Shaun Newman Podcast - #3 - Bill Caverly

Episode Date: February 20, 2019

On today's episode I talk with Bill Caverly. He is a husband, father of two, journeyman electrician, Junior A' Bobcats board member & billet family, soundman for the Dirt Rich Band, maintenance foreman for 5 McDonald's location and rec goalie phenom. We discuss his Rec hockey career and where it has taken him, playing for the Leafs alumni and most winning goalie in Whiskey Chicken Cup History just to name a couple. 

Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Tonight I have Bill the journeyman cavalry in the studio with me. I call him the journeyman because he's got his journeyman and electrician. Yep. But I also call him the journeyman because he's played on more wreck teams than I can count. I think he's played more hockey than I have and he only started eight years ago. Yeah, well, it started, yeah. Well, it'd be just over 10 now.

Okay, 10. Just under 30 when I started playing goal. How old are you? I'm 39. Holy moly. He looks like he's 22. Well, Bill, if you don't know who Bill is, he's a husband, a father of two, eight and nine,

I'm boy and a girl that are 14 months apart. So he, what do they call those Irish twins? You're a dangerous man because that is a dangerous game to play. I'm playing it right now, and it's a busy life. Let's just leave it at that. Yeah. You're the maintenance foreman. Can I call you the foreman? Yeah, yeah. It's just me. Yeah, of the five McDonald's stores in Lloyd and Cold Lake.

Yep. In your free time, you do some free diving for... Yep, for Lloyd Rescue and fun diving, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. And then let's not forget about what you make some bucks at. You work for the Dirt Rich Band, which if you haven't heard of them, YouTube months, They're an up-and-coming band from Kids'outi, Alberta. Yeah, yeah. And then you also work for MAZ Entertainment.

Huge shout out to MAZ. And between you two, this is how we got all the audio for this thing set up. So I'm really excited to have you in studios. And we're going to talk a little bit about your goaltending prowess, maybe if we can get you open it up here. So I thought we'd start going back because you didn't always play a goal. No. Maybe let's go back.

to when you're young because you bounced around you you you said you initially from Ontario then you move out to Calgary then back to Ontario and then back to Marshall Saskatchewan yeah yeah and so in the process you play a little bit of hockey so what did you start playing out yeah so so I started started really young playing so I was in Calgary till I was like six six or seven then we moved to a place called Manitoulan Island in Georgian Bay and it's the what is it it's the world's largest island on freshwater lake so yeah big destination spot for vacationing in in Ontario really beautiful so we moved out there

my dad started a plumbing company of his own out there and that's kind of where he started playing hockey pretty young there played a couple years there when we when we live there and then we moved to Barry and for some reason I don't know why I was in grade three my parents asked me if I wanted to play hockey and I said no I was like I don't want to play hockey anymore and I don't know why and what position were you playing at that I was playing left way left way yeah well when I was young I probably probably played whatever yeah yeah I don't don't remember a lot of it but yeah yeah I just didn't I guess I didn't have the desire to play anymore so I played baseball when I was in Ontario. Yeah, and then we were in Barry for a couple years. Both my parents worked at the hospital,

and my dad's a pipe fitter by trade, and so he was working in the hospital there, and then got the opportunity to come out here and work at the Upgrader when they started building it. Oh, wow, okay. Yeah, so we kind of ended up out here and been kind of, well, my family's been here ever since. Mom and dad have been in the same house in Marshall since 91. Oh, okay, okay. Yeah. So one of my, my rituals of before I start the podcast, is I pull my teeth out because I've had them knocked out several times in hockey. And I've seen you do it now, and I know you've got a story behind it.

So that goes back to when you're a kid. Maybe you can shed some light on that and how you lost some teeth. So, yeah, I wish it was a good story about, you know, playing some serious hockey and getting roughed up. And no, it was me and my brothers and one of my buddies. and one of my buddies playing street hockey and me and me and my middle brother. So there's three of us. Trevor and Cody, so Trevor's my middle brother.

And we scrapped hard as kids. And you probably know all about that. I'm the youngest of five kids, three older brothers. Let me tell you, I took my fair share of Lickens. Yeah. So we were out in front of the house on the street playing some street hockey. and scored a goal on my brother, and he got pretty upset and said, no goal, no goal. And I was like, okay, whatever, I'll do it again.

And so came back out, don't remember exactly how it happened, but I scored on him again. And I was celebrating. I had my arms up in the air walking away from him. And then I turned around and said, yeah! And just as I did that, he hucked his stick at me and caught me square in the mouth and knocked all my front teeth out. What did your parents? and say well so my my mom came out and and I was screaming and so my mom I ended up rightfully so so yeah my mom ended up picking up all my teeth off the off the gravel road and she got them all

which was lucky and my dad took me in the house and I'm just pouring blood in the sink and he's like okay calm down calm down as I'm watching my mouth bleed out and so I was freaking out pretty good and then mom and dad took me into the hospital and we sat there forever and finally they said yeah we don't have a dentist on staff today so sorry and so my parents got on the phone and just started phoning all the dentists in town and finally finally found somewhere we could go and ended up spending most of the night there as he pushed all my teeth back in and uh all like all in all i think it was five teeth that got knocked out and only one broke so he did manage to get the broken tooth back in but eventually it died so it was in there for probably five years before it kind of turned black and fell out and

and i had to get a false tooth i have too many dentist stories to go down that road but what you're talking about the road hockey i have a vivid memory as soon as you start talking about uh kids and and scoring and celebrate and i good friends still with the whack brothers uh out in home on Curtis and Kyle and I remember going to a birthday party and every time you'd have a birthday party they kick you outside and you go play and his kids we'd either play mini sticks down in the basement or we'd go play road hockey outside and I can't remember what they got it into but I vividly remember Kyle Wack raising a hockey stick chasing them around the farm yard going I'm going to kill you with it raised like a tomahawk and they chased each other and I remember

sitting me said Scott Simon's going I don't know what they're yelling about you want to go inside All right, yeah, so we went inside, and I remember telling their parents, yeah, Kyle's chasing with a hockey stick, and they're like, oh, yeah, that sounds about right, right? It was like a standard thing. I'm sure your parents didn't love the teeth go amiss. Yeah. But at the same token, that kind of just, it came with the territory as kids and road hockey. Oh, yeah.

