right, fellas. I can't make up ground on Jack. if I copy two of his picks.

Well, you got to hit the other. That's the thing. You want to make a switch right? No. Don't do that. It just complicates things. Hey, Scott, no. Other games?

I think you had the Detroit game in there? Yeah, the Sunday night football game. No one took the Steelers? No. Okay, because that's a fun one. Last night was an absolute slug fest. I don't think that Pittsburgh, Washington's going to be the... I didn't see a second of that game last night.

I haven't seen a highlight. Like, what? Can you treat yourself and just go to like watch a five minute highlight pack from that game? It's absolute insanity. Insanity. Someone had it last night. Jamar Chase more fantasy points than Jalen Waddle has all year. One night.

Jamar Chase had more fantasy points in one night than Waddle all year. How many? I think it was close to 50 and half point PPR. Yeah. It was insane. And it was a good start. And then they found him again. And then touchdown.

number two, toucher number three. What did he finish with 260 some yards? What was that thing Tyson sent and you sent that it was... Of course I'm playing Borough. Yeah, that's not ideal. I was playing Lamar,

the boom cat Scott. What was that, Ryan? He had... So, Jamar Chase, read us the stat line and I'll have the stat for you. So Jamar Chase goes nuclear last night with Burrow. They're facing the worst past defense

in the NFL and the Baltimore Ravens. Jamar has a day, except you must think that was like the greatest day of all time for tomorrow chase. Didn't set a career high and catches, touchdowns or yardage. 11 catches, 264 yards and three touchdowns. And nothing was clear high. That's 100% fact. It's got to be.

It was on the internet. That's crazy. Who could suggest the internet is lying. So those are our picks. Again, brought to you by our friends at Bet365. Reminder that promo code nation when you sign up, whatever the moment, never ordinary at bet three six five we had a night last night we had a night the group chat was buzzing fellas excited once a year you get a slate like that i wasn't part of the group chat because

i didn't see any well you wouldn't trust my picks you'd just go against me you'd go opposite george you would have lost a lot last night it's we're keeping out of the chat i want that don't want that at all i and burrow putting up 350 that's a big number yeah i just making odd numbers look normal. It was incredible last night. What do you got this weekend? Are you, are you kid hockey or you? Kids and hockey and soccer and lacrosse and soccer and hockey and lacrosse. How's the, uh, the, the young man's noggin. Is he getting a little better? He's coming around.

Okay. Yeah. He's acting like a human. He's acting like a teenager. So maybe on. Yeah. He's acting dumb. He's now he's back. He must be still effed up. Uh, no Pinder report today. Instead, we are airlifting in a guest. It is always brought to you by Village Honda. They're your dealership for life located in the Northwest Auto Mall and online at VillageHonda.com.

New stock inventory under 28-month flex lease. You want pre-owned access to over 500 in the dealer group. It's all there at VillageHonda.com. Let's welcome in the newest member of the Nation Network family. Oh, my. Jeff Merck. What's that, gentlemen? Respected.

I know he's off the match. He's off the mat. The fight continues. Can I be so bold as to sort of navigate here for maybe 20 seconds and ask Red a favor? Oh. Okay. One of my favorite people that I've met in hockey, I met two years ago in Florida before the Allstate Game.

Rick, can you do me a huge favor? I hope I'm not overstepping here. Can you smile? Oh. Okay. Did Martin Robbins ever work on those teeth? I'm sure he did. Yes.

He had, because your name came up. So we shot some stuff, Elliot and I when I was doing 32. We shot some, I spent a whole day with him. And it was one of my cherished hockey memories because it was like you walk into his dentist office

and it's a Florida Panthers Hall of Fame. And he's telling me the Robert Schfala stories. And I was a huge Schaella fan and the game where he lost like all of his upper teeth. and he came back like half a period. Like gutsy stories like that. And your name came up as well. I was just curious.

When I say Martin Robbins, Rhett, what comes to your mind? I apologize for hijacking. I actually, he's very sharp dressed. Yes, he is. And I was from Saskatchewan, and I was not very sharp dressed.

And Dr. Mark, Ra, he would buy me ties. Say, like, next time you wear this suit, wear this. this might He's a very, very dapper gentleman. You want to hear a quick tie, great tie story?

