Shaun Newman Podcast - #92 - Brian Burke

Episode Date: July 1, 2020

Where to begin??  Born in Providence, but calls Edina MN home. He never started playing hockey until he was 13 years old, but that didn't stop him. By 18 he was playing Division 1 for Lou Lamoriello and the Providence Friars.  He was convinced to take the LSAT and ends up graduated from the Harvard School of Business.  He spent 5 years working for the NHL & Gary Bettman in the department of player safety. He was GM for Hartford Whalers, Vancouver Canucks, Anaheim Ducks & Toronto Mapleleafs. While with Anaheim he would construct the team that would win the 2007 Stanley Cup. His stories are unreal & almost unbelievable he hopped on so enjoy.    All episodes can also be found at shaunnewmanpodcast.com   New guests every Monday & Wednesday

Hi, this is Brian Burke from Toronto, Ontario, and welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Yeah, you heard that right. Let that sink in for a couple of minutes. Happy hump day, happy Canada Day, happy July 1st. It is a beautiful, beautiful day. I hope you're on the road. I hope you're on your way to the lake and you get the rest of the week off. I wish I could say that. I'll be back at work Thursday. But I hope all you guys have safe travel. We got a great one for you today. Let's get into our sponsors of today's episode, Lauren and the team at Art and Seoul. I was talking to her earlier.

They just finished up a lacrosse championship jersey for a buddy of mine, Mr. Graham Murray. He was the coach, helped guide the extreme to a provincial title back in 2018. He took his jersey and got it framed up there, championship photo, like superb. I mentioned the one we did for Hockey Day in Saskatchewan that Kent Stanforth got made up for the podcast studio, and it is unbelievable. Lauren is fantastic of what she does. She's meticulous and making it look exactly how you want. So I suggest you stop in 50, 1639 Street. They're open Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. 5 p.m.

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all that good stuff. Maz Entertainment is the guy. That's Cody Mazerl. Check out his Facebook or Instagram page for some pictures, videos, of everything they do, or if you're a parent pulling your hair out and you need something for the kids to do, how about a backyard movie night? Get the screen over your house and they can hook it up, get it set up for you, you can have a backyard movie. I promise the kids will not forget it.

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everybody been paying attention to that one if you're heading in if you're in lloyd minster head out take a look down by the ufa there is just one sharp looking billboard i mean i drive by it every single day it looks bea beautiful um if you're interested in advertising on the show visit the shan newman podcast dot com in the top right corner hit the contact button and send me your information i'll get back to you we got lots of different options and i want to find something that you I can work for the both of us. Would love to have you. Shout out to Sean Bassingweight.

He used to play hockey with him back in Dryden days. He reached out to me, said, you know, I've been procrastinating. I've been seeing all your episodes come out. I finally bit the bullet when I saw Scott Hart and only said it was unreal. And he's subscribed now. So a huge shout out to you there, Basser. We used to play hockey. My favorite story of Sean Bassingweight is he's this rookie kid.

He comes in. He's young. I want to say you're 17 at the time. And we got a couple tough guys. I remember Zuliani, big, strong defenseman, six foot, I don't know, three, nothing but muscle. And we got into it. We had Larry coaching us and in practices, guys are competing. They're going at one another.

And Bassingway and Zuliani get into it. And I mean, you know, he's a big guy, but he's our leading scorer as a rookie. And he's about to fight one of our tough guys. And down go the midst, nobody gets in. and he kind of sits there, eats about two from Zuliani, and then cold cox, and one punches up. And I remember instant respect. He already had my respect, but I remember that?

And I went, holy dinah. I wish I was six-foot leading goal scorer and could knock out the toughest guy in our team. Anyways, that's a quick little story. Here is your T-Barr-1 Tale of the tape. Born in Providence, he considers Adina, Minnesota his hometown after he moved there at age 12. He started playing hockey at age 13. By 18, he was playing Division 1 with the Providence Friars. He was undrafted but signed with the Philadelphia Flyers. Won a Calder Cup with the Maine Mariners?

Then went on to Harvard Business School, where he graduated from. He spent five years under Gary Bettman as the league's chief disciplinarian in the Department of Player's Safety. He's been the GM of the Hartford Whalers, Anaheim Ducks, Toronto Maple Leafs. While with Anaheim, he won a Stanley Cup in 2007. I think most Euler fans remember the Chris Pronger deal. He was instrumental in the USA and continues to be instrumental in the USA Hockey Development Program and was a GM for the 2010 Olympics. Of course, now you can find him on SportsNet as an analyst.

Of course, I'm talking about Brian Burke. So buckle up, because here we go. Well, welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Today I'm joined by the one and only Brian Burke. So thank you, sir, for hopping on. My pleasure, Sean. And your birthday nonetheless. So it should be happy birthday you, but it certainly feels like happy birthday me.

Well, when you get to a certain age, birthdays aren't as enjoyable as they were when you were younger. So let's move on, my friend. Sounds good, sir. Well, I thought we'd start in the beginning. I know you're one of ten kids. What was that like? I'm from a big, I thought was a big family, five kids in the Newman family. But ten, I'm sure, had a lot of fun in there.

Well, I enjoyed it. There was always somebody to play with or fight with or read a book with or play a board game with. And there were six girls and four boys that had two older brothers who I idolized. and I enjoyed it. I thrived in that environment, but it made you a little tougher, too. I'm two older brothers, so I loved it. I wouldn't trade my childhood experiences for any of it. I have three older brothers, and I finally got to play with a few of them in senior hockey.

