Empty Netters Podcast - 20. Kidnapping Sandra Bullock w/ Chris Nelson

Episode Date: March 16, 2023

We're joined by Chris Nelson, former Wisconsin Badger, New Jersey Devils draft pick, and now the man bringing hockey to Hollywood. We talk winning National Championships, thinking getting drafted by the NHL meant going to war, and celebrity sex rendezvous. (00:00) - Intro (07:00) - Trying to play hockey living in Los Angeles (18:45) - Winning a Natty at University of Wisconsin (27:00) - Playing for the New Jersey Devils (40:25) - Hanging with Celebrities in LA (1:02:40) - The Best Hockey Equipment Service Ever (1:09:27) - Working on Miracle and The Mighty Ducks (1:26:45) - Pass, Shoot, Score GET 10% OFF YOUR FIRST ONLINE ORDER AT https://www.shifthockey.com/pages/netters WITH PROMO CODE "NETTERS" NEW EPISODES EVERY THURSDAY! SUBSCRIBE TO OUR YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuf52MHW1O7guPMzsMvv2kA FOLLOW US ON INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/empty.netters/?hl=en FOLLOW US ON TIKTOK: https://www.tiktok.com/@empty.netters   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right, what's up, guys? Before we get into this episode and the new ad read, I would like to address for those of you who are watching right now, why I look like Mr. Rogers sitting in a comfy little living room. Our podcast studio is under construction right now. It's going to be so money. You won't believe it. This awesome new sign is going to be there. And it's with me right now. But we've got an awesome episode today. But before we get into that, we would love to give a shout out to our new sponsor, our presenting sponsor for the podcast, Shift Hockey. Truly, guys. This is one of the most exciting sponsors we could ever get, something I absolutely believe in, and something the hockey world needs. The guys at Shift Hockey are on a mission to save the hockey industry from rising prices and so-called innovations. All that bullshit that they say, the bells and whistles, the lightness of the stick, all this and all that that you get with Bauer, CCM, all that.

It's nonsense, and they're charging you $350 for sticks. So what Shift Hockey is doing is they went and they found the best manufacturers and all of the best equipment possible. And they're bringing you that top quality stick that all these other places are upcharging you for and giving it to you for less than 200 bucks. Truly, anyone who plays hockey, listen to me loud and clear. If you are a parent with kids and youth hockey, if you are a college player, a high school player, or someone in Beer League who knows what it feels like when you snap your twig and you go, I won't be able to pay rent this month because my next stick is going to cost half of a grand. Those problems are over because shift hockey has come to save the day like a hero wearing a shirt.

hammering cape. It's unbelievable. So what you're going to do is you're going to go to shifthockey dot com slash netters and then you're going to pump in that promo code netters and you're going to save 10% on top of the fact that these sticks are the same quality for half the price. I will tell you right now, I have a shift hockey stick. I used it for the first time last week in my mensly game and I scored and that's obvious. These things are amazing. They treat you just the same as all those top quality sticks that the pros are using and again, you don't have to pay an arm to leg. Shift Hockey is the move. So that's again, shifthockey.com slash netters, put in that promo code, save 10% and stop breaking the bank every single time you buy a new stick.

Go do it. All right. Now before we get into this episode, this is unbelievable. We've got Chris Nelson joining the podcast, aka Nelly, unbelievable guy, national champion from Wisconsin, got drafted by the Devils, and then has done everything you could ever imagine in the world of hockey. He's won at all. is now immersing himself in the entertainment world. We're going to let you guys just get right into this interview. We're not going to waste your time with all this stuff. Just the quick hitters, you know, we've got three hottest teams of the week.

Sure, Jack Eichl has had a brutal skid, hasn't scored in a few games. The Buffalo Sabres are fucking killing me. But huge one against Toronto last night. So that's big. But we're not going to bore you with all that stuff because this is an unbelievable interview. It's running along. We want you guys to just enjoy that. So let's not waste any more time.

CPs in Colombia right now. so we can't even, it's not like I can kick it to him or anything like that. So let's just go right to the interview. Guys, enjoy it, have a blast. Okay, Dan, we are honored to welcome to the pod. 1990 national champion with the Wisconsin Badgers, the 96th overall pick of the New Jersey Devils in the 88 draft, two-time Team USA Roller Hockey World Champion,

Toyota Sports Center Gold League champion, business owner, future Emmy winner, and former Deep Roy Paradox legend. Chris Nelly Nelson. He went there. It was cool. The problem is you had a nose. That should just be off the top of your head.

I should have memorized it. I should have memorized it. You left out first African-American won a national championship. Let's go. You left. Reeson's divorced. He's out in the single market right now.

He's living life at the fullest. There's all those little details that you missed, but we'll get that in the conversation. So that's why you're asking about him. She's taking no. Which one do I have to need to be? Oh, well, fortunately, we have a 30-minute segment about divorce.

so it's going to be great. Done. Done. Yeah. Absolutely. So one of the funniest things about this is, so for the listeners, we play in a men's league here in L.A. with Nellie. I got your number from our team manager, Will Burke.

Because you thought was cute? Yeah. Because I wanted you to come on the show. Okay. And then also because I thought you were cute. He gives me your number. Yep. I text you.

Yep. No response. Happens. And I'm like, this is fun. Well, now you should know what it's like. Now you should know how it feels. Yeah, I do, right? So I never responds to my text

Especially when I'm in times of need Oh, that's such bullshit So I wait a few weeks I'm like I might be busy Text again, no response And I'm like this fucking guy So we then play each other like the next week And at the center face off

I skate up to you and I was like respond to my fucking text And you said some joke but I could see in your face You were like what are you talking about? So then we'll get into this later But Nellie star on a new hit Netflix movie I shoot him a text like Dude congrats, that's amazing he responds fucking immediately

or actually wait no no no I get a response from this person that goes this is Talia who are you trying to text and I thought it was you fucking with me so I'm like what the fuck is Nellie doing and then I get a response back from Talia this

gorgeous black woman in a mirror selfie and I was like this could still be Nellie fucking with me but I eventually look at the contact card that Berkey sent me and there's two numbers it's one of those like here's his work number here's his cell so I then take the cell number yeah dude so I then text your cell and I go I was like yo dude

congrats on the movie he responded in five seconds and then I was like by the way come on the podcast and he's like oh yeah literally whenever I've been waiting I've been texting Talia for six months just unbelievably so so we'll get all this stuff I used to run and I was the face of w hotels for a year yeah and I was at this position called the insider and they gave me be a cell phone and that was, you know, to use, I had a personal phone and a cell phone, or I'm a work cell phone. And I would get that number out and contacts and all these things. And I was at W.

Hotels that same number for about nine and a half years. When I left W. Hotels, I told them, I go, whoever has this phone is going to deal with so much stuff because my phone would ring every 30 seconds, text, phone calls, everything all time. So I left, I turned the phone in. And they literally called me like, yeah, you got 75. phone calls and 110 text messages in three days. I'm like, yeah, that's what my

life was like, we didn't realize. I'm like, yeah, that's what it's like. That phone's got passed down from person to person to person. Poor Talia's like, what is going on right now? Why is he texting me about hockey all the time? Yeah, Talia's getting all these celebrity requests. I need to go to the W. Hollywood and go right up to the front desk and see if there's a beautiful black woman standing

there with a cell. I'll be like, Talia. Let's get Talia. What's up? Let's get Talia on the pie. She brought her in Anne, here we have Talia. Dude, so, so funny. All right, well, Chris touched on a little bit in the intro, but I want to get into the early days of your hockey life. Okay.

Give the people a taste of how you got here. So you grew up in Philly, then you moved to New Hampshire. Born in Philly. Okay. Then moved to New Hampshire. So your parents get jobs teaching at Dartmouth. My mom was, I think,

Dean of Admissions at Dartmouth, and my dad was a professor there. Incredible. And they were, did they meet in Philly? No, my, they met. My dad went to Penn State, no, sorry, not Penn State, sorry, Penn grad school. Okay. And I think it was four years older than my mom.

So my mom graduated from undergrad. My dad graduated from grad school. They met at some point in between. Got it. They got together twice, from I understand. One brother and myself. Yeah. Confirm.

We're not going to think about it any further than that. It was the two times. And they, you know, they, you know, they, you know, apply for jobs and both got jobs at Dartmouth, which is great. actually scratched that. We moved to Los Angeles really early, early in our days. Interesting. I had an earthquake. They go, screw this.

This is awful. Move from L.A. to New Hampshire. Got it. And so I was in New Hampshire from, I guess, what, Montessori school all the up to, like, fifth grade. Yeah. And then the pipes in our house burst.

And my parents, like, screw this. We're going back to L. Yeah. Okay, but you get the itch there in New Hampshire, right? You start playing hockey like three years old. Yes. So then you start playing. Parents get jobs at UCLA.

Yeah. Go back to L.A. Yep. But now you're like, well, I love hockey. I'm going to keep playing. Yep. So you keep traveling around. You eventually went off to Michigan

to play high school for a couple years, right? It gets tricky because I, my parents told me I'll never play hockey because they don't have hockey rinks out in Los Angeles. And we happen to move about three blocks from Culver City Ice Rake. Oh, dude. What a great rink, dude. Oh, my God.

When we first moved here, we wound up in Culver and I drove 10, 10 yards down the road, see an ice rink. And I was like, oh, my God, I'm in heaven. And then it closed like two weeks. Like, God damn it. Yeah. So that was the ring that I, I mean, I worked on the original Youngblood.

Yeah. Oh, no shit. I didn't know that. Wow. And that's where a lot of my youth hockey was. I mean, New Hampshire is what it was. Yeah. But that's where I got the bug for it.

But I continued to play out here in Los Angeles. Yeah. And I was probably 12 years old, playing with 16 year old. So I was that advanced. Yeah. And, you know, there wasn't a lot of coaching. It wasn't a lot of a lot of skill set back. them. Most kids are all back east tearing up.

So I kind of came out here and I wasn't really hockey but I was just an athlete. It was just really good. And that was able to propel me enough to play against older kids where that kind of went on to Michigan. We can go from there. I was going to say yeah, so you go to Michigan. You go to Cranbrook. Before we even get into Cranbrook, are we talking like Papa Doc?

Cranbrook? That's the same Cranbrook? Is that the private school? Eight Mile was an amazing movie. I remember going to that watch with my friends and they talk about and you went to Cranbrook. Get to private school. I was like Oh God. You're a fucking dead. I am Papa Don't. Yeah, you're like, yeah, I went to Cranbrook.

And everyone's like, you bitch, cake eater? That's literally what it was like I put my head down. They go, hey, just go to Cranbrook. Yes, I went to Cranbrook. I get it. I understand, I understand. But yeah, it was a tough moment in my life in the film industry. Yeah. What was Cranbrook like, though?

Was that a good time? Did you like playing hockey there? Did you like the people there? What was the vibe? Cranbrook was absolutely ridiculous. Okay. When I went there, you know, I'd seen Exeter, Governor Dumber, Brooks, Tabor, Taff,

these coast ones. You know, they're beautiful schools. Not mentioning Andover there's just so tough. I went to Exeter, he went to Andover. Oh, yeah. Okay. So my brother was to Andover. Just edit that.

Andover first. And, you know, I saw the campus and it was literally the most beautiful campus in the world. I mean, it's obvious, it's in the Beverly Hills of Michigan. Okay. It's in Bloomingville, Hill, from Birmingham. And it's an art school.

And it made public school look like first grade. We were reading... We can relate, bro. Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Yeah. No, we're reading that kind of book. You know, we're deciphering

from this version up to that version of it, and it was an incredible experience. The hockey was phenomenal. It was good to have actually some really good competition because, you know, in L.A., for sure. It was the top dog, was myself. Got me named Eric Lamarck,

Rob Mendel and Cipo Gavis. We were the top ones. All the kind of same age bracket. And so when I went to Cranbrook, you know, I got the better competition. And I really did enjoy it. You're out of the house at 15 years old. You're living on your own. You're trying to figure things out.

You're trying to, how do I do hockey, how I date. I mean, you're 15 years old. You're starting to like girls. It's kind of like it's weird. Yeah. A lot of stuff going on there, but it was an absolutely amazing experience. And I wouldn't, in the, of all those prepses I looked at, I would go there again in a heartbeat. Wow.

That's awesome. Yeah. That's huge. So you went sophomore junior year, right? Sophomore junior year. And then you bounced the USHL? sophomore junior year coach Ted Kelly left yeah um so he was the end all be all of coaches yeah so he left uh when he left

I left I came back to LA and I was trying to figure out what to do and I ended up going to public school again and you know public school is easy breezy but it was hard to get some the classes to transfer over from oh yeah prep school yeah that makes sense so accelerated to public school yeah I'm talking about stuff they're like you've already graduated yeah you already read Canterbury Tales and you're like yeah yeah I read I was literally like two years in the college at graderbrook. So I went to public school.

The weird part about is that those credits didn't transfer over. So I literally went my senior year in public school at Palisades from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Oh my God. To get it all done. To get all done because the credits wouldn't transfer over. Yeah. So I would go part

to half the day would be at Palisades and the other half would be at uni high. To get the credits going, yeah, it was crazy. Was it easy for you? And it was just a ton of work to get done, or was it like kind of a grind? Bored out of our mind. Yeah, absolutely bored out of our mind.

Yeah. It's like, oh, one plus one is two. Yeah, we did that a long, long time. Yeah. And where were you at with, because when you were at Cranbrook, that's when kind of the, you were getting interest from Wisconsin. Where was that in the process when you're back at public school? I got my first notice to Wisconsin on my sophomore year at Cranbro.