This is a Harry Neil tie story. When I was working in Hockey Night in Canada in 2007, I'm doing a Montreal San Jose game. So I finished the Hockey and Canada radio show on, on Sirius, around 4 o'clock. And I get on the plane and I get to Montreal around like, I don't know, 7 o'clock on a Friday night, and I walk into the Sheraton,

and there's Harriet the Barney Waves New York. So let me get to throw my bag in the room and I'll come down and have a beer with you. And we start talking. We end up talking about, clothes and Harry says to me, ask me how many ties I have. I said, okay, Harry, how many ties do you have? And he says, eh, about 700 ties, 700 ties, Harry.

And he says, yeah, about 700 ties. He goes, ask me how many I paid for? I said, how many you paid for? He said, none. He said, you should go tie shopping with me. I said, Harry, at those prices, I'd love to go tie shopping with you. He said, put your beer down. So I put my beer down and said, we're going tie shopping.

We'll walk up to the front desk. And Harry goes to the person there says, excuse me, I was thinking of this hotel about a month ago. Left a couple of ties up in the room. I'm not sure if you have a lost and found basket. And sure enough, always bring out a basket. And there's always going to be ties.

And he grabs two, throws them over his shoulder. Yep, those are the two. Thank you very much for your help. Does it. Every hotel, it is the bed.

That's a tip for all of your listeners and viewers. You don't have, as long as you don't care what the tie is, you never have to buy them. Just next time you're at a hotel. Just bring out the basket. That's where you go tie shopping. Is that a kleptomaniac?

Someone that's always stealing? What's the right terminology? Stealing, that's using your noggin. Barrow it. You bring it back. It's creative stealing. It's thoughtful stealing. You're unburdening the hotel of tearing around these ties. Anyhow. I'll turn the recreation over. Well, hey,

thank you. That's great. This is what I love about what you do and the way you talk about the sport. It's always incredible stories that tie into the legends of the game. Tell us with the new project. What is it going to be like? And how did you arrive here? Because there's lots of different things you've done in the past.

It's not just something to think of your thoughts where a lot of people did see you the most. You know, we all have wish lists, right? Like, I'm sure you guys have wish lists for things that you want to accomplish in your professional career. And when it comes to my career, like, I have like a whole lot of things that I've always wanted to do and was never able to do. Like, you know, you work for a company. It's like they hire you to do one or two very specific things. And there's a whole laundry list of, well, I want to do this and this and this and this.

And we don't have the resources and the time and et cetera to get it all done. When I first started talking to Nation Network, the first question, when I was speaking when you ate out, was kind of like, you know, what do you want to do? And I said, you know, what, I'm swinging for the fences then? Like, I'm not going to go conservative. I'm trying to hit a tape measure home run. I'm like, I want to do this and this and this and this. I want to do a daily show and podcast and video and I want to do a hockey history thing.

I don't think that's been announced yet, but I'm going to do a hockey history thing on social media. And there you go. And something with junior hockey and prospects and PWHL. And I just like kept adding up. And Jay was just bobbleheading it. Like, okay, we can, we can. can find a way if you're interested to make all of this work. Your listeners and viewers may not understand.

Like that's a really refreshing answer. Yeah. Normally in this industry, the default is no. Nobody gets fired for saying no. People get fired for saying yes, and green light and something stupid. But what I like about Nation Network is there's this entrepreneurial spirit of let's try something. You know what?

We're not going to hit a thousand. We're not going to get on base, but we're going to try. And when you do that, you're going to, you know, not every time, but you're going to succeed. And that, that to me was most attractive of all the places that I talked to since my unemployment. Yeah. And you know what? Like our story is not the same, but it's not dissimilar. We worked for the same incredibly small mom and pop shop telecom company.

And I was looking around after 10 years of being the morning show in Calgary. Bumer who's up at a ringette tournament in Edmonton today, right myself. You know, we had cultivated a. I think a really great audience. And for whatever reason, our show resonated. But you just looked around. You're huge. You kept thinking about people love you.

People love you. Okay. They adore you. It's true. But you're looking around. You're like, what more can we do? What are we, where are the two foot puts that we're missing? Like what about more?

And why do I believe that something has to happen on A&D? We can't go bigger than that. Like you're literally seeing cars coming off factory lines. assembly lines without AM now. Like we can't be using this 1800s technology. It's a digital world now. So it's got to be like you're unchained a bit here in the sense that now there is no limits in the sense. So the thing that I've been telling people about the Nation Network and you guys have much more experience at it than I do.

