Shaun Newman Podcast - Ep. #156 - Larry Fisher

Episode Date: March 5, 2021

Originally from Luseland SK. Former WHL beat reporter & scout we discuss his current occupation of Sports Director for the UFF. Blockchain, crypty, NFT's & more to help make your head hurt. We discuss fantasy sports meeting crypto currency and where this is possibly heading.  Let me know what you think Text me! 587-217-8500

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Happy Friday, folks. The weekend is just around the corner. I got a cool one for you today. It's going to hurt your brain a little bit about fantasy sports and blockchain and crypto and a bunch of other things. Might be the new age way of doing hockey drafts. But before we get there, let's get to today's episode sponsors. Crudemaster Transport since 2006, Crudemaster has been an integral part of our community. They're a leader in the oil and gas industry, but I always want to shine.

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the good woman or maybe the big guy out for a great supper. 780-874-7625 to book a reservation today, all right? Now let's get on to that T-Barr-1 tale of the tape. Born and raised in Loosland, Saskatchewan. He earned his journalism degree while attending Lethbridge College in 2004. From 05 to 08, he was the sports editor for the Meridian booster here in Lloydminster. from 2008 to 2020. He was a W.HL beatwriter and scout.

He's now the sports director of communications for the UFF and is heavily involved with the United Fantasy Hockey League. I'm talking about Larry Fisher. So buckle up. Here we go. This is Larry Fisher and welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast today. I'm joined by Larry Fisher.

So first off, thanks for helping on. Thanks for having me, Sean. Looking forward to talking all things hockey. from the Oilers to the UFF sports. To the Nealberg Monarchs. Now, we got to start with the Oilers, man. They are tearing it up. Just a side note,

because the Oilers have been on a three-game losing streak and have been getting shelled. We recorded this while the Oilers were tearing it up. They're not so much right now. Really hope they turn that around. Anyways, back to the program. And I see I see you got the three jersey. What do you got?

You got a Tommy Sallow jersey and the ugly one to boot? That's going back away. Good eye on the 35 for sure. It predates Rollison wearing the 35. But yeah, that was a Tommy Sallow. I could flip it around and show you, but there's no name bar on the back. Somewhere in that 2006 playoff run,

somebody took some scissors to the name bar. So it was a Sallow jersey and now it's a blank jersey. And then obviously, Eugene Hopkins and Hall are the other jerseys. I'm out of the jersey buying business, so I don't have a McDavid or anything or a dry sidel who came through Colonna here or anything recent. But those are the oiler backdrop for you.

Well, what do you think of their play right now? Like said, they're hot. And I mean, Mike Smith's 6 and O and standing on his head. They needed that because Koskenen was so overworked and he was starting to wear down. So for Smith to come in and really play the way he has, and I think the defense, has been a strength as far as the depth goes.

You know, at the start of the year, people are saying Larson wasn't playing that great. You know, even some people were on nurse at a time, and that defense has just jelled. And I think William Laggison coming in and playing with Larson for a while before he got hurt and now seeing Caleb Jones jump back in. The depth of the defense has turned into a strength. And again, another guy I know from Colona, Tyson Barry,

being a big addition on the back end and took a while to get going. But that power place picked up a lot of goals in recent games. and special teams, the penalty kill as well since Jujar Kara has stepped it up since he's been back in the lineup, Josh Archibald. I think that the special teams that were such a big factor in Edmonton having so much success last season have hit their stride again after a slow start. And that's the reason they've won 11 or 13. Now, you say Mike Smith is 6 and 0. We were having this argument around the coffee table this morning. He gets yanked and they lose that game, but he doesn't get the knock on it.

So everybody's talking about 6 and 0. Should it be like 6 and 0 with an asterisk? It really should. And I'm a goal tender so I can speak to that. But yeah, that is true that if you get yanked and then the team rallies back, ties it. And then the ends up being the go-head goal or the winning goal. And you weren't in net for that one. The other guy gets hooked with the L.

So that's, it sucks. But such is life and his records looking strong. And you don't even notice that game where he was pulled when you look at his say percentage and his GAA. That's how good he's been in the other seven games, I guess. So are you a Mike Smith believer then? Because I mean, half the oil or world is like, why the hell did we sign him back? And the other half is like, he served us a wool for a year. That's exactly what we need.

Yeah, I would have loved to see Jacob Markstrom. They took a big run at Jacob Markstrom. And I would have loved to see the Lashburn, Lloyd Minster boy. A little Braden Holby. Yeah, Brayden Holpey come back. I know Braden really well for my time in Lloyd. And Braden Holphe was my defenseman in Four on Four League. he let me have the net when he came back in the summer leagues when he was playing in Saskatoon.

So, but yeah, Brayton Holpe can pass the puck better with a goal stick than most people can with a player stick. So he's a super nice guy, super talented guy. And I hope the best for him in Vancouver because they're struggling. And, you know, he's getting a bit frustrated there, I'm sure, with a new team and not nearly as much structure and defensive plays he's used to in Washington. But I would have like to see Holpey. Obviously, Markstrom would have really solidified it.

But again, I think Ken Holland was. generally outside of the playoffs, right? Smith and Koskin and kind of dropped the ball and that lost to Chicago. But throughout the regular season prior to COVID last year, goaltending was a strength with that Koskin and Smith tandem. And they were basically platooning. So they knew what they had. I think Smith's a big presence in the room, big character guy.

And as long as he's playing good, everybody buys into him having a bit of a chip on his shoulder in the net and the swagger he plays with. So I like him. Again, I think it's a short-term thing. I think they need a long-term solution and goal. in the next season or two. But as long as they're going strong, I think they'll get back into that platoon type system

and hopefully they can get quality goaltending night in and night out. Well, you're giving me hope. I always look at Mike Smith. He's been playing well. He has been playing well. I can't knock that. But in the off season, you just kind of wish they would address it with a guy,

but I don't know who, right? Like, who are you going to get? I don't know. Yeah, and I mean, look what Matt Murray, right? I mean, Ottawa spent on him, gave him a big contract, and he's struggling. And Markstrom going off such a hot start, but he hasn't been great lately. And hopefully he's not, you know, playing out of this world in Vancouver either. So a lot of the big goaltenders that were quote unquote better options on paper haven't necessarily panned out.

And again, with the Koskin and contract and the cap space issue that's left behind by Peter Shirelli, they almost had to decide between a goaltender or Tyson Barry, right? I mean, if they had signed Markstrom, that money's not there for Tyson Barry. So would you rather have Smith and Kloskin with Tyson Berry or rather have Markstrom with without Tyson Barry and maybe just have a guy like whoever quarterbacking that powerplay nurse or Evan Bouchard? I tell you what, Tyson Barry in the first little bit looked a little questionable, but he's starting to really find a little spot there, isn't he?

