Empty Netters Podcast - What It Takes To Be Hockey’s Fiercest Competitor w/ Chris Pronger

Episode Date: April 7, 2026

Chris Pronger is even more of a legend than you think! He gives an incredible interview with the guys, telling epic stories and teasing his new book. Patrick Roy is fired with days left in the season in a shocking move. The Flyers are in a playoff spot!!! Dan thinks guys need to change the way they pee. Beer league snipes need to stop doming goalies. And when should you fire your coach?  Chapters: 0:00 - Intro 03:58 - Patrick Roy Fired 17:30 - Wild Card Update 36:40 - Hot Ice - Sid and Martone 40:04 - Chris Pronger Interview 1:57:55 - Puerto Rico Trip/Pee Problems 2:18:59 - Beer League Hotline 2:23:47 - Blind Ranking When To Fire A Coach PRESENTED by BetMGM. Download the BETMGM app and use code “NETTERS” and enjoy up to $1500 in bonus bets if you lose your first wager! Thanks to our Sponsors! BetMGM: Use bonus code NETTERS when signing up to receive up to $1500 in bonus bets if your first bet loses. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER (Available in the US) 877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY) 1-800-327-5050 (MA), 1-800-NEXT-STEP (AZ), 1-800-BETS-OFF (IA), 1-800-981-0023 (PR) 21+ only. Please Gamble Responsibly. See BetMGM.com for Terms. First Bet Offer for new customers only. Subject to eligibility requirements. Bonus bets are non-withdrawable. In partnership with Kansas Crossing Casino and Hotel. This promotional offer is not available in New York, Nevada, Ontario, or Puerto Rico. With CarGurus Discover, you can skip the filters and describe what you're looking for in your own words. Simply type what you want, and CarGurus Discover instantly surfaces real listings that match your exact needs. Buy or sell your next car today with CarGurus at cargurus.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Empty Netters podcast. Can you believe what this has become? There was a full 48 hours where I felt like I was like literally Superman. Jumbo loves playing Fortnite, so he gets on the sticks. Did TR show you the sauna cycle, or was that all year? No, no, I invented that. Almost a year now that I haven't taken a body check. That's kind of nice.

So we are back. We are horned up, and we are going deep. Finish tonight with some chicken fingers and a few guineasas and ran into you guys. That's where this pod came to life. Ice is ready, and we are back with another episode of the Empty Netters podcast brought to you by BedMGM. I'm your host, Dan Powers, over here rocking one of the best jerseys you'll ever see. Malkin in the flesh, wait, no, that's Dr. Watkins. I am score.

I had a set. You got a hat trick this weekend, man. It might be one of the last ones. You guys pumping in goals, bro. That's kind of sad to think about. You guys scoring 20 goals a game. It's getting ridiculous, and it makes me scare. It makes me afraid for an eventual down turn.

I am scared. I am scared. I am scared. Anyway, yes. Good to be here. Beautiful, beautiful stuff. And over here, he's going to hate to hear it, but it's time for another haircut. Chris Powers.

I literally thought you had just gotten your haircut, actually. You had, and it looked great, and now it looks fine. And then it's going to look better. No, worse. It goes like this. It goes great, right when I get it cut. Oh, it's like weird. No, it literally just goes downhill.

No, weird. And then it goes, oh, great. Every centimeter it grows, you look worse. And then it goes, oh, weird. And I'm mentoring that again. And then, dude, wait do you see. Then it really goes. Then it goes homeless, homeless. Oh, no. Oh, no. It does get there. It does get there. Oh, no. He's leaving out one more great. There's one more great. Are you going to put him on queer eye or something? Is this is this happening? Could you imagine? Also, as a boys would fucking, they would, they would geek over the opportunity to dress Chris better, to give him a better hairstyle.

I see this could happen. This could happen. That would be special. God, dude. That would be nothing. Think about what Jonathan would do to your hair. You want to talk about a midform, dude? Holy shit.

That would be unbelievable. We've got a great episode for you today. Madness. Going on in the NHL, more coaching fires. We've got debuts. We've got wild card updates. And then Chris Pronger. Stanley Cup winner, gold medal winner, everything winner.

New author. Bang. Come on. joins the pod. Can I read you something? Yeah, read the note. Empty Netters. Appreciate you being a part of my journey, your friend, Chris Pronger, Hall of Fame, 2015.

Bang. Ball. What a cool guy. He is the guy. He can't wait for you to hear it. Dude, and he came in on a Sunday. He sure did on Easter. He's doing the tour, you know, his brother's down here.

He was doing all kinds of stuff. Dude, he pops in, coffee, a couple waters, just chopping it with the boys. Yep. No hesitation, no nothing. Could have done it for hours. He made a joke after where he goes, he was like people don't a lot of times people meet me and go i can't i didn't realize you were so tall and he goes it says six six and the thing you know it's not like this was a secret no one's

been lying about my height this not trying to trick anyone yeah so but you know what dude he tricked me because even with knowing very well i mean i was just telling evan this was uh this was a geek out episode for me a little bit and i was kind of like you know you forget how much you you love to play her i And sitting with him, just chit-chat. And I was like, this guy's the fucking man. And even with that, I was like, I knew how big you were, but he's a big six-six. But what I was going to say is, I would have seen in a person.

I would have been terrified to play here. Oh, dude. Like, we were joking about Troy Terry having no hits. And I'm like, I can go in the corner with Troy Terry all day. You couldn't pay me. There is not an NHL salary big enough to pay me to go in the corner with Chris Progn. Absolutely. Legend.

Can't wait for you to hear it. We got a beer league hotline to wrap things up. let's jump on into the hot ice Paddy Wah Paddy Waugh gassed by Matthew Darsh and the New York Islanders

stunning stuff we thought it was crazy that Bruce Cassidy got fired with eight games left try six games left hold my fucking beer dude try that that's insane it's like there's gonna be one game left

somebody's gonna get fired yeah dude I said so the first thing I thought was interesting. Actually, let's just talk about Paddy Wah for a second. Paddy Wah pretty interesting because when he first became a coach, I was like, oh, wow, he might be just the right time type of crazy to be a coach. And then it kind of didn't work. And I was like, oh, damn, that would have been cool. I really like when legends become like

GMs, good GMs and coaches. I know. Across sports too. Like, I love it with with European football, baseball, baseball, not so much. I don't care. Yep. like at basketball I think JJ Redick being coach is sick I do think that's good I don't know if he's that good I don't watch that much

Lakers ball but I like Steve Kerr another one former player great coach yeah yeah so I was like this is cool

then Patty Waugh gets the islander's job and I was like sick yeah Lou loved him and maybe this will work and it kind of wasn't working

but whatever but then this year happened and I was like it was okay but I was like nice and then and then this happens So he went 97, 78 and 22 in three seasons after taking home for Lane Lambert, who was fired on January 20th, 2020, 24.

But the Islanders have lost a season high four in a row and seven of ten since March 18th, which again is obviously a stumble here, but not like the... It's not like that. Is it like, do we need to panic this hard? So that's interesting. Okay, now I want to say this. when Cassidy got fired and it was Torts and we were talking about that here like what do you think about the Torts thing?

I said, well, I think it mattered that Torts was the assistant coach on USA and Jack had made some comments that he liked having him around that's a factor. And I think a guy like Dibor who has to be the top choice out there isn't going to take a job with eight games left because he'd go, I'll just wait till the summer firings and I can really see what I want.

Yeah. And then banged, DeBore. Unless an opportunity like the New York Island comes about. So that's my question. Like, is this the team that you're like, oh yeah, this is what I would have taken if I waited? To me, yes. I was shocked by this firing. Obviously, the stumble losing four in a row, three and seven in your last 10, and you have now fallen out the playoffs is insane. This, this, I've said it many a times. This is the drunkest wildcard race I've ever seen. It's so wild. It is literally a wild card. It is a wild card. It's like, it's a five-way tie now. Yeah. It's crazy. It's fucking mental because,

We were stroking off Boston a little bit for them. It felt like they were the only teams that was really just like dropping their nuts and getting shit done. Dude, we'll get into it. The Flyers are in third in the Met now. Dude, I've been saying that for a minute. Like the flyers are all the way up. So real quick, Dan, because you just said this and I want, I agree.

The, even though Vegas, hold on, we've got to stay. Oh, wait, you're talking about Cassidy. Yeah, yeah. It's like we have to stay on. Even though Vegas is tied for first. essentially in their trash division. It is the Cassidy firing, I can wrap my head around because Vegas was like a cup pick. You know, people were like, Vegas win the cup, they got Marner, blah, blah, blah, you know.

They are not that just so they're firmly in third. Oh, yeah, they're one point back. Sorry, one point back. So the, this one, like, no one had the Islanders even like in the playoff. Like the Islanders are doing still, even with this stumble, are still exceeding expectations, in my opinion. and to fire him is so crazy. Like, this is crazier than the Cassidy thing. Well, things have to change, right?

I mean, you, I think that the Islanders were always a wildcar team. Yeah. So to say exceeding expectations is insane. They're currently below expectations. Yeah, I guess I didn't think they were a wildcard team. I think they are currently, but they're not exceeding. They're currently meeting my expectations, which was just missing playoffs. But my point is when you then get a player like Matthew Schaefer doing what he's doing,

and again, they have been this good all. season. So I'm like, take whatever expectations you had and throw them out the window. Because Schaefer showed up. He has played all season. He is the player he is. Now there are new expectations, especially when the Met isn't that good. No disrespect. But Pittsburgh being in second is also not something we expected. Not at all. The Flyers being in third is not what we expected. So when you are the Islanders and you've played this well all season and you have Matthew Schaefer doing what he's doing, and no, no, no, sir, like winning. the Met or being right behind Carolina should be your expectations. So I completely disagree with

what you're saying. Because I'm like, if the sharks, what you're doing is you are, you're, you're putting this judgment based on preseason assumptions. And I think that that has to be completely thrown out at this point. Yeah. I guess my, I would say the sharks, we pick to all be lasting. And we're like, the sharks might finish seventh this year. They're not ready. And then Macklin goes, I'm going to win MVP and we've been in the playoffs pretty much all season. And they, if they fall out now, it'd be like the sharks right now going, we're firing our coach because we've fallen out of the And I'm like, whoa, dude, it's fine. Well, I mean, don't you think we did pick them to be like last, I think I picked them to be second to last in their division.

And they are currently third to last in their division. So like. But they were in playoffs. I know. But you're also completely disregarding the fact that the Pacific is a fucking joke. They have a 500, they have a 527 record. It's not apples apples. I'm just giving you a cop that I'm like.

I understand. But what I'm saying is when the sharks, when we're being like, they were in playoffs all year, they have 79 points, dude, and they're a dash 36. I love the sharks, but they have been in playoffs all year because the Pacific is horrible. Right. So like we can't act like it's like, oh my God, the sharks are so, so good. They're, they've been a blast and they've been good and fun to watch. But I don't think their playoff race has been comparable to an Eastern Conference

playoff race because of that. Because the entire East would win would be. that winning the entire Eastern Conference would lead the Pacific Division. Like the Islanders have 10 more points than me. You know, like it's not the same. So the firing is shocking to me. I think Waugh was doing a great job.

I think with the help of Schaefer absolutely, with the half of guys, help, rather, of guys like Kelly Cheeseman and Matthew Darsh, like just a great group of people with the Islanders right now, making them a super fun team. this feels to me like a result of, remember a few episodes ago when we were talking about who would be heartbreaking and devastating to miss the playoffs? And you were like, the Islanders. Yeah. The Islanders would be devastating. Well, here they are now, missing four or losing four in a row and they're out of playoffs. And I think that this is a result of like, dude, we can't miss

playoffs now. Yeah. Like, I'm sorry, we can't. And Pete DeBore getting this job is not shocking to me at all because I look at the Islanders and their youth and their future. That's got to be one of the most fun projects in the NHH. So Pete DeBore taking the job makes a ton of sense. I also must assume that conversations were had. And there's like a, there's like a, I'm not talking about any shady shit, but I'm talking about a, hey, Pete, you have to get us in playoffs here. Like, if you hire Pete DeBore here and you have four games left and you, you know, go, frankly,

if you go two and two, that's a failure in these four games. Okay. I'm not saying Pete DeBore's going to get fired, but I'm like, you. You hire Pete DeBore going, you fucking better get us in playoffs here. Like it is, and it's unlucky that you have lost four straight and the Flyers have won two straight and are seven and three in their last. Like that is very unlucky. It's even very unlucky that Pitt is like hot again and is won two in a row. But I unfortunately think they're in a position where it's like you can't miss guys.

Like you cannot miss. That's definitely what they're saying. And you just said this, I think. So, but it's not Pete's future. I thought you were going to say, there's definitely been conversations about, like, hey, Pete, you are our coach for a long time now. That is also true. And there's no way. Pete DeBore is not Tortorella.

This is not a character. Exactly. And no way, in my opinion, not getting in playoffs changes that. Like, if he goes 0 and 4 and they miss, they're not going to go, we don't actually want you anymore. They're going to go, you are our coach. Absolutely. Absolutely correct. Or if he loses two games and they're like, you know what, we're getting a different coach.

Patrick. Come back. Yeah. Absolutely correct. But at the same time, it's like, if they go 0 and 4, if they go 2 and 2, and they miss playoffs, it's not going to be like, it's all good, dude. Like, we're, you know, Pete DeBore's here for the future.

It's a massive letdown. It's not a failure, but it is a massive letdown. Islanders fans will not miss playoffs here and be like this. It's okay, dude, we're working on something. They're going to be fucking furious. Yeah, just not at Pete. Not at Pete. Because I think this is actually an interesting challenge for a guy like Pete who has, who really has systems.

where I'm like, you can't, you certainly can't, there's not even enough, I bet they're not even practicing at this point in the season because these games are too quick and there's too much wear and tear. Like I doubt Pete even has a chance to go, this is how I like to play, by the way. Yeah. He's literally just going to go, hey, what's up?

Who's on PP1? Okay, go good, good, that sounds awesome. Score. You know, like, there's, there is no time for him to do anything. Yeah. So it's literally just like, is a new face in the locker room. Yeah. did that kick the kick there and kicked them in the ass?

I mean, do we, I don't want to make assumptions, but do we assume that maybe the players were kind of like, hey, this was not working for us right now. You know what I mean? Yeah, like sometimes they say that. You can feel the temperature of like, I don't know if the coach is connecting anymore with these guys. Yeah, and it's like, boys, come on now.

Look what happened. Now we got to like, we got to do something. We got to be better. That happens sometimes. And I bet it's happening here. Because again, again, there's just no way that DeBoar's like, change everything. change here's how we're playing now i'm like holy fuck not enough time i mean like without knowing for sure for

sure i i know that that's what happened in Vegas yeah yeah i don't i am not here to say that i think that that happened in new york like i'm not sure on the island the players were like this were done with wall yeah but this one's nuts because law was an intense guy but nothing i have heard felt like maybe players or fans were like, I'm over this guy. Yeah, yeah, same. Yeah, this seems like a blind side to me too, but. Incredibly shocking. Yeah, that was nuts. Who sent that? Well, you know, everybody, I was like, fuck, do, yeah, yeah, our thumbnail guy, Nate broke the news, dust. Um, you know, this is like that cliche, it's like, you know,

it's a copycat league. Yeah. You think they do this now because of the, what happened in Vegas? Torch is 4 and O and they're like, holy fuck. You know what I'm saying? Like, are they like, looking at that going like, I guess we can, now anybody can do it. Dude, Ed, I know that's slightly hyperbolic, but I don't hate that take because... Copycat League. Yeah, and it's like, there was not a stigma, but I bet people were like, bro,

you can't be firing coaches right now. And then Vegas was like, fuck it. Why not? And Vegas is such a like, we don't give a shit franchise. For sure. And Torts is winning. And they're like, dude, we need to win these four games to dance point. We need to win these four games.

So just whatever is going to light a fire under the boys, fucking do it. And if we didn't see Wa's the future anyway, then bang. You know what I really like the idea of? I like the idea of getting ahead of the game because DeBoer could get a better offer. Literally, yes, I know. Like, what if, you know, what if the sharks were to make a change in their coaching department at the end of the season?