I've been here all of a cozy two days. But in my discussions and, you know, having a look, you know, peek under the hood and seeing how this whole thing works. one of the things that I really like about it is it's it's big enough a company that it's well funded so you can do things so your creativity has some financial heft behind it so you can actually execute but it's small enough that and this is I think what you were getting at you can pivot quickly yeah when when taste change or something changes I mean you know how large companies large companies are we all know who they are and and and and and and and how they operate and they're certainly well funded and it's it's spectacular to watch when it was nimble when it all thinks but they're just less nimble right you get on trolley tracks and it's hard to pivot it's hard to change i mean what you guys have the ability to do is hey man flames fans fans flames fans tastes have changed or there's a new perspective and you can pivot fast you can you can you can you can broadcast to reflect that reality that's not necessarily true elsewhere okay so i know you're a huge hockey trivia guy. I have two favorite hockey trivia questions. I know you're going to crush them.

I don't know about that. But they're like water cooler ones that everyone's always amazed at the answer. And there's also some tie-ins that work regionally. That's a hint. Can you tell me the only Swede that's ever scored 50 goals in the NHL? Because that's crazy.

I want all the great Swedish players. Only squid that scored 50. Was it Shell Deline? No. It was a Calgary Flame, which is your regional tie-in. Was it Kent Nelson? It was not the magic man.

My favorite. Who was it? Who was the only Sweden? Oh, Hock and Lou. Is that not amazing? You think of all the stars, the Sedeen,

Peter Forsberg. No one. Okay. Okay, but here's the thing. I'm going to go like hockey stereotype 101 on you here. Maybe that shouldn't surprise us because what are Swedes known for

when it comes forward specifically playmaking? I just mentioned Kent Nilsson who, you know, I mean, hockey player after hockey. player will talk about him being the most skilled player they've ever shared the ice with Wayne Gretzky is one of those people who said that like it's it's almost like I mean how many

times have you watched Swedish hockey players and said stop trying to pass it in the net like they're wonderful at distributing right it's it's like the old joke about the CDs in Vancouver Henrik to Daniel to some guy who's got an empty net right like that's that's that's that's the joke right but it's true like it is a it is a a passers hockey nation hockey Hock and Lou, I should have got that. Bad on negative one. Negative one. No, it's all right.

And you know what? If he played for the Leafs, everyone would know the answer. It is kind of one of those. Probably true. You're right. And he's just a tiny little window in the 80s there. Although Kent Nelson, doesn't he still hold the record for most points in a season by the planes?

I probably will. There were some gaudy numbers. He's like 130 points. Yeah. There's some players. There's two that come to mind that history has not only forgotten, but hasn't been kind to and should be kinder. two. One is Kent Nilsson and the other is the answer to this question.

Okay. Wayne Gretzky was number one. Most points in the 80s. Who was number two? Most points in the 80s number one was Gretzky. Number two is someone we never talk about. It's not one of his teammates. Uh, geez. It's a great one. Not an Islander. No. His name, his name rhymes with Peter Stassney. Okay. How about that? No one ever talks about it.

You're right. He's one of the greatest players ever. We don't have enough video from those days. And I feel like our producer Jack, I think, just turned 26. Like, how in the world could you ever try to explain or illustrate how Peter Stasney played? And I'm trying to explain to what Canada cups are because we got into it on the Four Nations stuff a couple days. Oh, yeah. Which was your biggie?

Was your biggie 87? My friend, I mean, I'm not, I remember 76. 76 was a huge one for me. I'm 43, so it would have been when they finally went to the Olympics in 98. I remember staying up till 2.3 a.m. in high school just for puck drop, only to see Mark Crawford put Ray Bork in a shootout before the greatest player of all time. That's kind of a sticks in my time. He was never good at breakaways.

I don't care. You know what? I'll tell you what. Doug McLean brought up a great point. I remember I challenged him in this one. I'm like, oh, the real problem is sack kick was injured. He's in the stands. He's money on the shootout.