Did you ever get to play with your older brothers? My oldest brother was a football star, and he went to Stanford, and he played freshman football there, but then he had a national. knee injury and ended his career. But he played freshman football at Stanford, started on an undefeated high school football championship team. And then my next brother was a football player and a wrestler, and he wrestled at Dartmouth. And then, so they weren't hockey, but I'd skate with him on the pond once in a while, but not very much. But I played high school football and then hockey and then went on to play college hockey at Providence. So how have older brothers that played

football, how did you get into hockey then? I would assume that, you know, having older brothers, admiring them, as you say. I'm surprised you weren't playing football more. Well, I did. I played through, I played up until my senior year in high school, and that's, one thing about playing high school football is when you walk off the field your last year, except for one or two guys on the team, you've played your last football game. You're never going to, it's not like you and your buddies, it's a couple years later, say, hey, let's all put on full gear and got out and play football at high school. I remember walking off the field talking to two of my teammates saying, I'll ever put this stuff on again. But I did play high school football. It's

funny, I was telling my kids last night, I loved high school football. I wish I had been better at football, but I was too small. And I love the planning and the preparation, the detail that went into it. So we'd play Friday nights under the lights. Saturday, we'd go over the film of the team we were playing the following Friday night. And we'd study, they'd say, okay, he's a five-man line. So I was a left guard. So Berkeley got a defensive tackle. He wears number 74.

He's really big, but he's slow. And he moves poorly to his left. The detail that went all week, and then Friday night play, and then switched completely and start game blinding for the next game. All the offensive plays, we were run against that defense. Any special plays would use on special teams. I loved the detail and the planning and the meticulous nature of it. That's probably why you were so good at what you did in the NHL then with meticulous planning and details and everything else.

I mean, your career is a GM and everything else you've done. There's a lot of work that goes into that. Well, one thing, young people ask me all the time what, you know, how they can get into sports. And I said, well, I'll tell you the first rule is be the hardest worker. Like I remember when I was the person, president of hockey operations with the Calgary Flames a couple years ago. And we didn't have assigned parking spaces. And my daughters, who were at the time probably 10 and 12, maybe 11 and 13, we pulled in on a Saturday. There's no one there. We pulled into the parking garage outside the saddle dome.

And my daughters laughed. They were like, you don't have a parking spot. Because like in Vancouver, I had this Brian Burke, General Manager 24 hours and Toronto, same thing. And they said, dad, you don't have a parking spot. I said, yes, I do. I can park anywhere I want as long as I'm the first one here, which I typically was. So I had a parking spot. I could park anywhere I want.

So yeah, hard work is a key to being successful, but that's true in any field. Well, and going off hard work, I know, like from listening to your story, you didn't start playing hockey until you're 13. Essentially, when you moved to Minnesota, I mean, the hockey state, you start playing hockey. And then, what, four short years, all of a sudden you're at Providence playing Division I hockey. That in itself, you must have put in a ton of work, I assume. Well, yes, I did. What happened was we moved to Minnesota when I was 12 and we got stuck. There's a blizzard.

So the moving trucks got stuck like in Ohio or Pennsylvania somewhere. So we were stuck at Howard Johnson's in Bloomington, Minnesota for three days. But the state high school hockey tournament was on. And they packed the old Met Center. In fact, where we were stuck in the hotel was only a few miles from the Met Center. I grew up only a few miles from the Met Center. And they get 18,000 people on Thursday night. Friday, you know, like they had two sessions, the afternoon session,

17,000 people, whatever it was. They'd make them leave. Then they'd bring it a whole new crowd for the evening games and so on Friday and Saturday. And I felt well. I watched every game. I fell in love with it. And I thought, what a beautiful sport. I had been to a couple of Bruins games.

We lived in Boston before that. I'd skated half dozen times on a pond, but I'd never played organized hockey. I couldn't skate. And I started that next year, so I played Badham House, Adam House, Midget B, Midget A, high school. So like my fifth year of organized hockey

was playing Minnesota State High School hockey. My sixth year of organized hockey was playing in Providence College. So it was a pretty amazing ascent. And I had four rules that I followed, that I would advise any young athlete to take into account. So my four rules were one is be the hardest worker, practice and games. I don't respect guys who just work hard in games.

Number two is be a coach's dream. Always be in position, always do the right thing, pay attention in film sessions. My coach never had to say, look, you're 10 feet out of position. I was never out of position because I listened. I got the highest grade in high school football. We had to take a test at the end of training camp on the playbook. I always get the highest grade of the lineman.

Be a coach's treat. Number three is be an indispensable teammate. Like be compassionate, be empathetic. Be a leader when it's your turn. Be a follower till then. But fit into your team. You know, go sit over, walk across the room and sit next to the guy. Talk to them.

Know all 20 guys. If there's guys on your team, you're not going to like. You never like 20 guys. But I got along with all of them. But I'd make it work. I'd stay out and work on stuff with freshmen. And the last one was, play tough. bring ferocity, if you bring an element of crudeness to the game, that always has value.

Now, if you're willing to block a shot with your face, if you're willing to run a guy that's tougher than Newark, if you're willing to fight for a teammate, that has value. So those are only four rules. And I followed them. Having outdoor ice was the big equalizer, right? Before global warming and climate change, we could skate as much or as low as we wanted, and that's where I made up the distance. Do you ever look back at that and go, if a snowstorm hadn't to happen, maybe you don't fall into hockey. Yeah, I have thought of that. And then I think it would have done something else.

Like I, I didn't, I've never liked sports that weren't team sports. Like, I never could have been a figure skater or a tennis player. Like to me, what I valued most about sports is having teammates around me that I could be friends with and hang around with and do stuff with. So I played rugby when I went to law school. I started playing rugby for the Harvard Business School, rugby football team. And played for them for four and a half year. I always like team sports and being around the guys and having a peer group.