There's a lot of bragging rights left there. Yeah. Oh, and we had a great big rec room in our basement that we'd always play hockey in, and there, we had some good rip-roaring fights, like, full-on. And somebody always came upstairs with a bloody nose when we were done. Isn't that the rule of the game can't end until somebody's bleeding? Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

I remember the one time I, me and my brother got at it in a game, and my dad came down and broke us up. And I shoved my dad. And that was the last time I ever shoved my dad. I've never been thrown across the room so hard before in my life. I thought it was pretty tough. And yeah, my dad showed me I was not. Fair enough.

So then you go and you play a little bit of Bannam hockey? Yeah, so crazy thing. I'm just laying in bed one night and I remember it and I was like, you know what? I want to play hockey again. And I told my parents and I look back now and I'm just like my dad, because my dad grew up as a really good hockey player. My dad played all the way up and had offers from like the Philadelphia Flyers Farm team and stuff like that. Oh, yeah. So my dad played some pretty serious hockey growing up, and he knew I wasn't a good skater. And I had missed, you know, the basic years of hockey, like the major development years, right?

Right. And I was bound and determined to play. And I remember how many times my dad said, you know, you don't need to, if you want to quit, you can quit because I was bad. Like, I couldn't skate backwards. and I remember and playing in Lashburn right everybody knows everybody in Lashburn so I was kind of the joke of the team right like kind of the Rudy story right so everybody in the town is a good movie yeah yeah exactly I remember when I scored my first goal and and the whole place just erupted right yeah yeah and and I remember coming up the stairs to yeah I think it was a prevent

game because we won the step league that year and uh everyone was chanting billy billy billy and oh yeah so so it was it was fun i look back and now it's like you know everyone was kind of making fun of me but i you know i had fun and i only played that one year and then i you know i was happy it was good i played the anytime you see a uh a kid who maybe uh works his butt off and then gets rewarded for for it and maybe isn't as skilled as the rest of the group. I bet you they saw the smile on your face. It's hard not to enjoy that, right? I played with, we called them Rudy.

There was a guy in Dryden and we played with him. And he was a walk-on, a local kid, Mike Smith. And our first year, I don't even think he played a game. He might have played one game, maybe one game. But he came to every bag, skate, came to every. practice and the coaches, you know, any other team, they probably would have just cut him, right? Like he was a little behind in skill. But then I remember he came to everything, went through all the crap with all of us, and he earned the name Rudy. And then he got to play. He got to play

like three or four games. And he was over the moon, right? He just became one of the guys. Because by that time, he had more heart than half the skilled guys we had. They hardly wanted to show up for a practice, let alone half the games. And he was in there. You know, Larry'd walk in with his skating hat on. He was this behemoth of a man muscle, our coach, and he'd walk in, and if he had his Calgary Flames hat on it, this time, Calgary Flames, and anyone listening, I'm not a Calgary Flames fan. But at the time, the Calgary Flames were on their way to the cup,

and so he had everything video on Calgary Flames. And so when he was serious, he put his Calgary Flames hat on and skate us. And so he'd walk in with his hat on, and we all go, weren't getting skated. And really, he'd just pop up and away he'd go and he'd be the first guy out there skating his butt off, right? And he played two years like that. And not everybody's made with that much gumption

to go through the crap and not get a reward of getting to play even to every game or every second game, right? Like, that's pretty cool. So I go back to them chant your name. You call it a joke or something, but I think it's a feathering your cap. Yeah, yeah, it was a neat experience for sure, yeah. Yeah, cool.

So let's fast forward now. You're 30. And you go, you know, I want to get back into hockey again. Yeah. Well, you know what? I did play just some rec hockey like on my dad's team. Fair enough. Here and there every once in a while.

And it ended up, you know, playing a little bit of church league hockey. And basically a bunch of guys get together varying skills from guys who can barely skate to guys who played some serious hockey. And, yeah, we just go out and have some fun. So, yeah, the one day, we didn't have an extra goalie. So I was like, yeah, you know what? Give me the gear. I'll throw it on and get out there and try my hand at goaltending. Because I played street hockey as a kid as a goalie and always enjoyed it.

Well, you're not the first guy I've heard of that. I can think of Kyle Wack is a guy who just picked up goaltending. My brother Harley, he did it for a short stint. then when maybe this isn't for me, I believe, right? Like he did the, oh, teams always looking for goalies, right? Yeah. You know, you can just hop on that way. I want to say Dean Amundrew might be the same way.

I think he picked up goaltending out of the blue. Dean will probably call me and correct me if I'm wrong on that. So it's not a completely off-the-wall thing to do, but I think what's unique about you is so you've been doing it now close to 10 years. Yeah. And some of the experiences you got, and some of the, I put it out on Twitter today, right? Like, how many teams in the Lloyd area have Bill Cavalry's number, right? Like, how many teams?

And the majority, I think it was 69, 70% said everybody's got Bill's number, right? Whether you're a senior team out in Helmont, whether you're 15 of the rec teams in Lloyd, right? We were joking on the way here. You said, oh, I got a game tonight with it. And I was like, oh, when you're playing with all the Bruins? Oh, that's great. Yeah, they're one of my regulars, right? I'm like, well, how many times you play?

And you're like, well, I don't know, like probably average five days a week. Like five days a week, you're playing more hockey than me. So like, how does that happen? Yeah. I don't know. I don't even know. You can ask any of my buddies. I started out, and I was pretty bad and didn't have much skill.

