Spittin Chiclets - Episode 491 featuring Tim Connolly & Craig Morgan

Episode Date: April 9, 2024

On Episode 491 of Spittin’ Chiclets, the guys are joined by Craig Morgan (01:28:31) to talk about the upcoming land auction for the proposed Coyotes 3 billion dollar arena and what the future holds for hockey in the desert. But first, the boys break down the effect Rempe has had on the league. Later on, the guys talk about McDavid being on the verge of an 100+ assist season, and recap the insane off-ice storylines this year has brought us. Highlight machine, Tim Connolly joined the show (02:23:17) to talk about his first few years in the league as an 18 year old, learning the ropes from a veteran islanders team, as well as his battle with concussions and changing his perception of his time in the league. Should Crosby be in the Hart Trophy discussion? Where will the ‘Yotes end up? Who is the biggest fraud in the league? Find out in this weeks episode.You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/schiclets

Hey, Spittin' Chicklets listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Well, she's your love. They say you're drunk at speech. She's just so good at that. I like to poke the bear. I like to stir the pot. But then you come on in and take it up a notch You hit me with a cheap shot, a cheap shot Hello everybody, welcome to episode 491 of Spittin' Chicklets

Presented by Pink Whitney from our friends at New Amsterdam Vodka Here the Barstool Sports Podcast family What is shakin' everyone? What some are calling the greatest regular season ever Has about a week and a half left of it The season ends a week from Thursday, pretty crazy podcast family what is shaking everyone what some are calling the greatest regular season ever has about a week and a half left of it the season ends a week from thursday pretty crazy but lots to talk about so let's dive right in the wit dog ryan whitney what's new at you r.a sounds rough long beach voice is the new vegas voice what do you make of that one witty i mean are you surprised

he was texting like he was completely in one all weekend so i actually thought he'd sound worse so i think this is a win all right that's good for you i mean i thought you'd sound horrific and it's just sort of bad what's up with me not much at all uh very interested to see once we get into this debate about the greatest regular season of all time and and your actual take after that vague tweet that we've known and become accustomed to coming from you. But in terms of me and my weekend, while you uncultured swine are watching hockey and hit from behinds and line brawls and headshots, I took in Broadway with my wife and caught

a play. Went to New York. When did we leave? Left Thursday, got in around five, stayed till Saturday, left around 11. So a quick hit. They call it a baby moon in the business. Just a quick getaway before the baby comes. Now our baby moon or her baby moon has gotten worse and worse with each kid, right? Before you have any kids, you can go rip it up for a week and then you got one kid, you go a little shorter. Well, before the third, it's like two nights in New York City

and the Accela. Here you go. But the play I saw, what a performance by Jeremy Strong, who many people out there will know as Kendall from Secession. Biz, I know you don't watch tv shows so you can kind of sit this one out it was it was amazing and i had been i'd never been to a play i'd been to a musical i believe on chiclets i told the story before i want i want to say seven years ago eight years ago i took a muscle relaxer because i had a little kink oh yeah oh yeah i was

second row and fell asleep and embarrassed it. I was getting booed. But that was a musical, Jersey Boys. So this play, dude, it was incredible. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed this play. And my expectations going in were kind of like I was a little hesitant. It was two hours with no intermission. They ended up doing like a seven-minute break where they brought a bar down from like the ceiling and then you could go on to the

stage and they gave you like it was just like they'd give you a little shot it must have been a sponsor whatever this liquor was dude i was like i want this intermission this break to end get me back to the play so just i felt so cultured and then like dealing with you guys talking about line brawls and being scumbags. I feel so above you guys. What's the play? I was going to say, yeah, we got to get the name of the play. But I was going to say, as far as activity in the group chat, like you were silent. I'm like, where is this guy this weekend?

You weren't really chiming in much. Well, yeah. So we got back Saturday around four. And then I was kind of real busy yesterday, Sunday. So it's called an enemy of the people or enemy of the people and the premise of the play is that Jeremy

Strong is a guy living and now I believe it's a Danish from Denmark play or book or story whatever from like the late 1800s buddy so this guy is living in this town and he's a doctor and he ends up realizing that they have like they call it the baths all right they it's like a it's obviously a town on

on a lake or a river and they have the baths which i assumed was kind of like hotels and places for people to come and basically he talks about they had people who were sick and old come because the weather and the baths and everything about this town was so beautiful. And in the end, in the end, boys, I had to use it because he finds out the water is poisoning the people from the baths. And what he does is he realizes this. And he says, we have to close down the baths. We have to redo the water supply. People are dying. Thousands of people are coming here every summer. realizes this and he says we have to close down the baths we have to redo the water supply people

are dying we're thousands of people here coming here every every summer and the town doesn't want to and all the people on his side at the beginning they end up turning against him and he becomes the enemy of the people for trying to do what's right this jeremy strong guy's acting he's spitting the whole he's getting so animated and and aggressive in these different little moments of the play. And he's spitting in people's faces, not on purpose, but talk. And he never wiped his mouth. You know, when you get spit on your face, you always got spit. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You can feel it. And until you wipe it away, it's like torture. Buddy, this guy spit all over the place and then never touching his mouth or wiping it. Just the power of acting. And then the power of me being there and just being, like I said, classier than you three, I had a great weekend. You stay awake for one fucking play and you come in swinging, eh? Well, you probably popped two Adderall just so you could stay up, you fuck.

And as far as, yeah, sometimes I'll get on these rants and I'll have a piece of spit on my lip, and then it just so happens every time it happens, Fish will find a way to get it on the internet. So I got all the Chicklets fans in the Instagram comments. Yours is usually white. I got Leafs jizz all over my face because I'm glazing it too much. You're like a dog with rabies. Yeah, you look like Cujo.

Who would have thought the one guy on the podcast with rabies would be me, ARA? Yeah, that guy. I did keep my hockey roots or tried to during the play and then I'll end the play talk. You were probably watching it

on your phone. No, so I... He was jerking off the negative. Who was my bet? I had a bet that night. What was the Friday night big game? Was it... Fuck. Was it the Friday night big game? Was it?

Fuck. Was it the Islanders? I don't remember. But I went to grab my phone, and she just looked. Oh, no. Don't you even think about it. Totally. The phone didn't even get out of the pocket, but I came close.

I was thinking of the game. Obviously, this is just a trip with you and Bree. Now, I've been told that you try to have sex more as the baby's coming to like ovulate. So it like actually comes out on time. Now it was, is that the case? Uh,

they say that they, they say that that could possibly help towards the end. Anytime she's willing to able, she knows I'm down. So I, towards the end, anytime she's willing and able, she knows I'm down. So am I somebody who's going to sit here and kiss and tell about my marriage and mention what happened during our trip to New York? No. Ah, yeah.

Ah, yeah. You're going to watch the YouTube version for that look. In the Big Apple? You can decide for yourself. Atta boy, Winnie. Atta boy. All right. What do you got? This is going That a boy, Winnie. That a boy. R.A., what do you got? This is going to be a Raya plus one for pregnant women.

R.A. jerks off in Long Island. I think you're a sick puppy if you have sex with pregnant women and it's not your girl and your kid. That's fucked up. Do you think that's like a crazy take by you? What do you think? There's people out there smushing pregnant women all over the map. Uh,

how many pregnant women do you think are like sleeping around? I don't know, man. I think that there's probably a headline on, on like Twitter or Instagram, like probably once a month about crazy shit like that. I mean, it's,

it's happening. You, you name it in the world and it's happening there's like i think there's like i think there's like pornos that are made with like pregnant women and like like oh like the the plumber comes over and all of a sudden you know the husband's so i've heard yeah i would be with you though that if if you're sleeping with a pregnant woman that isn't bearing your child you have some serious fucking that's what some serious fucking issues. That's what I'm saying. Oh, yeah.

That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm talking about. Don't get any ideas, single R.A. Now, R.A., before we talk about me and G's weekend, I want to go to you. You had a very, very eventful weekend. So you were in where? Long Beach? Yes, Long Beach, Long Island.

It's just outside of Queens. It's where Charlie McAvoy grew up. And there was a hockey memorial day for a young kid who was killed last year in a tragic accident. Garen Hagen, his name was. Just an absolutely beloved member of the community. I got to talk to his dad and his babysitter and some of his relatives and friends. Some people you meet because they're just above and beyond. He was the type of guy. He was the captain of every team. A true leader. He would see younger kids or a kid maybe who was developmental disabilities and he would gravitate to them because he just to make them more feel welcome

he's that type of guy so g called me i think thursday hey you want to go down to this thing where and when i flew down saturday morning headed over to the place and it was unbelievable like the whole community like long beach reminded me where i grew up charleston it's like a bunch of irish people firefighters a lot of beer drinking right in the water. So I fit right in, needless to say. But there were two games. Toronto Fire played, Nassau County Police, and then FDNY played the Long Beach Guardians, which is made up of all kids from the community. And I'll tell you, they played their balls off.

I mean, we know FDNY is a tough squad. So the FDNY team, the one that we're going to end up seeing in the 50th anniversary game. So do they kind of travel around doing these forms of like exhibition? Oh yeah. And so this was like a charity component. And how long had this game been organized for? Or was it like an impromptu pop-up? Well, this was the second annual one after Garen had passed away.

And I don't know if they had the same teams as last year, but you know, teams are always traveling and going to these things. But I guess every year there there's just Donnie Brooks. That's just like, oh, that's Long Beach defending the island. And it was a great game, a little bit chippy. Fight apartment won it with five seconds left. And then the clip, I happened to be on the call for the third period with a color commentary. And that goalie, he wanted the smoke. And the other

goalie, FDNY, he come bombing, met him at Sunrise, drilled him. I saw the blood everywhere. Who was bleeding? I think it was the goalie who fell down who initially wanted the smoke now ra like from like people listening who don't understand they're thinking like charity game and and for like an amazing cause and a celebration of life yet these guys are like trying to kill each other like it's just what like that's just kind of like how everybody knows and is aware and how it operates. Exactly.

And we saw a few last year. Obviously, that was in the big game, right? The 49th anniversary. So this just happens at even all the pop-ups they go to. Yeah, it's just, I guess, a very intense arena known for games like this. And I'll tell you, Paul, I had been somewhere on the road where I felt so at home. I said to you guys, I could actually live down this place. You know, you sing Irish rebel songs at 3. 3 30 in the morning that doesn't happen in too many

cities in america these days and just the people it was so like warm and welcoming like i said i met his babysitter she came over gave me a big hug it was some real emotional moments doing that obviously i did didn't know the kid but just i got a real sense of who he was and the turnout from the community was just a really really special day, and I'm so glad I went. Well, thank you for sharing, and thank you for representing Chicklets as well, R.A. Now, for those of you who might be a little confused, you can go watch this video.

I think we posted it to our Twitter account. It's probably, is it on TikTok? It's definitely on Instagram. That's where all the comments were popping, and you could see the video of when the FDNY player scores. He's kind of like, is he giving it the fuck you to the biggest section, and then that's why the goalie's wires crossed? Exactly, and I didn't realize it at the time.

I didn't realize that was the Long Beach section. Yeah, he kind of gave a little, he was very exuberant. Suck my wiener. That's what he gave, the suck my wiener gesture. And they were pissed off because I talked to some people. They thought it was classless, whatever. Obviously, I was like, yeah. I say, it's hockey i mean they fought after i mean i didn't realize it was that crowded but it is hockey it was a late goal a very intense game but it was all good everyone was drinking after then i don't know what's worse

putting a puck in the empty net 61 who's the guy 61 on fire he was good last year i remember did he get his head punched in at the end of that game? Is there a clip of that? There were four fights going on at once. And I remember he was the best player on fire or one of them. I think he took a beating in that clip.

Oh, and also, do you remember I brought up the Oshawa Fire Department pounding everyone and saying we want to take... Well, I had another town or city's fire department pounding everyone and like saying we want to take well I had another town or city's fire department reach out and say fuck Oshawa they're full of shit when they beat New York New York didn't send their best players so now it's like and I gotta get who sent this one they're calling out Oshawa but Oshawa is standing firm in terms of we'll smash anyone and we'll play anyone anywhere, anytime.

So the fire department, police department, hockey games, I cannot wait for April 20th. The NHL playoffs start, but for us, they kind of start the 21st because April 20th, to me, is FDNY NYPD. Yeah, and we're going to be streaming that game live on the Barstool.com website. We did crazy numbers last year i think the game it starts at 5 p.m this year i think it originally was supposed to start at 7 but they bumped it up probably for the stanley cup playoff reason but

we're going to be live on the broadcast all of us i would imagine army's there merle's there portnoy's coming and and the whole kit and caboodle. Anything else you wanted to chime in with quickly, G, regarding that game? No, I think it's going to be awesome. I mean, go watch the documentary. I think that's, if you don't know much about the game, we filmed a documentary basically all last season. We followed them around to these tournaments that you guys

kind of referenced before. We went out to Vail with them. We followed them around for a year straight, so you can really get the background on that. That's available on YouTube, all of our video platforms, but it's going to be awesome. Like we said, we're adding some new characters this year to the mix. I'm riding with the police. I know last year, I took

the police. Everyone else was on fire. I took the police last year. Yeah, police are the underdogs. I'm just like, I like to ride with the underdogs, so it'd be awesome to see them win. No one is expecting them to win, so I got the police this year. A great, before we move on, a great pregame into the first night of NHL playoffs.

And we'll talk about this. It's not till April 20th. I hope there's no afternoon NHL playoff games. I hope they start that night. So we kind of get the five to seven slot for that game, for the fire and the police. But we'll see. Just a couple more

notes because uh the goalie for fdy nick tags he come up to me he looks like he's about 12 years old he's like hey thanks for making me go viral today i was like wait a minute you're the guy who beat the other guy up he's he's probably about five eight like he looks like he's legit under 20 years old i was like was that your first fight ever he's like yep first one i was like wow first one yeah always a goalie and he's gonna be addicted to it after getting that internet pop just like the wrestlers when they come out what's up guys wait here pink whitney time you see right here a little shot of pink whitney sorry for anyone listening in the car but pink whitney new amsterdam's own pink lemonade flavored

vodka the number one selling flavored vodka in the United States. Thanks to all of you. Thanks to you. And I think I said last week it's Masters season. It's golf season. It's Pink Whitney season. It kind of all goes hand in hand. That birdie juice we all know, we all love.

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Tastes great. Easy to drink. You feel great after you drink it. And I thank you for all giving it a try. So go right now to your local bar and grab one. Pink Whitney, take your shot. I'll quickly, I had a pretty good week. Um, you know, I wasn't too hardcore dialed into

hockey, maybe as much as I normally am. Uh, did the move into my place. So it's pretty much close to all said and done. I still have to do the outside and the landscaping boys, but holy fuck. It's, it's, it's a bit of a relief, man. Six months overdue, but it turned out, it looks tremendous. Uh, shout out to my contractor and, uh, you know, I've been kind of a nomad for a long

time, boys. I finally have a house to be settled into and, uh, and I'm, I'm, I'm very excited. Uh, on top of that, uh, Portnoy was in town for the final four. I got to meet miss peaches. Now I'm sure most of you who are listening right now know who Miss Peaches is. It's the most famous dog on the internet right now. Dave Portnoy adopted it, saved its life, has raised a ton of money for charity. What do you call them?

Dog shelters? Yeah, dog shelters. Boys, I don't think it's offside to say that this dog is the biggest, the biggest pussy magnet on the planet. It's fucking any person, any female you walk by with the dog, Dave, it has to stop. They're all want pictures with Miss Peaches, Miss Peaches, Miss Peaches, Miss Peaches. So I was with my buddy Joey and you know, Miss Peaches was chilling under the table. Cause you could tell she was just tired from all the sensory overload. And he posts a photo and tags it.

He must've had 20 girls in his DMS popping off about Miss Peaches. So this thing's getting my buddies laid for crying out loud. So I don't have to adopt a dog. I think that if you can rent Miss Peaches for one week, RA, you will be loving life, buddy. You'll be the new Hugh Hefner. That's, buddy. You'll be the new Hugh Hefner.

That's what I would label you as, the new Hugh Hefner. I don't think you want to be labeled as Hugh since some of the things came out since he died. It's not exactly an ideal role model type figure. Oh, I haven't read about any of this. So, okay, I guess we can move on. Sorry, R.A. One final note, Piz, I want to mention the foundation.

It's g2hfoundation.org. If anybody would like to donate, please do so. It funds a bunch of local stuff going on, like tons of things. There's a whole bunch of – his dad, Chris, explains recreational programs, sports programs, people in need. It's just a wonderful thing that came out of such a tragedy. Hats off to his parents and family because I don't know how you march on after something like that.

And shout out to Long Beach once again. The support was incredible. But you guys are going to be on the road very soon as well. Minnesota bound for the Frozen Four. Oh, I can't wait. I can't wait. I'm now on the road for the next two months. I left Arizona on Saturday night, and here I am.

I'm in Atlanta right now. We got a bunch of broadcasts leading into playoffs, but I'm super excited. Gee, obviously you've been at the forefront of the college hockey as far as the Spittin' Chicklets crew and I think we've all just followed suit. I think it helps that, you know, Merle and Witt played college

hockey, so they've already known a little bit about the past of it. Witt, you jumping on with BU. I've never been to a frozen four i couldn't be more excited that the way that you guys have hyped this up i am praying for a bu bc final just because i i want to see the lead up with wit and the nerves yeah i mean i it's going to be absolutely insane biz you're actually doing a meet and greet on friday at Top 10 Liquors in Minneapolis, 140-0 Fifth Street. And then on Saturday, all the boys, myself, Witt, Army, Merles, will be at Smorgie's Bar in St. Paul from

3.30 to 4.30 leading into the semifinals games. It's going to be an absolute blast out there. The finals. Yes, and before the finals. I'm sorry. Biz, I think you're going to love it. I'm bummed. I can't be there Thursday for the semifinals games. I'm going to actually be at Barstool Chicago Wednesday, Thursday. We're going to be live streaming a mini golf tournament. It goes with the Masters, needless to say. And you have three rounds Wednesday all live stream, and then there'll be a cut. I want to say maybe the top 10 players will finish the final round Thursday night, live stream begin after the broadcast of the first round of the Masters ends.

