Shaun Newman Podcast - Ep. 85 - Rod Pedersen - Voice of the Saskatchewan Roughriders

Episode Date: June 8, 2020

Born & raised in Milestone SK. He made his broadcasting debut as a 20 year old for the P.A. Raiders of the WHL. From there he spent over a decade with the Regina Pats & in 1999 became the voice of the Saskatchewan Roughriders. He spent 20 years with the Riders & we discussed some of the championships, the infamous 13th man & the beloved fans. We talked about his struggles with alcohol, being sober for 5 years, the job he "had" with the Calgary Flames but was rescinded (crazy story) and now doing the Rod Pedersen Show. All episodes can also be found on Apple podcasts, YouTube & Spotify New guests every Monday & Wednesday

This is Rod Peterson, and welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Hey, folks, welcome back to the podcast. Happy Monday, happy, happy, happy. I know we all love Mondays. Now, before we get to today's sponsors of the episode, let's just, I had a note sent to me about the city's Lloydminster and Culture and Science Center. It supports, if you don't know anything about the Cultural and Science Center,

It supports art, culture, and history in the community. The current LCSC is housed in a series of buildings on a large site, a few blocks from city center. It's right along Highway 16 heading east out of town. The building has been deemed no longer feasible for use. The community has been asked to take part in a survey, or was asked to take part in a survey, which ended last night. So you're probably going, gee, thanks for that nugget.

I just found out. And the reason I bring it up is I think it's important that you understand and, you know, what is it going on? And if you've missed the survey and what their options are, they had two options, basically lease commercial space or move it to an available city-owned space, both with 10-year kind of time frame. And so, I mean, I just kind of wanted the listeners

and the residents of Lloyd Minster specifically to understand what's going on. And I'm a history guy. I like history. Our area is proud, has lots of great stories. And for it to go away or be reduced for 10 years, you know, maybe that's the only option. But others are suggesting there might be different ways. You know, is it possible to have an option to see where you build a new building not in 10 years but sooner, maybe even now, right?

And, you know, our community needs a space that hosts art shows and traveling exhibits and programming, and local artifacts, education, tourism, not to mention the job creation, you know, not much, but there is jobs that are created by that. And as far as I understand, the council meeting had not come to a conclusion. I know they're meeting again here very soon, maybe even today. So if this at all interest you, or you didn't know about it, I suggest to go to your voice, lloyd.ca. You just type in the search bar, Lloydminster Culture and Science Center,

the first tab that comes up is the options showing what they're trying to do. if you're at all concerned, you want to raise something. I suggest email on mayor at loitemister.ca. Email Jared Elberst. Right? I mean, that's, you know, if it disappears, 10 years, that's a long time. And, you know, I want you to make your own minds up. I want you to go take a look at it and take a look and see what it says.

But if you're at all concerned, I really suggest taking a look. emailing and letting them know your concerns and how important it is to you. Now, this episode is brought to you by Gartner Management and is a Lloydminster-based company specializing in all types of rental properties to help meet your needs, whether you're looking for a small office or 6,000 square foot commercial space. Give Wade Gartner a call. He does now house the Sean Newman podcast. I am sitting here at the studio with my beautiful table.

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You need one of these. They are unbelievable. And then he helped out with the feature wall as well. Got all my material from them. And Carly and team over there have been just absolutely amazing. Thanks again, Windsor, Plywood. Here is your tail of the tape. So today, our guest is originally from Milestone, Saskatchewan.

At 20 years old, he started doing play-by-play for the PA Raiders. In 1995, he moved to Regina to continue his career with the Regina Pats. In 1999, he began his most recognizable role where he spent 20 years, 20, being the voice of the Saskatchewan Rough Riders. He is a certified recovery coach and travels around doing public speaking events. And finally, he just finished his first full year. of the Rod Peterson show, which airs Monday through Friday on Facebook live 10 a.m. 2.12 p.m. Yes, I'm talking about Rod Peterson. He was a joy. Fantastic story. So, buckle up, because here we go. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Tonight, I am joined by

Rod Peterson, former voice of the Saskatchewan Ruffriders. I know everybody out here is going to be owing and awing. You've got a book out, Heart and Soul, the Sjahl, documented. 50 years of history. And one year today, the Rod Peterson show, I'm honored to, you know, kind of usher in a little curtain call for you tonight. I mean, thanks for joining me. I'm surprised you have time. You should be off celebrating with your team.

I don't do my celebrating anymore. That's another part of my story. You may or may not know, Sean. But, hey, I was just happy to be part of this and chat with you. And Greg Buchanan, Bucky set it up. And we have a mutual friend there. you must be a good guy. You're in the good guy network with your friends with Buckke. Well, I'm glad you brought up his name because I told him right at the start.

I would give him a shout out because with O'G Buchan, this doesn't happen. So thanks again, Buck, for lending a hand and hooking me up with Mr. Peterson. Now, I know Friday you got the SJHL draft. I learned something new today. I did not realize, and maybe this is a new rule, hometown players cannot be drafted in that. How did you learn that? How did you learn that?

I learned that by listening to the Rod Peterson show. Well, the only reason I knew was that we were doing the SGHL SIM, the computer simulation broadcast, which was like wildly popular. And we were doing actual interviews in between periods. And Bill Chow made me aware of that. And that was like two weeks ago. So by the time that draft rolls around on Friday, and we're televising it, Bill's going to be on the broadcast with us.

I'll dig into that, but I think it's relatively new, but when we talked about it today, people love the rule. I don't know if this is going to transcend to the WHL, other junior A leagues, or the CFL, but I think it's awesome. I would assume you do too. Actually, you know, here's where I come off on it. I'm a little jaded when it comes to the hometown rule.

rule. I think as a player, if you're a superstar, so if you're Connor McDavid makes complete sense, right? The hometown wants to keep their superstars. But if you're a five six defenseman like myself, you go under the radar.

And maybe, I don't know the full parameters of the rule. But, and I guess for the Bannam draft, it is about the superstars. So maybe there's more to it than I don't know. But I look at it and I go, man, if a team really wants a player and they want to give him a shot, but they can't draft him because he's,

you know, he's across the pond or he's, you know, he's sitting in Humboldt and you're nippling or whatever, right? But you've scouted him and it's right underneath the home team's nose. I kind of like that you can find a diamond in the rough, so to speak, because everybody knows about the superstar and where he is and where he comes from and the fact they can't draft them. Yeah, I can get on board with that, but there's a lot of kids out there that it takes them some time to develop and maybe this you can include a bit more to the rule because when I first heard it absolutely the Connor McDavid's of the world should stay and play in their hometown but there's a lot of players under there that there's teams that probably want them and probably take a chance

on them or maybe see potential on them uh yeah hey there's a lot of downside to it and by the way with that hair you must be five eight at least I will think but there's downside to it only only only Only when I wear my high heels, my shoes with little platforms. There you go. But the thing is that hometown team, and let's, again, use Yorkton as an example, they don't have to recruit that hard. They don't have to treat that player very well because they, you know, they're automatically on their roster because they're from that town.

I don't like that either. That takes a lot of the power under the hands of the player, if you will. So there's some downside to it. I'm going to investigate that a little more with Bill. live and maybe I'll poke around and text some scouts tonight on that but it's like I say he just mentioned it like in passing like it wasn't a big deal and now everybody's talking about it because it's a it's a pretty big deal absolutely it's a big deal yeah like once again for the the superstar to have to know that the up-and-coming guy is going to stay and play for his hometown humble broncos per se

that's pretty cool but there's a lot of other kids that I could see how that kid possibly heard him. But at the end of the day, it's a cool little talking point because once you got talking about the SGHL draft on Friday, I'm like, I wonder how many people are going to tune into that. And then you brought up that rule and I'm like, well, gee, that's an interesting twist already. Mm-hmm. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So, yeah, I'm looking forward to it. We've got, we've got a scout that's coming in as an analyst, Tanner McCall, former GM of the Weaver and Red Wings. And we're going to do it up. We're going to do it up big. I had a point on the, on this,

rule and a slip my mind. If it pops back into my head, I'll come back on it. But, oh, this is what it is. What I don't like. I mean, you've been around hockey a long time, Sean, obviously, look at your teeth. There's some kids, there's some kids that will want to get away from home. Yes. You know what I'm saying? Absolutely. I know a lot of them. Right. So we all know those kids. So that's the other thing I don't like. I mean, most stable home atmospheres, good families would want their kids stay at home. And the kid would want to stay at home and go to his own school and with his own friends. But there are some that want to get away. And I don't, you know, this is the downside of the rule too. That was the point that I wanted to make. Well, yeah,

and to expand a little bit on that, that doesn't mean, you know, when I say I know a lot of them, I don't even mean it as they got bad homes. I mean, some kids need to go away from home to mature and to grow up and to be under somebody else's tutelage. And that in itself, getting away, you know, having a coach believing you and fuel that fire and have to be away from mommy and daddy for a bit really can help. Now I want to call Bill Chow tonight. It's just the president of the SJHL. And get clarification because, you know, maybe there needs to be a caveat that the kid can opt out.

You know, maybe he doesn't want to play on that team. And that should be the player's right. And let's remember, too, they're making this decision at 16. They're going to be drafted on Friday at 15. They're going to make this decision at 16. So, yeah, it is a big deal. I can remember myself at 16. I wasn't making the greatest decisions.

No. I wasn't up until my 40s, so I get it. You know, I should point out while people are listening to this, this will air Monday. So the draft will have happened. So you may have already heard the answer to this. and hopefully, you know, it'll get brought up and you guys can talk about it because I'll be following along. I might even preface the episode with your guys' answer if you find out what it is. I was going to ask, how fun was the SGHL virtual playoffs, like doing the play-by-play and everything?

Like, I assume that's going to happen every year now. I don't know. I think when they get back to playing hockey, people are going to forget about it. But what it did was the company that produces our show, the Rod Peterson show, came to me and said, well, you do play-by-play of SJHL playoff games. And I said, absolutely not. Are you nuts? I'm not going to sit at home.

I've been in this business for 30 years. I don't need to sit calling a damn computer game for a bunch of kids. The only ones that'll care, I want to be home with my family. They're like, they didn't like that answer, but they went and found some other announcers. But the SJL, Frank, really wanted me in Dupon involved. So the caveat all along was that by the league final, Rod and Darren are going to come in and be a part of this. And so they used some other broadcast. And the one cool part, Sean, was the fan.

There was big numbers for viewership. Like, it was into the thousands. And the viewers wanted SJ Broadcasters. So we brought Mike Stackhouse in from York, Matt Barrett from Melford. You know, so they wanted the authenticity of it. And all of a sudden, it's get Hockey Night in Canada's tweeting about it. CBC Nationals doing a story on it.

Rollco Radio Network, the leader post. I'm like, what is going on? Similar to this whole pandemic thing. Who would log in to watch a video game? game of a junior a lead well the answer is thousands and then so I'm like well yeah okay I'll come in and then I'm like wait a minute this isn't real play by play like we're not calling the action we're talking about stupid stuff saying hey we're going to the mill for Boston pizza after the game if anybody wants to go tonight and those are the comments are oh we'll see you there and you know what I mean

like it was it became fun and then the viewers are writing in with questions and we're going back and forth with them. And I'm like, this is the future of broadcasting. This is the interactive thing where the announcer could talk with the viewers and fans. And you ask how cool it was. I'll sorry to be so long-winded, but it just so happened to fall on the night that I was scheduled, game five Yorkton at Melford, and they handed out the virtual canout the cup. And all of a sudden, the viewership skyrocketed. People knew that the Belfort were leading the game and Bill Chow. Like, yeah, I've known him 30 years. President of the SJHL is from Prince Albert.