You know, kind of the big change was, it must have been Facebook or something. And mine the net goaltending had a weekend adult camp. And I was like, yeah, you know what? It was geared towards wrecked goalies that had one. one to five years experience. Who put that on? Yeah, it was Travis Harrington from, he's actually the goalie coach for the North Battle for North Stars and his company put it on.

And it was a blast, but, you know, it kind of gave a guy the basics of, you know, because you're just going out and doing your best at watching videos and seeing what guys are doing. But those guys kind of gave you the basic skills of, you know, sea cuts and tee pushes and and how to move in the crease and stuff like that. And it was like, yeah, you know what? You start putting that together and start working on that when you're playing, you know, nothing hockey.

Hey, all of a sudden you're a little more skilled. And one guy on the team's like, hey, you know what? Come play out for a rec team one game. And so you get out with that rec team. And all of a sudden it's like, hey, your number starts getting spread out. And now I'm going from, you know, I'd play once or twice goal. and then I'd play out a whole bunch and, you know, every once in a while.

Now all of a sudden I'm playing like three, four games and not skating out at all. And now I never skate out. The last time I had my player skates on, I couldn't tell you. It's been such a long time. Now, going back to this camp for a quick second, because I don't know if I've ever heard of a company

doing essentially a rec goalie camp. How many, was there lots of guys out for? There was 12. There was 12 guys out for it? Yeah, yeah, 12 goalies and there was four instructors. Wow. Yeah, it was really good. So it was three-day, three-day camp.

It was like a weekend thing, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And did they just put it on once? They put it on a couple times, and actually there's one happening in Lloyd that Dwayne Kikinger put together here with top prospect and goaltending. No kidding. For a wrecked goalies, if they want to come out and just kind of sharpen up some skills. Yeah, exactly, yeah. No kidding. That's pretty cool.

I didn't know they did. I always assumed that goalie camps and the camps in general were geared towards, you know, developing young kids to play and eventually you just hit an age and you kind of cap out. I guess I didn't realize they were still putting those on. Yeah, so they do the development camp during the day and then in the evening they're coming to do the old guy, beer late goalies. I bet you that was great watching. Oh, yeah, yeah.

So you got to tell the story then. You get all these teams. Now you're playing that. And I was telling you on the ride here, there used to be a commercial where the goalie comes in, and they're giving a salute to the goalie. And it's the goalie that walks in and doesn't know a soul and sits down because he's been called and whatever.

But you got a story like that. And I thought maybe you just, you can share it. Yeah, because you always get texts. Like, hey, can you come play net? And lots of times I won't even recognize the number. So it's like, yeah, sure, where and when. So get a text back, yeah, multiplex, 730, come on out. I'm like, okay, yeah, I'm like, no idea who this is.

I'm sure I'll recognize whoever it is when I get there. So get to the rink and walk in the dressing room. It's like, you guys are the guys looking for a goalie? It's like, yeah. So get dressed, and still, nobody in the room. Don't recognize anybody in the room. It's like, okay, well, maybe somebody on the other team knew there. the other team was looking for a goalie get out on the ice look at the other team no one like

literally play a game didn't have a clue who was on the ice like never seen anybody before so didn't know a soul go out play and it's like hey thanks for the game see you guys later like did you at least ask like hey how did you get my number no didn't even ask just just play yeah check you guys later we'll see it the game obviously you got my number if you ever need me again were called again? Yeah, oh yeah, I played with those guys a few more times. So what team was that now? You know what? I can't even remember because it was a few years ago and I think it might have been a summer game that we played. So it was probably just a bunch of guys thrown together for that. Yeah, but it's happened a few times where I've shown up and definitely there's been times where

I went out and didn't know a soul, never played with them again. And I don't know if it's because I sucked and they didn't want me back. That's like so unique though to, uh, a wreck goalie, right? Like, I'm, I still play senior, but I still have a list of, like, when our backup goalie or our main goalie, right, we got two goals, one of them can't make it.

There's, like, a list of just, like, goalie's numbers that I've got to know through the Lloyd area over the last eight years I've been doing it, right? Yeah. And you're right on that list. You're number two. Yeah.

Right? You're number two. It's just like, well, if he can't make it, call Bill, right? And usually between one of you two, it's bang. And Dean's, well, I should, There's three.

There's you. There's Dean Am and Drew who lives right in Helmont, and there's mustard. Yeah. The three of you show up anywhere, anytime, right? And it's like, you need those guys in hockey because there ain't nothing worse. Then you got a wreck game going on. You got a scrimmage. You're just practicing.

You want something to shoot on. Yeah. And you show up and you got one goalie. You got no goalies. And now you're hitting post. Like, in hockey, that's about as bad as it gets. Yeah. Yeah, there's nothing worse than, yeah, not having a goalie.

sometimes I feel that a shooter-tutor would probably be better than me sometimes. You come a long way. Like, I haven't been out to noon hour skates in a long time, but the last time I was out, you were all out there against me. And, I mean, the boys will joke out at the room that I get stonewalled all the time, but you were stonewalling me. And the last got to do that at noon hour was Dean Stark. He seems to have my number right now, but you were stonewalling me.

and I was going, oh, Bill's got my number right now. He's been taking some lessons on the weekend or something. Yeah. Ah, you just even, you know, it's just for fun, but you always want to make yourself better, so you're always watching videos and trying to make yourself a little bit better. And I know, you know, my career's not going anywhere

other than Beer League, but it's fun to always improve and get better. I was curious, actually, about that. I was saying to the wife, when I told her I was having you on that we just started Ken and I and a couple of my brothers and a couple others started doing Brazilian jiu-jitsu

and I've never done anything remotely close to it and in my lifetime I don't do well at things I'm not naturally good at my frustration boils over and I eventually just kind of walk away from what we were talking about how good you're bowling

bowling frustrates me some days I'm okay but I'm happy to hit a hundred right and i was curious like when you first started playing goal i'm assuming you weren't all a sudden you just strapped on the pads and you were quick as a cat and everybody who was like to get bill over here right yeah and so is that something that uh you had to work through or is that never really bothered you at all uh you know i i think i kind of always played well to start off with playing just with guys who were kind of same skill level in hockey that didn't really matter at all So it didn't matter if you let in 100 goals, because especially with that type of hockey,

because you've got guys who, you know, were literally falling over, could barely take a pass. The puck would hit them and they'd fall over. And so that was the best time to be able to get better because you had nobody to be mad at you. If you let a goal in, it didn't matter at all. And then you start getting a little better at that. And then all of a sudden, you know, somebody calls you, hey, can you play this rec hockey game? And it's like, well, I don't know. I don't know if I'm good enough to do that.