Okay. So I had that year and my junior year, and we won state champions both years. but I mean we're not a hockey family So we don't know We knew of Wisconsin of course We knew it's a school My parents said yeah great Let it would be fantastic for you to go there

My parents never thought in a million years I'd ever do anything with hockey And then so when we left Krabber It's like well that was fun, it was good Now I'm in public school And I played locally I think in Marina Cities And then I played an all-star team So my weekends were full

So I did school all day all night And then my weekends would be either up In Northern California or down here for tournaments Damn. And I would just, you know, continue to play. And then...

And your parents were, no doubt, like, pushing you into education, I bet. Oh, they're all... They didn't know a thing about hockey. Yeah, absolutely, nothing at all. So I have a great story

with that one. So a guy by name of Frank Seratori contacted me. He's like, hey, you know, I've watched you play. You're a good hockey player. I understand in California. You'd be amazing to come out

and maybe play hockey in the OSHO on my team. I go, great. That's, sure. More hockey? Fantastic. Well, I'm that what you think. That'd be great.

Go ahead. do your thing. Frank's territory left. Oh, no. And then Kevin Constantine is now the coach there. So I get there as a brand new coach I've never met before. And I'm like, well, here I am. Here's what I'm doing.

I'm here. Let's go play some hockey. And I finished that year with a defenseman of the year, the USHL. And we won the whole title there as well. So you're coming off two straight state championships. Not. And then into the championship. Too shabby in the USAHL.

But this is how naive our family was. Yeah. So I scored a hat trick during the NHL All-Star Break. So NHL-Star Break, every scout in the world is watching all the junior program. Of course. So I score hat-trick playing defense. And, you know, we go down and, you know, the coach says, hey, guys, great game. We won the whole thing.

Fantastic. And he goes, hey, Chris, there's a couple people that want to meet you. He goes, I go, ask, who wants to meet me? He goes, I don't know, but there's a lot of them. And I went out and there was like a string of scouts and coaches in the hallway. It was Bowling Green. It was Michigan. It was Wisconsin.

I think Michigan Tech. Merrimack might have been. There's a whole bunch of schools. And your parents are at the game? No, my parents are back in L.A. Yeah. Great. Calling you later on the hotel phone.

They're like, how to go? Oh, you guys will lose your mind when you hear this thing. So, so, you know, I met them all, talked to them. I'm like, yeah, Wisconsin was like, we'd love me to come to our school. It'd be great. You know, do a tour. I mean, yeah, it'd be fantastic. Cut to, I go to

tour of Wisconsin. Yeah. I guess when I landed there, it's kind of foggy, but I landed there told me he got drafted. He said, congratulations, you were drafted. And I was like, what? Get the fuck out of here, dude. You had no idea?

I was like, we have a war right now? I did not know what. My agent's shaking his head right now. Oh, my God. What's the fastest way to get to Canada right now? What the fuck is that? I had absolute no clue what being drafted was. No way, dude.

Because we're not a hockey family. So you weren't really an NHL fan. Like, you're playing the game. You loved the game, but you weren't really dialed into the Kings or anything like that. Boston Bruins because I was in New Hampshire. Sure. It's the first Jersey I wore as a kid. That was it.

And then the Flyers was a board in Philly. I didn't know a thing about the sport. Yeah. Nothing at all. It was just an athlete that happened to be able to get from point to point B really fast. Yeah. And, I mean, to get drafted in the NHL and not even know what the draft is. High, too.

So top 100 hits. It's insane. It's nuts. Yeah. And so, you know, you go there. And then when I went to go visit Wisconsin, you know, Robin Dell, who I played with when I was younger out here in L.A., he met me. He was, I think, a year or two ahead of me. And so he's like, no, hey, congratulations.

You know, you're here. Let's walk you around. And you do your tour. And I'm looking around and go, this is an amazing campus. So I wanted to go to a big school that had a huge student population, had a great academics and had a great hockey. nutrition. No. Wisconsin.

Easy money. That in Michigan. Yeah. Fill those buckets. But I wanted to go to a school where everyone stayed on campus. Michigan, you have a lot of day people. Yeah. For sure.

And Madison, people, they, if you saw a hot girl at 2.15 on a Tuesday, she's going to be there on Thursday. Yeah. Because everyone had to be posted up for two straight days. Exactly. Yeah. Oh, about five. Come on Thursday.

Come on Thursday. And it was, that's what it was. It's like everybody know they went to school there. They partied there. They supported their sports there. And I go, this is it. Yeah. But what really sold me is that when they brought me into the Dayton County Coliseum

and there's, what, 8,644 fans. And I walked in, and I think it was North Dakota. And Wisconsin just scored. And the whole crowd's going, sieve. Yeah. Sib. Siv. I'm going, I'm a black kid from Los Angeles.

These fans will eat me alive if I play against. the school. Yeah. Where do I sign? Yeah, yeah. That was it. Cannot ever play against. Yes, absolutely.

That was there was there. It was like, I got to go, because there was a lot of stuff I went through that. I'm sure we'll get to it in a moment. Yeah. There's a lot of ups and downs and stuff. But once, no, Rob Mendel was there. I saw the school. I saw the academics you all knew were fantastic.

The hockey program was great. And that fan support, I go, this is where I have to go. No if, if, hands or butts about it. So you go there. You win multiple national championships or just. sophomore year. We won one my sophomore year. Our team was so good.

Yeah. Like when I say good, our goaltender was Curtis Joseph. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you guys were stacked. Yeah, he was our goaltender. And I remember, like that's talking about, again, for the listeners, one of the greatest NHL goalies of all time playing in college for you guys. Like, it makes such a difference.

Yeah. He was so good that, you know, we're out there practicing and I go, this guy's pretty good. And someone told me, yeah, he won't be here much longer. Yeah. What do you mean? They go, he's going to be in the NHL. interested and I didn't know that's how it happened. I was like, you play hockey and then I was like, I got that.

Yeah. And literally it's like we, we lost in like the quarterfinals, whatever it is. This was freshman year. This is my freshman year. And I was like, oh, okay, and then he left. Yeah. And then Duane Dersen was the backup. We won, and Duane was a great goaltender.

You won an NCAA title with essentially a backup goaltender. Yeah, definitely. Who, you know, played a little bit as freshman year. but he started a sophomore year. Yeah. We won a national championship there, and then in my senior year, we lost in the finals. So, I mean, talking about a career at Wisconsin.

Hell, yeah. We were so good. I mean, I didn't even know what spring break was. Yeah, right. We never had an opportunity. We were playing, yeah. So what was that, like you said, you go in, you do your visits,

you see the campus, you see the student body, you see those fans, you're like, I have to play here. And the academics. And the academics, important. But then your second year there, you win a Natty. Yep. What are you feeling in that moment?

You're like, holy shit. How is this happening to me? Honestly, it's going to sound weird. I never knew what it was like to lose. Every team, my high school team, state championships back to back. Played juniors, you know, won the title of USHL. Go to Wisconsin with the NCAAs. We did really well, but, you know, we didn't win it.

Yeah. Okay, we did well. Oh, we want the sophomore year. Oh, it's okay. Yeah. I mean, it was just like something that just kind of happened. It's like walking. I'm like, okay, we're left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot.

We just kind of felt that that was going to, that was going to be like. Junior year, we had a great junior year. Senior year, we lost the finals. So it's just, it's just commonplace is what we did. Losing for now at this point is just like little hiccups. Yeah, yeah, we lost in the finals. We're like, whatever. That doesn't happen normally.

But I will tell you, we had a class. It was 475 women. It was women's studies class. Yep. And we just won the title. And I have a 10. Tennessee to be late every so often. I couldn't blame on parking.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But since we're late. And there was, what, 4 and 75 women, I think about 12 men in this class. Yeah. And my major was African-American studies, the minor in communication arts and women studies. Okay.

So it was to fulfill graduate requirements. Yeah, goddamn. And we had this big class with these big oak doors, and I'm probably five minutes late. And I'm like, oh, God, you know, just got done with this. National Championship here. Oh, let's do this.

Door opens up. It's just a big creek. It always is when you're late. Yeah, it's one of those for the professors right there and you have to walk past a professor to go up the steps to your seat. And I walk in, the professor's like, oh, hi, everybody.

Just in case you didn't know, this is Christopher Nelson. And I'm like, oh, God, here it goes. He just won a national championship for Division I men's hockey. Stay in ovation. Let's go. Get out.

Let's go. Danny Ovation. Damn. Now, mind you, I was a virgin when I went to Wisconsin. Sure. It got really good after we're in a national championship. Flashing that ring around and you're like, oh, things are about to change a little bit for the kid. And here's the thing, it's like basketball was awful.

Yeah. Football was awful. Track was okay. In hockey, we were just studs. A wagon. A wagon. And so here I am this black kid from. Los Angeles playing hockey winning national championships at Wisconsin.

Yeah, I was going to say in Wisconsin. Yeah. Like you were literally a unicorn. Yeah. You're a unicorn on this game. I didn't realize it until after I left, but oh my God. Yeah. It was the best four years of my life.

What was, because Madison, right, especially at that time, I feel like they live and breathe badgers and packers. Oh, that's it. Yeah. So. A little bit of bucks, a little bit of brewers, but it is, it is badgers. and Packers. And you're taking a college badgers with an NFL team.

Yeah. That's how big it was. Great point. Great point. What was in your, the annals of your memory, crazy a scene after you won the Natty? Like what was the most bizarre and wild moment on campus partying of being like, holy shit?

We fucking did it. People were going bonkers right now. Like honestly, it was that moment I walked into that classroom. Really? Yeah. Because, I mean, it's women studies. Yeah. Yeah, it's like 400 women in a women's studies class.

And they are probably really big hockey fans. You know? It's safe to say. I'm sure some of them have been to some games. Yeah. But it wasn't like I was going to, you know. Sports marketing class. Yeah.

Communications, whatever it was. Yeah. This was women's studies. And I got to stand in that class. And it was, I will never ever forget that moment ever. Yeah. No way. Because I try to blend it.

I thought I blended in. Yeah, yeah. Not anymore. The campus was 3% black. Yeah. And either you were from. Africa? Yeah.

Or you were an athlete. That was it. Yeah. And it wasn't football and it wasn't basketball and people knew pretty fast that, oh, that's the guy from Los Angeles was hockey. Yeah. But I wasn't like all badgered, you know, Litterman's jacket. Yeah.

With my sticks over my shoulder. I just kind of, you know, kind of went in. I was an athlete that played hockey. Yeah. Hockey, it wasn't live or die by the sport. Sure. I just happened to, you know, play a sport, and it just did really well for myself in my career, my life. It's so awesome.

So like you touched on earlier, the last thing I need to know about, you know, the Wisconsin era, when you won, did you know that you were the first black athlete to win a hockey national championship? No. And when did you find out? And what did it mean to you? Was that moment that was like kind of so crazy that you just kind of were like, oh, shit? Or was it, did you feel the sort of immense nature of what that meant? didn't really know. I didn't even know

what was defenseman of the year in the USHL until a couple years ago. Yeah. Didn't know he got drafted, dude. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I was like, oh, I got a job. Everyone was like applying for jobs. I'm like, oh, I'm going to New Jersey. Oh, okay. I'll do that. Sounds good. Mike Greer from BU. Yeah, yeah.

Something came across the pages, and I was looking at as Wikipedia or something like that, and it came up that. Mike Greer was the first African-American ever captain a, an NHL team, something like that. Yeah.

Something weird like that. And I was like, huh. I started to do my back research, and I was like, wait a second. I think I, and I was. Yeah. I don't want to say I was Jackie Robinson of college hockey because Jackie Robinson would do a lot worse stuff than I did. Yeah.

But listen, we're not going to say that you're not. I'm not going to sit here and say that you're not Jackie Robinson to college hockey. You don't have to say it. Our words. Our words, not your life. Yeah, your word's not mine. I just stumbled on this fact. Yeah.

And I was like, that's kind of cool. That's pretty sick, dude. I mean, come on. It's unbelievable. It's amazing job interviews. Oh, yeah. And, I mean, how electric is it now looking at college hockey and seeing how many African-American athletes are in there, getting drafted to the NHL?

It's, like, you know, guys like Q on the Kings and it's like, this is sick, seeing how much it's growing. Yeah, well, the sport is a lot more susceptible than what it used to be. Yeah. You know, once again, move to Los Angeles, I would never play hockey. It wasn't a chance in hell, but it happened to move literally just around the corner from Corby Street, Ice Rick, and then I continue to play. I mean, if we move to, like, let's say, long be able to.

something like that. Yeah, no chance. You're right, absolutely right. And so it happened, I just stay with it and continue to work with it and it took off. Hell yeah. Well, because you're addicted to winning everything, I want to transition to some of the roller hockey stuff. And we're going to talk about the tournament specifically in a second. But first, can you just touch on what it was?

Because I've heard you say before how stack that devil's blue line was when you got drafted. So you're like, I'm never even going to crack this roster anyway. So can you just talk about those few years of like playing, bouncing around, HL, the W, all that stuff? And then kind of moving back here and getting it. into Roller. Well, the thing with me is what I said before, I played hockey. I wasn't a hockey player. I mean, I never really practiced much at it. I was just, just a natural athlete. I was just a natural athlete. My dad ran track, my mom ran track, and I was just really good and could figure

things out really fast. But when I went to New Jersey and I'm looking at like Scott Niedermeyer, Fethev, who played in the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, not in U.S. I'm sorry, Russian Olympic hockey team. Bruce Driver, Ken Diomeyer. Danico um Steven got Stephen for Christ's sakes I mean

they were so stacked that must have been weird getting draft like once you once you realized it right you're like I got drafted by the dills and then you look at their roster and see a bunch of future Hall of Fame defensemen on that roster

you must have been like Jesus Christ and I'm not a hockey fan yeah yeah and I know these guys yeah like that's a lot and Lou Lamarillo pulls me in the office he goes so Chris

how do you feel I'm like I feel good he goes so what do you think I go think about what exactly he goes well we look pretty steep at Dia I go yeah. I saw that and he's like, okay,

so what do you think? I go, I don't know, you tell me you're the boss. He goes, what do you think about playing wing? Never done before. Let's go for it. Okay, great. We're gonna, we got a scrimmage coming up.