So if you watch the Masters first round like so many people do, maybe it's over and you can tune into Barstool and see. And if Minahan wins it, I owe him five grand. Worst bet of my life. And if he doesn't, I get 500. So hopefully I could maybe beat him to save myself all that dough. But then I'll be flying in Friday, and I can't wait to get to Minnesota. It's going to be a time.

Are you going to go sell a bit like Tiger Woods? No, I can't believe that. My understanding is he's putting sex on hold until after the Masters. An unnamed buddy said that to the New York Post or something. I don't even know if I trust that. If anything's been proven besides being one of the, or if not the most clutch athlete of all time in Tiger Woods,

it's that he likes to fuck, and I don't see him just stopping that out of nowhere. I don't know. You do save a lot of energy, and you do have a little bit more pep in your step with a heavier sack. But for a boxing match, that might be good. Women with good legs, Rock. Yeah, exactly.

Mickey, what's his name in the movie? Yeah, Mickey. Mickey. Mickey, yeah. You're boxing. You want to be angry. But golfing, I feel like you need to be fluid in the movie? Yeah, Mickey. Mickey. Mickey, yeah. You're boxing. You want to be angry. But golfing, I feel like you need to be fluid in the mind and in the body and with the spirit of the game.

Like holding in all that cum can't help you when you're trying to make a six-footer. I don't know. I could see where you're coming from with that one. You can kind of release it, and then you'll just be a little bit more zen. Interesting. One quick thing I wanted to talk about before we get into hockey. What's the deal with this eclipse? Why is this one being talked about more than...

I'll let you take it over, R.A., for this. Because the internet is filled with conspiracy theory lunatics, and they tie it into their way to shit up. No, R.A., that's not true. I mean, yes, the internet is filled with lunatics and they tie it into the way no all right that's not true i mean yes the internet is true the internet is is filled with lunatics and conspiracy theories they're calling me a conspiracy theorist because of the cap circumcision stuff it's a full eclipse right uh and and i don't think it happens again for i don't know 60 70 years maybe a little less 50 60 years i i think it's probably a tad overblown.

I'm also curious with you can't look at it. You need these special eclipse glasses. If you look at it, are you just going to go blind? I almost want to risk it, but I went to 7-Eleven and got $3 eclipse glasses, so maybe I won't risk it. I think it's going to be somewhat cool. But in Massachusetts, I know maybe up in New Hampshire you'll see it fully and complete, but it's not everywhere in the country or North America

that you'll see it like 100%. So Game Notes was talking about it, and Army thinks it's a farce. He thinks it's all a money grab for these goggles, these 3D goggles. Big goggles? Well, G, you're on on game notes i'm kind of asking you well so apparently so apparently there was this hotel in buffalo that everyone booked their hotel they then realized that the eclipse was coming in and then they canceled everyone's everyone's reservations and then reopened it up because they realized that they because the

eclipse came through buffalo they realized that they could like triple charge their hotel rooms so it is kind it does kind of seem like a money grab everyone's traveling i don't know if you guys saw that picture that's going viral there was the picture it's like everyone on the airplane raise your hand if you're traveling to cleveland for the for the eclipse what's with all these like mid towns getting all the like... It's crazy. Yeah, like Buffalo and Cleveland. What do you mean it's traveling through Buffalo? Is it on a train? There's areas where you could see it completely based on where they are on the map.

And so I guess some of the cities are just mid-ass towns. I do know Yoshi's acting bizarre today, so maybe there's something to do with the solar system and the eclipse. I don't really know. Those are like some of the girls I date where they're all into the horoscopes and stuff. Like Yoshi? No.

No, I'm saying it's the horoscope in a sense of wherever the sun and the moon is aligned, it affects your moods and all that. R.A., are you a big horoscope guy? No, I might as well believe in the fan. I can see R.A. busting out the tarot cards on a date. It's such crazy. Hey, you know, whatever floats your boat

if it works for you, great, but he'll be busting anything on dates. I get it. That is real. Miss fucking Cleo over here. He hasn't busted anything else. That's true. Hey, you're like Tiger. You got the heavy you and Tiger have the heaviest sacks in the league. I gotta be the fucking

one by choice. Some states are like calling it states of emergency and shit. It's like, it's a You and Tiger have the heaviest sacks in the league. Got to be one by choice. Perkins Waitress. One of these days. Yeah. Some states are like calling it states of emergency and shit. It's like it's a fucking eclipse. These things have happened various times in various ways. Well, not if you're driving and all of a sudden it's in your in your sight line. You're like, ah, well, no.

R.A. tweeted. You'll be driving like a whip. Jesus fucking Christ. R.A. tweeted Jesus fucking Christ upset that there's been states that have called it like a state emergency or something. But RA, with thousands and thousands of people traveling into these states, do you not understand the states possibly changing something? It's not about the eclipse, the states. They're doing it because of all the travelers coming. And I heard Nashville is one of those places, RA.

And much like Yoshi going crazy, it's probably by Morgan Wallen threw a chair off the roof at a bar six floors up. Fuck. I think everybody's going a little bit fucking crazy. I mean, the Rangers and fucking Devils went crazy. Everybody's going cuckoo. I don't know where to fucking go from there, Biz. Holy shit. But basically, real quick, what is the state of emergency?

It never happened before. There's no need for it. I read the whole article. It's just overblown like the rest of the shit. Talked about boxing. Biz, perfect segue. We had the awesome for it. I read the whole article. It's just overblown like the rest of the shit. Talked about boxing. It was a perfect segue. We had the awesome Devil's Reigns the other night. Two seconds in.

Just unreal. Rempe stepped up in McDermott. That was one great fight. There were four other ones going on. Jimmy Feezy and Curtis Lazar was actually the first glove drop. I didn't know that fucking that secondary rule, that they threw eight guys out two seconds of the game. Thought that was bullshit.

Biz, hockey is back. Has integrity returned to the NHL, Biz i mean first of all awesome like it took over the internet everybody outside of hockey was talking about it now i want to say is this something that i want to see you know every other game or every other week absolutely not every few years in an organic matter, to me, I fucking love it and it's an endorsement for hockey.

We're the only professionals. if you had seven of those a year, you wouldn't like it off the opening draw? I, uh, and that's aggressive.

That's an aggressive number, but to say you wouldn't want to see it. I would be okay with one or two a year, I guess. Okay, okay. What I'm saying is like you know

i i try to kind of lean in the middle in a sense of like i understand that people who watch and enjoy hockey don't all think like me i love the fact that the organic fighting is back and it just seems like there's a revival of the heavyweight division now to go back to maybe people who are being ultra negative about it online saying saying that there's no place. And, um, I, I know that Jen Botterill up in Canada had some very strong words about it.

I have so much respect for her. I love working on the panel with her. She said that there's a far more impressive things that are happening in hockey right now that I'd rather shed light on than talk about these guys being idiots on the ice. Now to give it context, this just didn't happen because guys felt like brawling off the fucking start here.

This happened because going back to the Rempe elbow to Siegenthaler. And I think if you go back to that, he didn't answer the bell in that game. And that's a game in which Curtis McDermott was a part of it. Remember when even before that they went and got him? They went and traded for him. And then he said in the post-game comments after that game how it's bullshit and that he lost respect for Rempe and

if you want to have integrity in the game, you need to answer the bell for when you throw cheap shots like that. Now fast forward. Everybody knew this fucking matchup was coming. Everybody more than likely knew that these guys were going to have to go at it and Rempe was going to have to answer the bell for McDermott. I don't know if you saw the video, boys, of Rempe on the bench before the game.

He had the fucking headphones on. He was doing the boxing. He had Eminem on, Mom Spaghetti, whatever the fucking tune. He didn't come before the game. He had the heaviest sack in NYC going into that one. MSG, they had to fucking bring it in a wheelbarrow, just like on South Park. That's how fucking heavy his sack was. Now, I would have been nervous going into a fight against McDermott.

It seemed like he fully embraced this. He was like shadow boxing. He was up for it. And I think as a result of when they ended up lining up, I think that was just a sign of the Rangers saying is like, well, fuck your post-game comments from whenever back when. We're going to not only fucking, you know, not only is Rempe going to answer the bell, but the whole team is.

And then obviously New Jersey not being happy with the way that Siegenthaler got hit. Boom. The melee ensues now I do think that maybe they should look at that rule because I think it puts guys a little bit in jeopardy at the fact that if you throw four guys out a squad guys are going to get tired towards the end of the game and there also might be other fights going on in which there was like there was one I think a few whistles So overall, incredible viral moment for the NHL,

an organic fight that ended up happening. And once again, I don't need to see this every month, but once every year, once every couple years, fucking rights, man, I think it's what makes our game great. What do you think? A couple things responding to you. The league would never look to change that rule because if anything, that would make sure that this doesn't happen more often.

Right? They're going to be kicking all those guys out. So I understand that that won't get changed. I do agree with you, though. Second thing is about the Rempe nerves, and you would know a lot better than me. While he seemed cool and calm and relaxed, he could have been very nervous inside. He was doing a great job showing maybe a different side and a different vibe, but there was no way.

McDermott's a heavy. He is a tough motherfucker. And not that Rempe's afraid of anyone, but the lead up to it is what you and many other former tough guys mentioned with anxiety and the toughest part of all this. So there had to be some nerves but he was approaching it unreal the brawl itself was incredible now I have to thank TNT for the Chicklets alt cast I gotta thank them for hiring you and building your brand and and therefore our

brand but maybe the worst camera job in the history of a brawl. And I got to say, I'm a man of honesty. And you have to say it. They just were focusing in on one fight where I think it would have been pretty simple just to back that thing up. And we could have seen the whole ice. Now, it's hard to say. And it's really Monday morning quarterbacking here. But as I was watching, I'm like, no, where are the others? They're all fighting and I can't see them.

Show me everything. Show me what's happening. And I guess good for Marino that it wasn't shown right away. And I want to give credit to everyone. Everyone. All of them. But more than anyone, Marino, right? Like, Keiondre Miller's enormous, dude.

He probably was giving up 30, 40 pounds and and height to boot and he went in there and he went to him and then you saw Keandre Millen do doing the too small short guy well Marino showed up and then we had the uh VZ and Lazar tilt that was the first one and the the funniest clip is when it originally the puck drops Lazary. Rempe and McDermott square off. Then you see Goudreau sprint for ball. So they're going. And then Tierney kind of comes out of the center ice and he goes, oh, fuck off.

And then he just sees Trouba coming. He drops it with Trouba. So shout out to all those guys. It takes a big old set of balls to do that. And I think some of these guys were out of their weight class, but they all stood up for their team. And also for Jersey, who's been out of it for a while. They could easily have not wanted to be a part of that.

Like McDermott was, but everyone else didn't have to be. And that's a team that shows they care about each other. And then the Rangers, the year of the New York Rangers. Will this continue into June? Nobody knows. Everything is coming up, Rangers. And that's a team forever. They were too soft. They were too scared. The

response they had to Tom Wilson, to Panera in that time, like the little crybabies. Everyone was making fun of the Rangers. They have changed their ways. And Rempe's been a big part of it. Trouba's been a big part of it Trouba's been a big part of it it's it's a team that is so well connected and gelled right now I think galvanized is the word you were looking for galvanized great job that's one of your words nice job biz galvanized unit

that is just they they're not just peaking at the right time. They're peaking all goddamn season. So an awesome moment. And for people who hate it, I don't hate somebody who hates that. Like, whatever. That's your opinion. I'm just telling you that you're in the enormous minority of hockey fans who didn't get a kick out of watching that go down. That is entertainment. That is people standing up going bananas.

And you can hate it, but you can't scream to the people out there that love it and tell them you're an idiot for loving this why do you love this i don't know man because it's guys trying to kill each other and sorry that that's entertaining but that's the truth well hey and that's part of the entertainment too the people that don't like it voice in their opinion it just creates more of the conversation right Right. And going back to the rent Bay, like you talked about the nerves leading up to it. I don't know if he consulted anyone on, on like how to approach it, but he just wore it perfectly.

He embraced the moment he did pre-fight. They had the video of that. I thought he fucking carried himself well in the fight. I would probably give the win. I would give the win to McDermott because those fucking rights, the way that he punches the holding arm of the other guy and then follows it up with another couple rights, I would, oh my God, imagine watching him and Revo go.

Like I think McDermott and Revo is the fight that I would pay to watch right now. I know that Wi-Fi wasn't in that game the other night. When Revo was running around with no Wi-Fi wasn't in that game the other night. When Revo was running around with Wi-Fi, he was causing a ruckus. Is that Pezzetta? Is it Pezzetta on the Canadiens who fought him? That's not his weight class, is it? No, he would probably be

a light heavyweight. That would have been more my matchup. I would have considered myself a light heavyweight. Not a tough one at that. I guess that's just my category based on weight and size. But you touched on it, though, Whit, man. It's the entertainment industry. And if you look at UFC's numbers and where that's heading,

I just think this type of thing makes the casual fan more interested in hockey, and that's why I'm personally all for it. Did you get that Instagram video? I said, oh, Biz, I don't know if it was a comedian or not, but the black guy talking about run pain, explain it in detail. That's a I'm personally all for it. Did you get that Instagram video? I said, oh, biz, I don't know if it was a comedian or not, but the black guy talking about run paint, explain it in detail. Like, that's a huge effect. Like, he said, this all goes to this kid. And, like, that just shows, I guess, the reach of hockey now.

I mean, people fucking love fighting, dude. It was a hilarious video, which he tweeted out from the account, man. And my last thing, two things, is didn't really understand why LaViolette was so mad at Travis Green. It was kind of confusing. And I think Green was even like, I don't know what you're so mad about. He's like, it's your guys who was asking for the line brawl. Well, the visiting team gives their lineup for us,

so he started McDermott. Maybe that's what LaViolette was so upset about. But I think even after LaViolette had said, the emotions kind of got the best of me, whatever. The other thing, McDermott after really chirping Rempe after the no fight with the Siegenthaler elbow, he said, I got a lot of respect for this kid. He's coming to the league.

He's trying to make a name, and I will have respect for him moving forward. So that was kind of cool to see it wrap up. And that's kind of what happened. That's the funniest thing about all the people pissed off. This is, until stuff like this goes on, and i'm not talking the line brawl but mcdermott and rempy fighting it lives on and on and on and then you might get dirty plays and cheap shots well now it's over it ended it's it's like a it's like a bully at school like the fight happens and it's

over that's it so we'll see what happens next year with these guys. But the Rangers, are they a team of destiny? That is the question. R.A. sent over an Instagram of basically it's a fraud list or a non-fraud list. It's teams with the best record against losing teams and teams with the best record against winning teams. The Rangers are number one on the fraud list. So R.A. might have been putting some. R.A. hates the Rangers too. R.A. hates the Rangers. I was the fraud list. So R.A. might have to put some... R.A. hates the Rangers, too. R.A. hates the Rangers.

I was loving the list. He's quiet on here, but he despises the Rangers. I didn't even notice that, Whit. Well, the guy actually says, he said, this isn't a conclusion you can draw from this. I got to dig into the numbers more. I don't think he was calling the Rangers frauds. He said there's no correlation to the quote-unquote

being frauds by beating the worst teams during the regular season. That translates into playoff success or not success. So long story short is it just proved that the reason as to why the Rangers are going to win the President's Trophy is because they beat all the bottom feeders all year long the most than any other team. So listen, I'm two for two back to back years now picking a team to miss playoffs and then they go on to win the president's trophy hopefully that's not a curse for you rangers fans because you're three points ahead with four games

right now ahead of dallas but hey congrats on a regular season but i don't know if that's something that you want going into the postseason. All right. I believe January, February-ish, you said you were not afraid of the Rangers in the least bit for the Bruins. Do you want to address that again, or is that still the same feeling? There's got to be a little fear in there. I haven't really thought of them playing because they probably won't meet until the conference finals.

I wouldn't say my opinion has changed, but I will say this. I'm scared shitless of Tampa Bay. I don't want the Bruins playing Tampa Bay. Tampa Bay is in a heater too. You don't want that. What would now be – because I don't think – I think we laid the Penguins to rest six times this season. I read the eulogy, dude.

They were 10 points out of it not too long ago. And then the heater that they've been on is now propelled them into at least the hunt, right? Cause it just interchanges every second of every day at this point, who would be your ideal first round matchups and who would be your ideal matchup for the Rangers at this point? Cause I now lean towards redemption for the Pittsburgh Penguins

when they had the spicy pork and broccoli guy in net, their third string goalie who couldn't really mix in a glove save, where that was the Penguins series. They were up 3-1. They should have closed that fucker out, but now they got good goaltending. And then Delkovich is not even playing that bad. He's actually buzzing, and he could be a very streaky goalie, and he's on a heater right now.

So who would be your ideal first-round matchup against the Rangers? Like saying if I'm a Rangers fan or just as a fan of the league? No, if you want to see him go down like me and R.A. Yeah, see, I don't want to see the Rangers go down. If I were the Rangers, who would I least want to play? Probably Pittsburgh, just the Crosby effect, dude. There's something going on with this guy, and shame on me. Shame on me for how stupid.

It's like, what's the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? I'm the guy who bet that C crosby would never get 50 goals i lost i'm the guy who said the pittsburgh penguins organization was dead they're not dead when are you gonna learn your lesson ryan when are you gonna understand that this is not a human being we're talking about sydney crosby is he's he's outer worldly is that a word is that a two word it is now i just created it make a t-shirt outer world worldly sid i can't even say it correctly but this guy when you talk about matthews and mcdavid and mckinnon buddy these guys are incredible generational talents they don't hold a fucking candle to

Sidney Crosby and they haven't been around as long as him and and who knows if they'll ever somewhat catch what he's done it's never-ending madness he doesn't stop proving people wrong I don't he's carrying this team into the playoffs before you you came on, Biz, I said if they get in the playoffs, he has to be up for MVP. Now, who gets screwed? Who gets screwed? A guy who's going to be the fourth person ever to get 100 assists in a season, Connor McDavid, a guy like Nathan McKinnon,

who's been just a bull all season long, a guy, Kucherov, who actually probably should be MVP right now, who nobody's giving enough respect to. But Crosby, he's dragging this team on his shoulders, Biz. Non-stop. Saturday against the Lightning.

