Shaun Newman Podcast - Ep. #118 - Lloydminster Bobcats Head Coach & GM Nigel Dube

Episode Date: September 30, 2020

Nigel hops on to discuss the upcoming AJHL season, playing out of Kitscoty, the developmental season and how the Bobcats organization is working through the COVID-19 return to play regulations.  Let me know what you think     Text me! 587-217-8500

Hi, this is Brandon Holby. Hey, this is Tanner, the Bulldozer Bozer. Hi, this is Brian Burke from Toronto, Ontario. This is Daryl Sutterin. Hello, everyone. I'm Carlyagro from SportsNet Central. This is Jay On Right. This is Quick Dick, quick, tick coming to you from Tough Moose, Saskatchew. Hey, everybody, my name is Theo Fleary.

This is Kelly Rudy. This is Corey Krause. This is Wade Redden. This is Jordan Tutu. My name is Jim Patterson. Hey, it's Ron McLean, Hockeynet in Canada, and Rogers' hometown hockey, and welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the podcast, folks.

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visit shawndoomboodcast.com. Top right corner, hit the little contact button, send me your information, and just what you're looking for. We've got lots of different options, and I want to find something that can work for the both of us. Now, let's get on to that T-Barr-1, tale of the tape.

Originally from Lampman, Saskatchewan, he was the assistant coach for the Minotauras for four seasons, 2013 through 2017. He then took a position as the assistant coach of the Camrose Codiaks for two seasons, 2017 through 2019. He was hired by the Lloydminster Bobcats partway through the 2018-19 season and is currently entering his third season with the Bobcats as the head coach and GM. I'm talking about Nigel Dubet.

So buckle up because here we go. This is Nigel Dubet, head coach and GM of the Lloydminster Bobcats. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast tonight. I'm joined by the head coach and GM of the Lloydminster Bobcats, Mr. Nigel Dubay. Welcome back, sir. Thanks for having me again. Yeah, well, you realize that we were just talking about this.

You were episode 31. We did it out of the Power Center. And that was last August 28th, 2019. Yeah. So it's been a bit of a... It's been a while and it's, you know, it seems like multiple years ago, if anything. And then now we're here. So it's only been just over a year, but it seems like a lot more.

You know, I went back through that episode today, and I was listening to it, and I had to chuckle. So did you pull out your safe by the bell DVDs during COVID? No, I didn't. No, I didn't. I got into a little bit of Netflix, though, and watched a lot of the documentaries on different sports and different teams, actually, and working through the F1 right now. But got back into video games a little bit. What would you go to? Well, I'm old school the dirt track racing, which we talked about a year ago.

Yeah, Tony Stewart came out with one. So I was a way for me to connect with my brother. And, uh, what, what system? Well, it's PS4. PS4, yeah, yeah. You realize they're bringing out PS5? Oh, it's crazy. It's crazy.

I went in there and stared the price tag. But I figured out, I'll use it for COVID. And then, uh, now that the season rolled around, I'll put it back in the players. Oh, you went and bought a PS4. Bought a PS4. So it was one of those were evenings and stuff. and need to do something to keep the mind busy and, you know, worked on setting up a race car online,

which is a lot different. And then I got into a little bit of farm simulating. But that lasted. Farm simulating, but that lasted, all that lasted about maybe a week, what seemed like a month last of the week. And then we were on to different things other than playing. So I got a PS4 for the boys at the players lounge now

and they can play on it. Farm. That's a new one. Yeah, well, it's, I was pretty cheap, so I went with the $5 version that was in 2017 or something. I don't know what it was, so. That don't feel bad. I think I got the little boy, Shea, he's four now, and he's learned that we can play hockey. And I've got them, I don't have the latest EA sports game.

I don't know what it is, 2015 maybe, I don't know, something like that. McDavid's on the game. That's all you need to know. And we play that every once in a while. But, I mean, other than that, I don't play a whole lot of PS4. But, I mean, like I say, they're bringing up PS5. And that's coming out, I think, this year, some techies yelling at the mic or the stereo right now going,

you don't even know when the PS5 is coming out. But, I mean, COVID has been an interesting ride. I can just imagine for hockey. I mean, this has been unprecedented. but I mean you're going into year what do we call on this year two and a half yeah well you know for for me last year was a full year and and you're going in and we didn't make the playoffs last year and we knew we were we were being done and some of those teams in our league that you know built for those four or five years and for for everything to be shut down like that you know it was

a little bit well it's got to be hard on them it's no doubt about that and then you move into COVID but I was actually down at the Minnesota State Tournament, right when it kind of all broke loose. So I was set to go from Minneapolis to Toronto, to get out into Ontario recruiting-wise, and then work back to Manitoba, then get back home. And before lockdown all happened, I ended up flying back to Regina.

My old man drove me to my vehicle in Saskatoon. I drove back to Lloyd before any of the quarantine stuff was in play, and boom, it was like got back. And it's like anything when time flies and I was like, just like that, everything was shut down. And it's like, all right, is this going to last, you know, a day, a week? What is this?

Nobody knew. And here we are, what, seven months later, trying to get things back on again. And how's that been going? You know, it's been a process for us. Usually, again, you talk about all teams, whether hockey teams, baseball teams, when you're recruiting, you get out and you go see players.

and you're part of that. And, you know, from where we were, if we would have been this way, like a year ago or more, when we first took over and started rebuilding everything, that would have been a different world. But we had a really good core guys coming back. So we were just looking to build on to those pieces, which made a lot different.

But, you know, we talked, we joke about the PlayStation's and stuff and the technology is advanced. So much recruiting was done watching film. We would watch film, and then we'd get our scouting staff, on Zoom calls and we'd go over everything, you know, some late nights of what we're looking to do. And then you're trying to get a player out from this area or that area. And then all of a sudden now, you know, we still have one player that we're looking at its timelines.

Like, hey, if this place starts first, you know, the player wants to go there. If this play starts, they want to go there. And like, I've never experienced that. I don't think anybody has. And it's just one of those that, you know, we're here now. We're practicing and pursuing to get good. going sooner than later as a lead too as well that's probably you know i was i haven't marked here you know all the negative that's come out of uh COVID is rearranging how we're going to do things for

probably the next 50 years I suppose in in a hockey world sense you're probably going to watch a ton more film moving forward and there's going to be no I mean right now there's no foreseeable future that changing well and you look at it we're on the hockey TV hub um from from from our league and now we got the 18s and the 16s in Alberta looking to go to you know similar in the same style where everything's online and you can watch their games and um you used to get all these emails the spam emails and stuff filling up your thing and now it's all technology stuff of hey you send us this we can send you know this film from uh these leagues this is what we offer and just everything's there and um it's definitely uh progressed in in many ways of that um you know we

went back on old game tape. We went back on, you know, now that we're doing these Zoom calls with our scouting staff, it's going to be a regular thing for us. It's not going to just be a COVID thing. Well, now, you know, it might be a Wednesday night where everybody jumps on a Zoom call and we got the whiteboards and all that stuff at my home office now and, and, you know, even just different ways of pulling up lists on computers and stuff. So we've changed all that. We went down, You know, went back and all of our lists recreated, Andrew and Brady, our staff there did a great job of breaking that all down. And, you know, now it's just a matter, too, of maintaining that moving forward. And wouldn't you love to have had some shares in Zoom stuff?

Oh, man. Some of the stuff that in hand sanitizer, it's just, you know, those things that, and we joke about it a little bit, because I think you have to joke about or else you cry about it is today at the office and Mallory, who works at her front office. You just grab a squeeze of hand sanitizer when you walk by it every time, and you don't think anything of it. And she commented today, she's like, we're just putting this stuff on every time we walk by it. You know, we didn't even, hadn't even touched anything.