It was a cop for 30 years. That's how I met him. He was all excited to see what he was going to look like. Because if you've ever played enough NHL EA Sports, there's a virtual commissioner. So he wanted to make sure. Right. So he wanted to make sure they got it right.

So all of a sudden, Malford wins. And there's everything. The players were all watching. So they're writing in. And they're celebrating, talking about what they're are going to look like and, you know, popping champagne. It's like 10 minutes to go in a third period. And I'm like, guys, you haven't won it yet.

I'm like yelling at them. It became a huge thing. And then, like, the Yorkton players were bitching out their coach because they were for line matches and stuff. Like, why do you have me out against this guy? Oh, like, so if you're asking how much fun it was, is some of the most fun I've ever had. And then Melford wins.

A virtual banner had already been made. Melford must, like a banner to hang in the rink. and we went live to Trevor Blevins, Mustangs Coach House, and his kids had friends over with their Mustangs jerseys. They had noise makers and stuff. Like it was, who would have ever thought? It was some of the most fun I've ever had. And it kind of plays into the match with Tiger Woods and Phil and Peyton Manning and Tom Brady

where Charles Barkley's broadcasting it. Like he's got no business being on a golf broadcast, but he was just there for the entertainment. And it was fun. I'm like, this is where we're going in this business. maybe not immediately when the pandemic lifts. Within the next few years, I think that interactive component is going to be there

because it just hooked people in big time. You know, you talk about it, and I go, and that's why it should happen again. I'm not saying a full playoffs, I'm not saying maybe to the extent, but, man, you have a bloody monkey on TSN picking things, right? Like, I mean, I go back to when we were kids playing Madden. and we were like, man, when are they going to come out with a CFL game?

Or at least CFL teams on the NFL game. And I know there's, you know, that's not as easy as said as done. But whether it's absolutely top notch or just a step below, it didn't matter. Everybody just wanted the authenticity to steal your word. And what was so cool about seeing the SJHL being a Saskatchewan kid growing up watching those teams, like, man, that was unreal. And I'm not sitting here saying you've got to do everything verbatim because once everything gets busy, again, completely understand. But just hearing you talk about it and having everybody banter around it, like it was freaking awesome. And I'm not even part of the SGHL. Well, there's more to it, by the way,

because when the concept came up, the SJHL called me. I mean, you talked about the book that I wrote or put together because Bucky wrote the chapter on Lloyd. I got a really close relationship with the SJL. So the plan was to actually award the Kedelta Cup, the actual trophy. And, and, you know, And when I broke the news on my show, the coaches and GMs and governors of the SJ went ballistic. They're like, there's no way that the winner of this is going to get the plaque on the trophy. No way. And then people are coming at me going, oh, Rod, you idiot. You screwed up.

You didn't get it right. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. Pretty sure what I heard. Because the SJ backtracked in like a day later and said, no, no, we're going to hand out a virtual trophy. No, that's not right. I'm like, you guys, they did a pivot within 24 hours. there was a backlash from the coaches and GMs, which you could see, right? But that's the other fun twist on it.

And then to the CFL, you mentioned that there's reasons there's not a video game, and the biggest reasons is the four downs, the field dimension. That's it. I mean, it's easy to plug the CHL teams into the NHL because the rules are all the same. The ICE is the same size. That was easy. But the CFL NFL is so out of whack. They couldn't do it.

But there is a video game now called Doug Flutty's Maximum Football. and it's just a computer game that you play. It's very popular with kids and gamers, but not many people know about it, but a friend of mine plugged all the CFL info into Doug Flutie's maximum football. He ran assimilation on Saturday because the riders were supposed to be

at the stamps on Saturday, as you know. This guy, again, is a friend of mine. God bless Saskatchewan and our connections to everybody, right? And he made it so realistic and authentic. And the stadiums are all the same. Like Calgary is McMahon Stadium. I could send you the screenshots if you want. The guy played four quarterbacks, one per quarter.

He sent me all the stats after the Sim. And I posted them to my website. And people were bitching that Cody Fajardo was four of ten with one interception and how bad his stat line was. And they're all up and armed. Ryder fans over that. Some were saying it's not that bad. It was his first quarter.

And guys were like, that's terrible. He's our starting quarterback. Others were bitching he was playing at all. This was all online through Instagram, comments and stuff. Like, you guys realize this isn't real, right? So we've gone to the CFL Monday. We asked them, hey, we want to run a SIM Friday night because the bombers are supposed to be at the riders.

The schedule says Friday night, Winnipeg at Saskatchewan, do you guys mind if we run a SIM? And as we sit here today, they haven't got back to us. They're like, we'll think about it. But because our company did the SJ SIM, we sent a clip of the play-by-play. And they're like, look, guys, like, it's legitimate. that it's a thing. So the CFL, I'm hoping by the time your listeners, listen to this and watch it, we will have played the game and broadcast it. If there's this much interest in the SHHL, what do you think there would be for the CFL? Well, there'd be somebody following it because

I just go back to, well, you look at what's going on in the world, and it is not good right now. Yeah. People want to bitch and complain about things they, you know, that are just like almost trivial, but they're fun, you know, and what you're talking about. I can sit, I've, I've been at a bar before. I've sat at OJ's downtown Lloydminster and looked up at the screen, and it's EA sports hockey, and it's the national championship or whatever where they award like a million dollars. There's a group of like eight girl men, and all of a sudden, all of us are sitting there

watching it, and we're like, like, this is, this is insane. Why are we watching a video game? But you kind of, oh, that guy has got a nice move. Oh, big hit, big hit. Oh, yeah. And then the banter starts. And that's what a group of guys, heck, lots of women as well, just want to get in a room and banter and have a good time and socialize and that kind of thing.

And what you guys did in the middle of everything going to absolute hell was gave province a little way, a little bit of closure. I mean, you know, it's, you know, it's a funny way of closure. But at the same time, you get to root and yell at the TV screen and everything else. And, you know, you get the teams texting and giving their coach. crap and it's all good fun and hilarious right nobody's getting mad nobody's getting mad exactly but the funny thing too is i mean i was i played a lot of video games uh until my mid 30s when i started my talk show and i'm like and my kids got to the point where i had to actually raise them and not play

video games so i i got the concept of putting the computer versus the computer but my oldest brother who's a literal riding the range cowboy he's never been into gaming he played in the s j with no battle for Moose Jaw when it was at Canucks and Wavered. It's like three times he asked me. So what? How is this happening? And I'm like, well, just like playing cribbage on your phone against the computer. It's just setting the computers against each other, Lee.

Like he just couldn't get it. And the other thing was this kid that works in the SJHL office, they call him Moneyball because he's just like a stats analytics junkie. He inputted all the player info. right like you were talking about realism you know the the loon stewarden boys of the battle for north stars are both first nations for northern ontario when they scored in the sim and the camera zimmed in on them it was first nations guys like it was so realistic so he put in the skin tone all the stats skating styles hockey ike of every player in the s jch l it took them i think it was

80 hours to do it and so my brother goes well if that's all the case then no there should never be any upsets. Like if one team's rated here and another one's here, this team should always win. And I said, you don't get it. There are bad goals. There are defensive breakdowns. That's what makes it fun. Right. Like, that's how the video games go. And in that CFL game Saturday, Isaac Harker, the rider's third string quarterback, fumbled in the third quarter. It was one of the turnovers of the day. He's been getting roasted by his teammates for fumbling in the computer game. Like, it's just fun. Like, you're laughing. Why can't we have fun? You know, and some people we'll never get it. I just said to him, you know what, just stop. You're never going to get it.

So forget it. And yet he'll be the guy who goes into a bar one night and it'll be on. And all of a sudden he'll be sitting there watching and going, what is this? And then you'll be gone into it. But he'll think it's a real game. He'll think it's a real game. Well, let's go back to, I'm curious, you're from milestone Saskatchewan. Did you grow up knowing you were going to be on radio? Is that like, that was it? well from the time grade one we had a like a future career day in grade one and they say get up to the front of the class and talk about what you want to do for a living and I ripped off well

they told us the day before they were going to do it and I brought a tin foil microphone and a pair of headphones from home I was six and I'm a guy going to be a radio announcer on CKRM so there's that and my two older brothers were a lot older than me so they were doing a lot of the farm work and stuff I was in the house with mom helping her do her things. Not like I didn't fix fence and, and heard cattle and all that stuff, but I just, I didn't like it. So when I was 17, like all through high school, I was writing a newspaper, called him in the Weberman Review. I was calling senior hockey games on the radio in Weyburn, just in high school, DJing on the weekends. So at the time I graduated when I was 17,

I was like, Dad, I'm out of here. I'm going to college in Calgary for broadcasting. And dad was like, see you because I was like ruining machinery and livestock and I was just so bad at it and to this day I'm bad at it and I mean he worked in the NHL for 26 years with the stars so he kind of he worked in sports too but he goes as long as you're happy I'm happy and so it's it's worked out but I always mean I played too won a provincial midget championship but I never I just remember honestly Sean I was in camp with the weakings I was a goalie And there was media there interviewing Trevor Kidd. We're the same age.

We're in the camp together. I think the Weekings made the right decision by keeping Trevor Kidd instead of me. But I looked at the reporters and said, I'd rather be on that side of the microphone than the other side. And I was 16 then. So it's just, it's something that I always wanted to do. That's crazy. At 16, you were thinking, man, I want to be on the other side. Yeah.

Most kids at 16 are like ready to put something in. Trevor Kids drink so he doesn't play that well. Yeah. Well, it's not to say that I didn't deserve to be cut either, by the way, but I at least got there. And I think that's the one thing that was been the hallmark of my careers that I played enough and went on to referee and coach hockey that I knew what the players and coaches were thinking anyways. Plus being around my dad and the coaches all that. Even though I've been a career broadcaster, I always know what the coaches are thinking and the players. Most media don't. I mean, I think you'd get.

that right and then with dad being a scout for 26 years in the NHL and 10 in junior before that he taught me how to scout and watch a game i transferred that to football all the principles of scouting are the same from sport to sport to sport so i could go to a rider camp in florida and pick out the best guys based on his scouting formula and it always worked so a lot of the lot of the success i had and maybe the credit that i got from fans was that i kind of i knew what i was talking about but i was talking about about. I think that's why I lasted as long as I did. Well, and you were a pleasure to listen to. It's who I got to listen to growing up up once I started paying attention to who was actually talking that is, right? I mean, I was laughing.

I was going through Saskatchewan Rough Rider memories, and this is throwing it way back, because growing up, the riders didn't, I was born in 86, so I was too young to remember 89. and but we had the D or not the DVD, the VHS tape of that season. And every year the Rough Riders lost, I remember as a kid tossing it in, acting like we were winning again because that was such a nostalgic video. It got played so much. And for kids today, they have no idea what I'm talking about.

For anyone my age or a little younger than me and older, there's a lot of people who probably had that VHS tape and played it all the time as well. A season to remember. A season to remember. remember yeah i actually have it downstairs in a box somewhere and and that's the thing you know now i've moved on with the show and who knows where my life's going i mean i live one day at a time and today's been a pretty good day but for young kids that are like you then when they go and

call up rider memories they're all on youtube and those are my calls so the cool thing is that they'll be there forever and those are the greatest memories oh 2007, 2013, some of the great Labor Day wins and Kerry Joseph, the 27-yard run to win the game on the last plate. Like, that's cool for me in terms of historical stuff. It lives in infamy now on YouTube. It'll be there forever. I got to ask, it's a very painful memory, but you were the guy there. 2009, how tough was that? It was just weird. It was weird. It was traumatic because up until that point I'd never gone through any real life trauma.