What if Detroit fires McClellan if they miss? And all of a sudden, there's five teams with great youth and good projects that are like, yo, DeBore, it's up. like I think this is a pretty savvy move by Darsh here if they're like was not it for the future this this losing streak down the stretch is not acceptable we've got a whole new movement here we want a good offensive coach there's a great one available yeah let's let's make it happen now like I actually if that was kind of the mentality I love that move because you don't want to give him the opportunity of all of a sudden let's be real man is the sharks

not number one when you think about opportunities you have Will Smith and Macklin Celebrini who is potentially able to win MV fucking P who is 19

that's pretty enticing to a coach being in California as well so it's like I kind of like the move of get ahead it's like when you go to the bar

and it's really crowded and you're like I'm just gonna order two beers right now you'll have two please we'll have two because I'm not coming maybe three

maybe a shot too you know do it right yeah right now let's speed this up exactly this line's too long So, wild stuff. Islanders fans, if you're upset about Waugh getting fired, I totally get that, but I'll also say you should be happy about DeBoer.

So, fuck. Yeah. You know, wild. Let's see what happens in these four games. Wildcard update, CP. Are you ready? Take us through. Lot of action since last episode.

Before you even get into this, I want to just run down and say this. In the east, clinched. Tampa Bay Lightning, Buffalo fucking Sabres. Montreal Canadiens, Carolina Hurricanes. They have all clinched a playoff spot. No seed has officially been clinched yet. And I will say I have removed the HABs from the standing breakdown because in my opinion, they are top three confirmed.

In my opinion. I think they clinched, didn't they? They clinched. But I'm saying they are now out of the wild card discussion. I don't think the HABs are in a wildcard fight anymore. in my opinion. Yeah, I mean, if they lose out or go like even one, they have five games left, they go one and four and Boston wins four in a row. Absolutely they go. And I'm just saying, in my opinion, the has. It does feel like they're probably safe. Yep. Yes. And what a great run.

Eight and two. Like, they're fucking flying. I someone churbedeeh was so good. Oh, and he was like getting in the mixer too. I love it. Someone chirped me online because, uh, I was like going through the DMs about something I saw it. And Nate Doberts. scored, I think it was probably only his 48th, and he now has 51, and someone was like, CPs, Nate will finish the year at 49 pick, looking worse every second or something like that. And I was like, I said 49, because I was like, I wonder if Cole could score 10 in the next 14 games and get to 50 and win the rocket. And Nate already has 51, but Cole has fucking 49 already.

And it is going to score over 50 and still might win the rocket. It's insane. Those four teams have clinched. In the West, oh, and also in the East, eliminated the New York Rangers, the Stanley Cup defending champions, Florida Panthers, eliminated from playoffs, and the Toronto Maple Leafs, eliminated. You are out of playoffs. Ridicrous. In the West, clinched, Colorado, Dallas, and Minnesota. That is it. Eliminated, the Blackhawks and the Canucks, that is it. Which is hilarious. Like, the fact that the Flames and Seattle are still in it. Yeah. I'm like, this is crazy. What is going on?

If Dallas, and we're only talking about Wildcat here, but I'll just throw this tidbit in, if Dallas pukes up home ice to Minnesota with another late season, absolute fucking free fall, they have some splaining to do. They do. They do.

Do you think that in that matchup, either one of them really needs that? Nope, I'll probably still pick the stars. Probably. But I will say the fucking wild last year against Vegas in that first round, were they looked, they stepped their shit up and played us. And I was like, man, this would be scary team to play.

Okay, now get us into the wild card rundown. Okay, Dan, react to every result, please. Thursday night, because we recorded and it came out Thursday morning. Thursday night, the Sends beat the Sabres 4-1. Monumental for the Sends. And I will say Sabers, agree. You should want to win the Atlantic. So not a good loss.

Yep. Penn's lost to the Bolt, 6-3. Big for the Bolt. Yeah, for that one seat. Bruins lost to the Cats, 2-1. I think Boston is safe. It's more like a, can you get this boogie man out of your closet? For fuck's sake.

Habs beat the rags three, two. Crucial. Incredible. Wings beat the Flyers, 4-2. Absolutely crucial for the wings. Yep. But that's about as good as it got for them for the rest of the weekend. Jackets lost to the Canes 5-1. Tough, tough opponent, but brutal for the jackets.

And they had just lost to them like two. Tuesday also. And I was like, you got to burn and learn, dude. You got to burn and learn. You get the split. Caps lost to the devil's 7-3. Jack Hughes is the best player in the league since the Olympics. Correct. That's what I'll say about that. And also the caps, who I knocked out of the playoffs like a week ago, really came back. And then they have had a horrible, horrible run in the last couple of days. The Jets lost to the Stars 3-0. Expected? Yep, tough one. Knights beat the Flame 6-3. Torts. Important. Important. Sharks beat the Leafs 4-1.

Huge. Mammoth beat the Spunk, six two. Huge. Preds beat the Kings 5'4 in a shootout. Completely unacceptable game by the Kings. But their fight back

was something we haven't seen. And then we also saw it Yep, yep. And was something we get to. Hold. So good signs for the Kings and crucial game for the Preds. Friday, the Flyers beat the Islanders

4-1. Completely unexpected. Flip with these two teams in the Met. I think you need to start loving, put some loving on the fly. I mean, you are now loving them, but I'm saying,

you need to think they're better than they are. I said, I said completely unexpected, not unacceptable. Yep. Saturday, the wings lost to the rags for one. That loss was,

take the watch off of fraud watch with Detroit. Oh shit, Dan. Dude, losing to the fucking Rangers when you were fighting for your fucking life to get into the playoffs finally and not do this collapse that you've done the last two seasons,

losing to the eliminated rangers, four to one, you are now frauds. Dude, we were... Keep going. Yeah, we were out of town, and we just could not believe that. Sends lost to the Wild 4-1. Wild getting hot. Bruins lost to the bolts, 3-1. Big for the bolts.

Bolt's getting hot again. Penns beat the cats, 9-4. This was the moment when the penguins, I was like, you guys are, you guys are horny. Yeah. Penguins are the horniest team in the east right now. Yep. Actually, maybe the flyers are, but the penguins are horny. Caps beat the Sabers 6-2

Don't like it for the Sabers Like I said Sabres You want to win You want that one seed Isles lost to the Canes 4-3 Just brutally tough matchup In a bad skid Jets beat the Jackets

Completely unacceptable by the Jets Or the jackets And the Jets just like Oh they're not They're not gonna get in Yeah yeah yeah Like stop I'm Everyone stop talking about the Jets

You're dead God God they could get in I bet they do. Mammoth beat the Canucks 7-4. Unbelievable. Kings beat the Leafs 7-6. Unbelievable.

Such a fun game. And again, the fight back we saw against the Preds came to life in this game as well. Obviously, they gave up a late goal that let it go to OT, but the O.T goal by Q. Benarin was so enjus was so nasty. Huge, huge, huge,

stay-alive win for the Kings. Yep. Knights beat the Oilers 5-1. Four and O under torts. Torts. That's all I'm going to say. That's amazing. Tort's going to scream it.

Ducks lost to the flames. Five three. Ducks got to get their shit together. Preds beat the sharks, six three. Preds won't go away. And I now think, I'm not sure who has the tiebreaker over the preds and sharks because the prets have it over to the king. So it might be now the preds control their own destiny.

Because the kings puked that up and the sharks might have with this loss. Yeah, that might be the case. Spunk lost to the Hawks four two. I think the Spunk's dead. Yep. Sunday, the wings lost to the wild 5'4. So coming back from 4-1.

Yeah. Okay, so may I take a pause? Yes, you may. I actually said yesterday during hockey talk, I was like, the Red Wings have, they have five games left. After that loss. Oh, okay, yep.

I was like, that loss is so poop. It's, again, the wild or hot. Yeah. So it's tough. The Red Wings have five games left. They have 88 points. They're two points back from a wildcard spot behind Ottawa. The Red Wings need to go four in one if they want a chance.

Okay. Let's see here, Dan. You don't even need to go into it. Or you're going to get their schedule. I'm just curious who they got. Yeah. So four and one and they have. And I mean that.

I don't mean literally because, you know. But yeah, anything could happen. But that has me either. I mean it on principle. Yeah. Like for the love of God. Give yourself a fucking fighting chance, and your only fighting chance is four-on-one.

Jackets at home? You don't have to say winner loss. I'm just saying, Jackets at home. Brutal game. Because you're fighting a feral animal in a cage, also fighting for its life. Flyers at home, same.

Brutal game. Devils at home who've been nasty. They're out, but they've been nasty. You have to win that game. Tampa on the road, and Tampa will need that win. Horrendous. And then cats on the road who are eliminated.

Yeah. Should win that. Tough stretch. an absolute battle, but you need to go four in one. Yep. Okay. Still on Sunday. Penns beat the cats five two. Horny team. Malkin. Paddy. Malkin Hattie. Flyers beat the Bruins two one in overtime. Who had that O.T. Gore. Porter Martone, first career NHL goal, OT winner. Friend of the program. Come on. That was sick. Sends, and I was actually so, I actually loved that result because the Bs got the point too. And I was like, this was great. Sends beat the Canes six three.

The Sends, dude. After all the shit talk about Brady wanted to leave this, like the Sends are showing a lot of fight. You love to see it. Caps lost to the rags ate one. Wow. If that isn't the like, your caps were kind of surgeon here. If that isn't the sign of like, hang it up, dude.

They're still kind of in that tie though. Oh, there's so much. They're like, if they had won two of those games, they'd be. I mean, dude, they're very alive. They are very, very vague and the devils. Okay, East Standing Update. again, I took the habs out. So the pens are in second.

78 played 96 points. Flyers in third. 77 played 90 points. Bruins wildcard 1, 7895. Sends Wildcard 2, 7790. Isles out 7889. Wings out 7788. Jackets out 7788.

Caps out 7887. And that's it. Devils are done. I mean, Sends are in control. And I think that's scary if you're, you know, the wings and the jackets. And they've been good in their last 10. I mean, this is what it comes down to always, right?

It's the last 10 games of the season. If you're in this race, how do you perform? Boston is 6, 3, and 1 in their last 10. Yep. Ottawa is 6, 3 and 1 in their last 10. Flyers are 7 and 3. penguins are six and four the Islanders are three and seven

the Red Wings are four and six the jackets are three six and one it is like you we get all these messages from the fans who are like these fucking teams are killing me and as a bitch boy

fan of every team and I'm watching and paying attention out of love for these teams and these fans it is catastrophic what is is happening to the Islanders, Red Wings, and Blue Jackets. Like, I can't, we just watch every game.

The Wings have lost two in a row. Blue Jackets have lost three in a row. Islanders have lost four in a row. Like, you were watching games that are playoff games. Yeah. And when you were Columbus and Detroit specifically, because the Islanders have been in playoffs within recent years, you're like, dude, are you guys fucking my dad?

Yeah. It's insane. And Wings fans, who I have such a soft spot for, there's been so much success for us growing up with the Red Wings. Cups, perennial playoff teams, but we're coming up, this would be year 10. If they miss playoffs, this is year 10. It feels weird for the wings to be like not good. I agree.

You know what I mean? And it's like, I just can't believe. And if you're the wings, I know it's a different division, but if you're the wings, and you could even say blue jackets, because they are the same division, and you're watching the flyers out of fucking no way. Just surging here and all of a sudden they're in third, you are so jealous and mad and confused.

The wings, because the wings were like leading the Atlanta once a couple times. Maybe not first, I think they were. I, I, I, they might have been. I mean, they were definitely, no, no, they were. There were seconds many times. There were moments where they were first in the Atlanta. It's like one game with a game and, you know, whatever. It doesn't matter. Like, it is, it is

unthinkable that the Ids of March came through and castrated you yet again, and now you're four and six in your last 10 on a two-game losing streak with five games left that are truly all must win. I will say, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Fire him. Fire him. I will say

Sends have Tampa at home today, if you're listening to this, cats at home, Islanders on the road, Devils on the road, Toronto at home, which you should get. Feels a little bit, that was the SEND? Yeah. A little bit easier than Detroit But barely, because Tampa at home, like Tampa wants this. What do you think little bit means?

You fucking twat. A good point. Barely a little bit, same thing. Good point. And to your point, Dan, earlier, the Sends Homestand that they're on was Home versus Buffalo, Minnesota, and Carolina. Yeah. Which is a fucking nightmare.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They beat Buffalo, lost Minnesota, beat Carolina. Like, they could have easily lost those three and be out. Yeah. And they're like, did we beat two first place teams? And now we got Tampa. If we beat them, I'm like, okay, you deserve it. Okay.

West standings. I put the Pacific into because it's just insane. Oilers in first, 77, 87, Ducks in second, 7787. Dude, by the way, the Oilers being in first place is so funny. And Evan, how many times this season have I said, Oilers fans, calm down. Nothing matters. Literally nothing matters. Leon being hurt, nothing matters. Like it is, and here they are in first place. Hilarious. Dude, Sean from the pint, texting me, and he was like, look at the Oilers, we were just chatting about them. And he goes, the first division title in 40 years is within reach. That's insane just typing it. And I was like, you haven't won the Pacific in 40 years? And he was like, yeah, dude. It's like, it's the car in our old format since 1987. And I was like, that is

fucking insane. Ridiculous. Like, that blew my mind. But it is also insane, especially with torts that Vegas just might win. Dude, I know. So, so Oilers first, 7787, Ducks second, 7787. Knights 3rd 77-886 so that is extremely up for grabs yeah yeah insane mammoth wildcard 1 76 86 pretty much ready to put them in but we'll see I feel I feel like the mammoth are safe preys but again what's nuts is like the mammoth have six games left so do so do the preds so do the kings sharks have set um anything can happen yes in these games so especially with these teams yeah yeah great because these teams aren't even that good. I mean, we're talking about Chris.

Even though the ducks in there, I hate to say it because we love the duckies. But, like, ducks are a dash 14 on the season. Preds dash 22, Kings, dash 26, sharks, dash 36. Like these teams, anything can happen every single game. And Dan, if the Kings, let's knock the Kings up to 77 games to make them even with those three Pacific teams and let's say they win, they're 77.83. So they're three, four points behind. Like, the Kings could get in a top three spot. Yeah.

You know what I mean? Like the knights could fall into the wild card. Anybody could fall into the wildcard. I know. The dugs would fall into a wildcard. So, Preds, Wildcar 2, 76, 81. Kings out also 76, 81, but don't have the tiebreaker versus the prets. Sharks out 75, 79.

So if they win their game in hand, they're at 81, and I don't know who holds that tie break. The sharks hold it over the Kings. I know that. But I don't know if they hold it over the Preds because they just lost them. Jets out 76, 78. And I think you're harsh by knocking them completely out. but it is a tund. I'm being a cunt. Blues out 75-76.

Spunk out 75-75. I think Spunk's probably dead. This one is a cluster, dude. So you know what's nuts about this? I also want to show you guys this. Keep talking, though. Current playoff, if the playoffs were set right now in the West, we would have Colorado playing Nashville. I think that's a sweep. Okay.

we would have Edmonton playing Utah. Absolutely anyone can win that series. We have Anaheim, Vegas. I personally believe anyone can win that series because of how Vegas has been so confusing. But then also there's a world where Vegas is just like, really? Like we've been here since been here. I got Jack.

Like, yeah. Yeah. So, but you then. swap LA and I will include the sharks, dude, it is hilarious that the fucking blues

are one point behind the blues. I know. Are one point behind them. And the Jets. It's ridiculous. But you swap either of those teams in

and play anyone of this Pacific jumble. And I'm like, I don't know, dude. Even the King's Oilers. Yeah, yeah. Even if that were to happen. I'm like, this year I'm like,

I don't know. Like fucking Christ. It is, I think the West round one is going to be so fun. Yes. Because it's going to be pure chaos. So let me read you guys this.

I saw this because I was looking something up that I'll talk to you about later. But Thursday, April 16th is the last day of the NHL season, 26, regular season. There are six games. This is the last day of the year. There are six games. One is Avs versus Spunk.

So what day is it? Thursday, April 16th. Okay. One of the games is Avs versus Spunk, whatever. Here are the other five games. Blues versus Mammoth, hilarious, Oilers versus Canucks, Sharks versus Jets, Kings versus Flames, ducks versus Preds. Every single one of those teams you just named are all playing or playing each other

on the last day of the season. Like that playoff spot is going to be decided. Playoffs start then. On Thursday, April 60. I mean, like so much, like, seeding in the Pacific and the wild card, probably just wildcard too, but it's legitimately been this way for two weeks now. We're already in playoffs. Like, fans, it's playoff hockey already.

