Shaun Newman Podcast - Ep. #173 - Ron MacLean 2.0

Episode Date: May 10, 2021

Ron hops on for his 2nd go around on the podcast (previously #100)  We discuss the current state of lockdowns across Canada & whether they are warranted. He also shares some great stories about Bobby Orr, Connor McDavid being on another level & the ultimate hockey dad Walter Gretzky.   Let me know what you think Text me 587-217-8500

This is Glenn Healing. Hi, this is Brandon Holby. This is Daryl Sutterin. Hi, this is Brian Burke. This is Jordan Tutu. This is Keith Morrison. This is Kelly Rudy. Hi, this is Scott Hartnell.

Hey, everybody. My name is Steele-Fer. This is Tim McAuliffe of Sportsnet, and you're listening to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the podcast, folks. I hope everybody had a great Mother's Day weekend. If you were following along with the podcast, I've been pumping out episodes. We had Brandi Hofer, which was a bonus one for Mother's Day weekend on Friday. And then, of course, yesterday I sat down with my mom and put that out as well.

So there's been a lot. And this week, it won't slow down. First, we have, of course, Rahm McLean today. Wednesday is going to be Brady Ratch. He's biking from Lloyd to Eminton trying to raise some money. And then we're going to get into our archive episode on Friday this week. So it's a busy little time here. But been having some fun and, you know, anytime you get to sit down with,

a couple of mothers, especially when one of them is yours, and have some fun and talk about some stories. You know, it's one of those weekends, one of those Sundays where I just wanted to have a little bit of extra fun, so to speak. So I hope everybody else spoiled the crap out of their mothers and had a little bit of fun and maybe, you know, got to hang out. I know parts of the world aren't having too much fun right now, but hopefully you found a way to put a smile on your mom's face and maybe spoil her a little bit.

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1987 as host of hockey night in canada he worked alongside don cherry for 37 years with the coach's corner segment he won eight jemini awards while working for the cbc has a star on canada's Walk of Fame, has hosted multiple Olympic games, and now you can find him as host of Rogers Hometown Hockey and Hockey Night in Canada. I'm talking about Ron McLean. So buckle up. Here we go. Hey, it's Ron McLean, Hockey Net in Canada, and Rogers Hometown Hockey, and welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Today I'm joined by Mr. Ron McLean. So thanks for hopping back on again. Yeah, nice to see again. Sean, how's everything there?

But it's, I don't know, Ron, it's a strange, like personally, I'm great. I got, you know, the kids are young enough, but I hope they don't realize everything that's going on. And, you know, my wife is still teaching, you know, schools in Saskatchewan, we're right on the border, the border city. So she teaches just into Saskatchewan. So we've been fortunate enough that that's been, you know, kept open. And I know a lot of people can't say that. The kids have been, you know, we live in a wide open place, so to speak. I know Lloyd isn't a small town by any stretch of imagination, but things overall have been good. And I've been able, I've been fortunate enough to work throughout this. And, you know, I get to do this hobby passion on the side of the podcast where I get to sit down with folks like

yourself. And for me personally, Ron, it's been good. How about yourself? Well, for me, we don't have children. Carrie and I just have a standard schnauzer dog. But the thing, that's happening here that I think scares a lot of folks because school's not in, because children aren't able to be together, you know, will they be socialized? A lot of the young children, five and under, kind of hide behind their parents when they see another child. They don't know what to do. So there's that socialization element and there's, of course, you know, the disruption of minor sports and education that's really been stressful for moms and dads down east in the GTA. But we're, you know, and then it's, you feel like you see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I got the AstraZeneca, which I don't know, there's so many things about that particular vaccine, you know, unfortunate tragic deaths and whether we'll get the second jab. But like life, you know, it's, you just got to muddle. And I feel, you know, like, and the other thing that's bizarre and it has continued to be bizarre is the real estate market is just booming around here. So you have people, you know, selling and moving to cottage country in Ontario and the price of homes is great. And so it's almost like there hasn't really been an economic downturn in at least where I live. So everything's kind of at cross purposes.

You know, you need to take care of yourself. But wow, here's an opportunity. So, yeah, nothing to do with the NHLO and the upcoming playoffs. That's for sure. Well, as you know about me, if you can recall, the last time we chatted, we got to an hour and you were like, geez, we haven't. talk to hockey and I'd hate to disappoint everybody but I I you gave me you gave me a line I'd mentioned you the last time skip Craig it'd give me a line you know that hockey mirror society and that's really stuck with me I mean geez you were my hundredth episode wrong and now I'm going to be sitting

at I believe like 172 how how fast things move along that was back in July and I feel like when I went back and listen to it you know we were talking about black lives matter and everything that's, you know, you just, it has been, it has been as slow as it's been. It's been full go nonstop. We're going as fast as the train can move. It's been, it's been a year. Well, and a year ago, I was doing in conversation was similar to your podcast. And right after George Floyd, I interviewed Donovan Bailey and I'm interviewing him today. We're doing a, oh, wow, okay. And it's about something totally unrelated in a sense. It's about a youth program in Oakville where we

live. His parents actually created the Caribbean Association of Canada in what we call the Halton region, which is Oakville and some towns around here. But yeah, it's so strange that a year, you know, to the day almost that I interviewed him last time, right after George Floyd happened in late May. It happened to Memorial Day in the United States. So, but yeah, I was really busy with the in-conversation series at that time. And that was kind of the focus. And of course, nobody dreamed, I don't think then that the pandemic would be as severe now as it is. The third wave really hit Ontario hard and parts of Canada hard. And yeah, that is, but we, we've been able to keep the hockey bubble,

you know, no longer a bubble, but hockey going. And that's, that's also been a sense of normalcy, at least in, in my personal life. But yeah, when we look back at this 365 days and congrats on that number of podcasts, and congrats, it was great that you had grapes. I'm sorry, I should have listened to it. I haven't listened to it yet. That's all good. Graves had a good piece of wisdom.

I was going to finish by saying last time you're on, you said it's like a campfire chat. And I went, geez, I thought that thought now for you've turned into skip essentially in that it's been one of the things. I'm like, actually, that's, you know, it would be better if we were sitting across from each other and had a beer in hand Ron. Exactly. But that's kind of the way I approached these conversations. Don was, um, Dawn was good. He had a good story. I think it was in his documentary.

And actually, I think it was in his book. But to hear him say it, I thought was really, uh, was moving. moving to me, right? He talked about his lowest days and then three years later, he was coached from Bobby Orr, right? And I thought, on the ferry, right, going over to three rivers. Actually, he was, he was talking about praying at his bedside. Oh, right. Yeah, yeah, that's a different story that involves, yeah, he's trying to get jobs, right? He's gone for a construction. He's tried to sell cars. Nothing, you know, he's got to take care of Rose and Tim and Cindy. And yeah, but he also tells a great story about being on the ferry, going over to

Three Rivers. He's been assigned there. And he hears Danny Gallivan on the radio describing a Habs game. And he thinks, you know, what's become of me? Like I'm headed off to Timbuktu here and poor rose and tow. And then they get off the ferry and his car won't start. And yeah, he has a few of those grinding, you know, on the journey. Those are what make a man, I think. Right? Like, sure. Those are our life-defining moments. You know, I was, so I listened to our hundredth I'll re-listen to it. And I was like, I've written down all these hockey things, which I am going to get to hockey here, because there's been some great, great stories, I think, over the air. And I don't have to go further than Connor McDavid and what he's doing for the Oilers. But at the end, you said, you know, you got to be authentic to who you are because you can't, you can't just change just because Ron's on. And I went, ah, brick. Like, I was reading, listen to that yesterday. I'm like, all right, fair enough. Well, then I, listen, I, I say all the time. I'm not sitting in Ontario. I'm not seeing everything go on. We hear the stories. But what I do see is what's going on in Alberta. I do see the protests now starting in Quebec in BC. We had a rodeo go on here on private property just this past weekend. Like people are, shall we say, upset. And I went, you know, Ron, Ron's a level-headed guy who last time we talked, we talked about a wealth of stuff, including you and Don. And I just, I kind of wanted to get your perspective on. what your thoughts are on everything going on, you know, protest-wise, because there's a lot of people upset and it's hard to not, you know, look at that and go, that's people too.

Right. For sure, it's people. And I think I told you the story of Gordon Lightfoot at the concert at Clayquot Sound saying, you know, the truckers have to earn a living too. It was a Save the Forests concert. And he had that line of sort of practical thinking. You know, it's it's so hard, Sean to have the answers. But for me, I think, you know, all you can, there's a book on sustainable high performance written by Jen Botrell's dad, Cal, the sports psychologist, and it's for emergency room doctors. And he talks about to, to be part of the future, which an ER doctor obviously is, to be part of the future is to have inner peace, despite all that stress. If you're looking for your children's best interests, if you're looking forward, you're going to

have some peace in your life. If you're looking back, if you're trying to put it, the genie back in the bottle, which is, I think, what's happening in a lot of different aspects of our world right now, even as I watched, you know, the scramble around the Tom Wilson night, which as we do this podcast, Tom Wilson has kind of rough-host Artemi Panarin of the New York Rangers and was not suspended for throwing him to the ice with no helmet. And it lit a fuse. The next night there was a line brawl and everybody's on one side of, you know, we need more fighting. We need, you know, less violence is the other side. And I think there's, there's always, always an old school that wants to maintain the status quo and then there's this undercurrent of

going forward. How do we do it? And I'm not saying I have the answers to how we do it. But I still, as I told you on the last podcast, recognize a lot of a lot of protest usually goes backwards. It usually is because somebody's trying to maintain the status quo. And if that's the case, then I don't necessarily support it. I think you know, you have. have to listen to science. You have to listen to, you know, I mean, honestly, a hundred years ago, we were headed for two world wars. Did we know it? No. But the system couldn't have been perfect if we ended up with two world wars, not to mention a million others and some other very serious, you know, problems with our society, whether it was women not able to vote, which was, you know, the fabulous

five, the famous five, I should call them, Nellie McClung and kind of happened on the prairies to get women's, you know, to be people. I mean, not 100 years ago. So things weren't perfect. Short time. Yeah, that's short time ago. So you always have to kind of look at the history in order to inform your decisions. But I think we're all at a, even as we discussed, you know, social media, there's so many things happening at that warp speed, all kind of intersecting.

Silicon Valley in California, TikTok, all that stuff has come and gone. And they didn't really like it. You know, they kind of turned their back on Facebook. and turned their back on Instagram and turned their back on Twitter, because they saw kind of the, you know, the pitfalls or pratfalls. These are, you know, so you have to look around and say, okay, good. People are protesting. How come?