That guy was out of control. He had to fucking tip it between his legs off the crossbar. He scored the first goal of the game. Drew O'Connor got run over by some defense i don't even remember they have sid went in and ran that d-man over it's just he never disappoints and i'm the guy picking against him all the time what you know what i knew you know what i knew that you know i knew they had something special when malkin had his folks in town remember

the last time they were on the jumbotron and in the mix it was when he was fucking destroying carolina in that one cup run where he literally put the team on his back just like sid does all the time so the fact that they were in the house malkin's getting back to his old school game he had a i would say over the last couple years like i don't want to say looked like a shell of himself but there were a lot of hope plays, a lot of turnovers, maybe not the same magic that we once saw from a high percentage aspect, but he looks like himself now. And going back to when they were interviewed and shoved a microphone in Crosby's face when they were having their ultimate struggles and then they get rid of his buddy Gensel, he was disgusted because I think that he felt that maybe some people

in the organization were essentially giving up on the season. Do I understand Dubas' approach and having to look towards the future and maybe not aligning on a contract dollar with Gensel? But Buddy, getting bunting in return and what he's brought to their lineup, he's almost at a point per game since being there and he's been been fucking, he looks like fuck the guy who was playing in Toronto. I know he didn't do well with the man on man in Carolina, but he's been a huge boost. So between those guys,

the goaltending and them kind of figuring out last minute here, what a push by the penguins and going back to your MVP conversation with, if you were to squeak him and, and all Tampa fans are going to kill me. No, no, no. If you drop, but, me no no no if you drop but but no no the reason i say that is i want to say he's only like plus five and he's done so much damage on the power play compared to the rest of the guys that to me would be maybe a reason to pull him off as opposed you said it, McDavid.

He has to be on the ballot, right? He's going to be the fourth player all time to hit 100 assists in a season. And people might say, Kucharov's been doing it all year and McDavid were slow coming out of the gate to the point where they had to fire their fucking coach. But I don't think that you keep McDavid off the ballot. You ain't taking McKinnon off the ballot because I think McKinnon's the fucking MVP.

So if you want to slide Crosby on, you have to take Kuch off. And I know people are saying, he's 50 fucking points ahead of the next guy on his team. What do you mean? That is literally the definition of the MVP. But going back to Posh's comments, if we were to give the power play merchant label to

somebody, it would be Nikita Kucherov. Fair? Fair? If you have that many points with, and you're only around, I think he's like a plus five or plus eight, compared to the rest of these guys and the damage that they're able to do five on five, five on five, it's the hardest to score. that they're able to do five on five, five on five, it's the hardest to score. That has to be a strong argument as to why you're putting your guy in the top three. And I'm not trying to work against Kucherov here. I'm just saying, what are the others providing that he's not?

And it goes back, RA, to the full conversation of you could have this fucking argument about every goddamn league award right now. Who do you got winning the Jack Adams? Is Nogblock going to be a consideration? What's his winning percentage since coming in and turning that team around? The best in the league.

What about if Washington makes it? Carberry. He's fucking, it's like a half a team of toddlers with I think going back to about 10 to 15 games ago before Ovi started going on that rip, they had 120 goal score.

120 goal score. So Carberry has to be a consideration. I think that Philly's not going to make playoffs and therefore Torts is not going to be in the Jack Adams race. Look at what Toc's done with the turnaround. Who do you have winning the Norris? I think probably

from a canadian bias perspective and a full body of work you probably have quinn hughes i think most people but look at what fucking you got kale mccarr any gm if they had first overall pick if they're taking a defenseman's taking kale mccarr so he's right there for the norris what roman yosi can't be ignored i mean you can go on and on and on for league awards and I don't think that we go back to the fighting and the fact that this is the entertainment industry you can compare it to any other season from a caliber of play amount of

players hitting 50 goals amount of players they're going to hit a hundred points the storylines off the ice it all got kicked off with Babcock then we had the Ottawa Senators sale with the Pinto Parlay. All the shenanigans that have been at Tortorella. The shit show in Chicago. We don't need to go into details on that.

The list goes on. How about the world premiere games with William Kneeler, Andrew, over there? Him tarps off with Madison Beers. Every week you could have named something that was happening off the ice, whether it was somewhat related to hockey or not related to hockey at all, where there was an insane storyline. So I just think from a full season perspective, I'm looking back and saying,

I don't know when I've ever been this engaged from an on ice perspective, but then also been treated with all this shit show of what's been happening off the ice. So when I say, has this been the most entertaining regular season of all time? Yeah, maybe recency bias plays in and maybe because I'm so invested into the media game, I'm paying even more attention to it. But this season has made my job so fucking easy. Bravo to the NHL and its players and its off-ice antics.

Move over NBA because this fucking league i probably missed 10 other things that happen off the ice when listing things off g do you want to chime in wit do you want to chime in what other crazy shit patty roy coming back to the nhl patty coming back how about chelios's jersey retirement with Showtime giving me the Showtime overtime winner? Boom, there's another one for you. All-star game in Toronto. All-star game in Toronto.

Bieber in the mix. Tate McRae, give it to me. I mean, that's got to be at the bottom. We're talking all-star game for this season. I know it's at the bottom, but how often are we shitting on All-Star games? Tell me a more entertaining All-Star game in the last 10 to 15 years. That was it.

First ever OT game-winning goal with an empty net or two. We got that. That's wild as shit. R.A. single. R.A. single. That's the biggest off-ice storyline going in. I'm in the transfer portal. Getting rejected left and right. No NIL

deals yet, though. They're rolling in. Before we go any further, here's a few words from our good friends over at GameTime. Did you know that you get tickets to the Red Sox Orioles for $12 right now? Are you kidding me? That's because game time has it all. The official ticket apart or Boston sports. You should never have to worry when you're buying tickets for your next big event. That's why game time is the fast and easy way to buy tickets to all the sports,

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regardless of whose net is empty. They had Ridley Greggs slap shot into the empty net. Pure chaos versus Toronto. Then the other day, Nico Hesha lets it roll into that Brady fucking snap choke of Chuck. I mean, that is an unwritten rule, right, guys? You don't fucking put it after the buzzer right go ahead i'll let you take this one i've been talking taking a lot of oxygen here so i have vivid memories of being a little kid and my dad would be playing goalie in street hockey okay and say um my buddy would score i

remember one time my neighbor he scored and then it bounces out. And then I just banged it in again. And my dad went ballistic, like ballistic. He went nuts on me. And I was like, what's the problem? It already went in. He's like, you don't put it in that again. And so I was always kind of like weary or wary of things like that happening.

So when he sure did that i was like oh and then you see brady oh yeah skating down the ice like a fucking madman and he's so it's almost like he grew up with keith probably telling him like that is because his face he's like what the fuck you doing he was confused he was angered he couldn't believe it. And he's just like, what the fuck happened? But with how Toronto responded to Ridley Gregg doing that, it is a little double. It is like, oh, guys, you buried one in the empty netter one way, and now you're flipping out that somebody does it after the whistle.

Now, granted, it's completely different circumstances, but both are kind of unwritten rules. Just seeing Brady Kachuk flip out like that. There was also a game this week Brady Kachuk had 16 hits. I don't know if you guys saw that. NHL record. No, record 17 somebody tweeted out. Chara.

Oh, I saw a bunch of stuff online since it's been starting it started being recorded that it was brady but okay shut out the maybe post cap or something like that but 16 hits but but but with the season ottawa's had and then kachuk seeing that like the game's over we lose and his face skating down the ice i rewound it 10 times he He was so pissed off. It was just funny that Ottawa finds themselves in the middle of another empty net goal drama. Cracked me up. And back to the league, I do want to quickly mention, I'm an Oilers fan.

I'm an Oilers guy. And it was very, very scary to watch that Dallas game. We can talk about Dallas in a minute because we need to. to watch that Dallas game. We can talk about Dallas in a minute because we need to. But I need to talk and tell everyone that doesn't appreciate what McDavid is about to do and help all of you understand.

We are watching one of the greatest things that's ever happened in hockey. Is that an exaggeration? No. No, guys. Guys, 100 assists, As we already mentioned, Bobby or Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux. This is, this is hockey royalty. This is going to be the fourth player ever. He's joining the three greatest players in the history of the NHL.

And, and, and yes, 60 goals is amazing. And if Matthew's got 70 goals, that's unreal. There's eight guys who've got 70 goals. Two of them aren't even in the Hall of Fame. Mogilny should be. Bernie Nichols is the other one. This is not 100 assists. Even if Matthew's got 70 goals, maybe I'm crazy.

I think 100 assist guys is that ridiculous. I mean, Crosby never did it. Like, Joe Thornton had 96 one year. That was close. But to be the fourth player and have those three be the other three, I mean, and I think it's because McDavid does so many things that make us just kind of shrug and be like, I can't believe it, that it's not getting enough talk. It's not getting enough consideration for one of the greatest things

we've seen in years and years. Gretzky did it 11 years in a row, okay? That's obscene. The other thing is, so it's Gretzky, 11 years in a row. But Lemieux and Orr, they only did it one time. Connor McDavid doing this, it needs to be talked about more i'm hoping when he does it this week that it gets maybe a little bit it's gonna happen on cnt against vegas their potential first round matchup they got the game wednesday they don't play till then so it's

yeah it's it's remarkable wit now i guess like a little bit of pushback you you you think that 100 assists is more oppressive than 70 goals? Yes. Yes. And in this, well, I'm saying in this day and age, in this game, which would be the same if Matthews got it. And I think people's pushback would be you get a second assist and there's just one goal score. It's just the names, though, Biz.

It's like to join those three names, it just creates something different for me. Those are the three guys, dude. You think of the history of hockey and you think of those three names and nobody else is with them and and 70 goals yes but as i mentioned the names on there also when when or did it in 70 and then it was um gretzky 11 and then i think mar Mario was 88 or 89 there was a lot more goals than dude the average goals per game now is a little over six then it was seven and a half so it's even more special to me and if it wasn't just those three names that's why the goal scoring to me is more impressive now just because of the advancement of how good goaltenders are but I think it's a very healthy argument but what you're saying though too is is like most of the time when how good goaltenders are, but I think it's a very healthy argument. But what you're saying, though, too, is most of the time when these guys,

for instance, like Bernie Nichols scored 70 goals, he was playing with Wayne Gretzky. You need somebody special finding its way around guys and find those lanes and essentially feeding his players to make them better. And that's the level in which Connor McDavid is at. And since we went past Sid and we're talking about all this greatness

and these great names keep popping up, in the midst of Sid on this point streak at the end of the season, he's going to be over a point a game for the 19th time in his career. And that is only one less year than Wayne Gretzky, who's at 20, and he just passed Gordie Howe who

was at 18 so these these names that these guys are in company with just tells you how special they are and what they're doing at this current moment and along with these storylines of this season RA that's to me why this year is is just standing out the most because we're having the argument about what's more special, 70 goals or 100 assists. They're both more than likely going to happen this year. I hope Matthews gets seven. How many games do they have left? Five? He's going to have to go on a little bit more of a heater.

I think that he's going to try to do it. Now, the other things that we didn't mention, too, is the amount of teams that were in the president's trophy race as well. And just how tight that parody is. So not only do we have a wild card race, we had this president's trophy race towards the end of the season. Now I know we're going to shift over to Dallas and there have been a lot of Dallas fans barking online about, we haven't given them the flowers that they deserve.

I believe we touched on them like three, four pods ago, but once again, they just look like a well-oiled machine. To me, they're the top team in the West. Were you done talking? And Ari, we didn't really get your pushback on your vague tweet to me. Call me a what? A zoomer? What did you call me? I don't do vague tweets.

I'm never in big posts on Twitter. I'm joking, guy. I'm being sarcastic. Oh, okay, okay. Now, when you called me a Zoomer, did you have another season in mind before we move on here? It had nothing to do with the season. It was just like the hyperbolic, like all the Boston headlines.

It was like just goof. Everything's the greatest thing ever nowadays. Like today, WrestleMania, the best WrestleMania ever. It was more goofing on that. You just sounded like a young kid. Buddy, no one toots the NHL's horn than me. I say every time the league has got the best talent ever. I love the league, but I thought about it.

I don't have a regular season that jumps out, Paul, because I think it's all about the playoffs. People remember who wins the playoffs, wins the championship. So I don't have like, I was thinking, oh, that regular season was great, because I think they get forgotten a little bit, and then that's a bit of history. Well, I won't be forgetting this one.

I won't be forgetting this one. I won't be forgetting this one. No, definitely not. No, you won't unless we get lucky with the playoffs. I was actually looking into this to try to find some other amazing ones. The two I saw, 92-93, okay? So we had a couple of new teams came in. It was Eric Lindros' rookie year. Timu shooting the glove.

Mogilny got over 70. But mainly the incredible parts of that season were the playoffs, as R.A. said. The other one was 05-06. Crosby and Ovechkin come to the NHL. The lockout was over. New rules. The NHL became a faster game. So that year, Thornton got traded midseason, won the MVP.

Only athlete in the four major sports to ever do that. So I think there's been some other ones that have been great, but Ari, you said it perfect. It's about the playoffs. So this year, I'm with you, Biz.

It is the most entertaining regular season of all time. If I can get to Dallas for a minute, guys. Dallas fans have to understand while having a great team, you're going to be way more in the mix now. You don't have, like, the fan base, it's not enormous. It's not saying it's not a great fan base.

It is. But it's not enormous. So it's hard for us a lot of times to go in huge into this team over and over who've consistently been really good when there aren't that like it's easier to talk about teams with bigger fan bases that are louder on the internet i know that sounds crazy well dude that's the business we're in sorry to say it like that's kind of how it goes none of us have ever thought for this season dallas isn't a stanley cup contender they are the best team in the nhl i'm not saying it because they just waxed the Oilers. I've watched them.

Buddy, their third line, third line in quotations, is Ben Stankoven and Wyatt Johnson. They don't have a bad line. You have the drafting of this team, and the 2017 draft will live on forever. It set up their core. Buddy, they had 2021 draft. They got Johnson and Stankoven, and they traded down.

They had the 15th pick, and they traded it a little farther back to get Wyatt Johnson because they knew how good he was. He didn't even play hockey that year. The OHL didn't play. Then you get the second rounder. They got Harley in the draft. They got Rupe Hintz in an earlier draft years prior. It's just been all drafting

and development, which is Esa Lindell is a draft pick. It's just like you can't do it any other way now and they've done it masterfully. And now you watch the team play. Dude, they come at you in waves. They got Big D. They got Puck moving D. Ottinger was a little bit of an play. Dude, they come at you in waves. They got big D. They got puck moving D. Ottinger was a little bit of an issue.

Well, not anymore. He's figured it out. He's on fire. And then what line can't score? Their fourth line, Faska, he's a draft pick, right? He was a first rounder, so never really lived up to kind of that pedigree. But he's a great fourth liner. And so I don't see many teams who could beat them.

If Ottinger plays well, I think they're going to win the cup. I just don't see – and injuries is an enormous impact to any team, but they are so deep, and they play their dick off, and DeBoer's a good coach, and they game plan for other teams. So yeah, Dallas Stars fans, you have a right to be a little upset, but what are you even going to care when you guys truck through everyone and raise Lord Stanley's? Great round of applause for Whitney.

What a breakdown. Ouch. How about Duchesne? A little meat on the bone, buddy. Jesus Christ. How about Duchesne, though? I know. Incredible pickup.

I was just going to say, like, this year the biggest thing that stood out, especially early on, is the fact that they basically have two first lines. Like, their scoring capability on lines one and two, if you rank them against all the top lines in the league, it tells you they have two first lines. I think they have three. Well, yeah. Now that they got Stan Colvin putting out the production that he's putting out

since being called up, and you also touched on it, Whit. The fact that a lot of these people were homegrown, there's not a lot of movement. They understand Dallas Stars hockey. They come into the organization, they learn the ways, and then boom. The only move they had to make at the deadline is get to Tanev, right? Well, guess what, Biz? Talking about drafting? Hit me with it.

is talking about drafting let me with it so when they took johnson first round 2021 yeah and then they took um stankoven second round yeah you know who they had two picks in a row in the second round okay you know who they took right after him artem grushnikov who they then traded for kristanov so it's all drafting, dude. Like, that was the guy Calgary wanted back. Have you heard the backstory? Now, this could be completely made up. I was talking to somebody, so I didn't, I should have fact-checked it. Now, I believe the scouting staff for Dallas used to be with Detroit,

and that at a certain point when like contract negotiations came out, maybe they didn't get what they felt that they deserved based on how they helped them draft. And then Jim Nils scooped them up. And these guys are the best drafters known to man because look at their fucking, look at the evidence. So the fact that they weren't paid enough and ended up moving on and then going to fucking flourish in another organization, it just tells you with the way the NHL works now in a cap system,

you need to be fucking drafting and developing properly because you need guys like Stankhoven, like Harley, like Ottinger, and all these guys coming up who aren't making necessarily big dough, at least yet, contributing, tugging the rope come playoff time. So it's a well-oiled machine. I would for sure, if I had a gun to the head, if you said pick one team, I would pick Dallas to win the Stanley Cup at this point.

They look like they're flawless. And what's the other component going into playoffs that you need nowadays, seeing it from Florida and Vegas? You need toughness? Well, fuck, buddy. You don't think Jamie Bennz got that old man strength? You don't think there's guys in that lineup willing to shimmy shake the gloves off

and fucking go knuckle sandwich on you? And the depth. You look at their fifth line, who won't even be playing come playoff time, I would say most, half the teams in the league would pray to have them as their third line. So they are just a wagon. 8-20 goal scores, 2- 20 goal scores 230 goal scores they'll probably

end up getting one or two more of those and um yeah they dude they are going to be a serious problem and for my oilers like they don't match up well against them they don't and and that's like i don't see anyone who matches up well they Well, they're not going to play him first round. You know who might, though? The Vegas Golden Knights. That would be just as electric as watching the Golden Knights and the Edmonton Oilers. So if you're an Oilers fan, you're just hoping that they take

a little bit of wind out of their sails if that's the case. Yeah, Dallas, 10 guys in double-digit, 10 forwards are actually in double-digit goals. Wyatt Johnson, he hit the 30-goal mark since the cap era. There's only been 11 20-year-olds who have hit that number. Hovetchkin, Matthews, Crosby, Pasternak, Monahan, McDavid, Malkin, Line A, Kopita, Evander Kane, Persher, Untaves, and Stamkos. That's some pretty lofty company to be in.

