Shaun Newman Podcast - #57 - Darryl Plandowski

Episode Date: February 19, 2020

This was a very cool episode. Darryl played for the Lloydminster Lancers back in the 80's when they were still apart of the SJHL. While with the Lancers he posted a franchise record 121 points in a single season. He played 4 years NCAA Division 1 with the Northern Michigan Wildcats where he would win a national championship. He spent 6 years with the Seattle Thunderbirds of the WHL 2 as an assistant coach & 4 more as the head scout. Since then he has spent 22 years in the NHL scouting: 8 with the Buffalo Sabres, 2 with the Pittsburgh Penguins & currently in his 12th year with the Tampa Bay lightning. 

This is Daryl Plendoski. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Hey folks. Welcome back to the podcast. Got it really, oh man, this was a lot of fun this week. I've been trying to get Daryl on for, well, it's probably been eight months. We've been chit-chatting back and forth. And finally got him through Lloyd Minster, got him to sit in the studio and just had a blast sitting down and talking with him. he is a guy who's been around the sport for a long time and I just can't say thanks enough to him for stopping in. I want to give a shout out to first Ken Rutherford, Ken Rutherford Appraisals. They host the podcast, obviously, if you've listened to the podcast since the beginning, it's housed in Ken Rutherford Appraisals office.

We destroyed their storage room and turned it into the studio. So a huge shout out to Ken. Without him, I'd probably be doing it out of my basement, and I guarantee it would not have the feel that this room continues to have. And as we build on it, it just gets better and better. Secondly, Carly Closs and his team at Windsor Plywood Lloyd Minster, they built the river table. I haven't been in the studio for what feels like a very long time.

I obviously got back into it this week with Darrell. And the first thing I had to do when I got in was give the table a rub, because it is just you walk in. It's just beautiful. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, head to my Instagram page or to Windsor Plywood Lloyd Minster's Instagram page and see some of the cool woodworking

they're doing the river tables, I mean, or other things, mantles, etc. They got everything there, custom wood. They're just fantastic at what they do. Now, here is your factory sports tale of the tape. This week on the podcast is Daryl Plandowski. He played for the Lloydminster Lancers. He played when they played in the SjHL.

He holds the single season record for most points by a Blazer, Lancer, or Bobcat with 121. He played in the NCAA for Northern Michigan University. He was their captain in his final year. That year, they won the national championship. He scored a hat-trick in that game. If you want to see something cool or listen to something cool, head to YouTube and check out the game-winning goal in triple overtime. It's unreal. After he did that, he heads to Seattle where he was an assistant coach with the Thunderbirds of the WHL for two years.

He then scouts, becomes their head scout for four years. And from there, he springboards to the Buffalo Sabres for eight years, followed by the Pittsburgh Penguins for two. And now he's been with the Tampa Bay Lightning since 2008. He's got quite the record behind him. So sit back, enjoy this one, folks. further ado. All right.

Welcome to Sean Newman podcast today. I'm joined by Daryl Plandowski. Assistant to the director? Director. Yeah, whatever that is. It's just a bunch of names. It all changed last year when Steve left, so everybody got kind of a title.

Okay, okay. So just a scout of the Tampa Bay Lightning. Yeah. Yeah. First off, thanks for doing this. I'm glad I could steal a little bit of time out of your, I'm sure. very hectic schedule?

Yeah, after Christmas it gets a little hectic where you're on the road a lot. But no, no, it's not a problem. I just visiting family and friends, so it's easy to drop by. Where are you on your way to or where are you coming from? I'm coming from Saskatoon and I have a day off. So I will be in PA the next couple nights watching, I think, Swift Current and Brandon are there. So I need to see Brandon and Prince Albert. Do I dare ask how many places you go in a month's time?

I bet you I spent right now probably 25 days a month on the road. So I can be, and the way we do it, we don't, I can be in Edmonton one night, Toronto the next night, and Moncton the following night. So money's not a, they don't worry about money. It's just make sure I'm at the right games. So we spend a lot of money. We spend a lot of money at it.

Well, you've got to get you to the right place, is right? Especially this time of year. It's, you know, the guys are, winding down there's probably 15 games left so and then playoffs and some guys aren't going to make playoffs and you want to make sure you see the guys before they get if they ever get hurt and you're kind of hooped so it's uh yeah it's full bore right now for most scouts right now and where do you call home then darrell halifax halifax so how often do you get home uh not very often right now um probably well i have a son playing in charlottetown and i have a son playing in uh calgary so

I might because of where they're situated I probably home two days a month right now because I'm bouncing around between those two places also does that ever get old yeah it starts to yeah it starts to wear you out because how many years you've been a scout now in the NHL at 20 about 21 22 years holy moly they add up let's put it that way they add up fast and I assume as fun as it is when you're a younger guy to hop from emminton to Toronto to Moncton, wherever else. Eventually, it's just an airport, right? Yeah, yeah, that's all.

It's a plane and just get there on time and make sure you're right on the plane. And usually I'm asleep before the plane takes off and you land and you figure out where you're going, jump in your car and away you go. That's the life right now. You've learned how to sleep on a plane. Oh, yeah, I can sleep on a plane. That's not a problem. Well, I want to go back to when you were back actually playing.

So for the listeners who don't know, and I should point out, I probably have walked by your Lancers jersey in the Civic Center here in Lloyd Minster. I don't know. A hundred times, a thousand times. I don't know how many times it's been. And it never really clicked until I had Warren Noble, a guy suggested I interview. And I was like, well, I see his jersey, but I've never actually thought long and hard to look it up because, I mean, I was born in 86. So you were, you know, you were five years away from winning a national championship at that time. Yeah.

So I guess for the people who don't know, back you were saying just before we started this, you played, it grew up in Lloyd Minster here. Yep. And then played your junior A for the Lloydminster Lancers, who once again are no longer a team and they're no longer part of the SJHL since been part of the AJHL. But I wonder if you wouldn't mind taking us back to the first year as a 15-year-old or 16-year-old. And what that was like. It was, I was real small.

I was 5'6, 130, 135 pounds. I started when I was still 15 because I had late birthday, so I was an October birthday. So, every day my mom had to drive me to practice and pick me up, and I didn't have a driver's license. It was, it was good. I enjoyed it. It was hard, because when you're small, you know, you take some beatings. But we had good guys, and Jack Schoop was my first coach. didn't play me a lot my first 10 or 15 games and then and then I started playing and

in producing a little bit and and it made me a better player the following year I walked as a second year you know 17-year-old kid I scored 40 goals that year and if I wouldn't have played there as a 16-year-old I don't think I would have had quite the success that the next year so it was good I enjoyed it I you know your schooling takes a hit if things take a hit but it it was worth it. What was being a part of a brand new organization? Is there anything that sticks out coming from back then?

Because I mean, they were part, what were we saying? Seven, eight years apart of the SGH. You played in four of them. Was there anything, you know, a buzz around Lloyd back around about it? I think everybody was excited because they'd finally got in Tier 2 hockey. So, you know, we were, I think we were well attended. people were excited about the team especially i mean i went to a lot of the first the games the first year and they weren't very good that year we were okay the second

year and then we got better every year that i was there but i think the town really it was something new so people were excited about it um yeah it was it was it was people came to the game you know up to seven eight hundred maybe a thousand people a game playoffs was a little more but they always had decent teams and part of it is we had decent guys or fun guys to be around so I mean when you're playing a lot of teams it's better better the quality of the person the more more fun you have and I had fun I definitely had fun were uh were you on the ice right from a little hopper did you play yeah different things growing up no I um hockey was back then there was no summer hockey. Now I'm involved in summer hockey and training and with my boys and but back then there

was no once the rink was shut down the rink was shut down for the for the whole summer. I lived in the farm so you know we you had your chores and you get the crop in and the harvest and stuff so we played a little bit of ball in the summer but not a lot. When I was a kid it was pretty much just going to the lake on the weekends and doing stuff like that. It's changed now where it's probably a 10-month sport for kids even at 5, 6, 7. It's crazy the way it's gone, but it's like a ball rolling down a hill. It's just kind of, I don't know if it'll stop. Yeah, it's almost crazy to watch.

My kids are still under four. I got 3 under 4. And the amount of hockey that's played now and the amount of training that goes into it and everything else. I assume that's, well, I mean, as a scout, you've got to watch that entirety evolve, I assume, right? I mean, the high levels always had some of that in there, but everything right from nutrition to training all through the summer, et cetera, you don't have to go back that far and it doesn't seem that far off, but it's, you know, it's probably 20, 25 years. When I first started scouting, I was the scout of the Seattle Thunderbirds, and summer hockey was one tournament,

And that was the big tournament in Vancouver. I think it was the Super Series. So teams from all over Western Canada. I think Alberta would bring a team, Saskatchewan to bring a team. There'd be teams from Alaska. It was kind of your first chance to see the young kids coming up. And then I was there for four years. And by the end of that four-year cycle, you know, there's tournaments everywhere.

They were starting up in Winnipeg and Saskatoon. And it was just like a circuit. And then you had the summer spring teams. and now it's a race to be on a spring team and parents are spending $8,000, $10,000 in the summer or springtime going to tournaments and flying around. And that's the part that, you know, and I got a, I did it.

I can't say that I didn't do it for my kids. We spent a lot of money and doing the same thing. And now I look back and it's hard to say that to tell people that it's kind of a waste of time and money that they're better off doing what we're doing. doing now in Halifax and and that's doing uh you know summer training where you're you're on the ice doing skills and skating and and playing three on three and rather than spending thousands of dollars a week for us in Halifax would be driving down to Boston or or New York and flying and

so there's ways to do it and cut costs that are that seems sensible but sometimes sensible doesn't make sense for a lot of people I can understand that yeah it's And I'm lucky. I married a figure skater who now does all the power skating for all the, well, the professional HL, NHL, Q players and college players from Halifax. So she has a business now that brings people from all away from Ontario. Oh, to Halifax? Yeah, I think there'll be some kids from the Western League come out this year.

So she gets all the agents, send her all their guys to train and fix their skating. So we do a lot of skating for 12 weeks or so. I'm involved with it, but she's full-time. We'll have half the ice will be skating, half the ice will be skill development, and then the last 20, 25 minutes will be all three-on-three smaller games. So we rent probably an hour and a half segments, and then we train everything from the little guys

to the high-end guys. So I know she had no Adops in last year and a few of those guys that are all in the National Hockey League that come to her, come to her just to become better skaters. So now that I've seen that end of what is out there,

and people that spend all this money in spring hockey, and really it's really a waste of money that they could take their money and spend a fraction of that and be way better off. As I get older you learn, And when you're in the moment, you don't really think that that's the best way.