So to me, that was like the worst thing. And I'll try and make it real quick. But I only called half the game. It was on the National Chorus Radio Network. I called the first half. And then the second half was the Ottawa Wetz guy. So I didn't really know what to do with myself. So I went down to the sidelines for the second half.

And I'm like, this is cool. I haven't been on the rider's sidelines. and like over a decade or whatever. So I'm right in it. I was just writing a guy today about this. The riders had a 16-point lead with seven minutes to go. Unfathomable that you would blow that. And I remember at the TV time out with three minutes to go,

the three-minute warning, Gainer was beside me and Steve Missouri, who was the writer marketing manager, Rider Hall of Famer. And we're like jumping up and down, hugging each other. Well, Maz wasn't, because he didn't think the riders had it in the back. Gainer and I did. So we're talking about what the rings are going to look like, just like the Mustangs in the third period of the sim. And anyways, it gets down to the last play. And from where I was standing was at the opposite end from where the kick was. So like everybody,

I thought the riders had won the game. And so explosions are going off and fireworks and confetti. And some players were jumping up and down hugging each other and others were coming back to the bench. I remember Neil Hughes very vividly rifled his helmet into the bench. And I don't know if you swear on your podcast, but drop the F bomb. Well, you can imagine what he said. And I'm like, what, what? And they're like, there's a flag. And then I saw the guys on the next cover team, return team coming out to return it.

And I'm like, what the hell? And then within a millisecond I knew DeVal missed one. He's not going to miss the next one, especially not from 10 yards up. So they lose and then that trauma happened. And then the weird thing was once the stadium drained out, I mean, this was 11 years ago. Cell service wasn't then what it is now. My phone started going, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, all these texts were coming in.

They couldn't because the stadium was full, right? And they were from the radio crew saying, come up and call the last three minutes because your team's going to win because they had this huge lead and they wanted me to call it, the national network. And I'm like, I'd have been the one dropping F bombs. if I was on the air and I saw what was going on. So I'm actually glad that I didn't get the message. And then just flying home, we stayed over that night and then flew home the next day

and just the stuff the guys were saying. Like they were honestly, man, I've never talked about this before, but some guys were in attack mode with each other. How could you screw this up? Like this is the most egregious screw up of all time. And I was, a week later, I was in Brian Sutter's kitchen. in Sylvan Lake, the Pats were in Red Deer, and we went out to visit Brian, and he goes, got to be the worst possible way to ever lose a championship in any sport.

And I'm like, thanks, Brian. And it only been a week. I mean, it comes up all the time. And none of us are over. You're probably not. When I say us, I mean, Ryder fans. Yeah, well, just to say this, Darien, some guy today said, I'm daring on my show. I don't know if you saw it.

Yes. And he's like, how are you comparing him to Michael Jordan and Tom Brady? Like he only won one championship. I'm like, you asshole, he'd have had two. If his team could cover a lead and count, he would have automatically been the greatest rough rider quarterback of all time. And two Great Cup wins as a starter will put you in the Hall of Fame for Canadian football. So don't talk to me about it.

So I do get upset when it comes up. for my American listeners who have no idea what we're talking about, maybe allude to them what happened at the end of that game. That's all right. I should have started it off that way. When I'm sitting here going, I got a buddy sitting in Wisconsin going, I have no idea what they're talking about right now.

It sounds really bad. And you are correct, Joe. It is really bad. Well, I'm sorry. Real quickly, if your listeners would understand that the Canadian football is one of its most beautiful features is the single point for a missed field goal or a punt single. And anyways, the riders had, what was it, a 26, 25 lead. And it came down to the last play of the game.

And I think it was from 42 yards, Montreal had to kick a field goal to win the game. And they kicked it and missed it. We thought we won on the missed field goal because the returner was going to bring it out. And then a flag went up and we had one too many players on the field. So all of a sudden, they get to kick from 10 yards closer from 32 to win the game, and we lost 28, 26. So another key memory of that is Mike McCullough, rider Canadian linebacker saying, if anybody ever tells you that a game doesn't come down to one play,

they're full of shit. Because there's an incident that it did. Well, I've just dragged all Rough Rider fans because I'm surrounding by them through the mud. So let's talk about a happier time. Let's talk about the first Gray Cup since 89. How about 2007? What was that like to be a part of bringing a gray cup, calling a Grey Cup win for Saskatchewan?

Let's talk about some happy times here so I can stop crying a little bit. Well, it was a hell of a mountain to get up because the riders had been in the West final in 2004, 03, and then 06. They'd lost so many West Finals. I mean, that last step to get to the Grey Cup. And I was getting to a point, Sean, where I didn't think the riders were ever going to get to a Great Cup. I really believed that.

We were at the Cleveland Browns really of the CFL for a long time. And I'm like, whatever, it's a cool job. We'll just never win. I accepted that. And then in 2006, when the riders went to Vancouver again for the West Final and they won, I remember this. I was in tears in the booth, in tears, literally, not bawling, but I had a tough time collecting myself to say,

we're going to the Grey Cup. And my color guy, Carm Criteri, reached over on the air and just drilled me right in the shoulder. Like, pull yourself together. We're going to the Grey Cup. I'm like, oh, yeah, okay. So we literally flew home from Vancouver, and I got to be honest with you,

there was the night of the game, like right after the game we flew home, the pilot came over the mic. It was a charter. And he said, guys, just so you know, be prepared, the Regina Airport is packed with rider fans. And we thought it was, oh, cool, it's just the little entrance area

where you come down the gate if you've ever done it. As we pulled up in that plane when it landed and approached the terminal, the place was teeming. It looked like a beehive or antil. Like coming out of every exit. You couldn't see.

It was full of people. Out into the parking lot. People were parked a mile away. Can you imagine that scene? Just to welcome the riders home. I still have photos of it. And then literally it became a blur from that point on because on Tuesday we were flying out to Toronto because it was a great cup

week and you got to get there early. And I just remember from the whole week was just like walking on a cloud. A, you never thought you were going to be there. You're trying to soak it all in as you can, but it's just, it was just surreal. And I remember some bomber players who will remain nameless, but they came to our hotel Tuesday night because it was the only night the riders had off to run if they wanted to. So I'll tell you who our players were. It was Chris Zarca. And, and I'll tell you, I'll tell you, who our players were was Chris Zarka was the main guy and the bombers are like, let's go, let's go out in the town. And our guys were like, we're not going out in town. We came here to win. And Zarki goes, that moment we knew we had him. And that was on the Tuesday. So then you

go through all the pomp and circumstance and all the events and Riderville and everything leading up to the game. And then there's a funny story about Ken Austin. I'll tell you the next time we do an interview about Kent, he's such a beauty. You get into the game and you probably had a, you know, you knew you were going to have a pretty good chance to win because Ryan didn't, but he's starting his first ever game is a great cup. Like history, you know, you'll look back, people will go, well, that, does that actually happen? That happened. This ain't a movie. And we all know how the game went and the riders win 2319. And, and then the celebration that night when the hotel was a big deal for the riders and the sponsors and their fans and families and flew home. and they had a parade, and it was minus 37, the day of the parade.

And I remember the chairman of the team, Rob Pledge. It was a quote in the book that I wrote about that season. He goes, most cities are shutting down minus 37. We're throwing a parade. And we did. The dealerships put up trucks to put the guys in and did it. So to think that you were never going to win a Grey Cup and then to win it, and in the fashion that the riders did was pretty awesome.

You know, listen to that brings a huge smile in my face. And all I can think of is Rough Rider fans are the best fans, bar none, bar any sport I've ever seen in my life. I'm going to tell you a quick little story about my first grade cup I ever went to. As kids, I would have been like 11 years old. We went and watched them play Doug Flutie and Eminton. And they got absolutely trounced, 4723. That was a, yeah, 1997, the 85th grade cup. They lost to Doug Flutie.

And on the way up from Lloyd, we're driving. And every vehicle is going by with the big Ruff Rider flags, honking everything, right? You get there. It was like, I don't know, you know, I don't have the, you talk about minus 37. It was minus cold. It was a cold day that day. And you got there, and there was rider fans running around with no shirts on, throwing the pigskin, having some fun.

We get in the stadium. I was wrapped as a kid in a blanket shivering my bag off. I could have been anything to have been a little older and have a nip of something to just try and stay warm. And we were getting absolutely thumped. I mean, it was bad. Even as a kid, I'm like, this kind of sucks. With like four minutes to go, the chant starts, we're number two. And the entire stadium is chanting, we're number two.

And I, as a kid, or even now, I can look back on that memory and be like, I've never, ever. I'm a diehard oil fan. but you will never hear any other fan base chant we're number two at least not to my knowledge and you got to witness it uh witness the fans there for 20 years i mean like they're unbelievable well that's a fun road that we could go down i think the thing about rider fans is it's just saskatchewan people i mean you're obviously a hockey guy you look at the jerseys over your shoulders it's the way we are we're respectful um you know if we owe you we pay you back you know, that kind of thing.

That's just the waste of sketch when people are. And it brings a tear to my eye, actually. And it's funny when you mentioned listening to the games I called on the air, I did a dinner in Paradise Hill last December with Kurt Price and Bucky. And the auctioneer, like Paradise Hills a long ways from a giant, as you know. Like, I think it's five hours, probably. And yeah, it's probably more than that. But yeah, five.

Yeah, probably. But even five. So the auctioneer was auctioning off. my book and and I walked up to him I kind of underlined my name like this is who I am and he's like I know who you are because I might have listened to you a few hours in my tractor you know what I mean and I just laughed and like I you don't think about it you know you don't think about who's listening on the other end and it's so I my point on that is I go all over the province and shake a lot of hands and they all feel the same way exactly like you do but the interesting thing is that when

Chris Jones came to town and he was breaking all these rules and getting fined, you know, $75,000 total that one season. I was getting these people that you're talking about, rider fans like yourself. And like I'd like to think that I was at the time going, this isn't right. This isn't what we do. We play by the rules. We might lose, but at least we didn't cheat. You know what I mean?

Yeah. And all sudden, that was the real start of a judge. juxtaposition for me because I'm like, I got to be the voice of the team, but I don't really agree with what's going on either. Yet, I like Chris Jones a lot. He treated me awesome, but that's just the way he does things. He's the black hat wearing villain in the movies. So it was tough. It was tough because I could see the pain in people's eyes with what was going on. They're like, we're not about this, you know? And actually that night in Paradise Hill, there was a lady that said to me. And she, like, blue hair, you could imagine, she's like, I will never forgive Chris Jones

for cutting my Weston and my Darian and my Chris gets, you know. So I was talking to the guys today at our show. I said, I'm so happy to be thought of as part of that era with those guys because it was such a lovable era. And I don't know that we'll ever, ever have that again. Well, ever's a long time. ever was a very long time well some yeah but but just the way the league's going you know with players only sticking in a place for a year like willie jefferson could have been that guy but he went to winnipeg for more money you know what i mean and you know i don't want to go down that road and get negative type thing but just the model of cfl business doesn't really lend itself to the

Narcisse, Fairholme, Elgard, Ken Austin, Jurison, era, or Gets Laugh, Chick, it just doesn't. So I hope that changes. You know, when I said to people I had you coming on, a lot of people around here are wondering why you aren't still with the Rough Riders. It was just, it was just a split. It was time for a change. I called it the first divorce in history that both sides were happy. It was just, it's different. now and I know I'm doing well I think they're doing well it was just time for a change

and in that like I you know we haven't even talked about the fact that I work as a recovery coach now in mental health and addictions and substance abuse and I'm I'm I deal with people in these situations all the time a lot of athletes that I'm like it's over guys it was great but it's over you know you got to move on and for me it's like how could I be telling athletes that but not live it myself, you know. And I also tell them, because this is the case with me, it's really no different for a broadcaster or a trainer or a player or a coach. If you're there a long time, the guys that hired you are long gone.