You know what I always wonder? Sorry to interrupt because I do have a question for Biz. Maybe you know any of you guys. So when Dallas has the 15th pick that year and they're like, all right, we want Wyatt Johnston, how do you know that he'll still be there at 24? I wonder if they're talking to all the other – like how do you know?

You know what I'm saying? I guess you have a good idea on who the teams behind you will take. Yeah. In that case, I think that they were fortunate, as you mentioned, where he barely played. He didn't play, yeah. Anson Carter was the first guy

to make me aware of it where I think he played six or seven games that year because of COVID where they just liked what they saw and maybe knew some background information that other teams didn't. And people say,

well, there's a lot of other kids who didn't play that year. Well, clearly this guy was flying under the radar for some type of reason, and then they were so high on bullish on him, and they ended up scooping him up. And as you guys have seen with their track record, they don't miss much, and they didn't with this kid. He is a special, special player.

Another one of the mix. Maverick Bork, I think is leading the HL at scoring. And he's another late first rounder, young kid. So Dallas Stars fans, you have so much to be happy about and you're

going to probably witness a pretty special run. Now, I might have just killed you. I might have just written your eulogy right there, but I don't even think my mushness can slow

this team down. What do you think the glass bangers thinking right now going into playoffs? I don't even think my mushness can slow this team down. What do you think their glassbanger's thinking right now going into playoffs? Do you know the glassbanger? I can't wait to piss everyone off. Oh, my God. Dude, they're not really losing Pavelski, obviously, probably a future Hall of Famer. He's going to be UFA.

But Duchesne, Craig Smith, the only two other UFA forwards, Tanev and Hockapaw in the back end, and then Wedgwood. So, largely, this team is going to be back next year. So, I mean, we'll see what happens in this playoffs. They can very well run it back. Bravo. Bravo, Jim Neal. Yeah, he's been doing an unreal job down there.

We want to talk about the Islanders for a second. You know, our buddy Frankie Borelli, we've had him on the show a bunch. He's a Savage Islanders fan. A week ago, his dad had to get a heart surgery, open heart surgery. It's obviously a very emotional thing to go through. He made a video about it online. It was emotional, as you would expect. Of course, only Frankie can turn it into an Islanders cheerleader video.

They win that night, and they've gotten their little swagger back. Right now, they're third in the Metro. Do they stick their way? What do you think? The Islanders in the playoffs. I think that there's a good chance that that third Metro spot could come down to Pittsburgh Islanders' last day of the regular season, which would be awesome to get to watch.

This team is so confusing. I know we've said it. I thought when Watt came in it would be an easy run to kind of get them going and get them into the playoffs. They had a little success. Then they completely shit the bed. Now they're back again. So for me to say I understand anything going on there is ridiculous

because I don't think it makes any sense what's happened. I know he's called out the goaltending and that they haven't got the goaltending that they thought they would get. And then, R.A., you mentioned at one point, like, going more to Varlamov, right? You didn't understand why they weren't doing that. Now they have, correct?

Yeah. He's played a little bit. He shut out the other night. 2-0 shutout. So it seems like you've got to figure out your goaltending. But one guy that I have noticed that really hasn't slowed down, and I thought he might. I know him pretty well.

We used to train together. It was Paul Mary. Dude, he's had a really good year, and he's always been great defensively, bull in front of the net. But, dude, he's having a good go of it right now. Barzell's been good. It's just weird how inconsistent they are.

I'm not looking to play them in the first round, right? But having said that, I think the Rangers would smash the Islanders. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Because I don't think the islanders can score with the rangers and i don't think they can score with a lot of teams and yes if if their goaltending goes on an incredible hot run you never know but i they don't scare me i think they're going to end up getting in and i respect what's happened there but they do not scare me they don't and said the Predators didn't scare me and look what they've done lately.

And I know somebody who said the Jets didn't scare them and look what they've done lately. I would say that from a competitive standpoint, I think that Pittsburgh and the Islanders seem like more competent playoff players than maybe the other teams. I don't think Detroit's quite ready. The goaltending, I know Alex Lyon had a huge stretch there. He actually played really well the other night in that 3-1 win they had against the Buffalo Sabres. I just look at those two teams as bigger threats than if the Flyers

or Detroit Red Wings get in. That to me, and I agree with you Whit, I think that ultimately the Rangers beat the Islanders, but I mean, if they can fucking get their PK going which has been brutal for the most part all year, and now that Waz kind of gave the goalies a kick in the ass,

take the best guy kicking, and you just never know with the greasy Islanders. They're right back to them greasy selves, winning the 1-0 2-0 style hockey. So, who knows what happens. You just never know with the greasy Islanders. They're right back to them greasy selves winning with a one, one, nothing to nothing style hockey. So who knows what happens? Wait,

Palmieri has 26 goals through this year, 26 goals, 21 assists. So that's a pretty good year. What's he there? I'm 41. What's he? 33.

He is 33. He's a 91. Dude. Fuck. Guys. A moose to hairy ass motherfucker.. Fuck. Guy's a moose, too. Hairy-ass motherfucker, too. Just a big old broad-shouldered moose. I remember he used to dumbbell bench, like 100-pound dumbbells.

I was holding the 50s. He was doubling me up. What's his name? Lou doesn't make him shave his shoulders or his back, just his face. He has to get his chest waxed like Steve Carell of the 40-year-old bridge. I used to play with my buddy Steve. Oh, he's got a cloxon. I used to play with him.

Remember Steven Dixon? Yeah. I think I've talked about this on the podcast. He was a hairy motherfucker, too, and he liked his fashion. He liked to look good when he was going out. He used to wear the V-neck, so he used to shave in our sink at the apartment we rented, his V-neck. He would shave it.

He would clog the sink. We'd have to use the fucking bathtub in order to do anything water-related. So he just, like, at the bar, he wanted the girls to think he would shave. Like, if they got home, they'd see everything else once the shit came off. Everything else, other than the V-neck. He would go about an inch inside the V-neck the whole way. And he would just... And then he evolved, though.

And then he started just doing the the full nair routine and it used to stink up the house have you ever spelt smelt the nair when it burns the hair off your body it's one of the most disgusting smells you could imagine ra so any of you hairy bastards out there maybe stick maybe maybe hit up the nair instead of having to do the full shave like when did hit a chest here like stop being like a macho thing for guys like that was always like a guy to hear you just wanted that like i think it partly i think it's coming back oh yeah for sure chest hair is coming back it never left it maybe it never left for most people i think it was more of a heat issue too these guys are wearing a wool sweater come summertime so they just wanted to look cool

down a little bit. I shave my armpits because when I find when it gets too long, it just burns through my deodorant too quick. So I'll like shave it once every two months. And then like right now it's at a normal. Like would you always looking for ways to save money? What do you mean? Fuck. I got met like as in I get BO faster when I'm not shaving.

Oh, I thought you meant you're just not trying to spend so much money on deodorant. Oh, for fuck's sakes. I can afford deodorant now. That's pretty normal, right? Yeah, that's normal. I think it looks a little bit greasy when it gets too long, too. So, whatever. 70s Bush.

So, R.A., now that you're back in the game, are you going to be shaving your bush or you just go au naturel? I could see you having pubic hairs that go longer than your actual hammer. Get the fuck out, bro. No, no, no, no. Always trim regardless. Okay. The days of big, giant bushes, it's kind of hilarious how we have guys out of us so long, but no. Fuck that.

Keep it trim. I don't mind. I think bushes are making a comeback, too, like when the girls got the hair coming out past their bikini line. No? I think you've mentioned this before. Yeah, you like that. Kind of gets me going. Kind of gets me going a little bit.

Yeah. A little grass on the field. Anyway, we can go back to hockey. We definitely can. One last one. If you have Patrick Watt, who you start in game, one of the playoffs, if they get in. It's a new season.

It's like what I said about Connor Brown. Once you've got the one, it's like get me to the playoffs. I can change my whole storyline. Let me ask you this. If they miss the playoffs, do you see Lou maybe them parting ways in the offseason? I'm sure that's how they'll word it. Or do you think he's got more juice left in the tank?

Because this is his roster. I mean, has he been there long enough for you to think that this is his team? Oh, yes. If they miss the playoffs, you'd have to think about moving on and trying to start over. That's an old team, dude. Although, storylines in the NHL that haven't maybe gotten enough play is, shout out Noah Dobson. Because the guy continues to get so many points. And he's really lived up to where he was picked in the draft.

Nice player. Can move it. Has a cannon from the point. At least that's a young guy that they got going. But Barzell's deal, what does he have, one more year? Oh, no, no, no. He signed. Oh, no, he had the long extension.

So him, they're going to get Dobson. And then other than that, like, I like Brock Nelson. You like some of these older players, but they're old. Older. Seven more years for Barzell. Yeah, I was mistaken on that one. I forgot he had that long deal. Just a bit outside.

All right, before we go any further, here's a word from our friends over at Sport Clips. Hey, your hair may grow fast, but after going to Sport Clips Haircuts, you'll wish it grew even faster. Because it's quite the time in there. Sport Clips has the best seats in here. And that may or may not be because they happen to be right in front of TVs playing sports all day, every day. And we know that watching sports while getting a haircut sure beats looking at your mug coming off the mirror in front of you.

Rather watch ESPN any day, any highlights, whatever. Which is why at Sport Clips, every day it's Clippers and Curveballs, High Tops and Hail Marys, and even Waves and Wickets, if you're into that kind of thing. At Sport Clips, you can check in with the pros and mens here and totally check out with pure, uninterrupted relaxation. So head on over. You're watching endless stream of sports on TV.

We'll get an awesome haircut, whether you get a feather or wiffle, whatever, who cares? Sit there, catch some sports and get an awesome sick cut sport clips. It's a game changer. You guys had an interesting Twitter conversation last week about man to man

versus zone on defense. And, you know, I'm obviously like I've been watching hockey forever, but I never played it, was never coached. So I'm kind of ignorant about a lot of that stuff, and I'm sure other fans are. You guys talk about the differences, like what's better,

what are the disadvantages? So, you know, Witt, I mean, you just basically pointed out, and we asked the question, those types of breakdowns don't happen very often. That's what Carolina fans are saying. So it just so happens what you were watching. And then you saw that between the confusion when Jarvis came down and it seemed like he was about a stick length away from a, you might know the offensive player pasta pasta.

And it seems like he, at that point then was engaged, but then backed off. And then Brent Burns had already established his guy and his guy ended up going to the higher to mid slot area. And given the fact that Jarvis had backed off, it basically gave pasta free walking lane right to the net. And a lot of people were like, oh, that's Burns's fault.

Like you can't just let them walk in there. Like, and I agree in some cases you can't be a robot, but if you do come off your check there in man on man, it then just leaves your guy wide open in the slot. So I guess pick your poison. People would say, well, then you have to force them to make a play as opposed to just allowing pasta

to walk. But already the discussion comes up in the fact that sometimes when you do play man on man, it can be risky because the minute there is one breakdown, chances are it becomes a high-danger scoring chance as opposed to maybe just a somewhat regular scoring chance, like in that house area as we saw. So it was an interesting topic.

You saw another guy chime in. I'll end up pulling up the tweet. And then the fact that when Tampa won back-to-back cups, they had a hybrid man-on-man in the D zone. And the minute that the player, I believe it was the puck carrier, went above the tops of the circles, the defenseman would not go up any higher than that. He would then retreat and then pass along his...

So it's hard, man. Whether you're playing straight man-on-man where you see Carolina go all the way out of your defenseman, all the way. If that forward goes out past the blue line, that defenseman's following up all the way up top. Whereas some teams decided, ah, that's where a lot of messiness happens.

Therefore, we're going to adapt to the hybrid much like we just talked about with Coop doing it in Tampa when they won back-to-back cups. wit i know i've been long-winded here you also have to have the personnel in order to play man-on-man and some teams just strictly don't have it that's why they simplify and go to a zone yeah and i actually think carolina can't pull it off yes hurricanes fans were on me because and so i i should make it clear they had had five days off or they had come off a long road trip and all of a sudden it's like boom they had a tough period right that's kind of what they said it was one of the worst periods they played this year my only

notice was that that's kind of what happens and and even though you're man on man like if they go over that video it's like hey burns you Burns, you just got to drop your guy. He's got like a mini breakaway on the side of the net. It was just a complete fuck up. Their argument, the hurricanes fans is that the reason we haven't won the Stanley cup is we haven't been able to score. Shout out Jake Gensel. I think he has 20 points in 13 games being on the hurricanes.

The scoring doesn't seem to be that much of an issue anymore. And even so enough where a couple people wrote me like the Eastern Conference final last year when they didn't get swept, according to Rod Brendamore, they lost 3-2, 2-1, 1-0, and 4-3. So maybe their defense isn't a problem. It just seems when you play against like super elite players like Pasta, in his mind, he's like, if I can beat one guy, I could have a legit chance of getting a grade a scoring chance. So Jarvis kind of made a little bit of a mistake. It was just one clip. I just want to see how it plays out because it just puts so much stress on guys playing defensive zone coverage when it's man on man, because yes, you have to be on your toes

at all times, but you kind of know in the back of your mind playing a zone, like, all right, like I got to be aggressive on this guy, but if somehow some way I get beat boom I got another layer coming in to help whereas there it's like there's a chance that this guy's going to be all alone and it's going to all be on me but Brindamore is a great coach he knows what his team can and can't handle he seems to believe they can handle that and now that they're scoring maybe it won't be be an issue at all I just want to see how it plays out. You know, if you're playing a team with a bunch of skilled forwards and now you've got guys that are beating people one-on-one,

a guy like Pasternak can do that, you've got to be wary of leaving your guy and going to help out even though that's not the system you play. And another hard thing too, Witt, is you don't know what rules have been established in the locker room, right? So weekend online, like I saw a lot of people saying like,

oh, that's burnt. Burns has got to drop off his guy and have that guy where who knows, maybe in the locker room, Brenda Moore saying, no Jarvis, you're a stick length away. You came down as the strong side forward there.

Like that's your guy. So the minute that he ended up retreating, it's like Burns is already locked in with his guy who is closest to him. So I could see the blame being snapped around, but it ultimately it comes down to, and I had plenty of conversations with talk about this too, is you get in the coach's room and you, you try to make it as black and white as possible to your players in each situation what they're doing.

That's what the whole regular season is for, is to figure out all those kinks along the way to where, like I just talked about, where maybe they did do a man-on-man in Tampa and then they figured out, ah, you know what? The minute that they end up cycling up past the tops of the circles, our defensemen are having a hard time. So let's just implement this hybrid where now that's our rule on how we play D zone. So I don't know what the conversations are going on in that Carolina locker room.

That would be maybe a question for Rob Brindamore when I'm not fucked up in the next interview. I'm guessing, man, I'm going to tie you out way more. No? It does. And going back to Witt's comments about them not having enough offenses, when you play a whole season like that and then you get against better teams who are more offensive and more skilled, the deeper you go,

playing man-on-man and covering those guys gets more exhausting. It's more mental fortitude. Is that the word, mental fortitude? Oh, my God. Look at you rubbing off on me with it, boy. So that could be a result of not having enough gas in the tank in order to put the puck in the back of the net. So, yeah, it could become a factor, all right?

It's a great question. Thanks, Bill. Quickly, Bruins fans right now, the way it looks, are the ones who are the most disgusted with the current playoff format. I texted you guys this. Yes. Something has to be done because for the Bruins right now to have to play Tampa after finishing with where they finished,

if everything were to end the way it is, that's bullshit, dude. That's not right. And that's why this system makes no sense to me. I don't get why you can't go back to 1-8. We've talked about this a bunch. But Bruins fans right now are looking at it. If it ended today and the Islanders are sitting there at 83, 85 points or whatever, we have to play Tampa after the Rangers get Detroit.

It's like, I don't get that. So I want to see what ends up happening because it doesn't make sense to me to not reward a team for having such a great regular season. And I think we talked about this earlier in the year where I said I was a traditionalist. Now this is where I go back the other way. If this is how it's going to be and you're not going to reward teams for having that good of a regular season

where all of a sudden they're playing the, you know, the second best team is playing the third best team in the conference, as opposed to the way it actually should be one through eight. That's why I'm okay. Opening up playoffs. If they were to do and create those, those smaller playing games where you would

have like seven through 10 play a best of three, much like Elliot said. Because the integrity aspect to me is being washed away with the example that you just said. I think it's bullshit. You also said in the group, and we've talked about this before, the one through 16 would be- That's my dream. That's my dream.

That would be a fun experiment. Bring back the chaos. Bring back the chaos. Never going to happen. The 1-16 would be a fun experiment. Bring back the chaos. Never going to happen. But I seriously think they need to reconsider going back 1-8 because it is bullshit. Why are we doing this regular season if that's the reward you get for putting up 110 points in the regular season?

It's crazy. It just doesn't make any sense. The Bruins have proved everyone wrong and they could get stuck playing Tampa. It's like, that's crazy to me. I think we've said this before too, is it would be cool because we do the lottery draft. Maybe each team has to reveal the card.

So like, let's say New York wins the President's Trophy and they're in the East. They get to flip over the card of who they want to select to play in the first round. That would be sick. No? No, I think we chatted about this. The bulletin board material playoff form.

Oh, yeah. That's what we want. Yep. I said before I'm opposed to playoff expansion, but now that I think about it, there was a time for a while that 16 out of 21 teams got in the playoffs. That's actually obscene when you say those numbers out loud. So, yeah, if they could tinker with it, make it more interesting,

because the NBA seems to be very popular with what they do, the in-season tournament there, which I think it's a criticism of the players because they have to motivate them to want to win in the season, if nothing else. And don't they have a play-in? Doesn't the NBA have a play-in for the playoffs? Of course. Yeah, both of those things.