Like I told you, I think I told you, when we were doing Rogers Hometown Hockey at Pegas First Nation in Manitoba, it's just north of Winnipeg. It was right during the barricades. So you had hereditary chiefs protesting the pipeline. And here we had the chief of Pegas, Glenn Hudson, who's, he's a, worked in the oil patch in the energy sector in Fort McMurray has his engineering degree and he's a chief, not a hereditary chief. There is a difference. But, you know, he saw both sides. And I think it was T.E. Lawrence, one of Don Cherry's idols, this guy who wrote Lawrence of Arabia, T.E. Lawrence.

And Lawrence said to be able to see both sides is absolute sheer recipe for madness. So it's good to see the two sides, but don't expect to come out of it feeling too good. Well, it's one of the reasons I was really excited to have you on, Ron, because, you know, I, well, I see what I see in Alberta. And one of the things that really, really concerns me. And I don't know if it's the same in Ontario. So I have to preface that, right? I'm in my bubble and my conversations and what I see on a daily basis, et cetera, et cetera. But I find people are going along with the rules in in the public eye. Does that make sense? And then when nobody's watching, the rules aren't right. Right. It's same here, Sean. God, I drive into work and people are out. They're just walking to the beaches. But isn't that concerning, Ron, not not, not because of COVID. I don't mean it because of COVID. I just mean it as society. All right. That that you're, you're, you're portraying one person one way. And then when you're out in the public,

you're portraying, like, isn't that lying to yourself or lying to the world? Like, either we just got to get on with life and people got to just step up from where they are and just be like, listen, life's going to go on and we have to carry on. Because, like, vaccinations are getting more. Honestly, like, I think we're, you know, all of our population that is high risk is getting vaccinated or has been vaccinated or in a push for that. and I just go, but I come from, and I got a prefaceus. I'm a 35 year old, young kids. I'm a population that hasn't been nearly as affected. And so I understand that bias quite well.

And I'm like, and I come from Alberta, a farming family who, you know, we have space. The population density isn't nearly. I can rattle off a bunch of stuff. But it gets confusing because, you know, now you start and see like more and more and more people and not just regular folk. I mean, there's lots of doctors starting to talk. There's lots of practitioners starting to talk that lockdowns are not the answer.

And yet, we just keep going lockdown after lockdown. And you're starting to see more and more people, well, start to talk about it, Ron. And I know when it's a one-off, you're kind of like, well, maybe there's a little bit of smoke there. Maybe, you know, I'm like, well, maybe. But when you're starting to see it across the country and in the masses, now it's starting to become,

something. Like as a population, you got to wonder about that. Well, for sure. You can't ignore information. You can't necessarily trust all the information nowadays, as you know, that fake news. But for sure, I think, you know, like, as I said, my personal experience is with AstraZeneca. And I don't know if I'll get a second shot of AstraZeneca. They can't get that particular vaccine. So that means I'll probably have to get a Pfizer or a Moderna as my second. And they don't know if that even works and they certainly don't see them as similar types of vaccines. And so everybody's, I remember getting my vaccine, Sean. And I went to a pharmacy at a lobloss, I think a grocery store here in Ontario. And I just said, well, when's my follow-up appointment?

They said, we don't know. And we don't know how they're doing it. And we'll, you know, I said, well, will you contact me. They said, well, we will try, but you should keep on the, you know, top of the news. And honestly, it wasn't very reassuring. And none of this is. The only thing, the only thing you do know, and everybody's wary of, you know, is it a ploy for pharmaceuticals to get rich? But I don't want to go down the conspiracy. Like I just, I use my eyes and my ears and I just watch Ron. I just, to me, and I know I'm not in the hot spots, right? Like. Well, here. Okay. So I'll, I'll say, Mangish Enambers, the doctor who saved my wife's life when she had a pulmonary embolous blood clot back in 2012. And so she was wary of AstraZeneca, which has a reputation well proven to create blood. Clots. So Dr. Enamder, Carrie said, is there any chance, doctor, that you could write a letter for me that says, although I qualify for AstraZeneca, I'm not able to take it because I had

blood clots, but I am, you know, going on 60 and I am high risk because of that history. Could I get a letter that says, can I have the Pfizer or the Moderna or another one? And he said, okay, Carrie, I'm sorry if I ever gave you the impression you shouldn't take the Astero Zeneca, you need to get vaccinated. He was terrified. He was terrified that she was going to put off getting vaccinated. He would rather her risk blood clots than ended up in ICU in Ontario because he sees the carnage.

And he's just a guy, just a doctor and a story I'm telling you. And that's the big battle is, it's the same with, you know, defund police. Nobody feels, I don't feel comfortable with the basic notion that police are bad. You know, that that's just offensive, highly. offensive. In principle, you need a judiciary, you need a police order, you need medicine. So these are all systems under attack right now. That's what makes it so complicated. They're crying. You know, they're crying. The nurses and doctors who've been fighting this fight in the front line for now 14 months are so exhausted, so overwhelmed in, in Ontario,

anyway. And it's just, yeah. No, no, no. Let me be very clear. I, you know, I bring it up because it concerns me and I tried fighting this on episode 100 I was like man I've been trying to get away from this you know uh when we were talking about black lives matter white privilege geez you led me down a rabbit hole for about four months after that which was good and I I uh bring it up with you because you're somebody on the other side of Canada right and right now as close as we are we're in two different worlds I don't think anyone can argue that like that's that's just the reality of it we You live in Canada, but every province has its different ways of handling this. Just take me case and point.

I live on the border of Alberta and Saskatchewan. And Saskatchewan, even at the worst, has never closed restaurants completely down. And so you've been able to have some form of normalcy in life. Whereas Alberta on the other side, you know, like literally, I live in Alberta, Ron. But because I'm Lloyd Minster, where's house Saskatchewan, right? It's a very strange world. see like both sides. I'm like, man, this is, this is a crazy situation, right? Like to the vaccines with AstraZeneca, I know that name I laughed when you're talking about,

you know, like the blood clots stuff. Like, I mean, if you do the math, the blood clots, yes, but it is an extremely low percentage that that happens to. Like, that's what Mangish said. Right. He said, yeah, take that risk because it's way more important that you have some way to fight the virus. So that's where his head was at. And I'm just telling you that story as a practical showing his alarm. And to your point, you know, to be in a divided country, as we invariably are, whether it's Quebec with their agenda or the West with its or Central Canada with its, etc. I remember George Washington was terrified of the whole political party system. That was his biggest fear. When they created the United States, I'll tell you story, Washington was sitting, it was James

Madison and Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin and George Washington. and they were all sitting around creating the United States. And Ben Franklin used to look at the chair, George Washington, the general, idolized man. He looked at the chair he sat in, which was a wood chair, armchair, with a son embossed in the back of the chair. And Ben Franklin, whenever George would get out of the chair, Ben would look at that son. And he'd say to himself, is that a setting sun or is that a rising sun? Is this idea going to take hold? And ultimately Franklin decides, and he dies almost day.

days after they create America. He says it's a rising sun and he writes a beautiful piece about the opportunity of America. But Washington warned them, we just can't have a political system where there's two parties like they have in the UK because they seed dissent. They seed hatred. They seed fear by definition. That's what they have to do in order to succeed. So he warned us of the impending struggle of two parties. But of course it's representation. It's It's supposed to be a check and accountability of the system. But, yeah, I mean, I grew up in Alberta, right? So it's not like I'm immune to.

But I always take pride, and I've always said this about the oil patch or the energy sector, is that, you know, they figured out a way to extract first the oil. They figured out a way to do the oil sands in Fort McMurray. They figured out a way out of frack and to extract the natural gas. The deposits of each are not big. They're not like, you know, there's these massive pools. of oil and gas under Alberta. They had to, through science, figure out a way to get at it.

And they did. So science, if you're going to trust it there, you know, trust it to solve the problem of greenhouse gas emissions and some of the things we need to do to go forward environmentally well. I always believed in that. And I saw Calgary have, you know, it's funny to go to do a flames luncheon. And I hear the bickering, you know, that Nahid Nenshi. What a cuck.

You know, we got this left winger, this crazy man. He's killing business. And you go up to Edmonton and they've got Stephen Mandel is Jewish. And so there's all these beautiful examples and you have a female premier for a while. And there's all these examples within what is supposed to be redneck country of diversity and inclusion. That's my province. So, yeah, I mean, you can't tag either side. You can't tag Alberta as redneck or conservative, even though the politic history is that.

It didn't start that way. Edmonton became the capital because of the liberals. So, yeah, so many, so many things that have always gone, you know, on both sides of the fence, even as much as you think of, you know, Alberta as conservative blue and red neck. It's not. And I would refuse to accept that it is. Well, don't matter, we, you know, you go across this great country. Right.

You're great people. And the difference is, is just, you know, you go from Lloyd to Vermilion to Vagerville to Eminton, things just change slightly from every which way you go. And I mean, Emmington obviously is different than Little Old Hillmont, right? I mean, I don't mean they sound like a country bumpkin,

but I mean, in Lloyd, or to Eminton, I mean, you get a million people, right? Like, that's,

that's population. That's a lot of people close together. And you just move farther away from that and we're just, you know, uh, seeing what, what the world's doing. And,

the funny thing about that story. interrupt again, Sean, but the funny thing about big cities and small towns is the small, like Hillmont and Edmonton are the same because you can, nobody really knows your business in Edmonton. It's in Lloyd that you're in trouble. It's in a city that's a little bit small enough that everybody knows everybody's business. You know, like I always said to Brad Richards, how the hell can you be happy in Tribeca, New York? He wasn't ultimately. He gets sick of the big city fighting in politics and moved down to Florida and had, you know, had a great pool and that his children could enjoy outdoors. But Brad's from a little Murray Harbor and he said,

at least in New York, I was lost. I was, I was like being in Murray Harbor because I'd walk down the street and nobody bothered me and nobody knew my business. And so there's a, there's a bit of autonomy in a small, small town, not Lloyd Minster as a smaller city. But it's in the, it's in red deer where I grew up and it's in Lloyd where, you know, now you are in the crosshairs of, kind of got to watch what you do because you're, if you believe strongly in a reputation, which I guess pride of performance, pride of individual character. You have to have a bit of it. I'm a little wary of too, too much of it.

