Shaun Newman Podcast - Ep. #165 - Brent Saik & Sam Sayeed

Episode Date: April 12, 2021

2 part episode - In part one I sit down with Brent Saik who has help facilitate in 9 different events raising money for cancer research. He has put together 2 worlds longest baseball games & now 7 worlds longest hockey games.   Part two which starts at the 32:00 min mark is Sam Sayeed a local from Lloydminster who was played in his first worlds longest hockey game.  Both share some stories from the game which lasted over 10 days and saw some of the coldest temperatures on the planet.    Let me know what you think Text me 587-217-8500

Hi, this is Braden 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 Quay-Dick, quick-dick coming to you from Tuffman, 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. Happy Monday, folks. Welcome to the podcast. Hope you had a great weekend. I know some of the golf courses are opening up, so people are out getting their first taste to swing in the clubs for the

year. The oilers got earmuffs kids. They got ship pumped by the flames, which hurts me. Like, it was bad. We're going to forget about that one and carry on. But happy Monday. We're forgetting about some of the things on the weekend. Hopefully you got to do some great things on the weekend. And let's get the week started right. We got a great one coming up today, a double shot, the guy who started the world's longest hockey game, and then one of the locals who played in it. So before we get there, let's get to today's episode sponsors.

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Originally from Innisfrey, Alberta, an optometrist who owns and operates Alberta Sports Vision Institute. He has facilitated and played in nine games focused on raising money for cancer research, two of which were the world's longest baseball games and seven of which were the world's longest hockey games. Together they have amassed over $5.4 million. This year's addition, the 2021 World's longest hockey game went over 252 hours, that's 10 and a half days of hockey and raised close to $2 million. I'm talking about Brent Sake. So buckle up because here we go.

This is Brent Sake. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast today. I'm joined by Brent Sake. So first off, thanks for hopping on, Bigfella. Oh, thank you very much for having me. This is a new one. I mean, first you catch me eating supper and you're driving to ball practice.

Now you're sitting at ball practice. We're making it work. 100%. It's springtime. And the fact that we're able to play a little bit is fantastic. Absolutely. Yeah, it's been a long old winter, hasn't it? Yeah, yeah.

Now, I've been, like, obviously we had a couple of boys from Lloyd come playing the longest, world's longest hockey game. I was just, I guess I've been fascinated, I've listened to a couple of your interviews, kind of just fascinated by the whole thing to put your body through, like, everybody loves hockey, but like, that's extreme. So I was hoping, I don't know, I could get a little bit of the background of where this started. I think the first hockey game you had was in 2003, but maybe you could kind of give us maybe a little bit of the backstory,

so people can just kind of understand where this evolved from. Well, it was a, I never played hockey before, so I asked my wife if I could get goalie gear and build a rink. And that was kind of the thing. I think it was 32 years old or something at the time. And as we were playing, one winter they had the, longest game in red deer on the pond there or on the red deer river actually and i was playing with my buddies we played probably 12 hours or something and uh the record was 24 so we figured this would

be easy and uh so he just kind of i'd always done some fundraising for my for my dad on uh he passed away from cancer and and i felt this probably a good good little fundraiser not expecting where it would go but from there we played that next year we played that next year we played the game and then my wife passed away just a few months after that first game. And here we are. It just seems to keep evolving and raising more money and and then on and on. It keeps getting colder and colder. It seems like it's, yeah. I'm getting older. Did I hear you don't play hockey? No, I never. I play once every three years. That's it. That's it. That's it. My skates will stay hanging up until, what is it,

three years from now. My son plays hockey, so I put it on a little bit, but my wife generally skates with them in our, because the rinks of our house, but I just kind of hang out and get the rink ready and I don't play hockey. I'm a ball player. So I know you've done some world's longest ball games as well. Why wouldn't you have started with ball instead of hockey? I feel like that flies in the face, like for 24 hours, okay, whatever, but you guys are at like 10 and a half days of hockey now. Like, your body has to hate you by the end of that. Yeah. Ultimately, knowing that hockey is kind of more what the community wraps its face around.

And yeah, if I thought I could raise more money playing ball, I'd quit playing hockey. I'm not going to lie to you. Do you ever think of like, I don't know, slapping the skates on six months before and doing a bit of training, just to like kind of like that'd be a good idea i got to think start i'm getting i'm 52 now and i'm getting i'm not getting younger and i felt that this last game i mean i i i train in my own way i'm i'm a hobby farmer and i got an acreage so i try to keep myself somewhat fit which is somewhat of a lie too but ultimately uh uh uh here we all are for me it's a matter of uh i don't know i just I don't like playing hockey.

Like I literally do not like playing that game. I love raising money, so I'll keep doing it. And I've always said hockey is an activity, baseball is a sport. And I'd sooner play ball. That's how it works. That's pretty crazy. You know, for a guy who doesn't like a sport but embraces it because he realizes the community will rally behind it, what are you up to now?

Like five point, I think at the last total, written down was like 5.47 million you've raised. How many, how many games now have you done? Seven hockey games, two ball games. Yeah. So you've done seven games that you absolutely do not train for. You do not like and yet you still go out and do it. Like that's, that's, that's freaking impressive, man. Yeah. There's things in the world. You never figure you'd be doing. This is, this is one of them. That's, that's definitely the case. But ultimately it's, it's a, It's a wild process that I've been through just in watching people help me and embrace it. And the actual, you know, the playing of hockey, I love doing it with these guys and my wife now out there.

Like, I enjoy that. I enjoy the process of the world's longest games. That's the most fun I have doing anything. And whether it's ball or hockey, it's. It's a life-changing thing every time you do it. Every new player will say that. Sure, the new Lloyd guys, if you've had them on or chatted with them, they'll tell you that they're different people after they played.

It makes you a different person just be around something like that. And that's exactly it. I mean, to play a game that I really don't enjoy for that long, but be around people that embrace and really, really want to try to make a difference and what we're trying to do, then it's well worth it. for sure. You're going to have me smiling all night. I knew you didn't play a whole lot of hockey,

but the fact you don't like, you're like, it just seems backwards to me. It'd be like, it'd be like me trying to do an ultramarathon or something. Hey, let's raise some money. We're going to make you run for like 40 hours straight. We're going to do what now? Like, I don't run for 40 hours straight, right?

Like, you're talking about hockey. Like, at the end of this game, after 10 straight days, 10 and a half straight days, I saw the pile of broken pucks, which I can just imagine those nights how cold they were. Yeah. If you took a sign up sheet around the dressing room, how many guys would be like, yeah, I'll be back? All of them. All of them on that night?

Yeah. When you finish? 100%. Yeah. Everybody, I've talked to everyone. And barring, unforeseen conditions, they're all signed up for the next game already. No kidding. Yeah.

And it's that that sort of makes you go, yeah, this is. you got to, there's got to be something odd about you to get involved in something like this. And I mean, there's, there's a crazy, crazy amount of passion to do it. And you meet new friends. It's a lot of my friends that I have in my world are from either the longest ball or longest hockey game. And I love that. I love it. We're a kindred spirit.

Yeah, I can imagine the dressing room is an interesting place after you've been into like day six. Yeah. Is there, in all these games you've played, there must be like that hump day where it's like you got to battle through or is it a night or are they all the nights? Yeah, it's about day three. The first few days are really, really tough. Just kind of get in your body in order as far as sleeping short amounts of time, just napping basically. And then after sort of day three into day four, it's kind of weird.

your body just sort of does it. It knows it only gets a nap here and there, and then it goes, does a thing, then you eat and you just, you do the same thing over and over again. And it's just a routine. And it's not as hard actually after day three.

The rest is just kind of cruising. Because then you get about day eight or nine. And you only got a couple days left. So it's a piece cake at that point. Yeah. I love it. I think it's awesome. I,

I always wonder, you know, we were supposed to do this, well, I don't know, what was it, Brent? Like maybe two weeks ago we were supposed to sit down. And two weeks, I'm always curious how the world works and it works in mysterious ways, I would say. Because within the two weeks,

we're going to do something a little crazy here in town too. We're going to do a little bit of a relay race over a thousand K with a group of us to raise some money for, I heard about that. For the schools in town. So, like, I mean, it's just funny how I would have never, thought of bringing that up but it's things like um what you guys do it inspires people to all right well we can do something here too right let's let's get going and and and try and uh raise some money raise

some awareness provide some laughs a little positivity for the community yeah and it's good i think i've had a lot of people that have asked me questions on how to do a softball game a soccer game football game and and that kind of stuff and so i always try to help out where i can and give suggestions and whatnot because everybody's doing it to try and raise money for their own projects or ideals and whatnot. So it's pretty cool to see that that it kind of outreaches just past our game

into other events and whatnot that that I've been asked to do, like I've been asked to do a running once I'm not doing that. That's, I don't think I can survive that. Actually, that skating I can float around. Yeah, so. Hang at the blue line. Yeah, yeah.