And that's where you kind of get a little bit nervous, right? You don't want to embarrass yourself and get out there. And I guess the first couple times I went out, I played okay because the team called me back a few more times. And then, you know, lo and behold, it's like, hey, do you want to play for us full time next year? Now you look at you, right? Like, I was thinking about this too. Like, so you skate a few times a year with the Helmont Hitman, right? They're one of the top senior teams in the Saturday.

Eskelta, you're skating with the bob like the bobcats will call you. Heck, you're on the board. I don't even know if I mentioned that, right? And you bill at one of them. Yeah. But regardless, if they're short of goalie, they're calling you. Yeah. Right?

That's a junior town, demon town, right? Yeah. And then, I mean, you're in noon hours, which noon hour groups are, they're a closed group, right? Like, you just can't walk in and skate. So that's a unique company to be a part of. And then, uh, well, Well, the whiskey chicken cup here in town. I mean, it's kind of got this cult following to it, right?

Yeah, part of that. I hear you're the winning goaltender. Is that true? Yeah, yeah. We've played five years and I've won it four years. Well, maybe we should talk about the whiskey chicken cup a little bit. Maybe just give listeners kind of a break. I kind of know the details of it.

It intrigues me because, well, I like hockey and I like drinking beer. And the whiskey chicken cup, well, it's from the name you can imagine what it's about. but maybe you want to shed some light on that. Yeah, for sure. So we kind of started off as just a noon hour league. And it's all ran by Jamie Walker. And so basically what they had was they had the noon hour team. And then they had the Bandit Grizzlies, which is in the Participation League.

And Bandit Grizzlies would always go to like Vegas or the tournament in BAMP from the big wreck teams, right? the big rack tournaments and those tournaments get pretty competitive and pretty chippy and there's some guys on the bandits who are uh you know fired up get a little fired up a little competitive maybe a whiskey in the blood yeah yeah exactly so you know it didn't didn't take much to set some of those guys off so it's always always rough games in those so uh finally jamie kind of figured you know we got enough guys between noon hour hockey and the grizzlies that hey why don't we do something ourselves and that's kind of what uh how the whiskey chicken came about and so what's the format of it you play a game in lloyd yep and then you play two games on the road at a different ring correct yeah exactly it's

essentially a best of three but each game is weighted differently yeah exactly yeah so the first the first year we played strictly here we played all three games here and and and just kind of have a little bit of a banquet. And it's fun. It's all about just hanging out, right? That's the whole thing. And just the social aspect of it is the most fun. So it just ended up, you know, the first year we played here.

And then it's like, hey, let's get out of town with us. And we hit Edmonton the next year. And then we did Calgary and Bamp and Colona. And I hear Seattle this year. Well, Seattle was supposed to be this year. but with the economic downturn, it's going to be in Cold Lake. So Cold Lake is the Seattle of the north, I hear. Oh, that's awesome.

I got to assume, right? You drink a little bit, but you don't drink a whole lot, right? Yeah, I'm not a beer guy. So I just, I got this idea. I'd love to be like, I've always wanted to be a fly on the wall when guys around drinking. Because if I go to the whiskey chicken camp, I know I'm going to have a few sociables and I'll get a little fuzzy. But you're sitting there and maybe you have a social bowl, but you're not having 10. So I've got to assume you've got to have at least one good story from a whiskey chicken.

Oh, yeah. I'm sure everybody knows who Trevor Gilby is. He's usually the life of the party. And so I'm always hanging out with him because it's all. always entertaining so you know we had we had some guys go through the table at uh wild bills in Bamp and that was uh that was dean stark who went through a table and they all got booted out of wild bills i don't know if there's been a year where we haven't been uh haven't been kicked out of a place well so do you so clona's been your farthest so cloning you probably went up the night

before uh clona clona we flew out we flew out we flew out there so flew up from Lloyd yeah no because they didn't have the flights out of Lloyd yet so we we all drove to Edmonton and flew out of Edmonton okay okay and so you you go wherever you're going you get there the night before and then I assume the Saturday you play both games yep yeah so usually we'll do uh so last year when we did we did Colonna we played uh we flew out on the Thursday and we played both games on the Friday and then the Saturday we had basically a little bit of a golf tournament because it was in April and then we flew home on Sunday and so each team

picks a picks a restaurant and we do kind of a banquet every night and and then just kind of party through the night I always thought it was just the guys but I hear wives go along as well too yeah yeah my wife came the the year we played in Edmonton and that was the last year and she refuses to come I don't know why. One year was enough. Yeah, one year was enough. Well, I can imagine, I'm going to assume, 30 drunk individuals,

correction 29 and Bill Gavrely is sitting there. Yeah. And you have a unique little view into the drunk world of the whiskey chicken cup because I'm sure that, you know, like you play a couple of hockey games, so you're dehydrated, you're drinking all day, and then you go out and have a banquet at night. I'm sure things get a little fired up. Yeah, oh, yeah.

probably need to have Dean Wenzel and Walker on here to talk a little bit about it. Yeah, I should do. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, the stories are pretty fun. There's some stories I can't share. Well, we can share anything on here. I got, you can go as far as you like Bill if you're worried about that, but I assume you're keeping a few people in a safe is what you're trying to do. Yeah, exactly. You just, you've got to come along and experience it. There's nothing better than experience. and the Whiskey Chicken Cup. And just if you want to kind of get a glimpse of it, follow it on Twitter. And usually, I would probably be here in the next month or so. The Twitter beaking will ramp up.