But, yeah, either way, we'll see what happens. Excuse me, I'm fucking dying here. Let me clear my throat. Mix in a water. Freeze. I'm mixing about 17. Got up, buddy. I'm a...

We haven't even talked about our guests yet. Right now, we're going to bring on Craig Morgan. He's been covering the Coyotes forever. He knows every little nook and cranny about them. Of course, the team tweeted out their whole new... What's the word, the pictures of the arena. Arena plan?

Yeah. Artist renderings. Bingo. Gee, thanks. And basically, the Coyotes are very, very confident that they're going to win this land auction in June. 95 acres. It's going to be a $3 billion project.

So we're going to bring on Craig right now. This guy is a tremendous reporter for the Coyotes. He's going to provide some insight. Joe, let's go to Craig. All right. Some people might say, oh, now you're having Craig Morgan on to talk about this, but I get asked constantly about this arena situation and whether the team's staying in the desert. There's nothing more than I want than hockey to stay in the desert, but he knows all the

behind the scenes stuff as to what's going on a lot of uh great in depth answers as to the actual truth of how this has transpired so we thank thank craig morgan for his time and and he's always been unbelievable to me and uh i couldn't have been more blessed with a better media staff around us in arizona during my time there as a player and then even in retirement joining the media side so So I love all you guys. Heat House, Jody Jackson, the list goes on. I know fucking Jans is punching the steering wheel right now, saying too many thank yous, but I love all you guys,

and enjoy this interview with Craig Morgan. Very insightful. What up, guys? Before we continue, I want to talk to you about DraftKings. We know hockey games move fast, but with the DraftKings Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of the National Hockey League, you could score faster than anything

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in your state. You like the Hurricanes? You live in North Carolina? Go check them out on the DraftKings Sportsbook is now live in your state. You like the Hurricanes? You live in North Carolina? Go check them out on the DraftKings Sportsbook. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook and use code CHICKLETS. New customers can bet $5 to get $150 instantly in bonus bets only at DraftKings Sportsbook with code CHICKLETS. The crown is yours. Gambling problem?

Call 1-800-GAMBLER or in West Virginia, 1-800-GAMBLER.net. In New York, call 877-8-HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY 467-369. In Connecticut, help is available for problem gambling. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org. Please play responsibly. On behalf of Boot Hill Casino and Resort in Kansas, 21 and over, Age varies by jurisdiction. Void in Ontario. Bonus bets expire 168 hours after issuance. See DKNG.co slash ICE for eligibility and deposit restrictions terms and responsible gaming resources. All right, it's time for our first guest today. Doing a terrific job covering a team that's certainly had its share of headlines over the years.

You can read his in-depth Arizona Coyote stuff at gophnx..com and it's great to welcome to the spit and chickens podcast for the first time greg mornin thanks for joining us buddy how's it been great uh thanks for having me guys yeah nice timing by the way as i mentioned just before we were going on right right right as a tweet comes out from salt lake city so here we go again oh yeah let's start the rumor mill morgz what what's been going on what's the latest i mean i know it's been a gong show for a long time, even since when I played there as far as ownership, but obviously they keep posting these renderings. What are, which they have to do before this process can move forward. It's got to be posted a minimum of 10 weeks. It's actually going to be posted for 12 because that's when the auction date is. And they literally got to show up and win the auction. And this is a live auction. That's one of the... I mean, to add to the theater over the years for the Coyotes, there's going to be a live auction

where you're holding up paddles. There's going to be an auctioneer and they literally have to win it. I don't know if there are going to be other bidders. When you look back through history, since 2017, there have been well over 100 of these land auctions. Less than a quarter of them have had more than one bidder. So there's a chance, there's a good chance based on history that Alex shows up and he's the only guy there. But, you know, Biz, you and me both being around the Coyotes for a while, we're both expecting there to be like 10 other bidders at this particular one. So we'll see how it plays out. That's step one though. They have to win the auction or it's game over.

Is there a minimum price that it's set at and if that's not reached, it doesn't sell? Well, you have to put in a minimum bid of $68.5 million and then it goes up in $100,000 increments. So it just keeps going back and forth if there are other bidders. Now, I want to point out too, it's not just, okay, you got the most money, you win the bid. You have to show up with a well-hatched plan too. The Arizona State Land Department isn't going to say, okay, we'll give you the land and you can sit on it for 10 years. You have to have a plan in place. So any other group that was thinking about bidding on this land, they would have had to be putting together a significant plan like the Coyotes did all along.

Okay. So who owns the land currently? It's literally state-owned. It's state trust land. There's a bunch of state-owned land around that they'll sell off in parcels. And a big part of this, one of the good sides of this is the proceeds go to fund education in Arizona. So that's a cool side effect of it. But yeah, they sell these off. I mean, if you go on their site, you can see all these auctions listed over the past. There's some coming up in the next couple of months, and then you can see them listed over the past seven years. They sell off land from time to time.

And as Biz knows, there's a ton of land available here still. So you talked about this plan they have to have in place and showing renderings and what they plan on doing with it. Do you think, and this isn't coming from me, like I've had personal good experiences with the Morelos, but it seems as if though maybe they've upset some people in the area. Obviously Glendaleale the building situation there um i think that they expected that the tempe thing was going to be a home run and that it was

set in stone and then that didn't end up coming to fruition do you think because of maybe uh past business dealings or things not being up to what they thought they were going to be that there's a chance that they don't sell them this land like Like you, you, you know what I'm saying? Is there a reputation aspect to maybe why they wouldn't get the land if they offered the amount of money? I think it's fair to question the reputation. Absolutely. With what went on it, it, listen, I, a couple of narratives not to get too deep in the weeds here, but we want to get deep in the weeds notion that they got kicked out of Glendale for not paying their bills, that's 100% incorrect. Literally, I have the Glendale city manager on the record telling me they parted ways because they wouldn't sign a lease of 12 or more years.

That's what Glendale wanted. If the Coyotes had agreed to that, they would have taken them back in a heartbeat. But the Coyotes knew, and Gary Bettman was very public about saying, it doesn't work in Glendale financially. We've proven that over and over again. But you're right about the reputation. They go to Tempe. They're telling everybody they're leading in polling. This is a home run. They've got the support of pretty much every politician in Tempe, all the businesses. And then they run a lousy campaign. They got outpointed by the other campaigns so badly, they convinced voters that this was bad for Tempe and they lost. And listen, Alex has made some enemies in this community, in the business community.

I don't think his reputation is spotless in this community. Having said that, that's not how the Arizona State land auction works. It's not like they're going to decide, oh, we're not selling. They already approved this at a meeting. So it's going to auction. He just has to show up and win it. So going to June 27th, you said it was? Yeah.

All right. So say they win it and they get this land. Are they then going to need taxpayers to pay for the arena? How will the funding of actually building this go from there? Well, I wrote a long Q&A with the president and CEO, Javier Gutierrez, and they're going to explore something called a theme park district, which actually it would be a state-owned entity. So it would be the state making those decisions on what it looks like, the structure of it, right? This is a bill that's already passed. The benefit that it would give the coyotes is they wouldn't pay property tax if that goes to fruition. But Javier said that's going to be a separate pursuit. It's not going to stop them from pursuing the land and building this arena anyway. So we'll

see how that plays out. That's down the road. The other immediate deadline though, after the auction, they have to close on this deal. And Javier told me in that Q&A, they plan to close within 30 days. That's normally what the statute says you have to do. There has been some wiggle room with other groups in the past, but they plan on paying within 30 days to close this. And then you can move forward and we can talk about all the other deadlines, whatever you guys want to know. So if they get the land and all of a sudden, all right, boom, we got this land, huge deal. Are they then going to say like, we have two or three more seasons playing at ASU's arena? Like what will the future hold until this arena is

built and done and ready to roll? Yeah, they've been public about that. It's going to take three years. So that means three more years at Mullet Arena. Now, if you remember the original agreement that they signed, it was three years with an option for a fourth. So this would be one year beyond that. At least that's what they're saying right if everything goes according to their timeline you're talking about five years at mullet arena and obviously that's not going to sit well with a lot of people around the league most notably the nhlpa i greg i know the nhl says one thing publicly but they must be pretty concerned about this behind closed doors i know there were bill paying issues in the past that has any anyone in the nhl like expressed you like that they're leery about what's going on here they seem really committed to this franchise

well i mean i think if you heard gary betman say he was reasonably confident that this was going to happen that i mean that's that's as far as you get with gary right uh he's very careful with his words he chooses them very carefully as an attorney but yeah like listen behind the scenes everybody's concerned at this point when you consider and i know the morellos aren't responsible for everything that came before them but when you consider the entire history of this franchise in arizona i mean it's said it best it's been a gong show it's been crazy with that we're talking about this for 15 years they're still trying to find a permanent arena solution. Say worst case scenario that they don't get it, right?

Then what happens? Because June 27th is so late. I believe somebody said that when they announced the Thrashers were moving to Winnipeg, it was mid-May-ish. So June 27th, is it too late to, like, will they be back next year no matter what? Like, what have you heard in terms of worst case scenario for the Phoenix and Scottsdale area? Well, Bill Daley addressed this at the GM meeting. Someone asked him if that date made it too late

to move. He said, probably. So that's not a definitive answer. It's probably too late. So make of that what you can. Again, that's a lawyer's dodge, right? I don't know where the answer is there. There's a strong possibility they could play another season at Mullet and then figure it out. But everybody knows that relocation is on the table hobby or said it to me in that q a if we don't get this we have to consider relocating the team morgz i've gave my biased opinion on the fact that i think that north scottsdale would be the perfect location for an arena and a district because of all the money that's gone there the growth in that year era how it's

kind of even spread out to as far as cave creek and there really isn't anything that entertaining over there do you think it would work in that location and do you think that's the perfect location for it well i mean for money guys like you biz i think it's the perfect location you know for schleps like me though you know i don't don't live in North Scottsdale. No, I'm just, listen, I, I think it's a, it's a far better location than Glendale. Let me start there. Right. We, we saw the issues with Glendale and I'm not saying that was the only issue people think, Oh, the location will solve everything. You got to win too. You got to have stable ownership. You got to win to have success. This is a fickle market. They support winners here, but in terms of location, this is way better than As you mentioned, there's a lot of money there. There's a lot of season ticket holders, a lot of premium season ticket holders. Aside from that, the corporate base is along that corridor as well, along the 101. And the population base is over here. The wealth base is over here. It's all on the east side. I thought Tempe was the perfect location because it was more centrally located.

Five minutes from the airport, 10 minutes from downtown, easy access from Scottsdale and from the Southeast Valley. The towns like Gilbert, Chandler, Mesa, and Tempe, where they also have a lot of season ticket holders. But this is a good location. I think it'll work. And I just want to go back to that. You said they ran a poor campaign. to that, like you said, they, they ran a poor campaign. Like what, what didn't they prepare themselves for? Like why, why were, why was it a bad campaign? Did they not spend enough money? Did they not educate people enough around the area as to what it was going to provide them? Cause from my understanding, there were also maybe some lies from the other side, uh, saying that it was going to cost the taxpayers more money when in fact, it's the opposite. Now that there's nothing going there, it's going to cost them more.

Yeah. And I would say it's the latter. It's the information. Listen, I haven't looked at the books, so nobody can tell me definitively what they spent on the campaign unless I can see the books. I don't know that answer. But I was out going to meetings. In fact, I went sort of, nobody knew who the hell I was in Tempany. I went to a couple of these opposition meetings and I heard some of the things being floated there like this narrative only got kicked out at Glendale because they didn't pay their bills. So there was a lot of misinformation out there and you're right. They convinced them their taxes were going up.

If you looked at the structure of that deal, the only taxes that were going to pay down that whole project were if you actually visited something on the site. If you went to a hotel or a restaurant or a game, there was a surcharge, a tax on that, and that helped pay down the debt. There were no taxes associated with the city of Tempe or Tempe taxpayers, but they were really effective in pushing that message and also saying, it's a billionaire, it's a corrupt billionaire, it's an easy tag to throw on someone, right? All billionaires are corrupt and they convince voters and the coyote side of it, they just didn't have good messaging. I mean, first of all,

they're floating it as the Rodeo drive of Tempe. That doesn't fly in Tempe. That's what it's all about. So it was just, it was not understanding the people who were going to vote and communicating directly to them yeah get your louis vuitton belts and hermes blankets before you head into uh to watch the coyotes here that's in tempe district now okay so when these meetings were going on and and they were shitting on coyotes ownership saying that it wasn't going to work and it was going to cost the taxpayers more money did they did theoyotes not have a voice in those rooms? Like, were they not present in these meetings to debunk all these rumors? And the follow-up question is, is there a possibility,

if this North Scottsdale land situation doesn't work out, could they go back and revisit Tempe? To answer your first question, these were specific meetings hosted by the opposition. So know that the Coyotes were not present at those. Now, they tried to get the message out. Another thing that they probably made a mistake on is they started late. The other campaign started earlier, so they got their message in people's heads and that it was hard to debunk all those myths. So that was it. My understanding is there's no way they're going back to Tempe at this point. I mean, you have to go through the RFP process again.

You already know how the electorate feels. The sad thing and the thing you alluded to at the start, Biz, is you've got a dump sitting there. And as former Mayor Neil Guiliano told me, it's been that way for 70 years and it's going to be there when I die because nobody is willing to clean it up. There's a lot of cleanup that has to take place, and it's really expensive. The Coyotes were willing to foot that bill. No other developer has been willing to to date. My question for you is you're so dialed in here.

Everyone's mentioned if you need to know anything about the Coyotes and the arenas and what's happening, it's talking to you. So you're in tune with the team and everything as well, and players wouldn't be honest and probably say it outright but from what you hear are they are they like disgusted playing at mullet like the thought of playing there three four more years you think guys would be like i just don't want to be a part of that i think it's a mixed bag it depends on who you talk to and listen i think part of this comes from just all the the criticism you get from around

the league you know it's a little embarrassing when the entire league, all the other players are ripping the place and the PA is doing a really vocal job of that. So I think it's ramped up a bit. If they announce, for instance, that they win this auction and they say, we're going to be here three more years, I wouldn't be surprised at all if there are some players on this current roster that say, you know what, I'm done. I'm requesting a trade. I want out of here. And I wouldn't blame them one damn bit. First of all, yeah, it's not an NHL facility in terms of size, although they've put some work into it. But secondly, if you're going to stay at Mullet for three more years, it's a pretty clear sign that you're in the rebuild for three more years. So some of these are in the prime of their careers. Do you want to waste the prime of your career in a rebuild?

I wouldn't blame him one bit for doing, you know, what Jacob Chikrin did and moving on to another possibility where you might have the chance to win sooner. Where is it? Another rebuild. Well, there's that. I mean, yeah, you better take a good look at the grass looking on the other side of the fence because, yeah, mess still. Greg, I know there's an issue with the NHL PAs. The team's still kind of blowing them off. Have things improved on that front?

I don't think they've changed at all. I just don't think there's been anything public lately. Marty Walsh, listen, we all know that the PA really doesn't have any power to make anything happen here. The only power they have is rhetoric. And Marty Walsh is a politician. He was the mayor of Boston. He knows rhetoric well. And I think the players are really happy with what he's done so far because it feels like they finally have a leader who's got their back. So he's doing everything he can, banging the drum, putting the pressure on the league. I don't know how effective

it's going to be, but in terms of the relationship between them and the Coyotes, I don't think anything's changed. They haven't met.y walsh has been talking about maybe wanting to meet with the coyotes but javier told me in that q a there's been no meeting so i don't know that anything's cooled on that front and and craig i said earlier like my relationships with them's been fine the ownership group morelos is there anything in the meantime before this land auction closes that you think that they can do in order to maybe, uh, uh, gain some public opinion and, and, uh, maybe some good PR in the meantime. Cause like I said, there's a, there's a lot of, uh, maybe rumors and misconceptions about them that is out there. There are some things maybe that they haven't handled necessarily that well.

What do you think do moving forward, they can do better in order to ensure, um, you know, that hockey stays in the desert and people are comfortable with them as owners? There's only so much you can do with public messaging because with the past, with this group and previous groups, everybody's going to say, yeah, yeah, yeah, we've heard it all before. So there's only so much you can do. But that doesn't mean you should stop messaging, telling people your plans. You should have a better social media campaign that you have because they made a lot of mistakes on twitter including tagging the mayor of phoenix recently probably not a good move you know all the other thing you can do is i i think they owe it to the staff and to the players to address them and say hey here's what's happening we've been hearing the supposed meeting that alex morello is going to have with

the players and the staff for a long time. It's gotten canceled a couple of times. All the players are wondering, what does my future look like? There's like seven guys that had babies this year, having babies. They've got houses. There's a life away from the rink for NHL players. And I think we all dismiss that like, oh, whatever, you're a professional hockey player, deal with it, move on. There's a lot of people impacted like this but by something like this so at least give them a sense of what's happening what you're trying to do to maybe try to allay some of those fears and craig even you and and i'll i'll end what i'm going to say by saying like i've been blessed to play in arizona um you know it was the best years of my life playing in the nhL. And I met so many incredible people,

not even just the players, but all you guys have done such an amazing job covering the team. And I love you guys. Hockey belongs in the desert. And I hope for all of you guys take on the media side and all those people around the building and in the Valley that hockey does stay there and that the Merrill's are able to figure this out. Yeah.

I mean, it's a stupid little dream for me, but I've always wanted to cover NHL hockey, and I've been blessed to do it for a quarter century. I hope it continues because, yeah, I love my job. Hey, boys, I tell you the time that Craig got me suspended for five games from the Coyotes when I was doing media. For what?

We did an article. I thought he'd cleared it with the team. He's like, hey, you mind talking about your CBD and cannabis use? I'm like, yeah, I don't give a shit. So we did this big article article and then I got sussy for five games for talking about smoking dope. You got seven days to talk.