No, that's my wife's job. I gave her a hard time about that last game. She was milking it. How do you, like, I assume, and maybe I'm wrong. What's your roster like? Do you got 20 on each side? Yeah, two teams of 20. And so you'll kind of play about 12 hours of hockey in a 24-hour period.

and yeah it's sort of four hours maybe four or five hours shifts and then maybe a four hour break or so and you just kind of keep rotating through like that so how do uh how do you select who come i assume people are wanting to get involved in this and maybe i'm wrong on that i'm i'm a special there's a huge huge list and it's uh um it's basically friends of mine and if it's not a friend of mine. It's a friend of my friends kind of thing. Just have to, because you have to know the person that's getting involved to make sure they're not going to leave you hanging or quit on you halfway through simply just because it hurts or whatever. So it's all people that I know are very close friends of my close friends.

So that's a pretty tight group. It's hard to get in, truthfully. But now, then once you're in, it's hard to leave. That's how it works. Well, how often are you doing it? How many years apart are each game? Every 18 months we'll put something on. So next August we'll play ball, and then 18 months later again,

we'll play hockey and just keep flopping back and forth. How many times does the record get broke in between here and the following hockey game? We broke our last record. So we broke our own record last time. I think there's a group in November that are talking about doing it in Buffalo to break our record. And then we'll probably break theirs. And I talked to that group.

And it's just by seconds. They're raising money for cancer as well down there. They've broken our record before. And basically, they beat us by seconds. And then we'll beat them by seconds. And meet at 11 days. You kind of proved your point to rate. Don't have to go.

go much longer. Yeah. I'd been told, well, no, I hadn't been told. I guess I've been informed the money this year was going for PCLX001. Is that right? What's so special about that? Or what can you tell us about that, I guess? Yeah, when we played the ball game, they needed 500 grand to make a pill or manufacture

this pill. And ultimately, since 1985, this is the first time anything. like this has ever happened. There's 17 different types of cancer drugs, and because this is so new, they actually made their own class of cancer drug. And that's odd and rare. To get to that point,

it's sort of one in 10,000 chance, and they're at one in three that it actually cures cancer. It's not, and the difference to note is every other cancer drug is called a cancer treatment. this is the first drug in the world that they're actually considering a cancer cure. And they needed $1.5 million to do the human trials in Evanston. So it's actually not in Evanton.

It's across Canada that they're doing it. But part of it is in Edmonton. And the head researchers are from Edmonton. So the ball game got it going and then the hockey game sort of finished it. And the trials start within weeks, I guess. the patients are lined up and we're going to find out shortly if this thing actually cures cancer, lung cancer, breast cancer, lymphomas, leukemia, I understand as well. So it's a pretty wild, wild thing to go through.

It's important to raise money and do things, but every time we've played a game, we've seen a pretty powerful impact, whether through equipment that we bought or a project like this and that we've sort of tied ourselves to and and here we are that within six months we'll revisit and see if we're right it is research and it's the closest thing that anybody in the world's been close to like this and pretty pretty wild that it's happening here well i mean cure for cancer that'd be something wasn't it yeah yeah i hope it's not like that movie the last man and everybody turned into a zombie when they cured cancer that time.

What movie was that? So I hope that doesn't happen. Outside of that, we got good hopes. What was that? Was that? No, it wasn't World War Z. Wasn't? No.

Well, maybe it was. I can't remember. I can't remember. I know what movie you're talking about. That's hopefully that's not what happens. Because I was bugging the researchers about that. And they said, no, I'm pretty sure. Pretty sure this won't turn people into zombies.

I said, okay, then let's go get a cure here. I'd been, well, regardless, like, good on you guys. Like, that's, like, super cool for somebody like yourself to take the initiative to not only just put on like an event, but like put on something that goes above me on. And then on top of it in the COVID world this year, right? Like I can only imagine the hoops you had to jump through to pull that thing off. Yeah, it was tough. We had to do our quarantine.

I asked a lot more of the players just by staying at home. They couldn't go to work for a week before the game and getting tested. We had a great help through groups just donating things like the testing and whatnot. So, yeah, Dina Life, if they didn't give us, I don't know, it was maybe $150,000 worth of testing. For free, we wouldn't have been able to do it. So it's that kind of stuff that I'm pretty proud of that people just donated. The food had to be there weeks before in freezers, so we couldn't take food from restaurants. And once that cage was up, it was kind of weird.

Nobody from the inside that cage left and nobody from outside came in. And no food, no supplies, nothing. Nothing came in once we started our quarantine. They called me the warden. It was like a jail. What do you mean? You put up a cage around the, the, the, the, the, yeah, we literally had a fence around where, like, the road areas were.

The rink fence was part of it. And then the road area was another part of it. So it was, there's literally a six foot eye fence around properties that nobody could get into. That's how we played. So that nobody would break the bubble. Wow. That, I mean, any other year, how many volunteers do you got help and pull this

thing off. About 800. Usually it's 800 volunteers. This time we had 10 extra people that stayed in like the Zamboni crew and cooking and cleaning and all that. So we kind of did it with 10 this time, which was a huge. Players were out

to be a lot more self-sufficient. We had no medical staff or anything that way this time which luckily nobody got really hurt, but that was a tricky part. So from 800 people to 10 people. Yeah. Yeah. That's worked out.

Ten hard workers. I tell you what, that's that's damn impressive if I can say so myself to go from 800 support staff down to 10 and have 10 people buy in along with all the players and along with everything. And then to raise, well, I mean, what does this compare like to any other year,

Brent? We usually, money wise, we raised, and there's still some coming in. So I think we'll actually hit $2 million dollars pretty quick here. And usually we raise about 1.3. I think our highest was 1.4.

So we got an extra $400,000 in the bank this year, which was crazy. I think the weather helped us because it was so cold. It made it while we got sympathied, right? And I'm okay with that. I'll play in minus 50 again.

If it raises an extra half a million, we know we can do it now, and that's okay. It's well worth it. What did minus 50 feel like? Oh, I don't know. It was our coldest, Our coldest actually with wind show was minus 67. It hit the wind.

Yeah. Yeah. So that was dangerous. It was pretty short shifts. That's for sure. You'd go out and you could just, you'd feel the cold and you got a lot less sleep because you had to have more people on the bench just rotating and whatnot. You couldn't skate out there for half an hour.

It's impossible. So you'd skate for two or three minutes, come in and warm up and just kind of rotate that way. Now, I saw a picture of a pile of broken pucks. I assume that happened in minus 67 then. Pucks and sticks. You take just a pass. And I don't shoot hard, obviously, but I passed the puck over to my wife. And it was a bad pass and it hit the side of the boards,

nice and soft and just cracked in half. It was nothing. And I stick another time I took a wrist shot and it just bent in half. Just the material wouldn't hold up. It's pretty crazy. The skates, I don't skate blades, plastic boots around. They're just cracking left, right, and center. So what do you do?

Do you have like a thousand sticks and a bunch of skates and everything you can imagine in stock? Yeah, everybody had, they were prepared for stuff. And some skate blades were taped up and instead of actually repaired and we just kind of made it work. Yeah, we had lots, lots of, well, we were worried about bucks for a while, but we had lots there initially. find a way eh yeah exactly exactly you mentioned your wife gets to play with you uh that must be like a kind of a cool little like thing to do together i mean that's pushing each other to the extreme but to see like your partner doing it long with you must be i assume a really cool uh adventure to go go down with together yeah absolutely when uh i got remarried 10 years after my first wife passed away cancer and

she embraced the process and she plays for family members of hers that have cancer issues currently and things. And, you know, she's, she's all in. She, she bought in. We built kind of a building instead of a house for the, for the, for the game. We could have built a house. We said, no, we'll build this rink house building thing instead. And that's sort of how it plays out at our place. We have a, we have a rink.

So. That's like yeah that's super cool. If the world ever goes back to half normalcy, I'm going to have to come take a tour of this place because I've seen some pictures, but that's that's really cool. Like good on you. Yeah, I appreciate it. No, I don't want to hold you all night. I know you got ball practice sitting behind you. So let's, I want to ask you five quick questions and then I'll let you get out of here.

And I just appreciate you making some time in your your busy day. Well, here's the crude master. final five, five quick questions. Shout out to Heath and Tracy McDonald. If you could sit across from one person like I do, Brent, who would you take? Who would you want to sit down and pick their brain? Who would I want to interview? Yeah.

Babe Ruth. Ooh. Yeah, right. You're a baseball guy. And I like drinking beer. Well, who doesn't like drinking beer? What was the first beer you had after the game? for Pilsner Pilsner bottles. Pilsner bottles? Yeah.

Ooh, a man of my own heart. I'm a farmer from Innesfree, man. From Innespray? Yeah, that's where my parents grew up there and I still a hobby farm out there. Really? Yeah. Yeah. They got a beautiful set of ball diamonds right across the road from industry. Yeah, like there. I'm going to try and have a red eye tournament there this year thinking about it. If we can, if things relax, that's the plan. Well, you have my number because I, in his free is a nice little spot, nice little camping ground there too. Anyways, that's, I did not know that, that air, learning something. If you could have one guy participates, you could pick any guy to come play in the game. Who would you take?