I do enjoy following the Twitter beaking on a whiskey chicken. Yeah. And every year I end up going last in the draft because as soon as you pick your first goal, your next goal, he's not going to go until the very end. And I don't know whose strategy. it is, but I always go last. And the last four out of five years, I won it. So you're saying you should be first overall.

I'm thinking I'd probably should go first, but I'll stay humble. I don't mind going last. Let's switch to something a little more family-friendly. You said one of the coolest moments you've had in hockey was playing for the Toronto alumni when they came through town. Like, how did that happen? That blows my mind that, once again, a guy who just strapped the pads. it all of a sudden gets a call out of the blue to play for the Toronto alumni?

Yeah, yeah. So at the time, Trevor Redden was our marketing guy for the cats. And this game was basically a fundraiser for the Bobcats. And I said to Lindsay, I said, ma'am, I'd love to weasel my way into that game and play. It'd be so much fun. And kind of, you know, it was. Wishful thinking.

Yeah, exactly, because the Bobcats had Austin McGrath at the time. time and so he was playing for the cats and i was like well the the leaps will obviously have one of their goleys with them and then just kind of out of the blue trevor redden uh message me on on facebook i think it was and i was in uh i was in an h2s course and uh my phone beeps and i look down and it says hey bill the the leaps need a goalie are are you available and interested and i sent him a message back i was like that's kind of a stupid question isn't it As you jump out of your seat and say, see a Sionar suckers? Yeah, exactly.

Well, I left the room and called him right away, and I was so excited because I kind of grew up as a leaf fan. And so who would have been on that team and who would have been the big superstar? Yeah, so Joe Noondyke would have been probably the biggest guy there, but it was like Dave Allett and Tom Fergus and one of the Sutter boys. and oh, it was, uh, Darcy Tucker was there, but didn't play. He was the, the coach, I guess he could say. Yeah. Yeah. So what was the room like during that game? I mean, I know it's all for fun. So it wasn't like they were strapping on, getting ready to play game seven of the Stanley Cup finals. But what was it like sitting in that room, uh, with a bunch of NHL Super. I mean, New Indykes won a couple of cups, right? Yeah. Like there's, like that's pretty high company to sit around with. What was that like?

Well, I walk in the room and most of the guys were already in there. So I'm, I'm just in, awe and I was like hey I'm Bill I'm your goalie and everyone's like oh hey and everybody got up and came and shook my hand and I'm just like this is amazing and it's like hey I'm Joe Newindyke and I'm just like yeah I know as you're drooling yeah exactly and then he says to me he's like well hopefully you're better than our goalie last game and it was like oh no why and apparently they had played in Lethbridge the night before and the goalie they had was just terrible. He's like, yeah, he gave up like 12 goals on 10 shots. I don't know how that's possible, but it was, so that got me a little bit nervous and got into the game and I ended up playing stellar. I had probably one of the best

games I've ever played and we started off really while. We were up for nothing and those guys just toy with everybody right yeah they're they're just so good and so we're up for nothing uh well i'll tell you about the second goal because this is give you an idea of how good these guys are so uh the the the ref who was who was a leaf alumni he he said before the game he said hey if you've got the puck and you can play it play it because we want to keep this game moving right said as few whistles as we possibly can get the better. So I covered the puck and I looked and in the left corner Joe Noondike was there. So I kicked the puck out to him. He grabbed it, took a couple strides, passed it just laser right across to the other side. I don't remember who it was,

but he picked it up on the blue line on the right wing, took two strides, passed it straight across to the other blue line on the left wing. They entered the zone and Tom Fergus was on the right wing and the pass came across to him and in the back of the net. And from the time I touched the puck to the time it was in the back of the net was probably six seconds. It was just boom, boom, boom, boom, and in the back of the net. Did they give you an assist for that? No, because I was like the fourth guy who touched it. So you're the fourth assist though. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. So we're out, I'm playing really well. Same thing. I cover the the puck played to Noondike behind me and he just passes it right out into the slot in front of me

and and whoever it was on the other team just wires it past me and I look over at him and he just smiles and winks at me and I was like what the heck blew my shut out and uh Mike Krucilinski also won a couple cups and you know he went quite the player yeah he's he's got some crazy stories and and he skates up to me and goes hey he's story I should have let you know, if we're up by a few, we'll let them get a couple. He said, if they're winning at the beginning of the third, we'll bury them. It was crazy. And he was such a, he was a cool guy too, like super nice.

I had all his, all this Stanley Cup rings on my hand. Oh, man, yeah. How many Stanley Cup rings did he have? Well, he had three. Three, and then he had a, he had a leaf ring on his thumb, but that must have been a participation ring for the Leafs. Did you ask any of them guys about winning cups? You know what?

I was in such awe. Yeah, you're just a fly on the wall. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and then we, you know, afterwards we kind of had a VIP banquet, and that's kind of, you know, they made a bit of money for the team with that. And some of the guys got up and told stories and stuff. Oh, cool. Yeah.

I know when I was sending out kind of, I sent out a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of podcast questionnaire just kind of a feeler outer I'd ask you about maybe biggest lesson or biggest or best lesson and you you know said follow your dreams no matter what well I mean how many years after that was you started how many years ago was you played for leaps like I remember that but I can't think it was three years ago now so essentially seven years into your goaltending career you've played for the Toronto May place yeah essentially right like I mean I played my entire hockey life I've never gotten out of has to do nothing.

Yeah. Right? Like I'm envious of Bill Cavalry. No, I was joking with my brother not too long ago. I said,

you know, I was such a mediocre, a hockey player and start playing goal. And I've done so many cool things from, you know, practicing with the cats and doing this.