Hadn't really move. Just another squirt boom on it. So, but yeah, somebody's probably doing some, somewhere doing really good with shares and whatnot with what they were on. I wonder how many warehouses just fired up creating batches of hand sanitizer. Yeah. Well, you look at Fourth Meridian here. right, they turned a brewery into a hand sanitizer when it was needed, which, you know, again, small, small town.

I always say small town, Lloyd Minster. I think it's a smaller city and a real small town feel, and they're pumping it out because nobody else can make it. And, you know, supporting the local places for sure. You know, before we go back to the Bobcats, I got to ask, did you watch the, did you watch the NHL playoffs? I watched, you know, I watched some. I didn't, I had a tough time getting into it without the fans. I really did. You know, we cut film from last night's game,

or sorry, two nights ago game for Monday night's Stanley Cup final for video for our guys. And I said to our guys, like, from a coaching standpoint, you always watch to see what's going on and we break it down. And we got a couple clips out of that game that we were working on and just to show that, hey, this is at that level too, right? But you go back and they show all the videos of like previous years and the energy and the ring.

drink and, you know, all that stuff. And to me, that's what gets me jacked up is, like, when you have that following and credit to them, because everybody watched or watched some of them, you know, and it gave us something to do and sports was back. But just it almost made you miss, you know, that atmosphere of, you know, the place, the roof being blown off the place and the cheering going on. Could it have been the Nashville Predators not going too far? Yeah, well, that one hurt too.

That one, that one definitely, and that one definitely hurt. Yeah. You know, obviously a roller coaster year there for them. And then they didn't really have anything at all come down the stretch. Well, I say I was I was gung home for hockey. Heck, we were gung home for anything to come back at one point, right? Like you had literally nothing. Yeah.

But as soon as the oilers lost out, you know, I can tease you about Nashville, but the oilers didn't do any better. It's almost like the sun's staying up all night, right? It just, you know, it's nighttime and it should be dark, right? Like, that's the body feels. It's the end of September and we've got the Stanley Cup being handed out, or August, right? Like August, September. Just, you know, this part of the country, I can't speak for all parts of the country,

but, like, we only get such a short window of beautiful weather where you can be outside and go do things and go to the lake and, you know, and just, you know, enjoy outside. And then you get playoff hockey. It's like your body is like torn. Like do I go watch a hockey game or do I go, you know, one of the best days I had was I pulled the TV out, put it on the deck, used the PS4 and live streamed it.

And that's when they were playing what, like five games in a day? Like that was pretty cool. But the rest of the time being locked in the house and trying to watch hockey, I struggled with it. Yeah, well, I had the summer project or the COVID project, as you call, you know, call whatever you got done during the time. time. I redid my backyard. So I don't landscape my backyard. We'll give a shout out to keep of concrete on the concrete pad that he poured for me. But I did the same thing. I set it up

and the neighbors probably thought it was crazy. You know, Mr. Weeb was supposed to be here tonight, but he dipped and dodged. So harass him when you see him, folks. Yeah, Weebers, he's an awesome dude. So, but no, you know, I got into it there and same thing to sit on the deck and watch it. And you're kind of like this is, you talk about all the surreal moments that we had through COVID and like, is this really happening? And that was one of them too. Just sitting there and, you know, we got some warm days there and it was enjoyable. I hate to pick on the Tampa Bay Lightning or the NHL for that matter, but I've been having this argument all day long. It started at work. It continued after work. And it just seems everywhere I go, I see it on Twitter now.

they've been talking like, and they, I mean social media, that this was the most difficult cup to win because of the social isolation. And to save you what I think about it, I think that it is not the most difficult cup. Although I will put the only thing I can't argue about is me having family, is if I was away from my kids for that long and my wife, that would be extremely difficult. But I don't think compared to hockey and maybe the 90s,

where it was rough, tumble, beat the crap out of each other, and travel all over the place. When you compare the two hockey sets, I don't know if that would, I feel like the older would be the more difficult. Yeah, I think that the atmosphere definitely was probably harder on them. And, you know, just following on the social media of some of the families and stuff and they're having their nighttime reading books to their kids and doing what they had to do. But when you talk hockey, you know, even last night, I can't remember who took this slap shot right at the end of the game the one-timer went off the player

and he kind of stood there to make sure he was okay and you go back to the 90s and all that and they definitely probably weren't making sure he was okay if anything, he was given another one when he was down, right? So that side of it, I do think that they played a lot of hockey in a short time. You know, I guess somebody could break that down for how many games exactly compared to another year.

But I think it was more about that you get sucked into one place for a long time from a coaching staff to all the staff and your support staff and everybody's probably having your Monday blues a little bit to roll around week three or seven or eight. I guess. But they're staying at the rolls Royce of hotels and they got the rolls royce of anything they can possibly want. The only knock I can give them, or the only knock, the only thing I will agree 100% is the

social isolation away from families. If you're a young guy, I don't think it's that big of the deal. It's probably enjoyable. Probably enjoyable, right? Yeah. I mean, sure, you want to go tear up the town? Sure. Do you want fans?

Sure. Do you want all these things? Sure. But at the end of the day, you're staying in a fancy hotel that has unlimited resources within, I mean, you know, means, I guess. I don't know. I look at that and I go, I don't know what anyone's complaining about. Now, if you've got four kids and they're 10 and under or 17 and under, that'd be tough. And I get that.

But short time span. I think the NHL. And I mean, you guys are in, all hockey leagues this year are going to be under the gun moving forward on how you get back playing, but not only playing, how you can make it feasible. Because playing is one thing. But you got to find a way to make money in order to sustain yourself going forward. And that's probably from the NHL all the way down to the AJ, heck, senior hockey, everything. That's going to be the challenging part moving forward if they don't allow fans. and, you know, food and beverage and everything like that,

that's going to be extremely difficult. I'm sure you guys are dealing with that already. Well, and it's one of those, too, I think, with junior hockey or any hockey, senior hockey and all that, it does come down to the financial side of it. You know, to continue to move forward, you can't dig yourself into the hole so deep that it just can't get out of it.

And it's one of those with not being able to predict the future and economy, obviously, too, that's taking a big hit. And, you know, you feel for the sponsors that give you everything they have every year to keep junior hockey going and then to see some of them close their doors for a month or two months or whatever may be. And to slowly get back, it pulls out of the guy's heart just to see that, especially in a city like Lloyd Minster.

And I say this, like, from the bottom of my heart where you really get a connection. And I can say that since I've been here just, you know, going on two and a half years or whatever it is now is everybody knows everybody everybody you know wants to see success in each other i think um and then you have those small town businesses that are still around that keep junior hockey around really if we didn't have our corporate sponsorship junior hockey wouldn't and now you see what keeps you around you know the door's closing and and that's tough to see um in those march and aprils and we don't even really have a season to think about then compared to September.

Yeah, it's like, it's like, talk about Groundhog Day. It just seems like every day you stroll down the street and somebody else has a for sale sign or closing or it's tough. You hope, I don't know, man. Can't see, I wish you had a crystal ball. I just wish you could see what was coming. And I know that's not the way it works. But you hope the end is near or things start to make a turn and things start to, you know,

people are making the best of it, right? Like, people are finding the positives in what's going on. They're trying to, but it just seems the longer it drags on, you know, but things are slowly starting to open up. Let's, I got to ask, you know, we're talking about corporate sponsorships and that kind of thing. What was, you know, for people who don't know, you guys aren't playing out of the Civic right now. You're playing out of the Kid Scotty minor hockey arena. I mean, that's a, you've played games.

Last year you played a game in Onion Lake. Like, you've played in different spots, but never for a long period of time and certainly not called at your home rink right now. that has to be a culture shock for the bobcats but in general what came what made like what were the deciding factors that made you move that way well there was a lot a lot that went into to that decision and and you know it wasn't one that we just sat there one day and said we're going to do this but you know the border city has been unique in a lot of ways and and i think that goes back to you know when this first started to the april when things were busy around here

with the cases and stuff. And right now with the city of Lloyd Minister being underneath the Saskatchewan government and following those guidelines, it plays factor into numbers more than anything. You know, and for us and some of the guidelines and restrictions that they have in place when we started, we started later than the majority of our teams early.