He is. And he's even playing a bit physical. He stepped it up defensively, which I think was the main thing. And, you know, they gave up some shorthanded goals early in the season where Clefbaum being the top guy on that the way they run their power play with just the one d man at the top cleft bomb being such a good defender stopped and broke up a lot of those two on ones short handed and didn't give up any breakaways and that was a vulnerable spot with barry there at the start but i think he settled into the the power play role and they knew he'd bring that he's starting to shoot more uh i'd like to see evan

bouchard i mean i think he has looked really good out there how good is evan bouchard and they they i give the oilers credit here they they they let them percolate you they they let them percolate a little bit and he comes in and he has looked good. And he'd look good on that top power play. I mean, Nurse and Barry have done well, but there was one game and I can't remember the opponent right now, but they had an extra attacker situation.

They didn't tie it up, but they had Barry and Bouchard out in the final minute. And the plays Bouchard was making with that final minute, the pressure and just the setups and the vision he was showing in that intense situation, it just looked like he had that confidence with the puck on his stick. And after that game, I got tweeted out saying, let's see him on the top power play.

But then ever since the power play's been clicking with either Nurse or Barry, obviously Barry on the first half, a nurse on the second half of the unit. But it's only a matter of time until Evan Bouchard's quarterbacking that power play. And I do think big things to come. I know he gets the John Carlson comparison a lot. And I think he has that kind of upside with his puck poise. And he's got a big shot too.

He's got the Bouchard bomb from the point. So I think he's getting to be an asset for a fantasy team sooner than later, Kevin Bouchard. Well, I could sit here and talk oilers for the next two hours. But let's talk a little bit about Larry first, because I'm sure half my audience is gone, who is this guy? So why don't you give us a little bit of background? You're originally from Loosland, but maybe just kind of how you fit the piece of the puzzle

in your sports writer. You got this UFHL. Am I saying that right? Yeah, the ultimate fantasy hockey league with... I want to leave that to a little later, just because... because I want people understand who a little bit more about you and get to know you. And then we can talk to fantasy hockey and you can make my head explode for half an hour or whatever we got. No, that sounds great.

So yeah, originally from Loosland, I grew up there, which is an hour and a half, I guess, hour and a half south of Lloyd and grew up on a family farm, grain farm. And I wasn't cut out to be a farmer. I knew that from a fairly young age in my teen years. And I love playing hockey and I just wanted to find a way to stay involved with the game, whether it was scouting or working in media. And yeah, so I actually in high school got a work experience program with the local newspaper covered our senior team in our high school sports and really liked it, went to college for it in Lethbridge

and got a journalism degree and took it from there. So worked a little bit in Pinocca. And then I was kind of funny. I was the sports editor in Pinocca as well as the starting goalie on the. the junior B team. So that was a slight conflict of interest interviewing the coach after every game when I played terrible. But nonetheless, ended up in Lloyd Minster after that season and was there for three and a

half years. Played some senior hockey back home in Lusland at first. And then a couple seasons with the Nielberg Monarchs. Who sucked you into the Nielberg Monarch? Who was the guy who recruited you? Probably Jeremy Plemondin. But Sean Hine was there, Dustin Elchison, Marty Bowes, all those guys. So a lot of the guys that are still,

still Neilberg Monarchs 10, 12 years later, a big part of that. But yeah, Jeremy Plymonde and Sean Hein were the two big guys. I think that lived in Lloyd Minster. And again, Sean Hyne, I knew through fantasy hockey

and he knew I was a goaltender. So he actually got John Spigot, who was working at the paper at the time. His brother Bobby was playing for the Bobcats. And John had played some decent hockey. He's a big rugged defenseman. So he got him going out there. And then John came in and said,

hey, why don't you come play goal for us? So it worked out okay. I mean, obviously you're playing on the same nights that the Border Kings and Bobcats and bandits were playing, but made as many games as I could and really enjoyed playing in that North Sask League. It was a lot of fun. That was Marty Smith. Marty Smith was still an EDAM at the time. That was before he came to the Border Kings or right around there.

But yeah, it was a pretty competitive, pretty good league, similar to the Sask West where the Luson Mallards play too. Well, good old senior hockey. There's nothing quite like the senior hockey life, is there? No, it's a lot of fun on the ice off the ice. And again, I really enjoyed my time in Nealberg, great group of guys. And I miss playing competitive hockey, especially now I can't even play beer league during COVID. But I miss being on the ice for sure. All the Monarchs, you know, I, sure, I'm going to go great group of guys, wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

I think I got speared more times going and playing in that barn than any other barn. Ah, that's not true. Dewberry was pretty bad too. but anytime I went to Nielberg, he didn't get treated. Well, you weren't welcome in that barn. That was a rough, rough and tumble place and the Heinz and the bows. And by that time, the Chesnakes and all them were all out there. And it was a solid team out in Nielberg.

It's always too bad. You know, like so many this year with everything COVID going on, nobody really thinks too much about senior hockey. But, man, not having senior hockey in all those small towns really sucks. Yeah, I don't know what they do on a Friday, Saturday night in Nealberg anymore without the rink buzzing or Lusland. Lusland actually opted out prior to the season being called off in their league. So it's going to be interesting to see how many of these senior hockey programs start up again next season. Hopefully they do.

Hopefully they pack the rink. But there'll be a lot of out of shape senior hockey players that haven't played in at least a full season. Yeah, they'll need a few extra games to get into shape, won't they? Yeah, little more than the NHLers anyway. In your time working at the booster here in Lloyd, what were some of the big events that you covered that stick out to you? I think at the top, winning the Allen Cup in Stony Plain with the Border Kings in 2007, that was Kent Stanneporth,

the coach, Scott Hood was the captain, Jordie Dugan, all those guys, Ryan Rivett, you know, good, good group of guys, a lot of fun. And Aaron Foster was on the team a bunch of those guys. And I obviously followed the team as a beat writer. I was on the bus to Steinbeck, Manitoba, and back. And then the following year in 2008, we were out in Brantford, Ontario, Homa, Homa Wayne Gretzky for that moment or for that Allen Cup out in Brantford.