We're gonna put you at wing. Once you try it out, I'm like, sure. First shift, first touch the puck, shelf, embroider. Get the fuck out. I thought you're gonna say you got flattened by Stevens, but no, you brought up. I'm waiting for an absolute train run.

shot it, bink in on Broder. And Marty afterwards he goes, dude, I had no clue who you were. I go, I don't even know what I'm doing. Yeah, this is the first time I've ever played this position. That is it. And Lou Lamarillo pulls me back in the office the next day. He's like, okay, now we've got a problem.

Yeah, right, yeah, right? He's like, I really don't know what to do with you. I'm like, I don't know what to do with me. I have no clue. He's like, well, we're going to sing you unica. So go there, do your thing, and work your butt off and see if you can make a way back up. Okay.

Yeah. And so I was in you, looking for a couple of games, and Robbie Fetorke was the coach there. Yeah. Robert Fetorke, who was the coach, the Kings, who famously said,

either Gretti goes or I go. That's the person that of Robert Fetorke. And, I mean, great coach, great man. He didn't really vibe with me, per se, and he said me to Cincinnati. So I go to Cincinnati and the IHL.

And the IHL doesn't exist anymore, but the IHL was the league where all the NHL players that were kind of going out the pasture in the way. We flew to Vegas, San Diego, Milwaukee. It was luxury down there. I was in Cincinnati.

So it's a pretty good climate down there. Golfing every day. It was fantastic. I was playing really well, really happy. And then I get a phone call, hey, we're sending you back to Utica. And you're like, ah, you sure? And this is what put the nail in the coffin. I get back to Utica.

I see Robert Fetoric, and Robbie goes, Nellie, well, you're back. What do you think? I said, I really liked golfing in Cincinnati. That was it. Yeah, I was toast. Done. I didn't know.

Yeah, right. I didn't know how to play the game. I didn't know how these things worked. I thought we were just chatting. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, that was it. My roommate was Yaroslav Modry.

Oh, no way. Who didn't speak a word English. Who, no, we became very, very close friends after you learned English. Yeah, yeah. He was probably helpful. And he was the Kings and he was the All-Star game. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Mo. He pulled me aside.

He goes, Nellie, I've never seen a black person before in my life. That is how old? He was, I saw the bottom of your feet. And I had no clue. I never thought about that. But yeah, he'd never seen African-American. Oh, that's so crazy. That is too funny, dude.

Yeah, so you come back, come back to LA. Well, hold on, hold on. I am curious. Do you ever look back at that moment talking with Robbie and regret saying that? or where you're like, well, no, this is where I, I feel like you've said before you were always destined for more than the NFL. The NFL was never the plan, right? So, like, do you ever look back at that like, shit,

I wish I didn't say that, see what would have shook out? Or you're like, no, it's good where we end. I had to talk with my brother today on the way down here. We were talking about, like, you know, if I had been drafted by a different team, I would have played, you know, two, three, five, ten years in the NHL. Yeah. My life is so good right now.

And I'm so happy that anything that I might have done with the NHL, I'm like that mindset of like I'm a pro hockey, pro hockey player and then all of a sudden I find myself at 35, 36, 38 years old, not knowing what to do with my life that a lot of NHL players go through. They make a ton of money, but then they're like, okay, they played hockey

their entire life, their entire life is all hockey, and they don't know what to do. And do you go into broadcasting? Do you start to hang out with your wife for the first time after 10 years of marriage? Yeah, for real. Get to know your kids' first names. I mean, how's that work?

So I don't regret any decision I ever made with that. And, you know, I had that talk with Mark Hardy, which is another, you know, you can bring that up and we'll tell you stories about that one as well. Yeah, for sure. But that was like the entry into like my film career. Yeah, yeah. There you go. Incredible.

Okay, so Roller, you jump into Roller and you guys win the national championship in 97 and 2004. Yeah, we won a bunch of them. Yeah. And it was kind of old. I think maybe one was here in Anaheim, but one was in Germany, right? Yeah, we won one in. in Anaheim. I think I won two or three, I think.

Yeah. You've got multiple world championships of rockies. Tell me about that. Because we're from Maine, right? Like, it was always cold. We're playing hockey. I never really got, I never really played roller.

So how did that transition even happen for you? What is it like? How is it different? Brett Kurtz, who was a teammate of mine at Wisconsin, I was, I think it was at Mass and still training to get ready to go to New Jersey's camp. And he sent me these chassisies, He's like, dude, this summer, you got to come out.

There's this thing called roller hockey. And it was just chassis. It was a little metal thing with no wheels. What is it? Yeah, I'm like, what I'm supposed to do with this? This is where you have to get a mounted. I'm like, what do you mount it? How do you know how to your trainer go, Rob, can you mount these on my skates?

Mount these, please. Yeah, he put them on, and then I got wheels. I'm like, oh, this is a great training. Yeah. So I started training with them at Madison. And I think I went to camp, New Jersey, did the whole season there. When I came back to L.A., after my second year pro, I think,

I kind of got involved in roller hockey and just took natural tubers. I was always a great skater. Yeah, yeah. And guys, my size that could skate in full speed, I would just crush people. You're gonna say you're a weapon. Yeah.

Because once I have you in my sights, like hockey, you can kind of cut and get out of the way. Once I have you of my sights and roller, I'm going through you. Yeah. And you cannot get out of the way. It was fast and I was strong and I'm, you know, 6-2225 pounds.

But I skate like away 150 pounds. Yep. So I just blow through guys. And are you full hitting in roller? Full contact. Oh, damn. Full contact. What kind of pads are you wearing?

Is it like full hockey pads? You wear like, you wear like a football girdle. Okay. Shin pads, elbow pads, helmet, gloves. Some guys wear shield. I didn't wear a shield back then. But it's a lighter version of hockey equipment. Yeah.

Sure. But I mean, if you could skate, you could motor out there. Yeah. And it was, I mean, just crushing people. wild. So you loved it. It was a blast. It was awesome. Yeah, that's incredible. It's a paid job. I get paid to play roller hockey. This is awesome. Winning more titles?

And our owner was this person, I think her name was Jeannie Bus. You know, I've heard of her. Heard of her. Yeah, yeah. She's done some cool stuff. Yeah, she's done some cool stuff. So she was the owner of our team, and she's just, I mean, she loved the guys. She loved the sport. She's a great, you know, ambassador for the sport. Yeah. And, I mean,

she took care of us. Yeah. We heard horse. stories of teams like in Atlanta, they were, you know, first getting to 25 people in the stands, we're selling out the pond. So bullfrogs and the blades would sell out the pond. It was incredible. So it was, you know, another experience, but I didn't really know what it was like to not have a good experience. Yeah, right.

When you think about everything that Jeannie Bus has going on to care about you guys and to show up and give that much attention, it's actually pretty phenomenal. I mean, that's unbelievable. I mean, she was great. The whole family was fantastic. Like when the season was over and there was no Laker games, Dr. Jerry Buss would pick me up at my house in a stretch Rose Royce and take me to Laker games.

Oh my God. And once again, didn't realize how there was just common plays. Yeah, yeah. Well, here I'm playing roller hockey. Got Cheney Bus, my owner. Dr. Jerry Buss, hey, it's up, Dr. Buss. Hey, Chris, how are you good?

You want to go to a game day? Yeah, sure. I'll pick you up around 630. In the rolls? In the rolls? Yeah, in the rolls? Yeah, great. He'd pick me up in his brown, stretch, Rolls, Royce.

and take me the games and I'd sit with Dr. Jerry Buss and he, at the forum he had the worst seats in the entire stadium like, dude, you own this place. What are you doing? He goes, see all those people down there?

All those people down there? Those are all purchased seats. Yeah. If I had seats down there, all my friends would be down there with me on those seats and it'd be losing so much money. So if you want to come to a game,

you want to come to sit for free? Come on, I got you. And we were at the very top of the rappers behind the backboard. Yeah. Back against us. Yeah, I was like, this is cool. Man of people.

But since G.E. Bus owned the LA Blades, and she was the heir apparent for the Lakers, she had a lot of control. Do you know about the forum club? No. Is that maybe? Is that the bar? The forum club was the bar there. That was the place to be at. That was, that was, if you come to L.A., you have to see the Laker game.

You have to the foreign club. And it was impossible getting that place. That was the hottest club in probably the world. Jeannie Bus put a God, I didn't know the measurements probably 25 inch by 35 inch

picture of me right next to the forum club of me playing roller hockey Yeah, I was going to say because there was a lot of options going to be in Wisconsin, but it's the Blades The LA Blades photo That is fucking awesome

You go to crypto You see LeBron's over there It's always pictures And you see you know Kobe He's down there somewhere I'm literally on the entrance of the hottest club

forum club once again just all was commonplace didn't know yeah here we are yeah sir you're in the list I'm like I am right there's my ticket right there

they go oh yeah you're all good to go oh my god cut to I miss something my first job in L.A. was concert security oh wow at the forum at the forum

when I was like what before I was like 15 16 years old so here was this kid who had you fed staff jacket making five bucks an hour now has a picture of them outside the forum club. Yeah, at that point, you're like, I own this. Yeah, yeah.

I've been here since the beginning of time. The funniest thing, the funniest thing I love this part is that my boss, when I was a little kid, still worked there, is he even staff. Did he recognize? Was he like, holy shit? Yeah, I introduced myself to me. I'm like, hey, remember me? He's like, ah, we see, these 500 guys a day.

Yeah, I'm Chris. Chris Nelson's, oh, yeah, you were the little skinny kid. Yeah, well, I grew up a little bit. Yeah, there's everything going for you. I'm like, that's me. Yeah. It's going pretty well. Let me know if you ever want to get to the forum club.

Got a Natty, got a couple of world championships under my belly. Unbelievable. Good God. So is there more enroller? Well, I was just going to say, I think I saw you got some Mars Blades. Is that true? Yes. We just got them.

Do you like them? I like them a lot. Okay. So Ken Yaffe is involved with Mars Blade a little bit. Okay. And with my company, Lockham 13, if you want to go in there, we can go. Yeah, we will. But with Lockham 13, I was looking at Chelsea Pierce.

Oh, right. Yeah. Because, you know, with New York, They need it, dude. They need it bad. So I flew out there, I met with Ken Yaffe, and when I flew out to meet him, I just got a script because I just signed the deal with Mighty Ducks.

And I'm looking at it, goes, opening the scene, the ducks skate through the hallway on rollerblades. Bing! Yep. So I'm going to meet with Ken, because Ken and I worked with NHL years ago, and I said, Ken, I might have something for you. He was like, what do you got?

I go, I'm doing a Mighty Ducks TV show, and there's a roller skating, and he's like, really? I go, can you meet some Mars, but he's going to make it happen. And boom, right away happened. Done. Absolutely happened. We were like, we had a couple ideas. We hit them up as well.

And we're like, hey, and they were like, say no more. Yeah. Here's some Marzblades. They were great. I mean, I got a pair, obviously. Yeah. The director got a pair, obviously. And all the Ducks kids got them.

And you know, I had to go and teach them. The Ducks kids, they were okay scares. We had season one. Sure. So season two, they were okay, but I had to go out there and work with them, and train them how to skate and all that kind of stuff. And here are with these Mars Blades and they loved them. They loved them.

They loved them. They're great. It's wild how much it does feel like skating. Yeah. So I've been on so many rollerblades. I'm like, these things suck. And those I'm like, I feel like I'm on skates. And I've had them all.

I've had like, you know, the plastic, you know, ski movement. All the way up to like, you name it, up to Mars Pidge was the top of the food chain. Yeah, it's unbelievable. I've rolled to work sometimes. It's unbelievable. All right. With parking here, I don't doubt it. Yeah.

Right? That's what I'm saying. So you got all these gold medals. You kind of hang up the hockey situation. And then you get into hotels. So you worked at Morgan Hotels. You worked at Starwood. and then like you said, you worked at W. Hollywood.

Shout out Talia. Yeah. Shout out Talia. My girl. That's my woman. So I want to know how the hell did you get into that and then give us all the ghost stories. You got something good, dude. I bought a, not bought it.

I rented a place in Westwood. Yeah. And, you know, I knew UCLA because my parents worked there. And my apartment, great apartment, one bedroom, two parking spots in Westwood for 700 bucks a month. Oh, God. Yeah. I know. Now it's just in a dorm.

Yeah. That's, I mean, that's, I should have gone for two random on them. Yeah.

Yeah. Whatever should like me. So, um, I go walk in the neighborhood and I see this club, this club's bumping. I'm like,

this is awesome. How old are you? God. Twenty-six. Okay. Yeah. Well, it's,

I got to do the math, but it was 1999, 2000. Okay. Got it. And, you know, I was like, okay,

what am I going to do with my life? he could get a job somewhere, and I walked at this place and I paid the guy, Kevin, 20 bucks, because Kevin I became great friends. Pay him 20 bucks to get in and I walked in and I looked around and go,

this place is awesome. It was rocking. There was W. Hotel, the lights, the music, the people. I go to the bar, I go, are you guys hiring? And they're like, what do you want to do?