My dad. That's fair. That's, I've seen you do many, many interview. That's what this is all for. I mean, obviously, I think I just caught that your, your first wife passed away from cancer, too. So you've had some pretty rough times then with the cancer side of things. Yep, yep. Got me crying.

Nice job. I didn't mean to. I just, if people have never heard your story, Brent, like I think it's good that they do here because what you're doing is like super, I don't know, I use the word cool, but it's just,

it's like not many people push that hard, so to speak. I appreciate it. Yeah. What's the worst hour to plan? the first, the first, because you've got to sit there and you've got to do the national anthem, and it's always bloody cold, and that's when we get the most frostbite. The first hour is horrible because you just got to stand around and you're waiting and waiting.

So, yeah, I don't like that one. What's the most random stat you have from the game? Most random stat, number of goalie sticks tossed over the edge by John Sorenson. And we'd be playing three in the morning, and he'd get pissed off because he got scored on after day six. I just like, Jesus, John, settled down. So he'd throw a goalie stick over the rank. And I tell kids they could keep it, and he'd get mad at me.

So kids would be out there. Like, there's no kids this game, but kids would be out there. And I'd say, yeah, I just keep the stick. He doesn't want it. So they'd take off of the stick, and then he'd get mad at me. Isn't the, like, wasn't the score this year, like 2,600 to sell, like 2,500? Geez, I don't even know. I can't remember.

I honestly can't remember. I'm not sure what it was. How many sticks is it? How upset is this guy getting? That's, that's, yeah. We all, in rec hockey, we all know that goalie who can and does not like being scored on. Yeah. You could create one new longest game.

Tomorrow you get approached. They say, Brent, we want you to create a new. longest game, but it can't be hockey and it definitely can't be ball. What sport would you take? Curling. Oh, yeah. I'd do it at the Innisfrey Hall. It's free curling arena.

That's a good one. That's really good like curling growing up. Yeah, curling. It's tough too. It's five people for some like four days. I looked up, I looked it up, and I don't know how they did it, tell you the truth, because the amount of sleep and whatnot, but that might happen.

Look for that. I've been talking about it, and it'll be played in industry, so. That's cool. Well, hey, go enjoy your kids' ball practice. I appreciate you hopping on and all the best. Thank you very much for having me. Thank you.

Man, is that a super cool guy or what? Like, doesn't, not a hockey player, doesn't play hockey, creates the world's longest hockey game, plays in it, gets his wife to play in it. Like, holy down. Like, that should fire you up and make you, you know, like, it don't matter if you're, if you're Wayne Grexky. You know, Brent's sake is, is every year, it seems, doing something amazing for his community and for, you know, for him specifically cancer research.

But that isn't where this episode ends. We got our little twist on it here, a double shot. I don't do these very often, but we had a couple local guys and I grabbed one of them that played in the game. So let's get on into the T-Barr-1 tale of the tape. Originally from Lloyd Minster, he's known for his down-low presence and his chirp game during the noon hour skates. He is the sales and sponsorship coordinator for the city of Lloyd Minster, a cancer survivor who competed in his first world's longest hockey game. I'm talking about Sam Saeed.

So buckle up because here we go. This is Sam Saeed, and you're listening to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast today. I'm joined by Mr. Sam Saeed. So first off, thanks for hopping in, Big Shooter. Thank you, Sean, for having me. You know, I was, let's take it a really long time to pull this together. Because, I mean, the game was finished on the 15th of February.

Correct. And when you're sitting, by the time this thing gets released, it'll almost be two months since it actually happened. So the war wounds have all healed up and all that good stuff. And I got Brent's sake on the start of this episode, so you're the second part of it. So I got to hear, you know, about how the game was created, how all the, that all came to be. But, you know, it was your first time. I just kind of, I'm curious,

what made you want to do something? You know, like this isn't go play for 24 hours. Like this, this is a hefty time commitment on top of the COVID and everything else. So like, what, where do you want to start? You want to start with how you got involved with this thing? Yeah, well, I've followed the game since about 2015 is when I first kind of lucked eyes on it and followed it and uh and then i saw they did in 2018 again i was a little late

for that one but i did email um just to reach out to say you know how can i be involved how can i help obviously i wanted to play but i was i was willing to be a part of it somehow uh and then that's when they informed me that it was every three years so fast forward three years later um i saw that they were doing it again and literally just forwarded that same email off and you know there's some some things that happened before that obviously uh one thing i was give you guys credit for for your radiothon when I when I saw what you guys did there and when I saw Mikey after his run just kind of how happy and emotionally was it you know it inspired me for sure now I wasn't thinking anything as physical as what he did because that's unbelievable but

I knew I wanted to do something and so yeah my I guess my personal story is you know I was fortunate enough to beat cancer once so far and this just seemed like a really unique opportunity to try and help others have that same fate and that same good fortune. So, you know, that's, and also, I guess, charity's always been a part of me. I think you can gather that from talking to my folks. I just think it's kind of in me to want to help out. And this came up. And, you know, 2020, we had a rough year in terms of cancer in 2020.

Lost my first cousin to brain cancer early 2020. And our dear friend, Prem, Agarwal, got diagnosed late 2020. and he passed away just a couple weeks before the game. So honestly felt like I was meant to play in this game this year. So it kind of came together like that. And I just jumped in first two feet and away we go. Well, for the listeners, oh, Sam, we go back. We didn't go, like, I was older than you in school and everything.

But we've kind of been in the same circle. You know, I joke around about noon hour hockey. Which I'm missing dearly, by the way. Well, and the thing is, when I heard you're playing in this, I was like, Sam, he's playing in the world. long as hockey. What is he going to do elbow about eight guys in the chops, right? And be just beacon the entire time.

Like, this should be entertaining. I didn't realize you'd had cancer. Like, when and where did that happen? I was diagnosed. I think, you know what? I was so young at the time, kind of going through the motions. I was diagnosed in 2005. And then I think it came from, like, I had a few boats of tonsillitis, and they had

decided to do an ultrasound. And, yeah, I found that I had thyroid cancer. So I was, I was 2005. I had my first surgery. got my thyroid, half of my thyroid removed in 2005. I feel like a complete, another moron. Thyroid, can you just, what, give me, what are we talking about? Well, you know what?

I wish I knew more about it. Like I said, I was so young and I was just going through the motions, but it's in my neck. Okay. It's in your neck. And it controls, I think, like, lots of your hormones and stuff like that. It's, yeah, I don't exactly know. I probably should know more, but. No, no, no, it's all good.

I just, I go thyroid. I'm like, shoo me. Yeah, lots of people have, like, take thyroid supplements and stuff. stuff it kind of messes with your levels and your hormones and you know you weight loss weight gain that kind of thing just depends on what side you fall on but I was losing weight a lot I think they had like so that's that's kind of why they looked into it and yeah they found it so I had half removed in 2005 the second half removed in 2007 and I think on one of them they ended up finding a bunch of lymph nodes that they didn't like either so I think they removed a whole pile of lymph

nodes as well and one of them and then yeah just then just then just bowed with a few radiation treatments and yeah I was cleared uh in 2015 so about 10 years I battled it yeah so for 10 like how old are you in 2005 like I was 17 yeah so I was 19 yeah in summer in that ballpark yeah yeah it was like uh I think it was the end of grade 11 is is when I had the surgery shit man I didn't know that when you first told me that you're going to plan it that you'd battle cancer yeah yeah yeah I always say I live under a rock. I'm like, where do I live?

Like, do I not pay attention to things? So I don't talk about it a whole bunch. I always kept it pretty close to my chest for different reasons. But like I said, it's just one of those things. Yeah, I just didn't really, it's not your fault that you didn't know. There's probably quite a few people that don't know, but it's not something I really talked about. And I felt like part of me wanting to get involved with this game was, you know, initially back in 2018 was to have the conversations and was to be more open about it and more proud about what I went through.

So certainly that that was accomplished by playing in this game and getting in that room with with a bunch of guys that are, you know, have been affected one way or another. Well, I got to give you my little short story on when you were going to play. I was sitting at lunch with Tyler Foster and James Rogers. And I was sitting there and I was going, like, I'm pretty sure Sammy didn't train at all for this. I'm like, like, he is nuts. Like, I can't imagine as a hockey guy being on my skates, going through that and not training. And got to give credit to Tyler Foster.

He looks at me and goes, this coming from the guy who biked across a country with no training biking. And I'm like, huh, well, I'll be damned. Slap me in the face. Yeah. Yeah. Do you wish, I guess, A, so as soon as Foster told me that little, like, hey, you're an idiot. You've done this before. And I'm like, oh, yeah, right.

Okay. Fair, fair. I'm a jackass. Do you wish you'd put in a little extra and just been like, like this would have maybe gone a little easier? For sure, for sure. I didn't find out I was playing until like a couple days before Christmas, right? But the Christmas season was good to me. Christmas season is the Christmas season.