And again, I traveled with the team to a lot of games. And actually, Stanney would bring me out to be the third goalie or whenever Cory McKeckran wasn't around or Mike Clegg, I'd get to strap on. the pads and practice with the Border Kings too. So I enjoyed it. You know, Greg Buchanan, Owen Noble, like Corey Gallen. I mean, I could go on and on with all the, the blast from the past names. But I was only there for three and a half years, but those were three really good years. And I enjoyed covering the Border Kings. Obviously, the Bobcats didn't have as much success, right? They were kind of rebuilding under Jim Cross and Tom Keck in that era and weren't really a playoff

contender. So it wasn't quite the same as covering the Border Kings who were at that time in their prime, right they were a allen cup contender year in and year out so i juggernaut they were yeah yeah they were a juggernaut man they were they were something to watch but i mean i could just imagine being a board of king practice and who's who's in the other net oh we got the writer yeah and there were some headshots i remember jason ross a guy you would know from hillman he like to he like to ring him pretty high high and tight sometimes and get a good laugh out of it. But yeah, those guys were all great. And again, even though I was the writer, I fit in pretty well with those guys, lots of fun on and off the ice. Again, that Steinbuck bus trip coming home after winning that series. I think it was

a 12 or 14 hour bus trip. And I probably remember the first two or three hours and the rest is a bit of a blur. There's probably some good stories going around still about that trip. But yeah, it was a great group of guys on and off the ice. And it was fun to tell their story through the newspaper. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I mean, as you can see over my one shoulder, there's the, there's the squad, right? Like, we did that hockey day in Saskatchewan. It's funny because it was January 16th, the 19th, 2020, when we had the hockey day in Saskatchewan in Helmand. We had the Wade Redden and Friends game. And so we had all the border kings or as many as I could make it, right, come out. And it was like the last big event right after that COVID hit. You know, at the time, you wouldn't like, How could you know that in a few weeks, pretty much all hockey would cease? And that was such a fun night. All the guys you're mentioning were all playing, right? Like, just such a good night.

And now, man, like it's been, what are we going on? We're going on over a year now of, like, just like strange, strange times. It's kind of where I wanted to head next. Like, you cover the WHO. What is going on there? I know we were kind of talking before we started. You got Alberta, you got Regina being the hub, you got the United States. What's happening in BC?

Yeah, the weight is on in BC. And again, we've been waiting for well over a month now where we've been expecting every Friday, every Monday, we're going to get news on who's playing where. The plan, the proposal that was submitted that was rejected was that Prince George was going to come down to Camloos, Victoria was going to come up to here in Colonna, which is where at now and have been since 2008. But Victoria was going to come to Cologne. Then the Vancouver Giants were going to go to one or the other. They hadn't determined that. But so far, just again, the health authorities haven't green lighted a return of play for the WHL and BC, which

the clock is ticking because, I mean, we're in March here in a couple of sleeps. So, and again, those kids, so last year, the WHL shut down on March 10th. That was their last game. So I mean, you're right. We're literally at the year mark where these six. to 20 year old kids haven't played any hockey. Last year, the overager's never got a proper sendoff. And this year, the overager's, the 20s might not even get on the ice in BC, which would be devastating for them. And then you look at it, like said, I've been covering the WCHL as well as scouting the WHL

from Colonna. And you look at the draft eligible guys. And there's some potential first round, high first round picks in the WHL this season that might not get to play, including a guy like Logan Stancoven in Kamwibs, who I think that's a name to remember. I think we'd be talking about him as a potential top 10 pick, top 20 pick for sure if the WHL season was going. But right now you look at the rankings that are coming out. He's in the second, third round.

Just because people, it's recency bias, right? They're seeing other kids that are actually playing and he's plummeting in the rankings. But Logan Stan Kovin's a kid to remember. He's a Camloops local kid. He's a bit undersized. But built really strong lower body kind of plays a little bit like a Sydney Crosby. He works hard and has a wicked shot for a 16 year old going on now 17 in the WHL. But yeah, it's been a tough go here in BC for the fans and more so for the kids that are

kept off the ice and not getting that competitive action. Yeah, man, it's not, now you're talking about that. That's got to be tough on those kids. Like, I know it's tough on everybody, but can you imagine just busting your balls, knowing you should be in the first round somewhere, and you can't even get on the ice to prove that you should be there, right? that's like such high expectations and you can't do anything about it. Yeah.

So hopefully, I mean, they're talking about the U18 tournament's going to take place in Texas in April. So that's a big advancement for international hockey. Hopefully COVID leaves that alone and then they can get that tournament in. So some of these W.HL kids, but again, if the BC division doesn't go and then they got to go to the U18 tournament,

they haven't played in over a year, what kind of showcases that, right? I mean, they won't be as out of shape as the senior hockey guys. But it's almost impossible to get up to game speed. And especially when some of those other countries have had a full season to this point. So that's a tough way to prove yourself. And they have talked about doing the NHL combine more as an NFL scouting comment where it's actually on ice type stuff, maybe a mini tournament with all the top prospects.

But again, some of them have played a full season. Some have been in a game. We saw that at the world juniors, right? Like at times they just all of them kind of looked like this is odd, right? Like they just kind of look like fish out of water at times. And then by the end, you could tell they were starting to get in the groove and but at the start, but you're hitting the nail on the head, right? Like a lot of these kids haven't been playing much hockey.

And it's different to be doing skill work three meters apart from other guys and actually playing in a hockey game. Yeah, it's night and day different. And again, I mean, the Ontario hockey league was talking about, while they still haven't signed off, but talking about no body checking, right? I know. Contact league. How do you draft a kid if you, if you've never seen them?

I mean, you watch him as an underage. They've seen these kids for a couple of years, but you're always, if you're an NHL scout, you're focused on that year's draft class. So those kids, I mean, if that's how that plays out and it's non-contact, I mean, that's impossible for a scout to tell how he's going to do in a, you know, that's basically a wreck hockey game, right? It's impossible to tell how he's going to do in a serious showcase. Would you want to be a scout at this year's draft?

Yeah, it's, and man, and that and then scouts can't even be in the building. So you're still watching, even with the WHL going now, you're still watching it through a computer screen, right? There's no scouts in the building. So it's, it's super challenging for the NHL scouts. And I think we're seeing a big divide in the scouting community, the people who enjoy video scouting. And we'll watch video for hours and hours and the people who want to be in the rink with the emotion and the play away from the that the camera doesn't catch and then just the you know all the little intricacies of scouting that the eye test is so important versus uh analytics still but i think again the teams that are

heavy on analytics and heavy on video scouting are going to have a big upper hand come to the draft this season that's a good point because there are there are certainly people who enjoy watching from the comfort of the home or whatever where they flick it on the tv and can just watch from there. And there's, well, there's a lot of people who don't enjoy that whatsoever. And obviously right now, the person who can sit there and watch 12 hours a day on a TV has the upper hand. Yeah, it's, it's a, it's a huge difference. And again, I think that, especially in the NHL scouting community, there's a lot of boomers, a lot of former players that are, you know, certainly 40 plus 50 plus year old guys. There's more of more of that age group than there is the,

you know, 35 and under scouts. So I think they're leading a lot on, uh, contract type people that are putting together scouting reports from video and stuff. But then how reliable, you know, if, I mean, not to say if they didn't play the game, but you know, in the NHL, it is a bit of an old boys club. If you played the game, they trust your opinion more so than somebody who didn't play at a high level or somebody who's strictly an X's and O's stats guy. Well, speaking of kids getting drafted and everything, I've read a couple of things by Elliot Friedman and you probably certainly follow it closer than I do.