You know, it's 20 years for me. By the time, by the end, the guys, this is an all new crew that I had to answer to than from what I started and the people that brought me in and wanted me there. So just things have changed. So here we are. You mentioned recovery coach. And I've read some things. I actually watched an interview you had on it.

Maybe you could share with the listeners. You've probably talked about it an awful lot. But, I mean, you do go and talk about it now. Maybe you could talk about exactly what you went through with alcohol and how it came about that you even started to, you know, your road to sobriety. Well, listen, I, you know, I know you brought me on to talk about sports. I appreciate you asking, but it's, when I was 42, I faced an intervention at work.

And they're like, you are getting help for your drinking or you're done. Baseball was presented to me this way. You need to get help for your drinking. That's door A. That's option A that we're going to present you right now. or door B, option B is don't, but sign this paper, you're done here. And when you go home, your family's probably gone. That's how bad the drinking was.

It was bad. You know, I never missed a day of work or anything like that. It just made life really tough for me. And so they wanted me to go to rehab. I didn't go. I ended up getting sober anyways. In retrospect, I should have gone to rehab. Might have made things easier.

So I'm five years, five and a half years sober. It was January 27th. 2015, I faced that intervention. And then two years into sobriety, I had a couple things happened to me. One, people from all across the continent were reaching out to me for help. And because I was the voice of the riders and I was always very easy to find, like I answered your messages real fast, right? Like I make myself very accessible. I was easy to find for people that were struggling. and I'm like, I don't have any training. I don't really want to deal with this.

It's in my past. But when somebody, and particularly athletes, when a coach drags a kid in, that's in shit, and the kid's shaking and trembling and they're asking you, Rod, what do we do? You wouldn't be human if you didn't want to help, right? Yeah. So I went and then right around that time, a sober coach from Montreal,

all, he's actually the sober coach for the Montreal Canadiens, was in Regina dealing with the client, and he met me in an AA meeting and said, I don't know who you are or what you do, but for some reason, people listen to you. Would you consider coming to work with us, with our company? And I'm like, yeah, what do I need to do? And he goes, well, obviously you know how to do it. Just go get training. However you do, I don't care. Some paperwork that says, you have the education. So I got a diploma online. I went to New York and got intervention training. I got grief, trauma, stress counseling because I got called out of the bullpen to help with a humble Broncos tragedy. And I still deal with whether it be, what should I say, survivors, victims, families, whatever.

I'm still dealing with that. And it just weaves really well with sports, you know, because it's, I mean, it's a rampant problem in society, period. But my one main counselor here in Regina that I still see, he didn't really understand why my phone was ringing off the hook. and why I was being interviewed in the paper to talk about this. Why am I on CTV morning news? He's like, I've been doing this 40 years. I never been asked to do one interview. I'm like, I don't know, but they are.

So what am I supposed to say? No. And then he realized that when you're a public person, Sean, for instance, when I go to Paradise Hill, they were getting at it. You know, that's what they do with these small town dinners. But the problem with me is when you're doing them every freaking weekend, you can't be blackout and out till four in the morning.

You can't do it every weekend. Like it was an easy trap for me to fall into because it was always around. So now I go and do these events. And it's funny who you run into because I did one with Chris Nyland in Zenham Park. And he came out to, you know, where that is? Way the hell northeast of Tisdale.

You know, nobody's ever heard of it. I'm doing it with Chris Nyland. And my sober coach goes, hey, I work with Chris Nylen, bring my name up. So I walked into the hall and I said, hey, Chris Nylen, you don't know me, but we have a mutual friend by the name of Bob Marriott. And Knuckles Nylans' face just lit up like that. He's like, he's my sober coach. He trained me.

And it turns out Nylans Rock Bottom was waking up in a New York hotel bathroom with the heroin needle dangling out of his arm. Who knows that? That happened. So all of a sudden, Nylon and I were like this walking out of that hole. that night. So I do generally deal with just athletes, because there's enough work there, believe me. And then the military knocked on my door, and they said, well, you come work with our guys and girls. And I said, yeah. But I said, I got to tell you guys, I'm not used to the military

mentality in the soldiers, because in Regina, have you been a new Mosaic Stadium, Sean? I have not been in the new Mosaic. Oh, okay. Well, when they kick off, you will. You got to come down. You'd be my guest. Okay. But right across the street is the armory where I'm there all the time. So the major points out, well, we're sitting there in the

garrison, which is the mess where it's a lounge for the soldiers. And he's just kind of convincing me why I should work with the soldiers. And I said I just, I don't get them. I don't know how many soldiers. And he goes, well, you know, you work with the football. And they kind of see it.

same and I pointed to the Mosaic Stadium I said Brad nobody's gonna die out there on Sunday it's not the same and he goes no no it's us against them and teamwork and just trust me on this he goes the guys all know who we are so I started doing it and then you start listening to soldiers problems it's next level from what I thought my problems were or what anybody thinks their problems were so everything is just kind of snowballed down that road I don't know what to tell you why my inbox is full all the time with a lot of hurting people. But I like it.

Lots of people don't talk about it at all. And it's once people find a safe spot, then they feel like it's an open channel to talk. And you being as well known specifically in Saskatchewan as you are, as soon as you're, as you talk about it and you're not a perfect human being and you have some skeleton in your closet it makes you a perfect person to be a champion for it it makes complete sense to me well i never even thought about it that that far others have said that um but this is the part that kind of breaks my heart when i see a guy like a johnny mansell or an ntonio brown or and we all know hockey players that have had issues and i just see the way the coaches or the media are treating them and i

know exactly what their problem is. It's not necessarily always alcohol or drugs. It's some sort of mental health issue, though. I do work with guys like that. And I'm like, guys, just give me a call. I never pick up a call the team because most times they'll say, F you, who are you? But if they call me, for instance, with Hamilton, when Mansell was there, I called the Ticats. And I said, look, Johnny's right in my wheelhouse with the kind of guys I want to work with. And the Tyecats are like, well, you work with the riders. How is that going to work? Like, we're going to fly you out here and meet with Johnny and you're going to be in our facility and in our meeting rooms? No, it can't happen. So it, my two careers did kind of collide

that way, being tied down with one team, kind of was a roadblock to this. But I can tell you this, you know, you get in a room with a guy and it's just the two of you and he's had his coach yelling at him and he's had his billets yelling at him. He's had his girlfriend. Like, what's wrong with you? You get it all the time. Um, four words is all I say. What's your deal, man? And it's like just turning a key in them and they just spill. Cause nobody ever asks, what's bothering you?

Right? So it's, it's cool. And it's, it's, um, it's healthy to talk. It's called the talking talking, talking, talking cure. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's, uh, it's funny. We're, we're talking about this because I,

I go walking every morning with my brother at 5.30 in the morning. We started it up during this COVID just to get out and kind of get some fresh air. And he lives a couple blocks away. And we got talking about I was stuck at one point. And I hired a career coach. And all she was was a safe spot to just let go of what was in my brain so that I could just try and figure it out. And you think of like Johnny Mansell, for instance, probably not. a lot of people would listen to them anyways.

No. You bring it up. And when you've got nobody listening and now you're trying to figure it all out in your head, I don't know about not everybody's like me or, you know, like a lot of us, but a lot of us, we need to talk in order to figure it out for us. Once you get it out, you go, well, that sounds stupid. What am I talking about? Or, wow, that's a plan.

Like, I can do something with that. Yeah, that makes sense. Away we go. But to get it, if you've got nobody to talk to who will actually listen to you. Yeah, that's tough. And that's the thing is I got all day to do that. It's funny, you said something about you thought I'd be busy. I only worked two hours a day with my show.

That's it. And the rest of the day, I do things like this or help guys. But it's funny with this pandemic right now. I'm so happy to hear you say that you're doing that with your brother because there's a lot of people that are really screwed up. Like, as my oldest brother, the cowboy, would say that cheese is slipping off their cracker. You know what I mean? Like, for whatever reason.

It really bothers me when people say, say they're bored because this is I think the 84th day and I have yet to be bored. Maybe the old me would have been bored. Does that your biggest problem? Really? Go help somebody. Go pick garbage. Go for a walk with your brother.

Call some. Like, that pisses me off. So I see where this is going in terms of the mental health crisis. I mean, I go on these webinars with Betty Ford all the time. I'm affiliated with the Betty Ford Center. And just a couple weeks ago, they said,

scope of the mental health crisis is indescribable right now because we're still in a state of trauma as a society the definition of trauma is anything your brain can't comprehend i can't comprehend what's going on now can you like it makes no sense no and actually it's every day that goes by when you think you're getting a little bit closer to going back to maybe a little bit of normal you know, then the riots break out. And all that goes on and you're like, what is going on? Right. And that's that's one thing.

And then if you've lost your job or you can't pay your bills, that's another level. So anyway, sorry to go down that road. That's my main passion. I should, I should point out, Rod, and I should have pointed this out before we got going. So my podcast, although I am a hockey guy, I love hearing people's journeys, there's stories. And so what intrigued me specifically about you

was part of this was your recovery and your low spots because I think what makes a person, you can sit and dwell on the championship rings and those are fun stories and they're a lot of fun. A lot of people that listen, they want to, like I said, they want to know that people have gone through some things. And when I first was talking to Bucky

and he told me, I was like, geez, I didn't know that. I just, I don't know how I didn't know that. But I guess sitting, you know, you talk about Paradise Hill. I'm from home on Saskatchewan, by the way. Yeah. And that is like, as the crow flies, 10 minutes from Paradise Hill. So there was probably a ton of Hillmon people up in there being completely sober and not drinking anything.

They were just, uh, just there for nice time. And they probably left at a good hour. Like, I don't think they would have caused any ruckus. Yeah. But. I didn't see those people. No, they were probably the rowdy ones. Yeah.

But like on this, on my podcast, we talk about it. And, you know, I find it, I was reading articles on you. And one of the things that stuck out to me was when I talked to Bucky, he always talked about, when I had him on a while back, he talked about not taking a job for the Canucks. And that stayed with them. And I know in reading about you, you had an opportunity to be with flames. and that one stung and I was I was going to ask you like what happened there well I'm glad you asked it was the summer of 2014 and the flames called and said hey how would you like to be the voice

of the flames the jobs just opened up we've had our eye on you for a while um how would you like to come out here and basically they said the job's yours we worked it out over the phone in like five minutes. But they said, we need to make this look like a race. We need to make it look like a contest. And I'm like, whoa, I'm not comfortable with that. Like, do you want me or not? But I wanted the job so bad. I said, I'll do whatever you want. And it more people were starting to find out that this was coming, blah, blah, blah. Flames flew me out twice for interviews, drove me around town, took me out, introduced me to everybody. It was actually pretty cool. But then more people were starting to find out. And believe it or not, John, there's a lot of people that don't like me. And I'll say it

right now. I was led to believe it was the owners of the Pats, Regina Pats, whom I left on bad terms in 2010 that told him, Rod's the Flames, Rod's an alcoholic, he can't hire him. So I shook hands with Ken King, the president of the flames, under the Calgary Tower. I'll never forget. And he goes, welcome to the NHL. We want you to retire here. And I said, so do I. He goes, fly home and we'll send you the contract. And then I never heard from him again.