We started on September 15th. main camps were able to open August 31st, the EJ. And with that, there was a lot of things happening. And Lloyd, Lloyd, you know, school started a little bit later. We had the Husky turnaround going here with a lot of people coming in. And there's just a lot of things happening. And it was one of those, you know, where you don't really know when things are going to get going. That I just said, you know what, we're going to start on the 15th.

Let's let school get going. We have a lot of billet families with kids. Let's ease that pressure on them of making everything happen on one day. So get that going. And then, you know, with the turnaround going, I got busy in town again with people coming in. And then just the number system. So in Saskatchewan right now, it's 30 on the ice at a time.

And Alberta, it's 50. So we needed to make the moves, I think, that would align best with our league, with the Alberta Junior Hockey League. And getting to gameplay, well, if you put two teams on the ice, you're at 40. And one of the big things is in in Saskatchewan, that's 30. So you can't get two teams on there. And then just some of the timeline stuff with the before and after when you come in, when you, when you can leave.

And the numbers, whether it be, you know, there's been some things obviously changed since we were, we've been out there. But, you know, the dressroom, the first, first week we were here, we were in four dressrooms. and you're trying to run a junior hockey team with four different dress rooms going on and we just brought our numbers in. We got right to our numbers again. So those things were going on and the part that, you know, in Alberta,

you're allowed 100 spectators. And, you know, we've had these two scrimmages now out there and we've sold out both of them. And, you know, we can joke about the riders and how many sellouts they had in a row with the bobcats are at two sellouts in 2020. of 21. So, you know, there's just a lot of things to go there. We've been in constant contact with the city of Lloyd Minster. They're working tirelessly with the Saskatchewan government to

move things because we're not the only ones affected. You know, when games start up in the future, it's us. It's the 18, 16s, the junior bees and stuff like that and the seal of girls too. So there's a lot of things going on. I give credit to our city, though. I think our relationship with junior hockey, the program in the city, and just having those conversations and, you know, being able to do that and move forward, strengthens that. And also, for us, you look at our hockey school that we had in August, there's a lot of kids from the Kit Scottie area. So for us, it was a little bit of, you know, what, we're going to a community that really supports Lloyd Minster really supports our program too as well. So if anything, we're going to

look at the positives of a little bit of win-win. You know, today there were some kids in the window watching our practice and just loving it, loving it. And the same kids that we had at hockey school, knew our guys by name. So it was just a cool connection there. Well, when else is a small town like that going to get the opportunity of having a junior A club there for at least a little while, right? Like, who knows what the future holds?

Yep. You know, I should point out, I don't think anyone would think that you guys. did it very abruptly like all of a sudden you know what today we're moving out to kids goty i think if anything you know and just listening to talk i was thinking you know coming in here i'm like man must have been a difficult decision because everything up for the bobcats is built around a civic center the power center where you guys train everything everything's like kind of this nice you know power center ain't a part of it but it's close it's nice and tight everybody's living in Lloyd, like, it just makes sense.

I mean, the building, once you get to have numbers, social distancing and everything else, I mean, the building's big. It's, it should be able to hold more people than a small rink. So I don't think anyone, I don't think anyone thinks it happened brashly or too quickly. I think a lot of people don't realize it's happened. And I, which surprised me, because I, for me and I thought, you know, you mentioned before we started falling along about, you know, the different things have happened in this studio. with the bobcats, I follow along and see what's going on.

And when I heard Kid Skidding, I'm like, ah, you know, anything you can look at the good or the bad and the good is exactly what you're saying for the Kid Scottie community. It's pretty cool, you know, a little cherry on top for Kid Scotty, right? Like to have you guys sitting there, have Junior A hockey sitting there for whatever time frame it is, that just doesn't happen to small communities very often. And last year in Hillmont, we got to have the hockey day in Saskatchewan with Saw. the SJHL come and play. And for a lot of kids out there, you know, sure they can come to the Civic Center, but to walk down the street

and in their local rink where they play, there's these junior guys. That's really cool. And we've talked about that on the last one, idolizing the older guys, being a young guy and idolizing it, you might have just created 15 hockey players, 30 hockey players just by having it in their community

and having access to it. Well, and one of the things, we go back to August with our hockey school, the easiest thing for us would have been to do is cancel our hockey school. And I just said we're going to work as hard as we can to have our hockey school because it's an opportunity for a kid, no matter if you're going to be the next Connor McDavid, or if you're only going to play hockey for a year,

you can come there. It's a lot of individual skill work and just enjoy hockey, whether you want to try it for the first time or you've only played 10 games a year on whatever a different level. there is, I truthfully believe in you have to create opportunity for kids. And that's a big part of it. And we went through the ups and downs of the hockey school for three weeks where we had, that's the first time ever. We're chasing a jockstrap across the parking lot at the service because it's a windy day outside. We had dressing room set upside. And I said, here's 2020 right here.

Like we're chasing after it and things are blowing away and everything's going on there. And it was a success. and kids loved it and we had a lot of kids asking to sign up for the next week and we only allowed one week. You can only sign up for one week and we sold out our numbers that we were allowed to have. You know, and when we go back to Kit Scottie, kids Scotty, when we first chatted, they weren't going to put the ice in until like the middle of October. And then we talked about this and talked about the opportunity and next thing, you know, you know, the ice is going in the next day and things are getting going.

and then I was talking to their scheduler out there, and I said, well, what's it looking like next week in the evening? She goes, we're booked up. And I said, what's that? And she goes, yeah, we're booked up all the way. Like now we have everything from day one until, you know, the end of the year. All the is sessions are booked up and their bookings are full. So kids are getting out there and being active.

And I think that's huge for the mental health side of it, whether you're eight years old or 13 years old or 20 years old. You know, our guys, you can tell our guys every day at the junior level are appreciating hockey a lot more than they did a year ago. And I know that we're early, but there's a really good vibe. And you don't complain about the little things. We had nobody make any comments toward, you know, it's an 11-minute drive or anything like that.

And we'll do whatever we have to do. The other part that goes with it is for our league, you know, to move forward in Alberta is us being there. they could say that everybody could play. And when we were here, not everybody could because we couldn't get two teams on the ice. And that was just the reality of what the guidelines are. And we want to follow all those guidelines

and be a part of getting everything back going. But it was just one of those pieces that seemed like one piece of a very, very big puzzle. Well, you're playing in the Alberta Junior Hockey League with a rink on the SaaS side. I mean, it's a very unusual problem for any team to have, for any league to have, right? Like, I play in the Sask Delta Senior League. Believe me, there's some issues going on right now because you've got half Alberta, half Saskatchewan, you can imagine the rigmarole that is going on behind the scenes.

And that's why this problem isn't just at the Junior A level or the NHL. It's all through everything right now. And it's a very fluid problem in the sense that every week that goes by, things are, constantly evolving and changing. And it's, you know, do you guys have a time frame on Kit Scottie? And I don't mean to put you on the spot. But right now, it's just for now, it's Kit Scottie until things change. Well, yeah, and for us, it's adapting every day.