You know, when I was a freshman, I flew to Providence College in the fall of 1973, and I was homesick. But the night I landed, I had a family. I had 25 guys, right? We had a team meeting on Sunday night. Right away, I had 25 buddies. And there were a couple guys that I had played with in high school that had gone there. So I didn't have a normal college experience where you leave and go away from home and don't know a soul.

I had a family as soon as I got there. I love that about sports. Yeah, it makes going away from home super easy. Well, not super easy, but adjustable because I lived away from home a lot of years. And when you get to places and have people that are in the same predicament as yourself, there's camaraderie in that. And you find you make good friends quick if you're just a little bit outgoing enough to sit around and talk with those folks. Yeah, I agree.

in Providence were you a walk-on? Yes. So did you fly out there not knowing you were going to be on the team? Yes. I flew out with John McMorrell, who was a linemate of mine in high school, and I played with him in Providence, and he was a full ride. He was a high pick with the New York Rangers back when now everyone's a high pick, but back then college kids weren't high picks and Americans weren't high picks.

He was the third or fourth rounder with the New York Rangers back in 19. 1973. And Mack should have been a great hockey player. He was, he worked hard. He was built, like my mom called him Popeye, had the hardest shot of any guy really I've ever played with, but he got hurt every year. It's serious injuries every year. Knee, broken hand, got a bad skate cut when we were seniors. I could never get on track. Scratch golf or two, but we're flying out. He's on a four-year full ride. I'm a walk-on. And so you got to make the team. So I made the team. follow the four roles. It was the hardest worker, every practice, did everything right,

coach's dream, fit in with my teammates, and played tough. Remember our first scrimand we weren't allowed to fight. So Lou Lamarillo was our coach, no fighting in the drills. So we had drills for like a month. Back then there was no limit on when you could start. So we would start out Monday after Labor Day, weight room, two days, running on the baseball field. And then finally went on the ice.

The new rink was being built. The Snyder Arena was new then. was being built while we were going through the fall. So we skated at North Smithfield and, what's one, something Abbey, Portsmouth Abbey. We skated at these different ranks. We skated at the Civic Center. We skated at Brown.

But then we went to, we were at the Providence Service Center, never forget. And Kevin Gaffney was a tough defense room from Rhode Island. And in fact, his nephews both played, his brother played at Providence College and his nephews, young nephews were stars of Providence College after me. And Kevin was getting on my nerves. I weighed 176 pounds when I was a freshman.

Same height I am now, 6-2. I was just a bone wreck. And Kevin was getting on my nerves. I said, as soon as we can scrimmits, we're going. So remember the first time I was on the ice and I'm Lou dropped the puck and I just charged across the ice the other side and fought him. And now it was a statement. Like, I weighed 176 pounds.

He was 195. I was a freshman. He was a junior. and it was just a statement to everyone that's sitting on the bench, I'm making this team. And the fight went fine, you know, no clear winner or loser. But I remember guys looking at me different after that. So I did what I had to do to make the team. I didn't play very much my first year.

I mostly killed penalties. Next year, go back and Lou put me on a half scholarship. And I went from killing penalties to play in a little bit third, fourth line. And then I kept working in the gym. So I came back my second year. year instead of 176 I was 185. And I'm mind you, my height never changed in four years, six, two. Gained nine pounds that first summer.

Gained an extra, I came back at 185, the next year I came back at 195. Now I was a big hitter, and all those hits are starting to hurt. And he put out 10 extra pounds, and now you finish the defenseman, and he sometimes doesn't leave the ice. Sometimes he crumples up on the ice. Then senior year, he came back at camp at 205 and played at 200. So when I went to camp with the flyers, four years after, after I went to Providence College, it was exactly 30 pounds heavier than I was without any height gain.

That's just all filling out. You kind of, you nonchalantly mention your coach is Lou Lamarrel. And for any hockey fan, I mean, he's royalty now in the NHL. How, I think, you know, I'd read an article on you that said that was, you know, at that age, it's a formative years of any person. but to have Lou the guy overseeing you for four years, how impactful was that on your life? Well, I owe Lou a lot. I love the man. Those were the four most important years of my life. And, you know, I've had that annoyed both of my ex-wives when I say that I used to say they're the best four years of my life.

Now I just say they're four most important. No, I was fortunate that Lou asked me to go there. recruited me and put me on scholarship and kept me there. So I went half scholarship, second year, full ride, full ride. And I was a very serious student too. I went to Harvard Law School after I was a road scholarship finalist. But Lou is a tremendous influence on me, hockey wise, and as a person. Like Lou taught you how to act. Like we had to go to class. It wasn't optional. We had to have good manners. Like we were very popular on campus among the athletes because we all went to class and we all dressed properly and we all had good manners.

We all had short hair bent. And so there were things that Lou did that were annoying when you had too many rules. But I think what would surprise people is he was very progressive. As for an old school guy, because we were old school the way we played and practiced and everything. And, you know, he liked it tough. But old school guy with great progressive ideas, like we stretched. back then as part of a workout we stretched and young guys we look and it's going yeah that's real progressive nobody stretched back then you just went out on the ice and and and we stretched and

we stretched in between weight workouts for flexibility we did some early plyometric work we did circuit training back then guys were wanting to try and do as many on the bench as they could with 275 well he put 200 on the bar and say do 30 or do 20 and so we did circuit training circuit training and stretching in between. And I remember telling guys that I'm in training camp with the flyers four years later. And they're like, wow, we just started doing that now. We did, we used video, which a lot of teams back then, you won't believe it. No one used video.