But yeah, in a place like Lloyd, I remember when the bank manager may have told you that story, came in and I was going to look out at the border credit union and parked his car at a 7-Eleven next to a strip joint and was told. Never again. Don't you go to that 7-Eleven and park your car? Because you'll be construed as having visited the strip club. And that can only happen in, you know, that just doesn't happen in New York City. No one would ever catch that. Well, it's why I, I don't know, I've been really looking forward to this because I like talking,

I like trying to work these problems out and to have a different conversation to make you think about things differently. You know, always brings up a man convinced against their will is still convinced. I know that's not your line, but that's a line you used last time. And I think right now with everything, it doesn't matter if we're talking COVID, vaccines, lockdowns. I mean, just go down the list, Ron. That is the two sides.

And it's interesting to hear the story about the U.S. because, gee, that's part of the, you know, to have, you know, if you had 50 people, it may be a little different. But when you get into the millions, you know, or the hundreds of millions in the United States is case, that's a lot of people. That's a lot. You know, you don't have to go far down the street to hear five different stories of where people come from and, you know, how they've been impacted, how their thoughts have been impacted. And the thing about COVID in particular that's very new to, I think, everyone is it feels like, well, what people are worried about out West around this area is freedoms. Now, lots of people will say to cram it, get on with life, and in three months we're through this.

But we've also been saying that for a year now. And now they're starting to worry. Yeah, we all are. It's everybody's, you know, ability to, I don't know, have their. But how would a, how would a cowboy who runs dry for a year to two? You know, like I always use the hockey example of Sagan's back after seven months. Stamcoast came back after seven months and played three minutes, five shifts and scored the biggest. Yeah, Buchel. Isn't that a great story?

Yeah, Crosby came back after missing two years. He was, we thought, done at 22. Certainly in the agricultural community, you know, the back-to-back whammies of, you know, infestation and then drought, you know, often topple, you know, farmers, but, but they have to stick with it. You have to be, and, you know, the two things I always loved, I loved when I did the Calgary Stampede, how the Cowboys really resented. And I think I told you this.

If they've, I designated them as an American or a Brazilian or a. Canadian, they were offended. It's like, go screw yourself. I'm not a either of those. I'm a cowboy. And you try this. You know, that that's from within designation that they have. They identify as cowboys. And I love, you know, with, like in the case of the United States, Black Lives Matter, I don't know what the population of blacks in America is, but it's not that significant. I think it represents maybe 11% of the entire population. So it's a very strong movement representing, you know, a smaller percentage than I think most people realize. But it's important. And for like as an example, Tom Petty, my favorite singer,

you know, his mom's mom was full-blooded Native American Cherokee and his father worked in a black neighborhood, ran a grocery store. And Tom would go in and listen to the vernacular of the locals and wrote most of his music based on being informed by the indigenous and the black culture of Gainesville, Florida. So that fantastic. You know, why border ourselves or wall ourselves from not no one would no that that's that's fair uh i don't mean to make it out to seem that uh you're not worried about the the population i just read things like have you read the great barrington declaration at all wrong like have you heard of that that's that's uh focus protection is what it's called right there's over 800 000 signatures it was originally signed by a uh professor

medicine at harvard an epidemiologist from oxford and a physician from stanford and a physician from Stanford. And it's been like, it's just, it's just talking about, uh, how we protect not only people from getting COVID from all the ramifications of that come with lockdowns. And, and like, you know, I'm, I'm, I got kids and I don't mean to. No, you're good. It's, honestly, I'm not, I'm not thinking that this is, you know, hack need. Yeah. irresponsible at all. But, because you're thinking. thinking of mental health. You're thinking of the well, mental health. And the things that I see, being a younger guy, right? Just coming from the younger generation, I don't know, as I just look at it and I go,

man, like one year missing hockey, like for playoffs, hey, like I don't think anybody a year ago was going, this is horrendous. There were people. But I mean, overall, everybody took a step back, went, nope, this makes complete sense. Let's get through this and carry on. But now you start, you know, I was talking to, you know, a grade 11 and I don't, she doesn't, she's just one person and many, right? But she asked her how school is going and they're on distance learning, right? And she goes, I hate it. And I'm like, I hate it's a pretty strong word. She's like, no, I hate it. I'm going, huh, that's tough because, you know, I don't know what high school was for you, Ron, but for me, Ron, it was high school was a lot of fun years. Like those three years were, you know, and if you're, you know, if you have a school at certain in grade nine, I'm sure four of them. And I know there's tough kids that go through high school and don't love it.

But that's just one of the stories I hear. And you go, we got to find ways to get kids enjoying life again because the more of this goes on, the longer it goes on. The longer they're told they can interact or do things that get them physically moving. I wonder about what the impacts are going to be a year from now, 10 years from now. And if we don't talk more about that, you know, as we move forward. Well, I mean, it's already starting to become a conversation of hot debate. Yeah, there's no doubt about that, Sean. I mean, you'd be a fool not to see the pain that teenagers are experiencing and educators too.

I mean, I get a lot of requests, you know, to do videos for schools from the teachers saying, you know, Keep your spirit alive. Keep your focus. We really appreciate you doing this, kids. Yeah, it's heartbreaking. And I mean, but honestly, and I, what am I know? I'm a weatherman slash hockey, dear league hockey player from Red Deer, Alberta.

And I've watched, you know, all, as I said to you the last time, you know, 500 years ago when the bubonic and black plagues were hitting, these were the same ethical questions, the exact same questions, you know, and protests. You can't do this. You know, you're taking away our freedoms. You're taking away our autonomy. You're taking away our business. You're taking away our lives.

Now, stop with this. And, you know, the only difference is, I guess, people weren't getting on airplanes 500 years ago, and we weren't spreading it around as readily and as easily as it seems to be, you know, reinstituting in different parts of the world. Yeah, it's tough. And it just requires to see the other. That's the only, always the solution.

You know, the two, defining decision makers are always number one, take care of the largest community. Whatever the largest community of need is, you have to have the courage to be disliked in the smaller community in order to advance the needs and goods of the bigger community. So if the world at large is still susceptible to the coronavirus, if that's true, and I'm not, you know, chief medical officer, but if that's true and it appears to be to my eye based on most of what I see, if that's the biggest community, the biggest concern, that has to take precedence. And then the other thing is to help yourself, as I said, to be part of the future is to find inner peace. So to be thinking about what's

best for your children to give them a better, greater world. You know, our world, look, Sean, you and I know, our world is great. Ours is idyllic. Ours is, because as I told you before, much to the chagrin of everybody. But in our, in our world of privilege, we don't have to worry about, you know, walking out the door and being attacked or being profiled. wild or all the things that, you know, a lot of people are telling us they experience. And it's, as I said, I think people are trying to put the genie back in the bottle because to us who are comfortable, the status quo is a slice of heaven. But it hasn't been a slice of heaven for all.

It's very true. It's funny. It's funny what less than a year in the word privilege does to me because it used to make my blood rise. And now, now I guess it just like water off a duck's back. like I understand more than what it, you know, is initially meant, I guess, which is funny, what a year of learning and talking to people and definitely talking to more than just yourself about it around. I've had lots of conversation about it. I think what we're starting to see then,

you mentioned the good for the greater community, the most impacted. And I think what we're starting to feel then is that the most affected are going to be the youth. And I think that is what we're starting to feel. I think we're really starting to see that people are starting to voice their opinion and over the next little bit. And like I just, like I say, over and over again, is I look at it like, we need to protect everyone. But that's an impossibility. That is almost unthinkable to be able to do that. We can't wrap everybody in a bubble suit and send them out the door. And I don't think you want to do that. But at some point here, or maybe right as we speak, to me, the winds are shifting.

And you're starting to see it across Canada on a global scale. More and more people are marching saying we need to, you know, and whether or not, once again, me and you are not medical doctors. But it's still, we're still people in a society where we get to talk about it. And I think that's a really powerful thing to be able to discuss these thoughts and hear a different view because I certainly appreciate having a different view of the mind. like just to hear the thoughts and think about it and is really good now i got to switch for a second because you mentioned you mentioned cowboys and i wonder ron you went to you went to um

you went to the stampede an awful lot did you ever get on a bowl a horse no a steer a horse for sure a horse uh yeah in fact i mean when it was bucking ron never no no no no no no no you never friends that did. Yeah, I had friends that Wagamachis, we used to call Hobema in central Alberta. And yeah, a bunch of my guys did the Christmas rodeo there, but God, no, I didn't have the courage to have you. Have you? I've been on a steer before. Never, never bowl. I tell you what, I give my

tip tip of the cap to anyone who gets on an animal like that because I think you're naive to not think there's any danger associated with that. That thing gets a whole the man. So here's, here's Grapes' theory. Grapes' theory is the two bravest athletes in the world are the rodeo bull rider.

And the rodeo clown? No, the figure skater. Oh, the figure skater. Isn't that interesting? So he said for them to go out, stand at center ice, knowing they've got a four and a half minute routine in front of the eyes of the world, nothing. No shin pads, no helmet, no nothing.

And all the pressure in the world. And he puts that, which is obviously much more a mental courage, maybe than a physical courage. But he equates the two. And that's important. It's just important to understand that there's courage manifests a lot of different ways. So I love, don't get me wrong. I just think I love the bull riders and the buckingstock, you know, riders.

But yeah, I think they're just incredible. And they come from a, you know, they've been so humbled by something bigger than themselves. which is either a 1,500 pound horse or a 2,000 pound bull. Crazy. And it's a, you know, that, I often think about the downhill skiers like Karen Stemmel and her brother, Brian, who nearly died at Kitsbuehl. And it's like, why do we have that, you know, almost death wish to go and challenge ourselves with this?

But that's life. That's, if you suck the risk out of life, what is it? It's not much. So rodeo is a great, great exam. And I do love, you know, I love how the people in the sport love the, animals. It's, you know, it's hard to explain to people who don't know. But when you've been around the rodeo and you see what goes on, even if they have to be, you know, biting years from time to time, it's, it's incredible to see the relationship between the equine world and the humanity

there. Well, I think that is a microcosm of a lot of things in the world. Like, if you go, If you go to a farm and see how cattlemen deal with their livestock or go, you know, I feel like Kurt Benzmiller jumps to mind when you talk about how they treat their horses and everything else. Like you just got to go around it and see it. And once you see it, you're like, oh, wow, that's like. Yeah, it's beauty. Yeah, well, that's life, right? Like, that's the inner workings of living on this planet, this beautiful planet, this beautiful area is that relationship and those relationships all around us. Yeah, it is an ecosystem.