I think that that's the big thing where you just learn to adapt. And, you know, we don't have a timeline that we're going to be there. We go back to the crystal ball comment. If we could shake a crystal ball, I think it would ease a lot of people and myself. include it because I like my schedule, I like my routine that if we knew dates, if you could give us a date of this date, we're going to do this, whether it's, you know, get on an airplane again or whatever, be, take hockey away from it. I think that then people have a, you know, you feel at ease because you can plan for something, right? It's weird the, the, the, I, COVID has

really messed that up for everyone. It's nice to have a schedule and just to like, okay, this is going to happen this is going to happen okay and then even if we're going to go through a rough patch over there on january 1st this is what's going to happen and guys we just got to get through this and this and this there's so much unknown that's stupid unknown is just messing up with everybody's schedule and and you know the structure of society it's a really weird problem to have and one that well in the last 100 years they haven't really seen i don't think anyone's seen it right yeah well and that's for us too is we made our schedule for the first month, September 15th, October 15th, this is what it looks like. This is what we think we're going to look like. And then from a coaching standpoint, you know, Brady and I sit

there and we go through, okay, this is, you know, you have a seasonal plan as a coach. This is where we want to get to by the end of the year. This is how it's going to work. Well, it's 2020. So this is what we're going to do for the first month. We're going to break it down. You know, we got into these scrimmages right now, our scrimmage on Saturday. I said to our guys after, I was proud of them. Like, you wouldn't have been able to tell, even from a coach I got really into it, that it was the same team broke into two teams playing a scrimmage. How many guys are you at right now? We're at 24.

24. 24. So you went 12 on 12. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a lot of wraps. We played 15 minute, 3 15 minute stop time periods, you know, when you're two lines plus. Boys enjoyed that, I bet.

Yeah. Well, nobody could complain about ice time, right? But we had the scrums after the whistles, and we had that where, you know, guys are getting into it. And there's a little John back and forth at the benches and the emotion was through it. Both games went to overtime, you know, and it's been fun. The first game, we did a theme. So we had the Hawaiian team that they dressed up in their Hawaiian stuff. And, you know, to add that piece into it, you're working on team building all the time.

and then Saturday morning, it was, man, I was jacked up. I lost overtime to Brady, so it felt like a loss. It felt like a loss. And it's like, you know what, that's the first time in seven months. We've had that game feel. And for our guys, we're going to do it again Friday night. And our guys are looking forward to it, which is pretty cool. You know, not to, I don't mean this kid, Scotty.

I'm not trying to make fun of you. But what did 100 fans in there feel like? well it was uh you know for us it was just people there you could see people because you watch a lot of this on tv um well we were just talking about the n hl it looks like a video game there's nobody there i mean nobody in the bottom bowl well and bc's playing their preseason now so we you know checking in on those games and stuff and the same thing you got pentictons ranked and holds like 5000 people and and there's nobody in it but kit scottie kit scottie you know what the number one question is for kit scotties have you had a kit scottie burger

And the burgers aren't on the grill, but that's like, have you had the burger yet? And I'm like, I don't think they're grilling burgers yet. But it's like, you got to try the burger. And I'm like, well, I'm pretty sure the burgers aren't being cooked. But everybody wants to get Scottie Burger. So that's kind of funny when we get out there. But, you know, we've taken every measure to the full here. We're mask mandatory.

You know, in the other part when it comes out. So mask mandatory meaning that anyone who buys a ticket has to wear a mask coming in. Yeah. Yeah, so you walk through the doors. It's mask mandatory right away. Hand sanitizer gets put in your hand. We sanitize everybody's social distance with markers on the floor. And then in the stands, it's just a separation.

And that's one thing. You can tell that people will do whatever it takes right now to enjoy sports because there's never not a question. You know, I have to wear a mask. Nobody questions that. you know, Kitt's Guy is a little bit of a colder rink. It's a little bit of cooler rink than we're used to.

So, you know, talking to some people in the lobby and, and, you know, they're going to go out there. It was just warm-up start, like the full warm-up,

which usually you see everybody trickle in, you know, at the end of warm-up, and people are out sitting there watching the game from the start of warm-up. And it was just like it was their first game back, and they were just excited. And that was,

that's cool to see. I think that energy. adds to it. There's a little bit of cheering with 100 people and Kit Scotti, the noise bounces off the roof a little bit. So it sounds like there's a few more there. But those moments and I think for our guys to play in front of some people was nice. It was nice. Yeah, it was a nice treat. Yeah. It's, you know, when you talk about people, I think seeing live sports again would be lovely, you know, I've watched enough, well, Blue Jays played tonight. Do you watch Blue Jays? I haven't watched the Blue Jays. I've followed some of the

stuff on Twitter on their option. Game one of the wild card series, I think is what they're calling it. Well, something like that. They lost 3-1. But it was good. You know what? It feels like going back to the sunlight at night. Like right now, it feels like baseball playoff.

And heck, I had it going for the kids. It was good. Blue Jays lost 3-1, which sucked. But, you know, maybe they'll get a crack at her. Best of three to kick it off. It's exciting for that. I mean, what is, you know, if you can get through this development season. So actually, first, with the development season that's going on right now,

that allows you to participate as a team and do these games and have a few fans in the stands, that kind of thing. So your plan is to run, obviously you said, this coming Friday, another game out of Kit, Scottie? Yeah, so the development season opportunity for us, like, Lots of our guys got into, you know, having trainers and having all these ice sessions in the summer that typically as soon as trial starts in that midpoint of August, that ice goes back to minor hockey or that ice goes back to elite group. So our players, if we didn't start development season, would be left right now with either trying to pick up ice. You know, you look at all these different places where some people are skating 11 o'clock at night just to get on the ice kind of thing. So it gives us an opportunity to bring our guys in, start off with a full development season,

as far as practices, workouts, all that. We're fortunate in what we did in the past here to have that where we have our own gym. So our cohort stays together the whole time. We haven't changed our cohort at all, and we stay there. So we still get to do all those things. And then the other part, too, is that when the league tells us that we can go and play games against each other, we're ready to go. It's not like, okay, well, now we need to start. We're just, we're ready to go.

And I think that's a big part of it. So, you know, we've changed some of it on our end. We added a little more time to our practices every day. And then we're doing a lot. You talk about technology again. Everything for us is recorded. So it's practice are recorded. Skill sessions are recorded.

We sat our guys down in front of the camera. They had to introduce themselves that we're going to send off player profiles to different schools and some minutes. the clip. The cool part about seeing that one was the big life lesson. We had some guys sitting from the camera and they started off with, hi, my name is, and by the time they got to the 15th word, they were just froze, right? First time in front of a camera, joked, a couple of them got up to, I think if we had the clicker there and we could say take 60, take 61, take 72. But they got it there, and that's a huge life lesson, I think the guys need to have. So we've put a lot into

our technology, created that. Our first two scrimmages are up on YouTube, you know, just whatever we could do to get our guys out there and promote our guys. We want our guys to be ready. I think we got some guys here that, you know, we're going to do big things and be NCAA guys, and it was an opportunity for us to bring in,

compete against junior hockey players, and send off those portfolios. Before we hop on to the team, what did you think of a former AGHL guy went in the Calder Trophy? Well, it's cool to see all that kind of different, you know, where guys come from, throughout the whole, you know, through the playoffs. And I think we go back to everything and everything online is the profiles that were done. Like you look at the whole B profile that was done at the start of it.

I think it was a couple minutes long or whatever. Those are the things that give me the chills when it goes back to, you know, what they've done and where they come from than anything. And also, I think, where our league is. Kail McCar is a special hockey player. And to say that he played in the Alberta Junior Hockey League, for us has been a great recruiting tool. And he didn't even play for us.

So credit to Pappy for having them, but credit to the league for being a part of it. But it's unbelievable that that kid played in junior hockey, just junior hockey in general, and stepped into the NHL and has had such an impact. It's unbelievable. It's a credit to the, like you say, junior hockey, to the league, everything. Like, it's impressive.

Yeah, well, and I remember listening to the interview you did with Pappy there, and he talked about that nobody remembers how, what Kail McCar was when he first started in the league, right, and where they started with them. And I think, again, for him to perform and get to where he was, he was probably playing against players that pushed him, whether it was in their own dress room or whether it was across the league, and the 15 other teams, those guys all had a piece in helping that out and pushing them every night because I'm sure he probably had a pretty big target on him no matter the rink he went into.