Like, that's the guy he should have. Never was the problem. Hasick was the problem, but Doug McLean said, listen, everybody knows if you're coaching, there's no way you're going to die on that sword. You have to have Gretzky in because if it doesn't work, you will forever be known as the guy that didn't put Gretzky in. People will be talking about 26 years later. Today's the first. We're still, it's 20, 24. Yes, 26 years later.

We're still talking. Two days into my new career here at TNN and we're talking about Mark Crawford, 98. Asha, Ganagano. Okay, so you guys can team up on this one. This is my second favorite hockey tribute. There's only six guys that have scored 75 goals in a season. There's a lot of tap-ins, but it's a unique list. No Swedes, obviously, because only one scored 50.

So start with the grates and we'll move our way through. Okay, so we're going to do Gretzky. We're going to do Lemieux. We're going to do Hull. We're going to do Izman. No, Bernie Nichols? No. Phil Esposito at 76.

The other two, I think did it the same year. One was a rookie. Alexander McGilney, Tammuzilani. A good Zellis. Is that right? That's a sweet list. Isn't that cool?

Because those are prolific snipers, right? Do you want like unpopular going to be hated in Canada take for me? Sure. I'll throw Bobby Orr into this mix as well. Okay. With Phil Esposito. How do you feel about hockey players who smash records when the league was at its weakest? Like I've always maintained that Nicholasstrom's the greatest defense from the

history of the NHL. Okay. Over Bobby Or. That gets me hated, but here's my logic. Yeah. In 1967, the league doubled. Yeah. And the WHA came along in the early 70s.

In 1970, we got two more teams. And 72, we got two more teams. There was expansion and a whole new league that watered down hockey everywhere. And we saw a lot of video of Bobby O' skating around pylons and Red Wings jerseys. All right. How many times is, I mean, grapes would show it every Saturday night, right? the league was at its week. I'm not taking anything away from their accomplishments.

I'm just saying, how much do you measure like the Esposito, 76 goals, and all the things that Bob Yor did? Mind you, they were the best at that time. I would argue that is when hockey was at its weakest point. It's funny. Because the quality had been dissolved. At one point, there was 16 NHL teams

and there were supposed to be 16 WHA teams. I think two of them either folded or never got off the ground. But, yeah, that happened a lot. got to 32 teams three years ago with Seattle, right? Like, yeah. In the late 70s, they were there. So you're right. Interesting.

That's, yeah. I would find it interesting for, like, I'm a little too young to remember the 70s. You child, you child. Yeah, the 70s area of hockey. And in a way, it's like, does it really matter? But the guys that played it, like a Gretzky that was around it, saw it. and and knows, right? Like you can see, well, we got different skates

and guys are better trained and this and that. If you could get the honesty out of them, like I think sitting around and having a beer with the guy, you'd probably give you the truth of the matter. They're not going to say it publicly because they're not going to, they're going to give you the, wow, it's just different. This guy was special.

You know, but in reality, I'm with you. It was an easier game for guys that were talented. Tougher though. My kids are just getting old enough now. Just this last week, they were looking up records and stuff. They were going back to the 1920s. And they're like, there was no teams. Of course they won these, Benny Stanley.

What? So I had a 25% chance of winning a cup. Yeah. No, my kids are saying, like, I'm in Erie right now. I'm in Pennsylvania. I've got to take my kid to game one of his tournament against the junior otters here in a couple of moments. And they're the same. Like, my kids are the same now.

they're starting to go through, go through all the hockey history and find it outstanding. There's still default to, you know, Connor Bardard is the best and the best effort. And that's absolutely true. We all sit on the shoulders of those hockey players that have come before. But I don't know about you guys,

but I always have like a hard time contextualizing who's better than who historically. Yeah. But there's one, the closest way that I've got to it is, and I think it was Terry O'Reilly who came up with this one. His idea was if you want to judge hockey players, you can just do this, you know,

sitting around you got nothing to do take two goaltenders at the constant k the exact same goaltenders take five bobby or is dress them at every position take five wing grotesquies dress them at every position drop the puck who wins the game yeah i'd pay to watch that do that with mario do that with cordy i'll always throw jean bellivo in there i will throw larry robinson in there like it's it's an interesting sort of thought experiment maybe it says more about like where we are at as hockey fans or quasi-historians but that's for me the closest way i can sort of try to gauge who is the best. And I think when I do that,

nine times out of ten, I'm coming back with Mario was the best player of all time. He was unreal. Okay, we could go all day. We can't, though, because you get a kid. Hot tournament and Erie, congrats, welcome to board,

and let's chat again soon. This has been fun. We're going to talk about teeth. We're going to talk about teeth. Yeah, there we go. That's right. Look at that. It's like Nathan McKinnon.