And it's so cool. Yeah. And then, I mean, I was wondering, like, there's not too many people that feel comfortable walking into a room where you don't know people and over and over and over again doing that to yourself um i always think like uh i went and played over in finland for a little short stint and i got let go from the first team that i was over there

uh for and i was pretty uh dejected i was i was i was not in a good mood and then i got shipped down to rahay that's where i ended up playing and i remember I remember walking into the rink and speak finished and I didn't, uh, I basically, I remember having to pep talk myself outside the rink. Like just like get in there. As soon as you slap the skates on, you're going to know what to do and it's going to be fine, right? And I walked in and you got people all staring at you because I'm sure I looked like I was straight off the moon, right? And, uh, they're just all pointing, nope, that way, right? That way. Nobody can speak a lick of English, right? And so I get in the room, but as soon as I sat down with my bag and got the skates on,

the coach came over and talked to me and said, this is what we're going to do, you know, kind of verbatim, and they draw it up on the board, and you can kind of make X's and O's where you're going and the way you go, and you know, you get this almost like adrenaline rush, and I came to enjoy that since a kid. I was curious, like, do you get the same rush from going into different dressing rooms, or have you come immune to it because you're doing it so many days a week, or, or, I don't know, what's your experience been like that way? Yeah, you know what?

I always find I play better when I'm nervous, and you get those butterthaw. in your stomach and it's always that way when you play with new new people right because you don't want to go out and embarrass yourself and somebody i agree somebody's got enough confidence in you to to give you a call to come and play you hope sometimes sometimes you're probably the last guy on the list and it's like you're not the last guy in the list anymore i'd like to point that out just call this guy he'll come out and play that's probably how it started out though in the beginning right but i guarantee you've moved up in the in the list of guys right to call yeah and part of that is because you're so freaking just like just text bill two seconds later bill's oh yeah i'll be there

yeah oh wait i play the game before ask road i'll play a second one and you'll go there and you'll play two in a row i don't know of a single person who does that yeah i did that last night well i i committed to three but the first first team actually text me back and said oh wait well i think our our other guys gonna make it so and i was like okay good i was i was kind of happy because that would have been i just i just played in a triple overtime game and that's your monday night yeah right like you're not sometimes like where do you find i asked ken rutherford on the first episode that i did like where do you find the energy to do that like most people you know like they play monday night and uh you know i go for i have a couple beers and and and that's what i do right yeah and then

the rest of the week i'm no i'm not giving up a night you're doing this i don't know like i'm sitting here listening and i'm going like all the stuff you do my head kind of hurts at times like where do you find the energy for that i i don't know It's hard to say. I love it, right? So it's... Love being busy then. Yeah, well, it's always fun when, especially goaltending.

I just, I have such a blast and it's, it's probably my best getaway from the world, right? Your day-to-day stress, especially when I own my own company, it was nice to get out on the ice. And I think that was the only time I was able to, you know, shut my brain off. And clear your head. Yeah, and not think about work, you know, because as soon as you get home and, you know, lay down in bad, you're thinking, oh, okay, what do we got to do tomorrow? Get out on the ice, and it's just, ah, it's freeing when you're out there, right? Actually, McKenna and I, once again, Ken, we're talking about this jiu-suitzoo class,

and when you got a big man laying on you trying to essentially tap you out, you don't think about much either. Yeah. It's a different type of therapy, and it's interesting. You know, you've got to find ways to get rid of stress, because, I mean, there's a lot of stress in life when you get, when you're married and you got kids, and you got a job, and you got a more, It all can build up, right? So using it as a therapy then, I guess. Yeah, for sure.

That's totally it. You know, it's just, ah, it's the best time to get out. And, you know, that's my own time. And, yeah, you're just thinking about hockey, and that's it. Well, we've hit 41 minutes. And so I told you when we first started this, that I was hoping for half an hour, or if we could go longer, we could go longer. Yeah.

So the last question I was thinking about was, so we put it out on Twitter, how many teams have Bill's number, and the majority said everybody's got Bill's number. So who haven't you played for now in Lloyd? And I'm hoping eventually they're going to listen to this, and they're going to go, oh, we've got to get Bill out. Who haven't you played for, and who do you want to play for?

Because that must be your target now, right? Well, I haven't skated with, I don't know, Team X. Who's Team X? Yeah. Hmm, man. That's a tough question. Uh, I haven't played with any of the, uh, I haven't played with the bandits. Well, shut out to the bandits. I mean, they're part of the whiskey chicken cup.

Uh, help a brother out here. No, no, like the junior B team. Oh, the junior B. Yeah, I definitely played for Bandit Grizzlies before. Well, in that case, uh, I got Greg Buchanan. I'll, uh, see if I can't hook you up. Yeah. And get you out with the bandits. That's, that's a fair point.

Well, I know Will Granger's been out practicing with them because we were kind of beaking each other a little bit. And I said, hey, maybe someday you'll be good enough to bump up to Junior A. Oh, that's too good. Yeah, and Will's a stellar goalie. So it's, yeah, his skills probably better than mine, that's for sure. Absolutely. Well, so the Junior B bandits is a wreck team you haven't played with? Like, you play him and you go, geez, there's one guy that's never called me.

He probably doesn't know me from a hole in the ground. Yeah, you know what? I can't even think. I don't know if I've played for Triton. So that's Todd Clark's team. Yeah, Todd Clark, yeah. And Todd was my goalie when I played in Lashburn, right? Oh, okay.