And you want to get involved with the top guys, and I can understand that part. But as I look back now, as I get older and wiser, how I would have spent my money differently. And that's the avenue I'd promote now. Yeah, is it developing the skills of the kid, which can be done on any ice surface, essentially? Any ice surface. I mean, you can go to a normal practice or play a game, and you might touch the puck for 30 seconds, and then you can come to a skills camp

where you're doing Power Edge Pro type of stuff, and you touch the puck for an hour and a half, you probably touch it for 45 minutes. So rather than getting four or five touches in a game, you get four or five hundred touches in an hour period. So it makes so much more sense when you explain that to people that if they stop and think about it, they say, you know, agree with it.

it and so that's why we get a lot of kids now that and they still play summer spring hockey but the influx of people from all over the maritime that come in to train and to touch pucks and to learn how to shoot better and skate better and and in the end it's it's a big payoff for them that's it's been a common theme that wording touching the puck or puck touches when did that all like when did that start to change Was that something that was adopted from... Well, the Europeans, you watched what the Europeans are doing,

and I think you're starting to see more and more coaches in Canada, especially Canada. Canada for years was lagging behind. We won World Juniors, but we thought it was more hard work. We were a hard work-based team, and the skilled teams were the Finns and the Swedes and the Russians, and even the Americans, they pour a lot of money and time into skill development, skating. In Canada, I think there's been a lag just because we've had all these, my opinion,

of these older coaches that don't think there's a lot of value to it. You know, if you're going to just dump and chase, who cares? But the game is now a puck possession game. So now you see all kinds of younger coaches taking over. And even in Major Junior, I know Portland Winter Hawks, the Ottawa-67s, London Knights, it's there's a lot of skill development involved in those teams where they some days that's all they do and um to st. Marie Greyhounds there's there's different there's probably four or five teams in each league that it's a it's a big part of their structure and there's a big payoff for the players and I think everybody's starting to see that now and and now you can go any rink any rink and let's say let's pick

Toronto and they're all running those types of things so Canada's Canada skill is catching up to the rest of the world. And you can start to see that with some of the high-end plays. Kirby Dock from Saskatoon last year. Those guys are high-end guys that can now walk right in the National Hockey. We've had those guys all the way along, but now I think there's more, the average person is more of a skilled player than it was probably 15 years ago. I would say easily.

Easily. It used to be such a physical game and, you know, you got a hit and, you know, hit to get the puck now it's it's filling lanes and having you stick in the right spot and and there's less hitting but there's uh so now you have to have skill and you're to try and find major junior college everybody around the world NHL to find six skilled defensemen on a team is is real tough to find and that's why you see Finland and Sweden producing these players now that especially in the blue line that they're coveted. Really, we don't even care about their size.

Size is kind of a secondary thing now. If you're 5-11 and you can add weight and you can be 185, 190 pounds, skate and pass the puck, you've got a lot of value. It used to be the big guys that could mall you or get you in the corner. You're talking to a 5'7 on a good day. Defenseman who came up through the era of, we want big, strong. So that's all changed. that's all changed.

It's, you know, that everybody does their numbers now on their draft. The numbers will say, if you're not a first or second round with size, especially on the blue line, anything after that, you're better off not drafting anybody with size. You're better off drafting smaller

5-11, 6-foot defensemen that'll turn out and skate and pass puck. And that's kind of the direction you can watch the whole league take, whether it's, you know, the Cory Krugues, all those little guys that now are valuable guys on their team. How about, you know, you played junior A hockey,

how about a guy like McCar coming straight out of Junior A and being drafted like that? Are you starting to see more of that? I don't know if we're starting to see more. I think there's lots of avenues for kids now. There's always an anomaly like that. Fabriol was a couple years before, before McCar. You know, he kept his eligibility and played in Penticton.

and there's always these guys. In the states, now they kind of accumulate them on their under 17 and 18 team, their national team. In Canada, you still see a big swath of those kids go major junior. And mine was one of them. My son was 16 this year,

and he's a defenseman. And it's a big Lambos in Winnipeg and the Clark Kid and Barry. These guys are, they're smart enough now and they skate well enough that they can handle if they can get through their first six weeks two months they can really see the benefit of having them play at a high level where they have to really think and compete to survive and and just like what I went through when I was young you know the payoff is is your 17 18 19 year if you can get through that and

play the biggest part and the problem for all these young guys is is playing time. If you can't get that playing time, now you're kind of stagnate for a year and you just hope you can get the following year, you get the playing time. And guys like Wade Reddened, I remember watching Wade as a 16-year-old,

same thing for Wade. Like, you know, he wasn't that big yet. And so if you can get on it, and he played, he was lucky he played. If you can get on a team, then a coach that trusts you and plays you, it's a big benefit. Well, it's a, well, you already mentioned it

when you played for Lloyd, Like, that's a confidence booster, right? Yeah, and McCar, I mean, he was here in Lloyd, really that would have been, he was a late birthday, so that was a 17-year-old year. He was in Lloyd at the Royal Bank Cup, and you could already tell that, you know, he was pretty good. Yeah.

We just didn't know how good, and then the following year he kind of, you know, just took off. They had a good team, and he was the confidence he had from playing the year before, and you could just tell he was going to be a good player. Speaking of, I'm jumping ahead here, but from your scouting background, I always hear and read things on

parents, be careful what you say in the stands, that kind of thing. And, you know, I love the game of hockey, but if there's one thing about hockey that probably gives it a little bit of a bad name is the crazy hockey parent. Is that something you guys probably, well, you probably see it on a daily basis and a rink basis. Is that something it is? We, we, it's funny, we've really, that's the part of scouting that we've really, since when Steve arrived eight or nine years ago in Pampa, it was, we really dug into character.

Yeah. Parents, schooling, just they're on ice, but also their off ice, how they acted, how their parents, like, what are we getting as a human being? What are we getting as a character person? And we wanted character. We were after character. Again, we sacrificed some size for character. And kids that we took that we knew had character flaws,

and we kind of said, oh, they're too good players, they'll grow up. Some of those guys we made big mistakes on, and we passed on guys that were good players that we knew were good players because we needed a defenseman or a power play guy that we thought this guy's going to be really good and we just need him to mature. And we found it's not always that way. So we do a lot of digging into parents.

We do a lot of digging into, you know, what the parents are like for sure. And if there's a red flag, usually the old saying the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, a lot of times it's probably true that if mom and dad are a little crazy the kid can be a little crazy too so we definitely and I think that everybody all the organizations there's so much money involved

and you spend so much time developing kids now we spend millions developing kids our prospects that if there's a character flaw it just it kind of ends up being a waste of time yeah honestly it makes a lot of sense to me you see it

on social media I see it more and more yeah it's a problem we're starting to find and I think it's social media and you hear about it maybe more is the mental problems

you know these players have medication a lot of them are not a lot of them but there's kids that you never thought would have need to be watched mentally. And you're saying maybe when I played,

I didn't see it. I just, you know, everybody seemed to be happy. And I think it's social media now with the phones and the negative part of the game that the highs and lows of reading about yourself playing a good game and then playing a negative game or a bad game and the negative part of all that. I think it really affects the mental part of kids.

And we're starting to see a lot. lot of when we interview that it's one of the things we really dig into how how mentally tough they are because there's there's situations out there where there the pressures and and that comes from parents and agents and you name it it's tough on the kids you're in hockey world right here right like the emminton owners we get to see it on a daily basis if they win a game the world goes nuts if they lose a game the world goes nuts yeah Connor McDavid doesn't score the world goes nuts yeah and it's it's it

It's a problem. It's a problem. And I know my son that plays in Charlottetown, he lived with the Dock family last two years ago when he played in Evanton, and they took their boys off social media. They didn't even have, they might have had a phone, but they weren't on Instagram, they weren't on Facebook, they weren't on Twitter. They'd had a bad experience when the boys were young, and they just, it was so negative that they just took Kirby and Colton was the younger brother, and they just took them right off social media. and it was probably smart. They never, you know, when you're good, people try and knock you down,

and when you're bad, they're still knocking you down. So it can be real negative. And, you know, Kirby's playing the national hockey now as an 18-year-old. And that was one of the things that his parents did for him as a young kid. I always joke. Some of the, like my four years in college, so that's 2007 to 2011, and then I was cell phone. And those were, I miss those days. Yeah.

The phone beeping while it's sitting right beside me, and it beeps, I got to take a look, right? Yeah. And, I mean, there's a mazillion apps, and you can literally, when it comes to hockey specifically, you can get beeped every time somebody sneezes. Yeah, it's, yeah, it's, you know, everything's video out there, and you can, you can see yourself, I guess, have succession or succeed. Yeah. And the flip side is you set yourself make mistakes.

And, you know, back then nobody cared because nobody saw it. Or didn't get reviewed 20 times. Right. So nobody, even coaches, you know, you'd make a mistake. They really didn't know how the mistake would happen and whose fault it was. And now they pinpoint it and they can show it and they can slice and dice it. And, you know, what a negative thing. It's a big negative thing.

You can learn from it. And some kids, the Crosby's and those guys that want to see every shift on their iPad, even between shifts, you can learn from it. But the flip side is it can be real negative. And I think that's the problem we have now a little bit is it's almost too much. It's too much.

It's too negative. And that's a lot of sports. That's not just hockey. But that's the one I'm in and you watch it. And you listen to our minor league guys, our minor league coaches talk about our minor league guys. or you go and watch one of your drafted guys play further, and the coaches are always, you know,

usually it ends up being kind of negative. It's never really that positive. And so if you don't have player development guys, and we have a couple, and most teams have at least two now, going and helping their prospects and helping them talk about the game and showing them stuff and going on the ice with them,

you know, that's the difference that's also happened in the last probably eight, nine years, is the development of development coaches. And we have Barb Underhill that works with us, just skating development and skill development and knowledge development. And it's, you know, if you didn't help your kids and protect them, it would be a real negative experience for a lot of guys. Still the best time the NHL has ever seen, though.

Correct? I think so. I think so. You watch the speed of the game and the skill of the person. Do you miss the days? There's a lot of people that miss the days of, I don't know, Lindross, Pronger, the bonecratching hits, Scott Stevens, not Kevin Stevens, the big hits, the fights, et cetera.

Yeah, I hear it all the time. The problem they have is all these guys now have, they have the mental problems. Like, there's a lot of mental problems, and guys are getting paid a lot of money, and for them to be concussed or, you know, to sit on the sidelines, it costs everybody a lot of money. So the game has changed in that it's a speed and skills game. It's allowed the smaller player to play and be real successful. And I think it's a better game. I mean, you can still find some guys. I mean, it's hard to find guys that play that way.

I mean, you just don't see guys hit. I laugh because the Ontario League, I mean, I think there's a three-fight rule in the whole season. And after you have three fights, you start losing games. Losing games? Like, you mean you get suspended? Okay, yeah. In the Quebec major, I think stage fighting, they just, they start suspending you right away for stage fighting. But I think, I don't think that it's not as tight.

and in the West, I asked the Western League guys all the time, if you guys change any rules? Because there's no fighting anymore. And they said, Daryl, we've never changed our rules. You can have three fights like a night every night. And the West, I can't remember the last time I saw a fight. There's just no fighting.

And that's crazy because, I mean, that's... You would think that there'd be some fights. Yeah. And the West is probably... Well, Ontario is the least amount because there's literally no fighting because of the rules. The Q, there's some fighting. and in the west there's no fighting.

There's the odd. So why is there no fighting in the west? I think it's just the way the kids are brought up now. Like, it just starts at Pee-wee and just nobody hits. And they don't even, they don't even, they don't even, when there's a scrum in front of the net, they don't even think about that part of the game anymore. Like, there's no shoving because it's a penalty. If you punch the guy in the face, it's probably head contact.

It's two minutes right there, May 4 for head contact. Like, it's really changed the game. and now, so that guy is obsolete. Like, they don't even draft those guys. The Western League, the O.HL and the Q, they wouldn't draft a whole lot of those kids. They want big, strong guys and competitive kids. The NHL, the old days of, you know,

all those big, strong guys used to go in the first and second and third rounds. Those guys don't get drafted now. There's no use for them. There's just no spot for them on a team. What do you think about them saying you need to have two different teams, a regular season team and then the playoff team? Well, some years I think that's true. I mean, the Chicago Blackhawks were pretty skilled for a lot of years

and won a lot of, you know, they still got a couple of boys on that team. They can really go. And they, you know, they won just because they're a kid-out skill teams. It's last year, you know, you had St. Louis. St. Louis won, they were a bigger, stronger team. I know at the end, listening to that last series against Boston, I know there was two or three times that things weren't called, that they ended up suspending the guy the next day.