It's not legal in Arizona, right? It is now. Oh, they can't sussy you then? Yeah, I didn't like how they handled that one either. If weed's legal and they sussied you, that's brutal. Yeah, I got cut ripping the bong with Howler pregame, though, in the mascot room.

Maybe that's what did it. I was going to say that when you talk about the auction and that it's a physical auction, I was thinking maybe they send Biz and he's the representative, but then if the price got too high, he'd be like, no, no like no no no boys i'm looking to say like they'd be like what the fuck no biz wouldn't agree to put the put the hang up he's cheap right the price won't get too high biz will get too high so is is there yeah yeah just rip the ball it is like hey 200 million biz we told you to stop at 100 um but it's is it ryan smith the the current owner of

the utah jazz yeah is there a chance or is it legal or do you have to maybe have like um established residency in arizona could he show up to this auction being a billy goat and just continue to outbid the arizona coyotes ownership group i mean like i said before you you got to come with a well-hatched plan for the land it It can't just be, oh, here's, I'm going to beat you on the price. Okay. What are you doing with the land? They want to know that too. So there's some insurance there. Yeah. I've heard, like I've heard so many wild rumors about who's going to be bidding. Everyone's assuring me someone's going to be bidding. Like I looked into two of them and like Mayo sits on the South side of the freeway. Everybody was telling me Mayo's definitely bidding.

I called Mayo. No, we're not bidding. We have a ton of land. We just reacquired on the south side. And then I did it with another body as well. And they're like, no, we have no interest. So at that point, I was like, all right, I'm giving up. I'm not chasing every damn rumor out there. I'll come in as an enforcer and Marillo's can just hold the sign up.

And anybody who outbids them, I'll just sucker. That's how we're going to win this bad boy. Get the public opinion on our side again with a Donnybrook in North Scottsdale. Greg, one quick one. What do you think of their Twitter feed, the admin there? Sometimes it's off the wall. I mean, they are funny, but other times it's like,

man, is this helping the franchise? Who's running it? That is the big question. Please, please. You know who's running it. Say the words. Which time of day are we talking about that's unreal oh man that's funny well you could read them on gophnx.com craig i've been following your stuff for a while it's terrific you're probably one of the most in-depth guys they got out there so thanks for joining us to

discuss this uh very complex issue thanks guys really appreciate you trying to pursue truth. That's what I try to do. You're the man. Thanks, Craig. Thanks for everything. Take care, guys. Before we go any further, I need to talk about Peter Millar, the best golf gear in the league.

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We appreciate him coming on and kind of explaining everything because I was with many others and being confused as to what's kind of going on. So we appreciate that. I will say Ryan Smith, the owner of the Jazz that we talked about, if I'm him and I want an NHL team in Salt Lake, I want to get the Coyotes. I want to have them move over as opposed to getting a a new team of what is it called expansion expansion team the coyotes have a bright future they got some cooley and all these prospects like i would much rather get them and and start my team in salt lake city i don't

know what's going to end up happening but personally i'd rather take where they're going to be be in a few years than an expansion team um one other thing before we continue sandbagger it's back wednesday tomorrow six o'clock taylor lewan and will compton bussing with the boys a scramble a little a little special little special sandbag a little scramble action so six o'clock wednesday check that out please i watched it it's pretty funny. You're probably wondering what the fuck that means. Yeah, I was going to say. The first time me and Witt have never, we're not playing together.

I end up partnering with Will, and then he ends up partnering with Taylor. I'm kind of like the Will of the Bustin' the Boys pod, and Taylor, the reputable guy who made all the dough and was a great player. Was he a pro bowler? I would imagine he probably made one. I believe so, yeah. I think so. If you made $85 million, you got to think you're on one pro bowl.

Exactly. Exactly. Just like the money you made, I would imagine you made an all-star game, right? I would have, and then I got hurt. Okay. You got picked to go, and then you couldn't go? Not technically. Whoa.

Listen, I was leading the team in scoring, and you got to take someone from every team. It would have been me, right? Oh, yeah. Okay, yeah, yeah. Crosby was on the team at the time? No, this was Edmonton. This was Edmonton, yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Crosby was on the team at the time. No, this was Edmonton. This was Edmonton, dude.

I was never leading the Penguins in scoring. I don't even know if I was leading Edmonton in scoring. I think I was. That's when they had fan voting and nobody voted for you. No, I was a young star. I was a young star in the young stars game. That's when I sat in the bathroom. That counts.

That counts. That counts as well. I was at an All-Star weekend. I'll say that. I'll say that. And where can you find that, Sandbagger? G? I'll let you say it because people are sick of me saying it.

YouTube, baby. All video platforms. We like all video platforms. You can find it on YouTube. Ah, shit. Let's just hope Taylor will be coming. All right, you awake? You good?

I'm awake, buddy. You got this. Sound great. I know, it sounds awful. Mix in a lozenger. Hopefully either Taylor or Will didn't have an old deal with Jersey Jerry that went sideways and fucking fucks everything up again. Oh, fucking put the scab off.

All right, you're on a different planet right now. Are you coming off the drugs from this weekend? What, I can't make a joke about it or something? No, you can make it. It's just hard understanding it through your muffled voice and your twitching and everything else you have going on and looking through that heavy sack on that screen. R.A.'s just grumpy

that he hasn't been back in a sandbag since he was blacked out looking at Pluto that one time. Actually, the last one I was at, I was kind of disappointed that one clip wasn't in it i mean that it was edited done it was perfect but like it was a little slow start and i remember i think it was the third hole you pulled away and you're like all right get buckled and do something it was like it was like impetus to fuck all right then you did turn it on after that that's all i

would have thought that would have made the clips alas it didn't uh gee you're the college guy right now you get some mad scoops fill us in what's going on yeah i mean i broke i broke some news this past week matthew wood uh yukon first round pick of the nashville predators transferring to minnesota so we got to break that news which was pretty cool colin graff probably the top free college free agent out there of at quinnipiac just signed with san jose a bit shocking for some people uh i wasn't too shocked by this to be honest with you. I think going to San Jose, it's a place where you can step in, probably play top six minutes immediately. Will Smith's on the way. He saw how good Will Smith was. Macklin Celebrini,

likely on the way. So I think the future is bright, actually. It's weird to say in San Jose, so I don't think it's a crazy move for Colin Graff. The one thing in college hockey that kind of surprised me this week, and I'd love to get Witt's opinion on it, is Will Smith was not named for the Hobie Baker. And I understand the decision by the committee to not put him in there. The three finalists were Macklin Celebrini of BU, Cutter Gauthier of BC, and Jackson Blake of North Dakota. Now, Will Smith is putting together one of...

He leads the NCAA in points as a freshman by five points. He's putting together the fourth best, right now, he currently has the fourth best freshman season ever. He's two points, only two points behind Jack Eichel and Kyle Conner. Is he a defenseman? No, Will Smith's not a defenseman, no. Everyone talked about Jack Eichel like he was the second coming of Christ when he was at BU that year. And he was. But Will Smith is right on par. Now, he's come in late.

He's had a few seven-point games here at the end of the season. But I think for a kid to have one of the best freshman seasons in NCAA history, to be leading the NCAA in points, and not even to get a nomination, I think is crazy. But at the same time, I think you can't have two BC kids and a BU kid because you can't take Cutter Gauthier off. He scored 37 goals this season. And Macklin Celebrini was probably the best player.

Sounds like they're having the same problem as they are in the NHL, where there should be four guys on the ballot. Too many good players. Yeah. Put four guys on the ballot. What do you think of that? I think Celebrini should win it, and I don't care at all about Will Smith or Cutter Gauthier or Jackson Blake.

Okay. I mean, when you have really good players on one team, they end up screwing each other a little bit. You're going to pick one guy from BC. So I probably would have taken Will Smith over Cutter Gauthier. I think the goals was the biggest aspect in that. But Celebrini is better than them all. Yeah, I mean, to be honest, I think you watch Ryan Leonard,

and I think Ryan Leonard dominates the play more than Gauthier and C.G. We know you love B.C. I love B.C. Hey, C., I'll tell you right now, if B.U. plays B.C., and you're sitting there next to me and you're cheering for oh he's gonna be in your face no I'll never talk to you again oh shut up no no no no no no no no no no he hasn't given a fuck about BC since I met him okay and if my former team is playing for the national title and he all of a sudden loves BC and is in my face

after telling me when I met him he loves BU and Jay Pandolfo I will forever hate him. I'm saying this. But I told you they gave me unprecedented access. I have to You've gotten that access from you're unprecedented. You've gotten

it from 50 teams are giving you that access. G, just know you're not going to be alone because I'm on the BC train too. Let's go. Let's go, Eagle, baby. I'm coming right for you, Wade. Yeah, you're coming for it on purpose to rattle me. There's a difference.

G has never liked BC. He was a BU kid growing up. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I've said this on the pod. You can go back and find it. I was a BC kid growing up. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I've said this on the pod. You can go back and find it. I was a BC kid growing up. I loved them. They had the small guys.

They always had the Nathan Gerbys, the Brian Giontis. And then when my friend, Brian Diffley, when he went and played at BU, I had to make the jump. So it was like after high school from then on out, I was at BU forever. Gee, you told me when you met Pandolfo when you were little, you loved BU and you loved Jay Pandolfo. Loved Pandolfo, but I'm telling you, you can go back and listen. I never said I loved BU as a kid.

I loved BC, but then high school hit and I was all in, all in on the Terriers because of my boy Diffie, who just won a championship in the EIHL. Shout out to him. You know why I like BC better? Because I like BU. No, because Neddy Haver went to BC. Because Nettie fucking Haver went there. All right, that's fair.

We lost an eagle last night. We lost an eagle. Nettie and I have been battling. I'm down a ton of money to Nett. Nett's just in my pocket. We've been betting every game. They're 1-3 against BC. Is there any way

that if it is bu versus bc that we could fly in netty haven for the final game now some of you who the fuck is netty haven netty haven was uh my former teammate with the wheeling nailers who slid me back a a beautiful beautiful saucer pass right into the slot area that i could have stepped into for a goal five on three but i was too busy fighting Lane Manson at center right so I'm on the BC train and he told some crazy story do you remember it about because he came on the podcast if you guys can go back and listen to the interview he had a teammate who was like at the bar getting fucked up and they were partying and then he had like a jammer so they had to bring out the defibrillator he wasn't there yet he wasn't there it was before him oh okay so a jammer is a hard biz calls heart attacks jammers but i i just go back and listen to

the ned haven interview from years ago um and he go it's it's an incredible boston college hockey story i don't know if it's as incredible for the guy it actually happened to. Oh, he probably wears it with a badge of honor. Ideally for me, as much as I'd love to beat BC to win the national title, I'm rooting for Michigan and then BU could play Michigan and then I don't even have to deal with you two idiots

in my face. I'm getting my face painted when they play them in the finals. That's fine. That's fine. But G is a different story, and he fucking knows it, too. I saw Dave's tweet when they did Barstool Live from Scottsdale, and he was like, me sitting next to Rico Bosco during this game, knowing I have this much money on the line.

In my head, the first thing I was thinking was, fuck, if I have to sit next to Witt during a championship bcbu i might just go find another but like you've done you've done a great job with the with the um college hockey and like you've done a bunch of teams so there's just no reason for you to be they gave him the biggest bag what are you talking about they bought him a fucking double wide trailer in boston bc's got some dough i don't want our relationship to end because of this, and it's all on you. And if you were a growing up, went to BC games, you weren't. So it's just so fake that I'm going to hate you.

And I don't want to hate you. Do you get a ring with? Do you get a ring if they win? No, I don't get shit. If I can provide a picture of me as a youth in my BC jersey that I used to wear everywhere, will that get me off the hook? No, because of what you told me about Pandolfo and meeting him and loving the Terriers. I can't.

I also told the story on Game Notes how I was a diehard Humane fan growing up. So I'm all over the place. I'm all over the place. I'm all over the place. I can't stand people like you who just root for all these different teams. Let's move on. What do you think most people in the city, BC or BU? I think inner city is BU. Outer city is BC. I think the suburbs

is all BC. I think if you're closer to the city, you're BU. I think it's pretty split, although maybe more alumni live, maybe more BC alumni live around here. So they might be a bigger fan base where a lot of BU alumni maybe aren't from here, so they move back home or other cities. It seems pretty even, though.

$90,000 to attend BU next year, Whit. $90K. What is it to attend BC? Don't know. Didn't look it up. We're not talking about them. I was just talking 90K. What is it to attend BC? Don't know. Didn't look it up. We're not talking about them. I was just talking about BU. What are you talking about?

Same as Davenport University. BC's probably more expensive. No, BU is actually more. How do you know if you don't know what BC costs, dummy? Because someone tweeted out the other day the top 10 most expensive universities in the country. And BU was like number four. BC was number one. Suck on was like number four. Oh, wow.

Suck on that. This guy runs that. He doesn't know the other schools. This guy lost when he's bragging about B.U. He fucking liked B.U. This is a joke. Anyone listening is disgusted right now. They know he's a phony little fake cute B.C.

fan that never gave a shit about them until Will Smith let him curdle his ball sack in the weight room. Oh, I love it. I love this shit. Go Eagles, baby. Let's go, baby. Frozen four. Jesus Christ. As long as we're not going to St. Louis practice rink, I'm happy. Let's go, Minnie.

We'll see you soon, Minnesota. Bottle signing. What's the other thing, too? We got an appearance right before the game on Saturday? Yeah. We already talked about that. I know we already talked about it. I was fucking rehashing it. Let's go, PC.

Well, don't worry about it. Smorgies, baby. See you there. Three to four. Don't worry. Kind of shitty news. Shitty news for the Rock. The Newfoundland Growlers, our buddy Terry Ryan suited up for earlier this year.

The East Coast membership was terminated by the league. They've been having some real financial problems. So basically, they pulled the plug on the franchise. I don't know what's going to happen. It doesn't look like they're going to be back. But it just sucks, man, for any city that loses a team. Especially, they're a huge, you know, they did the economy going. You know, people worked here.

They're selling popcorn, pulling tickets, whatever. I just feel bad that it happens. I don't know if they're gonna get another team but i love it they're selling a lot of popcorn they're selling a lot of fucking popcorn i'm sorry people like the jobs it's a job creator basically but now it's gone man it just sucks in some places there's not a ton of you know other opportunities out there so it's a shitty thing that we gotta acknowledge where my understanding is is they had a deal with this team. I want to say it's changed ownerships a bunch, and they've lost the team a bunch.

It's a hard place to get to from a logistics standpoint. And I guess that they were responsible for paying for the opposition's travel and somehow worked out a deal. I don't know if it's with Air Canada or another airline, but they're just getting hammered on costs to bring people over there and provide that entertainment for people on the rock. So I don't know if there's a deal to be made where, especially if there is another owner and they keep the team there in the ECHL, they can't be paying for other teams travel.

It's hard enough to survive as it is. I talked to Terry Ryan about it. He said that they average between 3,500 and 4,000 fans a game. And I said, well, is that how many they say are there? And he said, no, they get great local support. The issue is in the cost it takes to travel these guys in. So I don't know what the answer is, but we are looking at some point to have ownership in the echl we've been we've been weighing our options for a while here we obviously had issues in colorado springs but who knows we'll keep digging on information i told terry ryan any information that he does get

that moves forward reach out and let us know and maybe there is a way that we could help whether that's as minority owners or or whether it's as full-time owners where we're going to have fucking G running the operations among everything else. Wow. I'll move there. Well, you're not going to do it, R.A. You're going to run the team? You're going to sell the fucking popcorn or what? Oh, I'll be the fucking GM.

Create some fucking jobs, R.A. Yeah. Go on and rebalance it. Dude, it is crazy that they had to subsidize other teams that is nuts that's what that's what sucks though is they're it's so far away the rock's tough to get to but they deserve a team like they had the ahl team for so long and you just feel so bad for for fan bases like whether it's when winnipeg left to go to atlanta or or even the growlers leaving leaving newfoundland it's just it sucks becauseg left to go to Atlanta or even the Growlers leaving Newfoundland.

It's just, it sucks because these people love going to games. They love supporting their local team. And it's just kind of taken away from them out of nowhere too. And those guys who had contracts, those are now done. So you feel for the players in terms of those guys catching on somewhere. So it's just, it's a bummer of a story. And I heard from a ton of people, on Twitter at least,

they felt like it was a kick in the dick. They were looking forward to going next year, buying season tickets, and getting to watch a team locally. That's a shitty story. I told Terry, I said, how cool would it be if you and the Shorzy guys and us

got together and we ended up owning an ECHL team? of the amount of like eyeballs and traction we can get on it depending on what we could negotiate I don't know I'm I'm all ears I I told told Terry to talk to those guys and I mean he's a local legend so obviously him being involved makes so much sense so hopefully that something can happen we'd actually make senior the coach much like our ball hockey team but what did you say what were you saying wet before i cut you off um i was gonna bring up quickly i don't have we mentioned detroit in their little push for the playoffs at all because i watched sunday's game against the sabers and uh cider i know like we were talking about his contract extension what what they can get him in as. Buddy, this guy is such a horse.

And that Edvinson's up playing, too. Those were the two guys out on the ice at the end of the game. They're up 3-1. I actually had Detroit minus one and a half. I had a money line minus one and a half. Dude, they had, I think Buffalo pulled the goalie with about three and a half minutes left. They shot it down eight times and missed all eight. I was losing it.