It has started. I feel bad for the graphics people at all these places. They're like, what teams can I put in the goddamn, like in the hopper ready to go in the graphics? I'm not going to know until the last goddamn minute. I also feel bad for in arena operations because you're trying to have fun at the games. And I'm like, no, dude, it's not fun time. This is do or die time. You know, like you're showing kids on the Jumbotron and stuff, and I'm like, lock the fuck in.

Every game needs to be a win. It's absolutely insane. Absolutely insane. All right. You had some Crosby stuff you want to talk about. Yeah, just a couple quick hitters to get out of the hot ice. Sidney Crosby hit 72 points with his three-pointer last night, and he can only play 70 games this year, which means yet again. 21 straight seasons.

21 straight seasons. Extends his record of point per game. game. Incredible. An incredible feat. On the broadcast, they were like this, when he did it, they were like 21 seasons of over point per game. And Army was on the show, but I forget who Army was with. But the guy goes, that will never be touched.

And I was kind of like, what, it could be? Yeah, you could be. You could be. But I think that was it a local broadcast? Oh, yeah. Well, it was home cooking. Yeah. But I was like, and I'm not saying it definitely, I'm just saying it certainly could be touched.

I'll tell you what. if he keeps playing a few more season, maybe it becomes harder. Yeah. But surely Connor's been point per game every year, right? I'm going to check right now. I mean, like, I know early days Nate didn't, but I feel like, but still, 21 straight is like, is amazing. I think the, I think the cooler stat is it's literally every year of his life, right?

Yes. Yeah. And Connor is 11 so far and every year of his life because he got 48 and 45 as a rookie. Yeah. He's stuck in there. Yeah. Well, I mean like, yeah, but very sick. It's so sick.

This weekend was great for me. Yep. Yeah, correct. Two back-to-back, just complete spanking. Just ass-whoopings. Yeah. But Sid, I mean, we don't need to harp on it. This is yet another example of when I'm like,

Sid is obviously on the Mount Rushmore. Breaking news, he's good. Yeah, and he's obviously on Mount Rushmore. And the fact that there are some humans out there who don't think that, blow my mind. Completely agree. problem of mine. Next one we already mentioned, but Porter Martone, congrats, buddy. Yeah, just some more stick taps to Porter. Unbelievable. You love to see it. And listen, man, a

surgeon flyers team and you got that kid, special. Dude, sick. Power Play weapon. Makes you think some of the other teams in the league who have some of these young guys. Maybe call them up. Get them up. Maybe. And then Zach Heimann out a couple weeks, they said. Hey, interesting. Do you want to know what I think about that? Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. But it did, in fact, matter last year. nothing matters until playoffs. But there's just so much happening in that West race. You're like, God damn, no dry, no hymen.

Like, what the fuck? Absolutely. Doesn't matter. Okay, let's take an ad break. That's going to do it for hot ice. Let's take a quick ad break. And then we will jump into our interview with Chris Pronger. How many times do I have to tell you about my favorite bet MGM promotion?

It is called the Hat Trick Jackpot, and it is Numbies. All you have to do is bet on someone to be an anytime goal score. and then you activate the hat trick jackpot and if they score three or more, if they get that Hattie, which Hattie's been popping off. Malkin just got a Hattie. Someone just got their first Hattie. It was amazing. I'll remember soon, but there was Hatties flying all over the place.

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Bet MGM is unbelievable. The hat-trick jackpot is unbelievable. Make it legendary. Please, please. We are joined right now by a Dryden, Ontario native. Come on. The second overall pick

in the 93 draft by the Hartford Whalers. I remember who went second that year. Unbelievable. Who also played for the blues, the Oilers, the Ducks and the Flyers. He's a world junior gold medalist, a world championship gold medalist, a two-time Olympic gold medalist. A Norris trophy winner, a heart trophy winner.

Last defenseman to do it. How are you? A Stanley Cup champion making him a member of the triple gold club in hockey. Fantastic. And a 2015 inductee into the hockey Hall of Fame, Chris Bronger. Welcome to the empty numbers. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

It's very, very exciting stuff. Five-time NHL All-Stone? Pretty sick. Come on. The hit list goes on. 26 years ago. Can you believe that? Oh, my God.

Since Bobby or since I? Isn't that crazy? That's a wrong time ago. I mean, it was two gaps, right? Bobby was 73. Yeah. Then you and now it's been 26 years. It was 27 years.

Yeah. And now it's been 26 years. Oh, so maybe that's sharp action. 27 years. Next year. It's been 26 years since. Yeah. So next year.

We're going off of past president. We are all of our precedent. Folks, that MGM, that's sharp action right now. Next year, hammer that. Some defenseman is winning the heart next season. That's incredible. That is unbelievable. Well, man, like we just mentioned, all the teams, you're a duck for a long time.

I was. Now here we are back in Southern California. Do you love it here? Yeah, do you miss it? I miss the weather. Yeah. Yeah. It was my first year in Anaheim, 365.5 days of sunshine.

God. It drizzled one morning on my way to the rink. And I'm like, what is going on? Yeah, that's awesome. Isn't it funny when it rains here? You walk in a sudden, you're like, what the fuck is that? Hold on. Now, the byproduct of that is, if you recall,

there was a massive fire that came up the five. Yep. And unfortunately, our team doctor lost his house and two guys right in that area in Tustin that took the brunt of it. So there are consequences to this nice weather. And then obviously the Pacific Palisades and all the rest of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you're going to head back down to Hermosa later,

and that's always a treat. Yes. Yes. Beachbound. God, it's insane. We'll get you right back into Shell back. It'll be great. Perfect, yes, and then...

That's how you spend Easter, dude. That's how you spend Easter and Shelbac. I've always said that. Wow, I was thinking, where am I going to do my Easter brunch? You'd say, Shellback, for sure. I've always said that. That's incredible. Well, dude, after a couple years in Hartford, you go to the Blues.

Yep. And my first question is, and I've heard you talk about this before, but I'm just so interested. As a young guy in the league, you get on a team with Brett Hall and Al McGinnis, and then you got straight for Wayne Gradsky. It's like, what the fuck? And you said a little bit about the prehist. pressure shift of that too, but I just wanted to hear what it was like as such a young guy playing with people like that and then Wayno comes in. What people don't realize is that even

when I first got there, we had Guy Carbono on our team. We had Dale Howardchuck on our team. Like we just start going through and Mike shuttled them off in a hurry. They weren't there very long. And so go through all of that and obviously, you know, Holly and Al and Fierzy, Jeff Cortnell. You know, we had some great veterans on that team. Yeah. And then we get Gratz and it's you know I'm at this inflection point of being booed relentlessly and then I'm slowly kind of getting myself out of it. I'm getting in better shape and I'm playing a little bit better still. I think the fans were a little uneasy and then we get Gratz and all attention just shifts to him which was perfect timing as I was trying to get out of my doldrums and just being able to watch

the great one handle the notoriety, handle the media, handle all the stuff. scrutiny, good and bad, and just, you know, the whole side show that is the great one. Yeah. At that point, his career was, uh, was awesome. And it gave me the, you know, as all the fan attention went to him, it gave me the, the quiet time and the, the piece to kind of really figure it out. And that's really when my, you know, I stopped listening to all the commentary and all the booze and all the stuff.

And that's when my game really started take off. Yeah, that's amazing. What was he like in the locker room with you got, you know, at that point, yeah. Yeah. What was he like in the locker room? He was great. Yeah.

Like, you know, obviously, you know, I'm 21 years old. And obviously going through all the stuff I'm going through. I'm kind of staying out of the way, letting them do their thing. Yeah. But he was awesome to, you know, practice games, obviously. And just to really be a sponge and just watch everything that he did. Yep. You know, if you're a sponge in a situation like that, you can take away so much just in how he

handle himself. You know, we would get into it on the road. He'd put his bag in his room. They'd go for, you know, we'd go for dinner or they'd go for dinner. I mean, he was in his hotel room at nine. Really? Yeah. Nine o'clock and he'd be up at, you know, he'd get 11 hours of sleep or whatever, you know, however long he was sleeping.

I love that. So like just from a recovery standpoint, you didn't really get it. Yeah. But you learn, oh, okay, he's, you know, expectations and pressure on his performance and what he's going to do on a nightly basis. So it was critical. Yeah, that's cool to hear actually because I feel like the narrative now is like guys get to train and recover now. Nobody was doing that shit back then, but it's like, no, they were aware. Yeah, he was paying attention. Yeah. And it's amazing. You always hear of stories about, I'm sorry, and by the way,

nothing good happens after 10 o'clock. Yeah, yeah, John. That is, especially if you're him. That is how I live. By the way, read the book, because there's plenty of that in there. It's true. And listen, sometimes we chase it, and that is confirmed every single time. But it's awesome. We always hear stories about him and, and, you know, other guys like that, who have that larger than life vibe. But then they still maintain this unbelievable leadership quality that shows you how to play, how to act, be professional, and never really exude that sort of presence of being larger than life. Great teammate, great person.

Yeah. And just how they carry themselves. You just see, you know, they're just, when you're that person, you want to be one of the guys. Totally. You know, and, you know, the ribbing and all that things and you guys know it goes on in a locker room. It's just, he's a part of it. Yeah. Yep.

It's the best. Nobody's off limits. Yeah, yeah, right. And, you know, with that expectation early on, you know, obviously he had a great relationship with Holly and knew him well and and knew Al and some of these older guys. So in court, so, you know, they knew. And then we picked, you know, we had Charlie Huddy,

who might be partner Charlie Huddy, who was my coach in Edmonton, Jay Wells, like we had all these guys that had been around a long time. And so they knew them very well. Yeah. So, you know, it was a really good mix for him. And I think, too, as a future captain of three franchises, I always feel like NHL captains are in a way shaped by the captains they had before. So, I mean, it's a great, great learning.

Yeah. Yeah. Who better to learn from? Yeah, yeah, that's incredible. It's called the great one for a list of one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's called the great one for a reason. God damn.

Okay, so now I have to hear it from you in the 98 conference semis. You take game two, you take a slap shot right here. Bang, to the ticker. We actually had Alec Martinez on the other day, and he took, you know, he had the skate to the face injury. And it's like, do you see these catastrophic injury sometimes? And I think it's hard for people to even process what is like going through that as the player. So I know you talked about it a little bit, but just tell our fans what that.

Yeah, like you vividly still. Vividly. Vividly. Jesus. I remember how much it hurt. Like it just was like a sharp. I got hit right in the heart with the slap shot. You know, we're killing the penalty.

I stepped out and, you know, like we do a thousand times. Into the lane, blocked a shot. You know, Dimitri Mironov's got a bomb. Yeah. And he hits me, boom. And it hit me directly in the heart, right, you know, right under your nipple. Yeah. And boom.

And it stung. Yeah. And I was like, and we're in Detroit, so I'm like, cover the puck. Yeah. You know, like it takes over. You're like, cover the puck. Get a whistle. Then get up and get to the bench.

Don't let these fans. Anyone see anything. Be able to think, always hurt. Yeah. So in my head, I'm thinking that I blacked out on the ice, but I got up. Yeah. I blacked out, but I still got up. Yeah.

And kind of stumbled between. Thank God. I fell sideways. Yeah. Otherwise, I would have been to Kevin Stevens. Yeah. Boom. And fell kind of kind of my hands were kind of here.

And I fell. and I had a little bit of issue with my ear. But other than that, everything was great. And then all of a sudden, I, like, boom, I come to. And I'm like, staring up at the Joe Lewis rafters and all the banners and everything. I'm like, wait a second. I was in the corner. Last time I remember I was in the corner.

Yeah. Why am I out here in the middle looking up and my stuff's cut open and I kind of glance over to the side. See the bench. Holly's crying and all these guys are like, you know, they don't know what to do. What's happening? and then, you know, I kind of came to and the trainer was right here and he's like, okay, now you're back.

All right, take it easy. You know, don't move. And, you know, I get the team doctors and the Detroit doctors and everybody's out there. And I'm just trying to figure out what is going on. He's like, listen, you got hit. You passed out.

And so he came to tell him. He's like, listen, your lips were turning blue. Jesus, Christ. You were like, you weren't breathing. Like, we were starting to panic. Yeah. It's about 25 seconds of no breathing. while they were there.

And then all of a sudden, it just, he was getting ready to do mouth to mouth and like, boom. Yeah. Took a breath and kickstarted. And so what happened was it was commotional cordis. Yeah. My, I got hit in the heart. It was about to beat.

Like there's just a sequence of events with that electrical current. It was going to beat. It got hit. And it happens a lot in Little League Baseball. We get a line drive back and hits a little kid in a chest. Unfortunately, a lot of times those kids die because they're hard. bodies and their heart are not strong enough. They're not mature enough and developed enough. So, you know, I, he tells me that and he was like, we were getting ready. We were starting to panic.

Yeah. Of course. This is not good. And so luckily I came back, you know, get in the bus, go to the hospital and the bus mean, need the ambulance. For those not really knowing what a bus is. This is a yellow school bus folks. This is not the yellow bus. And so get in, you know, get, get to the hospital. Now I'm hooked up to all the stuff and they're kind of tracking me. Now they kind of tell me this is, we, they're not sure what happened. Yeah. But they think, you know, this is kind of what happened. But, you know, fly back home the next morning, go right to the heart specialist in St. Louis.

She puts on a heart monitor to track me for 24 hours to see if there's any arrhythmia issues or anything like that. And I'm working out. I got my suit on. I got my dress shoes on. I'm running on the treadmill. Not a great runner to begin with. Yeah, you're like, this isn't the heart fall. This is not ideal for me.

This is not my thing. I ride the bike. I'm a bike guy. I'm not a runner. So I'm doing all that stuff. And so as I, you know, do that, she's kind of walking me through what happened. This is, it's commotional cordis. This is what happened. Your heart skipped the beat.

You know, that's how much oxygen it took to, but you're done. And, and so as she walked me through all that, she's like, listen, you know, we don't want to make any decisions yet. wear this heart monitor, go home, eat, you know, rest up. We'll see in the morning. Because I kept asking, I'm like, well, can I play? Yeah, right. You know, what's the deal?

Yeah. And, you know, we're going to game three. We're down two nothing. I'm like, you know, important game. Yeah, at home. And so I go home, sleep, get up, go back, you know, do another battery of tests. Get on the frigging treadmill again this time of my running shoes. Do it again.

And, you know, she looks at my, not the EKG, the heart monitor I was wearing with track in my heart and all that stuff, looking for any blips, looking for any issues and then she starts walking me through like you're there are no short term side effects no long term side effects it's a freak occurrence like winning the lottery yeah could it happen again maybe but again same sequence of events and it's not like it's just going to happen because it happened it's like being struck by lightning exactly it may happen it may not happen it just you know it's kind of random and so she's she's walking me through all this stuff and I'm like so I'm good and she's like well if you want to you can you know it just depends on how you are mentally and how you're

going to play. So I, you know, go home, do pregame meal, nap, whatever, go down on the rink. I tell Joel, I walk in, I'm like, I'm going to take warm up, see how I feel, and then kind of go from there. And, you know, the moment I get my gear on, I'm like, I'm not taking the stuff off. Yeah, yeah. I get out, warm up, you know, kind of rip around, feel good. You know, there's some fans coming in and like, oh, they see me out there. Like, holy shit. And none of that was public yet, right? No, it wasn't public that I was going to, it was, you know, and again, you play games with the other team. Like, is he playing? Yeah, yeah, right. Sure.

And so, you know, come back in and I see Joel. I'm like, give him the thumbs up. I'm good to go. And then coming out of that tunnel before. I get, Harris standing back of my neck every time I tell the story. Yeah. Coming out of that tunnel, I was always, I think at that point, like the second or third last guy to come out. And just the crowd, it's dark.

It's a playoff. So it's just energy in the building and just everybody erupts as I come out of the tunnel that I'm playing and whatever. And then it's a matter of, okay, either get hit or hit somebody and like just, get into the game and, you know, that first hit and you're good. And they're like, now all of a sudden, you just kind of settle in and play the game. But rip the band-aid off and just get back in. Who knows if it's, I didn't want it to be a thing. Yeah.

You know, just get out there. I was not to say it's, I mean, it's almost like you get in a car accident. Yeah. And it's like, get back on the road. Otherwise, like, the longer you go, it can feel weird. Was there any physical pain after? Yeah. Like, it's so nuts.