I go, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I want to work here. Like, well, let me see what can call somebody. Calls this guy and this guy's like a linebacker coming at me. I mean, he's all pumped up

everything coming down. He goes, what seems to be the problem? I go, oh, I'm sorry. My name's Chris. We can get a job here. He's like, a job. What do you would do? I go, I don't know.

I'll do anything. He goes, what have you done? I play a little bit of hockey, you know, I've done some stuff. Did some stunts. Yeah. Yeah, he's like, show him the ring. Yeah, he's like, yeah, we'll find something for you.

What's your information? Game of information, did the whole thing, background check. It goes, okay, you got a job. I drive to the W. Hotel in a bright red range rover. Okay. And I pull up, I pull up the valet and the guy's like, oh, check it in. How long is staying, sir?

No, no, I'm working. You're what? I'm working. He's like, we've been working. I have a job here. He's like, well, you can't park here. I go, when I can't park here. And what's it cost?

He goes, it costs $20. I go, I got that. Yeah, I got a 20. Ask Kevin. I gave it to him last night. 20 bucks over 10 minutes. But yeah. And he was like, yeah, sure.

And I, no, valet my car. I was making $10.10 an hour as a security guard. in a $95 suit. Yeah. Perfect. I went from pro hockey to wearing a $10,0. Working $10.10 an hour wearing a suit less than $100. But it was pride swallowing, but I knew I needed to get a job doing something.

Sure. Because I can't live off of like, I used to do this. I used to do that. You guys should know I am. It doesn't work that way in L.A. So I got a job and, you know, through CA, Creative Artist's Agency. Sure. that we all know about that, you know, that.

Shout out CAA. Youhoo! Part of the family. That I knew a guy, Pat Bresson, and he had this skate, this Monday Night Skate, which, and also Jerry Brookheimer had a bad boy skate. It was Sunday. So Sunday was Bad Boys with Jerry,

and Pat Brasson had his CA skate. So it was basically the same guys. Kiefer Sutherland, Tom Cruise, Kubigian Jr., Michael Rotenberg, Michael Rosenbaum. I've done that skate. I'm probably on the ice with you. Yeah, but this is back in the early days.

Early, early days. But everyone's a celebrity. I mean, everyone's a record producer, an artist, an actor, a director of everything. And me. Yeah. And the security guy. This up, guys. And so I would do these skates.

I got to know all the guys really well. They would come visit me at the hotel. I bet. I mean, you're probably way better than everyone on the ice there, too. And that's on there like, who is this guy? I got to know him. I mean, they liked me. I was like, no, I guess it was a nice guy, but I was a great hockey player.

Yeah. And I liked them. It was like, dude, the stories, these guys told. It's like incredible. Yeah. And these, these are the big boys I'm with right now. And, you know, Cuba would come in and visit me and Kiefer coming and visit me. These guys didn't hang out.

Barry Joseph would come and visit me and all hang out. And then we would go and have dinner afterwards. So my shift would end, you know, 10, 11 o'clock at night. Then we'd all go and have dinner. I would walk in to dinner. Katsuya, me, Jerry, Brockheimer, Keeper, Cuba, and we walk in, and since I was like the hospitality guy, I got out of the car first, I go in and say, hey, guys,

do you have any of the thing available? Oh, we're kind of fully committed. I go, well, I've got this guy, this guy, this guy, this guy. Where are they? Oh, they're outside in the car. Yeah, we'll make it happen for you. Yeah, yeah, give us a second. And all of a sudden, you know, all the guys got on the car and we have tables there,

and we all go in, we sit down and eat. You don't walk up to Jerry Brokheimer. You don't walk up. to Kiefer. You don't walk up to Cuba. No, no. You don't walk up to Barry Joe. You don't walk up to Rotenberg, Rosenbaum. Walk up to me because I'm the most approachable guy.

And all the owners, Mater Dees, bartenders are like, hey, anytime we want to come by, anything, just let us know. Every restaurant, every club was like that for me. So here I'm making $10 an hour at W. At W. Hotels, and people quickly realized that Chris was the connect. You're the guy.

Yeah. Anything in L.A. So anywhere anyone wanted to go, you name it, Skybar, all of them, all the big clubs. I'd make a phone call, I'd know, guess, would, hey, you want to go with us?

Sure, I'd go in there and I'd just expose a whole different life. Yeah. I was at W for, I think about two years, got the Miracle gig. We'll talk about that to say. Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah. Came back after shooting Miracle

with W for a couple of months, and then went to Skybar was my favorite bar. I knew everybody there. Hell yeah. And they go, what are you doing? I go, I don't know, I just finished Miracle. was kind of hanging out.

I think, you're going to work here? Why not? Sure. Oh, dude. I can imagine. Here we go. Oh, like Skybar was it. And I travel the world a lot.

My business card from Skybar got me anywhere in the world. Wow. Because everybody in the world knew what Skybar was. Yeah. And I had ran the door for a little bit, and then I ran the interior bottle service. Let me tell you, the first three years at Skybar,

I bought my Porsche, and a house. Yeah. That's how lucrative that place was. I bet. No one was doing bowel service. No one really had that hospitality background because Skybar was like, you're not so knocking in. I saw the original books, the original guestless of Skybar and the celebrity names on that. They had to have their name to get in.

Yeah. I mean, it was a big, big, big deal. And I met everybody. I thought I've seen, I've seen them all, everybody. I mean, Beckham, you name it. I get a phone call. I think it was CAA was, well, you'll confirm this second. I got a call from C.A.

And they're like, hey, you know, hey, Chris. You know, we know you're close with the family, Pat and everything. Yeah, sure, what do you got going on? We got a couple guys want to get in. I'm like, yeah, how many guys? We got 10 guys? Ten dudes? Yeah.

Who are they? You want 10 dudes to come in to Skywire on a weekend? He's like, yeah, come on. Chris, could you help us out? I'm like, look, pass's been great to me. Sure. Yeah, well, I'll find a way to make it happen. and we'll figure it out.

I get a call to go, hey, Chris, there's a bunch of guys who are looking to see you. I'm like, okay, great, must be the guys. I get there and just, you know, pen dudes. And I'm like, all right, guys,

you guys would be bothered something like that? Like, no, maybe we'll kind of figure it out. We just want to kind of come in. And they had like this kind of accent. I was like, all right, well, sure. For CA, I'll do it for you guys. We'll get you guys taken care of. And, you know, I walk him in.

And everyone's like, what are you doing? I'm like, it's a favor. I got to. make it happen. Okay, Chris, fine, whatever. Just don't do this. Yeah. Like, I got to make it happen. So sit them down there and anybody that spoke English as a second language was like, oh my God,

you just walked in Christiano Ronaldo. Yeah. I was like, I know. This is a soccer team. That is not what I was expecting. I did not realize how huge. Yeah, he's the most famous person in the world. Not tall wise, but like just how famous he was. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God.

I mean, I had Beckham. No, we do the espies there. Yeah. So I've had everybody. He, this guy stopped traffic. Oh, yeah, no doubt. And I had to call him security. We had to put, like, have him in case so no one could get to him.

I mean, girls would climb over bushes to try to get to him. Yeah. Did you call CIA after this and be like, how the fuck do you not tell me it's Christiana? I got ten guys, just like ten dudes. I don't know who he is. I have no clue what Christiana Ronald is. I just feel like I would have, like, Derek, I'm. looking at you. Like, how is someone not being like, I'm making

a big deal of this is literally the biggest soccer player in the world? I had Mike Tyson like before that. Yeah, yeah, heavyweight champ. Yeah, but I mean, I didn't know who he was. Yeah. I mean, I've heard of soccer. I've seen it a couple times of our world travels. I didn't realize how big he was. Yeah. Oh my God. Yeah. And I cannot do this to celebrity, so I'll tell you off the record. Yeah.

But this celebrity female walked in, he whistled. She looked to him, he looked at her. Gone. Gone. Gone. Go on. Yeah. Oh, let's go. And in the tabloids, next day you see, Christian Arnold,

walking out, same clothes, jogging over his shoulder, walking down the hill. Like, yep. Yeah. Thank you. I cannot disclose who that person is on the record. We'll do that off the air.

We'll do that off the air. God damn, that is well. So when you were working at these hotels, right, you did some like Oscar stuff too. Like you got people ready for all their rooms and everything that's going on. Did you read this? Dude, I told you. We do our research, bro.

We do it. They know everything. So you're doing all this stuff. Listen, you're not working there anymore. Yeah, let us have it. Goh stories here. Okay, so I leave Skybar because the director of Bob Graysson,

who's director of food and beverage over at the Mondra and at Skybar where it was, he became the director of sales and marketing at W. Hollywood. He's like, Nellie, you got to come with me. It's a new hotel, new build. You got to come with me. Like, okay, great.

So I told my boss, Kendra at Skybar, I was, hey, look, you know what? It's time for me to go. another job opportunity came up and you were in tears because I love that place that was my heart and soul and I left to go there

to go to W. Hollywood and I'm working there and I'm working there and I think my second shift was Oscar weekend now this hotel is huge I mean it's enormous I think 344 rooms

plus 150 some odd residences and the tunnels are catacombs I mean you don't know where you're going and I was hired as insider the insider was a person who knew how to get in the clubs restaurants, personalities,

he can make anything happen. You know, the model was whatever, whenever. Yeah. So I was that guy. And people tested me on that one. I bet.

I mean, I got a request like, just a whatever, whatever, whatever, huh? And like, yeah, he goes,

I want to meet Lady Gaga. Okay, sure. And I made it happen. I knew Jay Leno's team. Did you really? And Lady Gaga was on Jay Leno when he was there. And all you got to do is you got to,

you know, check, you know, concert tours. And anyone who come to L.A. has to do, you know, Jimmy Kimmel,

they have to do Jay Leno all those shows and I called you know Jay Leno's team and I was like look you know I got somebody who has to kind of be in the green room maybe move past Lady Gaga is that possible yeah Nellie for you will make it happen sure sure enough dude that is such a Jay Leno it's a huge

green room Lady Gaga the whole thing and this kid's like I was gonna say oh my god whatever whenever like he was like this all right you can make anything happen how about this and then do it that person's like what the fuck how did this happen? Look what are you doing tomorrow And he was like, I don't know. I'll make a couple phone calls, make it happen for you. So boom, that's what happened.

Unbelievable. So back to the Oscars. Now, I'm hired just like Oscar weekend. And I'm in this huge brand new hotel, barely even know where my office is. I don't even know what the rooms look like. You know, I got a brief tour. And I'm assigned to all the celebrities. So the limousines, don't pick you up in front of the hotel.

They go underground. and there's a secret door and entrance to kind of get in, get in, get out. And my first assignment was, oh, it's the Green Mile. Tom Hanks. No, no, the female. Oh, yeah, shit. Everybody, anybody. She's gorgeous.

Emily, research department. Green Mile, lead actress. She was married, divorced. Your name in every actress she's ever. Yes, she's gorgeous. Was it Green Mile? No, it was the football. The football one, the big guy.

Oh, Sandra Bullock. Thank you. There you go. There you go. Blind side. Flying side. That's what it was. Oh, yeah.

Sorry about that. I guess you guys were like, ah. So, you know, I go up to her room, knock of the door. She opens up. Hi, Miss Spilock, they're like, yes. You ready to go? She's like, yes, I am. Here we go.

And I'm like, okay, walk in the elevator goes underground. You know, no one comes in, goes underground, get out of the elevator. Okay, so let's get your car, get you all taken care of and best of luck. Open a door. That's closet. Okay, great. One second here. We'll get this door here.

Walked in another hallway. That one's locked. And now she's like, I'm being kidnapped. She's definitely, yeah. She's dressed up with her gown and the whole thing. I'm like, we got this. Open door. There's the SUV.

Guy gets out. Open the door. I go, I wish the best of luck. I hope you win. The movie's fantastic. Do your thing. Yeah. She gets in the car.

Gone. And wins. Yeah. And they go, okay, Chris, the next person is going to bring down. for Avatar Zo... Zaldana, yeah.

Zoy Zaldana. Yeah. Oh my God, I was about to say. It's maybe my biggest crush on her. Yeah, she's kind of hot. Yeah, a little bit. She's in my wheelhouse. Yeah, a little bit. So I go up there and she's a little nervous.

She's like, you know, the Oscar whole thing. And I go, hi, how are you? She's like, good. I go, I'm Chris. I'm taking to your car. She's like, well, thank you very much. She's, you ready? She'll just give me a couple more minutes.

I'll be ready. I'm like, sure, no problem at all. She's doing all the hair and making all her touches. I go, ready to go? She's like, let's go. I'm confident now. Yeah, we got it. In the elevator, go downstairs,

pass the first door, past second door. Here's the magic door. Open up. SUV's there. A guy gets out. I go, best of luck. The movie was fantastic. I wish you, everything in the world.

Gets the car, drives away. Get a phone call. Yeah, Chris, you put Zoe in the wrong car, and you put Sandra Bullock in the wrong car. Oh. So when they come down and the red carpet, the license plate number is like, it's going to be Zoe's Alana. And Sandra Bullitt's out. And it's like, oh.

Oh, that's the wrong person. Oh, my God. Incredible. Jesus. It's like second week on the job. Sorry. Yeah. Second day on the job.

Oh, my God. Almighty. Unbelievable. Well, how much were you sweating at that moment? Like, when you got that call, were you like, I'm going to get fired. I was kind of like, it is what it is. What do you do? Hey, they got there.

Yeah. You're at the Oscars. I mean, they live in L.A. They stayed at the W because it's so close. Yeah, it's an easy drive. Yeah, it's an easy drive there. So, yeah, that's why they did it. Oh, my God, that is so cool.