Until he wanted to stand like up, we didn't know that he had upper teeth. If anyone they say, oh, he actually smiled. Well, I didn't know he had that out. That eerie rink? Terrible, by the way. I'm going for the first time right now. My kid is playing in the rink for the otters with the otters play.

Then I'm going to go see the otters and the Sarnia's thing on Saturday. So I'm going to go see players that Calgary Flames fans might want to know more about later on. Malcolm Spence and Matthew Schaefer, ladies and gentlemen. Okay. Shaper, I hear great things. Hey, he's fantastic. Try that Loub trivia 10 times. I bet you're 10 for 10.

It'll be good. First of all, it's a great hockey name. So I should know what I'm embarrassed. Because it's just one of the great hockey names of all time. Also, the only time of the show, I've said, try that loop. You got to go, Jeff. Thank you. Have a great reason.

Very good with this. Enjoy Erie. There's Jeff Merrick. The sheet will debut in December here on the Nation Network. Didn't, yeah, that's, didn't have that on my bingo card, did I? Wait, wait, why? A, too. Village on.

Northwest Auto Mall. Have I told you about the Accord, redesigned last year. Chosen by Car and Driver magazine is the number one mid-sized sedan. One of the most reliable vehicles on the road. Better than ever, superior ride quality, reliability, and impressive fuel economy thanks to the EL hybrid.

Saw Anthony last night. He says, Hi, Rett, all jacked up for the CPL final tomorrow, as it is Cavalry FC against Forge. Massive weekend. Jack's kind of quibbling here. want, it's me plus one, but you would have to hang around with me

soccer and beer. We could go to the pub, watch the Flames game, and then Uber down to the The world's our Easter. I'd love to, but no. My kids here. And out of my dopey oldest wasn't around, I'd do it. Cast a

wide net, I guess. I see. What do we got to get done? I think we got everything. Reminder to head out to nationgear.c.c. to bid up and secure those 25 tickets for the Rangers and Flames. Always fun when Adam Fox returns to town. Thank you to Jeff Merrick for joining us. Keep an eye on your social feeds to see when his show debuts in December. Congrats to Eric DeHatchik on an incredible year.

Football picks, best of luck, everyone. I had the chance earlier today, Red, to chat with the commissioner of the CPL, Mark Noonan. He went to Duke. He was a national champion at Duke. Duke. We'll play that to end the show. Wait, wait.

Did you say what time that the auction ends? It was, it'll be six hours or so. I've got it right here. Give me a moment. Refresh. It looks like five and a half hours from now. So five o'clock. Yeah, get on there.

Yeah, that's right. It will be exactly at five o'clock the auction closes. We've already seen a jump, a couple increments. It's keep her going, money going to a great cause. And, uh, you're going to go. Full section to yourself. Wait till the last moment coming. That price.

That price. Over the top. I'm not to. Enjoy the weekend. Jack, thank you so much. The commissioner of the Canadian Premier League, Mark Nudon, is in his second, well, third year now. He was employed two years ago. He's the second commissioner. He's here to take in Forge Cavalry tomorrow, 1 p.m. at Akko Field.

He was at the awards last night. He's going to be having pints and shaking hands around town. A big weekend for the CPL as they showcase their two marquee franchises. Mark, we chatted with earlier. We welcomed him to Calgary for the weekend. I'm fantastic. Thank you. Last night, the award ceremonies on the campus of Matt Royal University and a lot of the leagues, what would we call them, brass, media, stars, players, coaches, and I guess enthusiasts were around.

How was the first of a busy stretch of days here with the leagues putting on a lot of events in Calgary here between now and the trophy being awarded? That we are. It was a great night. What a beautiful venue at Mount Royal. I mean, just a spectacular setting for our awards and incredible night honoring those players that you pay to see. And then getting the bonus of guys like Elijah at Akubi with his freelance rap was just incredible. Jordan Wilson doing his thing in the crowd. And Andy Petrillo is such a pro. And KJ is a legend. And it was just a great showcase for our sport, our players, our clubs, our coaches.

and a great night to kind of kick off what is going to be a great weekend for CPL. Yeah, the headliners obviously the game. 1 p.m. Akko Field. It is the third time forge and cavalry will meet in the final. Cavs have been, well, stymied thus far. They are looking for revenge. They are looking to write the alleged wrongs of years past. I don't know that you could write a better script.