the NHL draft, what are they going to do there? Yeah. Like are they going to have it? Are they going to have it late? Are they going to have two drafts next year? Like, what do they, what do you think they're going to do there? And behind closed doors,

I think there's another big divide there because much like we were just talking about the teams that feel comfortable in their video scouting and their analytics, they're ready to go. They'd love to have it this year because they think they have the advantage. Teams that want to see every kid on the ice and be in the building with them, think it's unfair to the. the kids that aren't playing and it's also unfair to their scouting staffs that can't properly

evaluate the kids. But I think, again, behind closed doors, it's a tug of war over whether or not to postpone the draft. I know the player agents are obviously involved. If you have Owen Power as one of your agents, he's potential first overall pick. He's been playing all year at the University of Michigan. He should be in the NHL in October if he's good enough, right? I mean, usually your top few picks make the jump right to the NHL. So if they postpone that draft all the way to the following two drafts at once in 2022. Those top end first round picks are missing out on a year of career earnings, salary, everything else that comes with that, right, to develop an extra full year. So the player agents are getting involved. They'd like to keep the draft this summer. But certainly

there's a lot of teams, Steve Iserman of Detroit Red Wings, the ultimate rebuilder right now. They're pushing for delaying it to at least December, if not further. The WHL Bantam drafts obviously been delayed until December. So it's not unprecedented that people are pushing their, their drafts back. Just again, if there's no, nobody's playing or huge important leagues like the W, the CHL is the biggest feeder system of talent to the NHL, whether it's the WHL or the OHL.

And if those kids aren't playing to evaluate or they've been off for a full year and they're only going to play 20 games and probably take 15 games to get up to speed, it's hard to say, let's go ahead and draft these guys. And again, that's a huge investment, a first round pick on a kid that you've only got,

you know, maybe 10, 10 viewings and they aren't even live. test viewings they're through a computer screen, right? Is there going to be something good come from all this? You know, we talk about all the bad, right? Like this is so many bad things and I wish it was different, blah, blah, blah. But usually in months the bad, there's a new something that you didn't realize was going

to happen. Do you foresee something good coming from all of the changes that are currently going on? I do think the push towards video scouting has been the biggest revelation. And I think it's opened the door to some young. younger tech savvy businesses as well as scouts. And certainly a company like Instat has really boomed since the COVID shut everything down because scouts are scrambling for video and data. And Instats obviously got the best there is for hockey scouting.

So I think Instats had a big boom. And a lot of teams are turning to that type of program. But again, I think by and large, everybody wants to get back to normal, right? they want whatever normal is. Yeah, they've had to adapt, but ideally they would like to go back to the status quo, what we were all used to a year ago. Well, let's go here, Larry.

We've been chit-chatting about WHL, NHL, a little bit about your background. You know, the thing that I've been alluding to for the last half an hour with this UFHL is, I don't know, I've been trying to understand it. So I want to start here. How and when did you first get your start into fantasy sports? Yeah, so I've been playing fantasy sports since elementary school, basically.

We had a grade six gym teacher who was Keith Hardcastle and Lusland was the guy who got me into fantasy league's drafts. And I was hooked right away. I think I was a couple years younger than most of the kids in the draft when they first let me in. But I played all along through high school. But again, you're mostly playing box pools and off. And that was back in the day when the Tuesday, newspaper came out with the stats and you did everything by hand and and it was a different world back then. But my first serious hockey league beyond Yahoo and office pools was actually in Lloyd Minster

with a group of guys who are now in their 50s who started that league in their 20s in the early 90s. They're going on. I want to say it's their 30th year somewhere around there of border pro stats, the BPS fantasy league. And that was kind of when the internet was just that was, you know, 2003, 2004 internet was just sort of coming on. But I got in with those guys. They still did a live in-person auction draft. And it was an all-day affair with plenty of alcohol and good times. But it was a great group of guys. And so actually when I moved to Colonna in 2008, I went back a couple of years for the live draft. It just got to be too much 12-hour commute to do a hockey draft. So I actually took their model and stole it from them and built my own

Fantasy League that it ran strictly online here in in Colonna. And so I've ran that since 2010. And basically what happened was I was out of work from the newspaper. I had gotten laid off again with COVID and everything with no hockey to cover. There was no need for a sports writer or WHL beat writer. So I was on the sidelines and the opportunity came up. They actually approached me, ultimate franchise fantasy sports approached me just random through Twitter to ask

if I'd be interested in buying a franchise. And we got talking. And as I wrapped my head around, the concept of what they were doing in the ultimate fantasy hockey league. I realized, you know, as good and as I thought I had one of the best fantasy leagues going out there and then really prided myself on being a commissioner and a founder of my league. And I realized, wow, this is next level stuff. This is the real deal.

So I wanted to get involved potentially from a career standpoint. And so it was a cool story because, again, just randomly found me on Twitter. And of course, my Twitter says in Colona, all the founders are from Saskatchew. And they're all from or from the prairies. They're all small town, Western Canadian tech startup. So it was just a perfect fit. And so that was back in May of 2020. And we met for a couple months because at that time, I had never heard of the blockchain.

I didn't own any cryptocurrency. And that was very foreign and strange to me and that side of the platform. And it took me probably a month or so to wrap my head around why that's going to be the future. And you look what a year's done for cryptocurrency. In March of 2020, you could buy Bitcoin for $3,000. and it just went over $50,000 this month. So we all could have retired if we loaded up on Bitcoin last March. But certainly the fact that fantasy sports,

and we are the only or the first company to bring fantasy sports to the blockchain. So I think that first to market is huge. But just the potential for NFTs, non-fundable tokens, which means digital assets that you own and aren't duplicated. So there's only one Connor McDavid. There's only one Cindy Crosby on the entire platform. And that's where the real value comes. from the non-fundgible tokens now i did i did a little googling on this because i've been staring at

fungible i'm like fungible what the fuck pardon the french mom career is if you're listening this far into a hockey talk but fungible fungibility and i'll see if i can dumb it down so that i can understand and you correct me if i'm wrong fungibility the u.s dollar you can change one dollar for another $1, they're essentially the same. They work the same. That's fungible. Non-fundurable is a digital asset that can't be, imagine a Michael Jordan card and a Wayne Grexky, although cards are not the same. Something along that lines? Am I close? You nailed it. So you look at what a Mint Wayne Gretzky rookie card is selling for right now and how many Wayne Gretzky rookie cards are there in Boyd-Mindster in the world, right? I mean, they're mass produced. Here, the Wayne Gretzky did.

card, there's one and only one. And so you can imagine if that's how much, you know, a mint Wayne Gretzky card is how much is a one and only. And again, because it's on the blockchain, it's, it prevents any duplication. So it's, uh, the idea is pretty revolutionary. And that the whole platform is built on, on the NFTs. So, okay, this is where you're going to, you're, you're rattling off blockchain NFTs, crypto. Like, when you say blockchain, and this is how you're going, like you've got a fantasy hockey draft. It is going to mirror one to one.