Because, all right, I'm like, Buffalo's going to get one. Lion made about eight, six saves to keep it 3-1. I won both bets. The tuck turnaround, you must have been shitting. Dude, but watching those two young, enormous D-men finish out that game, the fact they got those two guys in the future, I just like watching Detroit play. I know I've talked about the uniforms and the history,

but that was a great win. And granted, it's Buffalo, but they've been playing a little better lately, and they just locked it down, and they scored early in that game. They made it 3-0, actually, but it was a great effort for Detroit, who knew he had a press conference similar to Torches that we're going to talk about I think in terms of like we're here we're here we did it like let's let's now start playing like we we know we we believe that we should be here so I'm happy for him I didn't know him at all when we had him on for an interview what a great guy he's done a great job there but watching Detroit

close it out with those two young stud defensemen, it was impressive. Well, so we had him on just after he'd won the Calder, Rookie of the Year, right? And I would say that his second year, his sophomore year, there were some struggles. He was getting all those top-line matchups. But the one thing that he does have to his game is that horse

and that nastiness. We had the second intermission coming up and i was watching him at his end playing physical separating guys from the pucks making plays and then i was looking down at the other end and i i don't want to be too critical of a guy as young as owen power i just felt like he's there's some stuff lacking there to his game snarl there's there he's lacking the snarl and i don't know if his top end offense is like offsets the fact that he maybe doesn't need to be as aggressive and play as as hard as like a marit cider across the ice and i know you have to play your game but for a guy who got handed he doesn't even really have top end offense like that's what's

top end off that's what i'm saying and now they have bull byram so it was like what is owen power and that's why i'm always like why the fuck are you handing over these types of contracts if you're telling me after watching the season that owen powers had would you still sign him to that same fucking deal no i would sign him to a fucking bridge deal for two years at 5 million a year. I was talking to Bush about it too. And like, listen, this isn't an opportunity to shit on Owen power. I think he's a great, I think he's a solid skater. I think that maybe he lacks a little bit of defensive awareness.

He doesn't protect the house, obviously as good as like a Marieit Sider does and doesn't have that physical element to his game. I think that he's still a little bit of a step behind. There are a few plays like he's going to the corner as opposed to having stick on ice in the lane to the slot area to break up that pass on his check. It wasn't down. And it's not like he's being put on an island either like he's they they have Darlene they have uh is it Samuelson yeah who's their shutdown D-man so I guess just moving

forward is like you know we talk about how great of a season that Reed Siders had in his third year coming out of I don't want to call it a sophomore slump I would say that there was a little bit of regression based on expectations in his second year compared to what he'd done the first year, but Marit Sider is right back on pace, exactly where you would want him as a defenseman, and going back to the contract negotiations, yeah, I think he ends up getting probably around that eight and a half, nine number for an eight-year deal. I don't think that he gets paid over nine. I think that that's probably silliness, in my opinion, based on the full package. But would you agree on my assessment of Owen Power?

Maybe... Yeah, I think he's young enough where there's just so much room to grow and get that. But what's funny is Darlene kind of has that snarl. He does. Dude, Darlene went in and killed Edvinson at the end of that game when they were trying to make it 3-2. He actually has, like, he fucking lights people up.

So it's like you almost wish you could put a little bit of that into Owen Power. Still, though, you see his size and his skating and how young he is. He could really grow into a dominant player. But, buddy, that's something I never had, and I didn't skate like him, and I wasn't that big him and i wasn't that big and i wasn't close to the same skill level but i it's hard to stick something like that what do you mean you weren't close to the same skill level his own power yeah buddy he put up 65 fucking points in the nhl as a no but but i was i'm i – I'm plugging McDavid 100 assists. I had a lot of second assists.

I wasn't – I see him as a powerful, dominant skater being that big. Victor – he could be like Victor Hedman. Victor Hedman doesn't have that much snarl. I think he has it when he needs it. But I just think that there's – with Powers' age, it's like there's so much room. Like, dude, you see that guy's ceiling, and he's not even close to that.'s with powers age. It's like, there's so much room. Like, dude, you see that guy ceiling and he's not even close to that. I agree with you. And what I'm saying is it's hard to put that into someone.

Like if you don't have that motherfucking attitude that fuck you, like I'm going to cross check you in the, in between the shoulder and the elbow and try to break your arm. Like you can't, you can't just create that in somebody. I don't know if he has that, if he ever will get that, but he's going to need to have that because that's what the great ones – like, Hedman doesn't do it all the time, but he'll do it.

Well, and it's like you have Darlene as the top offensive defenseman and then Bo Byram is the other offensive defenseman you have now as a left-handed shot. So that's not going to be your role moving forward. But the problem is now you're paying them like it is. Unless, of course, you become this unbelievable physical shutdown-style defenseman. Because why the fuck would you be paying somebody $8 fucking million to just maybe doing what he's doing now?

I agree on the upside, but looking at this Buffalo team who will miss playoffs for what, the 13th season in a row? Brutal. That's a broken franchise, man. It's a broken franchise. They're going to have to make a big move. Maybe you even look to trade someone. Nothing's off the table for Buffalo.

I would say a huge element going into next season on the fact that they could maybe potentially make playoffs and fucking end this drought is the evolution of Owen Power. And I'm saying it right now. If he can fucking take that next step, now all of a sudden your top four is as good as anybody in the East and you have some weapons up front. So that's it.

The reason I brought it up is the fact that they're being put to rest. They're going to miss playoffs. But that conversation of Mariette Sider and them playing the other night was one we had in the broadcast. And I'm really just interested to see what Buffalo fans think of that. What are they seeing from this kid? Yeah, that's good. Another kick around the league.

Just a quick question for you, Biz. The Vancouver Canucks have 13 and14 in their last 27 games. Is that something where it was bound to happen with their start? Is that something where there should be panic from Canucks fans and Demp goes out? And that's the biggest part of all this. But what are you thinking in terms of talk and what he's looking at right now okay so uh Lindholm had has been out right they were dealing with that injury and he was

struggling even beforehand he was struggling when he came over so then the question becomes like do we put him as a centerman or is he going to end up playing the wing because they are a little bit thin on the wings from from from aend talent perspective, especially when you go into playoffs. Now, I think their success in playoff time is going to depend on who they match up against. I think that if they get Nashville, that is a dream-case scenario for me based on anybody else they would draw on the West. Obviously, L.A. being the other team, but I think that right now— L.A. drummed them the other night.

I think that L.A. drummed them the other night. I think that LA would beat them in a series. Getting Demko back healthy is a key. They had healthy scratches to Dorov, so maybe some guys on the back end not playing as well as they were when they originally came over or to start the year. Now, I hate to do this, and I don't even know if he's on the call. Is Pasha here? He did talk about how their analytic numbers and the pace in which they were scoring at

and producing was unsustainable. So why don't we call in our Vancouver correspondent to maybe have a few words on what he's seeing. And before he hops on, Biz, before he hops on, sorry, Pasha, I was traded in the middle of a season, a season in which the team who traded me won the stanley cup and and you've still had a worse year than i did that year like so go ahead go ahead pavel zaka by the way oh my god there's another one let's get the hockey player Let's get the Zaka comments on it. What do you want to talk about here, the Zaka or the Canucks?

Let's talk Canucks here. Okay, listen, I'm going to talk about it in a positive light. They've had a hell of a year. They're a lot better than I thought. They're a hell of a team. Like Witt said, I think this was expected. Their start was just like it wasn't sustainable. I agree with you

I think if they play Nashville they beat Them handily I think if they play LA It's going to be a coin flip in game 7 And I think if they play Vegas they get squashed In 5 or 6 games so I think Like you said it totally depends on who they face But you like you always do You like to go to the analytics

And you were telling me about this Thing and their goals expected were they were so far up. PDO or something. Yeah, what the fuck are you talking about? Yeah, it was astronomically high. It's still high, like unsustainably high. But listen, it went on a lot longer than I thought. But it's still like historically high right now.

Can you explain what that is to the listeners? It's basically on ice shooting percentage combined with save percentage. So, you know, all the shots are going in and you're getting big saves. And obviously, like, that's not dumb luck. Like, you have to be good to, you know, be getting saved and, you know, good shots or whatever. So, I'm not taking anything away from them. But it was unsustainably high at the start of the year. It's kind of come back down a little bit more towards earth.

But listen, this is a good hockey team but i mean listen last night i watched the devils play nashville and then afterwards i watched dallas and colorado it's completely embarrassing the devils are not even on the same planet like barely the same league as these big boys in the west like dallas and colorado these guys are playing a different sport and i'm not saying the canucks are on the devil's level but the canucks are not on the same level as the Dallas's, the Colorado's, the Vegas, even Edmonton's. That's big boy, legit hockey to me,

like the Cubs coming out of one of those couple teams in the West. The Canucks are just not on that same level in my opinion. So you look at the Oilers as heads and shoulders above the Canucks because I personally do. I would say Colorado, Dallas, Vegas is like the 1A top tier of the West. I'd put the Oilers a little bit below them and the Canucks a little bit below that. Okay, well, we don't bring you on for your reasonable takes.

We bring you on for your shitty ones so we can abuse you. Now, you've been all over Zaka since he was a New Jersey. For New Jersey. Zaka is a bum. Pasha. Whoa. Pasha. Pasha is a bum Pasha Pasha He's an unreal player dude I hate to break it to you

I'd give 50 points Okay so this is what I said in the group chat For all you fans listening It's the organization in which he was in Not the player He's moved on to Boston and he's flourished. You were selling me this nonsense of how he wasn't

a good devil. He has a hot month and a cold month. That all seems a lot. Okay, he had a great March. Good for him. Let's watch him get ice cold here. I would say that one of the biggest question marks this season was for the Boston Bruins who won the President's Trophy last year after losing their two first centers, how they were

going to respond. I think Zaka and Charlie Coyle have flourished. I am perplexed at how well both of them have played for a sustainable amount of time this season in order to put them in another race for a President's Trophy. Offensively, too. Offensively, too. Charlie Coyle is what, at close to 60 points right now? Career-high goals.

Charlie Coyle is a hell of a player. I like Coyle a lot. Zaka is a bum. He's not a number one or number two center on a cup team and you'll see that once the playoffs start. You still think Hall is a better player than Zaka? He's such a hot and cold player. He blew his

load in March so he's going to have a cold April now. He should have saved it for the playoffs. You said that Hala is a better player than Zaka. Do you still stand by your word? I said it was a really good trade for both teams. I think it benefited both teams. Now, obviously, the Devils have been a train wreck, and every player suffered

for that, so sure, Zaka's had a better offensive year, but like I said, Hala came in last year. He had a hell of a first round, and he pushed his team farther than Zaka pushed his team. All right. That's all I want to hear. Sharon Govich is 30 goals too, Posh. Zaka is a bum, he says.

Sharon Govich, buddy. Well, we're going to be interviewing Charlie Coyle. Sharon Govich isn't getting power play one time in New Jersey. There's just no room for that. And you know what? I'm happy to see him succeed, but he wasn't getting that usage in Jersey. Though he's not a power play merchant, is what he's saying. Uh, yeah. All Alright, that's it

for Pasha. Thank you, Pasha. Check out Pasha's masterful editing and directing Wednesday at 6 o'clock. Sandbagger. We're in another marathon episode here. We still haven't gotten to our second guest, Tim Conley. I don't know if you've heard. He's friends of Merle's, but real quick,

very early with Owen Pollis, don, man. Don't quit on him. Victor Hedman was a great example. Remember, there was a lot of trade talk with him early on in his career. That's what Boosh said too the other night. He goes, yeah, look at Hedman. He said the first four years, he didn't exactly take that step. We're here to create conversation and have

the dialogue. Interested to hear what you Sabres fans have to say in my mentions. UPL, looked like he got a fire under his ass in Buffalo as well. I don't know if it's the presence of Devin Levi or what, but he's been playing great late. And lastly, hashtag never forget the day that Winnipeg went to Atlanta. That was a tough day. That's what you said earlier.

Fucking popcorn. What did I say? You said the day Winnipeg went to Atlanta. Oh, I meant Phoenix. I'm pathetic. He's been carrying this pod already. Sorry. All right.

Tim Conley, enjoy. Before we continue, guys, I need to talk to you about G4. Kick off Masters Week right and head over to G4. It's the premier destination for all things golf, and their new tourney capsule is jam-packed with shoes in seasonal shades of green. That's seriously a style for any type player. Everything from the classic Galavantor G-Lock with replaceable soft spikes to the sleek new Galavantor is available,

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So go on right now to G4.com. Check it all out. All right, everyone. It's time for our next guest, a veteran of 697 NHL games. Let's just give him 700 for the benefit of the doubt. The only reason I ever played any sort of hockey, my old teammate, my old line mate, my old roommate. He's tough to find. You don't get much media coverage out of an interview guy.

But we got him here in Toronto, a former Maple Leaf buffalo saber former new york islander tim conley welcome i thought it was all right he's got in shape on my home i'm like you really hit up that shirt. I went to Gary Roberts for eight months. Yeah. I don't think I would have survived Gary Roberts. No way. The enigma of Timmy Connolly. Wow. It's amazing to have you here, buddy.

It's great to be here. I played with you, of course. Yeah. I knew about you already from the merman talking about you all the time. When you guys are playing. Yeah. And so, like, where have you been? Where the fuck have you been? There's been a lot of questions about that.

I've just been laying low. You and Kyle Wellwood. That's the most affable leads. I've been waiting, waiting for my come out party. Now I'm here. I'm here with the big boys right now, the big timers, you guys, all four of you guys. I love it. How about that intro by Murph?

Way to go, Murph. Holy shit. Yeah, he just got thrown on me. But what we do in Spin Chuggers, Conley is not a social media guy. I don't even think he, I think he had my space was the last thing he ever had. You're a tick tock guy. I don't use I don't like stuff. I just like look for like recipes for like salmon and stuff.

Oh, yeah. You know, I don't know. You don't get sucked in the algorithm. Oh, yeah. The algorithm gets me when I'm watching. I mean, I don't know. I don't have Facebook. I don't get sucked in the algorithm? No. Well, yeah, the algorithm gets me when I'm watching. It's just, bang, bang. I mean, I don't know. I don't have Facebook.

I don't have any Instagram. I didn't even know what podcasts were until a year ago. So we used to call this guy Encino Man on our team, Tim Fisher. You remember him? Yeah. Iraqi war vet. Yeah. I think I might be the Encino Man.

Like, I just woke up, seen the movie, ran in the elevator, goes to sleep, and then wakes up. He's like, what is this technology? What is this? Yeah, I think that might be the Encino man. Like I just woke up, seen the movie, ran into Yashar, he goes to sleep, and then wakes up, he's like, what is this technology? What is this? Yeah, I think that's me because I didn't know what a podcast was a year ago. Yeah. So to go back to that,

what we do on Chicklets is we always start at the beginning with your careers. You are a guy that I always bring up with parents or with players. Youth hockey, you play two years up, three years up. It didn't matter. He won the Quebec Peewee tournament before you did. I was told that was all Freddie Meyer playing the entire game,

running that team. It was. You were an MVP. Merle was telling me that you keep bringing up the Peewee. I've brought it up no less than 400 times. Well, I i mean that's like what do you have any that's the only championship i have that is the only chance yes so yes we live off of that we got a couple bean pots and maybe maybe an isl title at fair

academy and the quebec peewee world the quebec peewee world championship yeah but you were after me with we're the first american team i know i know but and you actually were lucky enough that that's when it was still on espn2 yes my year we won it was the first year that espn2 stopped broadcasting so i remember because you're two years older than me watching holy shit syracuse stars and you were dominant then you're always a stud player that tournament is it's the best childhood memory like ever for me oh yeahily. Oh, yeah. Easily. Unbelievable. You're playing teams all over the world. You've got a full-pack stadium.

And I was fortunate enough to play in it three years. I played with Merle the Mutt the first year we got into it. I don't know how. Or 79. So you were nine years old playing against 12-year-olds. No. You must have. You're 12 now. Is it 12?

You're turning 13 that year. I don't know how many so it's like 10 no i played 10 11 12 it's in february so some kids have turned 13 so we tried to get we he played 78s we tried to get in oh we didn't get in 78 we didn't get in a 78 we got in the next year at 79 yeah okay and then we did so well we lost in the finals toronto red wings so then the 80s got in and then the 81s they had the best team jd forest uh freddie meyer who just said drew bucktooth gary bronick the five of them 25 minute games or whatever they were they played 24 minutes up so we were the five we were the syracuse stars but we had you know freddie meyer lived with me yeah from new hampshire i showed up to the team and all of a sudden like kids that have been on the team just aren't playing parents are like who is this kid oh yeah he was allowed to come off the ice they're like he just moved here what's his address timmy what's my address correct yeah those those are that was

that was awesome that term it's unbelievable so you played three years ahead they were explaining to me you were like a phenom growing up like maybe at some points even being talked about kind of like a connor mcdavid was it your like were you bigger than the other kids or you just had like the silkiest hands like what was it that made you so advanced at such a young age brain brain has something to do with it, I think. But I think it was, yeah, and I just love the game, and that's all I did. Backyard rink? Backyard rink.

Yeah. We had the backyard rink. Had a real net where all of us had the plastic net. Oh, that's the best. Dad somehow had a real net in the driveway. But then, yeah, we were going out there, and then it was just real pucks, too. A lot of kids are out there playing tennis balls, and that's fun.

But I just loved it. I loved all of it. I think I did peak I loved all of it. I think I did peak at around 12 or 13. I mean, Merle, when did I... I didn't get better after that. You were that good then? You were an NHLer at 13 and you stayed there.

I think my trajectory was like this and then just kind of stopped. Were you puberty kid or were you just good? No. You didn't have armpit hair or nothing? No, but then I got in with the... In Syracuse, and it was, it was all older kids at Merle's age. Great coach, Don Kernan. Don Kernan, yeah. And he was all offense, everything based on offense.

I didn't even know about defense until my fifth year in the NHL. Literally. I didn't know what I was doing. And then I learned it, and I'm like, shoot, I got to play this too? Oh, no. I'm like, all right. So I started playing that. Tried to make that

part of my game but i mean youth hockey was i don't know it was easy yeah it was fun but that made it fun i don't know i don't i don't know i wasn't physically more gifted than the other kids your hands were yeah your hands were amazing maybe that was a i mean we gotta bring up brain and probably one of the brain army i think you've got some hockey iq guy probably one of the sickest youtube highlight like clips on the on the internet for this guy i mean it's like five minutes you know why drags i don't and just embarrassing d-men i think just people don't realize how good you were yeah i don't remember when they see that then they're like holy shit holy shit. Who is that? Tim Conley? He played for the Leafs.

He doesn't even have a cell phone yet. It's 2024. But I think it's just like no respect. You're like the Rodney Dangerfield of the NHL. I'll go with me. It's not why I played. When I played until I did, it was because I loved it. That's what I always wanted to do.