And that's, again, back to this, you know, quandary we find ourselves in right now where things have been taken from us and we're not happy about it. You know, we have to make sacrifices in life just to be responsible citizens, just to be responsible human beings, not just to, you know, business or those interests, but to be a good father, a good husband, you know, these are all requiring some sacrifices along the way. So we're in a, we're in a, an inferno of an example, but just look at it that way. Just look at it as now's not the time to buckle. We, we really, we have to cowboy up. You mentioned last time, I was asking about, you know, it's funny, a year ago, I'll ask the same

question. You said, I asked if you thought what was going on was good. And you said, yeah, I really think so because a lot of people back then around me were like, this is, we are going down a wonky path. And a lot of people have magnified the wonky path. You still think this is a good path, Ron? Well, I do think, you know, when you have a, all that's going on with social media as a thing we're trying to sort, as I said, technology is kind of way ahead of our ethics and everything's ricocheting around and we're reacting every day to what's in the, you know, front of us on the phone. That isn't great. So you need a grounding in terms of an in it together moment to kind of teach you that this isn't about you and retreating to your phone

and retreating to your own views and research. You have to be part of something bigger than yourself and we're kind of being forced into it. At the same time, that's happening, which is kind of having us withdraw from society. We're being forced to come together as a society. or a community at least. So that might be the blessing, the mixed blessing. You know, lately I've had the thought, forever a student. Like I really enjoy learning. And every time I think, man, I love to just like humble myself.

Every time I think, you know, I'm getting the hanging of this. I know what I'm doing, right? I kind of get set back in my place and I go, huh, okay, that hurt. I'll pick myself up, dust myself off, and carry on. and know that lesson. I was wondering, you know, you've been on television a long time. And I mean that as a feather in your cap, not as a dating. And I wonder, you know, in the first like three to five years of being on Coach's Corner,

you got Don Cherry, just, you know, the only thing Don knows is how to rile people and galvanize and everything else. Was there a time in those first few years when you look back where you thought, man, I got this figured out? And then you got set on your butt? Oh, well, I mean, over and over again, Sean. I mean, and that's why I, when I wanted to do my book, I wanted it to be the story of Don Quixote, the retired school teacher, who was a little bit senile perhaps, but he wanted to be a knight. And he hires a peasant farmer, Sancho Panza to be a squire,

and he goes out and tries to save the world. And, you know, they get into so much trouble trying to be, you know, the good night. But then they talk about it. So, yeah, no, I've been, like I remember even doing a dinner in Ravleburg, Saskatchewan. And I was with Dave Ridgeway, the kicker from Saskatchewan Rough Riders, and Joan McCusker, the curler, of course, from Sanders Schmerler's Olympic champion team. And we were sitting around. And after, you know, there were questions and a guy said, it must be tough to, you know, to sit there and give yourself up for Don Cherry. And I said,

no, I feel like I'm ennobling, you know, a great soul and a fun entertainer and proud to do it. And, but it always kind of stuck with me that, you know, you're in service, in the attempt to be of service, you lose a bit of yourself. And I, I've rationalized my entire life that that's okay. But it always kind of nagged, right? It always kind of was, you know, are you doing the right thing if you're true to someone else? Are you true to you? And, and so back and forth on that, for all time. You will, you will always kind of wonder, okay, you know, like when I, when I approach anything ethical now, I want the hard conversation, Sean, right after your spirit there. Because, again, to back up to privilege, privilege is when you don't have the hard conversation, when you just sit in your self-interest or your self-comfort and you refuse to hear the other. Now that's privilege. And I abhor that. So that's why it was so important to be part of a dynamic.

And then that dynamic gets taken away. And there's been many others, you know, moments along the way I've had to apologize for fellow broadcasters or I've had to apologize for myself. comes with the territory comes with being alive and being vulnerable which is a great thing you know you're you're going to you're going to mess up and it's not the end of the world you know it's just it's a it's a lesson and it's a that's the joy of it that that truly is the joy of it you said in service you will ultimately lose a part of yourself I'm curious about that line could you expand on that well here here you know when when as an example when you sign up to be part of the, this is, I don't know why this came to me, but when you sign up to be a soldier,

they don't say, are you prepared to, you know, pull the trigger on a 12-year-old coming with a knapsack on their back? Are you prepared to kill a kid? You know, the ads all say, are you willing to be part of Canada? Are you willing to fight for your nation? Are you willing to live a life of adventure and sail the seven seas? And, you know, they paint a picture that doesn't at all detail the stress you're about to incur. So you give up. a little bit of yourself in the name of your country and the name of an ideal. You know, transformational leadership is what militaries rely on. And that is instead of transactional, which is just bartering, you know, you give me this

amount of money, I'll give you this amount of service. Transactional leadership is how Gary Batman has to lead. He's got owners. Everything's about dollars and cents. But transformational leaders, the ones who run armies, they have to sell an ideal. And in order to work at that ideal, much like the doctors and the nurses and the scientists, pushing coronavirus vaccines, they are relying on buy-in from some person who sacrifices themselves in the name of that ideal. And I've always felt you and I in our vocation are a little bit

in that role. We are trying to get at the truth. We are trying to get at something, you know, that's going to make us all a little bit better, more educated, more informed. But you lose a little bit, you know, if we do it right, you know, how can Sean Newman be Sean Newman and Ron McLean and achieve that? They can't. You have to sacrifice yourself in order to allow the other to have that moment. So it's a challenge. It's, it's one of the things that I admire about Ron, because I think when I, like when I approach the podcast, I go, I kind of take a step back. And the reason I named it my name is because I say this all the time is I just, I want to go where I want to go, which means, like, I want to be true to my values. And so I've heard you talk an awful

lot about your values. And I, I don't know, I just admire that because sticking true to yourself is very, very difficult, right? And that's maybe why I go back to what I see behind closed doors, to what I see out in public is people aren't sticking to their values. And I think that's a, that's a very dangerous thing for people in society or a society to do. But in saying that, sticking to your values, as you know, being on a national network,

having Don Cherry sit beside you for how many years? Like, your values get questioned all the time. And so you have to do some work and some deep thought on, well, what do I value? And what does that mean? And I admire you for, I really do admire you for what you say and how you say it and the work and the effort you put into it.

But it also means that by doing that, you will never have 100% buy in of what people, of people listening to you or watching you because that is that that is an impossibility. Of course. Yeah. You know, so Sean, it just ends up when I look in the mirror, do I like that guy? That's right. You have to choose who to lose in order to maintain a little. bit of your, you know, self-worth and your purpose. So, yeah, to be liked, there's a couple of things. You want to listen, which you're good at. And, you know, I try to be good at. Listening is

really important. And then after that, you know, if you want to be liked, you tell people what they want to hear. You, you know, basically patronize. But that's no good. That that will lead you to a very, you know, hollow life of looking in the mirror and hating the person you see. So your core values are everything. Your brand is your, you know, is everything. But having said that, you know, I'm sure, God, I don't want to be foolish or extremist here, but, you know, I'm sure Hitler believed in himself, you know, so you have to watch, you know, that you don't just sit back in the mirror and say, I've got this zest. I have this figured out. And my research has led me down this path, so I'm right. That, that is unacceptable. You know, you have to be full of questions. You have to be

full of uncertainty in order to, I think, be part of a seven billion enterprise, which is planet Earth. Yeah. Listen, I go back to every time I think I get it close to figure it out. And I, you know, if I look back over my short life or, you know, to the kids' long life, I just got to go back every few years, right? At 18, I thought I had the world by the nuts run. Yeah.

At 25, I looked at 18 when I was an idiot. at 30 the same thing. And here at 35, I go, man, a lot of life perspective is gained in five years. And in a year like we've just had, like, you know, we'll be talked about this, you know, God willing, if I live to see old age, when my grandkids are growing up, hopefully, they'll ask about these years. I guarantee it. And go, what was that like? And the cool thing is, is by doing these conversations, they get a live look into how my brain's thinking. and how other people are thinking. And the amount of technology and information that's captured right now, anyone willing to go back and look will be able to. It's funny. When I interviewed Donovan Bailey last year, at one point in the conversation,

he was talking about maybe entering politics to help, you know, with the social justice measures. And, you know, he said, I have to, you know, now at this age in my life, and I don't know what age you would have been last year. I should know that. Anyway, he said, I called Michael Johnson a chicken back in 97. I cannot let my inner voice out anymore.

You know, I have to watch, you know, that I don't speak with my inner voice. I have to be more responsible as I've grown older. And that's, you know, his dad had always told him, one day you're going to have to, you know, account for your opinions, Donovan. So be careful. And that's, that's all part of it. You know, I still don't think it's, I don't think you want to hedge your bets too too much. I don't think you want to prepare a mask to wear and speak only the truth that you think the other wants to hear, because you might as well be alone. What's the point of withholding?

Just be careful. Just keep yourself in check as we all do, or try to. Try to. Yeah, try to, try to have that tolerance, try to have that compassion. Try to see the other. That's the big challenge. and it's it we we don't, I was just shocked at how blind I was to so many things. Like as I think I told you the last time, my, my, you know, for years I used to think women and men were all the same.

And then I thought, you know, I don't see color. And I had all these ways of rationalizing my, uh, naive objectivity, uh, just failing to kind of pick up on the cues that women and people of color were living a completely different reality. And, uh, yeah, not to go down that again, but, but, but, but that was. that's sort of my comeuppance. And that, that happened to me, it's say 60. I'm 61. So, you know, they say you should never write a memoir until you're at least 70. And I do believe that. Did you ever think of going into politics, Ron?

Just curious, you're a well-read guy with- I admire it greatly, though, Sean. You know, I, I mean, I never say never, because I think the vocation is one of the great vocations. Like lawyering, when it's done right, I don't think there's a greater service than, you know, medicine, anything to do with the judiciary, policing, lawyering, you know, those are all the responsible. You know, rights come from wrongs. So whoever fixes those, all the power to you.

And then politics is, you know, ultimately that's the process, even though I spoke earlier of how divisive it can be. Ultimately, that is the process of deciding who gets to be a Canadian. And what does it mean? I mean, what a job. What an incredible, you know, to give of yourself. And again, it's a service role. It's a, I think, you know, everything that makes a farm tick is what makes a country tick or a community tick or a family.

And anything you can do to encourage the leading lights in that arena, great. So I would, I would, what would I be, though? Would I be a conservative? Would I be, it's funny. I did a thing for Adam Vancouver. It's liberal. So I immediately picked up the phone and phone. Mike Lake and LaDuke, who's a conservative and said, now, Mike, if you need a thing, I'll do for you.

What I did for Adam Vancouver. He just needed a fundraiser because nobody can. raise money in the pandemic. So, and Adam's an old friend from Olympic paddling. But yeah, I don't know, I don't know what the hell I would think about who to align myself with. And there again, that's maybe back to T.E. Lawrence. I'd see both sides of it and I'd drive myself crazy.