When I first started buying hockey, it didn't exist. What did a video session look like back then? Well, it was Super 8 film. Like, it was like the whole movies. There was no VHS or VCRs or any of, like stuff that kids would laugh at now. There wasn't even that. I mean, remember, I didn't get my first cell phone until

in 1983. I sent my first email when I worked for the NHL in 1994, 1995. So again, this is all been rapid, but for guys your age, all the stuff you take for granted of the stuff that just came in, my first cell phone was the old Maxwell Smart, you know, it was about this big,

it's about 14 years of small. Need the briefcase to carry it round yeah it was I also got and it was no use fax machines back now I remember one even when I was a lawyer so when I worked at the law firm the most memory that my secretary had she had a select IBM selected typewriter with 40 pages of memory and I was routinely doing documents bond documents and corporate documents two and three hundred pages long she could only do 40 pages so anything longer than that you had to take it down to word processing and leave it and if you're a young

associate you're a low priority right and then sometimes wait for it till three or four in the morning if it had to go in the next day you'd have to stay and sleep at your desk and wait until word processing you could get to this doctor like no it was it was very primitive then and now you know like i i still have a fact machine heroin out so my kids tease me about it all the time it ever bother you then? I mean, those are the romanticized days of the hockey world. Now, I mean, a goal goes in, you got 18 different directions to look at anything. Do you ever think we've gone maybe a little too far? No, I think the people that complain about the, or reminisce about the good old days, forget that what we did have them was some privacy and some peace. Like if you can't

track me down on my cell phone. the whole pace of life slows down. You know that until I check my messages, when I used to go to training camp, the guys that are represented me, I would drive down the Jersey Turnpike, I'd stop at every other service plaza and phone and check my message.

Like there were no cell phones then, there's old answering machines, and he entered the code and, you know, like, but what that did give you was peace. So when I was driving in the car, I had peace. I could dictate memos to my assistant. I could listen to music. Now, you've got X-Sem radio, so you're listening to hockey all the time.

You're interrupted by phone calls all the time. You're way more efficient, but there is truly no piece. There's no downtime from the job. But I would trade efficiency for the old days. The old days weren't efficient. We were very poor use of time. The St. Louis Blues, when I first started working for teams in 1987, and other guys who talked to will remember.

of this if they're my age or older. They used to close for the month of July. They used to get a fax from the St. Louis Blues on June 30th that the St. Louis Blues will be closing them out for the month of July. Any emergencies call Susie Matthew and here's the number. They closed for the month of July. I'm not making this up. Lots of other teams closed for two weeks in July and there was mandatory staff holiday at that time. So it's very different now. Like no one closes for two weeks. That ain't going to happen ever again. And no one will ever close for a month again. The St. Louis Blues used to close for the month of July.

Now, you think their lives weren't simpler back then? No, 100% they were simpler. Can you imagine these days if the Toronto Maple Leafs just sent out a memo saying, we'll talk to you guys August 1st after the long week. Exactly. Exactly. And even if the team said, okay, we get it, the media would kill you. It'd be like, you can't shut down for a month.

So, no, I think it's much. There are things about the old days I like better. It was simpler with fewer teams. With 21 teams, it was much easier. You knew everybody. You knew all the players. There weren't as many teams to follow. Now you've got 32 teams once Seattle comes in.

They're all going to have their own American League team. So you've got to know if you're a GM, you got to have a pretty good working knowledge of 64 teams, because you've got to know the farm teams as well, or at least the key guys on those farm teams. So just to scout, If you say, okay, my goal this year is to see every NHL team and see every minor league team, that's 60 nights out of year. That's pretty well all anyone scouts, even the guys that scout a lot like Bob Murray and Steve Eisenman.

They're not going to see more than 64 games of teams involving other than their own team. So that would use up your whole scouting budget, including amateurs and stuff. So it ain't going to happen. So my last few years, I didn't see all of the farm teams. And in fact, my years in Calgary, I didn't see most of them, I didn't see even half of them. And back when I was in assistant GM, I saw every farm team at least twice. But again, they're only 21 teams, and that's pretty easy. You go down in Milwaukee and stay for the weekend and they played three different teams.

And now you knocked off, you know, well, Rockford wasn't in the league by them. Now you knocked out Peoria, you knocked out whatever, you know. So it was much simpler and easier with 21 teams. I assume when you take over the helm as GM of a hockey club then, especially now, one of the things you got to do is you got to get staff in there. You can trust every single word they say because it's impossible to see every player and have your finger on the pulse of every possible person that plays and the constant changing of every situation.

So as a GM, I guess, what was your first, when you went into a new team looking at it, what was the thing you're like, I got to do this on every single team so I can set the pass straight and pointed in the right direction? Well, first off, most teams have a lot of really dedicated, talented personnel working for them. We're fortunate in our league that we're surrounded by honest people that mean well and want to get it right. So I never cleaned house in all my years, you know, 30 years working for teams. So five times I went in and took over a team, never cleaned house might make one or two changes but basically instead of the people there just show me what you can do we'll make a determination at the end of the year show me what you can do and then i might make

one or two changes but so for example what just happened in buffalo the red wedding in buffalo i i that's unfathomable to me that you're going to make that judgment in room 22 people's lives in one day i just i never did it never would and i'd be embarrassed if i hadn't that's something that would embarrass me until i died um but going to give um uh Bringing Dave Nones, most places I work with Dave Nolos, brought in with Toronto, brought in Dave Pooling and Covice Health. But I kept Jimmy Hughes around, kept Dallas Eakins around. Like, I think there's enough talented people there.

You just got to reset them to the type of hockey you want to play. So in my case, usually I'd be getting a guy to say, look, I like it a little cruder than most people do. So you've got to start looking for kind of players to play my kind of style. Yeah, the red wedding. Geez, that's the first time I've heard it called that. which is completely apt to what happened in Buffalo. I think that shocked every fan, every person, everywhere. I want to go back quickly to Lou Lamarillo.