Like, your heart literally stops. It stung. That was the only pain. Yeah. It was like a bruce. And I guess I was a little short of breath. Yeah. You know, it stung and I was like, just from that part.

Yeah. And then that's it. I didn't, other than them ripping off all the monitors, that stuff hurt. But then I got the treadmill. The chest hair getting ripped off from the stickers. That sucks. Exactly. That is so crazy.

And it's so funny, well, not funny, but 20, almost 25 years later, almost to the, to a T, the Dimar Hanlon incident happened. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So then all these media people coming out, like, you know, you got to remember this was on when Fox had hockey. So this was on Fox. Yeah. It was a Sunday afternoon game.

Holy shit. You know, the whole glowing puck and all this was on Fox. It was on live TV. Yeah. This happened. And so, you know, now you're going to Monday night football. And I just have, I actually was watching the game. Really?

Yeah. When that happened. And I'm like, holy shit. You know, you don't know what happened. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he was out for a long time. Yeah.

God is crazy. I was probably 25, 30 seconds. He was out for like eight minutes. Yeah. That was a long time. Oh, yeah, yeah. But to think from that, so from my incident, they didn't have defibrillators on in the arena. They didn't, you know, they had the doctors up in the nosebleeds.

Uh-huh. They had, you know, all the, all the things that happened. Three years later, you know, they started, they instituted change right away. Okay, we got to have defibrillators. We got to have the doctors closer. Yeah. We got to have all these things. Three years later, Yuri Fisher has a heart attack on the bench.

And the doctor is right behind the bench. Boom. Yeah. Swings in and guarantee that saved his life. I agree. Guar sure. And then the Peverly incident. happened too. Jay Bomey, like all these incidents. So you go to the Damar Hamelin incident,

you don't realize what these guys are doing away from the ring. Like the training that they're doing and all. Like that guy sprung into action immediately. The moment he went down, they're hauling ass out there right to them immediately go into their checklist of things and checking for things and go right into it. I mean, impressive. Yes, yeah. It really is. Fucking right. God, that's crazy. You paved the way. You took one for the team. I don't know if I want to play literally. But what I would say is that that after that, if you look at shoulder pads, they all have what's a heartbar

and a little protector there because of that incident. Yeah. Because it just hit, it didn't dissipate any of the blow. Yeah. Good go. Fuck, that's crazy. Oh, my God. Okay, so Flashboard.

And by the way, I don't get any royalties for that either. Yeah. Bauer. So true. Bauer. C-CM. Like, what's going on here? That is hilarious.

So then, flash forward a couple years, we were just talking about it. You have your team and you have an incredible season. Oh, my God. President's trophy. Norris, Hart. art. So I have two questions. One, was there anything about that season that you remember that you were like, oh my God, I am fucking dialed right now? And then two, could you process in the moment, or did it feel cool in the moment that you were like, God, I was getting booed in Hartford and now I'm about to fucking win the MVP? Like, was that an awesome personal achievement for me? Yeah. So the year before Al won the Norris. That year, I hurt my ankle and I missed 25, 30 games. I missed a lot of time. So by, but it was in the the middle of the year. So, you know, always, it used to, you know, it was always like at the end of

the year, you're all banged up and you're hurt and, you know, you got to rehab for a month or two before you can get into your training. Sure. Well, I was, you know, we lost the first round and, you know, I was healthy. Yeah. So I immediately got into my training. I had like four, over four months of training. So I came in a camp primed. Yeah. I was ready. And, and with the injury of that previous year. I was like pissed off like, hey, I need, let's get things going. And I thought we had a good team. Yeah. You know, Al coming off that, you know, he was there. And that year, he got hurt. Yeah, right. So, you know, typically when you have two guys like me and Scotty in Anaheim or me and Al, like, you're going to split the vote. You know, so that, you know,

when one guy's hurt, you're not voting for that guy. Yeah. So that, I think, helped me because he was hurt. So that takes those votes out away from him, just like it did the year before when I was hurt. And then, you know, just I played with that, if you look at that team, I played with that checking line of Pellerin, Conroy, who was up for the Selke, and Atchenom. And, you know, just we had a great fit. We were dominating against the opposition's top lines or just everything was rolling with that team. And, you know, offensively had a great year. I think it was plus 52 or whatever I was. Not bad, not bad. Decent. Well, you know, from a data perspective, nobody cares about. plus minus. Yeah. I had a bonus, so I did care. Thank you very much. Yeah. Thank you very much.

The fans don't give a shit. That's fine with me. I care a lot. So that year, so I win the Norris. I win the heart, first team all-star, win the plus minus. Yeah. I had a very large bonus. Oh my God.

That's amazing. That's beautiful stuff. Yes. So it was good. So that year just when things just, not that it was easy, but it just everything just fell in place. Yeah. And then, you know, we shit the bed in the playoffs. We lose.

Sharks, right? So I'm at the awards banquet and I'm pissed off still. I'm like, I can't believe. And I think Jersey won that year and just watching him pissed off. And so I win the Norris. I go up, do my speech and I go into the back. And Dave Keon Jr., the real Dave Keon's son. Yeah.

Works for the league and, you know, known him a long time. And we're in the back and I'm talking to him. And normally you're kind of lingering around doing media and whatever. he's like, hey, you better get back in your seat. Yeah, fuck. And I'm like, what? He's like, you might want to get back in the seat. Because they're getting ready to do that award.

Yeah. I'm like, he's like, I go, boom, go back around, find my seat. And then, you know, mask gets up and calls my name, heart trophy, boom, here we go. And so I was that award. So again, talk about injuries. Yeah. missed, I think he missed 16 games that year because of injury. Oh shit, there you go.

The Pittsburgh writer voted for me for one. Nice. Him for two, me for one. I won by one vote. Wow. And that because of the Pittsburgh writer. Yeah. Do you notice he missed?

I can't remember. God, we should find. Yeah, yeah. Send him a bottle of. Shut up that guy. Seriously. I mean, you got the bonus. Yeah.

Yeah. Actually. Yeah. I didn't want it to become a thing, so I didn't send him anything. So if you're out there, you'll get you some. I got a lot of street cred because of you now. That's amazing. Yeah.

So it was that, that was awesome. But I was so pissed off that we lost in the first round that I didn't, I didn't enjoy it enough. I don't think. Right. I mean, I get that though. You're immersed in you're like, he can't believe he lost. He had such a great opportunity. We had such a good team.

And to lose in the first round, you're just pissed. Yeah. And I was in the middle of negotiating a new contract. So there was all that in the background and it was so whatever. Yeah, fuck still so sick though. We talked about the

obviously the 27 years from Bobby to you and now we're almost at 27 again but we saw you talking about Dalline the other day and you know we have so many of these unbelievable defensemen in the game right now which fires me up. Schaefer is obviously super fun to watch right now but it's like other than those two guys

like who are some of the defensemen in the league that you know everyone talks about Quinn and K. and stuff like that. I feel like there's a lot of them, right? There's a lot that are so exciting to watch. You know, just the talent level. And those teams, like, it's almost an embarrass of riches right now with the level of skill and talent on the back end.

Absolutely. With some of these players. You know, Lane Hudson, Zach Wrenski. I was in Philly a couple weeks ago, and Columbus was playing the Flyers. Just watching how smoothy is. Yeah, I love him. His edge work and he baits guys in and then he's gone.

He's got a very good grasp of the game and kind of what he wants to do. Yeah. You know, and just how he manages the play when he's got the puck and just very deliberate. You know, him. You look at obviously Quinn Hughes and McCar.

You look at, you know, I think Bouchard got off to a terrible start this year and probably ultimately will hurt him in the voting. Sure. You know, not it's always whoever finishes the strongest, typically wins. You know, that's happen.

happened quite a few times. Yeah, yeah. You know, people can over, but it's, I think it's how egregious those turnovers are. I know. That's all people can remember. Yeah, that's true. Especially with him, he's got this stigma around him. Yeah, it's unfair.

It is kind of unfair. I think he could win it, though. You wouldn't get the offensive side without that. Yes, you have to take some risk. It's more, to me, it's more the early, early part of the year. He got a little bit better, but it looks like he's resting when he's playing defense. Yeah. Like, he's not in, he's not engaged.

age and he's not overly physical, but a lot of those guys aren't. Yeah, so true. And I think maybe to a fault, he makes it look easy like he's not trying. Yeah. So, you know, that can be a play into it a little bit. That is why. You know, and you got some other young guy, you know, you talk about Schaefer. Yeah.

You know, it's, you know, Dahlene, edge work, you know, and people, people look at so Bouchard Dahlene, like I've heard people talk about Dahlene. Oh, he makes a lot of mistakes. Like, well, yeah. He's got the puck all the time. All the time. If you have the puck all the time, you're going to turn it over. Yeah.

Because you're trying to make plays. And if you're behind, you're forcing it. And but when you're up, you're not forcing it. You're managing it. And he's got, when you see him walk the line. It's awesome. And just how he controls it and the deception. And these guys have no, well, I shouldn't say care.

They have no, the ability to feel that pressure. They don't really have that. Like, they'll do spinoramas. and they'll do the deceptive moves when they're the last guy. Last man back, yeah. Oh, my God. And you watch, they never turn the puck over. I know.

Like Hughes and McCar and Dahlene and these guys, like they are on another level when they're patrolling the blue line and on the offensive zone. It's, and I think, you know, like even McCar and especially Bushart, oh, well, he plays with McDavid or he plays with McDaniel or he plays with, and look at their shot chair and look at all this stuff. I'm like, I don't know. When I'm watching them live,

they're controlling a lot of the play. Oh my God. The puck is coming through them. Yes. And if you're McKinnon, it's when you're getting it. And, you know, people look at it. Well, could McDavid, I mean, look at the Olympics. They had McCar with McDavid.

And McKinnon struggled, I thought. Yeah, yeah. We didn't have McCar, but he didn't have Bushyard. He didn't have, they didn't have that next puck mover. Yeah. So, you know, I think there's something to it a little bit, you know, regardless of, you know, what people say, you need to have that, the top players, when you look at the top teams, the top players need to play together to get, to optimize the offense.

Yes, absolutely. And there's moments when you need to separate him. And there's moments when, but I was in Denver last Monday against the flames. And Jared Bedner was saying, like, you know, they split up taves and McCar, but they're keeping McCar with McKinnon. Yeah. They're not putting Taves with McKinnon. Mm-hmm.

They want McCar with him for a reason. Because it's driving the offense. Yes. And also, players like that elevate each other. It's makes sense when you have them together. You have to have them together. It's such an exciting time. I know.

It's incredible. Earlier you mentioned, you know, your time in Edmonton. After that lockout year, you get traded to Edmonton. You guys have an insane cup run. Such a good team. You think you led the team in points, 21 points that season in the playoffs, which is amazing. And then you losing game seven after a battle, and you then request a trade. We don't need to get into the bullshit of all, like, you know, what was happening, what's true, what's not.

What I'm curious about and what I care about is you played for a lot of unbelievable franchises with great fan bases. But how different was it with the pressure of a fan base like Edmonton and those Canadian fans, the Canadian media and all of that. Jesus. I can be honest to that, I didn't feel the pressure. Nice. It wasn't, you know, what people don't realize is we didn't make the playoffs until like game 79. Yeah. Like it was touch and go, touch and go.

that was a crazy year. I think it was either late in the third or in overtime. I think it was late in the third. Hemsky scored. We were playing Anaheim, funny enough. And he scores late. Boom, we win the game. And that kind of got us into the conversation.

And we got the eight seed. But I enjoyed playing in Edmonton. I enjoyed, you know, the notoriety of, you know, the media and the team and the Oilers. You know, and at that point, They hadn't had a lot of success. Yeah, true. You know, they taught Marchand scores that goal in overtime. That's one of the only times they had won a playoff round.

Yeah. Uh-huh. And I think, you know, when I got traded there and talking to some of the key guys in the team, it's just they were happy to have somebody that had my kind of notoriety and my position within the game and where my career was at. So that, and the nice thing was I had played with Mack T, who was our head coach. I'd played against Kevin, who was our GM. Yeah.

I played against Craig Simpson, who was our assistant coach. I played with Charlie Huddy, who was my D partner, who was our D coach. So there was a lot of familiarity, a lot of connection with that team. And so it was pretty seamless when I came in. You know, we picked up Michael Peck. We picked up, you know, and then at the deadline or close to it, we get spot check. We get Samsonoff. We get Roli.

So, you know, we added a bunch of key guys to our playoff run later in the year. and that I think really kind of put us over the top later and it took a little bit of time to get Roli into the mix you know the first couple weeks feeling outstage of how he likes you know how he likes to see the puck where he likes to lean all these little nuance he was fucking that people don't really kind of know much about yeah

where he likes to leave rebounds or or how he wants you to move guys and all the rest of that stuff and you know picking up the puck from him you know he was a really good puck handler yeah you know and he had to reverse his hands like Cujo, so he could flip it. If you remember in the playoffs that year, he had peck up the middle a couple times for breakaways. Yeah, so sick.

With how he did that with his back end. But I enjoyed it. I had to, I still talked a lot of the Edmonton media. Yeah, even after all of the mayhem. Yeah. No, it was, I enjoyed my time. It was obviously a great run, great for the city. And that building was so loud.

Oh, my God. It was so loud. Like when you, people send me the clip. of us coming out for the Stanley Cup final. I think game five. It was, no, game six. Yeah. It was so loud.

I mean, it was bananas. And I had all my buddies come in town. So sick. And they were like, oh my God, this is insane. It still is. It's like that's like the number one thing we say. And those old buildings, too, they're so intimate and so loud. The walls are literally shaking.

Oh, yeah. It was bananas. Yeah. It was bananas. Oh, God. It's unbelievable. That's insane. Dude, in game one of that series,

you become the first player ever to score a penalty shot in the Stanley Cup final. Cain's covered in the crease. How did, what happened when they were like, you're taking it? How did that go down? So we used to always practice, you know, shootouts or penalty shots after practice. We'd screw around and we'd practice them. And we made a game out of it, you know, you score, you keep going. Yeah.

So I always scored. Yeah. That's simple, dude. I score. It's pretty simple, but, you know, plus I was out there with the fourth line. Plus, it was just like, well, I mean, you're the guy that's always scored. You take it. You do it.

Yeah. You know, and I tell people, too, like, but, you know, we had eight days off before that, the start. So, you know, we're working out a lot. We're like, I'm in the gym, working out, and I tweak my back doing some stupid move. I'm like, God damn it. Yeah. And so my back's a little not great. So I was on a muscle relaxer.

So if you watch the, if you watch the whole thing. I was loose as shit, baby. I was loosey-goosey. If you watch, I'm down near the circle of the Carolina end. Yeah, yeah. Kind of farting around, just kind of bide my time, waiting from the blow the whistle. And then I kind of cruise up and then go. And just, I was very relaxed.

I, you know, people like, oh, were you nervous? I'm like, absolutely not. I knew what I was going to do. Yeah. Same move every time. Yeah. If he doesn't bite, boom, pull, go, you know, forehand, back end, five hole. Yep.

it's kind of like UC Yoken and how he used to do that movie. Go on that certain angle. And if you didn't bite, he'd shoot. And if he'd pull it and he'd do the one hand back. And just the angle that I would take, I either had that low blocker, which I hit. Or I pull, the goalie's got to move, hit the garage door button, open the five hole.

Slider home. That is so awesome. That is incredible. Yeah, you know what I saw it, which I didn't realize, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I just read this. You were supposed to be a free agent. Like, did your free agency get fucked that year?

Yeah, because of the lockout. Dude, that is crazy. We had three guys that got fucked because of the lock. I'm like, well, I was expecting to be a free agent. Yeah. Martin St. Louis, me and Sergey Gonchar. Yeah. What a, Jesus Christ, dude.

Three guys that were going in and it was like, okay, you know, if you look at it, free agency was 32. Okay. Okay. Going into the lock. Yeah. Well, then they come on out of the lockout. They're like, okay, it's going to be, I think it was 31,

but it might have been 30, 29, 28, then it's going to sit at 27. And I'm like, but coming out of the lockout, we're not going to lower it. Yeah. We're going to come out at the normal time. I'm like, why are we doing this? Why are you caving into that? There's three of us. Yeah, yeah.

It's not like there's 50 guys. Yeah. There's three players. Well, I think we know why. Yeah, yeah. For sure. God, dude, that's nuts. So, but I always, I tell people this all the time.