You've got to be fucking kidding me. No, I never heard from them again. Well, what I heard was from Sportsnet. They called me a week later and they said, we're sorry. We had to pull the contract. And they pretty much told me why. And like I couldn't, I didn't sleep that night. I couldn't even breathe.

because all I ever wanted to be was a radio announcer in the NHL. That's all I wanted. So at that time, I was 41. I'd had that dream for 35 years every single day for 35 years. That's what I wanted. And I blew it. But six months later, I was in recovery because that kickstarted me into drinking every day. Like, if you know anything about the alcoholic brain, we don't think normally, like other people.

one out of ten people think like this. I said, you think I drink too much now? Watch. And my show was sponsored by Budweiser, Molson, and Great Western all at the same time. I was liquored every day. And it kicked me into recovery, led to my rock bottom in the intervention. And I look back on it now and say, you know what? It was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Because if I'd gone to Calgary, I would have kept drinking. My marriage would have been over for sure, because my wife basically said, I'm not coming with you. It was actually the best thing that never happened to me. And, you know, probably shouldn't have mentioned that it was the owners of the paths that I was led to believe did this. But I learned in recovery that, hey, they were right. I wasn't alcohol.

Hiring me might have been the worst thing the flames ever did. So I reconciled that in my heart and realized it was my own actions. It still hurt. but I and then I've gone on this path now that's actually it would have been death and destruction the other way it's probably the best thing that ever happened to me but it took me a long time to realize that holy man that's a hell of a story that's a hell of a story I know that's a hell of a story do you ever do you ever everybody loves a good comeback you ever think about uh you know not ever think about it I mean it's only been a year you ever think about um getting back in that side of of the game because you're not currently broadcast for anyone, I don't think. No, it's funny you say that. Well, I refer to myself as a free agent, but there's an addendum to that story. I was about three, four months sober, and an NHL team called me. I don't want to name them. And they said, how would you like to come down here and be the voice of our team? And I'm like, you're kidding me.

And they're like, no, we heard what happened with the flames. That's horrible, man. And we didn't even know that you were looking to leave his voice of the riders. How would you like to come down here? And I'm like, and by this point, they were heading into the offseason. And I'm like, how would I, how do I know that this is for real? I just got left at the altar by the flames. How do I know you're not going to do the same thing? And they said, come on down. We'll show you the town.

We'll whine and dine you? And I thought, wine and dine. It's been in the news that I, you know, got into recovery. They can't be serious. So I went down there, went to a couple games, hung out in the owner's suite. And I remember one of the owners turning to me that were born, drinks and they're like, you want to drink, Rod? And I'm like, you guys know that I'm not drinking? You know this story? And he goes, still? And I'm like, it's, I'm not, what do I say? I retired.

It's not a suspension. I'm done. And the whole weekend just went like that. And I flew home. And I'm like, oh, my God, I lost this job because I drank too much. I didn't get this one because I don't drink at all. What do I have to do? And then I realized I just I just can't drink. That's the thing. For me, it's just not my thing. It was just an interesting story that way. And then I've had some teams just in the last year. Some teams reach out with offers that just weren't that good. People are trying to get me at a bargain. And the longer that I wait, the better the offers get. So the way I look at it with my wife and my family is life's great. The show is awesome. And if an opportunity comes that obviously I can do, I'm 47, I got a lot of years working left.

We'll look at it. If not, we're good too. Pretty wild. Kick a guy. You lose it because you're drinking too much. And then you finally pull yourself together. You think they're going to pat you on the back. Like, hey, good for you. We want you to be here. We want you to, no, you're not going to drink. Well, what's wrong with you? Jack, yeah. It was pretty wild. So I was just sitting here tonight watching TV before you called and thinking it's been a wild, wild, wild ride.

And I feel like the best is just yet to come. Like I'm sitting here going, life's great, you know. We're not hurting financially. I got my two great cup rings, bestselling books. I don't know where it's going, but it's been pretty good. Life's good. Well, can we talk about you being the youngest guy in the WHL? I don't know if it still stands, but at age 20, you started doing play-by-play, correct?

Yeah. I have a tough time believing there'd be anybody younger because the oldest player on the PA Raiders when I went there was Jeff Gorman. He was a month younger than me. Yeah. How was that being on the bus and riding and doing that journey at a young age? You must have been happiest kid in the planet. Oh, yeah. Well, I said goals when I came out at high school.

I wanted to be in the dub by the time it was 20. I wanted to be in Regina by the time I was 22. And I wanted to be in the NHL by the time I was 25. And I was hitting all those. Ding, ding, ding. And I didn't get to the NHL at 25, but I got to the CFL at 26. So I'm like, this is going great. And I was a hockey guy.

That's what's in my DNA. I often say that's my mother tongue. So to be on the bus, Donnie Clark was the coach, Dale McPhee and Rod Dolman were the assistants. They were like my best friends. It was just a ride. But the thing,

you know this as a hockey guy. It didn't matter that I was 20. The 18-year-olds thought I was ancient. You know? Like go back to that age. Like I was laughing. I'm still friends with all those guys. Shane 90 was the captain of the Raiders.

He's three years younger than me. And he's now the Vegas Golden Knights color guy, right, on TV? I don't know, you must watch the Knights games. Absolutely. I tell you what, on a side note, I'm a diehard Oilers fan. But if I was to ever cheer for another team, it would be the Golden Knights, they have been absolutely fun to watch. They're in-game.

Everything they do is like superb. So you've been down there? Haven't been down there. I've got three children under four. I don't know. I don't leave the house a whole lot, Rod. It'll be a while before you get there. Okay.

Well, see, but that's honestly the other thing. A pretty wild story happened in January when I hit five years sober. Kelly McCrimmon texted me and he said five years, hey, congrats. When I was in Week King's camp when I was 16, Crim was the assistant coach for Brandon to Doug Sauter. So I got a long, long history with these guys. And like within an hour, Gary Lawless called me from Vegas. And he says, hey, we've been talking.

Why don't you come down here? Pick some games. And we'll put you up in our hotel, which was the Palms. We'll get you tickets. And we'll give you the royal treatment. If you want to hear a wild story, this just happened just before the pandemic. So I'm looking at the schedule. Pick some games.

It was right over Valentine's Day, which is my anniversary. In the middle of all this, my brother called me, the cowboy. And I'm telling him, I'm like, can you believe the gold knights just offered for me to come down there? And he's like, I'll go. And I said, I didn't ask. you. I got to run this by my wife. Plus, it's our anniversary. So I said, if she's, yeah, I should have told you, Valentine's Day. So I said, if she wants to go, she's got to go. But if she doesn't want to go, you can come. So she comes home and I'm telling her. And she's like,

what are you going to be doing down there? And I said, well, just hanging out around their practice rink, going to a couple games, you know, pretty much all hockey for four days. And she's like, take your brother. I don't want to go. So we, got to load it up to fly down there. And the night before we leave, all he wears is Wranglers, you know, cowboy boots and sweatpants. So he goes, I need to borrow some of your clothes. And I said, no, just wear, just be you. They don't care. Trust me. I know these guys. So we go down there and here he is with his belt buckle and, you know, the whole thing. And I should send you the photo of us in front of Team Mobile. It looked like the Beverly Hillbillies, you know, come to Vegas.

and the knights were like, he's a real cowboy? They still exist? And I'm like, yeah, there's one right there. So we spent two full days at the practice facility, watching them practice, and they sell out their practices. When the knights come onto the ice for practice, they get a standing ovation. I've never seen anything like it.

And we were there for two practices and a morning skate, and they were packed every day. And then we go to T-Mobile. They were playing the Blues the first night, and we're sitting right behind the net. And John Gruden was there, and Marcus Allen, and the quarterback, Derek Carr, and some Hollywood stars,

and there's explosions going off, and there's Cirque to Soleil actors dropping from the ceiling, and it's like blowing my mind. And we get back to the hotel that night, and Crem, Kelly, text me, plenty Saskatchewan, right? That's roughly you guys, neck of the woods. He's like, what'd you think? And I said, crim, I didn't know where to look next. Like, I can't wait till Saturday, because I'll know what's coming. There's stuff going on the whole game. So I'm a Golden Knights

fan too. Sorry for the long story, but Gary gave me all this swag, golf shirt, pullover, hat. So I'm, I'm kind of in the Golden Knights thing, too. But it's hard to not sure for the orders. I grew up an order fan too. I know what you're talking about. Well, I'm a sucker for a good story. You've been telling a bunch of doozies. I just looked at the time, and I kind of lost track of time because I've been very sucked into this. Now, I told you in 45 minutes, I was going to give you a nod or whatever.

We're at an hour in five minutes. How long do I got you for? Do I got you for 10 more minutes? All night. My wife's actually out golfing. I'm home alone. It's good. Well, perfect.

Well, then I got to ask Trevor Redden says, I got to get you to tell the story about getting escorted out of Swift Current out of the press box. He says it is an absolute unbelievable story. They still talked about that in the dab. I'm proud of that. For years, I'd been going to that rink in Swift Current for years. And the Bronco fans, if you know the rink,

you must have been in the Civic Center. Everybody's been there. Yeah, absolutely. The booth hangs over the stands, and it's just nailed together like plywood and two-by-fours. It's nothing special. And the fans would be. on it. Whenever the Broncos scored, they would beat on the side of it. And it sounds like the walls

are coming in. So after 15 years of this, I finally said, enough. So we were going in with the pads. It was the 2008 playoffs. And I went down to the trainer. And I said, give me some Vaseline. And they had these industrial-sized tubs of Vaseline. And big, like, tongue things, like, you know, like the big tongue depressors. Yeah. So I grabbed a handful of those in the Vaseline, and I went up to the booth, and I just, with these tongue depressors,

I just coated the whole, like the whole thing with Vaseline, knowing what was coming. So this was in the playoffs, and it was game five, and we had a chance to end the series that night. No, it was game, whatever it was, it doesn't matter. The Broncos score first, and all of a sudden, you hear the thump,

one time. And all their arms were stuck to the booth, covering Vaseline. And I'm like laughing, ah, I got him. No big deal. That's what it was. We won the game, and I'm thinking we're going to go home, win at home in game six.

I'll never have to come back to this dump. It's over. So I'm doing the post game show, and Curtis Hunt is the coach, and he texts me, and he goes, hey, do you need me to come up to the booth? And I'm like, for what? No, I got this. And he was like, no, there's like seven guys at the bottom of the booth waiting to kick your ass.

And I'm like, oh, I never thought about that. So Hunsey, if you know him, he's a big man. He came up and basically told all those guys to F off. There's going to be trouble. He crawled into the booth with me. He did the post-game interview. We go home. And we're laughing about it on the bus the whole way.

And then we lose game six. And we got to go back for game seven. And by this point, and I'll never forget. One of those guys looked like hillbilly gym from WWBF back in the day, like long hair, big beard, and he had a sheepskin coat, probably a really expensive coat. And he had covered in Vaseline. I'd ruined it.

And so I'm getting death threats, anonymous death threats, to the point that I was forwarding them all to the RCMP, death threats, physical harm, you name it, all coming from the swift current area. So the morning of the game, the RCNP, he's like, listen, when you get to the rink, there'll be two RC&P officers waiting for you, go straight to the booth and don't leave. And I'm like, okay, cool.

So that's exactly what happened. We rolled in two hours before the game. There's two RC&P officers there. They take me up to the booth and they're like, don't leave. Somebody will bring in your game notes. Somebody will bring in your coffee. I'm like, this is weird. And then in warm up, people start coming in with baseball bats and hockey sticks.

And they're like tapping them on the concrete. And there's signs like Peterson, you're dead and stuff like this. I'm like, I'm starting to get a little worried. And I'm sitting there writing down my notes, pregame notes, and all of a sudden, thunk! This brick comes flying into the booth and just missed my head, like by an inch, a brick. So security guard comes up, this old guy, and he's like, listen, I saw the guy that threw it.

Do you want me to throw him out? And I said, hey, I don't want any trouble, man. Do whatever you want to do. I don't care. If it doesn't get any worse than that, I'm fine. It's like, all right. So Todd Strube is our assistant coach. He's in the booth beside me.