And I know by the end I'd heard they ran out of riffs because they were doing such a bad job that they literally were down to their last couple ruffs that people wanted them to rough games because it was such a bad rough event. Bad because they weren't calling it? Calling the stuff that was supposed to be penalty. Penal.

Yeah, guys were knocked. out and there's a headshot and probably five in a game and they weren't called and they since I think twice that series they suspended the guy the next day for a game that wasn't even called so so that's going to change then too in in time here or maybe even as soon as this year there won't be nearly as big a difference in the regular season repping to the playoff roughing you'd like to think there's no I mean you'd love to think but it does it what happens is it what happens is there's so many so many games now Guys play every second night.

So they probably play at 80%. On a good, good game, you might get the guys at 90%. But playoffs, guys are at 90 to 100%. So it's a faster game. It's a more intense game. And it is probably more physical. Guys will pay a price, whether it's blocking shots or doing something to...

And so the game does change in the playoffs, just because the intensity does. Whether it's more physical, I suppose it is because it's more intense, but you put more on the line. If it's rough right, you put more on the line by being stupid. Yeah. But I mean, from yay high, and I'm pointing at the floor now to when you're super young all the way up to that level,

there's just a difference when now it's playoffs. And that isn't lost on refs either. No. Now, you can try and enforce that. It's definitely playoffs to hockey is great hockey. It's the best hockey now. The first round of the NHL playoffs, nothing beats it. Because when you got 16 teams going at it, every night, it's awesome.

And guys get worn out. So it's, I know the last, I think it was last year, the Royal Bank Cup was in Chilwaukee. I know maybe the last two out of the last four years. in the Memorial Cup, the team that has won it, lost out in the first round. And then was healthy. Healthy. That's what you're getting in.

So they got a month, six weeks off, and the other teams beat the crap out of each other, and then comes down to the finals, and the team that was rested and healthy ended up winning, which... Which honestly makes a ton of sense to me. It makes sense. Because to win in hockey, it is a sport that is built on in the playoffs. You're going to play injured. because it's hard not to. You play that many games, that tight, you beat up on each other.

It's tough hockey. And by the end... It's real tough hockey. The teams that are healthy at the end are the ones that win. There, they just... They got the guys that can go. And that's why finishing a series in four or five games all the time is... Such a big thing.

And then when you watch Boston a few years ago, go seven games in every round, and that was, I guess, the year they beat Vancouver. I think they went seven games every round that's just that's winning it tough like that's what they did

was it's incredible actually the pocket book would be nice for the owner because you'd have a full stadium on the games yeah they make that's where they make their money that's where they make their money

yeah it's it's huge money like it's just it's crazy when you're you know they're filling your rinks at two or three hundred dollars a ticket that

there's a lot of money involved and again that's why owners you know you you watch whether if Connor McDavid's hurt for any length of time yeah you know that's that could cost the evidence dollars millions and millions of dollars so to keep those guys healthy your stars healthy and we're in a sport where you know they don't nobody tries to injure the fourth line guy they're always trying to injure the first line guy and so you have to protect those guys a little bit or else you wouldn't even have a league well i go back to my NBA story. I've only been to one NBA game. My wife is from Minnesota, so we go down there for Christmas. Go watch the Timberwolves who just traded Wiggins, but that's regardless.

But they have Wiggins and towns, and they're playing Cleveland Cavaliers. It's not a showstopper game, but Cavaliers have Kevin Love. So between the three of them, I'm expecting, all three of them don't play. It was like, well, crap. And I mean, for the NHL to bring it back there, right, anytime Connor McDavid's gone for the Oilers, I mean, they still got star power there. But Connor McDavid is on an entirely different level than any player that's ever played the game. You're paying top dollar to go to a game. You want to see Wayne Gratsky play. That's right.

You know, you don't want to see even they had Curry and all those guys. It was still, you're going to watch one or two. You're going to watch Wayne. Yeah, you go watch one or two guys off each team. And that's just the way it is. So if they're injured, it's keeping those guys healthy. It's just the way. For an owner to lose his top couple guys, not only is he has to pay those guys, big salaries,

but he's missing the playoffs. He's, you know, the tenants is down. That's right. It ends up being a lot of money. How about Northern Michigan? Let's go to your back to your playing here. So you played in Lloyd, and I should point out, I don't know about the Bobcats or the Blazers for that matter, but you do hold the record for the Lancers as most points in a single season.

actually I think you held four records there. He did put up 121 one season. Why Northern Michigan? And were the other suitors out there? Yeah, I talked in North Dakota and Wisconsin, Ohio State. At the time Bowling Green was real good, I visited there. So I made visits to North Dakota, Northern Michigan,

Bowling Green. And I was, you know, I was a lot of, small player and I wanted to play in Northern Michigan was losing a lot of guys that year and they were taking a lot of kids out of Saskatchewan junior we you know Dean Antos was my line mate he went there Dave Shyack was the captain of Humboldt he went they had the next year they brought in Jim Hiller and Scott Beatty they were both BC kids that were playing in Melville they brought in Jeff Simpson as a BC kid playing in Estevan I think we won the year we

won the National Championship in 91. We had 15 Canadian kids and maybe 10 or 12 were played in Saskatchewan, Jr. So I wanted to go somewhere where I knew I had to play, Wisconsin, North Dakota. I mean, they were just full of first and second round draft picks that, you know, you just, when you're small and, you know, back then everybody was big, that I just wanted to ensure that I was going to play. And I lucked out and they've recruited some really good players. And, you know, we ended up having really good teams when I was here. What was your first thought when it snowed about 10 feet in Marquette?

Well, my recruiting trip, my recruiting trip in there, you fly into Minneapolis. Then you fly to Houghton, Michigan, which is where Michigan Tech is. That's right. And I flew in there and there was at least a foot or two on all these trucks. So I think that I just missed a storm. And then it's about a 25-minute flight from Houghton to Marquette. And it was the wind coming off to the Great Lakes. Like, it's pretty intense.

And I think there, a guy named DeWalk Kyle was the coach and recruiter. He picked me up. And within 15 minutes, one of the players that slid through, hit some ice and teaboned us. and then they walk around campus and it's just a total white out the whole time so I was part of it was you know I went to Marquette and I'm the first thing I thought of was it's a lot like Lloyd Minster

the rinks about you know it's it's not the best rink it's not the worst rank but it's I thought it was I'd fit in that was it was and then when you get there the Great Lakes are phenomenal yes the summers are incredible the falls are incredible the winters are harsh there's some nasty storms that come off.

The Lake Superior that make it, you get to miss school at least. That was probably the only thing. But it's a hearty bunch up there. It's a tough group of people. There are a lot of Finnish people in there. And people are hardworking there. It was good.

I enjoyed it. Let's go to the year you won. We can talk about any of the other years if they stick out or if there's memorable. But I mean, what was that year, like, that's your final year, correct? Yeah, that was my final year, yeah. Were you wearing the C that year?

I was assistant. Dean Santos was the captain. Okay, okay. So it was, we knew going in, we were going to have a really good team. We had, Brad Rhinca was an Oedder draft at the time, and Dallas Drake was a Detroit draft. Okay. Jim Hiller was a L.A. draft. And we had a stack team.

We lost one game in Minnesota. Minnesota. We lost one game against Maine Black Bears that year in Portland, Portland, Maine. It was the largest crowd ever to watch a hockey game in state of Maine. And that was when Portland, or when University of Maine had stacked teams like Montgomery, and they were, they were the best team, one of the best teams. We, just before Christmas that year, we were ranked number one, and we went to St. Cloud State, and we lost two games right before Christmas. And it dropped us down, but nobody was too happy about it. We came back after Christmas that year,

and we ran the table. We didn't lose a game after Christmas that year. So I think we won, I want to say 26 in a row is what we end up winning. And we could score goals. We averaged over six goals a game. We could defend. Averaged over six goals a game? We could slug it out.

Yeah, Division one. We could slug it out with anybody. So we ran the table. We beat on, we beat Wisconsin's. The powerhouses that back then were in the West, WCA, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and North Dakota. And we beat up on all those teams. We swept them all.

We went, I think that was the year we played Alaska Anchorage in the second round of the playoffs. And that was Paul Craig Lloyd, Lloyd Kidd was the goalie there. Okay. We smoked them. They upset BC that year, which BC was a powerhouse. and then we got to have them in the second round to get us to the final four. And final four was, we played Maine again. And we...

Now, final four, refresh my memory. We're in St. Paul's Civic Center. Yeah. Everybody's at a central location. So they brought in that side story was, so I think the first game was, it was Thursday, Thursday, and then a day off, and we played Saturday. Wednesday was a banquet and we got to the

we had a charter we got to the bus at 7 in the morning we were supposed to charter out to Minneapolis we were fogged in so they said come back at noon I'm sure the fog will lift so we came back at noon and the fog hadn't lifted so they rented two buses and we started busing

and we played the early game we played the 3 o'clock game that the next afternoon we missed the banquet which, you know, nobody really wanted to go to anyway. We got there at around 9 o'clock at night. We practiced maybe 45 minutes. We

undressed, got in our hotel, slept, and then we played Maine at, I think we had the 3 o'clock game. Well, I know we had the 3 o'clock game. And we played good. We beat Maine, a 5-3, I think, in an open netter. And BU was, I think they played

Clarkson. And B, it was a stud team. They had a Monty and Keith Kachuk and McCachran. They had Peter Holoh. They had six guys playing the national hockey to fall on year off that team. And we slugged it out with them. We were down three nothing after one. We were up five to three after two.

I think we've gotten up to seven to four with six minutes left and we lost the lead. And we hadn't lost the lead. You were up seven to four with six minutes left? That's part of the old story that gets left out. And they scored three to tie it with, oh, 30 seconds. And then they had a breakaway with two seconds. So our team just totally fell. The wheels fell off.

And we regrouped. And then we set an all-time record for three overtimes, longest goal or longest game. Longest game. In college hockey history. So back this up for a second. That was a really fast take on it. I'd like to point out the plane getting fogged in. That is something that can make a break.

Because, I mean, it could easily went down. played main lost and been like blamed on the fog and been like oh poor me but championship teams usually use that as a good character thing and a good chuckle and they go out and play and i mean obviously you guys win it all so it's a nice little feather in your cap now on boston say that again you had tony amante and if you listen and watch the game winning goal the commentators talk about how you were there to shut down amontay but who are the other big ones um keith kichick chuk was on the team Keith Kichakran was on the, Ed Ronan played with Montreal the next year.