So if the NHL has 32 teams here, very short, like you guys are going to have 32 teams. That idea makes sense to me. But as soon as you get into the nuts and bolts of crypto or blockchain, can you maybe expand on that just a smidge? I can maybe try and grasp, and I don't know if I'll be able to grasp, Larry. I'm trying here. Yeah, and you're kind of putting me on the spot because I'm a hockey guy first and foremost. And it's still all new to me too. I mean, I'm learning by the day on the crypto and the blockchain side, but we have people within UFF sports that came from that background.

How about this? What about it excites you then? Because you're a guy who just said you thought you were running the best fantasy sports league out there. And now you've been in this since May 2020. That's, what is that? Like eight months, nine months, something like that. My math, I'm free will in here. What's so exciting about it? One thing that really excited me from day one is scouting. I've never heard of it. And I don't think anybody else ever heard of scouting for a fantasy hockey league. And we have scouts. We have 35 scouts, including Craig Button, is a president of one of the scouting agencies that works with Dean Millard, actually. So the fact that there's a pipeline, a feeder system of talent. where scouts are finding these kids from their WHL Bantam draft year, registering them on the blockchain, developing them for that three-year window, getting them through our version of the NHL draft,

then they're owned by franchises. And again, the one-to-one thing is so cool because the NHL is the main league, but we're doing every league across the world in hockey. So, I mean, we have the AHL going already. We're going to go to the KHL. So basically any athlete who's playing competitively in the real world in any sport, That real world league is going to be on our platform, in our variant of it.

And that player will have value in that league. Any sport or just hockey? All sports. We're going to, so hockey, the reason we started with hockey is we're all hockey people, first and foremost. Again, Western Canadian people. We know hockey the best. So we started there.

But certainly we're going to do every sport we can. We have an announcement coming up on March 7th for our second sport. So we'll know that in a week here. and, but yeah, so we're going to, we're going to do all the major sports, but we've talked about doing CFL football. Obviously, something's never been done. You know, we'd love to do MMA, UFC type stuff. We'd love to do, we've talked even like rodeo curling, you know, everything.

We'd like to do every athlete in any sport. You'll have the, the farmers fired up. You get curling on there. They'll be all over that. Yeah, curling and rodeo. So, okay. You guys are, by the time this comes out, because I'm trying to think of when I'm releasing this, and I know it's not coming out Monday, and I, let's assume it comes out next week, but let's assume

it comes out after you guys have auctioned off your 30 second team. So right now for the listener, it's probably already happened, but the 32nd team you're currently auctioning off to buy into your league, essentially the Seattle Cracken, although you guys will name it, whatever the owner wants to name it, right? And just to keep the listener up. That auction that was going on this Monday, the team sold for $10,000 U.S. You heard that right. $10,000. Back to the program.

Yeah, you got it. You're right. It is essentially the Seattle Cracken, and we're going to mirror that expansion process exactly the same timeline, same rules, same everything that the NHL will do for the Seattle Cracken. So do you have... Now, I'm going to go specifically the oils. Do you have Daryl Cates?

And then he hires, I'm spacing on the Oilers GM right now. Well, that's, hold on. Thank you. Like, do you have that happening? We do. And I think at the start, the vast majority of the original owners, we're treating it like your regular fantasy hockey. I'm just going to come in and I'm going to run everything.

And I think the bar center was actually a group of guys from Newfoundland called the Rock Republic. They had a five-man ownership group. One guy was a capologist who just scoured the league because we have the salary cap, the ceiling and the floor. And so just scouring the league for the best contracts. One guy overseen trades. One guy did marketing and social media. One guy was sort of like a communications guy that sort of networked around league.

But they had five guys that pooled their resources, their money into be a part of it because it is high stakes. And it takes a pretty serious investment to be a part of the league. So they sort of set the bar with the five. man group and now I think out of 31 franchises there's only about there might not even be one left that has a one man operation. I think everybody's got at least a GM assistant GM. What's your team? I'm a I have no I'm completely hands off. I have no skin. You don't have a team. Yeah, I don't have a franchise and I don't, I'm not scouting either. So I'm just strictly in a director communications role and I like that. I help out. I'm

kind of the co-commissioner and I'm on the competition committee. But I, I'm unbiased. Now, fantasy sports is usually, depends what league you're on, about winning money. I assume there's money getting won on this. Yeah, so the prize pool, it's cool. The prize pool's a progressive prize pool.

Every transaction you make, every roster move you make has a cost attached. So it trades five bucks per franchise, 10 bucks total. If you register a new player as a scout, it's 20 bucks. So every roster move you make. has a monetary value and the prize pool accumulates throughout the years.

So we're over 49,000 probably by the time this airs, we should be flirting with $50,000. $50,000. USD for the prize pool. All 31 franchises get a piece of the pie. There's an escrow or revenue sharing type model. So obviously if you're in the top 16 to make the playoffs, you're going to have a higher payout. But yeah, you're looking at even if you're 16th, you're probably looking at about 750

American dollars for your payout on a $200 entry fee. So it's a pretty good return. Okay. So you guys have created a fantasy sports league where it mirrors the NHL one to one. You got the AHL, that's going to be one to one. You're going to carry on. Let's stick with the NHL just for my brain's satisfaction. Where does this go five years from now? And I know, you got the sky's the limit probably, but where do you think it's going? Like, does it become where each franchise, I think I read and quote me if I'm wrong on this, in the beginning, each franchise was worth 200 bucks. And now you're in the midst of auctioning off a team where it's up, they're paying to get in at like 2,500. So that's, that's a pretty good progression in a, in a

year's time. Where is, where is five years from now take you? Yeah, I think, and again, we don't even have a platform. Right now we're running the entire league from a spreadsheet, right? So, and people are investing that kind of money already. Our top franchise or one of our top franchises, Red Army has invested coming up on 40,000 American dollars for his roster and his protected list. So I mean, people are putting in a lot of money to build out, again, the value of these NFT's. 40 grand. Coming up on 40 grand, probably between now and the April 12th trade deadline, he'll surpass $40,000 invested on his franchise. Oh, that's a new type of fantasy, man.