I listened to a story that he was the one that convinced you to take the LSAT. And if it wasn't because of him, you wouldn't want to be a history teacher and a coach. Yeah. Did you ever think about becoming a coach after that? Because that's one job, I'm pretty sure you never did. I never did other than hockey schools. And I think I would have been a hell of a coach. That's what I really wanted to do when I was 22 when I graduated.

So after my third year, I was elected captain of the team along with Ronnie Wilson. And playing with Ronnie Wilson for four years was a great kid. What a great player he was. What a great guy. But I was planning, I didn't think the Flyers would sign me, but they had claimed my pro rights after my third year. So back in the day, you didn't draft a kid, you could claim him later. So there's none of these undrafted college free agents, you know, none of these Tyler

Bozzac's, a team would just list you. So I remember I was going home after my third year's school. I went back to Minnesota every summer. And Lou said, just, you know, the flyers claim to your rights. So what does that mean? He goes what means you have to sign them if they can sign with anybody. I remember laughing as I was walking away, like, sign with the flyers. Why would they sign me? So, going to senior year, go to the year.

And in the fall, I'm walking down to the rink. And Alana Mooney was a loose secretary, a really neat lady. And she goes out and says, coach wants to see it. So I'm like, oh, Christ, that's never good, right? So I went and I'm like, I had a girlfriend back in Minnesota all through school. I didn't go out much. I didn't screw around. The only time I broke curfew in four years was to study. I had a big exam. I'd get up after curfew and study with Mike Cuddy. Mike Cuddy was a history major like me. He was a star on the baseball team, pitcher, and we would stay up together after curfew and study. So pretty sure it wasn't about me. So I thought one of the freshmen must be in her jam. So I went to lose got the LSAT,

and he shoves it across the application to take the LSAT, Law school admission test. And he shoves across the desk and says, you're taking this exam. You're writing this exam, was an exact word, I think. Your professors tell me if you do well on it, you'll get into Harvard or Yale.

I look at it. Law school admissions test, they shoved it back. I said, coach, I have no interest in going to law school. And he shoved it back. He said, you don't understand. That was not a request. You're writing a leaping exam. And so I argue with him.

I said, I don't want to go to law school. I don't like lawyers. I don't want to be a lawyer. And he said, you're writing the exam. You said, it could change your life. Just do it. And I knew how important it was to Lou because he let me be late for practice

to write the L-Sat. And you were never, ever late for practice in Providence of College. Never. So I wrote the exam, the night before the exam, you know, you can take a course to study to take the L-Sat for three months, right? So the night before, Friday night,

it comes with a booklet, like 22 pages along, sample questions. I read the booklet, cover to cover, put it down, did something else, came back, read it, cover to cover, drank a cold beer, went to bed, took the exam the next day, 9 o'clock in the morning and Saturday. I don't know how I did. So I got out of practice, I throw on my stuff, get out there as fast as I can. The worst headache I've ever had my life. And I skied out on the ice and Lou said, how to go? I said, I have no idea. I might have done well, I might have bonded. I said, all I know is have the worst headache I've ever had in my life. And Lou said, I don't care about your headache, get in line for the next drill. So anyway, you get it back, I get a 704, like 98th percentile on the old score. And like, even now I'm showing my age. Now I think it's based on a score of 35. Back then it was based on 800.

So I got a 704, which is in the 98th percentile. Now Harvard's a realistic possibility, Georgetown. I get into Harvard and Georgetown. And that's why I went. Everyone said, go. I didn't even know. I remember my first day of law school, a guy said to me, I want to be a litigator when I get out. What do you want to be in?

I didn't even know what a litigator was. I didn't know. I had no idea. So I'm like, I just want to graduate. I remember telling them that. I just want to graduate. It's like I had no idea. Like people plan their lives and think ahead and plan stuff.

And when I speak at law schools and business schools, I tell a professor's right away, I apologize, but I'm the worst guy to have here because I never planned a day of my life. I never knew what I was going to do. My theory was have as many good options as you can. If you've got good options, you'll always make good choices. So the average 21-year-old, turning 22, graduated from Providence College, trying to get a job, waiting to hear from grad school, whatever. I've got an offer from the Flyers, and I've got an acceptance to Harvard Law School, two pretty good options. Two great options.

Thanks to Lou. Thanks to Lou. that's it's unbelievable that you didn't want to go and you think of where you're at now and that's a you know luke could i mean kudos to luke because he could see maybe uh some writing on the wall the tea leaves what was what was shown there if you got into law school and where that would take you yeah it was all because luke cared about a kid from minnesota that's unbelievable well brian it's been half an hour i just i want to know i don't want to keep you too long i have I got you for five more minutes.

If we can keep going, you just let me go. We started a little late. Do 10 more minutes and then we'll go. Okay. Well, if I got 10 more minutes with you, I want to get to a couple of stories or a couple of questions for you. I'd love to keep talking about your career because I find it extremely fascinating. I find the fact that you weren't a hockey guy and a snowstorm bottles you up and you start watching it. From there, you can make Providence and all that.

And Lou stop you and making you write the LSAT when you argue with them is, almost unbelievable to be honest um but i told my father he is not a spitting chicklets uh listener and i heard the story about kevin bexa and my father was not a b bxan fan and tell he heard an iteration of that story so i told him i'd ask you to tell it on here about uh bxan fener off in the bar and uh the fight that ensued and what happened well i'll tell your guys I said, hi. Now, this will show you how obnoxious I am. Whenever I speak, do a lot of public speaking, or I did when I work for teams. Someone always comes out from my afters and said, you know, I've never liked you, but you seem like a good guy. And my ex-wife used to be like, do you have a chance to make a friend there? Just make a friend and say thank you. You know what I say to him? I said, do you think I care what you think about me before you got here today? Or after? I could care less what you think of Brian Burke. yesterday, today or tomorrow. I could care less. And I used to drive my ex-wife and she said, just got the guy. Now you made a friend and now you say that to him and now your dad's going to be like,

I was right. He is a jury. So I do have a kidding. On that, were you always like that? Or was that something you learned somewhere along the way to not worry about what other people said? Because I mean, you went into some hot spots in Canada and media is tough. Is that something you always had? The number of people whose opinion I truly value you can count on my two hands. I mean that. And I felt that way all my life. I've never been upset about being alone on an issue.