I think he won the Cup. The Saccoes were there. They were a good team. They put six guys, the next year, 92, was the year that it was an Olympic year. And six guys off that team played on the Olympic team. And then after Olympics were done,

they all went and played the National Hockey League. And they were good. Whoa. Darren McDonald, the Lloyd, the Lloyd kid was on that team. He was the, he went there as a young kid. They had, they, they, um,

they were loaded. They, they put, well, they had, they had superstars on, went to the national hockey and ended up being superstars. We had Brad Rorinka played in the National Hockey. Probably our guy that played the most games was, Dallas Drake, played with,

um, Detroit and St. Louis and won a cup. retired a couple years ago or the last game he won was the last he won the cup with Detroit when they won the cup in six or seven years ago okay um but we had Jim Hiller was on the team he played he's coaching now and it with the New York Islanders we had we probably had six kids drafted and we had a couple guys signed free agents after the year but they were their whole team was drafted and signed like they were They were just, we were a little bit older, and they were probably, our average age was probably 21,

and their average age was probably 19 and a half. And we, but we had guys, we had, Scott Beatty went to Europe. He was, he was leading the nation in scoring. We had a guy named Mark Buffet, who was a San Jose draft. He was our fourth line center and had 60-some points that year. So we, we could, we could slug it out and play with anybody. and then we end up winning 8-7 in the final game. That's a final.

You don't see games like that anymore. How was I love college fans. Division 1 hockey is fun. I mean, it doesn't compare to maybe Division 1 football that gets 100,000. But what was the atmosphere like, well, you would have played in multiple places, maybe in your rink, for one, for starters? but then in the finals. I mean, the three-period game at the end.

By the end, it'd be a little bit. We were sold out all the time. Our rank probably held $4,500, and especially our last, our first year was a down year. We were made $500. After that, we were good. And then we were sold out all the time.

We'd go to the St. Paul Civic Center where there's probably 8,000 people from alumni to fans coming in. I know, you know, the party after, I know people were arrested. Like, it was just, it was total chaos. Did you guys stay in Minneapolis? We stayed overnight. And then that night it was just, like, the game went until probably 10, 30, 11 o'clock.

It went forever. Well, three extra periods. And then, you know, then, you got your, you got to do your interviews and you got to do all that kind of stuff. So by the time you get back to the hotel, it's after midnight. and yeah I know the Marquette people again they're finished a lot of finished people and they know how to drink and have a good time and it was they had a good time I know there was multiple arrests and then we flew back and yeah it was like miles and miles of people just you know it was it was amazing like back then the top teams always won like North Dakota was every year there Wisconsin Maine and Boston College. There was five schools every year, and usually one of them always won.

And then we came along, Lake Superior State, us in Lake Superior State. We won one, Lake Superior, Moly won a couple in that. They had Dougie Waite and a few of those guys. They had Rollston, Dougie Waite. They had a few guys that, they had good teams too.

So the UP of Michigan, and people would know that what it is. It's the very top of Michigan, right on Lake Superior. And it's desolate, but people are big hockey fans there, and they just happened to have two hockey programs that were the two of the best in the nation, two hours from each other. And one was in, we were in the WCA, Lake State was in the CCHA, and they won, you know, for about three-year period.

Our two teams won all of the national championships. So it will never be probably done again just because it's tough to recruit into those places now. And there's 60 teams, 60 college teams recruiting. So it's a bit of an anomaly, but it was well worth it for sure. It was fun times, good times. How long have to take the grin to go off your face? Not only being there to shut down a Monta, as I say, but scoring a hat trick, the game winner in triple overtime,

then to be a national champ. Yeah. All in the same. Well, it was, yeah, it's hard to even explain. Again, we had a good team, but we had quality guys.

Like, it was, again, when you're down three nothing after one period, or when you can't fly to the Minneapolis, you have to drive a bus. Like, it didn't phase this team. Like, the team was, was tough. Like we had

tough, mentally tough guys that, um, that, you know, a lot of went on to play in the national hockey, but guys went to Europe and,

and, uh, guys were, guys were, you have to be mentally, like we were talking about mental, mental problems before. I,

somebody had a mental problem on that team. It would be able to show it up. Again, I never saw that type of stuff when I was playing guys that would mentally fizzle or, or be suicidal or that type of stuff. And that was, that team was just, it was a fun time.

We, we, um, you always hear of these teams that have spent their time together. This team, if there was a, everybody would go to the movie. If there's a party, everybody at the party. If there was a, you know, everybody ate together. It was just one of those things that everybody was their best friend. And, and there was no, you know, there was, we had high-end draft picks in the National Hockey League, guys that were going to, everybody knew were going on and play in the National Hockey League.

and we had guys that were our leading scores that you knew that weren't going to, and nobody seemed to care. There was no animosity, there was no jealousy, and the team just dropped the puck and the team played. So going in there, I mean, we hadn't lost all year after Christmas. There was never, I don't think that team ever thought they would ever lose. It was just one of those things. We were going there to win it all, and it wasn't a big deal.

in your playing time was there a rink you just loved playing in uh I like playing in North Dakota some of those rinks are um you know college hockey's changed like North Dakota's even got a new

rink and they had a great rink Wisconsin's got a nice 14,000 seat rink and I think most of the Denver's got a new rink and Colorado's getting a new rink everybody's got a new rink Minnesota Duluth got a new rink. Back then it was different.

You go to Wisconsin and be sold out and, you know, there's the band and everything. And when we were starting out, that team was starting out, we got thumped. When I say we were a battle-tested group, we'd go to Wisconsin and lose by eight, or we'd go to the University of Minnesota and they'd run the score up on us and, you know, people would just be mocking you. And so our last two years, like, we took back some, we took our pound of flesh on a lot of teams. And we had tough guys. Like, we had some guys that, you know, Dave Shyak.

These guys were 200-some-some-minute penalty minutes in the Saskatchewan Jr. Like, there was, it was tough hockey. The guys ran at each other and guys tried to hurt one another. And you can get away with a lot. Back then, you could get away with a lot in college hockey. And so we were, we weren't very, we had a lot of smaller players, but we were tough. We played hard and ultimately we could score goals, which was a big difference. What was your weapon of choice?

Now in today's world, you can get a one-piece stick that's, yeah, just shy of 400 bucks, let's call it. Back then, Solidwood, or was it two-piece? I was Solid Wood, Christian Brothers, when I was in college, and then along came those old Eastern Aluminum Shows. And you could stick in the Christian Brothers. others so that was that I used my last year and ever since I went from that point on I for a lot of years I used two-piece just when I was on the ice yeah and the last probably seven eight years the new the new sticks are nice oh no the new sticks are ridiculously nice as you get older and weaker and you can still shoot a puck you need you need the whip you need but the new sticks the

problem you have is, again, it comes down to touching the puck a lot. If you're in an association or a team that doesn't have skill practice and you don't touch a puck a lot, those new sticks aren't conducive to guys not touching the puck. You need to, the top end guys can make those things hum, but if you're not a skilled person, you might as well have a wood stick because, you know, those new composite graphite sticks or whatever they are now, it's, They're, um, it's tough, sometimes it's tough to feel the puck on your stick. So if you don't have enough skill, it shows up. I think.

I think it, uh, the old days of feeling that puck, you know, that wooden stick, you could always feel the puck. And then, um, that was the biggest thing I know, probably 10 and 12 years ago whenever he started changing. That was the biggest thing you could hear all the old, old pros or guys that were teaching their kids, you know, guys were older or retired was the first thing. I always said, I can't feel a puck on these new sticks. And now you can.

I think the stick is better. But also, you know, the skill of that that player is better, too. Just weight alone, the new stick is a feather. They can absolutely drill. You talk about not needing the strength, but you can just absolutely rifle a puck with it. And I talk about this. When I played on the Lancers, there's probably four guys that could shoot a puck. Yeah.

Really, like really well. Yeah. There was probably 10 guys that had decent shots, and then there was probably four or five guys that couldn't shoot a puck. Now you go to watch warm up, the oil kings or sastute blades, they can all shoot a puck. They don't know where they're going. Most of them don't know where it's going,

but guys can shoot a puck. And that's why now you see the injuries and stuff, like the ankles, and now most people are wearing something on their ankles, because you get hit those skates with a puck now. Everybody can shoot it. You're getting hurt. Well, was it the HL All-Star game. The guy does 109 miles.

Imagine taking that one in the foot. Yeah, and that kid's always been able to shoot a puck. He can't remember his name. He played in Halifax when they won the World Cup with McKinnon and Drowan. And he's always been able to shoot a puck. But now you put the right flex and the right curve on those. And man, oh man, they come off the stick hard. Yeah, well, I mean,

who all shot and I can't even think of it right now, but there were some small guys shooting the hardest shot this year that could absolutely just drill a puck. Pedersen was one of them. Yeah. And he's not a big man. No. It's technique.

You know, a lot of it's just technique. Again, the skill development. Like those kids have shot pucks hundreds of thousands of times. Like, it's just their technique and their way they're, you know, I played with some guys that, you know, the skinniest guys, but they knew how to shoot a puck. And then you get the guys that are big, heavy guys, they can't shoot a puck.

It doesn't make sense, but it is, it's technique how you... Using your back, using your legs, using your ankles, using your wrist to shoot a puck rather than just kind of shooting a puck. There's a lot to it. Yeah, it's leverage and everything else, right? I've seen that in baseball, tons of a ball.

Creating power. Yeah, using your body, using your legs, using everything, the torque of the twist. Yeah, it's your back. It's your legs, it's your back. It's a lot of things. And, yeah, if you can shoot a puck and you have a chance to score a goal. That's right.

If you can't, then you're just hoping. You're hoping for luck. Which a lot of guys are hoping for luck. So you win the national championship. You go back, I assume you graduate. Yep. What did you graduate with the degree? SpeechCom, business minor.

And I worked, I stayed there one year, and I worked in my master's in, political science. And then my coach there, Walt Kyle, got the head coaching job in Seattle, the Thunderbirds. So were you coaching at the time? I was a grad assistant for you. Grad assistant for you. And then I... Did you have, before you hop to Seattle, did you have no thought of like, hey, let's carry on?

I didn't want to go to the East Coast. I had chances to go to Europe. But back then, the top European leagues, they had all the import rules. so you're allowed like three imports on let's say the DEL in Germany you could have three imports and that was all X-Pro's and at a time I was I was 20 22 you know my backs and hips were were not good and I thought maybe the next thing I could get into

was coaching so I had an opportunity and looking back now that I've been to Europe I probably missed a really good opportunity to go to Europe and some guys that I played with went there for 10, 15 years. That's right, yeah. And made lots of money. But when you don't know what it's all about, you know, Germany and Switzerland and these places are just phenomenal.

Like, you know, the money's good, the opportunity is good, and the lifestyle is really good. You play your 45 games, and I go to those games now and they're fun games to go to. But I got into coaching. and I coached with Seattle for two years, and then Walt took off and was the assistant coach in Anaheim, and I took over Seattle scouting for four years.

So let's stop right there. So you went into coaching for essentially three years. Yeah. Was there a part of you that always wanted to be a scout? Always wanted to be a coach? No, I like, I still like coaching. I think coaching is, now that my kids are involved, and I've been able to coach the last 10 years just on the side, not necessarily teams.

You know, I really liked coaching. The problem with coaching was, is getting an opportunity when you're young. And, you know, my opportunity opened for to take over their scouting for Seattle. So I just said, ah, you know, I get to move back to Canada. I can, you can live in one spot in scout, whereas coaching you're always, whether if you're good, you're moving, if you're bad, you're moving. It's just they never ever seem to be in one spot too long. That kind of kind of come into play.

But once I was scouting for two years, I think I got offered a job by Boston, my second year scouting with Seattle. And then the next year I got offered a job with San Jose. I turned those two down. And then my fourth year, I got offered a job with Buffalo. You turned down San Jose? And I took the Buffalo job. Yeah, I just didn't.