Yeah, it's high stakes. And again, I mean, you can win a lot of money. But I think the long term, the big picture is the value of the NFTs. And where this project sort of came from was another blockchain game called Cryptokitties, which is actually developed by a company in Vancouver. But they're selling literally emoji cats that you have on your desktop on your computer. And they're going for, you know, upwards. I think now they're almost half a million dollars.

or yeah, they're at like $500,000 U.S. And there's actually an NBA Top Shots game where they're selling digital highlight clips from the NBA and they've done $200 million in sales since 2021. So they're soaring. Yeah, again, $200 million in 2021. And there's a wait list. Believe me, when I brought you on and when I talked earlier,

and I'm forgetting his name, who is the guy I talked to that you hooked me up with you? I'm spacing. Darren Bates. That's right. He threw me out like a couple of lines like these crypto kitties and I was like crypto kitties. All right. Well, I'll look into this. Right. Holy shit. Like who's paid $500,000 for a crypto kitty? And part of it honestly is the people who got into crypto early, right? I mean, if you got in on Bitcoin back when it was 20 bucks and now it's $50,000, you have a ton of wealth in crypto and you can't go fill gas with Bitcoin yet. So you're looking to attract some of that wealth then

from the cryptocurrency. Absolutely. Yeah, they got a lot of money and nothing they can do with it, really. So our platform appeals perfectly to them. And like you said, I think what the big picture, the five years from now is you got wealthy ownership groups backed by, you know, deep pocketed crypto investors who are hiring literally Craig Button to be your GM or, you know, guys that are out of the game that could potentially make a six figure salary to be a fantasy GM, right?

We expect that this will be a full-time job for a lot of people in that five. year window. They could be running a fantasy team could be your full-time job. Man, that's cool. To hear you put it that way makes a lot of sense to me now. Because you just look at while video games, right? Like how far e-sports has come is, honestly, is just as mind-numbing, right? Like, you remember as a kid, mom and dad used to yell at it. You get outside and play, stop letting that thing rot your brain. Well, now they can't really say that. Because if you're really good at it, well, I mean, you keep at it. You can win a million bucks or so forth and so on, right? Like, I got a buddy from college. My old roommate is now an agent of e-sports players.

Like, think about that. Like, that hurts my brain. Right. And when we were in high school, if somebody could have told you you could earn a living playing video games. Like I said, our parents would have laughed us out of the right outside to do a chores. So, I mean, it's crazy. And again, that's the progression. And just the fact that NFTs are, are all the rage right now and crypto blockchain is booming. It seems like we have the perfect project at the perfect time. Now, is there another, is there another UFHL out there?

I'm trying to think of the word and I can't think of the word. So is there another fantasy blockchain sporting platform? Am I even getting close here? Yeah, well, you're nailing it. But there's no competition in that specific field. as far as people that are doing the fantasy gameplay. There are people that are doing, like the NBA Topshots, essentially a digital trading card.

There's some that are doing that in soccer, some other lower, smaller scale, sports related blockchain projects of having that. Basically, an NFT just means a collectible that can't be duplicated, right? So there are people that are putting sports photography, whatever, on the blockchain and selling it as basically a digital trading card. But nobody's got that utility of you own the place, player, but you can also profit from year to year by using the player in fantasy leagues.

But again, like I said, the big picture why you invest $40,000 is that you want each individual player to eventually be worth that much down the road based on just that valuation growing. In the league, are you subject to, I'm going to assume it's going to be identical to the NHL. So you're their cap. So each player you own, although he's unique, you still own. own Connor McDavid at 13.5 million. Exactly. Yeah, all the contracts are exactly the same. Everything is the same as far as rules go,

salary cap, ceiling and floor. So you can't, if you're a seller, you can't get rid of all your good players. You've got to at least stay at the floor. Was there inaugural draft then that Connor McDavid went number one and number two is Sydney Crosby and so forth and so on? Yeah. So the way we do it when we launch a new league is we do franchise auctions.

And how we do that is we just take the, in this case, 31 NHL players from the previous season or the 31 players that we felt were the most valuable players with our scoring system. And we attached them to just one player to a franchise. And you bid on those franchises. So the Connor McDavid franchise actually sold for $450 was the highest seller last January. And I know he's turned down $10,000 cash for Connor McDavid. So that gives you an idea of what people would offer right now for, they would trade a decent player in $10,000 cash for Connor McDavid, and they've been told no.

So this is, this is not what I expected. I don't know what I expected. And that has been a lot for my brain to take in because I mean, listen, I've dabbled in fantasy sports. But I've never been to a point where I've been to, I've played in the fantasy sports leagues that are very in depth, right? Contracts, drafting, keepers, etc., etc. Money on any, you know, like the progressive pot. But 50,000 US, a guy spending 40,000 on top of everything else, man, sounds super cool. Like, I'm really interested to have you back on and let's say, I don't know, I could be wrong, but it's called it a year, six months, and see how it's progressed. Because I think it'll be really cool to watch. And who knows, maybe you'll be a billionaire and you'll be so bloody

famous, you'll be like, listen, Sean, I don't got time for you. You know, I'm, I'm a crypto giant or whatever. And I just, I'm flying to Belize and I won't be back for a while. Some of our founders are in Costa Rica right now. But yeah, definitely, I think I'll always have time for. Of course they are. I'll always have time for Lloyd Minster and the Sean Newman podcast. But one thing, like you said, what attracted me. I think it is the fact that it's the most realistic fantasy league. So not only are you mirroring the NHL with salary cups up, but roster sizes. It's 31 teams or 31 franchises, 23 man active roster, 27 man protected list.

So that's your 50 contracts that every NHL team has. So essentially every player in the NHL, whether you're a seventh defenseman, 14th forward, you're owned and you have value on this platform. Every player is literally the rosters are exact same size. your AHL team or your AHL franchise has 40 contracts. So 50 and 40 is 90, which is what the NHL has for the reserve list. So you own up to 90 players if you run your own

HL franchise. And then you have a scouting agency. And I think our most players owned by scouting agency is like 280 right now. But altogether, there's, I just did the math before the show started. As it's day, we had 3,016 hockey players owned on our platform. There's only 700 hockey players in the NHL.

So we have 3,016 hockey players owned that are, they're trying to get from the Lloydminster Bobcats to the NHL. And actually a guy you probably know really well, Curtis Johnson from Kudjo conditioning. And he's one of our franchise owners. And he also heads up a scouting agency as well. So there are some Lloyd Minster connections to the league. But yeah, there's a lot of people. And Curtis, obviously, his twin brother was Chad Johnson, the NHL goaltender. That's right.

There's a lot of Curtis Lazar's brother is one of our GMs. Al Murray, who's the head scout for the Tampa Bay Lightning, who found Braden Point and everybody else. His daughter-in-law, so El Murray being her father-in-law, was actually our inaugural playoff champion from this past season. She was the GM and her husband, who's Al's son, was the scout at the time. But Al basically helped her a lot in the playoff draft. He knew that Stephen Stamcoast was going to be hurt and not played much in the playoffs. He actually went two picks ahead of Brayden Point.

So she got Braden Point in the first round. And Al Murray told her, hey, watch out for this Miro Heiskin and kid. He's going to be a potential steal. She grabbed him in the second round. And he was a breakout player. And like said, you got Craig Button involved. So there's a lot of real world hockey people that see the value in this platform too. And again, just because it's so competitive and so realistic, they want to be a part of it.