Right since the season, the league started 2019, the first one, these two clubs separated themselves from the pack, and immediately became great rivals. The thought was, oh, Calgary, Ebbenton will be rivals. Eminton FC never beat Calgary once. And the first time Forge and Calgary played, it got heated. There was sideline interactions. They always have produced thrilling matches.

I know that it gets better than this right now for the CPL. If you could draw it up, it's going to be tough to beat this script. No, it's awesome. And it starts at the top. It's the leadership that the Southern family in Ian Allison provided Calvary, Mason, Traffro, I know is a good friend of yours. the Hamilton Sports Group, led by Scott Mitchell, who's a managing partner, my board chair, Bob Young, who's a tireless advocate and fan of the sport. And then it trickles down to Tommy,

obviously, who's done amazing things in building cavalry. And Bobby on the forge side and then the business side, it's just the two first-class organizations on and off the field. And that's why they're here this weekend. I know when this league started, you weren't the commissioner. You're, I guess now just what, early into year number three? It was September 22 when you started? Yeah, this was my third final. But I've been on the ground for a little over two plus years. And yeah, yeah, seen amazing, amazing growth. And we're just getting started. Yeah. And I know when the league started, the plan was, hey, we could double in size the next number of years, well, this many games, this many venues. No one had COVID in their risk plan.

Oh, no one saw that coming. Weird. But still, one of the things I imagine you get asked about most is what about expansion? We did see Vancouver FC end of the league this year playing Langley. We've seen a flirtation or a courting of sort between Cologne and yourself with an exhibition game played there. We know that Halifax is a bit of an island out on the East Coast. You'd love to have a presence in Quebec, I imagine. How do you prioritize? How do you find the middle ground

between what the original investors and partners the league want, but also a financial burden that is allowing teams to get in? It seems like there's been lots of interest, but the price that's been asked over the last six years might have been higher than people would like to see.

No, there's nothing to do with that. I mean, the value is there. The biggest issue we have really is facility. And if you don't have the right place, to play and showcase and celebrate the sport we're not going we're not going to expand and we're in active discussions you'll hear about it later of my state of the league address we we plan on our goal is to add two teams in 2026 and continue that momentum and you have to balance expansion with your product as well

we need to have the ability to produce enough great Canadian players because as you know the majority of our roster is dedicated to with the development of Canadian players. If you expand too fast, your product gets diminished. And so you need to put this puzzle together in markets that we believe would be able to support the product. And I got to say, facilities in Canada are really, really hard. You have municipalities who don't believe in the value and the inspiration

that professional sports teams provide to the development of youth. And we're breaking down those barriers. we're making great progress. I've got a woman named Marnie Dicker on my staff who is an infrastructure effort, and she's working tirelessly with the communities, with investor groups to put these really complex puzzles together. Great ownership and great infrastructure. Would that be the top two boxes to check if you had your dreams of places to go? I mean, you see it here in Calgary.

You've got great, great ownership in the Southern family, great management, a phenomenal facility that they built at Spruce Meadows. It's just I love going to that place. But also you need municipal support. You need the support of the local soccer community. You need the corporate support. And you need the supporters. You need the fans to say, hey, we want to be there.

And that's why we did things like take CPL on tour to Colonna to test and say, okay, Colonna, you're an interesting, interesting market. You feel a great geography for us. It's a beautiful, beautiful city. And we tested it. We worked really closely with the mayor and his city staff and city counselors. And I think it was an overwhelming success. And it's a market that we believe could support a CPL club.

The facility that we played in there, the Apple Bowl is, I say this respectfully. It's antiquated. It's not something that we could do long term. And we're working with Colonna to sort that out. And if we sort that out, I think Colonna would be a phenomenal expansion market for us. Nice to get three in BC. But yeah, the infrastructure point, again, continues to come up, doesn't it? No doubt.