I go, I don't live in the what-if world. Yeah, yeah. Because if I don't go to Edmonton, yeah. I don't get that experience. I don't maybe change a narrative about me as a leader as a player. Uh-huh. I don't go to Anaheim. Yep. I don't win a cup.

Yep. And then I don't go to Philly. Yeah, right. Maybe I go directly to Philly or maybe I go somewhere else. But, like, everything happens for a reason. Yeah, yeah. changes it. Exactly.

Yep. Everything, if you change that one path, everything else has changed. Yes. So I mean, I still get people, you know, as much as you get the odd guy who's pissed off, I still have people who are like, oh my God, I loved watching you and I thank you for comment. Yeah. I'm like, I enjoyed it.

And like, damn did it work out? If you read the book, I tell the story why. What happened? Yeah. Okay. It's all in there. Well, I figured people always ask. I'm like, it's in the book.

Yeah. Yeah. It's not that big a deal. Yeah. Well, perfect transition to the ducks because you get there. You got Timu who wrote the foreword. You got Niedemeyer, young Getsloff, young Corey Perry. You guys have a fucking dominant playoff. You know, like he's just rolled on everybody. Wilden 5, Canucks in 5, wings in 6, sends in 5. What was that year like and then take me all the way through, you know, doing the job and getting your name on Lord Stanley? So when I was in Edmonton, we obviously played

Anaheim in the conference final. And, you know, I knew the type of team they were, you know, with these young up-and-coming players and, you know, some veterans and then some really good young players. And so I get traded there and it was like, you know, Scotty was the only guy that would want a cup. Right. You know, a couple of them had been to a cup finals before, but it was like, okay, this is our team.

We're winning. And everybody just bought in right out of the gate. We're winning. Yeah. And we're doing everything that we can to win this year. And so, you know, immediately get there and Tammu and I hug it out in the first day. Yeah. Give me here,

give me a tea. Let's hug it off for everybody. Let's rip this off now. Let's rip the Band-Aid off again. We're going to rip another band-a-a-a-a-a. A lot of band-a-a. There was a lot of animosity between me and team over the years. Yes, he ran me from behind in the Olympics and caught me for about 10.

And I got my pound of flesh over the years after that. I bet, yeah. Got him in the playoffs a bunch. And then, you know, just kind of, okay, we're teammates now. And let's take this thing to the Promise Land. Yeah. We got off to an incredible start. I think we're, I can't remember our record, but it was, we lost like five games in 35.

Yeah. And then, you know, I got hurt, Scotty got hurt, kind of hit a rut, and probably couldn't have happened at a better time. Yeah. To have some adversity to figure out and have a really firm understanding of how we needed to play. This is how we're successful and we need to stick to this. Obviously, two goalies in Jiggy and Briss, you know, and Jiggy, you know, in the beginning of the playoffs, Gigi goes through, you know, his son's issues so he can't play. Yeah.

And Briss played lights out against Minnesota, but there was always this linger, jiggie lingering in the background of when are they going to put Jiggy in. Yeah, yeah. Game four in Minnesota, you know, we're getting shelled. So, all right, here we go. Yep, there you go. Let's throw Jiggy in, see if he can, you know, at least just get some game time, get back into it, and then he played game five and then rolled from there.

Yeah, God. And, you know, we always had guys step up. Definitely. it's always interesting to see those depth guys come in like Joe Motsko played zero games during the regular season he came in and played in Stanley Cup finals Mark Hardigan same thing yeah that's right Mark Hardigan we got him at the deadline

as a depth guy you know I think A for that but but the minors and then came up you know Ryan Shannon like we had a lot of guys that came in and played games and then our loan move we pick up Brad May at the deadline, which who was a great fit on our fourth line and obviously his experience and his style fit our style.

You know, but there was another, obviously there was a bunch of other guys that were on the market then. They were talking about trading for. And I think at the end of the day, just didn't want to screw with our chemistry. And, you know, obviously Berkey had Mayday in Vancouver.

And so, you know, I think they chose chemistry. They chose betting on who we had and not, you know, because once you add a bigger name, who's ice time you're taken? Yeah, yeah. We kind of had our, our lines were set. So, Gunae, McDonnell, Salane, Penner gets that Perry, Moe and Paulson Niedemeyer.

Yeah. And then on that fourth line, we had Mayday, Marchant, Thornton, we had George, we had Shanny, we had Ryan Shannon, yeah, George Peros, we had, Hardigan and Motzco, you know, so we had all these guys. And then on the back end, we had, you know, our top four, we had Boece, needs, Odie and myself, and then we had Ken Huskins, Joe to Penta, Rick Jackman. Yeah, Fox teams stacked. You know, and so it's just everything kind of fit and everybody had their role and everybody,

you know, we had we had buy-in right from the jump. Yeah. Everybody bought in, everybody knew and just and we could play anyway. And that's the fun part about that team. We could, you want to play Rockham, Sock and bring it? Yeah. You want to play two one tight? We can do it.

We want to play running gun. Let's do it. That's so. And so, when you have a team. like that. It's fun to play. It's sick. Yeah. God. I mean, talking about chemistry, how cool is it for you when you look at your career and all the stops that you've had to have a player like Al that you played with in St. Louis? And then you get to Anaheim and a player like Scotty. It's like what a cool moment for you in your career of like these two different stops and playing with two all-timers. Yeah. That must have been so fun.

It was, you know, to mentor under Al and kind of learn and kind of utilize him to get my game to the next level and then to play with Scotty and see the nice The thing that I look back in my career is just the players that I was able to play with and learn from and be a sponge and kind of take little things and add it to my game. And, you know, leadership no different. Young captain in St. Louis. Very intense. Very, you know, a lot of pressure. 23.

I've already gone through all the other shit. Yeah. Getting booed and all that stuff. And so I had that chip on my shoulder like, okay, we're going to win. And I'm going to force you to win. Yeah. and kind of bring you along. And as I moved on, I get to Edmonton,

and, you know, they already had their leadership group. I didn't wear a letter. Yeah, right, yeah. It was Jason Smith and Steve Stoos and Ethan Morrow and Ryan Smith. And those were, that was our leadership group. When I was there to help support and supplement that and, you know, playing with a captain like Jason Smith, blood and guts, warrior, willing to do anything, very quiet.

Yeah. Very reserved in that regard, not, you know, a raw, raw guy in the locker room, but follow me. This is, you know, we're going to get to the Promise Land. And then to Scotty, again, very cerebral, very deep thinker. Doesn't sail up. But when he does, pay attention. Yeah.

Experience at one at all levels, as we all know. Like, you pay attention to those guys, you know, and then get to Philly and, you know, brought in to kind of be a mentor. Yes. And kind of provide that insight to Richie and Carts and the young guys we had there, Matt Carl. So it was, you know, with each. step learning not only my role but but learning from all of those people and even the young guys

taking stuff that you know as the game evolves and changes and adapts you have to adapt and you have to grow and and implement new things into your arsenal and uh you know i was certainly able to do that with each stop yeah yeah that's fucking it's so great talking about a lot of these guys that you've won with let's go to the olympics because obviously this year was unbelievable having pro is back you know NHL guys back but you know you went in 2002 2010, beat USA both times, which God damn it. Sorry, boys.

Salt Lake in Vancouver, two amazing cities for the Olympics. You have that iconic assist for Mario, the dummy, unbelievable. Korea scores the goal. So what are, I mean, we can go on and on about Olympics. But for you, what were some of your fondest memories

of those games? Like, are there any funny stories that have always stuck with you? Because it was so cool this year, you know, being there for us, getting to experience it with the guys and just hearing that unbelievable amounts of camaraderie that happen when you're there in the village fighting for the gold medal. They must be some of the best members of your career. Yeah, it's, you know, like in 98, you know, I'm 23 years old, you know, gradski. Yeah, Jesus Christ. I'm sitting in between Ray Bork and Scott Stevens, you know, Al's over here

and you're playing with all these Eisman, Sackick, all these guys are there. And, you know, that's kind of my first taste of being in that type of room. Yeah. And being in. And being in able to see how they prepare, like all those little things that you can, you hope to be able to bring into your game and just how conditioned they were and how they, how each one prepared differently, but in their own unique way and what worked for them. And, you know, heartbreaking loss. And I think that, again, that kind of eats away at you and sits with you that year. So coming into O2 in Salt Lake, you know, we're like, all right, you know, we were so heavily favored in 98. Yeah. I mean, it was like they wanted to hand it to us. I'm like, it's not that easy.

Yeah. And so in 02, you know, everything with Gretz and Kevin Lowe picking the team. And then, you know, everything goes on with Cujo in game one. We get smoked by Sweden. Pat Quinn's coach in Toronto, yanks him. In goes Marty. And now there, you know, now there's that strife. And Grets sits on the media bandwagon and just kind of sits on the grenade for us. And like, that's my fault. And, you know, he kind of eats it all to. to give us some time to find chemistry. And, you know, we had, you look at that team, like, Eric Lindros was playing on the fourth line. Yeah, I'm like, you know, like with Owen Nolan.

Yeah, yeah. You're just looking at that roster. And you're like, holy shit. Like, where guys were situated and what their roles were. And so it was, you know, not like in Salt Lake. So you're in elevation. Yep. You're talking about Scotty.

Yeah. You're talking about Scotty. I remember being on the bench one game and I'm, I'm supposed to go out for him. he rolled through three partners. Get out of it. And he wasn't even tired. Yeah. Like he wasn't even pan-ed,

he was probably out there two minutes. Dude, that is insane. He was so, one guy come off, next guy come off. And I'm like looking at like, I'm like,

Scottie, guess I'm going to miss my role here. Yeah. Goes to it as the other guy's changing, he looks. And he's like, oh, he felt bad.

Yeah. He's like, oh, he wasn't even tired. Yeah. He didn't even have to come off. He's just kind of floating around as only he can, just kind of zipping in and out,

rolling and I'm like, I mean, don't come off. Yeah, you're like, I'm tired. I'm good, dude, whatever. You're not tired. How's calling you, pal, like, you don't have to come. He just felt mad. He's like, yeah, sorry about that. I'm like, oh, my God.

Hey, you look like you're having fun. Yeah, yeah, what a skate. Hey, I've had it. But, you know, that was a great year. And then to be able to finish against the U.S. And in that fashion for that gold medal was awesome. And you talk about that pass. That had nothing to do with me.

That was all Mario figure and I. I don't even know. if I saw Paul there. I was just so funny. All I saw was 66. I'm like, get him the puck. Get him the puck.

Get him the puck. Yeah. Fast. Is it crazy having that, when we talked about Lindros playing on the fourth line, is it crazy having that many leaders in the same room? It's like you mentioned Stevie Y,

you got Sackick, you got you, you've got Mario. Like, it's endless. Like, how does it work in the locker room with that many leaders? Well, Mario was our captain.

He was the big dog. Yeah. And, you know, but Stevie, you know, I would say the leadership was really Mario, Stevie and Joe. Yeah, that was kind of, and Marty in the back end. Yeah.

You know, they had won. You know, they were kind of the guys that had won and Al too. And, you know, you're not that you're deferring, but you know, that's the core group. Yeah, for sure. You know, and obviously what Stevie was going through with his knee and trying to play and all the rest of that. You know, you have so much respect for somebody that wants it that bad. Definitely. And you're in the locker room.

going, okay, this guy's shown up three hours early to prepare his knee and get just to be able to play or skate. Yeah. And then to be able to play at the level he played at. With that going on, was pretty impressive. So, you know, that alone and then just how we came together with each game, much like 2010, with each game, we got better and better and better. Guys were really buying into their roles and really starting to, you know, when you're not used to be in a checker. Dude, I say it's all time. Yeah, yeah.

takes a little bit of time to figure out. For sure. You know, what your role is with respect to momentum and putting pressure on the other team and how it needs to occur. You can't have four skill lines. Yeah. Like there has to be guys willing to eat pox and block shots, kill penalties. I mean, did we not just see that this year with USA?

Like, you know, so many guys were given J.T. Miller, Vincent Trochak grief for being on that team. And that was a huge reason that they were able to win. It's because of what they did, you know? Like, it's blocking shots. killing penalties, winning D-Zone draws. Like, that is such a huge factor when you think about these stacked teams. It's crazy.

Yeah. I mean, you have to take guys that are going to be able to do that. Yeah. At a high level. You know, it's not like, oh, I'm willing to do it. Can you do it? Yeah. Are you willing to do it?

You know, I don't give a shit if you're willing to do it. Can you pull it off? It's a great point. Are you able to physically do that? Yeah. And then 2010 was that, like, going into, you know, were you guys nervous in OT? It was, no, not really. We came in the room.

You know, they score that, and Preezy scores that goal late to tie it up. We go in, it was very calm, very quiet. Like, it's in here. Yeah. Someone who's a hero. Yep. And, you know, we felt like we deserve to win.

So we're like, you know, like, you just have to go out and execute, you know, and just leave it all out there. Yeah. Like, don't, you know, it was, everybody was very poised, very calm, very, you know, Scotty said some, I said something, and it just was like very, don't worry about it. Like, just, let's go play. It's in this room.

Pretty unreal that your two golds were two such distinctly different eras. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we were rolling over. Like you look at that team, Getsy, Perry, Richards, you know, Sid. Yeah. You know, and the old guard to the now the new guard. And, you know, that's the fun part about the eras that I got to plan. Definitely.

those like highly regarded oh my god you got to play with that guy yeah and then rolling over and his young guy's holy shit you play with that guy too yeah it's like it's so cool that you want a gold medal with Mario with with Steve with Joe yeah and then you also own with the Sid Dewey like that's unbelievable it's such a cool combination of errors that you got to play out that's awesome and to think the NHO scripted it perfectly so that Sid scored the goal finally someone said it so good. Sometimes, I think about that all the time. I'm like, of course, Sid. Oh, yeah. Well, that goal went and I was like, are you fucking kidding me? Of course he had to do it to us.

I felt like I was going to happen this year. Like when Sid wasn't playing, I was like, this is the Connor moment, you know, right? Where they're like, oh, now Connor scores an overtime. And I'm like, yep, that's fucking perfect. He did it at the Four Nation. Yeah, he's going to do it here. NHL can build on it. He can now have that moment. And yeah, who were you, uh, who were you, uh, rooming with during those Olympics? I room, my roommate was Dowdy. So we had a room No way That's awesome

We had a room We had Thornton and Taves Were roommates Me and Doughty were roommates And then I can't remember Who the other one was So we had three rooms In a common area

Unbelievable I'm trying to remember Who the other one was Because Joe and Taves were right next to us Yeah But he's a character Hey

Doty beauty Yeah What a laugh Beauty What a laugh on that guy Not a care in the world Yeah We're just here playing

Whatever He is the best Let her rip. Yeah. It doesn't know it's the Olympics, too. Yeah, exactly. Fuck, that is so good.

Yeah. Okay, well, now we're going to get to this, dude. Oh, yeah. The book. Earned. Oh, you mean this thing's sitting here? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think we have it here, right?

Yeah, there it is. April 14th. You can pre-order right now on Amazon and it's... Or go to my website, Chrispronger.com. Slash books. Yeah, or whatever. But you find it either way.

Yep. Boom, right there. April 14th. One thing we said before we were recording, and you said online was, and I wrote down the quote, writing this book meant taking off the armor and telling the truth. Yeah.

That is an awesome mantra going in because you were saying, if I'm going to do it, let's bear it all. You know, peel back the onion layer and let people see what happened or how I was feeling. It's not a tell-all or, you know, it's not an autobiography. It's part memoir, part life lessons learned from my career and life, a playbook of sorts. And it, you know, it challenges people. Yeah.

Through my lens and my experience. and makes people really look at, you know, we always say, oh, my God, I want to play at the highest level and I want to do this. And here's my goal. I'm like, well, what are you doing to get there? Yeah. Yeah. Are you taking advantage of the opportunity? Are you prepared for the opportunity when you get it? Yeah, right. Great point. Cock is cheap. Like, take action. Absolutely. And so it forces people to kind of really look, because I was forced to do that myself. I had those those early days when I was being booed and life was not as simple. And I talk about, like, you look at the trope, you talk about the trophies and the championships and the rings and all the stuff.

people always forget. I was down here. I had to get there. And how did I get there? And how did I will myself? And how did I figure out how to put the work in? And so I talk about that in the book a lot. There was, you know, you said you've been kicking tires on this idea of 12 years or whatever.