Oh, guaranteed, guaranteed. But when he stepped on the ice for the avalanche, I think it was like his first or second game and was doing what he did in junior, but at the NHL level, the same speed and it felt like no fear. It's like, that's special, right, to jump into the highest level and still still, stick out, that's impressive. And night after night. Night after night. It wasn't one.

He had so much pressure on him, I think, because the question was out, right? Can he do it? Can he do it? You know, the good part about hockey is now there's going to be an off season. Everybody's going to say, can he do it again? Speaking of the season, has there been any inclination of what it could look like? I know there's been different things maybe kind of talked about, but, You know, you're kind of, well, you are in the know.

Not that that means, you know, we talk about the crystal ball and whether or not that actually means anything. If things change, it's going to change. But do you got to feel for what maybe fans can expect as far as league play goes, a timeline, any ideas, any darts thrown out there of kind of maybe hopefully this is where it's going to be? Well, I think the league and speaking with them, there's some initiatives to get the preseason going here pretty soon.

You know, and I think that's the first thing. is just to get that going. And, you know, and I give credit to the head office in our league. It can't be an easy place. The phone calls, you've got 15 GMs calling in, and some of those are the coaches. And then you've got 15 probably governors calling in and what's going on. So, you know, Ryan, Charlotte, and Fran have done a great job in that the whole time.

But from a game standpoint, I do like our approach that the league took. We didn't announce. So you look around, there's other teams that said, okay, December 1st, we're going to start. So this is what we're going to do December 1st. I like where our league's at. We have everything in place for when we're told to start. We can start. And that's the big thing.

And I think that was a part of getting the development season going. You know, if they told us next week, we can go. Well, then we're going. If they tell us it's in two weeks, we're ready to go. What that looks like once we get started, you know, I think following and, I've been following every league so close. Like you look at Manitoba right now, they completely redid their schedule from what it originally was.

So I think it's just, you know, doing what you have to do within the framework that they give us. And that's, again, back to the league on what? But, you know, I'm pretty optimistic that we're going to start playing some games. And played out of the kids' got in the arena. Well, we'll see what happens. I give credit to our office staff. the AJ, I give credit to it.

You know, our city staff, I think I met more. I like putting you to the fire. Yeah, I meant more. It's been somebody, my phone ranked today, and somebody said, you must like your phone. I said, well, this is what it all does. It just rings over and over. I think it's ring four times in my pocket here since we've been sitting here.

But, you know, talk to the league. We have a board for our team here. Talk to the board. You know, and then it's one of those who we talk to the city. And, you know, the email exchange, the Zoom calls, the socially distanced meetings that give credit to the city. Because I remember listening to Mayor Albert's talk early on in this whole deal when he said that the border city has always been unique,

but it's definitely highlighted by what's going on around us right now. So they're working tirelessly. Probably there's some days that they're like, no, I just calling again, not just calling again, neither is calling again, no different with the league, I think. And there's a lot of phone calls happening. But, you know, there's been meetings, and then there's no meetings, and there's meetings. So the mental capacity side of this whole thing is you really learn how to kind of relax the stressors. And when you need to do things, it's one of those.

It's like, hey, we got to do this. It's like, okay, let's make a plan. Here it is. Here's our timeline. Let's do it. If they told us tomorrow that, you know, kids Scotty, they're booked up all day. well then we got to figure out what else we're going to do. A few years back in my career,

I probably wouldn't have been able to just been a relaxed, not a relaxed, but a composed decision on that. I think everything was, but now it's just like, okay, this is what we're given. We've had some, you know, the one day the rink flood it during our hockey school. Walked in, we had that big rain in the morning, walked in and half the ice was covered in rainwater.

And I said, all right, well, what do we got to do? And Wes and I got on squeegees and Dawn got on the Zamboni, and we missed seven minutes of our ice time. We had it all. I was in flip-flops. My feet were a little chilly by the end, but she's like, well, what do we have to do to make it work, right?

And you're just showing people come together again, you know, and everybody just, you chip in where you can chip in, and here we go. Well, the first episode, we talked about you fixing the earmuffs for the kids. You were fixing the shitter on the bus, right? You're that guy. So it doesn't surprise me that you pulled out the squeege. and figured out a way to get it done and carry on with life.

Yeah. And that's, you know, you talk about running the hockey school. And what I enjoy about it is, you're right, you could have just been like, throw your hands up when this will never work. And nope, we're not doing it. We're not going to do the headaches. But if you find a way to, you know, trudge on and find a way to get through the loopholes and this is how we can make it work,

you've already said it a couple times, right? Your hockey school is sold out. And your game's out and kids, Scotty. I mean, it's only 100 people, but only 10 could show up, but it's selling out. And so that's good. Like, that's awesome. I hope, I think I hope for you guys and I hope for the city of Lloyd that hockey gets back, right? And that the AJ gets to run and you get to have some home games.

And you get to, if it's in Kids, Scotty, or whether it's at the Civic, wherever it is, that people get to come in and enjoy it. Because I think we're missing that right now. People need to be out and that human interaction, like we get to do. right here is such a huge part of life. And when you all seclude each other, man, that's, you know, the mental game of it. That's huge. Well, that brings me to your, you know, your team, you got, is it 14 returning guys this year?

Yeah, we're at 14 returning, you know, compared to a year ago when we sat in this and we were at, I think, two. That's right. Two or three. So we're at 14. I love our group. I love our group of core guys that we're bringing back. You know, it's one of those that, it's been fun because I think if you ask probably the players two months in last year that they were, oh, Nigel's, you know, like, we got to do this, then we got to do that, then we got to do that, do this, do that.

And it's one of those I explained to our leadership group and our guys returning that when you go to change a culture to such a great significance from one year to next, you have to. because not only a year ago did we have a whole new team, we had a whole new staff. I never worked with the assistant coach before. I never worked with our other than with therapists before. I never worked with Weber before, other than the short time at the end of the year. You know, we made changes in the front office too.

So we had a whole new team start to finish on every part of it and to do that. We roll the calendar ahead of year. I got an assistant coach. that just gets in the driver's seat and takes control to hockey school starting there. Then we have, you know, our players come back to be the coaches there.

Well, we announce our captain in the first week in September. We didn't have a captain last year. We got into it today, actually, we got into a drill that the new guys were probably like, what's this? Because I just said, but Midgie 2 on 2. And no whiteboard, no nothing. We popped the cones out.

Guys got to the front, blew the whistle. we go. And last year, everything was like, okay, this is what we're going to do. This is what we're going to do. This is how we're going to do it. This is where you've got to stand. This is how you got to mop the floor. This is where the mop goes. Or you don't know where that is, right? And it's just like, and everybody was kind of like, oh, man, he's a real hard ass. Like he's a hard ass. But to create that where we are now, it's like, you know, I talk together. Well, instead of you being the one guy creating it, you now have 14 return players that can help you got assistant coach you got a front office staff everybody knows which way to go and

to use your words where the mop is and where to put it right like everything and so for the new guys coming in it's very comfortable because this is how things are done yeah and and i think that's a big part of the culture side of it um and credit to our players that that uh you know are still here um with us and you look at the leadership group um i love those guys and the thing is that they're pretty young we We still got guys with a couple of years left, and, you know, Gunner is a 20-year-old for us, and Shendell's a 20-year-old for us. But, you know, those guys there and the guys around now,

it's an exciting group, it's an energetic group, and it's a lot of fun going every day. You're cracking jokes, you know, we're playing hide-seek and doing all that stuff, and the players don't need a GPS to get around town. That's another bonus to it. What have you been doing where you're telling me a little bit about it, but I know getting the players to gel and team bonding, that kind of thing,

I suppose this year has been a little bit unique. What have you guys been doing away from the rink to try and foster some of them? Well, you know, our guys are really busy in the structure that we do have. As far as team builders, we, you know, last year we had a two-day retreat. That was awesome. We unfortunately couldn't do that this year. So we were out at Bud Miller tonight. People were probably wondering why some guys are wearing Florescent.