I, uh, I've wondered for a really long time when it comes to politics. And I don't mean, this will come, it sounds as a slight to politicians, but the people I admire most or not in politics. You know, you talk about oil out here in Alberta and having to be very savvy in how to get it out of the ground, right? Right. And, and, and there are some very smart people I respect that are in business, in family, right? We don't want to give up their family life that don't go into politics. I always wonder that because to me, those are some of the best of us that stay away from the political sphere of defining what is Canadian and how we're going to live here. And I wonder if for too long there haven't been some of the best of us in politics.

And I struggle with that because to me that's... It'll even get worse with social media. Like who wants to take the risk of the barrage of the accountability? You know, you can't do anything. I mean, the two men who ran for U.S. president were both well into their 70s. you know, they're past it. They're past worrying about, you know, their life being shredded by a post.

And I hope we don't get to that point. I just think it's such a great vocation. And I know, you know, it's funny, I have a good buddy who's very right-wing conservative and he just, ah, they're in it for the pension. That's all they want. They want their four years or whatever it is that you get a pension. And he's so cynical about it.

And a lot of people are, you know, if you're any good at any, you know, that's why, you know, a lot of the, like Trump was loved because he was good in business, not because he was good in politics, although he's good in politics and TV. But I think, you know, at core, it's just, it's everything. It's what makes, you know, and I'm not a nationalist, as you know, I'm big on, you know, a more global perspective. So I don't want someone to be dictator or king of the world. But I do think it's just a really honorable profession.

I remember Deborah Gray, who was Preston Manning's, and there's another guy, Preston Manning. you know, the Reform Party. These were all, you know, Jason Kenny's dad, Martin Kenny, these are all really inspiring individuals who have their political bents, but in the end, you know, they've chosen to represent you and me, which is incredible. It's just, I know it's easy to be cynical about the whole process. And Deborah Gray said it's a dirty game, Ron,

because once you get in, you've got to maintain your, you know, portfolio or your seat. And gosh, knows what you're going to be. prone to, you know, susceptible to in order to achieve those ends. That's the dirty part of the game and it's unfortunate. It's the part George Washington warned us about. But, yeah, too many good men and women have been leaders at critical times to dismiss that. And I hope people see it as honorable. I hope, you know, people, I think it's the greatest vocation.

I really do. I put it above education. I put it above everything else. I really do. I get told I'm naive all the time, Ron, because I go, I really struggle with why somebody can't just talk common sense and why they can't sit in House of Commons and just why are we yelling at each other. Right. We're all in this together. And if we don't figure it out, like we get no.

Well, Sean, so one one of the things I forget where I was doing Rogers hometown hockey because we bring in all the local politicians at every stop. and it was a woman, a member of parliament in Manitoba somewhere, who said, well, Ron, the House of Commons was designed by men. It was two sides opposite one another, just absolutely set up to fight. He said if it was a woman designing the House of Commons,

we would have had it in a circle, and we would have eliminated that natural tendency to want to go at the other side. It was crazy. It was just a little observation she made, but I thought, hmm, I wonder, I wonder if that's a simple resolution to this foolish insolvility that we saw.

at times in the comments. But yeah, that's that whole grandstanding. There's all kinds of things that you can point to and say that's wrong. But is the core purpose of politics good? I believe so. Well, 100%. The core purpose of politics is what gives us the lovely society we live in Ron. Like 100%.

I think you go back a thousand years and they go, you're going to be doing what? Geez, take a little bit of yelling. That's fine. I guess I just, I go, at the end of the day, me and you can sit and have a discussion. I know that's not surrounded by a thousand people or whatever it is. It's not a thousand. But you know what I mean. And encouraging and discouraging and everything else.

I just as a reasonable person, I hope, as a guy willing to listen to the other side, it seems like in, I don't know, the current situation, nobody's listening to anyone. They're just, they're just, and that's both sides. That isn't, that isn't conservative. of that isn't liberal, that isn't Green Party or NDP, that is just what is happening. And it's like, anybody else see this? Because this is like absurd. And like, why wouldn't you take, why wouldn't

you sit across from Ron McLean? Here his advice, here his thoughts, his experiences, sit back and go, now, how how can some of that impact my life and my views and how I think and carry on with life? you don't have to just let emotion so to speak guide you at all times where you just like shut your ears and man I'm just nope not happening like I'm not listening to that guy it's like huh well I think we need to humble ourselves maybe a little bit and just huh he's not okay right like but that's that's me I don't and and at times I sound like I got it all figured out I certainly don't at times I can be guided by emotion just as much. You get me on the ice surface, Ron. And I tell you what, that's exactly what gets me going is emotion. I follow emotion all over the ice. And I was sat down several times, you know,

into my early 30s and maybe my late 20s. I told you just, you need to figure that out. And you see it with young NHLers all the time, right? If they can figure that part of the game out, then they'd become lethal, so to speak, because, you know, their emotion doesn't put them in the sin bin or sitting on the end of the bench for part of the game. Yeah, Scott Stevens, right? Was a great example of the guy who figured it out. And, well, look, we're only human. And you're the same, you know, they always say your Damon spirit, which is your gift and your nemesis.

They're always at odds. Hamlet, the great Shakespeare, everything he wrote was about that conundrum. And ultimately, Hamlet perished of thinking too well. And he, like T.E. Lawrence's idea, he just saw both sides and it drove him insane. So, yeah, we'll always struggle with that. And as far as, you know, the not listening, I think, especially right now, we're in such a volatile crisis, you know, that there's a little bit of stress. It's not PTSD because we're living it. But there is such stress on everybody in government right now.

You know, they're being pulled in several directions. So you've got to cut them some slack. You've got to, you know, like I said to Donovan Bailey when he called Michael Johnson a chicken in 1997. Yeah. but you were you were being told you're not the fastest man you just won the Olympics you just set a record world record and right away the US flipped the switch and said no the fastest man in the world is Michael Johnson because he ran the 200 in X and so now you go head to head with him at 150 meters and it's filled rogers center or sky dome at the time and you're just like so wired that you explode and when when the guy pulls up with a hamstring you turn around and call him a chicken big deal you were under stress you have to forgive a little bit of, you know, these kinds of things. And I think I really forgive, you know, whether it's Doug Ford yelling at Trudeau or Trudeau yelling it, you know, it doesn't matter.

It's there, everybody's just doing the best they can in this craziest scenario. So now. And you bring up some good, good memories with Donovan Bailey. Those were, you know, as moments as a kid where you like know exactly where you were and that he says, yeah. Right. He's Paul Henderson. That's right. You're right.

Absolutely. I wasn't around for Paul Henderson. So I hear the stories of it. I'm like, oh, that's like super cool. Well, some of the big ones for me is,

is Donovan Bailey. Like, I'm no runner. I mean, like, you know, no, but it was Canada, right?

But it was Canada. And it was, holy crap, the fastest man on the planet is Donovan Bailey. And even when he got called out, you're like, ah, here we go. This is going to be awesome.

He had the entire nation behind him. Then you got Sidney Crosby's goal. You know, I wanted to ask you about Ryan Miller, and I will ask you about Ryan Miller. But, you know, Sydney Crosby's the golden goal.

Like everybody knows where they were sitting for that one. That was. Yep. That was perfect. I mean, the United States doesn't see it, but we certainly do. Where were you? Sitting with family and friends and probably won too many cocktails. And I don't know if I've ever jumped so high in my entire life, Ron.

Like, that was, that almost brings my. like it's making my hair stand up in my arm like that as a hockey guy as a canada guy anytime the canadian jerseys put on it emotes amid so much emotion out of me i would have loved like i don't know what i would do if i got to wear the canadian jersey like just once like i i don't know what i'd do but to watch other players do it the best of us do it is man that's a rallying cry for me and it means so much to the player sean uh brad richards as you know as a dear friend and and and his bid to make that 2006 Torino team. It didn't go well in Italy, but he was so proud.

He'd worn it in the World Juniors. He'd warned it in the World Cup in 2004, but he had not been to the Olympics, and he was so, so into it. And they all are. So you're right after their spirit there. And for me, we were sitting in our home here in Oakville, and I was on the couch,

and Carrie had gone into the kitchen, and she was waiting. The play was kind of happening, and she was waiting to cross in front of me to go back and sit down. And she waited and waited, and the play kept carrying on. And so finally she decides to move. And she moves in front of me right at the moment that it was kind of a bang, bang,

play, right? Yeah. He did and he takes that quick release. So it kind of was blocked to me as it happened by my wife, bringing probably cocktails. I don't know what. Yeah, it was a really funny moment. But yeah, we'll never forget it.

Well, and the other one lately was Kauai Leonard with the Raptors. And once again, I'm not a big basketball guy, but how can't you get behind the Raptors and the running? made and and that shot. That wasn't in the finals, but the shot where it just, it bounced and it just hung in the air and you're like, oh, my God, this is a book. And then, oh, but, and then it goes in, like, that's poetry, man. That right there is, is beautiful. Well, that's the big thing that basketball with the three point play. It's, it's a bizarre, you know, addition to the game. You're young enough that you, it's, you've lived with it your whole time. But I, in my day, uh, Dr. Julius Irving,

uh, Dr. Jay, you know, it used to be the slam dunk was everything. Drive the net and slam dunk. Michael Jordan Air Jordan because he would leave, you know, and from about 10 meters do the dunk. And then the three point play was introduced. And now everything is this suspense as the balls in the air. And, you know, it's a fantastic bit of theater. And Kauai's was the ultimate. So yeah, they made a change in the game where everything's on the periphery. It used to be an inside game. And I often think about hockey in those terms is like, what is hockey going to ever do that can capture something as magical as the three point basket in basketball? because the game, you know, it has moved a little bit outside the house.

We call it in hockey, I guess. I don't call it that, but the crease and, you know, the slot. Everything's kind of on the periphery too with, you know, you see Austin Matthews come out of the zone. Not McDavid. McDavid is old school. He's taking it right to the net. But, yeah, anyway, that's a funny observation about the Kauai Leonard points that I remember. It's one of those theatrical balls in the air.

Crazy. Yeah. those are those are some good moments it's always good to talk about the good moments because i jeez i bet you everyone listens going i remember what was because those are those are big moments you know um you know we haven't talked about hockey ron and i i want to talk about a little bit more hockey i think something i really admire in a hockey player is longevity and patrick marlowe you know most games ever played like is that i mean you're a guy who gets a guy who gets to sit and talk about this stuff on the daily.