In terms of beverages and food, right? But I started probably January 4th, essentially when I went back to work. I'd go up to the gym three, four times a week. I'd ride the bike pretty hard, lift some weights. I felt pretty good going into it. Would I have liked another month to train? Probably. Probably. Probably would have helped.

But, you know, in all honesty, I don't know if any amount of training could prepare you. Can't prepare you for what you're going to do. Regardless of the weather, obviously when the cold came, I mean, nothing can prepare you for that kind of temperature. But, yeah, I just, to put it in perspective, we had a guy and I wish I got to talk to him a little bit more. His name was Troy Shob. And I didn't hear this story firsthand because we didn't get to talk to each other a whole bunch. but I had heard that he had participated in something the Al-Qamatta, Al-A-Qamma race. It's in Chile anyways.

Okay. And I think it's like something like seven marathons in seven days or eight marathons in eight days or something like that. And he said that this game was significantly harder than that. And he's running in the desert, like on sand. Like I did a little bit of research on that race, but just to, yeah, he said this was significantly harder. So to my point, I just don't know if any amount of training can really prepare you. Well, and listeners are just going to have heard, right? Yeah.

Brent Sayek says, I put the skates on once every, what is it, 30, six months or whatever, the games happen, whatever it is. And I'm like, what? Yeah. Like, there's a few others like that as well. I only put the skates on for this. So that's amazing to me. That is amazing. I had said earlier when we were chatting about it that, you know, given everything that's going on, if we were playing hockey regularly at news,

that's you know three hours a week that would be in at least something right right but and so I thought it would have been way easier if I was playing but now that I did it I don't think it would help the whole bunch because you mean you're at noon you put your skates on you take them off in an hour right and if there was times or I had my skates on for seven hours which like I say nothing can really prepare you for that but yeah kudos to those guys that come out there in battle and don't regularly play hockey because that would be very tough yeah I'm there's just a lot of like what was it? It was 200 and how many hours?

Yeah, we don't know the exact number you have, but around 252. We don't know the exact number, but it's like 252 folks. Yeah, something like that, yeah. Like, that's a lot. Yeah, yeah, it was for sure. Will your name go in the Guinness Book of World Records, or is it just the group? I think it's just the group. I'm not sure.

I think everyone gets like an individual slip or like you can put in a plaque or something like that, but I think it's just, yeah. Brent's sake and friends. I'm not sure. I've never actually seen it. Put it in a card. It's okay. Yeah.

I'm a Guinness Book of World Record Breaker. Yeah, exactly. And that's one thing as I was, you know, discussing this with people and telling what I'm doing. Everyone was really excited for the Guinness Road Book Records to be a record holder. And to be honest with you, that, that was cool, but I didn't really care. Like, it'd be neat, but that's not why me or any of us was doing this. Well, what's the drug called?

PCLX-001. talking about curing cancer. Yeah. Not mitigating some of the side effects of cancer, not like curing cancer. Did Saker talk about that a little bit? Yeah, he did. Yeah. Yeah.

So going to your previous question is why I wanted to do it and why kind of the stars aligned for this year was, and that was a big part of it, right? Like I think, don't quote me, but I think typically they're fundraising for, you know, some equipment or machinery to make things easier on the doctors and the researchers or the patient. But this year specifically, it was, you know, a drug treatment that they have developed.

And it's about putting it into human trials, which I just think, yeah, like we're all on pins and needles just kind of waiting to see how that plays out. Because if we're a part of something like that, I mean, we could have this discussion again. And I'd have a million other things to tell you just how good it felt and how rewarding it was. But we'll have to see. Yeah, that's, I'll say this. I think it's pretty crazy, you know, I feel like the key. Cure for Cancer has been in like a thousand movies, like where they cure cancer and it's in this utopia.

Yeah. Right? The fact we're talking about it here in the middle of a freaking pandemic among other things, right? It's just like, and it's come from the world's longest hockey game, right? Or like part of the funding, obviously. For sure, yeah. You know?

But even, you know, to say it's been, you know, it started in Alberta is neat, right? It's kind of a feather in our cap. And yeah, it's powerful for sure. Tell me about the nerves on the drive to Eminton. Well, they started long before that. I mean, so this is something obviously, most of this is completely out of my comfort zone. Obviously, not the hockey. That's in my wheelhouse.

But staying in a camper, I'd never really done before. Well, we had a cabin. We have a cabin, right? Yeah, and honestly, leading up. What gave you the biggest problem when you got up there with a cabin, or a camper? What was the thing you're like? Well, what do I do now? Well, honestly, like the power, everyone is plugging in their campers when we got to site and the power was kind of in and out.

But I knew, like I knew, and I made one quick phone call. They were like, yeah, just do this, this and this. You'll be good. I'm like, okay, that's fine. But obviously the heat was the biggest issue, right? I don't know if you talked to that. Talk to Saker about that. No, but I heard it in minus, what did he say, minus 60?

No. No. It's like, like propane you're talking? No, no, no, no. Don't finish your thought because then we didn't talk about it. Well, propane liquefize that, like minus 60s. 40 or something like that, right? So when all our campers are heated by propane, once it reaches minus 40, which it was the whole time, none of that propane was getting into the campers, right?

So your campers were no heat? Most, yeah. We all, we all, I'm pretty sure 90% of us woke up or went up there at one time with zero heat in there and it was just an ice box. So what did you do? Well, we we scattered around, tried to find a place to lay your head for a little while. There's a couple warm places where we could just go kind of... Where was the best warm place? Where were you trying to do? to beat everybody too the massage in the clubhouse for sure yeah that's where but I mean the whole time people were sleeping in those right and but you only for me the way I prepared to get on the ice you know I only had for at most five hours to

sleep so yeah that was that was one thing for sure was was the heat and you know when and leading up the nerves I just found like the game the people organizing the game had so many things going on it wasn't just organizing a regular game like they had done in the past right they're dealing with alberta health regulations and everything like that so it almost felt like it was something new every week that they were make sure to do this or make sure to bring that so we were getting list after list so the anxiety of that like holy crap all the things i got to remember to take and all the things i got to remember to bring so that you know added to the nerves a little bit and and i knew for me and for the new guys that were playing there's

30 new guys this year typically they have 800 hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of volunteers there to take care of whatever you need you want somebody to tape your feet they'll tape your feet you want somebody to clean a wound or bring you food or whatever they'll do that but I know this time we had no medical help we didn't even have a I don't know if we're supposed to say but we didn't even have a paramedic on stand or anything like that so we knew we had to take care of ourselves more which was fine for me because I don't know any different but the guys that were playing and played in previous years you know they had chiropractors on site massage therapist whatever they wanted they were completely taken care of so just like what I had to

bring and remember made me nervous but once you're there and playing i didn't use any of it you know like it's just one of those things the anticipation of it and then you realize like oh you know i probably didn't need to be that nervous but you know and i obviously the marathon aspect of it too i've never done anything like that as you can tell oh i mean sammy you don't have very few people do what you just did right you're in such a fine select company yeah it's pretty crazy. That's a feather in your cap, right? Like, I mean, to have the balls, to sign up,

and then to go through with it and make it all the way. Like, hey, man, that's something nobody can ever take away from it. The Guinness Book of World Records can certainly go to somebody else, right? I'm sure there will be others that try. I think sacred was saying a group out of Buffalo. And I'm sure, you know, in a couple of years they're going to try and break it again and everything else. But nobody can ever take this one away from you. You're a part of it.

And that's pretty cool. And yeah, just like on the nerves, my solid area was I knew I was going to play hockey. Like there could be a million other things that I could be doing. Like I always thought about it as like guys who worked on the rigs, right? They go away from their comfort zones and their families for 21 days and they're up at all hours of the night. But they're like working on a rig, right? Like I'm playing hockey. So it wasn't, I wasn't as nervous as I thought I would be.

I'll put it that way. No, that's cool. Like I say, I've been trying to get you on, but I've been trying to line it up with you two, yeah, who's and it just hasn't worked. Well, that's not my fault. That's Saker's fault. Well, true. He's doing 100 things. He's probably building the baseball diamond in his backyard right now. Well, he did for the people who didn't watch the interview prior to this and just listened, Saker's literally at his kids baseball practice in the outfield, like talking to his

phone. I'm like, this is a new one. I've never done this before. I enjoy this a little bit better. Yeah. Most people probably know. I think I like I said, you know, I just met him when I was I met him a couple weeks before the game I spent some time with him at the game he's a remarkable individual but he's he's got a lot of things going on for sure so I think all the noon hour group wants to know did you did you did you did you run your mouth the entire game um there was times there was a lot of guys out there doing that so I didn't really have to there's a lot of guys keeping it light I know there was one uh the Brozziac and Lebrecht feud was unbelievable anytime they were on the ice together that's They were going after each other and it was awesome. But no, I stayed pretty reserved, maybe because I was exhausted, but there was a lot of guys doing the chirping. I didn't need to. Any hits behind the net into the boards, grinding up in the corners?