I enjoyed. I was only 25 at the time, 27. six and I enjoyed the the amateur stuff with with Seattle we'd got good teams Patrick Marlowe was on the team and we had a real good team one year we went to the finals with a bunch of 17-year-olds and we lost out to Lethbridge but we that was Patrick Marlowe and and and Jeremy Craig and we had like five or six guys drafted the national hockey that year so I was having fun and then after that my fourth year Buffalo um uh Scotty Bowman brother passed away was a head scout.

So they were looking for a guy. And I thought, I better not waste too many opportunities to get into that. Because I knew a lot of guys were trying to get in and couldn't. And so it was my chance to get in. And then once you're into there, you know, coaching's kind of over. So it's just kind of a Y in the road. And I took the scouting and I never looked back. Never look back.

And I should point out, I hear San Jose, I think you're moving to San Jose, but you're not really move to San Jose. No, you're living in, somewhere in Western Canada, probably. Probably. Let's talk about it. First off,

your first year as the head scout of Seattle, you select Patty Marlowe, correct? Our first year, I just took it over that year. And we had a group. I was just getting involved. And that year, we took Patrick Marl

at about six or seventh overall. Sixth overall. Sixth overall. One of three guys in that first round to play meaningful time in the NHL, him, Hannah, and Farrants. He plays next year. He'll have like 1,700-some games. He'll beat Gordy House record. So he's going to play 23, 24 years.

He was, and when we drafted him, he was a tiny little guy. So I'm curious, when you draft him, he steps in the Seattle, was he that same kid? Like, did you... When we drafted him, he was playing in Swift Current. He was from Androids, Saskatchewan. He was probably 5'4 or 8, maybe 9. He's small. And we thought we were going to get a player that would play for us for five years.

He'd get him in as a 16-year-old. He'd play and score goals, and we'd get a long-term player that would help us win. He went back as a 15-year-old, and he started to grow. He led to Swift Current Legionnaires in scoring, led the league in scoring. I talked to his dad at Christmas time that year, so he was still 15.

He was 15 at the time, and I said to Dennis, I said, geez, you know what, Patrick's going to be, you know, ready to play next year. And he wasn't quite sold that Patrick would be ready to play in the Washington Hawk Lake the next year. By the time we got a hold of him, he was a September 15th birthday, so we got a hold of him at camp.

He was probably 6-1, and he was probably 190 pounds already. that year so if he was a day younger he wouldn't even have been eligible for that draft so as a 16 year old he led our team in scoring I think he had a goal at a point of game

the following year he just exploded and was just a machine he was probably six one and a half two ten by then like he was just he was a beast and powerful and Thornton went one and Patrick went two

and we never saw him again and he was the second youngest guy to ever score a goal in National Hockey League. So he was, you know, September 15th birthday. If he's September 16th, we have him for sure the following year. And that was that year we won the West of the Western Hockey League and played Lethbridge in the finals with all 17-year-old kids. We lost Patrick that year the next year and we brought in Mark Parrish.

So if we had to kept Patrick and brought in Mark Parrish, we would have been lights out team. The team was still really good, but we lost Patrick was a big loss. He's been, he's still fun to watch. He's so fast. He's just never been injured,

and he's, yeah, he's just, he's graceful. Like, he's just powerful and skilled and knows how to play the game, and he's,

if he plays next year, which, you know, I'm sure he'll play one more year just to get that record. Why not? It's going to have, all-time, 17-60-some games. Gordy Howe, whoever I thought anybody in this day and age could do it, and Patrick's the one.

Speaking of records, you think of Vetchkin passes Grexky? I'm going to say no. I think it's too hard, but. How old is Vetchkin right now? 35? 34. Yeah, I'm not sure. I just think their team as a whole is going to start taking, like, he's got to go another

four or five years, and it's tough. at some point he's going to take a step back and start scoring 30 rather than 50 every year. 85, so he's turning 35. Yeah, it's hard. What he's doing is, again, people don't realize how big those guys are. Like, he's probably 235 pounds. Like, they're football players is what they are. You know, even Crosby's 225, 220, and he's 5'5-10 and a half.

those guys those guys are big men and that's the part that the NHL is it's not necessarily tall anymore but you got to be you gotta be powerful you the NHL now

if you're not willing to put in the time it spits you out real quick even really junior the old days of guys not training and just being really good players I don't know if they exist it's too hard

everybody's training at 14, 15, 16. Once you hit parole, like you're spending your summers in the gym and getting ready to improve. It's all you're ever trying to do is improve. That's why I think when you see guys at the end, they just take a short breath

to maybe they exhale over the summer and don't train quite as hard. They're out and they never get back in. And that's how tough it is to play a national hockey. Well, I hear it on this podcast time of time again. The line between making it and not making it when you're that close is that close. It's an opportunity a lot of times a coach or, you know, an injury. I just had Blair Aachenham on before he played with St. Louis and then Chicago a little bit.

He was in the minors, I think. What did I say? Eight years, something like that. And then Joel Quinville finally pulled him up with St. Louis. And then he plays a full season. I actually plays several full seasons. It's opportunity. That was a Joel Klinville was an old teammate of his.

Yeah. Right? Yeah, a lot of times it's just, we talk about it all the time. You know, you're sitting in the minors and you can't play for this team and you get traded over and all of a sudden you can play and be a real good player for somebody else. It's just opportunity and being the right place at the right time. Part of our problem with us in Tampa Bay,

the last few years, knock on wood, is we haven't had that many injuries. So we haven't been able to get a lot of guys in, which development-wise probably hurts them a little bit. but you're also like the friend like your guys franchise right now is unbelievable yeah it's it's um i mean you we'll point it out you don't have the cups no but talent wise they're fun to watch let's put that way you know you go watch when that team is humming um and not and firing all cylinders it's it's it's fun fun brand of hockey to watch like you know you put the right two teams and you can see some pretty incredible things,

pace and skill and scoring ability and just the thinking that some of these guys think at now. That's what separates almost all hockey players now is their character and their hockey sense. Stamcoast was a cool one for me. I got to go to, he was in Florida, geez, 2011, so what's that? You're three of them being the NHL, something like that. And he still sticks out in my mind.

By no means, I mean, you're in the ranks all the time. had to see a lot of talented hockey players. But Stamcoast for me, he was playing Chicago that night, so he had Kane and Taves, and at that time, he had St. Louis in Tampa Bay and probably Vincent McCabe, I would assume. Vinny would have been there, you know. And Stamcoast was the hardest working guy on the ice at all times, and he was that noticeable. It was crazy for a talented player like that. And then there's summers that doesn't change.

Like, they do skating and skills all. summer. You go to a rink in Toronto and you'll see John Tavares out there with a skating coach for an hour. And then they do skills and one of the things that you talk to, you know, I had a chance

to work with Steve Thomas. Stumpy would say, those guys hate actually playing after they're done because they lose their skill, they lose it over a summer. Like it's gone. And that's why those pros now they spend so much time skating and skills because

If they take it off and don't shoot pucks or don't stick handle over the summer, you just can't pick it up in September. You don't just pick up your stick anymore and start... And away you go. And away you go. It's like your muscle memory.

It just things deteriorate fast. And other sports help, whether it's lacrosse or... You know, Stammer was a great baseball player too, so you can see why you can shoot the one-timer and his hand-eye is really good. So there's usually something that this guy's done in the past that's helped him along the road.

that allow him to be what he is today. And it's lacrosse players or baseball players or golfers. As much as, you know, those guys are pretty talented, Handai to be able to score goals and fire pucks like they do. They've got special talent. What was it about Buffalo? You'd said that San Jose and then one other. Boston

Oh Boston right right What was it about just the opportunity then? I don't know I just sometimes you gotta feel like You're ready Like I was just a young guy And sometimes you need to Get a little older and

And Gain some experience And Was there anyone Sorry to cut you off Was there anyone that kind of I'm curious. A guy who played as good as hockey as he did, then coached a little bit, and then took over scouting for Seattle.

Was there anyone who kind of like mentored you when you were going into the rinks and this is what you should try and watch for? Did you just pick it up on your own? Did you just kind of? Yeah, I was only, when I started with Seattle, I had been only 24, 25 somewhere in there. What I, not really. I knew, I'd coached enough and played enough that I knew what I, I knew what I wanted to. seeing a player. And I guess how I based it even today is how would this guy fit on my team? How, what's he going to do on my team? If I was to have a team like, how is he going to play?

What's he going to do? And I still probably still scout that way as far as, you know, watching a kid play. And it doesn't matter how big or small or strong or how, you know, how, what's going to allow him to play? And if I was to coach, how would I play him? And so that's kind of the way I started. started the whole thing was going after these kids and in Seattle I had great success in Saskatchewan they used to have this old Center 4 league which was Humboldt Nacombe um PA shellbrook all the way to North Balford down to bigger I think it was it was an awesome badham hockey league and we we stuck our butt in there and we draft a lot of kids out of rural Saskatchewan and even rural Alberta.

And at the time, the rural places were producing all the players, you go to the big cities and you kind of laugh at how bad the players were. You know, Evanton and Calgary, they produced some players, but for the amount of kids that were playing and we just said, no way, we're going to, we want the tough kids, mentally tough kids that were farm

boys, and we could still find them. That league now doesn't even exist. It hasn't existed for a while, and it's shameful to watch the deterioration of rural hockey. It just doesn't, it's just no hockey. There's no families playing hockey. There's nobody in Nacom even running. There's no Bannam team.

So the disappointing part of the last probably 15 years for me is to watch places like Yorkton and Malville struggle to put badam hockey teams on and places like Nacom and these places don't even there's no league, there's no team

and you know, Maidstone. That Maidstone was in the league back then. There's just no hockey anymore. I was wondering if when Wade was playing, dad and Gord coached that team. And then you had Wade and Bart, obviously, you had Travis Clayton.

My brother played on that team. So I mean, those teams don't, those things don't even exist anymore. And we've lost a lot of, it's the same in rural Nova Scotia, rule everywhere. Those kids that used to come up and be really good players,

they don't, I don't think they play hockey anymore. And why do you think that is? Just there's no rink. There's not enough kids to even ice a team, so there's no team. That's the problem. And now it's, now you flip around and I bet you if you ask the Western Hockey guys, there's nobody comes from rural areas and everybody comes from the city.

And part of it is, is the way hockey's gone morphed into a 10-month sport of skating and skills, and they're all in the big city. They don't, you know, Lloyd Minster's probably okay because it's a big enough city. They probably keep enough ranks open in the summer that Lloyd's had a good run in the last 10 years of producing some hockey players. Part of it is they've had some expertise. The biggest problem I see in Canada is

we've lost our expertise to the states in that Patrick Marl from Anroyd, Saskatchewan, is never going to go back to Swift Current or Anoride in Saskatchewan. He's going to live in San Jose. Or somewhere, and his kids will, his kids and the kids in that area will benefit from him. And that's happening in Dallas now.