To see somebody pass Gordy Howe and I don't know. Like is that not its own sense of beauty, right? Like right there. For sure. The ability to keep going year after year, have the career Marlowe had be the type of character that he is, right? Like we hear, you know, you bring up Tom Wilson and everybody ragging on that and whether we, you know, it's not that bad, whether it is that bad,

whether it is that bad, whatever, who cares? At least in my opinion, I didn't see it as, you know, this isn't going back 20 years, in my opinion, where you had people hacking and whacking and Patrick Waugh racing out to fight Osgood or Vernon, and that sends people back to those years. That was only in the 90s, or maybe early 2000s. But Patty Marlow was a guy that shows what's best about hockey, in my opinion.

Yes, for a lot of reasons. One, Doug Wilson brought him back. So that just shows you, you know, they return to San Jose is a great compliment. The fact he's playing for whatever he's playing for now, I think 700,000 a year or a little more maybe. But he's not playing for money. He's playing for the love of the game. He certainly wasn't playing, you know, two years ago for the longevity record. He just loves the game.

And I think that's, you know, he's a great example of a guy that, you know, his influences were swift current guys, whether it was Trent McLeary or Mark Lamb. Yeah, I was so grateful to see. He was always just a fun, classic guy. It was great to hear Kelly Rudy tell the story about him living with Kelly, but not driving to the rink together because he had a fancy corvette. And Kelly wanted no part of driving to the rink with an 18-year-old in a corvette. So, yeah, very excited for the Marlos.

His mom and dad are just great, so nice. How about I mentioned her. earlier, Ryan Miller. I'd read an article about him saying, you know, he would have been the hero of the U.S. if he, you know, if they would have beat Canada, right? Because he was, that's right. And but once again, he played the L.A. Kings. This is a few nights ago. And I'm sure everybody knows what I'm talking about. He gets, you know, at the end, the handshakes. And you can tell the, you know, probably about the first four or five guys that have played against them, you know, for a good majority of their career,

understand what it means to be in the league as long as he has in a goaltender position among everything else. That to me is one of those cool, small little moments, very small little moment that encapsulates what hockey is about. I thought on your side, you probably get to see a few more moments than the average viewer. And I was wondering if there was a moment

that sticks out to you where, hockey, you know, I mean, there's probably so many, Ron, but, you know, the handshake moment of staying on the ice afterwards to congratulate on a guy on a career well done, even if he didn't win the U.S. a gold medal or, you know, a Stanley Cup. Well, for sure, I always cite the Broncos is my ultimate moment of what hockey means to us, but humble Broncos. But, you know, with Ryan Miller, there was a guy, a young prospect for the London Knights, Ian Jenkins, who, as he was coming up the ranks, Ryan Miller kind of mentored him. And he had Ryan Miller's number 35, and he had Ryan Miller posters in his bedroom. And he's drafted second round by the London Knights. And unfortunately, the day before training camp, he is in an accident. He jumps up onto the back of a half ton and slips and falls, strikes his head on the bumper, and then the pavement and dies. and Bo Horvatt was on that London Knights team, and Bowler's number 53, which is the 35 inverted,

to honor Ian Jenkins. So whenever I think of Ryan Miller, I think of all that he did for Ian. And I just, funny enough, had a communication with a kid named Hunter Jackson as a young goaltender. He's retired now.

Just got his degree at University of Alberta. But he was a good friend of Ian Jenkins, too. And they all remember what Miller did for Ian Jenkins. So a kid from down around Ann Arbor, Michigan. Yeah, special guy, special talent. And I love, you know, the handshakes alone are one of things, the things that hockey has that, I mean, I guess the NBA players all kind of embrace after game, so I shouldn't say. But it's a really neat tradition that dates back a long, long time. And I always remember the photo of Rocket Richard, you know, bluddyed all up. And he scored a goal on Thompson and they are shaking hands after the game. And through the years, Johnny Bauer and Gordy Howe, two guys who would hang together in Waskusu, Saskatchew, Saskatchew, Saskatchew, Saskatchew on. Yeah, it's a great tradition.

But for me, lately, as I've told you, the Humble Broncos just redefined from Kevin Geringer on down what it is to be a part of a hockey team. And you see it when you see that with Miller the other night. Yeah. Well, it's a loaded question because I don't think there's, as big as hockey is in Canada, specifically, when Humboldt happened, there wasn't,

probably a dry eye in any household across all of Canada. Like I mean, maybe somebody who had immigrated to Canada from another culture that didn't have hockey. But what they would have saw was like, what is going on? Because it was a national month of morning. Because we've all been on the bus or probably parents have been on the bus or have sent kids on the bus, right? or just like you know in our society the the bus is very significant and um how many times of the first time you ever watched slap shot came on a bus going somewhere and that's the movie of choice and everything around that um just resonates with so many people and the the crazy thing

was how quickly the entire world was impacted by it right because it's just not Canada that plays hockey and the game we love. It's such a, becoming such a universal sport and to see the entire world, just, I don't know, that's a day that I'll, once again, another one that I'll never forget where I was sitting and having my in-laws in from the States who, you know, are not hockey, I'm not a hockey family, but they understood right away that something very serious that obviously happened. And I don't think there was a word said for, I don't know, it was a long time. We sat and watched the TV and that's that was a tough day. And I know I'm speaking for a lot of people. There's a lot of people that that really, uh, impacted. But no, I, I get that that was a loaded

question and that would be something that came to mind right away. Yeah. But, you know, uh, God love the 13 survivors, uh, and their families are, you know, they're, you know, doing great work. And the 29 members of the team, their families, uh, they're a great, you know, unit. They're a great, they get together a lot and, you know, I always, when I go out to St. Albert, we lost four from St. Albert, Alberta. And just to see that support tells you all you need to know about why hockey is important, or sports. It's a really beautiful example out of a tragedy. There's a line by an author named Rebecca Solnett, a paradise built in hell. And that's what I kind of consider the Humboldo Broncos, a paradise built in hell. I've waited probably.

an hour and a bit to bring up Connor McDavid, because I feel like he could probably have been left off or started with. But I found myself, Ron, if you can believe this, I'm sure other fans have thought this throughout the season. I watched him the other night, and I went, what is David doing? Come on, pick it up. And then at the end of the game, he had, I don't know, three, four points.

And what is he sitting at right now in 51 games, 93 points? And I'm like, maybe I could just cut the guy some slack. He is pretty much throwing this team on his shoulder, so to speak. Not that dry saddle isn't certainly helping and not that the rest of the team isn't helping. I've ragged on Darnel Nurse once upon a time and he continues to make me eat on lunch every game, which is fun to watch. But when I talk Connor McDavid, you've been around the game and been privy to seeing things firsthand. Now this question gets thrown around a lot, but, man, who is the last guy like Connor McDavid to, you know, at his age, in front of you on game after game after game to just do what he does.

Like he is, you know, as an oiler fan, got to be very careful here that I don't let these years go by to watch such a magnificent player wear my colors and not appreciate that for what it is because that doesn't happen all the time. You're right. Once in a lifetime by far. It reminds me of Donovan Bailey. I was lucky to see him up close and to see him win the world's in 95 and then the Olympics in 96 and you just knew he was another worldly talent.

Obviously, Wayne, Gretzky was an otherworldly talent that I was lucky enough to cover. And he's that. He's all of that and then some. You know, the only guy that's similar in terms of speed would be Pavel Burry. And Burry had magic hands too. He could do a lot at speed. But I don't think he ever had the vision that Connor possesses. Connor has not only the hands and the feet, but he has the vision.

So he's faster than Wayne. Bobby Orr was as fast in his time. Bob Yor was as fast and probably the closest thing, ironically, as agent, to McDavid that there is. But I remember in 2017 when Corey Perry, who's just unbelievable, Perry scored the winner. So game five, Edmonton's up 3-0 with 3 and a half to play. And ducks come back and win in double overtime. Corey Perry scores the winner. And Drysidle is sort of leaning up against the boards.

And Connor comes by and knocks him on the arm and says, chin up. Leon, let's go. him next game. And in the next game, Drysidal had a hat trick. Edmonton won to force the seventh and deciding game, which ultimately the Ducks won. But right there, I thought, okay, this guy is beyond, you know, the fastest thing I've ever seen, faster than OAR because of, I don't know, time. Certainly the greatest hands and feet combination. Gretzky's on par for vision. But there's a good example of he's also a great leader. And I don't know that everybody knew it, because he's kind of sullen in some of his interviews.

He can be persnickety. He, you know, unlike Sid, who's kind of, you know, always kind and not earth shatteringly interesting with his answers because he's, everybody keeps things close to the vest when you're that big. But he's a special leader, McDavid. So they're going to be, they're going to be a handful. And, I mean, we talked off before we started. Montreal's got the defense and the goal tending to be dangerous.

But it clearly comes down to, if you're looking at talent, Toronto versus Edmonton. Wouldn't that be fun? Would that not be fun? Yeah, it will be. And it's such a personal rivalry. It's very much like Lemieux and Gretzky and Ovechkin and Crosby. You can see Matthews and McDavid are building to this, you know, personal vendetta.

So yeah, I hope it happens. But I wouldn't, you know, they're all, they're all exciting to watch the four that are in for Canada. If that came to pass, Ron, if, if Toronto got. emminton is you know because a year ago it would have had to have been they meet in the stanley cup finals if there's one great thing that may come out of covid it could be that Toronto eminent can meet in the semifinals and actually get to have a series against each other that would be oh i don't know that would be unbelievable because and montreal toronto first round which that's right hasn't happened in 40 years or whatever well crosbie ovechkin meeting year after year after

year. That was some of the best hockey you ever seen. That was two of the best going at it. And to have Matthews McDavid and the All-Star cast on both sides go head to head, man, that would be great television. I don't think there would be too many not tuning in for that. And you know what I got to sit and think about is, oh God, it'll carry. My wife, Carrie, she always says, you know, when I leave the house for a playoff game, Ron, try not to be trending tonight because trending on social media is usually a bad thing. And, uh, It's just a funny joke we have within us. But you know how loaded the stakes will be in terms of viewers.

You know, they will be just frothing. Poor Cassie Campbell, she was in the middle of a hornet's nest earlier in the year. She suggested that Matthew's two-way game has surpassed McDavid's. And you know how it is. Oilers fans were apoplectic. And yeah. So I got to steal myself right now for everybody's going to be so on, you know, Tinder hooks watching this playoffs.

that be, be ready to have a thick skin. You brought up Orr being probably, you know, if there's, if there's two guys, I wish I could go back and watch in their time.

Like at my age where I can actually, like, understand, like how good it is. Like, I was a defenseman. Bobby Orr, I heard about Bobby,

well, you know, I grew up watching Don Cherry's rock'em, sock him. So I got to see a little bit of it. But like to actually see him in his heyday, to hear all of your generation talk about how good he was.