Not really. You know, when it's minus 40 the entire time. You're telling me they got soft, Sammy, that's what they got? They didn't get the guy who runs me over in the corner, then laughs at me and chases me down the ice. That's what they got? Well, you had to really pace yourself there. And we only had 40 guys for this whole thing.

I couldn't be responsible for taking somebody out and making the other team down a player. So, yeah, I was more soft than usual, I would say. But honestly, it was important to not go that hard and pace yourself and fit in with the pace that that everyone else is doing. And, yeah, just on the pace, too, is one thing I always say was, you know, it was so cold. I can't just, I can't emphasize that enough how cold it was. So you wanted to move enough, move around enough to get the blood flow on and to stay active and be warm. But if you go over that edge where you start to sweat, well, that sweat essentially just freezes on you and makes you that much colder.

So a lot of the time, I mean, we were, yeah, we were literally just skating around to stay warm. There wasn't actual hockey being played a whole bunch. Tell me what minus 60 in playing hockey. Minus 60? Yeah. Yeah. You know what? Or the coldest, or the coldest point, I thought it was.

It got to minus 55. We were told one night. Oh, I thought maybe I'm remembering it. It could have flirted with minus 60 for sure. Anyway, it doesn't matter. But, minus 55. What the hell is it about? Yeah, my 95 is very cold.

I don't, I don't know if I've done anything outside of minus 55. Like, you guys in the oil patch know, at what point do you get shut down and say it's too cold? Do we go home? Right? It's got to be right around minus 50. Well, are we talking salesmen? Are we talking rig hands? Yeah.

Yeah. Well, even what I used to do, like, on a crew truck, right? Like, it's well before minus 50. I would say minus 40. Most people are calling her quits and staying home. So to be completely honest with you, the one night is minus 55, I wasn't cold. And I don't, the boys are going to be livid at me for saying that.

I wasn't cold. My nipples for some reason were very cold and my nose. But so that was minus 55. The next night would have been somewhere around the same, probably minus 50. And I was frozen. Head to toe. Everything was absolutely freezing. I could barely move.

nothing I could do to get that blood flowing. So it's just, yeah, I don't know if it was adrenaline or what it was or exhaustion, but I handled it okay. Like my feet didn't get cold once, which is nice. What was the, what was the, for me, I would think your feet probably blistered, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, weren't anything for that long. And the way skates are formed to your feet. I just don't think there's a way you can get away from a little bit of lace bite or ankles or whatever.

What was the one that just drove you absolutely ballistic? You know, I'll be, I'll be honest with you, Sean. My feet were in pretty good shape. Okay. Yeah, I didn't have any open wounds, thankfully. I taped. I used a little bit of duct tape, mainly blister prevention tape and a little bit of like that pro-athletic tape. But honestly, my feet held up pretty good.

They didn't start hurting either until, like, day seven, day six or seven. They heard every day after that. But I was lucky, like, they didn't start hurting on day three or four. I waited a while, but yeah, no. When they started hurt, they really started hurting, but I didn't, luckily, didn't have any blisters or anything like that to deal with, but a lot of guys were like lace bite. I've never had lace bite.

I didn't get it this time. Lace bite is probably one of the, it looks like your big old puss. Yeah. But it hurts. No, I know. They said they were pretty confident that everyone's going to get lace bite at some point. I don't know if I did enough because I just put, and I've been doing it for years, but just a little of that padding right there.

Yeah. And I tighten my skates, you know that. Like, I refond my skates and I didn't get lace bite. I know lots of guys were dealing with lace bite. I thought I had lace bite a couple years ago, but evidently I did not because it wasn't near as much pain as what some of these guys were going through. But yeah, we had one guy that, I don't know if you saw the pictures. I sent you that, but he destroyed his toes like the second day.

Like, I've never seen toes look that bad. I think it was frostbite, and it was ugly. I don't know if his feet ever be the same. Well, I'd read a quote from one of Brent's interviews that said it took eight months for feet to come back to full feeling. And I was like, oh, that can't be healthy. So we, I chatted with a few guys. I had met one guy a couple weeks before the game who was just out at Saker's Acres going for skating. I chatted with him.

And he's played in a few of them. And he said, yeah, like anywhere from a month to eight months, your feet will not feel the same. Like not feel normal. So how your feet feel? Right now they're good. It took about a month. Like so when the game first ended, my big toes were numb. I didn't even feel them.

And then the rest of my feet felt like I was walking on pins and needles, like really tingling and just a weird feeling. That went away in about two weeks, but then when I started getting feeling back on my big toes, they started to feel the same, like tingly and pins and needles. And it took, like I said, about a month to shake it out. But it was weird, yeah. It was honestly. But I think it's, like you say, like Mikey ran 124 kilometers on shoes. but I think skates are a different nightmare because you're balancing on that little blade, right?

And you're using your toes so much to turn and stop and everything like that. I just go back to, I think it doesn't matter when you do something to the extreme that pushes you so far past like the line of normalcy. Yeah. It don't matter. Like, me and you, can you imagine me and you doing 124.3 kilometers in 12 hours?

Like, I would be crawling on the, No, I wouldn't even been crawling. I'd be laying at the side. Like, just, I'm done. Oh, yeah. I mean, I would have quit. But, I mean, it's running, running, I don't know. For a guy who runs like that, though, he's probably thinking skating would be a complete disaster.

Oh, probably. Where we're the other way, right? Like, I'd rather skate for 124 kilometers. I don't know what that looks like, but I'd rather skate than run. Yeah, you should have had a-gliding. You can glide. You should have had a, like a monitor on you so they could have showed how far you went over. One of those fit bits or something, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. they don't fitbits don't pick up skating as well as walking they're really good for walking but as soon as you start like biking or like they pick it up but they don't pick it up nearly as well

so we were me and chuck were talking about after staring at this beautiful table here one of the guys I think it was Gering war one of those while playing hockey a couple times and I think he figured out that he burned about 700 calories in a noon hour skate and you know how we go a noon hour it's obviously you know harder than what we were doing out there

so even if you could cut that in half and say I burned 400 calories an hour out there. Well, we were doing it for 12 hours a day, right? So the amount, yeah, for sure, the amount of calories that were burned, that was insane. Yeah. Did you hop on a scale before you went?

And when you got back, you didn't do that? I didn't bother. I probably lost, I'd say 10, 15 pounds probably. But when you lose weight like that, you ain't keeping it off. And then when you, like what I did, which I don't know if anybody else did, but I ate like I got a prison for about three weeks after.

So it came back real fast. What was your go-to meal on the way home? What is your, you're like, I am? There's a really awesome pizza place in Cherry Park that I stopped. Pizza's my favorite. I eat too much of it as it is, but yeah, I couldn't wait to dive into that. You don't have to, you don't have to feel bad. I mean, pizza's like, dang, a good slice of the old Zah.

Well, that's probably what Mikey Dubs ate after his run, too, is my guess. Get those carbs back at them. I don't know, man, I tell you what. Like, you're talking like people won't want to hear you weren't cold at like minus 55, whatever, right? Well, I was called an accident. I just thought one night for whatever reason. Right. Yeah.

But Mikey Dobs, when he finished that, I know he was emotional and he was tired and whatever, but he was weirdly, like, still ridiculously with it. Yeah. Like, bouncing around like Bamb, not Bambi, like a little deer. You know, like, I was like, are you sure you're okay? Because this is pretty crazy what you just pulled off, right? Like, I highly doubt you were bouncing around after 10 straight days. Well, the sleep deprivation is something that I had never dealt with, you know?

Like I avoided red eye hockey tournaments for years and years and years because I like to sleep. I don't want to be up in the middle of the night. So, yeah, the sleep deprivation like that. The last night I was up, I didn't really sleep the whole time. But the last night I was up basically from 10 p.m. till, you know, 10 a.m. the next day, essentially playing hockey. So I didn't get any sleep that night. You know, there'd have been more because I would have woke up the morning. That morning of the last gate, I would have woke up.

I would have played my shift. there and then I would have just hung around. So yeah, it would have been 24 hours. I would have been awake on that last day, at least. Yeah. So, but I think that's Mikey's personality too, right?

Like I don't, even if, even if he was awake for 24 hours, I think he'd still be live and energetic and bringing in the good vibes. That's just who he is. What's the, what's the one thing during the game that you just went?

Like, I saw the picture of the pile of pucks from the one night where, You know, I mean, Brent talked about that a little bit about, like, the puck's just like a pass and the puck break. And it's like, for any hockey player, that's like, oh. Yeah. Like, I remember that as a kid in some of the old small town rural rinks where it got so cold. You'd take a slap shot or wrist shot and also the puck would break off.

But it was only ever like one. Never like a pile of them where you're like, like, this is weird. But that's one that comes to mind. Is there other things that while you're playing, you know, I don't know, like the score, being 2,000 or 25 or 2,600 or 2,500, whatever it was. Was that even, like, were you even paying attention to that? You know, I had, not really. I did have people like texting me and, like, giving us to scoreboards and stuff like that.