So they're all packed up and they checked out that point in time. They were coming back like, you made a mistake. It never happens. Yeah. Okay. Now I want to talk to you about some food, some cooking. Okay. Because, my man, you are a chef.

Yes. I have seen this stuff. You put a separate page up, overgrown kids eats, right? Yes. Uh-huh. Dude, you're making your own sushi, your own pizza, your own smash burgers. Have you always been a chef? How did you get into this?

tell me everything. You guys are good. So good stuff. So back to Wisconsin. Yep. This is the 90s. And nothing against the state or the school or the people, but there wasn't a lot of open-mindedness at school. Sure.

I thought a little bit of it, being a person of color playing hockey, very alone. Yeah. There was a kid who was... I want to say openly gay, but he was clearly gay. Yeah. In my Portuguese class, and he didn't have a study partner. So I was like, dude, nothing phases me. I mean, study partner?

I'll do help you study all day long. Totally cool. My age's like, where are you going with this one? Yeah. And we were cool. We became friends. His sister was the checkout girl at a gourmet grocery store. Oh, let's go.

And massive hookup In college Oh my God Portuguese food too Oh no no Portuguese was the class Oh he wasn't okay Oh yeah yeah Yeah she was just

Check out the grocery store And she was so thankful that Now was friends with this with this guy Because no one would be friends with him She hooked me up on groceries College is probably one of the poorest points of your life Yeah Even you're in a full scholarship

This is hockey They're not giving you cars and money It's like, I got a W. I got a Wisconsin pin. That was the gift I got. You know, I'm not saying, I have no career. I'm not saying that, you know, some of the athletes got better benefits, but I saw a lot of sports cars. Here's a situation where I will say it.

Zipping around. They definitely did. So this girl hooked me up. And when you're the poorest point of your life, you can't go on dates. You can't go to restaurants. Oh, yes, so you started cooking. I start cooking, but here's the hook. How do you get to grow back to your place?

Cook her dinner. Come over and have dinner. Yeah. And that was it. And she's like, wow. That worked on Emily. Yeah. I got all these gourmet ingredients.

I'm going to cook you a meal. She's got star and rice with you right now. I mean, come on. No, that does work. Yeah, fuck yeah. And that's really what it was. It was like, you want to come over and have dinner. It's like, yeah, sure.

She was speaking top ramen. I've got filets. I've got lobster. I got everything out there. Like, are you serious? I'm like, yeah. Cost me nothing. And cooking is trial and error.

I can say how'd you learn, but that's how. I messed up some dishes. I never used a cookbook. Yeah. I mean, I was just like, okay, do this, do that, some salt, some sugar, the whole thing. Okay, great, boom, here it is.

And I just learned how to cook. And that was my thing. It's like I couldn't afford to, you know, take girls out. So, okay, great. We'll have, you know, a box wine in the fridge. A little flanzia. Yeah.

And you'll have, you know, be all your life. it pairs wonderfully with the fillet. Yes, exactly. That flanzy of fillet combo is... I never knew that red wine wasn't supposed to be in the fridge. Oh, yeah. Never knew that. Chilled red, you're ahead of your time, man.

That was my go-to. Boxed red wine, the fridge, tap down. Chris, good point. I mean, dude, chill red is all the rage in L.A. now. You're just out of your time. You're 20 years ahead of the time. That's what it was.

But yeah, that's how I learned how cook. And then, you know, it's just stayed with me. Yeah. And now I live in the Arch District. And, you know, we've got a Korean market there. And they've got foods that can't even pronounce. I mean, I have to look through a dictionary. What the hell is this thing?

I mean, you name it. They've got, I mean, octopus, squid, lobster, king crab, Alaska, Alaskan king crabs, snow crab. They've got everything there. I mean, the fish area looks like you're in pecks. Is a pike square? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what it looks like there.

And you can get anything you want to see urchin. It's all there. Yeah. So I learned how to make my sushi and in Udon. and ramen and all that kind of stuff. Dude, I've spent a lot of time in the Korean market in the downtown Arts District area, and it's like every other corner you turn on.

There's a little stand or a pop-up restaurant you can eat at. It's all the best food I've ever had in my life. I live across the street from Bevel. Yeah. I got Bevel there. I've got Grin' The Goat and 50 feet from me and I've got Bessie down the street. And it's a little weird because it's like,

I don't want to go out to a restaurant, A, because the guy's supposed to pay it. I'm not dropping 400 bucks. I know, man. For people that understand, LA is expensive. Oh, my God. I mean, the average date, if you just do a decent date, you're looking $3.50,400. Yeah.

I mean, I'll go to a Kings game. I'll have dinner afterwards. And, I mean, you got to think about, are you taking Uber or are you driving? If you don't have the hook up with the parking, that's $25, $30, and you still got to hike to get there. The King's tickets. I work with the Kings, so I have a deal with that, which is fantastic. But my seats are, what, a buck 50 apiece?

Yeah. Then you've got to go and have dinner. I went to a place, Paris, Tokyo, amazing, amazing sushi restaurant. It was like 35 bucks a roll. Oh, my God, dude. Yeah. Get out of here. That's just unacceptable.

Get out of here. I can't afford it. And, yes, you're paying for the food, for the atmosphere. I mean, there was a ton. It was a nightclub on steroids that would just serve food. It was incredible in the heart of Beverly Hills. I can afford that in a day-to-day-day-out thing. So cook.

Yeah, when you can cook like you can, why not do it at home? Do you have a favorite, favorite dish to cook? It all depends on I feel. Yeah, I love that. But it's kind of weird. It's like, you know, you meet a girls. I'm single now. Sure.

You made a girl, you know, come over and have dinner. We just met and they were coming over. No, no, no, no, no, no. I know that move like a little. I'm not a creep. I just rather cook. Yeah, plus you're going to love it. I would not agree more, man.

Because when you get to a point with cooking, too, with a lot of places, not every place, but I'm like, I'll cook a better meal than some of these restaurants. Oh, hands down. So let's save 80% of what we would have spent at the restaurant and make an awesome home-cooked meal. I'm so in with that. For what it cost me 400 bucks, would cost me 40. Yeah, exactly. So, dude, I mean, it feels like you've lived a million lives with all of these different jobs.

You haven't got to the movie stuff yet. I know. I can't wait. But before we get to that, but before we get to that, I want to talk about locker room 13. Okay. So, you know, just from outsiders' perspective, Nellie over here has started this company that basically takes all of your equipment, all of your gear, washes it, cleans it, sharpens it, updates it, puts it in the locker room for you when you're about to play a game, picks it up afterwards, completely removes the lugging and the nonsense of hockey equipment. Tell us about how you came up with this idea and then where it's going. Because it's like when we see it, you know, a lot of our listeners, people here play in L.A., they play at Toyota Center, so they've seen it. But for everyone around North America that listens, that's like this, I think this is one of the greatest ideas in the history of hockey. You know, I saw a guy on a motorcycle with a hockey bag on his back.

I go, that's not safe. No. Did he have his sticks tucked in? No, they were up. Like Leonardo with two swords on the show. Yeah, the big eye. Yeah. So they were vertical.

So I saw that. I was talking to a guy that had to catch a red eye flight. And he was like, dude, I Uber down here. And Toyota's right next to L.A. Yeah, right. He goes, what am I going to do with my gear? I this happens all I get a lot of my customers this way

oh I forgot my glove oh dude I didn't even think about that yeah yeah yeah I mean you just got stuff yeah so I have you know I have spare stuff I've got my own gear I don't know probably someone's used my gear go for it so stuff like that and then some guys

the big thing is it's L.A people got sports cars you can't put your hockey bag in your sports car and then after hockey go on your date with all the gear in the bag so I create this company Lockham 13 where we pick it up

we store, we clean, we inspect it, we sharpen your skates, delivered all that kind of fun stuff and then this thing called the pandemic hit. Yeah, perfect time. Let me tell you about launching a business during a pandemic and all the rings closed down and then all these little secret skates start popping up and I became the go-to guy for skate sharpening

business, you couldn't get your skate sharpened. All the stores were closed. And there were so many of those secret skates. Yeah, yeah. And then with a, getting the gear, guys are like, okay, great. Now, I don't drive the gear around California. I just deal with Toyota.

But, you know, we've got the Brookheimer group, the bad boys. We've got the CA group. We now have an NHL skate like myself, Danny Heatley, a bunch of guys skating that. That they're accustomed to a little higher standard. Boom. Well, this is my first customers right away. Yeah, perfect.

And that's how I launched into Lockham 13. I was still trying to figure out my business model what I wanted to do with it. So I want to work with kids? Is there adults? Is it barely what's going to happen? The less experienced players are my number one clients. Those are the ones that are like,

they want to feel like an NHL player. They want to be true like an angel player. Yes. I mean, the guys like Danny Heatley that are NHL superstars that obviously use my service. But some guys are just like, I've got a sports car. I don't want to leave my gear in there. I have a motorcycle.

I can't get to and from. I have single-handedly saved marriages because guys live in the Abikini. area and you know you can't put your stuff in the backyard. Dude. It's stolen. Gone. I was about to say another huge element of this that I think makes it so genius is,

think about everyone who lives in an apartment. Where the fuck do you keep your stuff? No, it stinks the whole place up. We've got guys who keep their shit in their trunk of their car all hours of the day. It gets disgusting, makes your car stink. And then, yeah, we've got one of our, I mean, you know Kit on our team. Of course. He left his stuff drying out at work down in Torrance at his office, stolen, right?

Like in the middle of the day. And it's like, you just eliminate all that. And that doesn't even get into, and this is something I was very curious about, is like, where you guys are expanding to other cities and things like that. Because I think about guys in New York who try to play. It's a nightmare. You ever get out on the subway with a hockey bag? Get out of here. No chance.

I cast a miracle. When I cast miracle, we did the auditions in New York. Yeah. And I'm like, how these people get here? And sure enough, I'm on the subway, you know, going to, uh, it wasn't Chelsea Pierce's another rink. And these people have hockey bags and sticks. I'm like, I guess they're going to the audition. And sure enough, they got the train.

with us, you walk a couple blocks, and there it is. I went out and looked at Chelsea Peers, and they've got a system where they have lockers, and they're charging a lot of money for these lockers, and they are sold out. Yeah, no doubt. But the problem is, and is the guy that gave the tour, it's like, this place stinks because the gear doesn't get washed.

Yeah. And here's the thing about beer league hockey. It's like, yeah, we all played hockey. It's all about before the game and after the game, tell stories, and it's called Beer League Hockey because we drink beer afterwards. How do you do that at Chosey hockey? appears because you might be in this wing over here, you might be in that wing over there, or some of the guy doesn't have a locker so everyone can all spread out all over the place.

Yeah. So you don't even get that experience. So you don't get that experience, yeah. So I flew out to New York, I looked at it, I had meetings, and I'm like, okay, great, I know how to do it, but I'm so busy right now with, you know, with the film production. Yeah. I just don't have time to do that. If things slow down, which, Derek's not going to let me, my agent will not,

I'd have slowed down. Good job, Derek. But, I mean, it's, I do want to expand now. I've got a strong line. Now I know how the business is supposed to run and what I want to do. And it's a lot of hands on at first to kind of get it going. I would need a good, you know, several, no, three, four months to get it locked in

to for it to, you know, to beat where I want it to be. I couldn't just go, here he is and let it run. Sure. Run a month because, you know, once again, if you mess up with it, it's a big issue. It's a real big issue. No doubt. And there's been some flaws. And we've learned, learned,

through trial and error, what works or doesn't work. And there's some stuff that definitely does work, some stuff that definitely doesn't work. Yeah. And when you have that miss, it stings a little bit because it's my business, my company, I don't and fail. Yeah. I mean, I do. There's nothing I'd be happier to plug because it's like, like I said, it is genuinely

genius. And it's, when you get through those trial and error periods and you figure out what does and doesn't work, that's when you just starts to take off. So it's so exciting to see it headed towards that direction. And it's, I mean, I was one man, it was a one man show. Yeah. And during COVID, it's okay, there's not much going on, but now I'm so busy with all the stuff that I'm doing,

as far as this film industry, I've hired two more employees. Oh, good, yeah. And the quality of life is incredible. Oh, that's true. I had two employees before, and they were younger kids, and they were great,

but, you know, at 18, 19 years old, you're kind of all over the map. Sure. And now I've got, you know, two guys. One plays junior hockey, another one works, works, you know, for the kings, per se. Yeah.

And, you know, in his off time, he's able to help me out, and he is so precise, and what he does and so excellent, as I can just, I can go to bed and sleep at night, wake up knowing that I'm not going to have any issues. Such a good feeling. Oh, it's great.

So you touched on Miracle, perfect transition into the whole entertainment world, which you were now completely immersed in. Yep. So you went into acting. You got roles on Baywatch, right? You were like doing stuff on Baywatch, Malcolm in the middle, bones.

And like, then you get Miracle. So everyone needs to know, like, what did you do on that? How was that experience? One of our favorite movies ever. So, of course. Bear no detail. We'll go through the Baywatch stuff.

Yeah, yeah. So I always had an interest in filmmaking. Sure. In front of the camera, behind the camera, just anything that's involved with it. And I got a call from a coach of mine who was the technical advisor. He did a lot of stuff. He was the me before me. And so I watched, his name was Jack White.

And I watched him very closely. He did, he was a technical advisor on the original Ducks movies. I was the skating instructor kid on the Ducks films. He was the technical advisor. Okay. And I always watched what he did very close. He's got a cool gig. He calls him up one day.