We score the first goal. He turns and starts beating on the booth from the inside. And I grab his arm and I like, what are you doing? This is what started the whole thing. Right? And anyways, we get to overtime. Pat score, Brett Leffler, the captain. Series is over.

We win and we get out of town. And that's the end of the season. story. And it took years, years for them to get over that. I think they're over it now, but yeah, that happened. I'm glad they still remember it and talk about it. I wonder how many announcers have death threats and have signs made up for them. I can assume not very many. Well, I got to tell you, Sean, that's the thing. I was talking about this on the air today. I don't think I'm even cut out to be a play-by-play guy anymore because sports has changed so much. the leagues themselves and the teams,

they're too afraid to offend anybody, they're too afraid to step on any toes, and that's just not my style. And I remember back in the day, a rider coach called me, and he's like, we're playing Edmonton in a really big game in the fall,

and I'm just trash-talking the shit out of them all week long. Got just some running feud going with their players, and it was Calvin McCarty and Nate Coohorn and these guys, and it was Craig Dickinson, actually, was our special teams coach. He calls me, He's like, would you mind stop it talking so much shit?

Like, you're pissing these guys off. You're making it hard on us. And I said, Dickie, I'm in the middle of selling the game out here. Like, how do you go coach the team and I'll do what I do? And by the way, I have faith in you guys or I wouldn't be doing it. And the riders went out and won the game. But the point is, that's back of the day, the coaches used to love that stuff. And the players, too, they loved it.

It was all about entertainment. And if you've noticed, there's none of that anymore. Anytime anybody says anything in controversial now, it's a really big deal because nobody does it. Well, you talked, well, I think all of us have talked about the last dance with Michael Jordan. And what's crazy to think about is just not that long ago when they were winning those championships. They were a crew of characters. And you're seeing it in all sports now. they're starting to pull all that away.

They want it to be clean, clean cut. None of the, I don't know, I don't want to call it the dark side, but just like the colorful side, the side where you get some personality. I can't imagine. I think about it, I've brought it up several times. Can you imagine Dennis Rodman now on any sports team leaving mid to go off on a four-day bender? Like that is like and the team allowing it.

That's right. Well, he wouldn't he wouldn't have a job now. I mean, as you say that, Antonio Brown out of football, Johnny Mansell out of football. It's just a different time. And I don't necessarily like the thing is while I used to carry on and act pretty wild, I don't do that anymore. Those guys still are. But they're also young men. Like there was a sports executive said to me a while back.

They're like, who were you to talk about these guys? You didn't get your shit together until you're in your 40s. And I'm like, that's true. But I wasn't making millions of dollars either. Like I wasn't forsaking. What do you think Antonio Brown is out? He's out 30, 35, 40 million probably. At least.

Right. I mean, you can't get your act together for that or Josh Gordon out of a job, you know, suspended by the Patriots. I don't know if you're an NFL guy or not. But those kinds of. guys, teams don't even touch him anymore. And I don't really know why because they can help you win. Well, I mean, Phil Jackson, he did it with Rodman. He just, you learned how to deal with some of his wild style. And he talked about him as being one of the glue guys of that team. Well, I think part of

it is too, because I deal with the coaches so much now, there's so much pressure on them, the coaches, at all levels. I don't care. AJHL, SJ, all the way to the NHL. Look what happened to Jim Montgomery with the stars, you know, fired because of off-ice issues and enters rehab and the stars. He just got out, he just did an interview recently, Montgomery, and they asked the stars, would you hire John back?

And they said, no. So here's a coach that deals with these types of issues. So many guys' asses are on the line that they don't want to have a live wire in their locker room or on their staff because they don't want to deal with it. That's my read on the whole situation. Used to be if you can help us win, you got a job and we'll look the other way. And these days, there's not a lot of looking the other way.

And I feel sorry for those guys because those guys are like me. I speak their language, you know? Like, it's not a big shock. Eddie Belfour, it was in the news, right? He had the big incident in Kentucky with drinking. Two weeks later, I'm with him in Saskatoon at the kinsman dinner. And I'd never met him before. And we sat down for breakfast at the hotel.

I went up and introduced myself, told him who I was, and that my dad had worked for the stars for 26 years. Turns out he knew my dad. And we had a hell of a visit. We took a picture. And all we talked about was hockey. But when later on, one of the kinsmen guys said to me, he said, I saw you talking with Eddie Belford there.

How did you guys hit it off so quick? And I said, we speak the same language. You know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely. So that's why I've had the success dealing with those guys because I've walked in their shoes. And I mean, I'm not judging any for any of his stuff. I mean, he's had these issues in the past. It's been in the media.

That's not a big deal. But I'm just saying, I guess I'm saying live wires, those kinds of guys are my kind of guys. that's all. Well, LiveWires didn't, you go 13 years back, maybe a little less, maybe a little bit more. You didn't have a cell phone in everybody's hand taking photos or videos or just look at the riots going on it. My wife's from Minnesota, Minneapolis. And the amount of videos that come out, just of the riot alone is almost at times like unnerving. how they the entire thing is just like live it's like you can watch the riot happening live it's like

i don't know if i want that like this is weird uh it's not just that and i know i know where you're coming from but it's certainly not just many athas i was talking to some cops the other day here in vagina who said every kid's got their cell phone out and they the cops respond to a call and it's some kid in mischief and all his buddies are filming it when the cop shows up to discipline the kid you know what i mean like it's going on everywhere these kids aren't riding or whatever but the cops are just doing their job and that's why with this pandemic locked up for now 84 days i still think there's a huge god component to this to tell people you're getting out of control like take a knee figure your shit out before he lifts this pandemic because and unfortunately people are getting

worse instead of better but my point is it's just you know people are forced to have the family time People are forced to be home. People are forced to maybe be on the straight narrow to a degree. Some are, some are, some aren't. But there's some sort of message here that is feel people aren't getting. And I don't see any end to it soon. Everybody in Canada looks forward to their, what is it, two and a half, three months of summer.

And when you can't go to your, you're not supposed to be if you're in Alberta and, you know, Lloyd being the border city, when you're in Alberta and you're not supposed to go camping in Saskatchewan and your lots in Saskatchewan or vice versa or you usually go to the mountains and you know whatever and now you hear stories about out of province people in BC getting their tires slashed and just weird things like that you're like holy man like this is where we're at right now and it's it's just you know it stresses people out because normally you get through you know we talk about Saskatchewan and Alberta just the west in general you go through the minus 40 months and you finally get daylight back and you're just like, man, it is time to relax and go to the lake

and have some laughs and whatever. And now it's like, don't come to the lake. Stay home. If we open campgrounds, it's going to be 50% and maybe you can't come across provinces like that. And so people are just, well, you've already said it, people just go a little bit more batty, right? Like they just, the crazy ups a notch or two. Well, unless you are stable enough and prepared for it, like I've said a million times, I don't know how I would have dealt with this 10 years ago.

I have no idea. I'm grounded now. You're obviously grounded now. You talk about going for a walk and just talking about things. Not enough people are doing that. That's all. And I'm just saying people aren't necessarily getting the message here. I fear a little bit for what's coming.

But I just live in the day and our life is fine. But it is. But that goes back to Saskatchew people, by the way. They're doing what Scott Moe's telling them to do. They're doing what their mayor tells them to do, even though they don't like it. you know that's the Saskatchewan way whereas in the states i mean because i had so many friends there and obviously you've got friends and family there they're they can't believe what's going on then they can't believe what they're seeing they're not listening to authority or what they

should be doing so who knows where it's going to go well before we get to the crewmaster final five just five quick or long questions we'll never know well i guess we'll find out here shortly um let listeners know how to uh find you uh Rod and your show and how often it comes on that kind of thing. That way they can find you if they social. I appreciate that. It's on Facebook live. Every day.

Very easy to find. Just type in your browser on Facebook, the Rod Peterson show. Every day, 10 a.m. to noon mountain right now. You can listen at Rod Peterson.com. Just plug in an earpiece and it's studio quality, just like a radio show every day. Podcast is there as soon as we get off the air. And for anybody that has Sastelmax TV, is that you guys cable provider up there? Does anybody have Sastel Max TV?

I can safely say that I don't. Is you a Shaw? Yeah, Shaw. Right. Well, we're on Game Plus TV network every day, which is national. National and over a million homes. The pandemic has us on a pause right now. It's sort of like TSN and Sportsnet where they're not broadcasting.

Game Plus is the same. But April 8th, we debuted on Game Plus. Plus network and then the pandemic screwed that all up. So we did reach the goal, the dream of national television and then that happened. So as soon as this, you were pretty excited. We're pretty excited about that. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Well, before we get to the questions, I have to say that I meant to reach out about a month ago because I forget what date was you had Kim Coates on from my son's anarchy. and that, A, that blew my mind. And if people are not Suns Anarchy,

or have no idea what I'm talking about, A, Netflix just debuted Suns Anarchy, so now you can watch all seven seasons. And Kim Coates plays TIG in that show. And he is fantastic. He's also in Blue Bloods, which is a Canadian-made show. But I didn't realize he was from Saskatchew.

And learned that from you. Well, I didn't really know. either until probably five, six years ago. We were having a Riderville party in Vancouver and Kim Coates was brought in to host it. And I didn't know much. Yeah, I didn't know much about them. And I didn't meet him there either. I didn't go to the party. I guess it must have been since I was sober, actually. It's why I didn't go. But last year, the rush brought me and Kim Coats in to be game ambassadors. And it was like the coolest thing ever. And I'd met him for the first time there. And as you know he's from Saskatoon and we clicked and stayed friends and i'll never forget this again

you said i can drop f bombs here i'll never forget this because he's spooky eh like to just look at him he's spooky he's nice he's spooky looks like a gangster so we're watching the sons of anarchy to a to a tee oh to a t so we're watching the game and he like leans over my shoulder and he goes they play music the whole fucking game and i'm like Like, yeah, it's amazing. They don't even shut it off. I don't know if you've been to a rush game or not, but it's so much fun. You've got to take your kids down there.

So we stayed in touch and we brought him on and he was awesome. And he's just a super good dude. He was, I suggest if people just want to YouTube it, it's on YouTube, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, YouTube that show. Because that was back in May, he, like, he's got a personality, man. He was fun to listen to with you. Like he was, he was, I don't know what I expected when I saw you were having him on. I'm like, oh, that's kind of cool.

And when I flicked it on, I was expecting X and what you got was like so much better. Like he was awesome. Yeah, but he's just a simple Saskatchewan guy. That's right. You know, his mom lives in Saskatoon. He loves his mom. The only thing about him, he's in the right profession because he's just on. You notice that, right?

He's like jumping to the camera to. come on. And I was like literally just trying to let him go. But then he's asking me questions, right? Like he's like, Rod, you know how movies work. You're a movie star. What do you think about this? And you know, and I was a little pot off guard. But if you go to Wikipedia and just search his film history, last Boy Scout, bad boys. You mentioned bad blood. Like it's long and good movie. Goon, you know, he was in that as the coach. But I know guys that went to high school with him. He was the quarterback of his school. I think it was Newtana.

He was an athlete. So, yeah, you can go to YouTube, just type in Rod Peterson, Kim Coates, and that interview is the first thing that will come up. And it is literally entertainment. That's what we're doing right now. We don't have games to talk about, so we're just trying to entertain people. And he just took that and ran with it.