So I was able to monitor it a little bit. And there was one time that our team was, I ended up, we had a big lead and we ended up losing that lead by about 80 goals. And at that point, I started to watch to say, holy, we got to chip away at this here. but yeah the puck's to your point you're saying you lost an 80 goal lead yeah oh yeah we did but we got it back and then some yeah you don't hear that on your podcast very often but the puck's to your point like yeah I'd seen it a few times inside as well like one or two times even at the Civic Center I think I saw one where it must have just been an old puck

and it hits the post and a chunk breaks off but at the frequency that this was happening for me was astonishing like and they weren't just pieces breaking off they were exploding into like a half a dozen pieces so yeah for sure the the pile of pucks was incredible yeah i don't know if saker told you he probably went through a thousand at least a thousand pucks for that whole time a thousand puck at least i'd say a thousand pucks yeah well we lost we we we lost our group alone we were out there for five hours we probably lost 50 or 80 just over the boards over the boards and breaking yeah So, and how it worked with the COVID stuff is once we threw it over the boards, the volunteers couldn't throw them back. Because COVID's going to live in minus 60.

I'm not going to bring up COVID because I think, you listen long enough, you understand where I'm at now. But, I mean, that's kind of ridiculous myself. Yeah. How about it? How about the property? The Saker's Acres intrigues me a little bit. essentially he's built in a rink with living quarters like can you just explain it a little bit to the common person yeah i feel like i feel like i i feel like i i enjoy a good rink right yeah yeah and this guy's

built one specifically for raising money yeah for this game yeah so i think he's built like he's had a cup i think i don't know for sure but i think he's had a couple properties and he's put up rinks and then he got this one i don't know how long ago um but i think this stars aligned for him so he built his house essentially as well as the zamboni shop so he's got a house off to the side where he lives in the zamboni shops there uh and then off the rink he's got our like the our big dressing room and then above the dressing room he's got like uh i called it like a player's lounge or like a club house but yeah he's got TVs and stuff set up he's got old chairs from merxol in there um he's got a little kitchen where we ate and stuff like that and um yeah but it's i think ron

mcclain talked called it a slice of heaven or something on hockey day in canada because We were out there for hockey day in Canada. And, yeah, it's incredible. It's really awesome. Did you sneak a bud light while you were playing at all? Yeah, yeah, we did a little bit of that, yeah. Now I know how you could go 10 days. Yeah, yeah, there was guys that snuck a few more than I did.

But that was something we enjoyed. You know, and you know from playing hockey, there's nothing like a cold beer after a game, right? 100%. But we were like, when we were done skating, and we still weren't done. We had to be back at six hours. I tell you what.

We're never really done. Playing senior after, like, the best part was after a hockey game and just sitting there, and you're beat up and you're tired and cracking a cold one. I don't know if I could have had a cold one and then went and played, but having one, taking a break, going back out. Yeah. I think I could pull that out.

Yeah. But the other thing is, too, is there's this internal pressure to catch as much sleep as you want, right? So you're halfway done that beer after your skate, and you're thinking you're looking at the clock, like, counting it down, okay, if I get up there, grab a quick bite to eat, get up there, I might have two hours to sleep. And so it's kind of that, for me anyways, because I wasn't a great sleeper.

It was that internal pressure to get as many ease as I could. Did you become a good sleeper at the end of it? No, like you couldn't just like hit the pillow and out? No chance. No, I, uh, in the mornings, like when I got off the ice around like three, four a.m., I could, I could sleep for a little while. Um, but then you play your shift in the afternoon. Let's say you're off at 3 p.m.

I, there's, and, and you're back. on the ice after 3 p.m. you're back on the ice probably 11, 12 or 1 a.m. And there's no way I could get any sleep in that in that time frame. Well, that's cool, man. I wanted to bring you on because I just like, A, we go to, well, if noon hour ever comes back. Kirkpatrick, you bastard, wherever you are, got me all excited with the email. I'm like, holy crap, we might actually get to play. Yeah, I know.

Well, that's being shot out of the sky right now. Like, I don't know when we're getting to play. Yeah. But, you know, we, with playing with you, Sammy, and, you know, and you listen along the podcast, I'm like, I mean, we've got to have you home. I've got to find a way to do this, right? And I got to give you kudos because I'd sent you in a text one. You know, you'd mentioned Mikey Dub's running, kind of inspired you. You know, everybody in Lloyd right now that are going out of their way to do these, like, really cool things to help raise awareness, money, et cetera, et cetera, is really cool. And it's funny, you don't need to train two years to go be part of something or create something to raise a bunch of money.

And I was saying to you in the text and kind of a little off air, well, that's where the board comes in is I'm in the middle of creating a new idea that's a little bit wonky. Stupid idea is what I call it, right? Like proof of concept. Lots of good stories come from stupid ideas. Well, that's exactly right. And so a group of six of us are going to ride to Mr. Quick Dick McDick and Tufton, Saskatchew. Saskatch and I'm back. Yeah, that's so cool.

And push ourselves out of the comfort song. I like I incorporated him. I know you guys formed a good relationship here, but that's cool. How many of you guys are doing it? Six. Six of you? Yeah. That'll be fun.

But that comes from you because I watched and followed along with what you're doing. And I'm like, you know what? And Foster, I got to give a shout to Foster too, because Foster, like pretty much slapping my face. You didn't train either. You're jackass. I'm like, fair point. I didn't.

I didn't, right? And to watch you go do it and see what you guys did, I go, we can do something like not a hockey game. I'm not going to do a hockey game. I don't have Saker's Aker's to pull that off on, right? And not to mention the... Well, there's lots of space out at T-bar. Maybe we've got to build one. Wrong time right now. Yeah, that's true. But you've really inspired me and I laugh about it. I'm like, now that we're going to try and pull this off in June, and as we start to define it and get closer to it, I'll give more details. But as we get closer to it, I'm like, hopefully,

it inspires somebody else to keep it going and keep, because, I mean, man, when you wake up out of bed and you just get moving on an idea, it's pretty crazy how quickly you can turn it into something that people will follow and can do a lot of good for, you know, whatever cause is close to your heart, right? That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I know. That's, well, I appreciate the kind words. And to your point, for sure, if, you know, if you guys inspired me and I inspired you, maybe the next person you'll inspire, we'll do something great as well. And man, isn't that the spice of life if we can all inspire each other to do good things? Well, what's really bothering me right now is but bothering me for like four months. He's like, I fucking hate social media right now. I wasn't going to drop an F bomb on this one, but I'm going to drop it right now.

But like the entire world wants us to be divided. And all I think is we just got to find a way to pull back together. I agree. Inspiring individuals doing things that are something that everybody can be like. like how can you be mad at a guy going and playing because you know politics will factor in it somehow we got smoked we got smoked on a few facebook posts for sure really yeah oh yeah because you were playing in the middle of a pandemic yeah and i and i don't know if it was so much that we were playing the middle of a pandemic but i think it was a lot of angry um parents and rightfully so that you know

their their kids don't get to play why do we get to play why did the government give us an exception right but when you think about it i mean no no kid can do what we did i mean we were isolated from our families for weeks, right? And we... Yeah, but the hatred shouldn't come at you guys. Yeah. That should go with the government. Right, yeah.

Like... And maybe it did. Maybe it got deflected to us. Um, we didn't, honestly, we didn't, it, it ticks you off a little bit, but we didn't let it stop us. I mean, we had a job to do at the end of the day and we knew what we were doing. Um, and, you know, I don't know if Saker brought it up, but, you know, holding a lot of the suggestions was, why can't they do an extra year after when things are better and

everyone can play. And it's just like, you know, we have a chance to, to, uh, to really help you. with cancer struggling with cancer right now and if we waited longer those people that are lined up for the drug trial they won't be here they'll already be dead so we have to do it now well that's part of it the other part of it that people don't understand is when you put in like you think of Brent's sake and this was the seventh hockey game right and you get in this is what as soon as you miss one of those so now what is it every 36 months yeah no every three yeah three

Every three years. Yeah. Every 36 months, you do another hockey game. Now, if he misses one because of the pandemic, now you've got to wait six years. Or it throws off his entire schedule. And as the guy who's motivated to make sure these goals off without a hitch, as soon as you throw that out,

I think of myself in the Dusty Man hockey tournament, which is not raising $1.5 million, but it still does good for the community. As soon as you snap me out of that, It's hard to get my mind and body around. Like, how do we start this tournament back up? It's almost like you lose momentum a little bit, right? 100%.

Yeah. So as much as it is, like, there's people that need it, there's always going to be people that need it. Yeah. It's part on the group that puts it together in that when you have a plan and it's just like the train's moving. Yeah. As soon as you stop that train, it takes a lot to fire it back up to get it going again.