He goes, hey, Chris, I'm doing this, the TV show. Do you want to be? And I'm going to go, yeah, sure, absolutely. What I got to do? He goes, well, you got a report down to Santa Monica at the beach at 6 a.m. And we'll put you in a trailer, and there'll be wardrobe and stuff like that in there for you. And we'll come get you when we're ready. Okay, great.

Drive down there, 6 a.m. Sun's not even up yet. And it's freezing cold at the beach. And they go, Ms. Nelson, yes, okay, we're trailers right here. Feel free you go in. Like, okay, go to my trailer. I'm sitting around hanging out. About 7, 7.30, you can knock on the door.

and they go, Mr. Nelson, we need you on set. You ready? I'm like, yeah, I come out. And it is like, what, 60? Yeah. Of the most beautiful women. I've ever seen by the life. Yes.

And it was Baywatch. It was the first thing I've ever done. I go, this is awesome. How do I do more of this type of work? And I asked Jasmine Bleeth and I was Sandra Paul. I go, how do you do this? And they were like, listen, kid. I was young back then.

Of course. You got to get an agent. Oh, okay, an agent. Okay, great. Yeah, I'll do that. Thanks a lot. All right. Good talking, you guys.

Didn't know anything about the industry. Yellow pages, because there's no Google. There's no, hey, Siri, show me an agency. It was like, you kind of go through it. And I'm like, oh, this agency, Bobby Ball. So I look through Bobby Ball agency, and to make a long story short, I go down there, I don't know anything about it. He looks at me, he's like, you play hockey?

I'm like, are you good? It's like, yeah, I'm pretty good. Actually I am. I'm half decent. Since you know audition, national commercial, audition, callback, book it. Another audition, audition, callback, bucket. I go, this is great. It's great. It's so easy.

It's so easy. This is fantastic. And that's how it's kind of segued into it. So you go, you take that, then I did Batman and Robin, which was the Mark Hardy incident. Harpo was a great friend of mine, great coach, great player. He was my coach, my final season with the Blades, and I was late to practice one day because I had an audition. And he was like, what are you doing? I go, what do you mean?

He goes, why are you late? I go ahead and audition. I go to audition. Are you a hockey player? Or do you want to be one of these actors? I'm like, well. Love to be both. Actually, one of these actors.

It's roller hockey. Yeah. And we're playing the bullfrogs, and they're pretty good. And so we might not beat them. I didn't say that. I'm thinking we might beat them. He's like, well, you know what, Nellie? You're out.

Healthy Scratch. Okay, playoff game, healthy scratch. We lost. Yep. That was it. I go back to Batman and Robin, have another audition, and they go, you skate, amazing skate like a win. Do you know anybody else that skates like you?

I have a whole team. Yep. So I called up all the boys like, dude, guys, I just booked us a gig. Like, what do you got going on? Batman and Robin. What's that? It's a Batman. with Robin, it's a movie,

go, what do you mean? We're shooting at Warner Brothers. Get here. They all went up, they go, all approved, they're great. And I had all my boys, and we were doing Batman and Robin with George Clooney,

O'Donnell, Schwarzenegger, and we were zipping around. It was the biggest badass movie of the year. Kind of hokey when it came out. But we were studs. We were on the set of friends.

Clooney was so hot on ER. So we were just, we were all our Warner Brothers Because we had a black. It was a playground for us. Unbelievable. So did that. Now, cut to Miracle.

And now, I've been, I've done a bunch of commercials, TV shows and stuff. My career is kind of building. And I get a phone call and they go, hey, this is Chris? Yeah, Chris. Do you have any interest in doing a hockey movie called Miracle? I'm like, you mean like the 1980 team? Like, yeah, sure. Yeah, I love to do it.

Okay, great. Come down, we have meetings. I met them with the Shangri-Rah Hotel. Sure. And they go, great, we love your stuff. We're going to bring you in. you're going to meet with all the Disney people at the Lowe's Hotel. Great.

Next day? Perfect. Come in the Lose Hotel. And we're outside, you know, the conference room, they say, hey, Chris, you know, just ask a couple questions, you know, to Coach Brooks. He's in there and some other people. Who's the lead to that? Kurt Russell, thank you.

And Kurt Russell, you know, just like, we'll say how the report is going to go. Okay, okay, great, yeah, sure no problem. Now, they did their research, but I don't know if they already did their research research. So someone says, Mr. Nelson, I'll read it for you. I open up the door and there's a huge old table and you have all the heads and you have their assistants and their assistants assistants. This is Disney. This is a big deal.

And they go, okay, well, this is Chris Nelson. We're going to have them, you know, we're interested in having them as a technical advisor for a miracle. So, Chris, do you have any words you want to say? And I said, well, you know, I played some pro hockey, put some role hockey and did some stuff. They go, great. Do you have any questions, you know, for any of the? in the room, I go, yeah, Coach Brooks,

I have a question for you, and he looks up, and he looks to me kind of weird, and he's like, okay, what's this all? Yeah. And he goes, I know, Coach Brooks, where did you come up with the drop passes and the weave and the continual flow of motion with the skating? And everyone's like, you know, just kind of type in a way, not really paying attention. He goes, Nellie, you played for me in New Jersey.

You're a devil. I coached you. I coached you on the U.S. national teams, on the Select 16 teams. why are you asking that kind of question? I go, well, you and I know each other very well, but everybody else the room doesn't really know how he came up with that. He goes, well, what Nellie's talking about is,

and he went on this whole dialogue about what the question was about. Yeah. And everyone was like, oh, my God. Oh, shit. And Kurt Russell goes, oh, yeah, by the way, yeah, Katie, Nellie and him were great friends. He coached my son. Nell is cool with me.

He's great. Yeah. And they go, okay, great, thanks a lot. Chris, please step out of the room and we'll contact you in a moment. Just hang tight for a bit. Went outside. How long?

10 seconds later. So Mr. Nelson, when do you want to begin? Whenever. Okay, great. We have an office for you. All set up. It's on Arizona. We'll get stuff.

We'll kind of pick up your stuff and we'll get you all taken care of, get you all dialed in. Boom. That was it. Miracle. Unreal. Two years. Really? Of handpicking all those kids.

I mean, we handpicked for their looks, the way they shot, their accent, everything. Sure. The last player we got was the micro-referral. Peruzoni, Patrick Dempsey. Yeah. And we couldn't find a right, I'm sorry, left-handed Boston kid with that look. He was the last kid that came across.

Get out. And, you know, he was like, okay, great. So tell you about yourself. You know, he had the accent. He had the look. I was like, please, which way do you shoot? Yeah, come on. Was I shoot left?

Yes. Dang. Yes, we're like, you got it. I mean, well, hold on. Yeah. And that was it. And, I mean, just a magical. experience.

Whole time? The whole time. Yeah. And when I do a movie, TV shows are different. When I do a movie, I do so much pre-pre that when by the time

we get there, I'm just training the players of the plays. And so it's two-hour practice. Yeah. Cuba Gooder Jr. told me this once. He goes,

when you do a movie in Canada, you're going to be A from Los Angeles, B, let it be a hockey movie, C, be a hockey player, and we're at now, D was be someone that can make changes, make moves on it. I was that guy. Yeah.

Wisconsin was a great four years. When you have control of bringing in 4,000 extras, and who does extra, what's the time to do extra work? You're not in corporate, no Canada. you are a bartender, you are a waitress, you... A podcaster? A podcaster? And waitresses in Canada tend to be extremely attractive.

Earls on top, you know, all those restaurants. And I got to know everybody. I was literally the mayor of Vancouver. And I knew everybody. And my boss is like, dude, how do you do this? I go, the plays are done. All the hard work was done. I used to teach these guys.

where to go and the cameras or how to shoot and focal points and stuff like that. It was incredible. God damn. Incredible experience. And clearly you're still doing it because Yeah, so to fast forward a little bit, then the the hockey franchise

calls, the Mighty Ducks. And you get season two game changers on Disney Plus. You're doing the same stuff there, advising, taking them through hockey classes, hockey camp, choreographing all the scenes and everything. You're part of the Ducks canon forever, dude. This is legendary.

I had just shot your picture. of mine. Yeah. So we shot that, I think, in September. Then I did that huge T-Mobile commercial. Dude, by the way, I have a fucking gripe with you. Okay. I audition for that.

You didn't get it. No. Clearly not, dude. Clearly not. I had to do a vivid seats hockey commercial out because I didn't get that one. But like, I know when we're going up for the same hockey commercials and I, like, I find out Nelly's been there. I'm like, well, I'm not getting this one.

No, no, no. That's not true. because you and I aren't competing for the same job. That's true, actually. We could be in it together. They're never going to go, God, do we take a white guy? Let me ask you a question. It never happened.

Let me ask you. So for the listeners here, this is a T-Mobile commercial where you're like playing with a pool. Yeah, taking a face off. When you did your audition, what did you use as a pool? Did you have a pool noodle? You got to remember who you're talking to here, okay? I can write. Yeah.

I can direct. I know. I can edit. Oh, you son of a bitch. Oh, no, no. It gets, it gets, it gets, it gets, you're, you're, you're really going to be upset about this. So I call up a buddy of mine, Mark Huber,

I'm a really great friend of mine, and I go, hey, I got this audition. No, do you want to audition with me? He's like, yeah, sure, absolutely. I bring in background. I bring in pool noodles. I write storyboards, everything for this audition. It's going to say they didn't even shoot the commercials.

They just used his audition video. So we do the audition, send it in, book it, naturally. and the ad agency was like, who are you? Yeah. I go, what do you mean? He goes, we've never seen. And in our history of doing advertisements and audition that good.

I was like, I look at these things for a living. I mean, I look at a script and go, here's what the script means. Here's what it says. This is what they need to see. Done. And I just know instinctly how to do that. they went shot for shot my audition for the commercial.

Okay, I don't feel as much. I will show you my demo. Yeah, do it, please. You will see it now? No, no, no, show me after. It is literally shot for shot. Dan feels so defeated. No, I feel much better now because now that I know

that I just didn't work hard enough, I didn't put my reps in. I was like, how do I be more like that? But it's not even that. It's like I'm really good in the room, too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no doubt. He's that guy. Of course, the national championship, Wisconsin, no fifth round draft put by the doubles,

played pro, did this, all these things. And, you know, I'm really, really good in the room, and I'm really good at creating things that when I audition, people will literally wait for me. If it's a hockey audition, they know I'm going to be there. Yeah. They wait for me to show up. I sign in, and they sign in right after me.

Because they know, I'm not trying to take your job because it's never going to be you versus me. it's going to be either they want a black guy or they want a white guy, but nine times out of ten, it's both of us. And if you guys are competing for a job, you guys might be boys, but we're talking 40, 50, 60, 70, 80,000 dollars here.

Boys are boys, but you kind of want that new car. I'm going to take a gig. And you might kick him the shins one day. You know, I might step on his lines, whatever. Not consciously, but it goes in your mind. That's never in my mind. Because I'm doing everything I can to help. help out the person who I've auditioned with because

I know if I get a callback I've got a really good chance to get course because there's a callback that's on the ice that's skating. They already like me. That's a whole different thing. I'm going to tear it apart out there. So I'm just, I want to just make sure the person that's with me is cool

and comfortable. So I'll do everything I possibly can and I'll start going through actions with the person before we even do the auditions. Here's what we're going to do. It says there's going to be hit. This is going to happen. We're going to do this, we're going to do that. Okay, what's going to happen is I'm going to come at you hard.

You go down in our forest and I'll flip up over you because I'm a stunt guy. Yeah. And we're doing this in a room about this size. And I'll tell the, you know, the guy with the camera, go, look, try to keep it wide from here to here. He's like, dude, you're telling me what to do. I go out. Just where you're asking. Yeah.

It's like, okay, great. It's like, if you're here to hear and here and here's what we're going to do, it's like, okay, great. All right. So tell about yourself, slate the names, the whole thing, okay? And action. And we're tussing the boards, test the board, I take a step back,

I go after them, boom, head up heels, boom, land on my back. And the whole room's like, boom. Yeah. And he's like,

oh my God. What's our insurance policy? We got it. We got it purpose. He's like, they didn't sign to hold harmless. What happened here right now? But, I mean,

that's how these auditions work. Yeah. And, you know, usually anyone who auditions with me is going to get the job with me. And it's just, I have a ton of friends. And now that with my company,

with hockey for Hollywood, we've gotten so big now that they'll call me directly, they'll call CA directly. And, you know, they'll say, okay, we need 10 guys. And it's boom, 10 guys, here we go, right at the bat. And if they want to audition, they can audition them, but they don't really have to because I have real, I have tape on everybody.

Sure. So I have everyone's self-tape from all the stuff that we've done before because everyone's self-tape now due to COVID. So I have all their self-tapes. I have them skating. I have a file of everybody. And I can submit it and they go, great, great. We'll take those five.

Boom, done. And there go. That's it. Unbelievable. So, I mean, go from, you're working on Mighty Ducks right now. You're obviously in your place or mine. Netflix movie right now with Ashton Coochard and Reese Witherspoon. You've just touched on you.

You're doing all this stuff, right? What's the next frontier of everything you're already doing that you want to do more? Do you want to get behind the camera? Do you want to direct something next or what kind of calls to you the moment? And it tells more about hockey for Hollywood. Yeah, yeah. So the, it's really kind of weird because I've always been a camera operator because I write these plays and these scenes and I never got the credit for it. But who can skate full speed with a, you know, 40, 50-pound camera?

Forward, backwards, stop on a dime, can hold that thing up. Not many people can, and, you know, keep the proper focal length. Not many people can, so I've always been that guy. Who's the guy giving direction to where the players go? No, who's the guy giving the terminology of what they say? It's always, no, me. So there's a writer, there's a producer, this director, is always people, but I'm the one who's always kind of supporting them.