I told everybody yesterday they got to wear their brightest clothes possible. So some guys took the clue, some guys didn't. So we had guys running around Bud Miller with fluorescent yellow on going through the trees and doing all that. But it's outside and, you know, our guys had a fun time with it. But we have a real busy schedule. I think that you can always a quick five-minute team builder. We just talk about guys and what they've learned about each other, having the performance

center there. We've done stuff there with groups and just being around. Like the other part, too, is if you look at it, we've got 24 players. You put all the staff around, and we're at our 30 cap in Saskatchew. And that's one thing, like I said to our guys, the first time, you look around right now, this is 30.

This is 30 people here. So, you know, we want to make sure we're following all those guidelines. And, you know, different years, we'd send them over the swimming pool and say, hey, go swimming, go bowling, do those kind of things. And we don't have those team builders. So we're just getting creative after practice before practice.

We do shootout challenges. The first week and a half, everything was broken into two teams. So we were able to do it there. And just the small things. And I really like our group. Our group's jelling well. I like where we're at so early.

And that's the hockey side. That's just the connection side with our players. And, you know, I'm looking forward to continuing to see them build as a group and then especially on the ice too. I want to single out one of the players. Gunner, your captain, Kennerberg. Yep.

Just shout out to Gunner, if he listens to this, is what was it about Gunner that you wanted to throw a sea on? Because you mentioned not having a captain the year prior. What was it about him that sticks out not to make his head blow up too high? But, you know, for fans listening, what's he bringing to the table that, you know, leadership, everything else? Well, I go back to early when I took over here in my first trade deadline, January 10th, and we had Kaiser that ended up. We moved to Sherwood Park.

That trade there, I went after Gunner, Kinnberg, Nolan Coventry, and Chad McLean on the January 10th deal. Just from our recruiting and what we'd heard about those guys and what they'd done on the ice, we wanted to get them into our system. It didn't work out. couldn't finalize a deal, just didn't happen to come too. Flash forward to the middle of July, and the next you know we're making a three-for-three trade with Fort McMurray. I got McLean, Coventry, and Kennenberg, and we brought him in.

Kenneberg's experienced. He's going, you know, four years in the league. He's been around the league. He wants to be a coach. That's a huge part. He's went through the hockey Alberta development programs on the coaching side for, for, you know, players that are looking to further hockey. You know, he checked a lot of boxes out.

He reminded me of a player, Ryan Wagner, played in Penticton with him. I could have went to any Ivy League school he wanted, chose to go back and just be a farmer. Took over the family farm. I love Wags, still love chatting with him. And he was just one of those guys. He was never, and the same thing with Gunner, he wasn't the loudest in the room. He was never the loudest in the room. If he walked in this room right now, it'd be like having a coffee talk,

with, you know, some older fellas and just sitting there and everything's real. You know, doesn't butter it up, cares about everybody. Absolutely cares about everything and very mature. When he does speak, everybody's, everybody's ears listen, right?

And that was a huge part. And I just think those are a lot of pieces that make a really good captain because players aren't afraid to go up to him and engage in those conversations. And he's not that, you know, stand off, like, very aggressive person. And then the support staff around them,

the support crew that, you know, he's close with everybody, he cares so much whether you're a 16-year-old or the backup goalie, he cares just as much about you. He would do anything for you. And we're talking if he needs to drive down the road to change your tire, to pick you up to, you know, your girlfriend breaks up with you and you need somebody to go for a coffee, he's there for you.

And those things, he just demonstrated. it through the year and it was always very mature, you know, and just kind of that solid, solid human. And I thought that was what we need it, especially with the experience and moving forward and knowing the group. We went through a lot of leadership last year and bringing guys in. And it was kind of like that test or however you want to look at it. Okay, does he fit? Is he a leader? All right. Is he looking for us to talk to him because he's a leader? Or now we're going to say that we're looking for leaders. So he changes who he was. Gunner never changed, never changed at all, no matter, you could tell him one thing,

you could tell him the next. He's invested in the team. He's invested in his teammates. And I think one of the things that I highlight and we pride ourselves is he's invest in the community. I know his billet family loves him. He coached with the billet, his Billet brothers team last year. They went to every game Sunday morning. He was there.

There's probably days that he was tired and didn't want to, but he was there. And I think those are pieces. that just make a really good human, make a really good leader? Yeah, that's a great answer. And I hate to single one player. I just know you threw the letter on them. And from season past to now, that's something that's new. And for fans that are awaiting and see that news,

just significance on the player and why this year you got to see and the story behind it. You mentioned getting community involved. And, you know, last year when we talked, I was very impressed. still impressed. With the amount of community involvement, the Bobcats have had under your leadership, there's no knock on anybody previous. There could have been very much just as much involvement. I just very pronounced with you at the helm.

You were mentioning it's interesting right now because you can't go into the schools. Heck, parents can't go into the schools. But you're still trying to find different ways of getting involved. And would you share a couple of the ways or some of the things you guys are trying to do? Well, we're looking at every way possible, and I truly believe in the community side of things. I know some people have made the comment that, you know, we're only in the community because we're losing. We could be 60 and 0. And we'd be in the community just as much as if we were 0.16.

But the big thing is just trying to find ways. I think it's so crucial for our guys. And, you know, even going through, we did some surveys with our billets and stuff. And one of the concerns that they had was like they won't have that community piece, right, that there won't be. And I agree with that. Like it's going to be different. So what we've set up right now, and we're working with Clark over progressive fitness,

is we're going to do some Zoom fitness. Actually, tomorrow morning, Thursday morning. We're going to do a quick Zoom fitness, 12-minute fitness beat. We're not sure what the name is. We're going to get there. But we're just going to set it up. And then the school's got a projector onto their big screen in the gym. We're going to set up a computer, a progressive.

Our guys are going to go through probably a little bit of a circuit and just get into it. We're looking at different things of doing some reading stuff over a Zoom or whatever we want to call it, some kind of form of technology. You know, we've talked about having the mascot go visit the windows like we've seen at the care homes earlier in this. We were out. We shout out to all of our sponsors that helped out with the fun run back in May there. That was huge success for the meal programs at the schools. damn thing almost killed me.

Yeah. Didn't you have a rough start and that? You started it and you stopped it. We ran with the wife myself to hop in here. The wife and I ran with our daughter and our at the time. I mean, what was the fun run? What was that me? Yeah, me.

So I mean, what do we have on like a nine-month-old? So we had our daughter and her nine-month-old in the bike stroller. So you can push it. It's like a running stroller. Got to like about four blocks away from the house and hit the curve. and broke the front wheel on it. So then had to walk all the way back with the two wheels. And we had our oldest, the four-year-old, on his bike.

By the time we got back, he's bawling. I've just like, we've already ran whatever, walked back. Kids are crying, and we're looking at each other. Well, what do we do? And I'm like, well, we're finishing this, buddy. That I didn't start it. So then we load everybody up. And so I pushed the double stroller.

So with a nine month, the three-year-old close, to three-year-old, and then our four-year-old laying in the bottom of it. So I did the math. It was like 100 pounds of human body in there, and I pushed that sucker for the fun run. And by the time I got back, I could like hardly move anymore. And I mean, COVID didn't help, right? It's not like we've been moving that much anyway. So it was a ton of fun. We had fun doing it. No, and that was the big thing. It was just trying, you know, take people's mind off it. And we didn't care if you went for a block or two. I remember when you told me that story, though, the difficulties, I think it was right at the gate. So that's pretty funny.

But, you know, we're working towards that. We did the birthday visits through the summer. You know, I threw on the mascot suit. Like, sure, let's go do it. The one thing I always appreciates family, and I got three beautiful nieces and nephews. So shout out to them. That the little things, and if there's anything in life that's taught me more, I don't have kids in my own, but the little things that you see when a kid just starts to glow.