Jeez, that would be something to see again, right? Like to actually go and witness it live. Try and find a video. You know, there's, I think there's the best of Bobby Oar that there was a special done on Bobby. And what's really striking is his use of the backhand.

And Bellevaux before him had the backhand too. I know Brad Richard said in his time playing hockey, Mario Lemieux was the best on the backhand. But that's, that's one of the, you know, the sedines had their what they called sedenery. And it was because a lot of their plays were back to backwards.

You know, they used the backhand and they cite. cycled backwards. And that's one of the tricks. And, you know, I think it's, in McDavid's cases, you know, on every breakaway, he kind of feigns he's going to the backhand and then just flicks the puck forehand left side of the net. But I'll tell you Bobby Orr story. The viewers might like, I don't know if I've ever told you, Dr. David Mulders from Esten, Saskatchewan, just down the road here. So he's the Habs doctor for over a half a century. His first ever client was Bobby Orr. Bobby was playing for the Oscewa generals in the 60s. And he came into the Montreal form to take

on the number two defensemen in Canada, Serge Sivard and the junior Canadians. And in the first period, Bobby's cut over the eye, bad. And Dr. Mulder's just a kid. He goes down into the emergency room behind the Canadians bench, and there's Bobby Orr bleeding profusely, and he stitches him up, and he says, there you are, Robert.

He's just stitched up the Messiah. There you are, Robert, you're good to go. And Bobby Orr says, may I have a towel, a wet towel? And Dr. Mulder says, well, Bobby, it's okay. I cleaned you all up. You're all set. And Bobby Orr says, yes, but may I have a wet towel? wet towel. So they get him a wet towel and Bobby gets down on the floor and cleans up all the

blood around the trainer table there. And then he goes into the hallway that leads up to the ice and the old Montreal forum was the linoleum floor and he cleaned up all the blood all the way up to the ice. And that was that was Mulder's first ever patient. And it's just such a great story about that's the kind of guy Bobby is. And yeah, to see him play, you know, it's the highlights don't do it justice because there were a lot of clumsy goalies and a lot of clumsy players back in the day, right? But oh my God, when you see him in full flight, when you see him pull away from guys like Frank Mahavlich, who at top end speed was a really fast skater. You just appreciate that he was McDavid in the day.

I think the coolest part of that entire story is the cleaning up of the blood. Yeah, isn't it though? Yeah. I was just, I literally just, I had weight on Redden. And we got talking about Chris Neal and Chris Neal's character of being the first guy of the rink and last got to leave and a bunch of different little things that he did right on top of his talent and skill and everything else and his character and how many games played over a thousand games right and we got talking about that and uh you know as a team those are

qualities that don't that aren't on the ice they're something you see off the ice that most fans don't see right and bobby always hear about the speed and the skill and everything else But I've never heard that one before. And that, man, wouldn't you want that as your leader? Like, wow. Well, and the guys loved him to bits. They called him God and he hated that. He didn't want that, of course.

The players, because he was. That's why as a junior, he was the Messiah. So the story goes, I once asked Doug, his dad, well, I'll back up. There was a special on Bobby Orr on global television. Maybe I've told you this story. But have I told you the story about Don Cherry phoning up to the Oarresidents? in Perry Sound? I don't think so. Okay, so there's a special, a one-hour special on global television

on Bobby Orr, 9 o'clock on a Sunday night, and Grapes has his steamer, gets ready to watch it, opens a couple of years, and about 35 minutes into the show, Ron Hugh at the host, asks Bobby, what's your greatest thrill? And Bobby, well, obviously the first cup, you can't trump that. And, you know, I have to say, I didn't get to play in the 72 series. So 76 Canada Cup was very special. But honestly, if you ask me, my highlight, it was playing for grapes in Boston. And Dawn's sitting watching this and he can't believe it. So he opens up another export beard, downs it, and then he phones up to Perry Sound to phone Bobby's mom and dad, Doug and Arva, or the phone rings and rings and the phone rings and rings and Dawn pictures,

house party, you know, and all the people watching the special. And finally, Arva answers and it's kind of a wimpy, hello? And he realizes, oh my God, I've awakened her. What's going on here? Arva, Donnell S Cherry here. I just watched the special. Unbelievable. Wasn't he great? And, I mean, not just the highlights, but, I mean, he come across so good in the interview, you must be so proud. And Arvus says, oh, yeah, Don, thanks. You're talking about the special. We got it on tape last week. But here, I'll let you talk to Doug. Doug's in bed too. So he passes the phone to Doug and he does the same schick about how great Bobby was. And Doug says, yeah, you can sure shoot a puck. And Don thinks shoot a puck. What are you talking about? He's the fastest skater in the history of

planet. He's a skater. So I asked Doug, what's the deal? Why did you like that he shot a puck so well? And Doug said, well, Ron, they called him the Messiah when he was in junior. Everybody called him and the Messiah. Played his first game in Detroit. Second game was back in Boston against the Montreal Canadians. And Gump Worsley, Montreal goalie said in the Boston Herald,

the kid may have been the Messiah in junior, but Saturday night he's going to play against men. And in the first minute of the game, Boston, Montreal at the garden, Bobby came over the blue line and from 55 feet beat him with a slap shot, beat Gump Worsley. And the place just went crazy

because they all knew that Gump had slagged him. And Doug said, that's for me. you know, the greatest moment I ever had, not the Stanley Cup flying through the air, not anything else. It was when Bobby beat Gumporsley to put him in his place in his second NHL game. So there's a little story too. Ah, he's, you guys have, get to see so many things and hear so many things. And I mean, that that's time too, right?

Like obviously living to see it. And Bobby is one of those interesting, interesting, interesting stories that I just, you know, as a defenseman, you know, Scott Nied. Meier was a guy I really, really admired on how he played the game, just his ability. I was talking about actually that with Wade, too, his ability to get up and down the ice. But Bobby is one that I think all defensemen go, even young guys, they hear so much about. And then you hear some of the stories. And man, there's a lot more than just talent there.

That's character and a little bit of fight and passion in them too. Well, they have to juggle, you know, when you are designated the Messiah, right, everybody hates you. So you know, how to be, you know, I mean, they respect you, but they kind of, they doubt you. They don't believe that you could be all that you're advertised. And so it's a, it's a lot of pressure. It's a lot of navigating, you know, Wayne Gretzky made sure the fourth liner was valued. Bob Björ never wore the sea. He wanted everybody else to receive the accolades. He made sure ESPO won the scoring race. He sat in the dressing room. There was a pillar in the middle of the Boston Garden Bruins dressing room, a post, not a pillar. And the players,

all fought for the position where that post blocked a view of Bobby Orr because he would look at you with darts for eyes if you hadn't pulled your weight in that period. So the optimum seat in the Boston dressing room was any seat where Bobby Orr couldn't get your eye because he just held everybody to account with a glance. He was that respected. Yeah, special talent. And guy. You know, he looked after Walter Gretzky, God love him. When Bobby had his golf tournament up in Perry's sound, he would bring Walter to it every year and Walter would say grace. And when Walter, honestly, it's funny because usually when Bobby Orr enters a room, it's like royalty.

But when Walter Gretzky would come into Bobby's golf tournament at a beautiful theater there, it's called the Stocky Center that's half Bobby Orr Hockey Hall of Fame and half a performing arts center, unbelievable venue. And Bobby has his golf tournament reception there. And there comes Walter Gretzky. And, you know, he was a bit frail at the end, just like a king. coming into the room. And yeah, that's Bobby. Poor Bobby went through the ringer with, I think he, you know, because he endorsed Trump.

He was kind of persona on Grata with some folks, but I don't begrudge that one bit. I love that he, he's a loyal guy and who he believes in, he believes in. So, but what a player. Well, isn't that what we all admire is somebody who sticks to their values and their beliefs and everything else? For sure. No, I appreciate, I appreciate you, Sharon, and coming back on Ron and, and, you know, indulging my brain, so to speak.

As much as I love to pick your brain, you, I know you don't mind when I bring up these things, but it's good to tease the mind, so to speak, and kind of get some things off my brain with somebody who isn't in this neck of the woods. But in that being said, I'd like to slide into the crewmaster final five, just five quicker as long as you want to go. Feel free to keep it shorter if you got some stories by all means. But shout out to Heath and Tracy McDonald, sponsors of the podcast since the very beginning, as everyone knows.

It's funny. My first question is, was going to be a Walter Grexie because I thought, you know, Walter Grexky is, you know, in hockey lore, a hockey dad, as fitting as it is, is probably close to the top. And of course he passed away in the time since we last talked. And I wondered if you didn't have a great Walter story.

But in saying that, I can slide by that if you like because once again, you just gave a great one. Yeah. Well, I'll just say that, you know, to sit with him at Torino after Canada got knocked out. And Wayne came in with Bob Nicholson and Steve Tamblini was there and it was the whole brain trust of Team Canada. And Walter was with us. And I sat with Walter for an hour. And he taught me about how Wayne worked on his peripheral vision by taking a piece of paper,

putting it in front of himself and watching the TV out of the corner of his eye and trying to track where the puck was the whole time. And it's kind of complicated to say on radio. But Walter was, you know, he had, after the aneurism, he had some long-term memory loss. But boy, he understood a lot about his kid and what had made him special. So, yeah, what a joy. That's my favorite memory, 2006. Camillo's restaurant in Toronto. Reno, Italy. I'm lucky to have had that time with Walter, among many good visits.

Take me back to 1989 or that era about the first 1989 and 1992, somewhere in there. Rockham Sockham first airs, 1989. What was your thoughts when Don was, had the rap video? I can't remember the exact year. It was in the first, I don't know, five to six, let's call it. Did you go, wow, that was amazing? Or were you like, well, that was something? No, yeah, I loved, I grew up on Stampede Wrestling, Ed Wayland's before your time, but I really loved wrestling.

And my guy was Archie, the Stomper Gouldy. He was called the Mongolian Stomper. And he was from Carbon, Carbon, Alberta. But he was incredible. He was a great entertainer. He gave great interviews. He was a bad guy in the wrestling ring. And I went down to visit him at Creative Arts Center in Red Dere, Alberta.

wrestling was in town and he's my hero, this wrestler. And I went down with my autograph book and I presented it to him and he shredded it. He tore up my autograph from Gordy Howe and Jean Belavaux and Pat Stapulton, just shredded it. And my dad was really mad. I was only 11 years old. Dad was mad. I wanted to see the manager. I said, no, Dad, what would you expect from the stomper?