I never really got the credit for it, but I never really got the credit for it, but I'm the one. It's almost like an unpaid internship. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I've worked with Schumacher, Penelope Spiris, Guy Ritchie, Rama Mosley, Brasch McKenna, your place of mine.

I mean, it just goes on and on and on and on. It's just a list of people. Mark Pellington who did, you know, he did that Jeremy video with Pearl Jam. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I worked with him. He just did the video that I did a commercial with him. So I know, I've watched the study to all these people.

So I know how to do it. I just never got the credit because of unions. You know, you got to be a local 600, the GGL and stuff. It's nuts. And now I've done so much work that people are like, hey, you know what, we're going to have you be a producer. We're going to push for you to be a director. We're going to have you do this, that.

And so now all these doors are really opening up for me, which is incredible. So, yeah, I want to produce. I've already produced. I'm basically a production company which is hockey for Hollywood. No, I want to direct. The problem having with the directing is it's hard to let that hockey go. I bet. The technical advising because, you know,

I'm directing a movie, not trying to brag, but who's going to do that hockey stuff the way I do it in my vision. Yeah. So it's going to be tricky because I've got, you know, a project coming up that I can't really announce, but I'll be, I'll be directing that. So that's going to be a hurdle that to come over. I'll just have to, you know, prep all that stuff way in advance to, like, literally, like, here you go.

Yeah. It's right here for you. You can't mess it up. For sure. Because I'll be concentrating with this stuff over here. You just make sure the hockey guys are all set, good to go. Because when I call action, we're rocking and rolling. Yeah.

And so that's, that's the, it's a hurdle I need to kind of kind of fight through to get over. Yeah. But I've been doing it for so long. But I mean, all the other stuff, I've been doing it, God, since 96. Yeah, it's not. Yeah. For a long, long time. Dude, wave us in.

We'll take care of the technical shit. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, sure. Fucking love it. All right, well, dude, before we let you go, we want to play a game. We play with all our guests. Okay. It's called pass shoot score.

Yep. What we're going to do is we're going to present you with three things. Okay. That we know are something in your life that you have an opinion on, or really enjoy. Emily Roderkowski. Doi Zollada. That's a different game.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll do that one later. Like kill, Mary. Yeah, yeah, Mary. Well, it's kind of like that. So it's kind of like that. Pass is going to be one that, you know, it's like making pass around the ice.

That's good. But we don't love it the most. Shooting, that's more where it's at. That's how you get on the score sheet. And then scores the ultimate goal. So it's going to be in that order of ranking. Okay. All right.

All right. First one. Nope. TV shows. Okay. Pass, shoot, scores. Ozark, Homeland, Narcos. God, you guys are tough, dude.

Tough. My first acting gear was with Jason Bateman. Was it really? First acting gear, yeah. On what? TV show called Simon. Wow, that's awesome. So as Jason Bateman, him and I are in our scenes,

you know, doing our dialogue together. So pretty close to him with Ozark. Then you've got Narcos, which, one of my Bellman that is on that show when I was the W he said hey

you know I was his boss he was his direct report he's like hey I've got this TV show can I get a couple months off and HR was like

no he's got to work he's got to say like he's a Belman he's also an actor do you think he's going to stay here to be a Belman when he's actually booked a gig so yeah

the gig he booked was Narcos so that's pretty close to me he was he had a character I don't know what his name was in the character it wasn't one of the leads was one of the support guys sure sure but he was

he's like the guy next to the guy it has all his lines and I think he was in Narcos it wasn't Norcos Mexico's they have like four different scenes yeah yeah yeah correct he was one of the guys that didn't get killed okay I think

I forgot what the character's name but he had a huge role in that one that's awesome so he did that one great so Narcos is close to me what was the third one Homeland. Okay, so Homeland. Story about that one.

Oh, yeah, hit me. We'll go to that one. You'll like this one. The lead actor, help me out here, guys. Damien Lewis. No, no, no, no, the president. Oh, not Homeland, sorry. I was thinking about House of Cards.

Oh, oh, Specy. Yeah, so. I'll take a Bacy story for you. On camera, too, actually. We'll do a speech of story. So Homeland, I got Showtime just for Homeland. Yeah, same. Which was incredible.

I saw you say that you were canceling showtime once Homeland ended. You were like, all right, I'm done. Yeah, yeah. Had been back since. Yeah. I mean, Homeland was incredible. Yeah. I got to say score, score, score.

Okay. First time ever. That is the first time ever. I have to go because. Just love them all? Hands down. Yeah. I've watched, you know, some shows.

I'm a huge, huge, huge watcher, but I've watched Ozark. three times. Yep. I've watched House of Cars. I mean, I've watched Ozark three, four times.

I've watched all of them. Yeah. Yeah. You got good taste. It was nice. You got those three. I was like nice. Yeah.

I mean, it was those are the, if you haven't watched those shows, you gotta watch the show. You got to put them on your list. Yeah, you have to. You're an idiot not to. Okay, so that's a score, score, all right.

So your next one, we're going transportation around L.A. Yep. And others. All right, pass shoot score. Flying first class in Delta. Ripping a scooter around L.A. on a nice sunny day. Okay.

Or driving around in a 74 Ford Bronco. You guys do your research. Okay, 74 Ford Bronco. Love the car, beautiful car, convertible. Thing broke down all the time. That's what I've heard. That's what I've heard. All the time.

I bought that thing for $15,000. I put another $7,000 into it sold for $38,000. Let's go. Love it. Gone. How did Woodstock? Are you passing that one? Well, I just bought a Defender 110.

Oh, shit. And having it completely rebuilt with a Corvette engine inside of it. Oh, shit. Oh, shit. So we might pass the Bronco. So, how did Woodstock get his name? Woodstock. I think it was my wife the time.

I think she called the Woodstock. Okay, cool. Yeah. She thought Woodstock could go, that's fitting. Sounds good. Run with it. So I got to pass on the Bronco.

Great car. And there's some satisfaction from passing. Yeah, absolutely. Someone scores? Yeah, it's not a terrible. It's not terrible. It's a little apple. So, yeah, we'll pass the Bronco.

Okay. What was the next one? Scooter in, round to L.A. in a sunny day, and then flying first class, Delta. Okay. The scooter on a sunny day, I don't know where you guys got that one from.

But I live in the arch district, scooting around. You're scooting around all the time, yeah. It's super. I went on an amazing date. A scooter date? A scooter date. Yes. Do I have to add scooter dates?

Maybe. Yeah. Because, I mean, you can't take two scooters. Yeah. You go with one scooter. You got to go tandem scooter. Went on a tandem scooter. Amazing, amazing experience.

Can't get any details with that one. Okay. Fair. We'll do that all fair, off there. Absolutely amazing, amazing experience. and then we have flying first class on Delta. Delta comes from, I was a huge United person, huge United fan.

Okay. This is what I'm curious about. Yeah. Flew to Moscow. And if you haven't been to Russia, Russia has some of those beautiful women in the world. But I wasn't there for the women I was there because I was playing hockey. Yeah. And I was playing hockey, like, organized hockey, is playing hockey because the owner of Gazprom.

Uh-huh. It was worth about $38 billion. Like, hey, come on out and play hockey. Sure. Let's do that. So I came out and played hockey, which was an incredible experience. And on the way back, I had, you know, some vodka and stuff, you know, from Russia. Yeah, they're taking care of you.

And, you know, in the airports, you walk, before you walk in the airport, they scan your bags for bombs, stuff like that. And then you take your bags and you put them on this belt and you check in. They go, okay, great. Okay, fantastic. How many bags are you checking? I'm checking these two bags and have this carry-on, which has nothing. in it. Yeah.

No. Never. Let's check my stuff. Okay, great. Shoo! Bags go. And she goes, okay, you owe $518 because your bags are overweight. I go, what do you mean?

They're overweight? Well, they were overweight by so many kilograms. I'm sorry. You don't do kill around. Yeah, I have no idea what that means. And they go, here's this, you need to go pay this to go on your plane. I go, I have an empty backpack. I had boots in there.

Yeah, yeah. I could have taken, you know, 30 pounds. that would easy been fine. She goes, well, the bags are now gone. You can't retrieve them back. And that was with a united partner. And I go, okay, fine. Never again.

Yep. And I burnt through all my United Miles, and then I became a Delta guy. Delta, it's a priceier airline, but it is the premier airline. Okay. And with the America Express card that I have entrance into the Delta Sky Lounge.

Let's go. dude. I've been, yeah. Oh, I've been in the Delta skyline. Just live there, dude. I go to Sun Valley, Idaho, four or five times year. There's a direct flight in United

that goes right to Sun Valley. No, no, no, no, no. I take Delta. And I fly first class because I was 290-some thousand miles with Delta and all the points and stuff. I'm a platinum premiere or whatever member, which is phenomenal.

I'll tell you that story. So you connect? So I connect to go from L.A. to Salt Lake, because the lounge and Salt Lake is incredible. I was going to say extra long layover on purpose. He's like, find me the eight-hour laggy move. No, I actively get the layover so I can go to the Salt Lake lounge. And Sun Valley is a great, it is a great fun party town. And Bobby Fairly goes there all the time.

And him and our boys, we're family, Bobby, myself. And so he's always there. And I always go to visit Bobby there and all the bars. Sure. Do you do Delta International ever? Like, are you flying? Oh, yeah, I'm Delta. If it's not Delta, it's Air France.

It's one of the partners. So I'm always out of the KLM, Korean Air, whatever may be. Let's go. The Delta Sky Lounge has an open bar. Oh, let's go. We need more of those in our lives. I'll take the 9 a.m. flight

so I get my breakfast at LAX and then I'll have like a three-hour layover in Salt Lake. and just get polluted. Because vacation has started. Oh, yeah. And Sun Valley, it's like Vegas. You don't need a car. You're an idiot to have a car there.

All right. Next one, a little comfort food, little cheat meal. Okay? Pass you'd score. Popeye's chicken, in and out burger, grumpies and catch them.

Popeyes, because I'm black? No, because you like it. I saw you posted a cheat meal on Popeyes. We scared your social media. I love watching the expression on people. It's like when people say, people, I've done a gazillion interviews and they go, So Chris, what's it like being a black hockey player? I've never been a white one.

Yeah, I couldn't tell you. I wouldn't know anything else. I don't know what the Popeye's thing came from. Chicken's chicken. It is what it is. Okay. It's expensive. It's too expensive.

Yeah. A KFC, Popeye's churches. That stuff's a. expensive. Too expensive. And I don't even cook it. I just said, that's not my,

that's not my jam. So that's, pass that. Not even pass. Not even pass. Healthy scratch. Healthy scratch. That's a dump in the corner.

Yeah. That's a dump in the corner. Dump and a potpice chicken stock just went to the toilet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Out on Popeyes. So that one's done.

Next one. In and out burger. And then your third one. In Out burger, I've had it too much. Okay. I think it's overrated. Uh,

I like it. He didn't like Derek, you don't like that answer. You, wait, you do like it? Derek's my agent over there in the side, Derek's kind of hanging out, listen to every single word going, God, don't say this stupid, don't say it's iconic. You don't like in and out? It's so overrated.

It could be overrated, but it's still good. That's true. I just, I think, it's like, I'll go to a window or I'll go to high ho. It's so much better. Sorry? Here's, here's my in-and-out thing, okay? The burgers, okay, the fries don't like them at all. We need it.

What? I hate your trash. The burger is good. No. But I'm telling you. It's like the only place that does cheese fries. Tell you.

What are you talking about? I'll take you to get better cheese fries anywhere else in this city. Oh, it's garbage. You get another empty promise. When I was in hotels and I'm looking for employees, I poached in an out burger like no other. That's so smart.

Their team is so nice and so well trained and so respectful. So if you need to poach employees all. They work hard. I mean, in-out hooks them up. I was going to say, I read that it's one of the top fast food chains for employees.

Yeah, it's really nice. They take care of them, but they have the best employees. But they deserve it. And if you need to fill, if you need to fill a spot and front desk or something like that,

in and out, you poach in and out because their employees are so well trained. So kudos in and out for their employee retention and their train procedures. It is great. That's awesome. Burger is, eh, fries.

No, thank you. I've had too much. Yeah. But, yeah. That's a I'll shoot that one Okay, it got shoot Grumpies

Yeah Give me the secrets too What do you get? Tell me about it. Tell me about it. Yeah, Grumpies is It's like a religious experience

Oh wow Wow You You don't need to have to be hungry And you go to grumpy I know exactly what you do. And it's not just the burger It's the chicken burger

It's the fries I go to October Fest every single year. Dude. Every year. You guys want to go to October Fest? I was right about to say, what are you doing next year for

Hartfest? And what do we have to do to come with you and fly Delta the first class? What's a start date on that one? Is October 22nd? Is that pre-production or is that when we're filming?

Pre. Pre? Okay, so October Fest is, I think, the 20th, 21st of September. Yeah, that's right. If I'm not in pre-production, I'm not filming, I am there. Okay.

You guys want to go? I was going to say, I'm marking that. Roll with me. Yeah. because I've been to Germany a ton of times. I know what flight to take. I know how to get from the airport to the hotel. I know what hotels stay in.

I know what tent to go to. I have a table. Yeah, we're going. I know where to get the clothes. You get the clothes. It's a place across from Costco in Huntington Beach. I forgot the name of it. But they have authentic German leaderhosa.