But Pac-Clin really reinforced that. Pack-Plin could have cared less what people thought of him. I remember my first year, Tony Gallagher wrote something that really bothered me, really got under my skin. And Pat called me in and he said, look, we're not having this talk again. He said, you got to ignore this stuff. He said, I'm not going to tell you to not let it get to you. You've got to ignore it. Don't read any of it.

He said, why are you reading the paper anyway? So I was new in Canada, right? I was a new American trying to get my Canadian citizenship. I read both newspapers cover to cover. I knew which high school girls' teams were competitive. I knew who my MLA was. I knew about the traffic patterns. I knew the neighborhoods.

because you got a it's your job to fit in when you go to a different country it's your job to fit it it canada didn't have to embrace brian berg i had to embrace canada so i'm reading the paper cover to cover including the sports and pat says why are you reading the paper i said because i want to fit in i want to know what's going on he's we'll skip the sports page so i did i learned a great lots and he said i'm going to save you lots of heartburn and lots of aggravation don't pay any attention to it so that really helped with fat but i felt that way i really don't care anyway Tell your dad I survived. So Kevin BX, I drafted him.

He played up Bowling Green. He was a really good college player, but you're limited to 50 contracts. So every NHL team can only sign 5-0, 50 contracts. So you're not just signing people random. You're not just giving every guy you draft a contract. So after his team was eliminated in the NCAA tournament, we brought Kevin to Manitoba, which is where our firm team is.

So that night we played, he did not dress. And I don't think he dressed. I'm pretty sure he didn't anyway. If he did, all players went to Earls, which used to be near the old arena. Great bar, by the way. And he got in a fight with Fedor Federov. What was happened was he was sitting by the bar,

and he took a little like cocktail straw out of his drink and threw it over his shoulder, not thinking. And it landed on the table behind him, and Federer Federo Federo was sitting there with Kiro Koltsov, this little Russian defenseman we had. So, and Federer, Kevin's a tough kid, but Federer was a big man. Federer was like 6-4-2-30,

way bigger than his brother, Sergey, and a good kid. Federer Federer was a good kid. I thought he, you know, he just screwed up too much on the Iceland practice. He just could never get it right, but nice kid anyway.

He challenges Kevin to a fight. So Kevin says to Dallas Ekins, who's our captain, I'm here on an ATO, and I'm here on an ATO, and I'm a judge. He said, I can't fight him. And Dallas said, go outside and fight him.

Beat the crap on him. So he did. And he comes back in. He won punch better. Cut him wide open and knocked him out. Left him in the parking lot of girls. Comes back in. And he says, oh, Christ, they're going to send me home tomorrow.

And Dallas said, you don't know our boss. He said, they're going to sign you tomorrow. So the next morning, Steve Tamolini called me and said, we had a problem last night in Manitoba. I'm like, I looked at the game sheet. They're two hours ahead of Vancouver. I get the game sheet backs to my house. No game misconducts. A couple of fighting majors, but

I said, well, what happened? Did the player get in the trouble with a player? He said, no. I said, the player go down the runway. So sometimes back then, they used to charge down the runway to the other dressing room and fight. He said, no. So I said, do you get involved with one of the officials? Nope. You get involved with one of the fans? No.

Better than that. And I'm like, well, I'm running out of suggestions, Tammy. He said, two of our guys got in the fight at to the rules. I said two of our own guys because sometimes the visiting team would go to earls that they're staying old and there were fights in the parking lot between visiting, you know, opposing team and home team, but never teammates. So what happens? So he told me and I said, uh, I said, signed the exit. So that's the true story. That's what he just got that. That's awesome. Well, that's that turned, dad heard that story and he's like, yeah, that Brian

Burke, he's got to be a good guy. Because That's a great story. That is a great story. That's a true story, every word of it. And I embarrasses Kevin sometimes, but it's true. How about I was thinking, you know, you're working for Pat Quinn when August 9th, 1988 happens, the Drexky trade.

Were you guys at all in on Wayne Grexky? Yeah, you know what? Edmonton offered them to us. We couldn't afford it. It was like 15 million U.S. and Canada, maybe even more than that, maybe it was 25 million. I think L.A. ended up paying 15 million. I think to us it was, I want to say 25. And like Kirk McLean and, you know, Greg Adams, like it would a couple, three firsts.

Like the price was way too high. And it was out there that he might end up in Vancouver. So I remember we were very nervous that. So I went home. Pat said, go home and see if we can justify this. We can recover the money. We only had like 11 monetary suites in the Old Pacific Coliseum. I think our top ticket price that year was $30.

How are we going to recover $25 million or $15 or $20 or whatever it was? There's no way we could. So I came back and said, Pat, we can't do it. And so Pat said, we'll get it out there. We don't need our season ticket holders thinking that Gretzky's going to be here. So I leaked it to a reporter on Pat's instructions that he was going to L.A. And that ended the discussion. Yeah, to this day, I dreamed about that.

What would that have been like to have Wayne Gretzky on your team? Well, and just to see that, like, I assume when you're sitting in the office and that comes across, Wayne Gerexki's available. You must have had to sit down for a couple minutes. Like, can we even? Well, we never thought, and we were in the same division. We never thought they were serious. We're not going to go back into Northlands Coliseum six times a year.