What kind of push you over the hump of like, all right, now's the time. Yeah. You know, I stopped drinking two and a half years ago. And I, a good friend of mine is a performance coach. I just start talking to him. He's like, man, you should do public speaking. You got such a good story. You got all these things that have gone on in your life.

And I was like, I don't know. I've been asked to, you know, I've done a couple things and gone and talked to various events and stuff. But it was very informal. Yeah. No real structure or plan and take away, if you will. And so I was like, I don't know. Like, look at this guy. He's so talented and whatever.

He's like, yeah, that guy talks about doing that. He's never won. Yeah, right. He talks about it. And I'm like, actually, good point. Yeah. So then I was like, all right. You know, what could I talk about?

So then as I was kind of digging into writing some speeches and kind of putting things to paper and having real framework, well, it was actually a book here. Yeah. So as I started building up my speaking platform, I started kind of like, oh, that'd be a great, you know, all the stories in here are not on Google. Yes. You can't Google them because they're things that I do. just kept very private. Yeah. And so, you know, as I kind of had that clarity, stopped drinking, I started kind of looking at what impact that I want to have for the rest of my life. Like, we always hear, okay, they're Chris the hockey player. Yeah. I don't want to be Chris. I'm,

like, that's, that is over. Yeah. Like, that part of my life is over. I, I don't want that to be my legacy. I want this to be my legacy. And that's a piece of it. And then, you know, what impact can I have after that? And so as I started to dig into that and started to build out this speaking platform and put real structure into some of these speeches, things really kind of started coming up the fold for the book. Definitely. As I did more and more speeches, I'm like, all right, that, when you see the impact it has on people and their takeaway, you're like, all right, that, that needs to go on the book.

And then that needs to go in the book. And you're like, oh, okay, this, this one didn't really hit, you know, and you're like, oh, this really makes sense for people that are able to really, every time I do a speech, I want people to be able to take something home that they can utilize in their everyday life and make an impact. Yeah. And I don't want to go up there just tell a bunch of hockey stories. Yeah, right. No, and you do that sometimes at youth hockey events or things.

They want to hear that stuff. And then that's great. But I want people, when I do a speech or keynote, I want people to walk away having something tangible that they can implement in their lives that they're able to level up and be difference makers and live a better life. Yeah. Well, I mean, I love that mentality because it's like, like you said, the hockey part is, it's part of your story, but the story's not over. Exactly. So it's like, what pages are you writing next?

And that's a great way to look at it. And it's like, this is going to be the Matthew McConaughey of the hockey. Dude, it's incredible. What is it? Green lights? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. I think it's like, you know, you could have so easily just told the story, right? But to teach a lesson as well and give guidance, it's like, I think that's what makes something a great read. And it's also just the great approach in life to have. And it, when you are, are going into these next chapters. So it's like a lot of book references. Yes, nice. Well, one of my questions is going to be what do you hope people take away from? What are you in a library?

Yeah, Jesus Christ. Hold on. Do you need my glasses? Yeah, please, please. There we go. There we go. Second call. Well, since they're not Googled, I don't want you to give them away because you buy the book. Got to have to read the books. Can you tease like some of your favorite parts that, like even I walk through. So I walk through like youth hockey. You know, like we hear Connor Hellenbach talking about, yeah, I never played AAA. Yeah. I never played AAA. Yeah. I played high school hockey. Yeah. In Canada. Yeah.

God. Who the hell does that? Literally. I walked through. What was the decision? Like, why did I do that? You know, and I tell people, at every fork in the road, you have to bet on yourself. You have to challenge yourself.

And throughout the course of the book, I'm challenging people to really think things through and really have an understanding of what you're doing, but also bet on yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Hell yeah. Nobody else is going to do it. You need to do it. Yeah.

And so that's a key theme in the book. and then, you know, just why we do things. And then like the what if game. Yes. We're pointing this way for a reason. Yeah. There's no, there's no rear rear mirror. We're not like, oh, what if?

Like, as we talked about my career and what if I didn't go here. Don't worry about that. Yeah. Learn from it. Whatever, whatever good or bad outcome happens, learn from it, understand it. But you're going this way. Yeah. Feet are pointing this way.

Your eyes are pointing this way for a reason. Yeah. Move forward. Think about today and the future. Yeah, because those things did happen, right? They happen. We can't change them, so we gotta keep going. Yep.

Get going this one. Absolutely. Again, without giving anything away, were there any emotional parts of the book? There's a lot in here. I peel back the onion layers. Yeah? So, like, were there any parts that when you were kind of getting into it, there's moments.

They were like, I talk about Edmonton. I talk about, you know, quit and drinking. I talk about just some, you know, how dark it was during those moments. Yeah. Food every single night on home ice. Like, it's not, I love getting booed on the road. Yeah. Yeah.

That's amazing. That fuels you. Getting booed at home sucks. It's not pretty. No. And every day, every game, you're like, oh, my God. People waiting out by my car tell me I suck. And, you know, guys driving down the highway.

Yeah, you fucking suck. I'm like, buddy, really? Yeah. Dude. Walking in the front door of your home. Sid, you know, like, Jesus Christ. If you buy the book, there's like, I did a podcast with Joe Buck and John Hamm. Yeah.

And, you know, John Hamm worked at a bar in St. Louis that I used to frequent. And Joe was in his infancy as well. So we did this podcast that you get as a giveaway when you buy the book. And just walks through those early days of him serving me beers. I'm sitting by myself at the end of the bar kind of, you know, no friends. No friends. New to the city.

The whole city coming down on top of me. And I'm like, can I get another one please? Yeah, yeah. Just keep that leader. John, keep those coming, please. Yeah. Every time it's halfway empty, bring another one. Yeah.

And dude, because that can derail someone's entire career. I could have easily quit. I could have easily asked for a trade. I could have easily, you know, take the easier path, whatever that is. Yep. And, you know, I think, you know, it's building the character and the grit that you need for later in life. Like, had I not gone through that, you know, some of the challenge I face with injuries and my wrist and my knee, the Edmonton saga, getting traded four times. Like all the stuff that goes on.

Dealing with negotiating contracts and just all of it. It's, you know, those early days, those moments help, you know, shape my character. Absolutely. And the grit I needed to get past those things. And then, you know, losing a heartbreaking game seven in Edmonton and then getting back to the finals. Like understanding what it was going to take, learning from it, what was I missing. And then utilizing that life lesson to do that right there. Yeah.

Yeah. I was able to do that. God, is that a, which was my dream growing up. Yeah. How did it feel when it was done? Like when you, the first time you saw, like the hard copy, you're like, fucking right. Oh, the book? Yeah, it was, you know, I had, you know, you're reading it to proofread it and make sure.

Yeah. Make sure there's no grammatical errors because God knows, people are going to tell me. Oh my God. Why is there a comma there? Yeah. I'm not an English major. Yeah. Give it to the library and open.

Yeah, exactly. I'll take care of that in one day. But no, when I first got the first copy, I'm like, oh, this is, you know, I mean, shit, yeah. This is going to, you know, and I'm reading it a bunch to proofread and do all this stuff. I'm like, to me, it makes a lot of sense in how you can position it for people to really kind of learn and challenge themselves. And, you know, whether they learn from my mistakes or they can see the mistakes that

they've made. Channeling themselves. Kind of channel it to them. You know, I want people to read it and be like, okay, I want to do this. Yeah. And I want to challenge myself. And I want to get to that next level. Yeah, that's amazing.

Awesome. All right, before we get off some, like, you know, the book, the hockey stuff, and into some fun stuff, I have to bring this up because we are from Maine. And you just mentioned. That's in the book, too. Okay. So we don't need to give it all the way, but, you know, we just mentioned. So in the book, all these stories, I go into the stories, but this book would be this big.

Yeah. If I put all the detail and nuance, so I talk about it, but it's not, you know, I almost went to me. Yeah. You almost like, to you Maine. What the fuck? How does it go down? How, okay, so you played high school hockey. So I played high school hockey.

Then I go to Junior B in Stratford. Yeah. My brother is now in Bowling Green. Okay. Well, Bowling Green's a pipeline with Stratford, right? Yeah. Flanagan's. Yeah, right.

Right? So, and Rob Blake had been there and Ufferson, you know, on and on and on, right? So I'm in Stratford, finish the year, go back home, and then I make the under 18 team, which there was no Halenka tournament. It was called. the Phoenix Cup. Oh, no way. And it was in Japan. Yeah. Of all places. So great. Perfect. Which was awesome, really. Honestly, it's over in Japan. It was pretty cool. So Ian LaPereer was on that team. Holy shit. Yeah. And so, you know, we go over there. The two players from our team,

you know, I'm there, Todd Warner, a bunch of guys. They're all like that year up the draft. You know, they're all like top 10 picks or touted to be top 10 picks. And we go over there. and Paul and I, Paul Korea and I, are the only players there that weren't currently playing major junior. Yeah, yeah, wow. We're the only two players that made the All-Sert team for the tournament. Shout out Scouts, yeah. Shorghaghancher, Creval Krassov was there.

I'm trying to wrap Patrick Sundstrom. Oh my gosh. Like, you know, we had a, you know, pretty stacked draft. Yeah. And so all these guys are, you know, there or whatever. And so I'm, you know, I'm talking to Paul. He's like, yeah, I'm probably going to go to Maine. And I had my visits all set.

I was going to go to Maine, Michigan, Michigan State, Denver, and UND, the fight and sue. Yeah. And a bunch of buddies were going to UND. So I knew people that were going to be interesting of the UND. So that, you know, that was a viable option. Obviously, and I didn't need a, I didn't want to waste a visit on going to bowling green. I'd have been there a bunch. Yeah, oh, fair, sure.

So I knew. So those are the six schools that I had kind of circled. and a couple guys that I played Junior B with in Stratford. One went to Michigan State, another guy went to bowling green. So there's guys all over the place. Sure. So I set up my visits and then I go to this tournament, the Phoenix Cup with Canada, and I'm like, I play good.

And I'm like, well, these guys aren't that good. Well, you know, thinking, you know, and played against them a lot, right? Yeah, I never played against these kids. So I didn't know how good they were and how good I was and no comparable. So now I'm playing with them. I'm like, well, if they're rated that high in the draft, like, where am I rated? Yeah.

Like, where am I going to be? So I'm like, well, I was, I was second over, supposed to be second overall in the OHL draft. Okay. Told them I'm not going. Yeah. Like, I'm going college. Yeah.

And I was going to college. Yeah. Until this tournament. Yeah. So Peterborough decided to take me the sixth round. Sue St. St. Marie had two picks. One here.

Peterborough, one here. Yeah. They took Chris Derruder with this pick. Yeah. They were taking me with this pick. Wow. Peterborough was here and they took me. Yeah.

Jesus Christ. And so, you know, so then I go, you know, back then you had a 48-hour window to pick, right? So I go to, I go there, skate a little bit. Then I go to the training camp, 48 hours. And I'm like, you know, we had high picks on our team. We had guys. And I'm like, I could play here. Yeah.

Like, it's not that big. But I also wanted to challenge my. myself, really what I didn't want to do is I didn't want to go back to junior B. Right. Because I had, I had started here. Of course. And by the time that year was done, I was here. Yep.

I needed to keep challenging myself. I needed to bet on myself. Yes, exactly. I needed to keep pushing that envelope. And so I was just like, every time I thought about it, I'm like, while the appeal of going to college and, you know, being able to train, I was skinny. Yeah. Being able to train, being able to practice more so than the games, you know, that was

appealing to me because I thought that would be good for my development. Yeah. And then I was like, I just, I need to play against, you know, like Lindros was in the league. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I got to play against him.

And I got to play against all these guys, my rookie year in Peterborough. So it was a good challenge. It was a good way to keep pushing myself. You know, and the amount of games. Like it's more angel schedule. We played 72 games. Yeah, that's fucking crazy. Like, you're just constantly playing.

So that and we had a good team. Yeah. So it was, you know, there was a lot going for people. Dick Todd was there and like just a lot, you know, Ritchie had just left a couple years earlier. So there was a lot of familiarity with the franchise and obviously they're a storied franchise and a lot of history there. God, could you imagine if we had him in me?

Well, listen, he doesn't play the what-if game, but I'm always going to play the one-of-game, but God damn, that would have been incredibly. Holy shit. We'd have seen you all the time. Paul really would have won the Hobie. Yeah. I'm going to add another 20 points to his already stacked.

It's incredible. Holy shit. That's so cool. All right. Well, now we're going to jump. into a game we play with all of our guests called pass-shoot score. It's basically just a ranking system. So we got stuff that we know that you like.

I'm going to ask you to rank in past-street score. Pass. It's your third favorite. Shoot second. Score is the first. So I'm going to give you a two-parter on this first one. First, we're going to do golf courses. Okay. So pass-shoots score. Okay.

Cyprus, Royal County Down and the old course. Cyprus, score. Okay, wow. No hesitation. Right on the game. I played all three. I know. I know. Right out of the gate. So Cyprus score. Royal County down, shoot. Okay. And pass. Yeah, we're passed. Passed to the old course.

Fuck the old course, dude. What is it about Cyprus? Dude, it's just, it's awesome. Yeah. Just the routing. Like, you're hitting your shot. You can see the traps. You can see just the way it's laid out. You can see it. And there's a lot of nuance. Yes, I know the 18th hole sucks. But every other hole is awesome. Everyone was awesome. And then when you look back, you can't even see the bunkers. The way everything is laid out. I heard you say that on the links pod. You can't. That is the coolest thing I'd ever heard.

You can't see the bunkers. Like the way the lip is, the way it's rolled over, however they have it set up. It's awesome. You see the water. Yeah, right. You look back in the water and you can't see any of these tribes, can't see anything. Yeah. It's really cool.

That really makes you kind of get dialed in on course design. Oh, yeah. And Roll County Down was fun too. Yeah. Cyprus is here. Roll County Down. It was getting close. It was awesome.

I love it. That's okay. All right. Now the old course is special. It's special to be there. It's old, special, classic, but it's dog park. Yeah. Honestly.

No, literally. Yeah, yeah. Literally, I don't think people realize it's people walk their dogs in that, of course. It's called what it is. It's a lot. I mean, just the history, though. Yeah. All right.

Now the St. Louis version of that. Yeah. Belarive, Boone Valley, and Old Worson. Old Worson score. Okay. Okay. A Boone Valley shoot. Okay.

Del Reapest. Yeah. Okay. Where would St. Louis Country Club be in there if that was in the mix? Uh, would probably be third. Third. Okay. All right.

Nice. I feel like everyone we talk to, St. Louis, low-key, great golf spots. Sick golf courses. People are unaware. Very underrated. Yes. Definitely. Sounds like it.

That's amazing. Okay. You're getting out a lot. Every year it's the same thing. I'm going to play lots. Yeah. Yeah, right. I'm like, I did one summer.

One summer I played, I practiced and I played, I got down to a three. And I hated it. Yeah. Because if you don't practice and play, you're a three. Yeah, yeah. But you're not a three. Yeah. So when you're getting, like, I was like, yeah, 10 bucks a home.

I'm like, this sucks. I get no strokes. I'm the low guy. That's no fun. Yeah. I don't want to be the low guy. So true. God, yeah.

You got to get you to the pro athlete golf tour. Oh, yeah. But it's the same deal because every three, summer we go to this tournament. And the guys that are fucking nasty. You're like, this sucks. Everyone else is getting so many strokes. Exactly. I'm a seven right now.

That's fair. Then you have sandbaggers like DZ. Yeah. You know who you are. Yeah. Okay. Your next category is golf trips that you've done. Yes.

Okay. So pass you'd score your Ireland trip. Bandon Dunes and Cabot in Nova Scotia. Oh, man. These are tough. Yeah. Tough, tough, tough, tough, tough. It's pretty tough to beat Bandon.

That's a score. Oh, dude. Our boy here. So many. So many opportunities. So many courses, so many, like, oh, man, that's, yeah, the two times I've been there, it's been awesome. Yeah. I love all, it sucks, because I love all three.

Yes, of course, of course. Ireland was sick. Yeah, that's two. So that's a shoot, shoot, yeah. And then pass his cabin, but that was awesome too. We had a fantastic time at Cal. I believe. And all of these golf trips were many years ago, so they're two and a half years ago.

You can only imagine. Yes, we were getting in. We were getting into it. For God. You had a lot of fun. Let's just say, we had a lot of fun. Do the golf trip. That's the message, by the way.