And if you're out of hockey, it's a great way to potentially get back in. A lot of our scouts are real world scouts who are aspiring to be an NHL scout. Now you have your resume right there on the blockchain. I mean, I always go back to, you know, everybody wants to be the armchair GM. And this way, you're one of 31. You're one of 32. And if somebody wants your spot, they got to pay for it. That's, it's a cool idea.

With, if you own the NHL and the AHL teams, so now you own two teams, are you then the ability to move guys up and down like you would in the NHL? What happens if you don't own the HL team? you'd be affiliated just like the NHL, you'd be affiliated with an AHL franchise and they're all partnered up and linked and they do move players up and down at a cost. Obviously, if you don't own the NHL franchise and the NHL franchise wants your guy,

you're going to set a higher price than the minimum ELC. But if you own your own team, you're just going to announce to five bucks, but yeah, you're just going to bring a player up. But yeah, daily transactions between the two leagues, just like the NHL. You know, the longer you talk, the more I go, man, I might have to take a look at this,

this auction, get my head and just stir up the shit a little bit, so to speak. Yeah, and definitely I think I've recommended it to a lot of people, but putting together that ownership group, right, because if you're competing with somebody who's spending 50 grand and cash, you know, it's kind of not money talks, but money can certainly influence, you look at his roster. They're the New York Yankees, right? Yeah, he's George Steinbner, yeah. No kidding.

No kidding. Well, I don't know. Is there anything else you want to talk about? I've filled my head with so much money and I, or money, so much information. I don't even know what to ask anymore. And I hope people have followed a little bit along on what we've been talking about.

But I go like at this point, I'm like, I probably need to re-listen to this just so I can pick through and ask questions again. Because it's just an ultimate fantasy draft on steroids going into the future that when you bring up, uh, all this NFTs and, and blockchain and stuff, that's, that's where the world's headed.

And so I get what you guys are trying to do. I'm trying to wrap my head around it. Like I say, I'm probably going to have to listen to it one more time, three more times, who knows, maybe I'll have to have you back on six different times, just to try and fine tune it. But it's a super cool idea, and I really am interested to see where it goes for you guys here moving forward.

Yeah, I think we're super excited. Like I said, we think we have the perfect project at the perfect time with the perfect partners who haven't been announced yet, but we got a lot of people in the hockey world that are backing us and companies that are on board as partners that are going to, when that platform releases in a couple weeks in March, I think that'll be a big boom for us. And certainly we're doing our token sale May 1st

where you can essentially, again, this will kind of blow your mind, but the business model is a Dow, a decentralized autonomous organization. And so whoever owns the coin that's transacted, the digital currency, essentially owns that portion of the platform. So the more coin you own, the more you own up the platform. There is no actual business. So you can buy coins that will own the UFAHL? Am I getting that correct?

Did I hear that right? You can in May, yeah. Yeah. When you buy then one of the coins, does that go to the ownership group of the 32 teams or does that go into something completely different and I'm just in La La Land? They'll have their currency as well and they'll all buy up a share. of it, but there's a one billion coins. So there's a, there's going to be a big supply of coins. And a lot of people will buy them just to hold them like Bitcoin, uh, outside of the game just to have it as,

as a coin and hope that that value grows, right? If it goes from where, you know, if it comes out at, you know, under 10 cents, if it goes to $10, you know, you're, you're a millionaire just like any of the guys play in the game. So there'll be ways to, to have it just as an investment. But I, I think the interesting and you've nailed it is that, uh, it's kind of bringing two worlds together. because half or well, probably three quarters of our people that are part of the platform are hardcore fantasy hockey players, like you said. And then the other quarter have never seen a hockey game, but they're hardcore crypto investors.

They know everything about NFTs and they see the value growing on the investment side. So you get the kind of the best of both worlds. And those people have obviously accepted resumes and hired guys that have won their Yahoo league for 10 years running to be their GM, right? And to grow their investment value and they pay them a token salary or whatever the case or percentage of the prize and the winnings that they get. So there are a lot of people applying to be GMs, assistant GMs. You don't have to pour your own money into it.

You can spend the owner's money and they'll fund you and bankroll you and you get to prove that you're the best fantasy hockey player. Stop talking. You're making this sound cooler and cooler as we go along. No, that's cool, man. That's cool. I had no idea what the hell I was walking myself into. I still partially don't know what the hell I've walked myself into.

but I feel like in five years time, I'm going to be like, that UFHL, yeah, I had that guy on that one time and now look at them all. Like, this is rick and nuts. Like that's, that's super cool. Well, I appreciate you hopping on. Let's do the Crude Master Final Five, five, five questions. Long or short as you want to go, if you want to go down rabbit holes, by all means, let's rock and roll. The first one I always ask guys, and your guy who's been on the beat, you've written a ton, is if you've, if you've. could sit down with one person like we're doing here tonight, who would you take?

Oh, we actually ask that on our podcast too a lot of the times. And that's funny because Wayne Gretzky, I think. I mean, it's hard to, hard to not go with Wayne Gretzky. He's somebody that everybody looks up to. And I mean, that's kind of the big name. But certainly Wayne Gretzky is a guy that I'd love to pick his brain a little more. And one thing that interests me about that is the generation differences because so many people say he wouldn't be as good if he was playing in today's game as as Connor McDavid or whatever. And just, just talk about the era differences in hockey and how good some of the guys from the 80s would be if they were playing today.

And then what his opinion is on that. Yeah, fuck. I tried getting Grexie for episode 99. I tried really hard. Like I pulled out as many stops as I could and I still couldn't get them. So I hear you. That would be a cool one. And it's the great one, right?

Like we're talking about the great one. Who would have won? Actually, I have met him and I have got a five minute interview with him. I was covering the 2017 NHL All-Star game in Los Angeles, and the Oilers were in Anaheim the night of the week of the NHL All-Star game. And so I was covering and I had press passes and stuff. So we were scrumming with Drysidal and some of the guys in the room. And then Grenzky was in there.

And he was doing just that was Connor's first All-Star game because he had missed the year before. So yeah, we just asked him like, what, what is your advice for Connor? And it was, and actually it was funny because somebody else tried to pull him away that is more of a mainstream media person. And he was like, no, no, I'm going to finish this. So he was very gracious with his time. And it actually gave us a pretty exclusive story at the time. So he was a great guy to meet for sure.

What was the all-star game like? Like behind the scenes, down with the players, I'm sure it was a little more loosey-goosey than normally. Yeah, it was. And then, of course, being media, I got to go to all the VIP events and stuff. So the first night we went out in Hollywood and went to a nightclub. sitting at a table with McKinnon and Crosby and, yeah, just picking their brain about hockey stuff.

It was pretty, it was a cool experience. Actually, Dan from the fourth period set us up. He was one of the guys that brought us in there and got that all set up. So it was a great experience. Probably the highlight of my career covering hockey was covering the 2017 NHL also game. And actually, I was on that trip. So I went to San Jose with the Oilers, then to L.A. and then to Anaheim and then back to L.A.