That's happening in Colorado and Denver and all those places that didn't have minor hockey. Now they've got Keith Kachuk running St. Louis minor hockey. And producing four or five years ago, they had four or five first rounders out of that St. Louis minor hockey system. That used to be Saskatchewan. Now that's a little tiny place. Minor hockey isn't that big in St. Louis, but they're still producing players because they have the expertise. And now the big cities have the expertise, whether it's, it's the skating person or the you know the the camps are all in

edmonton or calgary or even i guess reddier but they don't exist in smaller towns and that's really hurt the development of rural albera saskatchewan nova scotia that's it's a dying sport hmm it's kind of sad to hear you talk about it that way it's it's it's it's it is sad it is sad. Those guys that like I talk to guys now that are scouting and from Saskatchewan they said back in the old day Tyler Wright

and these guys that were great Western Hockey League players played in the National Hockey League. You know you can go to any little town in Saskatchewan and they'd all have teams and they always say there would be one guy that was the best player that went on and played in the Western Hockey League. Every town had one, at least one. And now

they're like there's not even a town. Not alone there's no team Some places there's no town. You know, that's just the progression of people moving into the cities and those old, you know, all those farming communities. You know, Wade was lucky because Gord came back and farmed, come back from whatever the Central Hockey League. Yeah, Fort Worth.

Well, that wouldn't ever happen anymore. Those kids, those people that really don't come back. Now you have, you know, those farm kids don't. Well, I'd laugh. You talk about San Jose in California and Florida. It's like, well, why would you come? Why would you? They marry an American woman. And she doesn't want to go live in Maite Stone, Saskatchewan. So I'm an anomaly bringing a woman back from Minneapolis. You're a lucky man. I am a lucky man. You'll never listen to this anyway. She finds hockey quite boring, which is funny enough.

That's everywhere. That just happens everywhere. like Meadow Lake used to produce all kinds of players I didn't even have a team anymore I'd like to know I know they're not in the center four anymore because I used to go up there and watch you know to center four I'd go to Maidstone and watch it

I'd go up to Meadow Lake and watch it I'd go to you know you can go to Humbold like what those were just the best league in western Canada those kids would they'd go to the St. Albert tournament in in January and there'd be a team from Thunder Bay and there'd be a team from Nacom

and those teams beat the crap out of people. Yeah. And it was all, you know, we coveted those kids. Like, they're all high draft picks. We were, uh, you go to the following year to watch a midget, you'd be listing their players. Like it was, it was, it was, uh, they had a really good thing going back in those days. And, and once you've lost it, it's, it's tough to. It's hard to get it back. Tough to get it back. Yeah. Everybody talks about the Midwest Red Wings, which was main stone, right? Because for a lot of years there they were yeah well the best kids in that area went and played there oh and they competed yeah and now i mean i mean you don't even i don't i drove by made zone today i don't even i don't even know

if they have a rink there anymore like you drive around the city you drive around the town and so we're i still play senior for the saskalta we play metal lake game one tomorrow night oh good and so they still were playing against dj king who was you know had a cup of coffee and uh nasty marasty He's still coming out, and he fought a lot of tough men. Yeah, he did. And I mean, like, Dwight King's not playing with him, but he's another guy who's played. They used to, like, those are big, tough guys out of that area. They had skilled guys come out of that area, too.

They had skilled hockey players coming out of there for a long time. I'm trying to think of the names, but if you go in their rank, they got all the jerseys hanging. Yeah, there was one guy that played in St. Louis, or in San Jose. Falun? No. No, I'm Falloon. He played Regina Paths. First round pick. He was a top five pick in that. He was a small kid growing up and about 15, 16 started to grow, and all of a sudden he was in San Jose for a lot of years.

Freezing. Freezing. Jeff Freezing. Like they had players like that coming out of there. Well, here's the guys that at list, Jeff Freeze and Blake Como, Dwight King, DJ, Yeah. Como's still playing, I think. I mean, it does list a few others, but those are the ones who played the most games.

Yeah, no, we, that was kind of the heyday of, back then, I bet you, per capita, Saskatchewans maybe producing the most NHL players, that would be 15, 20 years ago. Yeah. But for Capita and the amount of kids playing, they produce a tremendous amount of players. I don't think that happens anymore. Well, I can speak from a family of four boys and a girl. There's five siblings. We grew up farming.

And I shouldn't say none of us farm anymore. There's a couple that run cattle a little bit, but none of us full-time farm anymore. It's an expensive endeavor now, right? Like, I mean, in order to have the land, all the equipment, et cetera, et cetera, Like it's, and that's tough. And so all those little communities were made up of that. They all went to the same place, but that, I mean. It doesn't exist.

And quickly fading. You know, if you're living on the farm as a young person, you know, your mom and dad don't have the time to put into summer hockey or you just, you know, spring and fall are huge commitments for your family to farm. And those are big times for hockey. hockey players and when you talk about um actually you know I talked to a lot of guys uh that were from small town rural Saskatchewan Alberta and as kids uh speak for myself to uh dad used to be help out with the rink put in the natural ice so you'd always be on it he'd go down and flodd and you'd

skate whatever and so the rural communities the kids like the wade comes to mind would always be on the ice because they had access to it all the time. Whereas in the cities, they probably didn't have, I could maybe throw an argument that there wasn't as much ice available. And now that's almost flip-flopped. Like, now you have, like you say, you have ice all year around. You've got to pay for it, but it's still sitting there. Well, I bet, you know, 25 years ago, 20 years ago, Maidstone, you know, between recesses

at noon hour, you could go on the Maidstone ice. Yeah. I bet you now because of insurance. They don't allow. So there's an hour lost every day. uh jim benning's a good friend of mine the bennings and the podloskies uh this is 35 years ago now all play all from one block in st albert all there's four or five and play the national hockey off that one block guess what was at the end of the rink or at the end of the street an outdoor rink

so if you're on the rink all the time i try to help i try and tell us to parents if you tell me who the best reader is a kid that reads five times a week or a kid that reads twice a week And they go, well, for sure, it's a fight. I'm like, yeah, it's a skill. Like, you're learning a skill. Hockey or soccer or golf, it's the same. If you don't practice or do something in that sport that much, how do you expect to be good at it?

And unfortunately, hockey's gotten expensive as far as renting ice. But, you know, I can fly over a lot of little towns like Lloyd Minster, and I bet you there's outdoor rinks. Everywhere. The one lovely thing about Canada is we get about eight months a winter, and probably seven of that you can probably be on the ice, I bet. You can definitely, if you have a, again, if you're in the right spot with a bunch of young kids and a couple of parents that just say,

listen, I'll drive you over to the rink or you guys, I'll shop her own or whatever. What an advantage. It wasn't Jonathan Taves, all those guys. When I was starting out with Seattle, Manitoba, produced no players absolutely no players you wouldn't you went in there you wouldn't draft any their players winnipeg was other again a big city they didn't produce any players the little towns they didn't produce a lot and then one of my last years of scouting they started putting in um

ice right beside there they'd be at least one pad maybe two outdoor rinks beside a hockey rink and they put boards and they put chicken wire and the zamboni would come out once an hour and scrape it and all of a sudden they started producing players jonathan taves all those kids started coming out of there because they were on the ice and practicing and having fun just playing shinny and there's something to be said about being if you're on the ice and doing something that that you love those kids would love that and like you always hear the stories you know after school hit the ice and and then get called in at nine to go to bed like that's what those kids did and it it parlayed into superstars

Yeah, that makes complete sense to me Yeah And now it's just Finding enough kids in an area That want to even actually go out and have to play shinny You know, you probably need six guys Yeah I'd argue you could get a solid game of two on two going

Yeah You probably could but it's to find If you're in the wrong block Or in the wrong area of town It doesn't and it doesn't matter But if you're in the right Again luck comes into play If you're in the right spot

with all your buddies are sitting there every night. Now, back when we played, video games was just starting to come on board. I think that takes a big portion of people's time that kids would rather stay inside and play video games and go out and shoot pox. And made a difference. Makes a difference. Well, just the fact the ease of entertainment today makes an difference.

What are you talking with video games? Where are you talking to? You flick on the TV and there's 100 channels. I remember a time at the Newman household, you'd flick on the TV and you had two channels. It was news or news. And it was like, well, what are you going to do? Everybody going on the ice and the oldest brother would haul you out there and away you go. So everything changes.

Change is inevitable. And now you have to love something. It means an anomaly almost for some of these kids to come out of a certain area. Just because you're like, how did that happen? They didn't have this, they didn't have that. But, like, what's his face with Toronto coming out of Phoenix? Matthews. Matthews.

And then I laughed at the day after the draft. It was a big thing in the Toronto Star, how he ended up developing and being a good player. And he, not from a rich family, he lived near a three-on-three rink, and he was a decent player, and he had four or five different colors of jerseys. And every day somebody would need a player. They called him. he'd go up play. And I laugh because I know there was,

every parent in Toronto would have been looking at that going, come on, it's not that easy. You've got to spend money to be good, and he spent no money to be good. He was just on the rink all the time. Wanted to play. And I guarantee there have been 90% of those parents that read that story,

wouldn't have believed it and didn't think that or their kid could do that what he did. You know, you've got to be on the spring team. You've got to spend a lot of money at this or else you can't be any good. You've got to get your 10,000 hours. that's the outliers. Like, I see that now, 10,000 hours,

that's all I ever hear is 10,000 hours. And I'm thinking of myself, it's impossible for you to do drills for 10,000 hours. I mean, you've got to be an athlete maybe for 10,000 hours, and that can be playing soccer or go out and shooting hoops or getting your 10,000 hours or your athleticism different ways. It's not all staying on a, you know, having a coach and running drills for 10,000 hours.

Those kids never make. it never what was your first year as a scout for the buffalo sabers like what did it change I guess I'm curious well we went to the finals that year yes it was pretty good year I was I was gonna bring that up and then I'm like oh see we had we had we had Hasick you had this guy named Dominic Asick yeah he was pretty good we uh I mean I I learned a lot it was it was good like we were a small market team. Back then, he had big markets and small markets. We were a small market team, and then we got a role in playoffs,

and Dominic Hasick was just lights out. And I think we won the first game in Dallas. We lost the second. We won the third. Like, that team was all of a sudden, it just hit its stride the right time. And, of course, game six, the no goal. And if we got to, I was there at that game,

we hit two or three posts that. If they just went in, Dallas was an old haul and all those guys. They were old and they were beat up. And I don't think they had much left. That if we could have won that game, I think we win the cup. So it was a pretty good start to my start of my scouting. And then we, I was there eight years. Then we went downhill.

And then the year I left, it was the year Jim Benning left and Don Luce left, Terry Martin left was the year I think 0405 we came out of that lockout and we won the President's Cup and we lost to Carolina in the semifinals game seven and then the Carolina beat Evanton and that was about that time period so that was we rode that from the cup down all the way down to I think we picked four or five for a couple years and then we had guys like Derek Roy and and all these guys, Palm andville hit their stride, and we're back up at one of the Presidents' Cup that year.

Curious, being from Lloyd, if you had any hand in Clark MacArthur heading towards Buffalo. Yeah, Clark's, I don't know if Clark knows, he wasn't going to get drafted by us. We were going to take Carcillo. We needed a, I think it was Carcillo. We decided we're going to need a tough guy in the third round and who's this guy, this carciss.

I think it was Carcelo. Pittsburgh took him right before us. So we're sitting there and I said, well, the next guy on our list, and I said, we have to take him, was Clark MacArthur. And Jim Benning was from Portland. Seen Clark play a lot. And so we drafted Clark. Clark wasn't very big back then.