Oh, yeah. Do a buddy's trip. It's so incredible. You need to do a buddy's trip. There's no question. That is hilarious. All right, this one's fun for me. This is going to be your plane meals on road trips.

Pass should score. This is more of a question for me. Yeah. Your first steak, mid-flight chicken, or your second steak? score a second steak. I had a feeling, okay. Score a second steak.

Shoot second, first steak. And then pass the chicken. But I will tell you this. I'm telling you, if it was a longer above an hour flight. Before we took off, I would get my meal. Yeah. Typically the steak.

Yeah. Probably wasn't eating at fish at that point. steak, take off, steak, maybe chicken, but depends on what we got going on. And then, you know, mid-air getting ready to dissent, another meal. Yeah. Typically a steak or chicken. I would have to eat three times. And by the way, hold on, three times.

And I would still lose weight. Yeah, two days. And other guys, they wouldn't even eat. Are you telling me there are some days where you would go triple steak? shakes takes. Yeah. That is incredible. And no one else was the team.

You're the only one doing this. Yeah. Are you eating the most of the team when this was happening? I would imagine. Yeah. A lot of guys maybe would eat once. Yeah. No.

They were always worried about gaining weight. And I'm like, I need more food. Yeah. Three, I mean, three steaks. Yeah. And by the way, and I had a protein shake and I had. Yeah. You're snacking.

After the game, a piece of pizza, whatever. Like, and then I'm doing all that. Are you doing? And I'm still losing weight, by you. That's so nuts, dude. And I'm still losing weight. On the three steak days, are we doing the same cut every time? Are you mixing it up?

Filet every time. Yeah. Well, at that, you know, whatever they have, but it's usually a flea. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's so good. I love it. What's your favorite, like, let's get in some food talk here. What's your favorite cuisine these days?

Like, what's your go-to? I've been, I could be on, I've been a lot better probably over the last five years of opening up my palate to new varieties. Interesting. New varietals. Okay. I'm not a super spicy guy, but I'm willing to partake in a little bit of spice. All right. A little kick.

A little kick, not a lot, a little. Yeah. So, I mean, I'm all over the map. I'm willing to try it at least once. I used to be like super plain Jane. Yeah. Chicken, rice, broccoli. Yeah.

You eat that 15 times over and over and over, you know, that or steak, like fish, salmon. And that was it. Yeah. Now I'm willing, you know, whatever. This is great. You cook it or we order it? I'm the barbecue guy in the house. Okay, nice.

I make all the meat. Yeah. She does all the fish and all the other stuff. Yep. Beautiful. Good deal. Great deal. Great deal.

I love it. And I barbecue snow rain or shine. Yeah. I'm out there. I'm out there. I love that. And it's 30. And I got that cue open and people are looking like.

Yeah. I'll have an umbrella. Oh, yeah. 100%. Kidding me? Can't stop. Yeah. because our parents are still in Maine,

so we're home for Christmas. Same deal. I'm outside. You can't even get the grill hot. You know, it's fucking 10 degrees outside. And I'm like, come on, baby, come on, maybe.

Watching the steam coming off of it. Yeah. So good. But that's great. You don't appreciate that you need a, it's going to be pretty close to the door when you're in the colder climates. Yes.

Like in L.A., it's like, whatever. It can be out in the backyard and whatever. In the colder climates, I'm like, that grill's right fucking there. Yeah. Yeah.

You also need the shovel right outside that door. So there's the little path. If you ever snows, there's just a little path to the grill. And then you're fine. Yeah. Okay. And here's your last one. And this is actually past shoot score history for us.

Okay. Because we are for the first time ever letting a guest craft their own. Because I saw this cool interview where you said you turned 50 and you were entering your 3.0 face. Yeah. Where it's like, have fun, smile. Yeah. You know, be happy. Enjoy.

So give us your top three or just three things that make you have fun and smile right now. I like seeing my kids happy. Okay. That's always pretty good one. That's a score. Yeah. go. I like, see my wife happy. Okay. Yeah. Happy, happy, happy wife. Happy life. Yeah.

That's awesome. We're going hat trick on this one. This is a triple score. Yeah. And I would say, just look at life in a positive manner. I think too often we look at the negative things and we look at losses more than we look at the wins. God, isn't that the truth? Jesus Christ. Yeah. Life's too short to be miserable. Yeah. Like, let's, you know, my nickname at times was Captain Happy. guys were like, oh my God, are you ever going to be? No, I'm like, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, yeah, yeah, we're, so, we're, we're, we're, we're, now that I'm, I'm, like, no, what do I care. Yeah, I love it.

Let's live life and enjoy. Enjoy it, man. It fires me up. Yeah. That's good stuff. That's great. All right, well, Prongs, this has been unbelievable. We've had a blast with you.

We're so happy that you're down here in Southern California. Before we cut you loose, let you go. Yeah. Tell everyone what you got going on, where they can find you. Yeah. Plug the book again when it's out, where people can get it. Make sure everyone knows. Book, Amazon.

It's called Earned, the True Cost of Greatness from one of Honke's fiercest competitors, whether you like it or not. Yeah. Whether you believe it or not. Put that in your pipe and smoke. Yes. You can get this bad boy on Amazon. You can go to chrispronger.com slash book.

And you can get it off Amazon on there or anywhere else. Your books are, you buy your books. And then if you're looking for, you know, speakers or what have you, go to chrispronger. com. I got all my stuff on there. And, yeah, broadcasting, you name it. Yeah. We're doing it all.

We're trying to make an impact on people and try to get people. Absolutely. to live their best life. Yes, dude. Life is too short. 3.0. Get out there and do it all. 3.0. I love into it. Great stuff. Massive, massive shout out to Chris Pronger. Get the book. And any of any hockey fan on earth, honestly, I loved what he said.

It's like, it's not even just about hockey. It's like, I'm big on a lot of these, like, self, not self-help, but like just enlightenment books, positive vibe books. And that's exactly what this is. So you heard it. Make sure you go grab it. It's on Amazon. on Chrispronger.com slash book grab it 14th pre-order right now and you get the pod

you get the hand John Ham Joe Buck Pod this is an incredible package I love it check it out unbelievable stuff and again huge shout out we'll have prongs on again

he's the man take another quick ad break and then we'll get back in with some not ice this episode is sponsored by better help it is tax season folks and I know a lot of you

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Welcome back, everybody, and man, we have been on a world tour lately with travel, but we were in Puerto Rico. Have you been there? Yeah, my father-in-law was born there. No way. So we went there a couple of Januarys ago. Did like a beach vacation in San Juan. Fucking loved it.

Dude, we had a very good time. I was blown away. Is that your first time? Yeah. First time. Or where were you? We were in San Juan. Okay, yeah.

We went to, there were two areas we went to. We went to Old San Juan one night. Yeah, so it's like the colorful houses. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was great. It was great. It was good times. Unbelievable.

Just like good vibes. So my, here's my real highlight for me. We were on our buddy from Holmes Bachelor Party. And we, uh, Saturday, sorry, Friday. Friday day, we were at this like beach, the old San Juan hotel, I think. Or the El San Juan Hotel. No, it was the El San Juan Hotel. We were there at their pool at a cabana.

Okay. we are there most of the day. We leave the pool and we are now about to go out to get dinner and go to a bar. And a buddy, his name's Scott, he goes,

I forgot my fanny pack which contained my phone and wallet and 500 bucks in the cabana. And we're now back at the Airbnb and we're like, dude. That's tough. So we're going out.

But keep in mind, super nice hotel. Yeah. This was like a, if you did forget it there, just go back and get it. Yeah. I would like

to stress. Many of us were going, I feel like we did a pretty thorough check when we left that cabana. I doubt you left it there. Either you brought it home or someone else has. Yeah. So do your due diligence to, look around the house and ask. He asked people. People were like, I didn't grab it, you know, whatever. And I, he did call to he called and they were like, we don't see it in the commander, but by all means, like, come, come look around. So he goes, okay, someone in the house calls him in Uber from our Airbnb to the hotel because he doesn't have a phone. So he goes, puff, see you later. And we go, puff off to dinner, everyone else. And then we're just like living our lives, dude. Like, we have dinner. We go to this bar. And we're at this bar and several

hours have passed. And then we get a text. But one of the guys on the trip was getting phone calls endlessly from Scott at the hotel. Yeah. Because he gave one of our buddies gave Scott, number and Scott was then calling him being like, it's not there, I can't find it. What do I, and we're like, get a fucking cab and get it, or like, we'll order you an Uber, but what do you want us to do? Yeah. It was hilarious. So

he eventually, we get a text from him. So like, oh. So he found his phone. And we get a text that's like, you know, he sends kind of like five texts in a row which ends with like, be there soon, drinks on me tonight, boys. And Dan and one other person answer like, hell yeah, Scott, you found your phone. Because like, we're just out and No one's even reading the text. Yeah.

I'm trying to have fun in Puerto Rico. And I was succeeding. I was having a blast. So then I didn't see any of this go down. So that I look at my phone and I see a run of text from Scott and then Dan. And I have the similar reactioner. I'm like, oh, Scott found his phone. And Dan has said, oh, Scott.

So then I scroll up to see what Scott has actually said. And Scott says, hey, guys, so I got abducted by a cap and I had to pay $500 to get myself freed. But don't worry. I'm now safe. I'm on the way to you guys. Drinks on me. And everyone's going like this. What? You got on your phone, Scott. Congrats. Because like no one's reading the text. So I'm like, yeah, guys, guys. Scott has been abducted. But it's all good now. Yeah, but he's back when he got abducted. So I'm like, this is fucked. So we get, he finally shows up and we're like, dude, I'm so sorry. What happened? Time out. Here's some more context for the people. Okay.

Scott is six foot seven, 250 pounds. Oh. So forgive me for when these texts, to text from his phone, and then him showing up at the bar completely fine, being like, I was abducted. There was a part of me that was like, what? How and who?

Maybe in his own mind he was abducted. So continue. So he gets to the hotel. Nothing that he owns. there. So now he has to go back to the Airbnb. So he, but he can't call an Uber because he doesn't have a phone. So he flags a cat, calls a cab from the hotel, like a regular cab. He gets in the cab, gives the address, drives back to the Airbnb. And this part, I do not blame him at all. He has a debit card on him. That is all he has, because everything else is in the fanny pack,

which is gone. And he has a debit card on him. So they get there and he goes, I will just pay with this debit card. And the cab driver goes, I do not accept debit cards. And he's like, well, that's what I have. That's all I got. You know, and this works. So the guy locks the car. He locks him in the car and goes, I'm taking you back to the hotel. And now Scott is like, I don't, I'm probably a little, I'd be a little scared in that moment.

Scott's a little scared. He's very mad. And he's like, let me out. And Scott is like, please, I'm begging you. And the guy will not. So he takes him all the way back to the hotel. And then. Which he made clear.

Yeah, yeah. He was like, you can't pay me. I'm not completing your dream. I'm bringing you back to where I got you. Yeah. Which is only eight fucking minutes away. Sure. So then Scott gets out.

He is let out then. The guy goes, get out. So Scott gets out and then goes into the hotel and calls the police to report his own abduction. I've been kidnapped. Damn it. He goes, he and I were joking that Scott calls the police and goes, excuse me. And the El San Juan is gorgeous.

He's a gorgeous lot. It has this unbelievable lobby that has, there's a Foxwoods right next to it. So in the lobby, there's slot machines, there's some tables. It has like an old Havana look to it. It was beautiful. This is the casino. I've been to this. Yeah.

I've been there. By the way, he doesn't tell us this until like 4 a.m. We're back at the house in the hot tub. And I go, can you please tell me what happened? And he tells us this. Because my whole thing was, when did you call the cops? You didn't have your phone. And he was like, oh, it went, the safety of the beautiful hotel lobby.

Sure. So, yeah, we kept being like, we were picturing him sitting, like, legs crossed, sipping a martini. Being like, hello? Puerto Rico police? Yes, I've been abducted. And they're like, we can see here that you're calling from the El San Juan lobby. Well, I was abducted, but now I'm not. Oh, yes, yes.

I'm having a lovely town. But it was quite terrifying. The martini gets delivered. You're fucking ridiculous. I needed three, this is a three shot martini to recover. It gets delivered. Like he's off at the cops and he's like three all, three allspons. Yeah.

I have been abducted. Yes, no, sorry. Yeah, I have been abducted. That's amazing. We were like, wait. So where was his phone? How did he get his shit back? He finally gets all the way back to the Airbnb.

It was in his room. He was in his room. Fucking A. What a nightmare. It was just. It's a real Savannah gutters. Just at the house. Jesus.

Anyway, incredible time in Puerto Rico. Massive shout out too because we're in a, In the La Factoria bar, I think. Incredible. There's best power I've ever been to my whole life. Yeah. And someone walks up to us and goes, excuse me, you guys, empty netters? And I was like, come on.

No shit. Yeah. Three girls, Nina, Lily, and Grace, they go to Cornell. They actually showed us, this bar had a ton of secret areas, and they showed us the best secret area of them all. And it made the night even cooler. I don't know. You know what was crazy.

It was like, the house we were in, too, had all the, you would walk through the house and you'd be like, I've seen everything. but there were all these like secret rooms in the house. Like you'd be in one bedroom and you'd be like, this is the bedroom. But then there's a random door and through that door is another bedroom. It was all over the house. I was like, what's going on here? And then this bar was exactly that.

It was you'd be in a bar and they'd walk up a little set of stairs and there were bathrooms. And then there was another bar. There was like a flamingo dancing part of the bar over here. And then out back there was like a rave bar. And then you'd go through the kitchen of one part and then up a set of stairs and then there was a rooftop bar. It's probably just a lot of add-ons. Like, it's just a construction that just was like, we're just going to keep going. They're just blowing holes, building as we go.

Yeah. It was crazy. It was the coolest bar I've ever seen. And yeah, shout out the gals, because they showed us that. It was unbelievable. Yep. So awesome. But yeah, Scott, you got abducted in the most pleasant way possible.

And in a beautiful country with lovely water. Yes. The best of, like, you're going into that water is. When we were at that hotel, it was one of these beautiful setups where the, you're at the pool and then you can just step off the pool area right onto the sand onto the beach. We were playing beach volleyball. It's great. It was unbelievable.

Amazing. It was unbelievable. All right, jents, I told you to last week that I have a not ice topic that I've been desperate to talk about. And since I've been desperate to talk about it, every single day of my life, it comes up in multiple ways. And I want to start this by saying, I know. that I am going to get absolutely flamed for this take by a lot of people.

But I'm prepared. Yeah. Because I am fairly certain that I am correct. We need men. We need to have a global discussion about the way we pee. Ooh. Interesting. And I am here to say,

Okay. That the immediate easiest fix is we need to start sitting down when we pay. Now, you are going to get flame for this. That's what I said. Yeah. Now, I don't want that to be the case because I know that there are multiple reasons. Wait, wait, but every time I see a urinal, I sit in there. Is that not what you're supposed to do?

Dude, you're not supposed to sit in it. Oh, really? Yeah. That's crazy. I know that that's not the answer, but hear me out. Dude, every bathroom, men's bathroom in America is so disgusting

and it is 100% because of urinals. If you go to any sports game, if you go to any bar and you go to the urinal and you look down, there's pee all over the floor. And maybe some pubs. Yeah, yeah.

Why is that happening? You know what? To be fair, that's happening anywhere, I'm sure. Yeah, but you got, what are we ripping them out in there? I bet it happens to the gals, too. It gets caught in your underwear fabric maybe. You pull her pants down, a couple get ripped out. Yeah, but if it happens to the ladies, it ends up in the toilet and it's flushed.

Sure. Okay. Yeah, yeah. There's pee everywhere. Yeah. There's pee everywhere. Yeah. And it's because even if, I mean, listen, when you're drunk, guys are missing, but like, even if you're not drunk, you're not sure.

you're not shaking well enough or you're like dribbling you're standing too far away we've got a fucking fire hose down there and no one's controlling it well enough then there's pee on the ground we're walking in it you're then walking all over the place you're walking into your home with pee on your shoes yeah dude we we we again if you sit down that's probably not happening as much i don't think that that should be the case because what's the best thing about peeing when you're a guy. How quick you can do it. You can just do it.

There's a reason. There's a reason. There's longer lines if it's all toilets. There's a reason there's longer lines in the women's bathroom because you have to go into the stall. You have to sit. It would make peeing, especially at things like bars and sporting events, way longer for the men, too.