Yeah. When they see something. And so, you know, Mallory, our office staff, she came in and drove around and you see those kids light up. You also see the kids. They'd absolutely get scared, completely scared and run the other way, which is kind of funny too. But the kids light up and we did, you know, stopped at birthday parties. And we ended up making some signs up and doing different things. But I think it's really important for our guys to engage in the community part of it.

And we're going to continue to work. and, you know, I always say if anybody's got a good idea, we'll always listen. I'll get, if you want credit for your idea, if you can get us involved in the community in a safe manner, we're always open to those because it's, we brainstorm. We have our Monday meetings every Monday at the office and we go through. And it's just like, what, how can we get better this week? Community wise, business wise, hockey wise, engagement wise, merchandise wise, everything. We go through it.

And it just, when you, when you bring that, And then you'll have our staff will be sitting at home watching a commercial. I love it. My phone lights up. It's like, hey, we can look at doing this. And it's like, sure, why not? Let's look into it. And that's where we've now, I think we've established that as a staff and as an organization

that you start to see the success with people around, with people around. And to go away from the community piece, I got to ask the other day, you know, we just brought on Carmen as a salesperson for us. And I got to ask, well, how many people applied for it? I said, well, the one thing since I've been here, we've never opened up an application. We recruit our staff like we recruit our players. It's never been opened up. We brought in a salesperson off of a relationship that is built in the community. We brought in a business manager that was a relationship built from different people knowing that person.

And the same thing with the assistant coach. So credit to our staff. They've done a fantastic job through all this too. There's some days where, you know, we always do kind of, I show up on every day and I ask them where we're at. Where are we at today, people 14, it's 10, and that's our personality, that's our energy. And the best part, some people be like, I'll be at a 6 day. I'm at a 10. I'm at a 12.

You get an instant feel for where people are at, the energy they're going to bring. And if we need to bring each other up, again, 2020, we learn to bring people up. There's days I need to be brought up. There's days maybe you need to be brought up, you know. And somebody might make a phone call or call to you and away we go. So that's way offside story from where we start with the community stuff. Speaking of before we head towards the crude master final five, you know, you mentioned sponsors.

If a sponsor out there wants to get involved, likes what to hear, anything like that, what's the best way for them to get in contact? And are you guys looking for anything in particular or whatever you want to run with there, Nigel? Yeah, just to call the office. I think that's a starting point. Just to give us a shout or stop by the office, if you're out and about, it's a very big office, a very open office. So, you know, we follow all the guidelines there too as well in protocols. We're open to anything.

And the big thing with us is we want to work with our sponsors, our partners. We know that everybody is in this together. And if there's a way for us to help, you know, promote or give back or do whatever we can for the people that want to get involved, And maybe it's not getting involved this year, but you just want us to have your name or help you out some way. Just give our office a call 78087-1-0-90-0-0-0-0-0. And we'd be more unhappy to have a conversation. Carmen's, you know, reaching out to a lot of businesses in town, and that's a good part is building those relationships, you know, people are doing, especially with the partners we've had. We've had some sponsors here that go back way before my time all the way to, you know, we talked about earlier, the Blazers Day.

And again, this city supports junior hockey. We've seen it multiple times through the stages that it's went and keeping junior hockey here. So, yeah, just reach out the office. It would be awesome. For fans, if they're looking to get tickets for or find out of all the latest updates, anything like that, I assume follow your social media would probably be the number one thing. Social media is we have the social media, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, And then we also, that's a little bit of a hidden gem is our Bobcat app.

We also have a Bobcat app. You have a Bobcat app? Yeah, yeah. We're working on getting more content that actually, it's one that's been around again. Another one that's kind of been around for years. It just hasn't been really effective. So we're looking to get our app game to the next level. To the next level.

If fans want to buy tickets or find out if tickets are available, I assume you're not, I assume, it's not like come to the door and first hunter to get in. I assume they're pre-sold. They're all pre-sold. So our scrimmage game on Friday is pre-sold. Is it sold out yet? It's not sold out yet.

Admin at Lloydminster bobcats.com, ADM-I-N, can reserve your ticket. We do then send out a whole form. So we have the whole tracing. Everybody has to fill out a form. So just to clear this up, so if I'm listening to this, Wednesday morning, Thursday morning, whatever day before Friday, and want to get a ticket, I send an email to?

You send an email to admin, A-D-M-I-N-A-D-M-I-N at Lloydminster bobcats.com. And they'll email back saying, yeah, there's tickets available? Yep. Okay, okay. Yeah, or else, again, call into the office, but the email works perfect. We get your email, we get your contact, and then Thursday night, so tomorrow night after this, then I actually send out a form. you have to go through a Google forum.

It's a questionnaire. About COVID. COVID question. What's a ticket worth to the inter-squad games? 10 bucks for general admission. And then any season ticket holder, bill it. That's just honored from years past. Okay, okay.

Final one before we move into the crewmaster final five is the progressive 50-50 still going on. It's closed. It's closed off, yeah. But we're excited. So that's at over 3,700 bucks. So somebody's taking home half that. And then it's closed off? It's closed off.

Yeah. It closed off. So we were actually, we draw that tomorrow or the next day this week. Well, crap. I must have read that wrong. Okay.

Yeah. The draw, it's got a close off date. So it's online. I think it closed on the 27, 28th. And then we draw on the first. Oh, so it literally just closed.

Just closed. Okay. Just closed. Okay. Fair. But on that, we're, We're going to have tickets on sale here starting next week.

Actually, I think we'll have them Friday to go on sale. We're doing November a cash calendar. So $25 a ticket, 30 days in November, opportunity to win cash every day. So some days are $40, some days are $80. If I buy one ticket, does it get me into every single day? You could win all 30 days. Oh, hell. I got $25 bucks in the truck.

You're getting it before you leave here. We'll do that. So Thursdays is. Thursday is the big one. It's $400. You can win on every Thursday, I think. They have it set up. But it's just like cash back, $25 to get in and multiple winners. Same way to sign up for that, email admin.

And email admin, and then our players, our board members, will all have tickets available for that making phone calls. So if somebody wants to help sell them and wants a book, a book has five in it. If they want to help sell five tickets, give us a show at the office, we definitely take the help there. Okay, cool. Well, let's slide in then to the Crude Master Final Five.

I know you've been eagerly waiting to see what concoction I can whip up for you. So the first one is you've sat down on this show twice, and I know you've done, I believe you're either doing or have done Kurt Price before and Lloyd. So let's go a little bigger. If you could sit down on one show, what would you want to sit down on? You know, this show I'd actually like to go on. I like to be a guest on like a panel, like a PSN or sports center where they get in

and break down the periods and stuff. You look at BXN, those guys that have, have, you know, got in there and that might not be a show. But I just like when you can pick hot. Oh, no,

that's hockey night and Canada. That's a show. Hockey, like hockey brains where one guy sees, I like it through the playoffs. Those probably interest me a little bit more than I thought they would. When you got one guy breaking down a play,

you look back at the Ben, the slew foot, which could be argued either way and then they get into it a little bit and you get to chime in on that. So I just like to sit in on one of those and give my two cents whether you take it or not,

you know, it's just there. You know, Kevin BX has got to be the hit breakout of COVID. I mean, in the hockey world there's probably more of them. But like he slides in, has never sat on a panel, to my knowledge, and just knocks it out of the park.

And every one, got a little better and a little better and a little better. And now they might as just sign him up for the next 25 years. Like he's that good. Well, and I think the cool part because he was what seemed and they made a few comments about it was so raw that it really relaxed the show. Yeah. It wasn't like, hey, you talk about this, you talk about this, you talk about this.