I'm in, dude. I hear the Delta Sky Lounge in Munich is fucking fine. that's that's that's that's that's that's a looseanza yeah oh yeah so it's like lan i'm not i'm not drinking air no do not pre-party at october christ you be dead you'll you will die there you'll be left to be buried there i i i can do five maybe six and i'm good yeah because i i'm never good math, but how many ounces are there in a liter? Oh, no idea. Three and a half? Three and a half.

There's three and a half beers, I think, in a liter. Oh, okay. Yeah, that sounds more right. Like something like 30 something. Yeah, something like that. And there's 33.814 fluid ounces in a liter. Pretty good. That's pretty good, Ellie. Not bad. And their beer is stronger.

Oh, yeah. So if you drink a liter of Budweiser, you're bloated, like, oh, I'm done. This stuff is like, not that I've ever had it, but crack. And it's like a Red Bull and a beer. And the beer is cold. It tastes fantastic. You put one of those down and like, oh, it's on.

Yeah. And you're in, at first you feel weird because you're wearing like a Halloween costume. Yeah, you got a leaderhosen on. You crush two steins and you're crinkled already. And then, here we go. And two or three. And then the kids leave, the younger kids. It's the family at first.

Yeah. The adultist people, the 60s and 70s, they're gone. 18s and below, they're gone, and it's just us. Yeah. And then... And then... Purple rain comes on. And you hear these...

And then all bats are off. You hear these Germans sing purple rain. Yeah. And Abba comes on and, you know, dancing queen and people are singing and dancing. So the beer makes it. Grumpy's beer is off the chain. Damn. It is just like October Fest. And they give you these little half-liter things.

But you go there for the... burgers, you go there for the beer, you go there for the fries. It's a trifectar right there in the atmosphere. Yeah, that's a perfect. It is a no, it is a hole in the wall place. I mean, I have a license plate. I gave them my soul on ice. Yeah. License plate is up there. It's right next to Bobby Fairley's dog from something about Mary in the full, in the full cast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When you throws a dog out the window, the next shot, it's the cat, the dog's cast. That dog is at grumpies, and my license plate is right next to it. It is there. So you got to hit grumpies.

Yeah. It sounds like, hits every time. Every time. Yeah. It's, you land, like I land, I go right from the hotel,

I go put the bags upstairs, quick change of clothes. Hey, can I get rid to grumpies? Yeah. Right to grumpies and it's game on. So that's the easiest. Yeah. All right.

Your last one, to round it out, pass you'd score. Your Mighty Ducks high tops? Mm-hmm. Frozone from the Incredibles. or Hungarian police

okay I don't know where the frozen comes from I don't know where the Hungarian police comes from no not police the dog

oh police okay I was like yeah police so uh the no Hungarian cop

yeah yeah yeah I was like right no it comes out the story he's been arrested in Hungary

before they're so nice who's the guy in Romania that got busted what's his name the oh

um Antoine antony whatever yeah he's the guy has like women should be this and shit

oh yeah uh fuck uh Andrew Andrew yeah Andrew yeah yeah yeah

so yeah he yeah yeah we'll skip him you'll skip that one okay pass um um so past eight

um so the ducts uh dunks were a gift for me for Mark okay because he's like

they are fire yeah he's like we'll post a photo of that because they are so he's like dude thanks a lot man you hooked me up this is a big

gig. He goes, I grew up with the mighty ducks. And he showed me a picture of him. He must be like three years old. And he had a duck's jersey on. And he's like, dude, this is a dream come true. My parents cannot believe I'm doing this show. This is for you. It got me a pair of ducks. I was like, dude.

Let's go. Do I wear them or do I have the cast, sign them? Yeah. What'd you do? I wore them once or twice, but they're sitting on a shelf. They're there. Yeah. And it's like, I think that's smart. Yeah. You got to archive those. You can't, you can't do anything with those. No, no, no, no, can't.

So they're like special occasions. Yeah, yeah, no doubt. First day on a set, okay, boom, all right in action. That's it. Those shoes go right back in the box. Yeah, yeah. So that's a definite score of the dunks. Then we've got the Hungarian pulley.

Yeah. I used to have dreads back of the day. Dude, you had, when you were on Miracle and the roller hockey picks, you got that flow. So why not get a dog that matches your hair? Yeah. So those that don't know, Hungarian pulleys are those dogs that look like mobs. It looks like a mob.

They look like a walking mob. They grow dreads. And talking about myself and that dog walked down the street, whoo. I mean, you're getting stopped by every human eat out. Yeah, and then I got married.

Yeah. So, and my ex, my ex, she's a wonderful person. Yeah, just didn't work out. She's an incredible person.

We have two beautiful kids. Yeah, yeah. We're co-parenting. Her and I could not be any happier right now. I love that. It's an incredible. even during like the separation with the trial, the judge goes,

you guys get along so well. You should write a book on how to do this. You're sure you want to do this? Yeah. You should stay together. Yeah. She was just like, the judge was like,

this is, you guys are incredible. Yeah. I mean, that's awesome. I get along great with her family. I get along great with her. And the kids are great.

It's, it's just didn't work out. Yeah. That was what it came down to. Yeah, she said, you get too much attention. Cut your hair off. Cut the hair off.

That was it. And I was losing a little bit till. I was like, okay, great, yeah, sure, whatever. Did it. But I still have the dog. Yeah, exactly. I can't walk more than five feet. I believe it.

Oh my God, I like a dog. Cars stop, accidents, you know, people honking horns. I mean, the dog's incredible. And I found that dog on a random website somewhere in Sioux City, Iowa. And I hopped on a plane and flew from L.A. to, it wasn't Sioux City. That was like somewhere, whatever state was next to it. and read the car drove down there, met with the dog,

loved the dog, drove back, hopped up the plane and flew back. And that dog and I were inseparable. Amazing. And that dog eats so much attention. Yeah, so much attention. So that's a definite, that's a top shelf water bottle. Yeah. I love that.

Right away. And was it was one more in there? Yeah. It was frozen from the Incredibles. And I'll tell you why. Okay. So Dan and I, we have Disney Plus, right? And when he goes on, you can pick a profile.

Yes. And Dan loves Wally. So when he goes on, I see Little Wally for Dan. And I love Ratatooie, so there's a little rat right there. And you posted an awesome picture of you and your kids watching Disney Plus, and I saw your dad icon was Frozo. It's Frozen. It's Frozen. It's so awesome.

I will be, I guarantee you 100% for Halloween. I will be Frozen for Halloween. I was open for, I was going to ask that. I would definitely be Frozen for Halloween. Yeah. I mean, I've done Spider-Man for my kids' birthdays. I've done that, I've done the Moana thing. You did Mario?

Yeah, I've done it all. Yeah. I will be Frozen for Halloween one day. So good. I just can't find a costume. Yeah. So they're hard to find. I feel like with the connections that we just got to hit up a costume designer and be like,

make me a Frozone costume. Oh, yeah. 100%. We'll get you the glasses, the helmet. And you absolutely have to get a video. Where's my super suit? There it is, dude. Cruising down the ice.

The lack of costume is perfect at first. Oh, shit. I love that. I will make that happen. That would be another triple score. Yeah, yeah. I love that movie so much. So when I saw you with Frozen,

and I was like, oh, that's perfect. That movie's great. So good. Why it takes so long for the second one to come out? I have no idea either. It's one of those things that's like, well,

something else recently. I mean, Toy Story 3 took forever to come out. Sometimes they just take the time. All right. Now, dude, we've taken up like two hours of your time. I got nothing to do. But before, I love it. He's like, I had over five more hours.

I had like nine scripts to read. Yeah, God. I got to get to that. The busiest guy, I know. I have directors calling, hey, so what do you think the character development? I'm like, oh, God. I just had shoulder surgery.

So I'm still a little bit whacked out right now, but I'll get to that tomorrow. It's my painting. The more turning arm to the script. In the background, it's like I have the scripts that read to me. Yeah, dude, that's a thing. Dude. Open chapter one. Yeah.

Chapter one, we see Derek run down through the forest. I'm like, oh, I can't use that. Excuse me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, well, but before we go, dude, do you have anything you want to plug? Anything you want to say, mention to the listeners before we bounce out of here? No, dude. I mean, like, honestly, the last year has been absolutely incredible.

I mean, I've had, I've had a great life, and I'm very fortunate, and I know I'm very fortunate. Because some people with Arnold's don't have the same opportunities that I have, and I literally bust my ass for everything. And my one message to people is like, you know, I've seen this with some of my peers and some my friends, is that, am I successful? Yeah, I'm successful. Am I happy? Yeah, I'm happy.

But I worked my ass off. And I've been through the trenches with stuff. I just I'm working This movie I'll be directing I worked on the script And I can't announce it yet Yeah sure

But I'll let you guys know when it does come out And the writer It's a story that's been You know, in Detroit The whole thing, these hockey players And the writer and I have spent And hours and hours and hours And he said

Is there anything you could add to this From your experiences I told them some of the stories I went through with hockey being black And he's like you've got to be kidding me. Like, no, this happens. Yeah.

And he put those stories in the movie. Let's go, dude. So, I mean, you think of like, you've ever seen Precious? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Precious hits hard. Oh, show ahead.

It hits hard. This movie doesn't hit us hard because I don't want to, like, crush the audience. I don't want to come out with tears in their eyes of sadness. But the stories that I told were so true to form. And I always hope that the storytelling that I've done, that can help out people that have watched me, that have grown to see my progress

who don't even know who I am yet, but are going to follow me at some point in time that no matter how hard it is that you're going through, no matter all the BSA have you gone through, it's going to get better, it's always out there, it's always worse with somebody else out there, and it's really not that bad.

You're going to be able to get through it because I've been through it. I mean, I've seen friends get shot and killed. I've had friends overdose on drugs. I've, friends, you know, lost your limbs because of drugs. I've, I've had friends that talked to on a Tuesday, and they're gone on a Thursday. I've lost both my parents. I've gone through divorce.

I've gone through financial, you know, situations. And I just put my head down and said, look, you're going to find a way to make it. And I've made it. And this is literally the happiest I've ever been in my entire life. I've won national championships. Yeah. I've met several presidents. I've been in the Oval Office.

I've traveled all over the world. I've been the face and personality of hotel franchises. I've done some crazy, crazy stuff. This year has hands down been my favorite year. That's cool. That pumps me up so much, dude. This dude here is killing it for me. You know, Derek, the CIA is absolutely killing it for me

because I used to have to negotiate my own contracts. Yeah. And I came up with them with an idea. I said, look, you know what? it's hard for me to do these things because I have to negotiate my contract and then the guy I'm fighting over, you know, dollars with I have to see on set the next day.

It's not comfortable. What Derek has done for me has literally changed my life. He's done stuff that I never thought that I could ever possibly do. Or if I could do it, it'd take me another 20 years and be in my 70s at that point in time. He's like, what do you think if we do this? I go, yeah, great.

He's like, yep, yo, we got it. Doing it next month. But he does in a way, it's like, how's your day going? My day's going well. So a couple things for you. So you have a podcast meeting today. You booked this and you're producing this movie. Okay.

All right, great. So I'll see you today at 3.30. Yeah. What? You're like, wait, wait, let's backtrack. I'm doing what? Yeah, that movie we discussed that, you know, we discussed that you read the script for you. You're producing that now.

Huh. Okay. And here's your contract. Oh. Ooh. Okay. Ooh. I like that point.

I might not, I might be able to afford to go to a restaurant now. Those, uh, those zeros are really big decimal points, right? Those aren't extra zeros. Holy shit. Well, stick tap to Derek, dude. Yeah. And congrats. Like Dan said, man, haven't known you for a few years now.

It's been so fun watching you and rooting for you for this process, dude. So just keep crushing it. And I got something down the pipeline that I got to bring these guys in on. 100%. Okay. Let's go. Yeah. We might have a little audition in March.

Sick. Let's go. And I cannot tell you what it is. Okay. That's fine. It'll be the craziest thing you guys will ever be a part of. I love that. You're going to be like, dude, this is unreal.

Unreal. And I cannot tell you what it is. That's okay. I've never signed more NDAs on this thing. They're literally like, you're going to have an audition for this, and everyone has to sign the NDA. But we can't tell them what to sign the NDA for. What? Just take my word on this.

Oh, I will do. If you get a phone call, if, it's when you get a phone call. I'm like, here's what we're doing, me at this location. You're not auditioning against me.

Yeah. That was my next question. I was going to ask that. All right, now I'm loose. I'm ready. You're going to get it. Yeah.

You're going to get it. I'll put a blindfold on inside. Hell yeah. And you're going to be like, this is the first time I swore this whole podcast. Are you fucking kidding me? Mom,

this is what I'm, fucking doing right now. It is, it's not a movie, it's not a TV show, it is something that will gain you 10 billion followers on Instagram

once you post what it is. It is gonna be insane. I love it. And it came across me randomly and I pitched to Derek and Derek ran with it. And he's like, so, yep, we're gonna do this,

you can do that. And here's what's gonna happen. I'm like, you've got to be kidding me. And it's really gonna happen. and it has never been done in the history of sport. Anything. Never has.

Yeah. Wow. That's fucking sick. Yeah. What a perfect way to close us out. All right, dude, well, I can't wait for that.

Same. But this has been unbelievable, dude. Thank you so much for coming on. My pleasure. I shake my left hand. Yeah, yeah. Get you in the back hand. That's great stuff.

All right, man. Good shit. Yeah, thanks for that time. We'll see you next time. This is absolutely awesome. Your research is impeccable. Oh, thank you, dude. You missed a couple things that,

thank God. That's up too. That's the next time you come back. And oh, there was my phone. My phone got lifted and every phone number has now been stolen from these guys. Awesome. Here we go.

All right, guys, let's go. This is awesome. Hell of you, that's nice. Thank you.