And I know no one wants that. But from just a pure hygiene and cleanliness level, we've got to fix how we pee. It's absolutely disgusting. I think they also need to desisting. I agree with you. I think that they need to redesign urinals, so there's not as much flashback. Can we make them absorbent or something?

That is my next point. I was at a bar the waterfront in Venice. Yeah, I'm familiar, yeah. And I went into their bathroom. It was, like, end of the day on a Sunday, it was horrendous. It was so filthy and smelled awful.

And it's because there's pee everywhere. the urinal in there is so horribly set up. I had these like really nice like moisture wicking pants on. I peed. I looked, dude, there's pee all over my pants. Yeah.

And I wasn't missing. I wasn't even drinking. It was like, it was just the splash. Yeah. And the spray of the urinal, like the shape of the urinal. Yeah.

And I was like, this is fucking insanity. So that is an issue as well. Yeah. We need, we need to do something. Because here's the other thing, dude,

we're, also peeing and you're putting your linus back in your pants and you're you're just like dribbling pee oh yeah i i refuse i've learned took a long time to learn this i refuse to wear khakis and boxers not doing it wait wait what do you mean because every time i wear khakis and boxers i take a pee i put it back in and a little dribble comes out yep and the box the boxers don't like they're not as like thick as like a briefs yeah so that that that first layer of absorption gone and then you see it through the cagies. Like if it's on jeans, nobody sees. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If it's on khakis, you're going to see it. You got pee spots on your ass. Like a little, yeah, and

you know, I'm getting older. Like, I recently learned that women, when they find out that we wipe after we pee, a lot, many women are, they're horrified. Oh, we shake. They're like, you don't wipe and we're like, no, we shake. But like the shake isn't, it's not fail. Well, it's because the, it's because the, it's because, like, you could, I could even wipe. I could even pee and then go, take one, one square and go like this. Like, like, like, like, like, like you're just on. napkin of a little of a little worm. And then you take two, then it goes in,

and then you take two steps out of the bathroom and it goes, yeah, just one more. Yeah. And then I'm like, fuck. Damn it. Yeah. We got to get it. We got to get our shit check, guys.

Yeah. It's just, it's so bad. And it's honestly, I, though the wiping stuff, that, that's a whole different bag of now you got to introduce a roll of toilet paper near the urinal and that, that's, that's a lot of cost. And because here's the thing. I remember when I said at the top of this, this comes up every day in my life. It's on the planes, too.

Yeah. You go. into a plane bathroom after at least one hour of the flight you look down, floors wet. Because guys are in there, they're peeing, they're not lifting the seat, they're like shaking with the flight. They're peeing all over the floor. A guy who doesn't

lift the seat that should be executed. Literally everywhere. I'm like, I'm trying to poop in this toilet and now I got to like clean up your mess. It's horrendous. If you think that you have good enough aim, you're in a house. No, no, you don't. But it's like these, we just have these

unruly penises. and they're just spraying pee everywhere. I got a good. It's like a fire hose. I think it's also a big drunk problem. It absolutely is. And I got a crazy story for you. I was in Catalina Island.

You ever been to Catalina? Yeah. I fucking love it. So I was on the Avalon, the side that's like the touristy side with all the shit. And I was working a job there. I used to work for the Laugh Factory and they did like comedy out there. So I'm out with some of the comedians late at night at like a dive bar. And, you know, go to the urinal, go to pee.

It's got partitions. know it's got the things. And I'm looking down and I'm peeing and I see another stream of pee coming in from the other side. You're joking. Into my urinal. And I look over to me and there's this like distorted like drunk face of like an old fisherman with like the Rayban tan, you know, where he's like beat red except for this area. And I look over it. His face is this close to mine. He's like, hey man. And I'm like, what the fuck are you doing? Get off of me. This is a single use. And that was the only one in the bathroom. It wasn't like there was like a, a, full bathroom with one.

It couldn't wait. There were three urinals. That is like one of the most terrifying things I remember. It was a nightmare. It was, I like, I woke up in a cold sweat. That is so good.

Did that happen to me? Yeah. Okay. I actually love that. I think that's an all time. Boop. What do you think about the trough, Dan?

You know, some places have, well, they put ice in there too. Yeah. Yeah. Massive trough. The troth,

I think, and especially with like ice down there. Yeah. I mean, What's the point of the ice? I don't really know. So it doesn't smell? Someone should tell us that.

What is the point? Because I look it up. I recently just, oh, we were in Chateau Marmont. Yeah. There was ice there. Either way. To control odor and reduce splashback. I don't know that if there's like water-y, I feel like if you hit like an ice cube, it's still sprays.

You know what? Actually, the move is is snow. Snow reduces splashback. We need snow in every. urinal. But that feels unreasonable. You make a hell of a margarita out of that. Yeah. That feels unreasonable. So my, my, my larger point here is we, we just got to do something about this. Yeah. I don't know what it is, but there's just pee everywhere. Maybe we, we talk about, let's go to Congress, lobby it so that it can get into the Department of Education so that we can tell people to put this a part of their

home health curriculum. Like when you're telling little boys about like the sex ed and all that kind of stuff. We're like, by the way, let's do half a day on like bathroom medicaid. Yeah. Honestly. Why not? Maybe we just need deeper. Like, I've come around, I think urinals are an absolute nightmare. I hear you. I thought it was going to be dumb. I hear you, but I just, I've, the speed is so key. The speed is, no, but it's the, the, the shape, we need someone to re-work, re-engineer urinals. What if they were just the bowls? Like, what if they were just toilet bowls without the door stuff? Like, here are the toilet bowls.

with doors and then here are toilet bowls with no seat. Let's say you just put toilet bowls and then the stall dividers. How's that different? I think you're still missing. And also, like, there's splash in the water. It's like we need something deeper. What if it's a height difference thing? What if you need something you can adjust so that it gets right up next to your junk

so there's less distance. So there's less chance for missing. Less chance for splashback. I think we need more distance. Dude, I actually have an incredible tangent now. But the more distance, then your stream is longer, it has more chance to miss. No, but hear me out.

Picture a toilet bowl. Yep. The opening. Right. But that toilet bowl goes down five feet. Right. There's no splash there. Yes, but if it's still,

if that's still like far away from me, people are going to miss on the way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It needs to be right up next to you. You know what? We need to get the Japanese on this because they have great bathroom technology. We need that they need to be the innovators and leaders of this.

We're not equipped. Here's what I want. I want to be, I want there to be deep bowls, but also that start really high. And the lines in the bathroom say heights, like, you know, six, six, four to six two. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, awful. Awful idea. Now we have a line issue again.

Because then all, here's why I want it. Awful idea. All the 5-11 guys get in the six-foot line and their dick can't reach the bowl. And I go like this. Boom, 5-11. Sucks to suck. You've been got. This wasn't even a fucking bathroom issue.

I was just trying to call you out. good day they're like there's a lot yeah yeah it's true like ever see like it's like when a little kid goes to the urinal

and he's got to use the really low one and he pulls the pants all the way down on his ankles you're like dude you got to learn to you don't have to

pull the pants all the way off yeah I I suppose I'm I thank you for coming to my TED talk but I to me

it's this is a this is an international issue that we're not handling there's piss everywhere there's piss everywhere there's piss everywhere

There's piss everywhere and it's our faults and we're not doing anything about it. Covered in piss. Yeah. It's awful. Yep. If anyone has any suggestions, please hit us up. When you walk, I'm sorry, I'm done. But when you walk into a bathroom and there's just piss all over the floor, it's so shit.

And then there's like, and then it gets like you can see like footprints in it. Yes. Like the dirty like, oh, that guy's wearing a converse. And Ed, it's like, I know that. It's an air max right there. Oh, five foot 11 guy. He's only wearing a foot. But it's like, when I'm in the airport and I'm wheeling my luggage in.

Yeah. And I'm like, I want to leave my bag out of this bathroom so it's not wheeling through piss floors. How do you feel when you bring an open drink, like you got a pint? Like if you go to like crypto, you know, or whatever and you've got a piss vapor in the air? Yeah, and you've got an open pint of beer. Yeah. What are you going to do with that? It's bad.

You got to cover that up. We need to fix this. We need to fix this. Okay, speaking of beer, let's get into a nice beer league hotline. Literally created an insta just to get your take. Ooh. I'm in a wreck beer league. It's a mix of older guys who played high school,

some women who played college, and beginners who just started. There's a guy in the league who's season stat line is 46 goals, four assists. Does nothing but rip shots bar high. No idea where they're going. Hardest shot in the league. Dome's the goalie three times a game.

Should this asshole be in the league? Yeah. He's got 46 tucks. fucking weapon, dude. What are you talking about? He's best player. He's Ovi, dude. He's definitely not on this guy's team either.

Like, if he was on this guy's team, he'd be like, we have this dude, he's dope. He scores every game. Yeah. I will say, though, hold on. I will say, doming the goalie sucks in Beer League. Like, I've done it occasionally, obviously,

and I literally like stop play in mid-action and go up and I'm like, sorry, dude. Yeah, I hate it. Because there is no need to be hitting someone in the fucking mask at midnight on Wednesday. Yeah, I hate it. So if he actually is doming the goalie three, times a game, I am like, pal, you've got to fucking cool it.

Yeah. In my opinion. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you do have, that's, frankly, that's the only issue I see here. Everything else you're good. Yeah. Or apples is fucking hilarious.

It's hilarious, but like, who cares? Again, if you, if you're really scoring 46 goals in a season in beer league, that's fantastic. Yeah. I mean, I know it's beer league and we always joke that the score lines in beer league games are seven to five all the time. Yeah. But there are plenty of beer league teams.

out there who will tell you their goals come few and far between. Like they need guys who can score more. If you've got a weapon who's scoring 40 every season, that's fantastic. I don't care if he's not passing the puck. Right. You do need to stop doming the goalie. Yeah. Getting your bell rung by a clapper as a beer league goalie is so brutal. So brute. So, Dan, let me ask you this. Because I am curious, and I think your answer is going to be the production plays. But this guy strikes me as the guy who knows he has a fucking rocket shot obviously. So essentially every time he touches the puck, it's going on that. Yeah. Which means he has 46 goals, but he has 40,000 shots, which means I'm wide open several times like, yo, yo, yo, and it's just like high off

glass, high of class. I kind of think we're not, I'm not, I'm definitely not banning him from the league, but I do think I would be like, this guy sucks the play with it because I have never once received a pass. I am sure that's the case. Yeah, like those four are rebounds. I also know this guy. I'm sure the team has had talks with him, and it won't change. Doesn't care, yeah. Yeah. We've got guys on our team where I'm like, well, you fucking look up and they're like, I know, yeah, I know, yeah, and then they don't.

Yeah. It is, it is what it is. The production's there, and that's a good thing. But listen, is he fun in the locker room? Good question. Is he a good dude? He just shoots too much. And also shoots too high, I think, is together.

It's like consistently, too high. Always too high to where, like, somebody's maybe going to get injured. Yeah, yeah. I'm almost mad at the goalies in this league. Like, you know where it's coming. Like, just, you know, like, it's Fulton Reed situation. Yeah, I'm sure they know it's coming high, but if it's also possibly coming off your dome, you're probably flinching a little. Yeah, and I don't blame you.

Yeah. I think you got, the one thing here is, I don't know if he's doing this, but if you're taking clappers. Ooh, also good question. I'm a little bit like, come on, man, stop. I think Dan, too, maybe you could get someone. on the other team could, if he domes their goal, he could just give him, you know, one to the back

of the leg or one, you know, kind of right here. Not super hard, but just be like dog. And I think, because no one, speaking to him will never get through to him, but I think enough of those, I might be like, all right. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not one for advocating for violence in beer league. But if you are a habitual line-stamber,

yeah. If you were doming habitually, then you should have a league rule here. if he domes, give him a two-hander in the back of the leg. Yeah. And he goes, what the fuck's that for? You go, it's every time. You just ripped a clapper off our goalie's head, you dip shit. Yeah.

And he can't really get mad. And if he then does that again in the game and you give him another one, he's not going to ask why you did it. Yep. So. Yeah. So keep him in the league, but self-regulate. Yeah.

So keep him in check a little bit. And again, don't go too hard with the two-handers. Yeah. Oh, do I'm not. Yeah. Enough that he feels it, but not injure him. Yeah. And that's good.

I think we're solid. I like that. The ruling has been made. Four apples. All right, CP, you got an interesting Bauer blind ranking for us here. Evan today, in honor of our friends at Bauer, who give us the pulse and all of our favorite gear and all of our favorite training tools and my skate sharpener, which I just fucking love.

My God. We are going to blind rank the perfect amount of games left in a season when you should fire your coach. We are blind ranking how many games into the season, into the season. So zero means the season hasn't even started. 82 means the whole season has been played. All right. 30.

I think that's two months. I'm thinking high here. Two months? 30 games is you can kind of see what's going on. Would you prefer an earlier fire? I might even prefer an earlier fire. No. Really?

Dude, has Lindy Ruff taught you nothing? Yeah, but what about who was coaching the Oilers before a knoblock? That was like 10 games. They were like 2 and 10, and they were like, bye. Yeah. Woodcroft. Yeah. Jay.

I might prefer an earlier but actually a good point. 30's pretty good. I think it's... But I don't want to go one though because I think... No, God, no. I could even go three.

I'll go three. No, I want three. Okay, three, three. Okay. 14. See, I kind of like that. I think it's so premature. If you go 0 and 14, then yeah, sure,

there's an issue. But 14 games in, realistically, let's call us 4 and 10. Yeah. That's bad. If you're a good team with high hopes, that's bad. But you're also going to like, fuck me. So you want to go four?

I do. Fuck. I think we're in a pickle now. I think this is the craziest blind ranking of all time. Nothing in here is going to make sense and it's going to be awesome. Okay, four. Okay. 82.

Five. Well, no, I mean, okay. I guess that presupposes you've lost. You're not in the playoffs. Yeah. Could you imagine if you were? you make playoffs the season is officially over

you have made playoffs when you go like this you're fired I bet it happens this year dude I bet it happens I bet Detroit sneaks in and they fire McClellan well here's the question

do we look at this as a we're putting it five because either you've made playoffs and you're out of your mind or it's like a too little too late dude if you wanted to fire this fucking guy you should have fired him in the middle of the season

but then the argument is like well now we have a full off season to find a new coach. Like, what the fuck? But then the other argument of that is you could do that anyway, because you could just do an interim coach, and then you could still hire a new coach, hire a new coach in the offseason, whatever.

Yeah, yeah. Or do we say that this is two and go, yeah, it's a reset? Yeah, because you go. Again, this is the dumbest blind ranking. This could just happen in the summer, right? Yeah, yeah. This could just be, the last season was 82 games. We're done.

Now we go new coach. This is the dumbest blind ranking ever, and I love it. I think we go, I don't know. Let's go five. Really? Yeah, because you go... Yeah, all right, five. Five.

You're a coward. You should have done it earlier. Yeah, yeah, let's go five. Five. Seventy. See, I love this. Two. I now love this.

We've seen that it works great. Twelve games left and you go, dude, we got to figure this out. Final push. Yeah, we go, we go, okay, so you only want to open. We literally have an example where with eight games, it won a cup. Yes, correct. So fucking suck me if you don't like it. Vegas is four.

No. Okay, we're going to go, you want to go one for 70? No, I want to go two. Two. Okay, two. The perfect time to fire your coach is this many games in. 86. You son of a bitch, dude. You've lost four playoff games. Okay. Or, or, or your, it's, it's, the series. The series is one, three, three, one in the series. We need some three. We need some. We need some. We need something here. We're down three one in the series. We need some. We need some. That's what I was saying. Coach is fired. Get a new man at the helm. It's number one. 86, specifically down 3-1, though. Yeah, yeah.

86 games, you're down 3-1 in the first round. You know what? I should have just said 85. It's gold, dude. You're like this. Fuck. Incredible. Well, that's about as crazy as a blind ranking as you're going to get from us.

Hope you enjoyed this amazing episode with Chris Pronger. Like we said, go buy the book. Check out everything Prongs is doing. He is the best. Give us five stars. Spotify, Apple, wherever you get your podcast. Subscribe to the YouTube. Go get some merch.

We get some great new stuff coming out. Some new playoff shirts coming out for every team. It's great stuff. It's going to be fun as hell. We'll see you later in the week as this wildcard race continues to be insane. Until we get there, skate hard.