Wayne Gretzky. It was like trading goalies and goons back in the day. You never traded them in your division. You can trade a tough guy to the Rangers, but you're not going to trade a tough guy to the oilers. It might come into your building and beat the snot out of somebody. So goalies and goons was a rule back then. You don't trade them in your division. Same with Wayne. We didn't think they were serious, but I think LA paid $15 million and Jimmy Carson and all the other player assets. I think they asked for 25 from us. We couldn't do it. We just couldn't justify it like even with Wayne filling the building even if we doubled our ticket prices

which we never could have done we couldn't have got the money back even if we filled every seat at double price for 10 years we couldn't have the money back um I thought I'd bring up to with it being Pride Month you can play I think that's something uh very close to your heart and I think if people in my area haven't heard about it or don't know anything about it maybe just as long as you want to go Brian maybe a little bit something about you can play just maybe what it's about and and if people want to get involved how they can well I want to I went down Sunday when which would have been the pride parade but they'd cancel it obviously I went down Sunday and walked the

parade route in honor my son just like I've done it I first went to pride with him and then I marched for him after he passed away. My son Brendan, that was a student manager at Miami University in Ohio, Rico Blasie was a coach, Tommy Wingles was there. I mean, the list of players that were good to him was amazing. But he came out to the team as openly gay, and it was a big story. The general manager of Toronto, Maine police has a gay son,

which was a non-event to me. Like, I could have cared less. But then he died in a car accident in 20, And so pride's very important to us. We started You Can Play, which is to encourage athletes to stay in team sports, even if they're gay, even if they see evidence of homophobia. We think it's saved a lot of young men's lives and women's more so men than women. Gay women do not have the same problem of acceptance in sports that gay men do. But we think it's been a big cool.

So if you want to look, you can play. We're online. This is the charity starter in Brendan Smarrier's. If you can play, if you can play well enough to help our team, we got a uniform for you. You're welcome in our dressing room if you can help us win. So it's a message of hope. It's much broader than sports that basically you're welcome here. It's been partnering with the NFL and the NFL and NBA.

They've done great work and like I say, Sunday I went down and marched the parade route. So in Toronto, the Pride parade goes down young. but the village, the gay village is Church Street, and we walked the same route, parallel route, Rick Mercer and I, the famous Canadian comic and author and active. We walked in my daughter and my ex, we walked the parade route, one street over right to the heart of the village in honor of Brendan.

So we remembered him this year of Pride. But yeah, there's lots of ways you can support Pride too. There's P-flag, which is parents and friends of lesbian and gays. They're great. You can be a gay straight ally. You can do you can play. We'd love to have it. Cool.

Appreciate you sharing that. We'll go into the final segment here, just nice and quick. The Crude Master Final Five, five, five quick questions. As long and short as you want to go, Brian, and then I'll let you go. I know you're a busy, busy guy. So a huge shout out to Heath and Tracy McDonald, huge supporters of the podcast since the very beginning. First one, if you could sit down with a beverage and pick the brain of anyone, who would you want to sit down with?

Well, I'll stick to hockey. I mean, I have much bigger interest in hockey. If it were, I'd like to meet Doris Goodwin-Kirn, the famous historian. Doris Kern-Gurne-Gidwin and get her name backwards. She's written, she's a Harvard professor of history, and I'd love to talk history with her. I've read all of her books, and I know people say, yeah, you love her books. Can't remember her name, but that's who I would. Hockey-wise, probably Sam Pollock.

I knew Sam Pollock. I was fortunate enough to meet him in his official capacity when he worked for baseball county. He was a great baseball mind, too. People forget that. Same as Lou. How many people know, Lou Monroe was a great baseball mind, too. Manorkeye was in the Cape Cod League.

I was on the board of the Yankees for years. Still maybe for all I know. But I'd like to probably Sam Pollock. I knew him, but never got to really kick his brain. I have to ask. I was a history major as well in college. Enjoy history. Is there a specific book that you've read that sticks out to you? I like Shelby's foot, his three-volume work on the Civil War. Shelby Foot passed away a few years ago, but he wrote a three volume, over a thousand pages each. It's a history of the Civil War, and the detail is phenomenal. And I've read it three times. Three times? Yeah. And then...

I'm trying to think the one volume work that I recommend, it's a Mac something, it's an Irish or Scatter's name. There's a one volume work in the Civil War that I think, I tell people start with that and then go to Shelby Putt. But I'm drawing in blank of McKinley or McNally, but I'm drawn in blank on it right now. You're known for your word choice. I was laughing. I'd listen to one of the Spit and Chicklets episodes, and you got talking about different words you use to kind of mess with media. Is there a word that you never got to use that you still have sitting in the repertoire, sitting there waiting to be used? I don't think I ever used Piscalamus, which is one of my favorite words.

Pucilanimous kind of fell out of favor. It was a common usage word until the Civil War in the U.S. That kind of fell out of favor, and it means cowardly. And I remember when my daughter, Gracie was in grade four, the teacher said, look, none of you know a word that I can't spell. said I do and she said what words that is the pusillanimus and of course the teacher hadn't heard it hasn't been used in a hundred and something years but that's one of my favorite words that I might have used it once in Vancouver but I've wanted to trotted out a number of times and um but I think I have not used it and that people will look it up it's a great word

piece of alabans I'm trying I'm sitting here going puceladamus can you imagine seeing that written in the paper everybody be like getting out they what's what What does that mean? They'd have to have the definition underneath it probably. Yeah, I might have tried that out once. I don't remember, but I always wanted to. If you were a commissioner for a day, would there be any rule changes you'd make?

I would trade two, change two things. And I've told Gary both of these, and he's sick of hearing it because I have really heart done. One, I would change the draft lottery, which I detest, what just happened this past week is a disgrace. And I would change the schedule. and do team travel more sensibly. The way the teams travel now is unnecessarily burdensome and expensive and tiring.