No doubt about it. Okay. Let's continue to move. Your career, you played at Duke, you're a national champion. You've spent a lot of time in the U.S. In fact, some incredible years, I guess, ups and downs, the roller coaster of major league soccer, some of the early days. walk us through your arrival with MLS to the state of the league when you left and maybe how much growth you saw or just how volatile it can be these younger leagues that again you're now working for.

Yeah, building leagues is hard and it's funny when I was playing at Duke, all the best players in the U.S. were playing in college soccer because there wasn't a rational pathway. My teammate John Kerr Jr., who's actually the coach at Duke today, was the first American to play in the English Premier League because that's where you have. had to go. You had to go outside of the country in order to pursue your dreams and your aspirations. And that wasn't that long ago in the U.S. and Canada's a little bit behind that, but that's what we're doing in Canada right now. Craig Forrest doesn't have to go to Europe. Rob Friend, Josh Simpson, part of our ownership group. Those guys had to leave Canada to go to pursue their dreams. Sure. And it didn't have the development pathways that we're putting in place here. And, you know, That's the most important thing that CPL is doing is we're we're the league of opportunity for young Canadians who want to pursue their

Their dreams and you know building building leagues is it is hard. I don't care You know 20 years ago I was in a meeting at Phil Anshut's ranch outside of Denver We were this close to to folding the entire league and if it wasn't for a great ownership like Phil Anshitz schudson Lamar hunt and Robert Kraft MLS wouldn't be here today we went from 12 teams to 10 teams that you could pick up for $5 million USD. Wow. And Phil Ansh is on 60% of the league.

So what year was that? That was 2001. So, okay, that's crazy. So less than a quarter century ago, I look now and there's three teams valued over a billion U.S. dollars. And those valuations aren't perfect, but it illustrates the opportunity that laid ahead at that point. there obviously had to be some pretty considerable storm clouds for people to think now let's just quit on this thing no doubt i mean the original miami we folded in miami fusion the tampa bay

mutiny went to 10 teams we're playing in these massive not the right facilities you know 78 000 seat arrowhead stadium with 800 people in it um the product was almost unwatchable to start but you had to give it time and you have to and and we're in a we're well-beatsy beyond that state. And I fundamentally believe that there's never been a better time to invest in CPL and the whole Canadian soccer infrastructure right now because we've built this beautiful solid foundation. And now we're gonna have this beautiful house on top of it

that over time you wanna be early in these things. Not now, MLS that costs you half a billion dollars to get in plus a stadium plus designated players. That's a tough economic equation. No question. Well, and again, the elephant in the room is that the World Cup's coming to North America in 2026. We all know that and that, you know, we don't think that's going to hurt the popularity of the sport nor the credibility of Canadian soccer. And then you have this national team that went on an incredible qualifying run to the World Cup that was in Qatar under John Hurdman and now Jesse Marsh with an incredible Copa America this past summer.

What is enthusiasm around the men's national team and certainly the women who have had a ton of success as well? What does that do for your job with the CPL and Canada soccer business? It's amazing. You know, the national teams, you know, are the driver of fan of it from coast to coast. Everybody's a fan of that single, single team. And I would argue that if you combine the men's and women's national teams in Canada and you combine their ranking and their quality, they're top 10 in the world. and only going to get better.

What Jesse and the guys did in the Copa America wasn't a fluke. That is an incredibly talented team. And I think that they are going to make some noise in the World Cup. And the more time Jesse has with them, they're going to be an incredible, incredible team. And the nice thing about it is the events that they play in, the Olympics of the World Cup, they've been on traditional linear television and the ratings have been through the roof.

There is an audience for soccer in this country as being held back by these traditional linear cable operators that needs to be unleashed. And you'll see it when you kind of have to have to do it for the Olympics and World Cup. But we're working on that as we speak. Yeah, your media rights are kind of free agents in a sense. There was a, you know, I guess a disagreement between the, European rights holder in the league. Both sides

suggest that the other side didn't live up to the bargain. Probably best that you now own the media entity. But what options do you have moving forward? I know everyone's, well, certainly we have, moving away from traditional media and getting into the digital space. But there's also something comforting about an audience that is there on cable. You do have the final on CBC tomorrow afternoon, which I think is a great get for the league.