Well, hats off to you, because that one was, like I say, when I saw that come across the Twitter feed, I was like, did I just say? see that right? I had to dig into it because I'm like all right I'm going to tune into that one because that that to me well I watched that show it was unreal but that's a completely different side note let's get to the crewmaster final five I'll let you get back to your night it's just the final five questions brought to you by crewmaster transport so shout out to Heath and Tracy McDonald they've been sponsors of the podcast since it's inception there was a question asked on

Twitter by Tony Steffen. He said, if you could travel back to your 20-year-old self, what piece of advice would you give you? That was interesting. I didn't know if you meant life advice or professional advice or both. I mean, life-wise, I would have stopped drinking then. Would have saved me a hell of a lot of heartache and pain, and I'd be in the NHL by now. That would be number one. And two, kind of feeds into that. I didn't really get this until into my 30s, stop talking and start listening. That's when I really started listening to the people around me, because I had some pretty good people around me, like Lauren Mullicans and obviously my dad and Dave Tippett and, you know, with the stars. And I didn't really listen to anybody because I thought I knew

everything. You know what I mean? Just as a young, stupid kid through all through my 20s and into my 30s. And I can't really remember what the revelation was. But it's like, just stop talking. and just listen to what people are telling you. People were telling me back then. You need to cut back your drinking. You need to look at your lifestyle. I'm like, ah, piss off. You know, that would be number one.

And a real big piece of life advice was this. Ties into all what we're talking about. We were sitting in Montreal, me and my sober coach, having lunch, the day of a Ryder's Alouettes game. And I was pissing and moaning about what happened with the flames and how I deserved to be there. And there's guys in the NHL that aren't half as good as me. and he just yelled at me.

He's like, stop! And I'm like, what? Because you've been knocking on that door for 35 years. It's not opening. Start listening to what's going on around you and the opportunities that are presenting themselves. Stop chasing the puck rod. Let the puck come to you.

And it was like literally the sun came up in my life. And that's when I started listening to opportunities, whether it was to write the SGHL book or become a sober. coach or do all these really cool things that I'm doing that I never ever planned to do. So it was just don't chase the puck. Let the puck come to you in life. That would be the one.

That's super cool advice. I read a book and it talks about listening being a superpower. And what you're talking about is exactly that. Well, I see it too now when I talk to people. They're not listening to what I'm saying. You can see their eyes are racing. They're thinking about what they're going to say next. And it all comes down.

It is dialing yourself down, calming down, and just listen to what people are saying to you. Listen to what's going on around you. Sometimes it's a pain because you notice everything. Once you really get into it, there's stuff like, ah, I wish I didn't see that going on. You know what I mean? You get that. But it's a better way to live. And I was always planning my next moves when I was that age.

when if I just calmed down and done a better job of where I was at that time, things might have happened quicker professionally too. But always thinking about getting to the bigger city, getting to the bigger market. And everybody's like that. Really, or at least everybody that I know, everybody's trying to climb the ladder. And if you can just enjoy where you're at,

because that's what I'm doing now, the opportunities are coming like crazy. That's a super, super great piece of just life advice in general. That's a cool little story. I always think, you know, you talk about when you're 30s you weren't listening. I'm sitting at 34 years old, and I like to think of it as if you can imagine a tunnel looking back at your 20-year-old self, your 25-year-old self. And I just think, at 25, I thought I had the world by the nuts. and at 25 I looked back at 18 and thought, man, I was a moron, but I got it figured out now.

And I just go, where are I going to think when I'm like 70? And I'm looking back to my 60 year old self to 50 to whatever, right? And I've got to interview some really interesting people on this podcast, a couple of 90-year-olds. And the stories they share and life advice they give themselves at 20 is no different than yourself. It's very interesting to sit and have somebody who's older than myself. who has obviously life experience, some ups and downs, and to reflect on that. And hopefully that reflection and talking about it, somebody listening right now is going to be like, huh, that's really, really good advice.

So I hope, you know, there's a reason why you're good at what you do. And it's fun to sit here and listen to you and hear you reflect on what you've been through. And life advice, that's top notch. Well, I appreciate you saying that. And I do follow a lot of accounts. You ask where people can find me. My recovery accounts on Instagram or at Peterson Recovery, Twitter, same thing.

And I follow a lot of really good accounts too. And one thing I read recently was people on their deathbed when they're asked their regrets, they don't say they wish they'd spent more time at work. Not one person says that. And now in the pandemic, if I can give anybody and some advice now, people that are going back to work are saying, damn, I wish I'd spent that time

with my family improving myself instead of panicking because everybody's panicking. I know some people that have gone the way of self-improvement in this time. They went out and bought books and started meditation, but it's rare. Not enough people are. So it's just enjoy where you're at in the family time. Well, Ryan Sklapski had asked if you could do a quick all decades team from the 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000, 2010 era of the rough riders. I don't know if you can rattle that off,

but I feel like you might be able to rattle off a little bit of an idea. Well, that would take forever. How long does Ryan think the podcast is? Well, yeah, I will admit this. Jig is up. I didn't even became a rider fan until 88, like hardcore, when I was 15, when Jeff Fairholme came to our high school. because until that point,

I was a farm kid. I played hockey and baseball. We didn't have football in milestone. So although I was a rider fan, I wasn't watching every game and following at everything. I really had to learn the game. I didn't even know the game that well until when I got the job at 99.

In 99. You know, that's the one, and Fairholm, the cool thing when they say, don't ever meet your heroes because you'll be disappointed. Jeff Fairholm, never disappointed. You know, he's a writer,

Hall of Famer studs. this day, my all-time favorite rider. I'm sorry to hijack this and take it in another way, but that's totally cool. Well, just, I was in grade 10, Mrs. Rolfsman's English class. Fairholme walked into the room. I remember today like it was yesterday, and I'm like, this guy is cool. Do you remember Jeff Fairholme? Or maybe it was, maybe you're not old enough. Google him. He looked good. He was a Canadian that played at Arizona State or University of Arizona. Just a stud, man. Absolute stud. He was like the 80s version of Rob Bag. So that's what made me fall in love with the riders.

And I have teams to this day in all leagues, all levels, say, Rod, how do we connect with the fan base? What do we do? And I'm like, go to hospitals, go to schools, get in the community. That's how you establish a fan base. Well, the players don't want to do that. Bullshit. I tell you what, of the 20 guys on your team, I guarantee you at least two will want to do it. You're just telling me they don't want to do it.

You know, and like that bothers me because Fair Home and then it's like, oh, the players want to be paid. Pay them. Give them a couple hundred bucks. You know, their time's worth something too. But it's just that's where sports has gone is they don't want to, the teams don't want to put in the work. And I know some players, like you might remember Brian Peters, stud, linebacker, long snapper on the 2013 riders. He used to walk into the community of relations office and go, guys, what is there to do today? can I do? I'm only here for four hours. I got all afternoon and evening. So he would like volunteer to go to the hospital, volunteer to go to the Salvation Army, volunteer to go to a shelter. But he got it because he knows that when you help people, you get more out of it than they do.

But it just, oh, it makes me so mad because I became a fan because of my interaction with the players. And I bet you you did too. And the teams just don't want to do it. I was going to say two things come to mind. I interviewed, I was saying earlier, I interviewed Ty Smith, who is a draft pick in New Jersey, at a Lloyd here. And in his interview, he was telling me that when he has downtime, he'll ask if he can go to schools or to the hospital or if they have things like that. I went, geez, for a 20-year-old and say that, that's pretty, for 19, 19, 20, I can't remember

what his age is exactly. But anyways, I was like, that is, like, crazy mature. when a team isn't just saying, hey, you've got to be at the school at this time and structuring it. For a kid to actually ask to go, that's something special. And I was going to say that

when I played in Dryden, Larry Winoniak, who, I don't know if that's... It's all. Yeah, you bet. So he was my coach, and we were involved in the schools all the time,

almost every day. And now, what are we? like 2004, so 16 years later from when I first played there, one of the kids that we went and visited was now the captain or was the captain of that team. And he talks about when we came and visited it. And for me personally, on this podcast, I showed you the jersey over my one shoulder of the Lord Mr. Porter Kings. As a kid, I got to go into their dressing room.

And the man brothers, Mervyn Morgan Man, were two guys. I got to go sit in the dressing room with. And I remember it like it was yesterday. And I just remember thinking, man, I want to play senior hockey at some point. If my career goes no further than senior, that'd be really cool. And obviously, I got to go different places and it was a lot of fun. But it was fun to come back and play senior. And for a small town like Hillman that doesn't have junior hockey, we got to be around kids.

And you just hope that someday they get to share that back. And I've got told that quite a bit now that now you have to give back to the sport. now that you're done, you need to keep giving back. Because what you're talking about is exactly how the game stays strong, how you build those interactions, how you build fan bases, because kids are impressionable. And when you give them the right things to be around, like a football player coming into the school and, you know,

showing kids some attention, that goes a long, long ways. Oh, yeah. Was that the same Mervman that was an assistant? coach with the Warriors with Moose Jaw? No, Mervman. Uh, no, he was, uh, he went to Brandon. He'd be, dang, he'd be close to your age. He'd be right around your age. He was a defenseman, big, uh, Bucky always says he's the best hockey player to never leave Lloyd. He was, uh, went to Brandon and I want to say Saskatoon Blades camps back in the day. Big, strong D man. Was a captain I've been in the senior team here for years.

There was an assistant coach of the Warriors in the 90s by the name of Mervman, so I just assumed being in Saskatchewan, I might have been the same guy, but maybe not. Yeah. He played for, well, and I, maybe I should take a step back from that. He played for U of S Huskies back in the day, too, him and his brother at one point. We can look it up. Yeah, I guess so. That's the other beautiful thing now about today with HockeyDB.

I'm on it every single day. I feel like sending them a donation just like, here's my credit card, guys. I use you guys so much. And it's so valuable. I love it. Absolutely. Well, here's question three. Who haven't you got on the Rod Peterson show yet that you want to get?

Like, who's a guy that you're just like, man, if we can ever figure out a way to line up X? Well, this is probably shooting for the stars, but Wayne Dretzky. He's number one. I mean, growing up an older fan, I mean, you can appreciate it. I've always had this aura around Gretzky. I had the opportunity to meet him at the 2003 NHL draft in Raleigh, North Carolina. And he was literally five feet away from me. He was there with the coyotes, I guess, but he wasn't doing anything.

He's taking a sip of water like you just did and eating a Danish. And I'm like, oh, it's just us. Oh. And I didn't. You didn't? No, I didn't. And I swore the, next time I have that opportunity with him, I will. That's the reverence that I hold Wayne Gretzky

and I do remember being at a Ruth's Chris Steakhouse in Toronto, 2001 draft. It was obviously end of June really hot. And Gretzky walked into the dining room of Ruth's Chris. And in Toronto, and think of this. All you heard was forks drop and hit plates. Everybody stopped. And Wayne was in a black leather blazer, white dress shirt, and jeans. It was probably 40 degrees out. Black leather blazer. And he looked like a million dollars. And so I've asked our producer to try and get Wayne because we had a thing.

I don't know when you started watching my show, but from up until show 100, if it was day 68, we would name famous number 68's, Yarmier Yager, Andrew Green, you know. And everybody was waiting on 99. are you going to get Gretzky on the show on 99 and his people didn't get back to it. So he would be the one guy. And then the fun thing, just out of stubbornness, is Bo Levi Mitchell. There's only one guy that said no, a flat out no. Screw him.

And it was Bo Levi Mitchell. He won't come on the show. So I don't know if that ice will ever melt, whatever. But it would be a funny interview if we did, have him on. Most rider fans would care less if you had Bo Levi on. Oh, I don't, I didn't even know why our producer wants them on. It's not me driving that one. It's our producer.

But I'm just saying, way to be the one I want, and Bo's the only one that said no. What was the last song you jammed to? That it came over the radio, it came on at the house, it came on your show, and you're like, hot damn, this is a good tune. Honestly, probably George Strait. Rubidor. I don't know if you're a country music fan or not. I don't mind a little George Strait. Yeah. He's another iconic hero of mine. I've been in his fan club since 1984 when I was 12 years old.