Another going all the way back to that. And I remember joking after the season was done, Todd had more points than me. Because I think I had three points that season, and he had four. But I also said he had a lot more ice time when I. did so oh that had to have been in right yeah exactly that's right yeah not cool okay well we'll see if we can't get you hooked up there and uh really appreciate you coming on the on the show with me it's been a lot of fun i got to give you another huge shut out because i mean without you figuring out the

i've already had comments on how good the audio sounds and that kind of thing good that's that's coming directly from well from you and then maz entertainment right so yeah props to you guys for helping me set this up and i really appreciate you hopping on here with me and uh look forward to maybe get you on here again yeah for sure yeah my musical career would be a whole uh whole another probably 45 minute conversation well that's a good call i mean we could uh go down the road of dirt rich and everything you're going down there too yeah yeah i've kind of been all over the world with uh with sound so that's another kind of crazy big rock start cavill yeah exactly yeah yeah we do the sport thing and then uh do the do the music and audio thing and yeah that's a whole other you know i got myself in

into some pretty crazy amazing events. Well, what's the biggest event you got yourself into? I mean, we got a little bit of time here. Yeah, well, I did a cross-Canada tour with a band called Starfield and Jake. That was in the, man, that was 2001, 2002. We did 49 shows in 60 days. I saw every city in Canada, which was really neat up and down, every single province. We started in Victoria, went all the way to St. John's and came back.

kidding. And now, what was the band's name? Starfield, they're like Christian rock band. Christian Rock band, okay. And then another band called Jake. And the Jake was the was the headlining band. Are they both still going there? Starfield, Jake, no, they had some unfortunate lawsuit with their name with a little band in New York who had already copyrighted that name. No kidding. And so Jake, like, they were, Toby hates when you say they were a boy band, but they were a boy band.

And they had a top 10 hit in the U.S. No kidding. What was their top 10 hit? Song called Let Me Know. I'll play it for you after. Yeah, I'm going to have to take a listen to it now. Look it up on YouTube. You'll definitely have heard it.

As soon as you hear it, you'll be like, oh, man, it was those guys? And it's like, yeah, because they were on much music all. time their video was there and yeah so they so did that when they got lawsuit and everything because you're doing the you're helping do the audio form then right well that that one i was helping with with starfields okay so yeah they had their sound they had their own guys yeah exactly yeah so and then i got hooked up with another band called kairos uh which was around for a long time and ended up getting on the road with like red and thousand-foot crutch and did southern u.s tour with those guys and uh you know we were playing um big places like 6,000 cedars and in Tulsa and stuff like that.

So that was that was really neat. And then I went to Europe to do a live recording for a youth conference in, uh, in Romania, which was a absolute blast. And yeah, yeah, you've pretty much seen the world then. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And now, uh, now touring with, uh, with dirt rich band. Which most people in Lloyd know exactly. Yeah, they're everywhere right now. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, they're kind of on the cusp of doing some pretty, pretty big things. The new album's coming out here in April, so if you haven't heard of them, check them out. Yeah, they got a wicked sound to them. They're a good country feel, and it's cool that their kids got it. I mean, like, that's so close to where we're at, right? Yeah, and great guys. Like, you know, the first time I mixed them, it was with, with Maz Entertainment,

working under Cody there and did two shows with them and we just had such a blast. They ended up contacting me after and being like, hey, we'd love to have you as our full-time guy if that would work out. And absolutely, like, it chatted with Cody and chatted with my wife. And, you know, it made sense to kind of hop on board with those guys and help them out. And, yeah, it's just been a riot. Every show has just been so much fun. I might be putting you on the spot here, but if they're really,

release in a new album that means they're going to go on tour correct uh yeah a little a little bit of touring here and there so the all those guys still have full-time jobs oh okay okay so it's kind of we're still weekend warriors i guess you could call us so yeah there we're uh we're heading to colonna here on uh the first weekend in march and picking up a couple shows along the way there so we'll leave kind of Thursday night and be back for for monday morning that's cool so like i don't know on a weekend show I don't know what you load up your I don't know your gear yeah yeah so uh and then you hop in a van and the way you go or do they got a bus or do they take a truck or the summer we've got an RV with uh four bunks in the back and a foldout couch and yeah it's uh it's kind of kind of fun

because i toured on tour buses before so this is uh kind of brings me back a little bit cozy yeah yeah i never uh i never thought i'd ever be back on a tour bus again but here we are. That's awesome. That's awesome. So like how big of venues are they playing at right now? Kind of, kind of varies.

You know, we've done, we've done the, the fair here in town, played a couple nights in the beer gardens there. And usually we're playing to three, four hundred people. Sometimes small is,

you know, 100 people. We did MJT's bull sale a couple weekends ago. And that was a, oh, that was a fun event. And then,

few weddings we were in unity on so friday night we played the bobcats evening out and then saturday we took off to unity and did a wedding there and i got to put in here because i see it on your snapchat all the time in the middle of all this and your kids and your wife and your work as you're running from lloyd to cold lake with mcdonald's maintenance that i can just imagine happenings and the calls that are going on there you're working the casino too all the time right like you're doing the the music at the casino on several nights a week? Just Thursday, Friday. So, Mads Entertainment, we've got a, we got a three-month contract there to DJ the Friday, Saturday nights.

So do you ever sleep? I try to every once in a while, try and get a couple hours a week at least. You must be married to, like, the coolest woman ever. Oh, my wife is so good. She's different, that's for sure, because she married me. So, yeah, there's got to be something wrong. But yeah, I love her. You're too hard on yourself.

I think she loves me. What do your kids say when you're gone that much? You know, we make sure there's a good balance. And, you know, I worked on the road as an electrician before we had kids. And as soon as we had our first, I packed her in, so I was home. Because, you know, you work on the road and you're gone. so long and I've seen too many guys you know their marriages fail just being gone and I was like yeah I'm not I'm not going to let that happen so try and for the most part make sure that my wife is

happy with everything and you know sometimes it's tough and and I know that she's mad at me sometimes when I'm gone and with hockey it's usually you know you get out after the kids are in bed yeah and then then it's not so bad but sometimes the weekends you're gone and it gets a a little stressful and hard, but I try and make it up as much as I can. And we got a pretty good understanding between each other. So, that's cool, man. Like, yeah, good on you. Um, I guess before we, uh, close off, is there a good story you got from being on the road doing sound for, oh, man. So, so, so there's got to be one that sticks out. Oh, the boys in Cairo's, there's, man, there's always crazy pranks, right? And not so much pranks as, um,

What would you do for a dollar was kind of the big one? And so we're traveling through Texas and Oklahoma. And so it's hot. And there's an old thing of chocolate milk in the back of the bus. Like how old are we talking? Like at least four days. Oh. So.