The other night they said something off turn and then they joked about it, right? Yeah. When's the last time that's happened on something like that, right? Well, the only guy they've had in the last little bit that everybody loves that kind of speaks off the cusp is Brian Burke, but it's almost his persona now. So he's almost, no different than Don Cherry. You knew he was going to argue things because that's what was the price of admission, so to speak, right? Like, that's what he was there for. He wasn't there to be the mellow guy. He was there to, and the nice thing about BX says, you're absolutely right, is he just kind of, like,

you can see him look around and then. He's just kind of like, I don't agree with that at all. Yeah, right? He's still not there. You still can't. Well, the same thing with Brian right Brian starts sweating when he gets a little bit mad there and you can see the glow going to him so those are cool I like that part of it um if you could sit down for a beer or we're drinking a coffee tonight if you could sit down with one person who would you take oh that's a good one that's a good one um Barry trot what would you ask him about life life life, his experiences and, you know, you just go through it and he's so well spoken all the time. And I think he has a connection with players that's with the game, but I think it's way deeper

before it becomes the game. And, you know, you look at his family life and all that that's been touched on a little bit more, that he's got energy and he's got excitement in areas, and he just really well. all spoken and the other part too is you listen to podcasts like this and you go through it and you watch these you know a lot of coaches seminars have been online and it seems like every coach wants to talk to him like it's just one of those like it just seems like more coaches want to talk to him so then that intrigues me like what does he have that we need right like when it's a common theme so um that's that's definitely something that just kind of sparked my interest through 2022 yeah Barry trots he when i sat down

with, I think it was 2-2. I'm almost not yet, like I'm 99% sure it was 2-2. He talked about him in his book, too, that he just had a way of understanding his players. Yeah. Why heck, they were fun. The New York Islanders were fun to watch in the playoffs. I wish that, you know, they ran up against probably what?

Tampa Bay has been the best team in the NHL for three, four years. Like, I know they haven't won cups, but regular season-wise, and even in the playoffs, I know they didn't get by, you know, Pittsburgh the one year, Columbus the other year. But top to bottom, they are a good team. Well, they worked, right? Should they have been there? Should they have not?

He goes in there. They haven't had real success in the past. Islanders have been, you know, not that great. And they get Lou Lamarillo, and then he hires Barry Trots, and you just go, that team's going to be good. Yeah. Well, when you look at even his exchanges with like a guy like Ovechkin, that those are real, right? Like, you know, they shake hands after. They're in two different teams. They shake hands

and there's, there's something more than just I was your coach for a bunch of years, right? And those kind of pieces to me, maybe again, it's just, I look at those life things more than sometimes just the hockey itself. Fun one. If you could own a world record in the Guinness book of world records, what would you want? And the reason I bring it up is I literally just interviewed an ultra-marathon runner. Yeah, I saw that. He, it's crazy. His mental health story is unbelievable.

That was what I've been hearing about it all day, actually. It is just how shocking it is. But I don't even know if shocking is right. It's just real, I guess, how it is. But like, that's a guy who ran the Moab 240. So 240 miles straight. It took him like, I forget what it was, like 90-some. hours the straight running with you know half an hour here asleep and a half an like my brain

hurts just even talking about it because I'm like I that's that is some extreme yeah yeah well this is but I asked him that and I thought ah give it to Nigel too what you could have a world a world record if I could have one whole that's a tough that's a tough question I don't know I feel like it's not very exciting though like something on the road um obviously see I do love my dirt track racing, so something like that, but world record. I don't know, consecutive wins in dirt track racing, winning. A little bit of my family passed in the racing, I guess, is to go put it on a clinic and set a record that way because everybody loves winning and it connects to what I have.

And I might have to text you in a week or two if I come up with a better one. I might have to do an edit here. Well, you know, for people who don't know what you're talking about, maybe this is the first time they've heard of you. Go back to episode 31 and you know a lot about Nigel and your journey to Lloyd Minster and a big part of your guys' family is the racing, the dirt track racing, which is fascinating. In the last year, you know, COVID aside, did you get to go back and do any racing? You know what?

In this summer, we had one family get together. Our whole family went to my parents in Regina once things were you kind of could go places and stuff like that a little bit. And my old man, he's getting older. And I think it's fun to watch that. And I talked about that before, is the passion that grows with that. He got a payment car this summer.

So we went out, my two brothers and I went out and watched him at Kings Park in Regina. And he had some older trouble. And it was like olden days. Like we had the water pump off. We put it back on. He went out for a heat race, came back. We had the water pump off.

And my dad sat back and it was one of those father's son moments and he's like, man, I miss this. Right. Like this is what we did every. And he would have been by himself with his pick crew buddy there. They would have never. They would have just put in the trailer, had a beer, went home for the night. But my brother and I just got like right into it. Like hands on, we're wearing burks and, you know, we got an antifreeze going down and just stuff like that.

So we got back once. It was a lot of fun. It's just a flashback. And again, just appreciate those memories more as he'd older. Well, speaking about vehicles, let's say pie in the sky, you're buried trots, you just signed a million dollar deal, and you're heading down to wherever to buy your next vehicle. What is it? there's two things I would go through I always have this and I go back to when I was probably 13 I want an F-250 truck load it so we'll see what boundary can do from you over there just load it I want a white I want it nice and clean with chrome and uh you know like some kind of SUV I probably wouldn't be a bronco guy here I thought you're gonna be

like I want some muscle car or not that you want an F-250 F-250 and a white one of all colors keep it simple I could drive that like if you see me if you see me driving that around life's good life's good that's all I need like that is all that and a combine somebody wants to take me combining their needs is a person we got a day off I will go run somebody's combine no shout out to all the farmers looking for you want you want to ingrain yourself in the local community go hop on a combine for the day you know what it's a little bit I actually thought about that like hey COVID happens what happens if you know like we don't have development season we

don't have anything through summer. I was definitely, I was going to put out some feelers to go run somebody. I couldn't jump into the combine because that's like being on the first line of powerplay, right? Give me the grain cart or something or I'll go get meals or something. But I love that small town stuff. So yeah, give me an F-250 and a combine. You know, somewhere there's a farmer scrambling right now going, get the number to this guy.

He's coming out and he's working the midnight shift. Yeah, we've got a couple Sundays off if they need a guy. Your final one is if you would. were traded. So let's say the hypothetical, you go back to your playing days. If you're traded to whoever and you can bring one guy with you, who would you want coming? You know what? I would take Brett Hectol with me. I played with Brett in Penticton, or I'd go back to Wags if I could take two. Brett Hextall was my roommate in Penticton. He went on and had a great career. Obviously, he went through and he's got a fantastic family now. But we can,

We were roommates, and we could always battle so hard every day against each other. Like, just full out. You wouldn't think that we liked each other, you know, slashing each other going up the ice, doing all that kind of stuff. Hard on the sleeve kind of guy. I actually ended up going to trade the Camrose. Played him, what was the third game out in Penn Tickton, and Doyle Cup, and I speared him as hard as I could. And he looked over and he's like, he's serious. I'm like, yeah, man, I am.

And then, you know, we win the round. and we can joke about it now. But he was one of those guys that, you know, he just, the passion that he had in him, actually look up a couple of his fights back in the day. Like, it just showed that. But at the end of the day, he would do anything for you. Great guy, great family member.

And, you know, it's one of those that he's a guy who just take with you because he knows instant, like you talk about captains and stuff like that, instant connection of he has your back, have his back. Wherever we go, you go into a team that nobody likes you when you get there, you still have the one guy and you know you have them. Are you going to win? You know, you think that you breed the success through where you go,

but that would be my pick. Cool. Well, thanks again for hopping in here. It's, you know, probably shouldn't wait a year to do this again. It's funny how the world works and how time just seems to fly by and COVID has messed a lot of the different things up. We talked about doing this back in April. to be honest and then COVID hit.

So thanks for hopping in and doing this and best of luck here in the foreseeable future and I hope I get my name picked in your November draws and that'd be awfully nice. Yeah, awesome. And thanks for having me and thanks for what you do, Sean. It's awesome to be able to listen to it and my neighbors, I think they get to listen to it

even though they might not have it. My speaker's loud enough for them to hear. So we appreciate cool content all the time and just thanks for what you do. 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.