I'd watched Clark, I think my wife and I went to the under 16s in Calgary. And Clark was there. And maybe it was the under 15s. and I knew who Clark was, so I watched him. He's a really skilled player. The following year, we were living in Sylvan Lake, and Clark was playing as a 16-year-old in Drayton Valley. And so I went and watched him one night,

drove to Drayton Valley, and watched Clark play, and he was picking the old two-minute shifts, and I'm going at what half-speed. His 17-year-old year, he went to Medicine Hat. His shift length was probably down to about a minute and 45-7. I think that year he might have been minus 30. He was a minus minus player. But you could see the talent and the skill of Clark. We drafted Clark. I went to, after the draft about a week later, I went to his house and talked to his mom and dad and Clark at the kitchen table. I said,

Clark, one thing you're going to have to learn how to do is work. And if you never learn how to work and never heard how to compete, I said, I know my GM will never sign you. He won't He won't even give you a chance. And so Clark, I didn't know how Clark was going to react. Clark as an 18-year-old and as a 19-year-old was the hardest working guy on the ice every night. He would last 40 seconds, and it was almost like somebody pulled out the power pack in his back. He could barely get off the ice. He was such a competitive, hard-working player, and then he ended up making the World Junior team.

Yeah. And we all remember that team. Clark listened and Clark played a lot of years and made a lot of money. Being smart, being skilled, but being competitive. We talk a lot of now open and closed mindsets and Clark had an open mindset. If Clark was a closed mindset, he wouldn't have done it. We dig into a lot of the players now is how open is their mind to learning how to change and develop and change what they're doing to be a better player.

And Clark was definitely an open mindset person. And he had a good career. He was outstanding. That was one of my favorite picks of Ryan Miller. The years collide. Ryan Miller might have been a different year, but we got Ryan Miller in the fourth or fifth round. We got Clark in the third.

Those were good picks for us. yeah every once in a while I see his mom and dad and again good family yeah great people good people

those are the kids that you're just if you can at the time we didn't do that kind of in depth I knew of of the you know

Clark and his mom and dad and I knew they were good people that there wasn't going to be a problem but we didn't dig into it like we do now but we hit a home run with Clark that's for sure he was a great player

if kids worked that hard they'd have a lot of success. He was so impressive to watch as an 18 or 19 year old. And he had good teams in Madison Hat. You know, it helped. He had a good coach and Willie and they had good teams.

And, yeah, the first camp, we had in St. Catharines, tiny little rink in St. Catharines. And his first camp, you got to, you know, everybody watches and you kind of say, well, who impressed you today? Who's going to make it?

Who's your favorite young guy? I said, Clark McCarthy is playing, man. He's too good. So it was good. He was a special guy. Why? Not why. What was it like going from the Buffalo Sabres to the Pittsburgh Penguins?

You have the Buffalo Sabres who had gone when you first start making a Stanley Cup finals coming within an inch or less or a hair of winning Stanley Cup to going to, for the two years of, two years of. you were in Pittsburgh. I think it's a year after you leave, they win. But your last year, they go to a cup final against Detroit. They were like right on the cusp. That is Crosby at, well, at the time, his best. I mean, you can argue any of the years. But at that time, they were young, talented.

They were good. They, I got the opportunity because they were so bad. And Ray Shiro got the job, and I ended up going to Pittsburgh. The most impressive part about Crosby, was, I think he'd have been about 19 at the time. And I remember somebody asking me, is it worth bringing in the young kids to camp? Like, you know, our drafted kids. I said, are you kidding me?

Just the visual of our kids walking in. We had, you know, that time, Tyler Kennedy and a bunch of kids that come in and to see what Sidney Crosby looked at 19, I mean, how his body was put together. And the amount of hours that he put into his body, it was worth all those kids coming and seeing that person. I mean, he'd have been probably 210 pounds at the time, and he's 8, 19 years old, and it's just a phenom. The kids that, the lesson was you put the work in,

you get the results. So the second year, we had a good team, and they traded for HOSA, I think, that year, and we had a good team, and, of course, we ended up losing to Detroit Red Wings. and then host of switch teams. Correct. And then Pittsburgh be in the following year. Yeah, I mean, I've had three cracks at the cup

and I missed on all of them. That one was just I left a year too early. As scouts of your team when you're in the Stanley Cup finals, because you're closing in on what I assume is the biggest day each year of your guys's job, the draft. How much are you involved watching the games and how much, you're just like, I got to be, because I mean, at that time, you get the, I mean, for junior and specifically, you got all the major junior championships going on, you get the Memorial Cup, you got the Royal Bank Cup,

you got. Yeah. I mean, obviously the draft and all that, the preparation is your job. The Stanley Cup run is just, you mean, you have nothing to do with it. You're actually there to watch and be part of it. And you hope your organization values the scouts enough to bring them in because that doesn't happen everywhere. But in Pittsburgh, they treated us unreal.

So, yeah, at that point, you're just there. Even in Tampa when we went against Chicago, you're just there to be part of it, hang on and just watch. If you lose, it's pretty depressing. If you win, it's, it's, it's pretty exciting. It's just the whole atmosphere. Like, you're involved in the intensity of that is incredible. Why make the switch then from Pittsburgh to Tampa?

The biggest thing was I took over their scouting. So I was the head scout when Orn Kulis and Lenny Berry took over. They were looking for a head scout, and that was, that was the main reason. at the time, you know, Tampa was last, so it was a good chance to build a hockey team and get involved in the ground level. And, um, you guys have done a fantastic job of scouting. Yeah, we've, we've had some luck. You know, Braden Point in the third round. Yeah.

That was a lucky pick. Well, I'm going to run you through the first seven years on there because I was looking at it today. Because I, around here, well, not around here. I just look at Tampa Bay. Tampa Bay has been a fantastic team to watch for the last decade. I think when I looked it up, Emmington is dead last and wins in the last 10 years. The only team below them is Vegas, and we understand why.

And Tampa Bay is top seven, and you're like, I don't know, 10 wins away from being number one, and the top team is Pittsburgh. But the year you go there, you guys, obviously get the first overall pick, which turns out of Stephen Stamco's. The second year, you get Victor Headman. been second overall, and then Panicu plays a bunch of games for you at 52nd.

In 2010, you had Brett Connolly and Goudas, which neither one are currently, but those guys have both played meaningful games in the NHL, and I might be missing guys. By all means, you can chime in. In 2011, you had Namestikov, but the big one is Kucherov in the second round at 58. Platt at 208 in the seventh round and a guy that I've liked watching last few years is Johnson. Tyler Johnson was undrafted. Yeah, he was a good signing for us. 2012, you had Basilewski and Paquette.

Piquette was 101, fourth round. In 2013, he had Duran, who once... Sergachev. Sergachev. 2014 you had point in the third round and 2015 you had Sorrelli in the third ground like that's just that's your team right now yeah when you're in the moment though you're like it's easy to go back and look at the mistakes because we made some mistakes

I think I've seen stuff where we've got the most kids playing like we drafted which it means something you still want quality over quantity. Like, Braden Point in the third round was, I mean, it's pure luck. If we would have thought he was Braden Point of what we say today, we had taken him with our first pick. Sorelli is another one. Sorelli is a great story.

He was undrafted in the OHL, walked on to Oshawa at the beginning of the year. That was the year they won the Memorial Cup and he scored two or three goals. And that was where we saw him. We're like, wow, we've got to draft this guy. So he goes from seven months earlier, just hoping to make the overall. Oscewa General's team to winning the World Cup, and I think he scored the winning goal, to getting drafted by us, and now, you know, he's a huge part of our team. Those, those types of picks are what make your draft, or what make your team good.

Because everybody gets, you got to think everybody gets a good player every year. Your first pick should play. Should be, yep. I think the numbers are, not every player, if you, I think the criteria was at least 100 games or 200 games. They're after the fourth round, after the third round, only 10%. So three kids at each round play. Fourth, third round is about, oh, I want to say 15%.

I think the second round, 26%. And the first round is probably 60-some percent of those kids play. So you need a little bit of luck. And for our staff to say that we knew Braden Point was going to be great, I knew the next year we had a great player to say, Sorelli was going to be a great player. I knew probably two years later that we had a good player. We also drafted that year,

Joseph out of the center, he's been up and down. So we've been lucky in some of the ways. We do, I don't know how other staffs do their scouting. We have a certain way that we do our scouting and that myself and Al Murray do all the crossovers. We go around the world watching the players, and everybody else stays in their area or their league and just knows their guys.

And more and more teams are doing it that way. And our biggest thing was to just do a fly-by and have eight guys around the world just seeing the top guys. And, well, you only get a couple cracks at the top guys anyway. And if you do a fly-by by watching the Mush-jaw Warriors and you miss Braden Point because he's only going to be a third round pick, you miss those guys.

So the way we've done it is, I think it's really helped. It's the way we've been able to add players that we get the Pallats in the seventh round and we get the Braden points in the third round, and it's definitely helped. You get Tyler Johnson undrafted. Tyler Johnson undrafted that year. That same year, our big year was, was, The same year, Palatina was a 19-year-old we took in the last round. Tyler Johnson was a free agent signing, and we signed another kid.

He's playing our minors now. We traded him for Bishop. We signed him out of college, and he got off to a great start with us. He was playing with Vinny and Marri St. Louis. And probably in his first 25 games, he might have 20 points, and Steve shipped him to Ottawa for Bishop, and that kind of got the whole ball rolling where we had a goalie.

We had these young guys coming in. And that's another thing. We've never been afraid to take older kids. Guddis was a 19-year-old. Platt was a 19-year-old. We've never been afraid to draft an older kid just because he's a little bit older. We found that kids arrive at different stages

of different times in our lives, whether they grow late or, or get a chance late or get stronger late. If they're a good player, they're a good player. So we've never said, well, he's 19. We're not going to draft. And we've always said, well, if he's 19 and he's a good player, let's jump on him right now.

And that's why we drafted Goudas and the third. Just different guys that we're not afraid to jump right in and two feet and take a crack at him. What was it like showing up to work now than Stevie Y around? Steve's a, he's a real good guy, real good guy, real nice guy. He's super intense. He's a bit intimidating in that he intimidates, you know, he's an incredible hard worker. So when he's talking, you know that he knows his stuff.

He, I look at Steve, and he's a huge soccer guy. He loves Liverpool. And if I'm convinced if Steve was living in England, he would be a superstar soccer player. I think whatever he wants to do, whatever he puts his mind to, he's got the character and the athleticism and the willpower to be the best. So that's one thing getting to know these types of guys. You know, you see them on the ice and then you meet him, and right away you can tell he's going to be successful.

There was no if fans or butts or gray area with a guy like Steve, and that's Steve or whoever superstars are, they hit because they're great, they're great people and their great motivators, like they can motivate themselves and they're great character. They don't miss. The tough part for our job is to figure that out when they're 17. That's the hardest part is to say, wow, this guy is going to be a star because he's this and you're looking at a 17-year-old kid. Braden Point wasn't a great skater. So I think team, at the time everybody was trying to get a little bigger including us everybody wanted to get a little bigger here's Braden Point at five foot eight not a great skater

really smart so Braden Point we had Barbara Underhill go in and start working with the skating and what what she said that the kid is relentless he works every day on a skating so at the time we knew Braden Point was a great player because he was a great player but we didn't know he had that kind of character character, the will to be the best player, and the work ethic and the time those guys put into their jobs. They're professionals, is what they are. How about the actual draft day? What is that experience like? Now you've been a part of it for 20 years. For all of us fans sitting on the outside looking at the draft floor,

what is that experience like? When you're picking 15 to late in the first, there's not a lot of pressure. You want to get a really good player. I've had a fortunate or unfortunate scenarios of being picking early and it's, you know, headman was pretty easy. Duran at the time wasn't as easy because he had Jones was still available. So there's the pressure of getting the best player and he's got to be a good player. Some years you can be picking number one and that number one is just an okay player. Some of yours that number one's a superstar. So ownership and fans, they all expect this guy to be a really good player. And some years, it's just, the quality isn't there. So the hard, the stress is, is, is picking high. Picking the top 10 is stressful. Really stressful. Like,

it's like, because things happen that you, you didn't, you didn't know and, um, you know, Again, they're 17-year-old boys, and you still earn 100% sold on their character because all of a sudden now they're millionaires. And I tell people, it's like if you won the $50 million lottery on Friday, does that person change or not change? And it's pretty much that's for character. And you can pay Sidney Crosby as much money as there is out there, and he won't change.