How full? It's like three quarters at least. Like a liter? Oh, for sure. Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah, so you probably kind of know where this is going. So Jake Rode, who was just the most stellar guy in the world.

Like, I've never seen a workhorse like him. He would pack our trailer up like nobody's business. You try and help him and he's pushing you away. No, go away. Go hang out with people. I got this just sweetest dude ever. And so it was like, there's the chocolate milk. Hey, Jake, you want to drink this for a dollar?

And he's like, oh, yeah, okay. So it's one of those things where you can't back down from the challenge in essentially. Basically, yeah. So we're in the parking lot in, I think we were actually in Tulsa, or Tulsa or Muskogee, one of those two places. And so, yeah, he just like a champ, grabs it and chugs it. And, yeah, he was puking all over the place. And, yeah, he was crazy. So another good story.

I wasn't there for this one, but this is probably one of the best stories I heard. So, Kyrus was touring with a, with like a glam rock band called Blessed by Broken Heart. And, like, 80s metal, they had the long hair, the whole bit. And so they have this ongoing crazy prank war between each other. And so the one night right before the Blessed by Broken Heart gets up on the stage, the Kairos guys go and pissing all the smoke machines. literally they're being fogged by the yearn of the kairos guys and you could see them like Barry's like these guys are looking back at us because they knew exactly as soon as the

smoke machines go off like what is going on so it was kind of kind of endless that way I don't know if you listened to last weeks with my father but I don't know what it is with guys and peeing in things last week it was peeing in a humidifier yeah and the poor The poor guy, right? Like, I can't imagine the smell that would come out of that. Yeah, and the best thing is, is you're on stage. Yeah, you can't do anything, right? A thousand people, and you just have to keep going.

You got a roll with it, right? Exactly. You got no choice. You're not stopping in the middle of it. Imagine being in the first couple rows and going, like, what? What does that smell? What is that? Somebody pee somewhere?

Yeah, for sure, yeah. But, yeah, the kairos guys, we always had, like, grab a guy and hold him down and take a vacuum to his nipple. Stuff like that. Yeah, it was never ending. Well, you get, how many of you would be on the road together? The first tour I did with Jake and Starfield, there were 12 of us in a tour of us, but it was a full size, you know, provost.

Yeah, but still 12, 12 guys on the road together for how many days do you say? That was 60 days. Like 60 days. Two full months, yeah. I was just like being on top of each other. Yeah. By the end, you'd need to do those pranks just to get off a little aggression. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, you had to have a pretty close relationship with the guys. You always had your bunk that you could go and lay in to kind of get away from everybody. And with the Kairos bus, we had like Xbox and stuff up front so you could sit on the couch or go hang out in your bunk. You could get a little bit of space, but not really. You're still around everybody the whole time. It doesn't matter how nice of a travel bus around. That's cool for like the first five days.

Yeah. And then by the fifth day you're like, I just want to go in a hotel room where they can't even touch me. Yeah. Just lock the door and have a good sleep. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, everybody's kind of always like, oh, man, that must be fun.

Such a cool vacation. It's like, no, you work hard. Those tours are hard work. You wake up. and you don't know what day it is, you don't know what city you're in. I remember we played in Calgary and we played at Mack Hall at the university. And so our tour bus was parked right in the middle of campus. And I walk out to the front of the bus and I look.

And it's like, man, there are people everywhere walking past our bus. And I had no clue where we were. Then I realized, I'm in my underwear. I'm sure most of these people can see me standing here. So kind of in a grog, I go back and get changed. And I was like, where are we? And it's like, oh, we're in Calgary. Oh, okay.

But the cool thing was on some of the big tours, when you get to the venue, the tour manager had it posted on the wall as you walked into the venue. Today is whatever day, this is this town, and then had the schedule for the day. And then it would tell you what the schedule for the next day as you were traveling this far to this place.

and this is where we're playing. So you kind of always knew where you were and what day it was. But on that 60-day tour, it was just a blur. You didn't know. Most days, you're just like, and you didn't see anything, right? Like, I played in Charlottetown, P.I. I never saw it. Anything but a venue.

Same with Halifax, Nova Scotia. Didn't see anything but the venue. I got our bus driver to wake us up when we went across Confederation Bridge because I wanted to see it. And that was like at 5.30 in the morning. Yeah. So some of those days are hard, but days like Montreal, where we had an extra, a little bit of extra time. We got to tour old downtown.

And then St. John's, Newfoundland, we had a full day off the next day that we stayed there. Most days off were travel days. So you were just stuck on your bus. Bus doing, staring out at the scenery. Yeah. But for some reason, that day we had off in St. John's, we had some good friends who lived out there. So I went and hung out with them for the day, and they toured me around. St. John's is beautiful.

Yeah, it was really good. Back in 2006, I biked Canada with my brother and then one of his best friends from college's sisters, Lori. She was an awesome chick. I believe she still bikes quite a bit. But the Confederation Bridge was one of the very few spots. They wouldn't let us bike because it was such a long stretch. The weather could change so rapidly out in the middle that you could get stuck out there or blown off. And so we actually had to take,

they gave us a free van cab, I guess, wrapped our bikes to the back and drove us across it. It's one of the very few spots that went on a spike. So that was, that Confederation Bridge is monstrous. Yeah, it was really neat to see. Yeah. Okay, well, once again, I'll wrap it up this time.

Really cool to have you on. Really appreciate you coming here and sharing some stories and being a part of this with me. Yeah, it was lots of fun anytime. Awesome. Thanks, doing. Thanks.