So George, I have hip-hop music being around the riders for so long. I love that too. I mean, if you're a real music guy, the music, which I'm actually not, the music people tell me the beat of country and the beat of hip-hop are actually pretty similar. It has the same effect on you as you're listening to it. So I swing from two chains and Drake to George Strait and Garth Brooks. Absolutely perfect. That's the best combination to have. I think so. It works for me.

My one daughter really loves it too. We can listen to the same music and like the same song. My wife doesn't like either, but that's the way it is. Hey, on the way, I was saying I almost forgot, at the start, you were sending me a message. Where's the link? Because I forgot to send it. I was in the middle of jamming out to Moana. Moana is a cartoon. Hopefully you know what that is, young kids. No, but. Moana's a show about a Hawaiian girl out on an island and the rock is this demigod.

And he has a song in it. I was jamming out to that earlier. So I can jam out to just about anything. I will do anything, I'll watch anything if The Rock's involved. You're talking about Dwayne Johnson, The Rock? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm a huge fan. Well, you know, you want to talk about the bucket list. That'd be a guy.

I listen to that guy or watch movies and I'm like, and he's done, I don't know if he has a day off. And he just goes. And some of the stuff he does is complete utter dog shit. But it doesn't bother him. He just keeps going at 150 million percent. I'll tell you another cool story, by the way. Here's the real crux that I'm at right now. I've got a lot of current CFL players, ex-CFL players, fans from across the country saying,

Rod, you need to start a movement, a campaign to save the CFL. And I'm kind of going, that's not really my job anymore. Like there's guys in the CFL head office. That's their job. There's marketing people with every team. That's their job. And I also know if I do start this, I'm going to piss a lot of people off that it's their job. You know what I mean?

That's some of the problem that I got into with the riders. So I'm like, I don't want to step on any toes here. But of course, the kind of guy that I am, and you've got to know me over the last hour and a bit, my mind's going. Yeah. And that cowboy friend of my, or brother of mine goes, oh, it would be, I was telling him and he's like, it would be like a farm aide. And he's like he could bring on Warren Moon and Damon Allen and Doug Flutty and the rock. Get the rock, exactly. Of course, now we got it planned.

And I'm like, and I called Jim Hobson, the old writer president, and I said, what do you think about this? And he's like, man, you could have a telethon with your show and just go around it, like tell a miracle, just go around the clock and raise money. He's like, we can, you know, literally save the CFL. And I'm like, so I brought it up to the guys at the show today. And they're like, well, we got to first get Flutie Garcia. And then maybe the rock will do it.

But if he's the first guy, he'll probably say no. And I'm like, I don't know. He seems like a pretty cool guy. And he talks an awful lot about his time in the CFL. Which is his only time in pro football. So he kind of has to. Yeah. So I have an immense respect for him.

I know a lot of guys that were around him when he was with the stamps, like PR guys and stuff. And they said he was the best guy. Well, if you ever do that, if you decide to do a telethon or anything, you make sure you shoot me a text because if I can help out in any way, that'd be a lot of fun. wouldn't it? Oh yeah. It'll be a blast. But I'm kind of just sitting there going, why are other people not doing this?

Because it's work. Right, it's work. No, it's simple. It's work. People want to sit back and do nothing and get everything brought to them, right? But when it goes and gets tough, tough get going. And there's just, there's a lot of people that just melt away when that happens. It's simple.

I know. I know. I know. So if you hear about CFL aid. I know where it started. Exactly. Yeah. It kind of sounds fun.

And I'm afraid that that's probably what is going to have to happen, whether we do it or somebody does it. But it's a scary thought. But here we are. You know, listening to you, there's just certain types of people that enjoy that, enjoy that, enjoy that, hard work and getting the grind and trying to do something that seems impossible and and really have fun with it. There's a lot of people out there like that. They're just kind of spread all over the place and there's a lot more people that when they hear the hard works come and they just kind of fade away. Yeah. Well, and that's my whole thing. I say it again. It parallels when people

were coming to me for help with mental health issues and alcohol and drugs. How could I say no? Yeah. And it's, it's sort of like when you're asked to lead, you need to lead. You can't turtle. So I'm just kind of flip-flopping this in my mind going, why would I? Okay, how am I going to? So this is kind of what's occupying my time right now. I think you should do it. I'm going to say it right here. I think you should do it and have a little fun. Then you could be the savior of the CFL. We would all be the savior. Savior to CFI. That's right. Here's your last one. All right. And then you get to go do whatever. you got to do. If you could go back to one moment in your broadcasting history and do one game again,

what was the game that you'd want to go back to? Oh, well, two things came to mine, but the first one is the 2013 Grey Cup because I lost my voice. And it wasn't as bad as my color guy Carm. His was literally a whisper. But if I could go back and do the game with an actual, my normal voice, I mean, it's, it was a struggle to get through that game. And it wasn't because I was partying too much all week or anything like that. It was just, I was emceeing all these events morning, noon, the night. I was worn out by the time the game came around. So if I had the opportunity to go back and call the biggest game in writer history, and I will debate that with anybody that it was. I don't know who any could say that it wasn't. Home Gray Cup, right? The Dream Team. It's not like I was

embarrassed of the call or anything, but it could have been better. That was, I'm trying to think. Henry Burris, sorry, I was spacing on the quarterback. What was he caught in right before that game? What do you mean? I thought the fans, am I thinking the right, I know I'm thinking the right one. Wasn't he in a bra or something like that in,

or am I thinking the wrong time? Well, Henry's a good friend of mine, so I don't like talking about that. That was long before that. No, I wasn't, I wasn't meaning it to slant on them at all. I was meaning on it that some of the things that were going on, you were talking about how tough it was to win. That was the rider fans that time.

At home, chance to win a Grey Cup before, that was the last season in that building, was it not? No, it was 2013, was the Grey Cup. 2013, yeah. 2017 was the first season in the new state. The thing with Henry, that's right. That's right. Yeah, the thing with Henry was, I remember this.

What was so cool about that day was the stands were full an hour and a half before the game. Packed for warm up. We'd never seen that before. And Henry came out from- Even at Saskatchewan? Oh, yeah. For the Great Cup. Oh, yeah.

The stands were full. Yeah. the one in Regina and Henry came out onto the field for a warm-up and the entire crowd started chanting Henry like an hour before an hour and a half before the game I'm like they are dialed in today well and that's that's where I was going with everything they brought up everything they possibly could the Rough Rider fans on Burris to try and get him off his game right like you're coming in our our building you're gonna you're gonna have a tough time with this and that was a fun game to watch. That was, I mean, if you're a Rup Rider, that was a really fun game to

watch. It was an absolute ass kicking from start to finish, like it wasn't even in doubt ever, which we wanted. I mean, somebody said to me a while back, oh, it would have been nicer, but it was a closer game. I'm like, then you are not a rider fan. Like, there was no heart issues there. It was an ass kicking from the get go. That's what we wanted. That's what we deserved. Yeah. And then the other one would have been the 2012 World Juniors, to be honest, that was on real. Juniors. Yeah, it was a real highlight for me.

It was in Edmonton and Calgary, if you remember. And Donnie Hay was the coach. And it was just a wild time because the round robin was in Evanton. And then the playoffs were in Calgary, the middle round. And it was against Russia in a semi-final. We, Canada, were down 5-1 back after the first period. Actually, 6-1 by the middle of the game. and they came back and made it 6-5 and the third.

And the saddle them sold out. I don't know if you remember that. I could rattle off some of the names, Brett Connolly, Brennan Gallagher, Jaden Schwartz, Ryan Murray. Yeah. We're all on that team. And I'm like, oh, my God, they're coming back. And I domed, that organ, that...

It was so loud. It was one of the coolest things I'd ever do. And I lost my voice there, too. But we were doing two games a day. And you've heard me enough that, like, I get into it. Yeah. Like it, and it's hard to go through games like that and not lose your voice. And I did, but it was just frigging out.

And they ended up losing 6'5, but they came back from being down 6'1. I'm trying to remember that was the year I came back from overseas. And I want to say, but I'm, I can't remember. Would that have been the world juniors where Oscar cleftball was playing? Yep. Yeah, he was in it. So we drove, we, brothers and I got three older brothers. brothers and then we took the brother-in-laws and then the cousins and we took a limo down to watch

Sweden play I can't even remember Finland maybe in Emmington and just to watch cleftball play because we yeah that was a regardless that was I did I had no idea you were a part of that yeah and there was like Finland had Joel Armia yeah um Sweden had Mika Zabinajad I mean it's It's felt like to me that was some of the most talent the world juniors had ever seen, like across the board. I'm sure every guy thinks that about every year. But I called that one on Sportsnet and it was it was amazing. Well, we could go down the rabbit hole of world juniors. There's nothing.

I mean, people all around the world can't get over how much Canada's in tune with the world juniors. But it is, it's probably like that time of year right around Christmas when that starts. I don't know of a bigger sporting event in Canada, to be honest. That, like that five, six days of teenagers duking it out and the best can to has to throw at them, like, that's a lot of fun. Well, the ratings show it, right? Like all of Canada gets on board. And people say that TSN made it what it is.

I don't even really agree with that because it's always been a big thing. Always. I mean, even into the 80s, literally before you were born, Sean, you heard about the punch out in Pia Stani when there was the brawl and all that. That was all on CBC and the whole country was watching Matt. So I love TSN, but it was a thing before TSA made the thing. But I love the business of sport. I'm fascinated by it.

Tell me if you want me to turn a light on here. You can turn a light. What I learned at that World Junior is that hockey Canada is its own NHL franchise. Like it's not a governing body. It has its own television rights. It has its own merchandising rights. Its own ticketing. It is a franchise.

It's not a governing body. It's a friggin' machine. Isn't that interesting? It was very interesting to me. Well, nobody sees it until you're on the inside. Once you're on the inside and you see it for yourself, I'm not saying it's bad. I'm just saying, I was like, wow.

You know, and not to mention, I mean, you got to hockey Canada trainers, Team Canada, throwing you track suits going, oh, you're our broadcaster, you're representing Canada, you're on the team. Like, you don't get much better feelings than that. That's cool. That's a cool experience. Really cool. Well, I'm going, I think we went for an hour longer than we'd started off their rod. So I really, really appreciate you hopping on with me. really enjoy what you're doing. I wish you all the best in the, you know, the days to come,

the years to come. Hopefully, hopefully you find what you're after and, and maybe it's an NHL gig. Maybe it's just doing what you're doing right now. But regardless, thank you very much for sharing a couple hours with me. It's been an absolute pleasure. I can already hear the listeners going at some point you're going to have to come back on for a part two. Well, thank you. I don't know what that act will be, but thank you, Sean. And I'll say the same thing to you. Good luck with this. I got to listen now. I appreciate it. You're good dude. And I do get to Lloyd from time to time. The mayor is trying to get me to come up there and speak to the school and do some mental health substance abuse prevention stuff. So maybe you and me and Buck can go for lunch and kick it around some more. I tell you what, you come up to the border city. You come in the studio and we better sit and do this face to face. I'd love to. And we can gladly bring Bucky in. He'll be over the move.

Well, we just scratched the surface on my stories tonight. So we got a lot more. Well, thanks again. All right. Thank you, buddy. Appreciate the time. Hey, folks. Thanks again for joining us today.

If you just stumble on the show and like what you hear, please click subscribe. Remember, every Monday and Wednesday a new guest will be sitting down to share their story. The Sean Newman podcast is available for free on Apple, Spotify, YouTube and wherever else you find your podcast fix. Until next time.