I have no idea why we don't do it better because you can do it better. Is it true that when the Oilers offer sheeted Dustin Penner, at some point you challenged Kevin Loto a fight? Yeah, so they signed Dustin Penner and I went off on Kevin. and later in the summer he'd had enough of Brian Birx who's doing an interview and he said Ryan Burke came sick of him tell him anywhere anytime and I'm like so I called on and say to the next day I didn't hear any of this that happened in Edmonton someone called me right so I called Glenn say to her and I was a Newport beach at my house and I went in the backyard

because my cell phone reception was a little bit better and I thought my wife was upstairs but she was standing right there at the kitchen sink and I was right below the kitchen sink and I I called say there. I said, your buddy just challenged me to a fight. Anywhere, anytime, that's not how you challenge someone to fight. Here's how you challenge someone to a fight. You tell that jerk I'll be in Lake Placid on August, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. This is true. USA hockey used to have a tournament here with the Swedes and Fins, first week of August.

I said, I'll be there the first, second and third. I'm staying at the holiday end in Lake Placid. You tell them to get up there. I'll run a barn. I'll kick the crap out of them. and then i'll drive him to the hospital so i hung up and next thing i know my wife is three feet behind you heard the whole thing she goes have you lost your mind and i'm like he challenged me to a fight i'm fighting like that's that's that's still right now if you challenge me to a fight we're fighting

that's just one of my roles so um she said you know i don't know if sater called batman or if my ex-wife called betman but someone called betman so he called me about ten minutes minutes later. He said, if I got this right, you just challenged Kevin Lowe to a fight, and I'm like, yeah. He said, if you guys fight him, I will suspend you for longer than your contracts. He'll be out of work for a year or two. Like, Gary, he started it. He said, I don't care he started you're not fighting. So that was the end of him. And Kevin and I have mended that fence since then. It's not a problem. He's a great guy. But it was just, he challenged me to a fight, and I'm like, I can't have that. I can't allow that. Well, heck, you just put him in the Hall of

You're one of the guys who votes on who goes in the Hall of Fame. And Kevin Lowe just got in. I mean, that's, I mean, you talk about many of fences. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, he's probably, you've probably been asked about that a thousand times in the last week about Kevin Lowe. So the one I want to ask is the final question is I'd read, you know, the Hartford Whalers and all their storied history, the one thing that fans remember is the brass pananza song when they scored. Is it true? You got rid of that? Yeah.

The players asked me to, like, I got rid of brass bonanza, and it's a catchy tune. I know I get grief for this. First off, Hartford has a very large place in history in the league. Wherever you go, you see Hartford Whaler's sweaters and hats. It's amazing. People love that team. And it turned out to be a coach's incubator.

Look at the guys that played there that are coached. And Dean Avicin, Joe, Quindville, Kevin and Dean. look at the guys that come out of there that turn into coaches. It's amazing. John Anderson, like, it turned into a coaching incubator kind of like Miami University was in football. All those

football coaches that started at Miami. So, Pat Verbeek was our captain. He came to me and said, look, it sounds like a college fight song. The guys don't like it. Can you get rid of it? So I did. Like, players first, right? It doesn't matter with the fans.

You take, your players come to you asked for something you do it so i did it well the backlash was severe like people love that song so as soon as they got rid of me the following summer they brought the song back in as a initially as a goal song and then as a as a end of the rink song like a regular you know like a school song or that college football thing but yeah i did it at the players request but i got agreed for it i still every once in a while someone will stop me and say something about it I can't believe you got rid of Brass Bannanza. I'm like, yeah, whatever.

Do you remember what song you guys put in place of Brass Bannanza? No, but I let the players pick that too. Like this is all about, I'm trying to win hockey games. And if you go back, the owner there and I parted ways after a year. Good guy, probably shouldn't have been involved in ownership of a pro team, not suited for it. But a good enough gun. We parted ways after a year.

I really think we had a chance if they'd left us alone, there, we could have put that team together in a short notice. Because I brought in Sean Birx, and we had the stud goalie. That's the toughest team I ever had. Like everyone talks about how tough Anaheim was, the Hartford Whalers, the 92, 93 would have kicked the snot out of my team in Antony. We had a tough, tough team. And we had really good players. Jeff Sanderson had 48 goals like that. Plattford Beach was a great captain. We would have been fine if we could have kept that progression alive, but it didn't work out. So, uh, No, it was, the song would have come back, but that's, I really enjoyed working there,

and that team would have been fine if they left me alone, but that's the story of my life. I've only, the longest I've lasted in one city is six years. I was in Vancouver. So that's, they're not going to get a chance to win many places if you only last six years. Fair. Well, I appreciate you coming on and making some time for me, staying on a little longer than we discussed. It's been a real treat to have you on, and I'd love to get you again at some point, Brian, but thanks again. My pleasure. Thanks to see it.

Hey folks, thanks again for joining us today. If you just stumble on the show and like what you hear, please click subscribe. Remember, every Monday and Wednesday a new guest will be sitting down to share their story. The Sean Newman podcast is available for free on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever else you find your podcast fix. Until next time. Well, you folks enjoy that one? Are you still kicking around here? Well, here we are another clue for Who's 100.

So if you don't know what I'm talking about, we've got a little game going on here. In order to enter, head to social media, tag the podcast, and the hashtag Who's 100, W-H-OS-100, with your guest for 100. For each post, whether it's on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, text me, call me, email, email me, it don't matter. But if you put it up, you get an entry into the draw. So a huge shut out to factory sports. I got a $200 gift card in on this and to Sandy Beach Golf for donating a four-person pass with two carts. So here is your clue for this week. He currently lives in Canada. All right. Enjoy the rest of your week, folks. Until episode 93. We'll catch you later.