It was great. And that's how it was for me and still is with Don. You know, like I feel bad we got into mischief if we couldn't get out of. I don't, please don't. I didn't mean to call it mischief. but we got into a mistake we made that we couldn't get out of, that Don didn't want to get out of. But yeah, he was always, for me, a little bit,

you know, well-schooled, journeyman, American hockey league, star defenseman, Calder Cup winner, and so forth. But he was also a little bit Hulk Coke, and he had the showman in him. And so I always just smiled at it and loved it. With all the things going on, concussion-wise, fighting-wise, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Do you think in your lifetime you'll ever see hockey go to no hitting? Well, I don't know about no hitting.

I doubt that. But I do think, you know, in this Tom Wilson situation we just went through, once again, you start to say to yourself, okay, you've got all these kids out there trying to fight that don't know how to fight. There's very little fighting in major junior hockey, never mind junior A hockey. So there's very little fighting. The only, you know, the last bastion of fighting is junior. There's none in college hockey.

There's none in Europe. So you've got a ton of. of unqualified folks trying to fight. And that's when it gets dangerous. You know, and the problem with opening up the game as we did is suddenly the hits became dangerous. As you said, concussions were the result of the speed of the game. But I think you need the hitting to make it, even the women's game features a lot of hitting.

It's not said to be such, but it is there. And it's better game when there is some contact. Players can make a move and, you know, can use a body to make a move. you have to have contact for the sport to be any good. So you'll never see the end of hitting. But I'm almost convinced you'll see the end of fighting other than the obvious, you know, when tempers just boil over and you get a nonsensical fight. Yeah.

Oh, I think we're already, I think we're already there, right? Like fighting just is, you know, what's funny about Tom Wilson is like, did he bully some guys? Yeah, he did. Yes. Was it, was it, I don't know, right, wrong? I didn't like his pose in the box, but what are you going to do? You can give me a gross misconduct for making a mockery of the game. That's it, you know.

But I didn't like the Panarin. Honestly, Sean, I did not like him throwing Panarin to the ice because to me, it almost looked like he removed the helmet like you do in an old fight. And then he threw him and it was just a little bit too reckless. It should have been a suspension. You know, there's a lot of, you know, how could that not be a game? It just that that is too risky to take, A, it's a star player. You don't want McDavid thrown around.

round like that. And it was such a mismatch and it was so close. I mean, if that guy, you know, God forbid, right? It really was dangerous. And he, you have to send that message. When you're in supplementary discipline, you have to send that message. So what you won't get an argument on me out of here is, is like at the end of the day, I think what most fans are like, just, just like, if you're going to call one thing a penalty and give a gross misconduct for it, just, you know, in that situation, you might as well have. sends a message to everyone. What I disagree with a lot of,

with a lot of people on is like, you can break down any play you want in milliseconds and everything else. At the end of the day, Wilson was fired up about something. They don't talk about that, or at least I haven't heard it. And what he did was, you know,

maybe poor judgment, sure. I find for me, it's what happens the day or two after when he gets asked about it, right? Like, is he a little bit remorseful? Yeah, maybe I shouldn't have done that, right? Like, that was a little over the line. because in the middle of any heated battle.

That's right. It's hard to judge anyone on what they're remote, like, you know, Marty McSorley, with Bresher was, I think everyone can agree, that was horrendous. Yeah.

But that's emotion getting absolutely the most of a guy. And did he get his justice for that or a suspension? He absolutely did. You're just trying to figure out what is the deterrent? Is the deterrent the referees? Is the deterrent? supplementary discipline or is the deterrent going to be having a hired gun, a fighter on your team? You know, is it Dave Semenko or is it Bob Probert? In the day, it was. And since we've, and since

we have no Proverts or Semencos anymore, you know, you can't, as I said, Alex Edler can't take that fight. He did. And it's all by the code. It's all honorable and great. And it put an end to everything, as Kevin B.X are quite rightly said. But the problem is, you know, it's like Travis Hammondack, trying to fight Deubez fight the year before. and breaking a orbital bone. You know, and Hamidic's a fighter, but Edler was not. And, you know, they're not in a playoff race, big deal, I guess, you know, if he, but it's, it's risky.

You know, you get guys fighting that don't know how to fight. It's like putting you and me on a bull. Well, well, that's fair point. You know, over time, I think time is what solves it. You know, you ask about disciplinaries and all that. It's like, Tom, that's been Tom Wilson for. Right, but you got to throw the book at him. You do, you just have to.

Sure. Sure. you could have given them some games for sure i think a lot of fans are like i don't understand why that isn't a game and another thing is right like that's right yeah that that is fair uh but time is is what has slowly eroded all the fighting right like it's just it's just been a decade and over a decade less and less kids are fighting that that just filters through all the old god bob probert was still playing bob probert would have taken it george la rock puts out on twitter hey i'll take that game new york sign me up and I'll go a Wilson right and everybody goes that's the old guard yeah the thing is is is Tom Wilson's body type set is like even how he plays the hockey every so often you're going to

have one of those guys that every team wants because he's a bit of a bully out there because he can be and if you have nobody that can keep him in line that's other than the league when he gets his emotional I lose my tempered run up five seven but here's the other thing and and you know you look at Tom Wilson and Zedano Chara, and you remember what Ovechkin did to Svetnikov. So you have a team there. They're kind of becoming the Broad Street bullies. That is going to be a really interesting team to watch. You know, that message, like when Wayne Simmons fought Edler to account for the knee on Zach Hyman,

there was also, and there has been going on with Toronto for the last few weeks, message sending to everyone watching, we are a different team than we were. We are now much tougher and much meaner, and you better be ready when you play Toronto. It's not going to be fun to play Toronto. And for sure, Wilson and the capitals are sending messages to that effect. You know, get ready. Here we come. So there's a lot of message sending against teams that are out of it like Vancouver and New York.

These are all things that happen as part of ecosystems. And now come playoff time, keep an eye on that. You know, we all think, I think Florida, Carolina, Tampa by the standings. But when I see Washington, what's happening there, that that's interesting to me. That must be the hockey player in me that makes me smile because that message sending and the mindset going in of like, you don't want to play us. Right. I know that. Yeah.

That's as a, like, that's part of the game. Brian Sutter brought in Kurt Benzmiller, as you know, because he was a big, you know, scary guy to play against. And even Kurt'll tell you, half the generals didn't want him there. They didn't know what the hell this guy was about. But Brian knew. And when Darrell Sutter took over L.A., he immediately called up Jordan Nolan and Dwight King. And he always realized you have to have these, you know, and I remember Brad Richards telling me that in Chicago, Jonathan Taves went to management and said,

look, I can't, you know, Andrew Shaw and I can't handle Anse Copotar and Jeff Carter. These guys are mammoth. You've got to get us some meat to take this team on. If you want us to beat L.A., we need to bulk up a bit. So that's as old as the hills. All I was saying earlier is that, you know, the pool from which to find Georgia Rocks is vanishing. So you're suddenly, yeah, you're suddenly in a situation where, you know,

to put the genie back in the bottle is not easy because there aren't guys that can play and fight. And there's not as many, at least. That's why Tom Wilson is so rare now, right? he's just, you know, that big body who can still play at a high level on one of the top lines, be a bit mean, everything else, right? For sure. Yeah, he turned that Vegas series.

He hit Marsha So and turned that Vegas series. They were down a game. And when he hit Marsha, so it was over. He was, he's an absolute force in the game right now. But having said that, you know, for the sake of Artemi Panerrans, you can't have a guy and throw him to the ice when he's got no helmet. You just can't. You've got to pay the price for that. That's my opinion, of course.

And you'll hear it again on hockey night. There's a lot to that story. It's like the Rangers aren't liked by the league. I don't know. I throw all the, you know what? I don't know the interworking of politics. I just watched the game and what went on. And hey, that's all I can judge it by.

If you could go back in history and sit in a conversation, Ron, where would you go? I would go back to that I wouldn't mind that roundtable with Jefferson and Madison and Adams and Franklin and Washington that would be a good one I would say that's it for me I think you know there was a guy that was kind of playing a central role in their lives when Lincoln came along guy named Frederick Douglass that's interesting to me but that's all kind of inspired by I wouldn't mind sitting in

the room with Tom Petty and a few other musicians. And I certainly have had the pleasure of, you know, drinking beer and talking hockey with a lot of, you know, Wayne Gretzky on down, not the drop names, but those moments with Wayne are never lost on me. And same with Bobby or. Here's your final one then before I let you run is you brought up Tom Petty right there and a couple times earlier as being your favorite artist.

I got a long drive ahead of me today. So what is your favorite Tom Petty then? I would say, you know, that's a good one because he's got a band called Mud Crutch, is not the heartbreakers, and I really am a fan of theirs. There's a song called I forgive it all, but that's a solemn one.

You're going to be driving, so you want something, I would put on for sure Wildflowers is a great album. That's acoustic driven, more acoustic. If you want rockier Tom Petty, I mean, you can't go wrong. Just find Best of Tom Petty. and the album for Running Down the Dream, what the hell is that album called?

It's not down the torpedoes, which is a great album. Running down a dream is a good, yeah. A good song, right? And whatever that album is, for whatever reason, it's not. Oh, a full moon fever. Full moon fever.

So, yeah, put that one on. That's a great album. Well, I appreciate you hopping on, giving me a, you know, a couple hours here almost of your time. And just, you know, enter you know engaging and and having what i love so much about our 100th episode or my 100th episode uh your first time on the podcast has been really enjoyable ron and i hope people enjoyed it

and um just all the best to you here coming with the playoffs around the corner i know there will be a ton of people watching right i i'm getting excited to see the oilers in the playoffs that's something we haven't been able to say too much over the last you know well pretty much the last 15 years. So it'll be fun to watch two of the best in the NHL go at it. And to have yourself and the group on SportsNet Rogers doing what you guys do best. I'm looking forward to it. Me too. Thanks, Sean. Always a pleasure. Always. 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 available for free on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever else you get your podcast fix. Until next time. Hey, Keeners, thanks for tuning in to today's episode. One thing I should bring up here before I let you go is this Thursday we're doing a slice of pizza and a pint of beer for $10 at 4th Meridian. Bring your cash. All the proceeds are going to bike for breakfast, so sip on a cold one. And, uh, Grab a slice of Zah for the champ. It doesn't start until 4 p.m.

I know that's a little late for you, but it goes all the way until 10. We know you'll be home and bed well before then. But from 4 to 10, folks, if you stop into 4th Meridian, you can get a slice of pizza, a pint of beer, $10, bring your cash,

and we'll catch up to you on Wednesday for next episode. All right? Talk to you then.