Yeah. And credit to sake of how he handled it. Because I truly believe that the government threw everything out him to get him to cancel it. And everything they threw out them, in classic sake form, you just sat back and said, okay, we'll do it, we'll do it, we'll do it, we'll do it, and we did it. And now, what I think I understand now is no matter what comes up, the game's going to happen, right? Because he's jumped through every hoop. And this, hopefully, knock on wood, is going to be the worst year that, you know, for that game, two, you know, three years away.

Yeah. It should be the worst year. And in three years' time, it should be easier to put on. and all you're going to remember is, listen, guys, this is nothing. Last time we had to build a fence around this place and allow eight people to help instead of 800. Yeah, exactly. Oh. Yeah.

Yeah, you're right. And yeah, to that point, sometimes with the way things are going on, you almost just got to do it. Find a way to do it and don't get discouraged. And yeah, that's, that's sicker. He just, anything that came at him was, okay, we'll do it. We'll do it. And, you know, just to touch on COVID, and we don't talk about a lot.

But at the start, I think, especially with the Facebook posts and the little bit of attention at God, it became, you know, how are they going to do this during COVID? But as soon as the forecast, as soon as that sunk in, it was, it became a cold weather game. Like, how are they going to do this in these temperatures? So just the cold weather was a bit of a blessing then. Yeah, I took the attention. Change the narrative. Yeah, I did.

It did a little bit and probably helped with our fundraising a little bit. So I think we're, as of right now, last time I checked, we're like, I think 10, ground away from two million bucks which is unbelievable so and I think the cold weather we'll never know for sure but I think the cold weather played a part in that how many goals did you score um just over 200 200 200 yeah 200 and 12 Sam sayied the goal scoring machine well you know what it's funny um I'll be as humble as I can I think I could have scored more I like to think I'm a I'm a pass-first setup kind of guy. So I'm going to put out a poll.

I'm going to put out a poll on Twitter when this airs. If Sam Saeed is a pass-first type of guy. And the other portion is, too, is the goalies. Like, you know, you think the players had it bad. Those goalies were in terrible shape with that weather, right? So we stopped deacon them day three. Like, we were just putting them out their pillows and, you know, sometimes they snuck through it.

But we were not. even like two on O's passing across, we weren't even doing that. Just because those goalies at minus 50 or minus 55, if they slide across and stretch out their groin or pull their groin, well, now we're down a goalie, right? And there's only 40 of us.

We can't pull out players from other places. Yeah, it was interesting to see how they were going in, that's for sure. Oh, man, this has been a lot of fun. Well, let's do the Crude Master Final Five, and I'll get you out of here. Sure. Just five quick questions.

questions partially around the game. Shout out to Heath and Tracy McDonald from Crudemaster, a supported podcast from the very beginning. Now, you know what my first one's going to be. If you could sit across from anyone like I do, who would you take? Oh, man. I've heard you ask that question a million times. I've never, I didn't think I'd ever have to answer it.

Oh, God, can I come back to that one? Sure, we'll leave it until the end. Yeah, that's fine. Okay. if you could bring one guy or invite one celebrity to participate in the next game who would you take? McDavid he would do a lot of the skating for us yeah but he wouldn't be allowed to deak you'd be like David cut out that deke and stuff

yeah he wouldn't need to but um yeah no I think even some of the noon hour guys I think would have a lot of fun with it um yeah I don't know somebody really good though that's for sure Somebody that can do the back checking for me. What was the worst hour to plan? Yeah, you know, there was one night overnight where the wind just howling the entire time. You could see like, you know, around here you see the dust tornadoes. Well, you could see that with the ice or the snow on the ice was going up and it just didn't stop. And I can't remember when it was, but I remember one night the wind howling a lot more than it had.

don't get caught in the snow in the snow tornado on the ice yeah yeah exactly yeah i was there there's there's a lot there's a lot hours were tough but there was a lot of really fun hours to you like that was one thing that surprised me a lot too was just how much fun you could have while being physically mentally and emotionally drained um sacred said in one of his other even used to you like you know we laughed the whole time like it was it was honest like we've been playing together for years and years and years. The chemistry in that room was unbelievable. So that surprised me. Like I say, just how emotional things got and how much fun it still was. So, yeah, I strayed a little bit from your question. No, that's cool. I think anytime you get a group of guys or ladies for that,

a group of people. Yeah, we run, girl. Oh, yeah, yeah, his wife. Yeah, right. Anytime you get a group of group of-old scored him. Did she really? She did. Anytime you get a group of people who rally around to common cause and then on top of all that are put through the ringer that's that's going to make probably lifelong bonds out of a few people for you i would think absolutely for sure yeah what yeah what we went through a lot of stuff um that you know is some of it's talked about some of it's not and yeah like you say when when you have sort of a rewarding experience like that and you do it with a group of strangers you know those those bonds are strong and i know we're all waiting on pins and needles till we till we can have a big party at's acres acres again so yeah for sure are you going to

play in 2024. Yeah, I will. I mean, I don't know how it works because there's 30 new guys this year. So for years and years and years, typically they'd only have four or five new guys. So I don't know how it works

with the guys that had played previously, but if I'm called upon, I'll absolutely play it up for sure. And finally, your last one, what was, well, I guess I got to go back to your interview one. But I was just curious, and maybe you've already talked about it,

but what is playing? in this game pushing yourself to what I think of is the brink and I could be wrong but pushing yourself further than you've probably pushed yourself ever what is it taught about yourself yeah that's that's a tough one and and Saker said that I heard it a bunch of times he said it before he said it during he said it after that this game will change your life and and you'll be a different person um leaving this game and I don't know maybe I haven't pinpointed it yet I'm still trying to figure it out you know maybe maybe off the top of my head a confidence thing just just knowing you can take your body to that place and your mind to that place um it's it's good to know it's it's cool um let's i'll be honest

the people who knew i was playing in this game who understood the commitment and the um magnitude of the event you know they would have doubted me for sure i mean i wouldn't be surprised nor offended so just like i say just knowing that you can take i can take my body in my mind to that brink or wherever it's going and enjoy the experience as much as I did. Yeah, I think it, I think it probably boosted my confidence and, you know, maybe when adversity hits in the future, you can, you know, deal with it in a different way. But I, yeah, that's a tough question. I know. I know it's a tough question. It's cool. I think you'll think on it later on in life. But you know that from your, from your biking too. When you, when you made it across Canada,

That feeling you must have had at the end. Well, so what I always tell people about that is there was bets placed. I don't know. They might have been just to have a little bit of fun, but there was a lot of people who didn't think we could do it. And I remember my oldest brother, Jay, saying, and I don't know if he'll remember this or not, but he goes, ah, Sean won't come back until it's done.

He won't show his face up here until he's across. And I was pretty determined. I was never coming home until I was across country. So to be able to walk around with that, you talk about confidence, feathering, your cap. Yeah. Just knowing what you're capable of is a very powerful thing.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's, you know, if I could talk about the end of the, just briefly. Yeah, yeah, sure. I didn't even ask about the end of the game. Well, I don't know if Sake told you, but they involve his little guy, Jesse, who was around the whole time. They put him into the bubble.

They took him out of school. He was around us the whole time. So they involve him, and it's really neat how they do it is. At the start, he comes and plays and he takes a couple shifts, takes a face off. And then when he leaves the other, he leaves the, ice the clock starts for Guinness so and and he's like I say he's around the whole time we're all getting to know him he's a great kid and then at the end you know yeah you start towards the end you start to kind of ask like you know when when do we know we're done like how how does that work and and brenda brent's sister she just said

once you see Jesse getting his gear on you know you're close so it was around five in the morning on the 15th and he got down to the room and started put his gear on and you can honestly feel like the buzz in the room and the anticipation start to grow and when he and when he hit the ice um the surprisingly the pace picked up like a lot like we were playing real hockey again we were snapping the puck around and you know guys were stopping on pucks and things like that and and and and and so when he hits the ice you know you've broken their record so he hit the ice I think he scored a hat trick and then the fireworks hit and the zamboni's come out and and and I don't know like you you you would know that feeling from being done that the the your you're drawn to

across Canada. But that feeling, it's indescribable. Like, it's surreal to know kind of what you've accomplished, what you went through doing it. And then to be done, I just, yeah, it's just a crazy feeling. We had guys who, they won national championships with the Golden Bears. And they said that this for sure was the most emotional,

powerful ending to a game that they've ever been a part of. So I thought that was really neat. Well, once again, you're just pushing yourself further. I would say you can draw comparisons to biking, sure. But the thing about what you do, it is like there is an ending to it. It's like, wow. And then there's a group to share it with. You know, all of a sudden we just popped out and we're at the ocean. It's like, holy crap. Yeah. We did it. Yeah. All right. Let's get on the plan and carry on with life, right? Like,

yeah. With you, it'd be a little bit more of a pizzazz, I would assume. But at the same time, but at the same time you're in the middle of COVID pandemic and you can't go out and celebrate it maybe like the have in previous years. Yeah. Exactly. So, yeah, that and, and, and, in, and, in, like I say we didn't touch on it a whole bunch but I was really surprised at how emotional it was like I had been warned about it going into a game that this is you know this is going to break you at times um and and like to your point certainly I think part of the game is that self doubt in the middle of it and wanting to quit and saying why did I do this like why did I sign up but and that's part of it but the motivation around you it it it's it's right in front of you and look around you the room is

full of pictures of people that we've lost the cancer and and they're battling and and and people drop drop pictures off and hang them around the rink of people they've lost and you know we i don't know if you read the terry jones story but we had a lady uh come to the rink and she started off her speech i wasn't on the ice fortunately or unfortunately but she started her speech off by saying my son would have been 17 years old and right then and again i didn't hear it but it was just as powerful as hearing it from the guys who were on the ice um but so she lost her son to brain cancer when he's eight years old and now she's going through breast cancer and she's in the trials

for the drug that we're fundraising for she's signed up and she said it too like if you guys didn't play this game this year I wouldn't be around to wait around like so that part when you hear it it's motivated 100% inspiring and it started early too when you're walking around and you know everybody in that room that's playing with you and about to go through this with you they're here for the same reasons you are right like we had guys who's you know elbows his wife is in terminal brain cancer