Do you see any natural fits or like how do you view? view these rights? Is it something you like to have held externally or hold internally? No, here's here's the deal. So we're, we're a rights holder, right? And rights holders want two things, three things, really. They want as broad distribution as possible for the product. They want that product to be valued. You know, there's a lot of properties that will give the product away. And once you do that, it's really hard to put the genie back into the bottle. once you start giving giving you rights. So we've done, we've taken a long-term strategy.

You know, we have our rights hold by, held by a company called Timeless, 100% Canadian owned and owned and operated. And, you know, we think that, you know, there's a strategy that probably has a bit of a hybrid to it. You see just about every league right now who is, you know, continuing to work in traditional channels, but also branching off into the streaming world. And if you look at where we are right now, we've got the two big legacy cable companies refusing to carry one soccer. But then we have a phenomenal partner in TELUS, which is giving us traditional linear.

We've got Fubo TV. And then one soccer has done a phenomenal job. You think about a league like ours for six years. Every single second of every single game has been made available to the fans. And I understand it's behind a payroll, paywall, but we think that the pricing is well worth the value of it, given the quality and the quantity of content that's being distributed there. But we need broader platforms. And I think the audience has proven to be there. And I'll tell you what, you mentioned off the top, Andy and KJ, it's an incredible cast of broadcasters you've got.

This is not subpar B team. Like you have some of the best in Canada and certainly within the sport of soccer, absolutely the cream of the cream. It's impressive what you've been able to collect. And I think getting that in front of more eyes, I think people are going to be very accepting and keen on it. It's just a matter of getting them there. And Saturday is a big part of that.

Final one for you. Yes, sir, go ahead. And providing opportunities for former players too. You know, Jordan Wilson, great player in the league. He's phenomenal. Craig, Craig Forrest, Jimmy Brennan, John Conway, all these guys that have contributed to the game professionally, and now are able to continue their careers after they finish playing and do phenomenal things by bringing our fans into their world and how they see it as professionals. And it's part of this ecosystem that we're built.

Calvary's got the Sunset Program where a guy like Mason Trafford, you know, captain the club. And now he heads up business operations for the club. And it's phenomenal to keep guys like that involved. Yeah, no question himself. Nick Ledgerwood getting into coaching, Tofa Fukunle is no GM. There's lots of that. It's incredibly well run. Okay, so you're two years into the job, a little more than that.

You're less than two years away from Canada going nuts for soccer with the World Cup coming to North America. Why don't we look towards 2030? It would be, you know, almost a decade on the job, six years from now. Wow. You don't have to close your eyes literally, but figuratively close your eyes and dream. What would you love to see for this league, you know, spill some dreams out for us of what you think the CPL could be for Canadians? Yeah, I mean, our goal is to be a top three league in the region and to be able to challenge for the biggest trophies with the, you know, the big legacy players in NLS and Liga, Mexico. And, you know, that's that's our goal.

I think that given the size of Canada as we expand, I wouldn't be surprised if we split into two divisions, played a little bit of an unbalanced schedule. It just only makes sense because it, you know, helps from a cost efficiency standpoint, very expensive to fly around Canada. But it also helps with the wear and tear on players. You know, it's a long way from Halifax to Victoria.

That's a long, that's a long flight. I think it's the second long. road trip in all of football. So I think you're going to see us 14, 16 teams, probably two divisions and creating world class players in this league. Ultimately, it's about the product. And we never, ever will take our eye off of that ball. And you see, we are becoming the league of choice for young Canadians. And you know why is because they come into our league and they play against men immediately. They come into our league and they play games of consequence immediately.

They come into our league and they get showcased in national championships and Conca Calf Champions Cups. And then we have never hesitated to move a player on. I mean, to forge his credit, they moved on their world class, hopefully world class striker in Kwayzee Poku. And, you know, he, you know, in the middle of the season. Yeah. And Forge is still in the final. And so we need to continue creating players like that. Shola Gmo just got called into the Canadian camp. He's in the U-17s. It's those sort of stories that as we expand, that pipeline of player development expands as well.

And I think we continue working on our product, given the raw materials that are available in Canada. You see it from the national team on down. Just phenomenal players. Moise Bombito, Kone. These guys are, The talent is in Canada, and it's going to start funneling through our league as we grow and expand and get into new communities. Enjoy your time in Calgary. Enjoy the final tomorrow. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And congrats on what you've accomplished your two years and what lies ahead. Yeah. Aloha.

Thank you. Take care.