Whereas the next guy, and there's lots of them in the National League, they get the payday and for the next three years they can't play they just mentally aren't the same so to find those guys is is uh that's the hardest part well that's the challenge of your job that's the challenge that's probably the exciting and it's the unknown because you really don't know you like to think he's going to be the same guy you're watching um but there's no guarantees Some guy, I mean, I've been doing the junior stuff. There's some kids that I thought there's no way he'll ever change and they changed. And then there's guys that I thought, wow, this guy is never going to play because he's such a flake and just give him a little bit of money, look out.

And those guys have changed. It doesn't happen very often. But there's guys that I didn't think had the character or the toughness to. Who's the biggest surprise you think when you look back on it? And it is a guy that you thought, maybe he'll make it. And then all of a sudden he's in. Well, there's lots of those guys that you're, there's always, let's say you take 100 kids, there's 10 that you know we're going to play.

Then there's probably 30 that you're like, these guys got good chances, you know, they got to grow. Then there's a whole bunch of gray and you're just laying your bed on something you saw him play that night or where he saw him on a weekend and he showed you something or, or, you know, he's just hit puberty a year ago. Like there's something that you're going to lay your chip on because you, think he has a chance to develop further. And that's where you get your Sorelli's and your Braden points and, you know, the Goudas is. And every team has them. We, we, I was just talking about ours, but there's kids that I, I didn't think would ever play.

And like, they're good players. And I didn't, they grew and they developed. And they were in the right, they got lucky. They were in the right situation with the right coach who played them and developed. I remember watching Sutter I think it's the Sutter that plays in Vancouver

Brandon Brandon and obviously his dad coached him and Red Deer Well they brought him in as a 15 year old after his midgets were done and I'm like I'm like this guy doesn't belong on the ice He's just not blind he's too small He's too weak But his dad coached and just kept throwing him out there

His 16 year was a little bit better Well he had his dad He got the ice time because of his dad and by his 17-year-old year, like, holy smokes, this guy's going to be a good player. And he ends up, he's going to play 15 years in the National Hockey League. So if you get at the right spot, the right time, you have the right mentality, and you have a coach that teaches you something, you've got a good chance. You've got a better chance.

Well, I'll put us to our final segment. It's the final five by a crude master of Transport. Shout out to Heath and Tracy McDonald. They help support this from the beginning. So it's five questions, long, short as you want. But in a given year, how many ranks do you go to? A couple hundred, maybe 250. How many countries is that in?

I'd say seven or eight different countries a year. It depends if the world juniors are obviously in Canada or in Europe. Our year starts off in Ivan Olinka's in Czech and Slovak. I usually go for sure to Sweden and Finland. This year I went to Germany, Russia, U.S., Canada. Those are probably the big, big ones right there. When you go to all these different places, areas, is it like just noticeable how they treat the game?

Right, I always think the West always used to be big physical Saskatchew in particular. And then if you went out east, it was small and quicker. or, and maybe that's completely off on it? Yeah, every country's a little different. Finland is, Finland's one of my favorites because they still are, it's hard, like it's a tough environment. The kids, Sweden's always considered the,

I would say the Swedes look down on the Finns. Sweden's kind of upper class. Finland's kind of a lot of middle class kids, and it kind of shows the way they play. Russia is just, every country is just a chance to get out of Russia. is corrupt. Switzerland would be high-end wealth. Germany is, you know, those kids that are coming out lately have been,

it's, I like Germany, Germany is like a real cool country. So every country is a little bit different. And, you know, the kids are a little different too. The Swedes are very skilled and proper. And they come to our meetings and they're dressed immaculate. and the Finnish kid might be a little more messy. Like he's just, he's not quite dressed as well. Like he's just, and you like that kid.

You're like, wow, this guy's a tough guy. So it kind of depends on their lifestyles, kind of how it all, you like to think that's the way the kid's going to develop. Looking back on your career so far, is there one place you went and you just kind of walked in thinking, I'm going to catch your game,

and then there was a kid that caught your eye? Not really. Not really. Usually the events I go to, you know, kind of, they've been pre-scouted. Pre-scouted. And, you know, there's always, there's always guys that come out of nowhere,

like Shifley, his year. His year, you didn't even know who, Shifley was until Christmas because he wasn't that good until Christmas. And then the last six weeks of the year, you're trying to catch every game because you're like, how good can this guy get to be? And he ends up going to Winnipeg in a real high in the draft. And the funny thing was, his linemate's a kid named Pearson. So Shifley, the following year, plays his 10 games with Winnipeg. And this Pearson also and Barry takes off in his lead in the league in scoring. So I'm flipping back through, and I was at games. I looked at, you know, where our scouts reports,

nobody had a report on this guy. But we weren't the only team. Every team was the same. He's playing with Shifley, and all of a sudden it's his turn, and he ends up by the end of the year being a first round. He made the World Junior team as a 19-year-old, and he made, he's a first round to L.A. I mean, for two years, we could have had him for nothing.

So I say this to all, just keep going, keep getting better, because when it hits, you go to a rink sometimes, and you're like, wow, this guy good. And then all of a sudden, he goes from not even a draft to, like, Shifley, every just climb all over trying to get him in the first round. And that happened in two and a half months. And it probably happens. I bet you that happens once a year.

There's a kid that you're just like, wow, is he good? Is he good? And where did he come from? Yeah, and we don't have, we don't, we have vague reports on them. We haven't really watched them. But that's not just our group. It's been central scouting. it's been everybody.

So every year there's a guy. What do you do? I don't know when your off season is, but when it is, what do you do to get away from hockey? Well, not too much because then we start, my wife and I start running camps in Halifax, which is, for me, it's therapeutic.

I get to go on, and it's not even my kids on the ice. It's getting more and more my kids aren't on the ice. But it's so much fun to grab 16, 18 kids. and just help them. So starting, you know, I'm done in June, starting the next weekend, the next week in July through August. Usually I'm on the ice three hours a day, just doing that kind of stuff.

And it's, it's, and I talk to different guys that do it, you know, ex-players and stuff, and for them it's the same. It's just, it's fun to be on the ice. It's fun to talk hockey with kids, and it's super fun to watch them take it in and after a week get better. So really I don't get away from it. The only way I get away from it is

I tend not to watch a lot of hockey on TV as far as the NHL. Sometimes it's just too much. If you were flipping the TV and you couldn't pick hockey and you had to pick a sport, what would you flip to? What do you like watching? Sport?

Yeah. Or not sport. I've gotten to really enjoy soccer um, Champions League's whenever we go there in the springtime

the Champions League's on so to watch Barcelona, watch Messi and watch those guys do you go to any games? No, I haven't. It's not,

I'd like to do that one year I'm over there is just fly to Florida and go to a game. To me, those guys are the elite athletes like they're special. I know different people

say it's boring and stuff if you watch a guy like Messi or Ronaldo like those guys are they're different human beings they're how so? Because, I mean, you get to watch elite athletes all the time.

They're just, it's the biggest sport in the world. So to be the best at that level is like, it's probably a billion people playing soccer. True. Probably three billion people playing soccer. To be the best of the best of that is those guys. Like, I watch Messi and he does stuff with the ball and his competitiveness and his will to score goals is, it's incredible. So you go to Europe, usually the under 18s are in Europe. you know at 8 o'clock or 9 o'clock you go to a game you go to a bar and start watching that

and the the atmosphere of soccer over there is it's second and none it's incredible we think hockey is big soccer it's fanatical over there so it's fun to be involved in watching that sport for me and even my kids growing up all played soccer and I told all of them you could quit hockey any day because I enjoyed watching them play soccer it's it was fun to watch them play soccer and I know a lot of Canadians are like, well, it's boring. There's no goals. But if you actually watch the game and how you're supposed to play, how good coaches coach the game, it's a lot like hockey.

It's triangulation and it's anticipation and it's athleticism. That's good. If you go for coffee with one person or beer or beverage, whatever your beverage of choice is, current past, superstar, bowling the wall in the wall, no matter who. Who would you go with? I've enjoyed my time, you know, getting involved with Steve.

There's usually, the entourage is pretty cool. You know, you get to meet Steve Thomas and Pat Verbeek and to go out for a meeting or a meal or a beer with those guys. It's pretty cool. They're such good guy. It's not intimidating. It's just you, they talk, you can tell all their lives they've been in hockey. And, um, and the way they, they normalize the game, they way, the way they look at the game,

the way they look at, talk about ex players or situations. It's kind of neat to, to, um, and they've all been Stanley Cup champions. They've all been, Pat was with Dallas. So they've all, you can tell why they're successful. It's, it's cool to be around successful people. whether you're a business guy or you've built a business from scratch been a hockey guy

those guys a lot of them are the same you know the guy that built an oil company from nothing or a trucking company like something drove them to be the best and hockey's no different so those guys are those guys are cool guys are neat to be around final one

if you look back so far. What's the one kid you missed? And I'm sure you could say that, but is there one that sticks out where you go? We were going to take Paschanuk a couple years ago

and we had two picks that year and we took Tony Delangelo with our first. Again, we needed a defenseman. He was a power play guy. We were excited to have him. And we got into the point where we've

taken a kid named Cuckoo, Conley, Brett Connolly, and they were injured. So we decided not to take any more injured players that we couldn't afford. And Pashnik that year about January hurt his back. And of course the doctors, they all say, well, you know, there could be down the road. There could be some disc problems and blah, blah, blah. It's pretty good. And that's the one guy that, looking back, that I wish we would have switched it around and taking Pashonuk first and then had a crack at it.

Tony DeAngelo. If we had Paschnuck now, and he was special to go, he was fun to go watch. I watched him. He was playing in the Swedish second league in El Svenska, and he was just 17, and you go watch and play, and he's the best player on the ice, and I remember writing my reports, like, the El Svenska is like the minor league level at that, in Sweden. So they get the second tier of guy that, and I remember writing my reports that nobody can play with this guy. Nobody's ready for the puck. Nobody's... So that's the one guy that...

And there's a lot. Every year you wish he could redo it. But he's definitely one of them that we could have had and looking back about three years later, we're like, shit, we should have taken that kid. Impossible at that time. But it's...

I watch him every night and I watched him last, like just stuff he can do. Yeah. And the toughness... He's a phenomenal player. The toughness he has and the willing to go into tough areas, to score goals and those guys, he's probably been the one.

Cool. Well, I really appreciate you coming in. I won't hold you any longer. We just hit the two-hour mark, so you're probably itching to get visiting some family, that kind of thing. But really appreciate you stopping through, sitting down with us. I've been having a ton of fun.

This has been a lot of fun for me to sit and listen to your stories. So I hope you enjoyed yourself and thanks again. Yeah, no, it's great. It was fun to rehash some of the stuff for sure. Thanks. Cool.