So it was a two-week trip. and I was in LA for the all-star game. And yeah, it was a great show. And again, everybody, nobody does it bigger than LA. So it was a cool experience for sure. I think you already mentioned this. But who's a kid you're watching out for? I was going to say coming up in the draft,

but you've already mentioned a name from previous. So who's a kid that's maybe sitting in the H.L. That you think is going to pop up and do some big things in the big league? Oh, there's so many. And one thing about the AHL this season that's blown a lot of people away. And again, the CHL agreement doesn't allow it. But all these underage kids that are freshly drafted playing in the HL. And the HL is bit watered down this year because all the top guys are up on the taxi squad in the NHL.

So it's not necessarily the best of the best that would normally be in the HL. But cool to see a kid like Seth Jarvis, who is among the HL scoring leaders as a first round pick. But a guy who's only just turned 18 years old. So as far as guys that are potential sleepers, I'm trying to think of somebody maybe in the oiler system that we could hit on. But man, there's, you know, there's so many guys that have come through the WHL

that I have high hopes for. A kid that I like that I personally got to know really well is Matthew Phillips. He's a flame, though. He's a Calgary kid, a undersized guy who played in Victoria. And when I say undersized, he's probably put on 20 pounds since he played in the WHL,

but he was a tiny guy. And obviously I knew Dylan Dupey really well, but they battled it out in that Victoria Colonna rivalry and had some great playoff series. But Matthew Phillips is just a great kid off the ice. So I'd love to see him get to pull on a Flames jersey and debut for his hometown team. So I have a lot of time for Matthew Phillips. And as tiny as he is, you know, he's smaller than Johnny Goddrow. But I think he's got the skill to survive in today's game.

And I think if he gets a shot, he'll start putting up some points. Favorite oiler of all time, minus Grexky. Yeah, I'll probably go goaltenders, probably Bill Rand. Stanford was, or Curtis Joseph was probably the one that when I was, you know, in my teenage years, Kudrow was there before the Tommy Sallow era. But Kudrow was one, you know, again, being about four hours from Edmonton, I got to go to a lot of games. You know, our team wind up parties in Peewey and Bantam were always going to Euler games. I was there for some of those Dallas, Colorado, overtime epics at the old Coliseum. So seeing Kudrow make some of those saves like that

glove save on Joe Noondike in the playoffs and stuff. I think Kudrow was one. guy. I had a kudra helmet and I had the Louisville TPS goal set up. So I definitely was a huge kudra guy. So yeah, I'll go Curtis Joseph. He's probably my favorite oiler of all time. Well, you got Curtis Joseph who probably made what, the most iconic save in oiler history, I would argue. And then you mentioned Bill Radford. I mean, was there a bigger beauty than Bill Rafford, I'm not so sure. I never mastered the pad stack, but he definitely, oh man. Pads with the best of them. Pie in the sky, five years from now, three years from now, a year from now, 10 years from now, if the UFHL is light years up, and you get to have your position,

are you going to be communications or are you going to be, I don't know, executive whatever? what would what would you want yeah i think i would be in in some type of an executive role hopefully i mean right now i'm actually the you know one of the the the only employees outside of the 10 founders who started the the business or as we say a Dow model but yeah certainly i want to have a big role and then you know when i got into it some people are like oh well you know now the athletics hiring you should you should go there like they have a staff writer or you know potentially an oilers writer position and those were jobs you know i always looked at the athletic and that was sort of when it launched getting out of newspapers because I knew newspapers were dying,

but the athletic was sort of the dream job. And now I haven't even applied for, you know, the Oilers job or the staff writer job in Edmonton just because I'm really happy doing what I'm doing. And like you said, I think this is the way everything is going. And you're looking how much daily fantasy blew up for draft kings and what kind of revenue draft kings makes. I think, again, I think the scarcity, the fact that there is only those 32 franchises and there's only one of each player, it's easy to see.

how that value is going to ramp up as more and more money comes into the platform. And I think, yeah, I think there's going to be more than enough money to go around for me to be really successful and for the platform to be a mainstream thing. Like I said, a year from now, hopefully we're right in there with Draft Kings and everybody else has a mainstream fantasy sports. Final one. If you could have one NHL executive endorse what you guys are doing, like either, and I mean endorse like either come and be a part of it or.

come and give you, lend you some help or hire onto the squad. What guy would you want? Yeah, well, it's great having Craig Button as an ambassador already, a guy with Stanley Cup, ring, been a former NHLGM. It's great having Craig in the fold. Craig obviously comes from the scouting background as well with TSN. He's their head scouts.

So Craig's been great for us. It gives us that name recognition, same with Al Murray when he is involved. But I look at the NHL and it is very much an old boys club, but I look at some of the young guys breaking in, a guy like Kyle Dubbus and some of the, these younger guys that might be a bit more tech savvy. I think they will see what we're doing sooner than later.

And I think they'll want to get involved as well as I think a lot of the players, because you look at that NBA Topshots project, there's a lot of NBA players that own a lot of cryptocurrency that put a lot of their salary into crypto and have had a lot of success with Bitcoin booming this year. And I think I'm guessing the NHL players as well. So I think they're going to take notice. And obviously they can't play it and own themselves and stuff. But I think they're going to start endorsing it.

And I think those partnerships will grow. And that's what will thrust us to be. be a hopefully a big mainstream hit. Hey man. Well, I think this is super cool. I'm glad I had you on. I don't know how this came about, but I'm super happy that I had you on. You've hurt my brain a little bit. I think I'm starting to slowly get what you guys are throwing down. I wish you nothing but the best of luck. And hopefully here in six months a year, whatever it is when we have you back on, you're laughing. and you guys have sold a billion crypto tokens, whatever we're calling them. And I'll be on the lookout.

I'll be following along because I think this is pretty cool. And thanks for hopping on with me. Yeah, that was great. Sean, appreciate the time having me on. And it'll be called the score coins. Hopefully we'll be hearing lots about scorecoin in the months to come. But certainly great coming on, great talking hockey and going down memory lane. Awesome.

Thanks, Larry. Thanks for having me. Hey folks, thanks for joining us today. If you just stumbled on the show, please click subscribe. Then scroll to the bottom and rate and leave a review. I promise it helps. Remember, every Monday and Wednesday, we will have a new guest sitting down to share their story.

The Sean Newman podcast is available for free on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever else you get your podcast fix. Until next time. Hey, Keeners. I wonder if your brains hurt a little bit after listening to that. that was a lot of fun. I appreciate new and crazy ideas. And I want to get your guys' feedback.

So if you're enjoying it, if there's something you want to learn about or some guests you think would be fantastic for the show, let me know. I'm always open to ideas and I'm always welcoming, thinking outside the box, all right?

So it is Friday. Champers halfway to the lake, probably. For the rest of you, you probably get on the road too. and enjoy the weekend. We'll catch you Monday, all right.