And he left her for three weeks to come playing this game. And same guys, some guys' dads, you know, we had one guy, Ken Braggs, his dad's going through, I think stage four. And before the game, he was, you know, kind of complaining that he didn't want to do the chemo anymore. And he wanted to let cancer take them. And he came and watched us one night. And Ken told us that that inspired him to keep going and keep going to the cross and keep getting the chemo. So when you hear stuff like that, like it's... It makes my hair stand on my arms.

Yeah, it's not hard to put your skates back on and get out there, right? At the end of the day, we're playing hockey. we had a choice the people were playing for did not have a choice and they're going through a lot worse circumstances than we are so yeah it was emotional for sure i should clarify my laughter at you saying halfway through you you you question why you were doing it i think it there was any time you push yourself really hard yeah it could be a marathon for a guy like me who doesn't run yeah uh i'm sure in there somewhere i would go my little brain is going to go you're an idiot yeah why are we doing this?

But then you just got to refocus that if you can. Yeah. Because when you talk about those stories, man, that's enough to run through a brick wall. Absolutely. And that's exactly how it felt like. As soon as you hear them or, you know, as soon as somebody, even somebody comes and hangs a picture off of, you know, somebody that they've lost. It's, you know, you're doing this, doing this for them.

And there's a lot of people counting on us to do it. And I never felt that before. So, yeah, that's, to people's point of how emotional experience it was, and the players had warned me before. I didn't know how it was going to hit me before, but but it happened really fast. Like even guys just asking you, who are you playing for and you ask it back and you hear their story and, you know, they're right there with you ready to battle for for 10 days to play hockey for 12 hours a day. And yeah, it's just really inspiring. And that's why I'll do it again. It's just, it's just so much more than a hockey game. It is. Right? Like, it truly is.

Yeah. It's people rally around the hockey game. But I mean, it's just a, it's just a way to, to bring together and shed light on a serious issue and try and fix it. For sure. And for us to be able to talk to each other about our, you know, our cancer stories and what's happened to us. And that helped immensely. And like I said,

this has certainly helped me talk about it more and be open. And part of that is because, you know, I just met 40 people who have their story that they at one point had wanted to keep close to their chest. And now they're out here and they're and they're playing for it and playing for a cause and trying to make a difference. friends so that's cool yeah i mean like it's it's better it's bigger word than cool it's it's like

inspiring is the way i put it yeah and it's it's funny you don't um you're saying at the start or part way through that you know people probably like sam can't go do x or whatever and uh what i what i admire about it is and i don't mean this in any knock on you is you're just a regular joe yeah i'm just a regular joe right yeah but you can any regular joe can go out and do something Hell, Brent's sake isn't Wayne Grexky, right? No, he's not. And he's found a way to become a very influential person just by getting in the ring and going to war for a little bit.

And look at it, look at what he's done in a 20-year span. Yeah, it's incredible. It's incredible. And they're sprinkling in the baseball games, which is his favorite sport. He'll take you, he might have told you that. He doesn't even like hockey. He said, what did he say? Hockey's just a habit or a hobby or something.

Baseball's a sport. So I'm fully convinced he's going to build the Yankee Stadium in his backyard on his land. And they're going to play the world's longest baseball game at Saker's Acres. It's going to be awesome. Well, I've got to bring you back to, would you sit down with somebody? Who would you sit down? Yeah, you know, I'm a big Eddie Vedder, Pearl Dram guy. I think that would be neat.

Have a glass of wine with Eddie Vedder. Honestly, one would be my dad's dad, who I never got to meet. And I know he was a very influential man in India. and back in the day and Jeff, just to chat with him I think would be really neat I never got to met him

meet him so I think that would be cool but I'll think of more as I get out of here but well we've gone we've gone almost an hour and I haven't brought up the oilers so before I let you go how about Darnell Nurse

just like like I should clarify to the listeners of the watchers that I've been ragging on Darnell nurse like yeah I like Darnell but look at all the lucky goals he's getting because he had like six when we started this conversation

four of which were put in by the other team. Now he's making, he's making me look like an ass. But to your point, in years, even in previous years, I always thought his goals were lucky. Like,

I think of that one that he scored at the Heritage Classic and a feed from Connor. And even that one didn't go straight in. It got a piece of the goalie. So, but yeah. And it seemed like as soon as you said that, I can't remember when you said who you were talking to,

but he said that. And it just seemed like he's been picking corners ever since. But he's having a heck of a year. Well, he's making a mockery of me. Yeah, right? Like, I want to go back. Maybe he listened.

I bet he listened. It was a shot new guy. I want to show him while he's been showing me. He keeps getting open and just drilling the puck hole. You watch, you're going to sign him for 9 mil now. And that's the scary. Everyone's worried about the Barry extension. It's the nurse one that could potentially cripple them.

Right? Because he's, people are, more people out here talking about Norris. They're not really talking about it in the East. But just in the fact that he's in that conversation, you know, he's going to on at least seven mill and with the way that team's built like i don't know it's going to be interesting how are the oilers going to do in the playoffs oh i don't know they got to find a way to beat toronto montreal i can't seem to beat them because they're going to have to get through one of them but you know i just hope it's better than last year just to get back to the dance i like the little

laugh because you're just like who yeah i don't know last year's playoffs was a little bit rough the mike smith's like unbelievable too can he can he carry this this song? Why not? I don't know. Dustin won't like hearing that. Dust was not a Mike Smith fan that started. Well, what can he say? Yeah, yeah, really. What can anyone say? Yeah, no, he's playing unbelievable. But he's got to sustain it. And he gets to the playoffs and those boys got to be better in front of them too, because last year in the playoffs, they were dog shit in front of them. Angry. Yeah. Angry. See, I'm just, again, being an oil friend, we're just happy they're in

the race, right? Like, happy they're winning games. Happy Connor McDavid's doing what he does. Because even happy Darnel Nurse is making an ass out of me because it seems like every night I flick on the TV or I get a text from Sammy saying, did you see that's name? Yeah, I know, I know. But yeah, next year I'll be a big one for Darnell. If he plays like this again, you're right.

He's going to be in the AIDS. I just don't know how they can afford it. I'll see. All right. Well, thanks for hopping in with me. Yeah. This has been a lot of fun. Thank you, Sean, for showing an interest in our game

and in our cause where we're happy to be here. 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. Thanks for tuning in today. I think we had a little bit of fun today. and Brent's sake. A little different, you know, one guy the head of it and another one his first time around.

So it was cool. You know, I don't normally get to do two guests in an episode. I mean, it's a roundtable or something, but to do two different segments is, you know, a little bit time consuming, to be honest. You've got to sit down and find time to do it. But at the same time, it's kind of cool because you get two different perspectives on the same,

well, in this case, event. So I had a lot of fun, and I hope you guys enjoyed it as well. I think Sam's a cool, he listens to all the ones, so shout it to you, Sammy, for doing good. I said it again during the episode, you know, about inspiration and things like that. But I know Sam was, Sam can be pretty hard on himself. Like, you know, I've done nothing special. Why would I ever get on, you know, for some reason? He's put me up on a pedestal, so to speak.

And I think, like, what he's done is really cool. And if you know of other people that are getting outside their comfort zone and really making an impact on, you know, volunteering and doing some good for a community, I'm always interested in that and those narratives. I think that's a really good message to spread around not only our community, but the world. And, well, as everybody knows from following me, I enjoy the positive spin on things. So it is Monday. I hope you guys all have a great week. we will be back on Wednesday. We got another archive episode coming up.

I believe it's Fred Murray. And that's an entertaining, interesting episode as well. But if you're the champ, I know the golf courses are open. I know you've probably been hitting the balls. But get your feet off the table. Leave the golf until, you know, maybe the weekend. And get me a coffee. I probably need one by now.

All right. The rest of you, have a great week. We'll catch up on to you. Well, we'll catch up to you on hump day. Wednesday. We got a great one coming up. We'll catch you then.