I always wanted to be a hockey player, play hockey. Grew up. That's what I want to do. i always wanted to be a hockey player play hockey grew up that's what i want to do before school after school play hockey i'm sure you guys loved playing hockey and want to be professional hockey players that was a question i want to get that out of the way with you guys right away so we all wanted to be hockey players when we grew up everybody here definitely did and then there's all the players that play and then become coaches and coach for a long time. You take like Lindy Ruff, who coached me forever in Buffalo.

He's still going. Well, I know. Crazy. I don't know. Must have adapted. What do you think he considers himself, a coach or a player, first? So I was thinking about this with you guys. You guys. You guys have built something amazing here with the chicklets do you consider yourself a hockey player

or a podcaster so we're known or i know what you're known we're known for this but this doesn't happen without being a player i know it gets you to And I've also played for a majority of my life compared to my working life, quote unquote. But we're approaching. Lindy Ruff might be surpassing that. Yeah. I think he would consider himself a player. I just brought him up as whatever, an example of that, of a situation where guys play hockey. They're hockey players.

But then they go on. That leads them into another life. Eventually, we can look back on your life and be like my was a media guy i don't consider media is like this my business guy like what i think but i think you look back when you look back as you're older at least my age right now who knows in 20 years you think to like your childhood and those are like the best memories and that's all hockey so like for, it'll be the beginning of growing up and just what you loved then.

That'll be what I always think. I'm a hockey player. So you're a hockey player. Yeah, just because from eight to when I was drafted, it was all I thought about, like you said. So this is more of a hobby too. Yeah, 100%. But we're still around the game, TC.

Yeah, I know. You're still involved in it. Yeah, that's the best part. Like, I didn't realize this as a player, but, like, just how many jobs hockey provides from parking lot attendants to ushers at the rink for every city to media all over the place that cover every team to...

Trainers, doctors. Oh, it's just unbelievable. And so for us now, post-career, for us knuckleheads, like, we love hockey so much like you that I think we're all so thankful that we're just around it still, right? Yeah. And that's what I'm saying. Eventually, say you do this for another 20 years

or this develops into something else. Would this be like, it'll always be about hockey. Yeah. But will you be like first and foremost a hockey player? Or will you be like, hey, I was a podcaster, influenced people in this way. I like influencer. Influencer. I'm always more of a gambler than I was a hockey player.

Wait till I get my lips done in my boob job, buddy. You'll see some influence. I'm not saying that, Biss. The Mott's a gambler. He's a gambler. He doesn't talk aboutler. Does he ever? That's what really made me think. I don't know if Merle, he was a hockey player,

but was he though? He was all gambling. I mean, we're gambling. He played hockey to supplement his gambling. I used to deal in Tier 2 Junior before he went to the OHL. I used to deal blackjack in the dressing room after warm-ups in the intermissions oh yeah that's a true story in the locker room

a couple quarters couple dollars going in there um so so hockey was fun in minor hockey when did it start feeling like a job where you're like actually you needed to start learning how to play defense and it got more serious and when l Lindy Ruff got a hold of him. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, because I was... Well, don't skip ahead too far, because he was drafted fifth overall Erie Otters, and he went fifth overall New York Islanders,

and back then, played at 18 years old. He played in the NHL at 18 years old. It wasn't calm, man. Nobody did it. Joe Thornton had done it for the first time, and then him, and that team was brutal. That Islander team was brutal. Who was your coach? Butch Thornton had done it for the first time and then him and that team was brutal that islander team was brutal who was your coach butch goring butch goring butchie goring i need to hear 16 butch goring stories he used to go on the road with just a toothbrush yep turn it no he

was he was he was great to me he like he was he was real great to me but i mean that's what this they used to say about him these are no hearsay but you know he'd say they go on a you know 14 day road trip and he just bring a toothbrush and you know turn his shirt inside out that was that was when he when he played not not as a coach okay so, okay. So coach. I think as, and this is probably a joke too, but as part of his deal is signing as a coach for the honors, he had the team had to buy him like 10 new suits so that he, you know, stocked up. They were from the cup run teams.

Yeah. But I mean, he's a consummate legend too. But that team was fun too, because you guys were bankrupt. They were brutal. They were the only team that didn't charter. So they would stay over. No, you didn't commercial that? No, we were the last team, yeah.

Last team, 99. We didn't charter. We chartered a few trips. If it was back-to-back on a visiting team like we'd go somewhere and then have to play the next day we charter there but we never charted other than that and i was the rookie i always got the middle 18 middle seat yeah shaving cream i had hair then shaving creamed every time fall asleep how would they shave cream you like i would just do it there's there's i'd be sitting there you fall asleep yeah fall asleep there's put it in my hair but then i look over there'd be another rookie he's

got shaving cream his hair too it's like you you go you show up you're like all right we're flying out to la it's like oh i look at my ticket oh i got an aisle seat this is great no i think i wasn't getting an aisle seat whoever what other veteran had a middle seat was coming over looking for me to like, give me that. I'm like, yeah, there was, there was,

and I'll tell you what, that was like the tail end of that culture. You know what that culture was? Yeah. So we stayed out. I mean, we stayed over every, everywhere.

So we play, play Friday at home, Saturday away in Toronto toronto well we're not flying back there's no flight back to long island so we stay over we never practice the next day not one time f no way ever not one single time green lights so saturday night on the road you're staying over you're getting i mean you got the earliest flight like 6 a.m flight there was some oh no i witnessed some guys getting on the bus how many rooms did you have to run to wake up oh yeah there was a uh you're rooming with this guy tonight go go in that room okay whatever a... A different adventure every time.

Yeah, yeah. One of the vets on that island is... And there's some legends on that. You look at some of those guys, it was, I mean, RIP Gino Ojek. Oh, wow. For a tough guy. Like, I'm just thinking of tough guys, too. Richie Pilon.

Richie Pilon. Eric Cairns. Steve Webb. Web eric cairns steve webb webby uh some cairns will be pushed in the pool in vegas remember when we saw him he's a great guy who was a czech tchaikovsky tchaikovsky he's a polish polish the polish prince there then no he got traded out right away they unloaded everybody and then just went to the bottom rebuild well looking back do you almost think like i don't think i was mature enough yeah like He got traded out right away. They unloaded everybody and then just went to the bottom rebuild. Looking back, do you almost think like. I don't think I was mature enough.

Yeah, like maybe you weren't ready like off ice to be in the NHL then. Agreed. Like you look at what did. I mean, Merle's got his claim to fame, Crosby's roommate. They didn't just put him off on his own, right? He lives at Mario's house. Yeah, in my own apartment. Here you go, I'm 18, and then they send me in with some of these maniacs.

In like New York. Yeah, you're like, what do I do for dinner every night? Right to the bar. Liquid calories. Do you confirm or deny? I don't know. I go to the restaurant by myself a lot, and once a guy invited me, I was 18. I was too nervous.

I was like, hey, guys, what are you guys doing? I don't know. It was a different culture. It wasn't like older guys welcome the younger guys. It was like, shut up, Rook. They didn't want to lose their job to you. There was a lot of that. I remember that.

I had a blast. I loved it. Who did you befriend the most? Like, who took you under their wing as far as the vets that would do it? Butchie. You and Butchie? The one guy, I remember, Tony Herkus or something. He was your roommate.

He taught you a few... Yeah, he was good. Tony Herkus was good. He took us out. He was more of a family guy, just whatever. He'd take some of the young guys. Like a father figure. But we had seven guys that were 21 or under.

So it was more like not older guys taking us under the wing. It was like us just hanging out. Trial by fire. Yeah. No, you were part of some of that activity. But I mean, it was fun. Our just team wasn't it was being restructured it was all young guys and we stunk we got like 19 wins yeah no fans yeah

it wasn't but i i mean i was i was so happy to be there and not be back in juniors riding the bus doing that and i just want to play in the nhl so yeah i loved it this is the 99 draft yeah in boston oh yeah oh man morris fell down in the draft because he was old yeah he took me out two nights before he was going top five and didn't matter i dropped what do you mean you dropped i was ranked 23rd overall in the final scouting. Went what? 30? 51. Oh, 51. I was waiting. But you won like six parlays that weekend. Went to the right team. Knocked out a few

scouts and hit a bunch of his parlays. Hell of a weekend. Good weekend. And then from there you got traded up to Buffalo and that's where you really took off. Those teams were amazing. Talk to us about some of those guys you played with sorry quick how many years till you got how many years you play on the isle two years 18 19

so kind of shocked to get the trade call no yeah i got the trade call i was at my sister's my little sister's high school graduation literally right at their graduation and my one little sister was going to hofstra which is long, five minutes from where I lived. I got the call from Milbury. He's like, yeah, just calling to say you got traded in a deal with Taylor Pyatt for Michael Pekka. I'm like, okay. That was it. That was the call.

Hang up. I'm like, wow, here we go. Yeah, I didn't, nothing. Milbury. Yeah, I didn't, nothing. Millberry. Whatever. Anyways. But you had to be happy. You were happy to go to Buffalo.

Your dad was from Buffalo. All your cousins, your aunts and uncles from there. It's an hour and a half drive from your family home. I mean, they weren't good. You guys were, again, it wasn't like a team, but it was all young guys, and you guys were again it wasn't like a team but it was all young guys and you guys all started coming up together you added brayer and drury and in those runs you guys went on was just you guys changed the game there for a while yeah that was right

after the i mean i was there before the original when was that lockout i forget what year that was 405 yeah um i think we got brayer right before that too maybe or jury i'm not even sure exactly how that and breer hadn't popped off yet right no he was like up and down in arizona and um i mean it was a great a great trade i think right after the lockout is when we just became this fast-paced offensive team. It's like the league was changing because the rules were changing. There wasn't as much clutching and grabbing. They were calling everything, any sticks. Anything on the hands.

Yeah, anything on the hands. Stick had to be down on the ice. Anything lateral with your hands, they called it. So it took a while for teams to adjust to that. But I think we adjusted more quickly. You guys were fast. Yeah, fast. You had Finnegan off.

You had the Vanek, Breer, Drury. Drury, not so fast, but who else? Yeah, because you guys were calling a ton of penalties, too. Roy, Palmville. Roy, Palmville. Hacked, could skate. Ryan Miller and Nett. Miller, Campbell, Brian Campbell.

That was the launch of that Sabres teams. They were just exciting. Yeah, they were exciting teams. It was the opposite of the way that I feel like the first few years with Lindy, we played all defensive. And I don't know if that was because he had hashik there hashik got traded the summer i got he got traded to out the summer i got traded there so i missed him by year but at that point in time they're just winning games two one one zero yeah and the old

nhl yeah and the clutch grab so you play that system play it and hey it works do it and then we just made the adjustment i I think, before some teams. Unfortunately, we didn't win a cup. Oh, well, that one run. I mean, game seven to Carolina, you were out injured. I think Brian Campbell was the only defenseman that was still playing. Yeah, all our top 5D were out. We had –

I think Pacher got called up. Pacher played his first NHL game. I think it was game seven against Carolina. Yeah, it was fucked. Overtime game. Here you go, kid. No, he did. I was watching because I knew him from Sask.

Yeah. And I knew he hadn't played an NHL game yet. And I was at home watching the game in the summer, like by my pool in my backyard. And I was like, holy shit, Pacher's in this game. He's in conference finals. Yeah, I'm like, oh my God. Game seven.

Went to OT too. Yeah. Did it? game. Eastern Conference Finals. Yeah, I'm like, oh, my God. Game seven. Went to OT, too. Yeah. Did it? Yeah. Oh, shit. Yeah. Wow. So it was close.

That would have been the year if we could have got one. That would have definitely been the year. The next year, Ottawa, I think, was a little bit better than us. That's when Ottawa came on. They were real good. Both years. That was when they had Ray Emery, and they went on that run. spezza oh yeah i mean there's a bad boys they had mcgrattan on the team at the time yeah yeah just beat the shank off yeah there was some like those they had some there was some

big chris neil brawls with uh that's when you guys there was like. Petey fought the goalie. Petey fought Emery. Peterson, Peters fought Emery, right? Yeah. What happened there? Was that the jury? I think somebody ran over, I think, jury or something. So then Lindy sent out, he's like, go get Spezza, Alfredson. I think it was like Adam Mayer. Who else is Andrew Peters?

He just, it was in Buffalo. So we had last change. They sent out the first line. Lindy sent out the, the boys and the face off goes and they just go like this. I'm a hawk. It was odd. Then yeah. Marty Biron fought Emory and then Petey jumped in and fought him.

Just melee. Yeah. I mean, that fan base is just wild. That must have been some fun drinking times and just at the height of it all. Merle used to come to some of those games. Well, I used to go out and skate with you guys, too, before my training camps.

You got to tell that story with Drury in the training camps. Merle used to skate. Merle used to come in for a few weeks before camp. The captain's practice type thing. We would have just our own skates or whatever. We wouldn't have enough guys to have

a full scrimmage, so I'd bring out a few bartender buddies, beer leaguers come out and I'd bring Merle out. Merle's playing in the scrimmage. And Jury comes off the ice. He goes, who's that Merman guy you brought out here? Man, he's all over me.

He's stick on stick. Who is this beer leaguer? I'm like, he plays. He's a pro hockey player. He thought maybe he was one of my next week. He's like, God, am I slowing down here? This fucking bartender from across the street. He's all over over back checking you know where else is a bartender as well those skates are always monday through friday we never i never saw a friday skate in my life

the friday option they used to have thursday party in the square at buffalo at bands and stuff merle took his option yeah merles he probably thought you're beer leader because he had those big size 14 nikes with tongues flopping around everywhere he's like who is this guy yeah I did look like a beer leader that was always fun to go out there and then I would always come up for the playoffs too even when I was I think I was in Russia the one year they're in one of their playoff runs and that was that was a blast like those people are partying for those playoff games and I was right in the mix but then i'm staying at his house so i'm coming back there after our parties till four in the morning he's waking up like what he's got an afternoon game i was a part of one of those yeah when you were in

toronto i came to the bar we were there we were going for dinner or something i come to the bar and it's like murr and joey to nude at the bar i'm like what's up we're like we're here in tc man family lounge and the wives what was your your relationship like with lindy and like what'd you make him of as a coach like you know he's a good coach my it was it's weird i feel like the relationships now with players and coaches is more delicate like you look at like players now with even with gms like guys i mean the upper echelon guys like ovechkin cross they can sit there and talk with the coach and gm and they can say whatever they want obviously and they earn that right to do it but uh like mid-level guys or whatever i don't know you couldn't i one of my regrets as a player was why didn't I advocate to get Merle on my team?

I played with him for 10 years. Together, we dominated in youth hockey. And that's not like a cocky statement. We did. Merle was the best player on the ice. And we had that chemistry where we knew we were each other going to be. We'd do whatever. We knew how things worked

and i kind of wish that i would have like spoke up a little bit more to like i mentioned it one time to darcy regier like you gotta look take a look at this matt murley guy like get him like i played okay but he didn't really but it didn't really i didn't push it and i didn't really this is how you did i didn't really force it he He's like, yeah, I know who he is. He's like, what do you mean I'm going to Toronto? He's like, yeah, I know who he is. I played in a poker game he started last week. Is that the guy who deals blackjack in the locker room?

Yeah. I don't want him around here. Yeah, I think they were just like, man, we'll research his background. We're going to not have him. You really tried to push for the myrtle not hard enough is my regret like i i made mention of it and said about it but i didn't like follow through on it and don kernan our coach that coached us for 10 years growing up would always say that he's

like you gotta you guys gotta get on the same team get it because i'd still talk to him after games it'd be like yeah would you see in the power play this like get merle up there like yeah and i didn't want to ever sign there though because they had all those forwards we just listed off those yeah he would say that we're all first line guys like where am i gonna fit in but i should he's probably turned down the contract yeah there might have been it was judd turned it down why didn't our agent figure this out we could have seen the second coming of the Sedins. That's what I was thinking.

We were all the same draft, and we had the same agents. So we used to be so cocky. Tell those two Swedes, we'll go with them two on two. We'll get goalies ahead. Whoa, whoa, whoa. I never said that. Goalies just throwing them under the bus. You guys would have had them the first couple of years, maybe. Yeah, that's true.

Off ice for sure. Yeah, no doubt. So obviously, like you dealt with like concussions, right? And that was the time when you get hit, you get a concussion. All of a sudden, they're like, hey, you're fine to play, right? Like you were probably playing a couple of times when you necessarily weren't ready to yeah possibly i don't know or did you feel good coming back i had two the first one you know i was out i was both of them were out almost a year the second one but they didn't have a lot of information back then like i'm saying like

guys that play get hit again get hit again that happened to a couple guys i know but they were like overly cautious with me and like kept me out oh the second time it ended up i like i was passing on neuropsych tests i'm like why is this happening and i got a mri of my neck and i had a protruding disc hitting a nerve that was giving me headaches. So as soon as they burned off the nerve tips, like within two minutes after they did it. Normal? Yes. Ready to go. Wow.

So I, you know, maybe missed a year for that. Oh, no. Just waiting? Yeah. You could have done that earlier. Were you nervous to do the surgery to start? There was no surgery. No, they didn't know.

So we're searching for all kinds of reasons why the headaches keep coming back. And I'm working out. It's not affecting it. And then they start getting worse and worse and worse. So I go to this program at the University of Buffalo. And the first neuroscientist I see is like, have you had your MRI? I'm like, no. He's like, we need to do that right away because we're finding that it's mostly neck trauma that is causing the headaches and you know you get hit your heads whatever smacks back comes back

so I had a disc that was out of place just hitting a nerve as soon as they numbed the nerves the first time right away no headaches good to go and then that wears off they're like headaches yes so that's it they burn the nerve tips oh they do a test at first and so you're awake you don't have surgery they just do it under an x-ray yeah they test it to see like hey if that's maybe it's you're just your disc is hitting this nerve wow and that's what it was i'm like how long you've done that a year before yeah but they didn't know so oh what are you gonna do yeah i feel like you got saddled with being a concussion case in your career a bit like people talked about that oh yeah yeah two yeah two concussions yeah but that's not like a two reported back then was like a hundred yeah well we Well, we don't know. What do we know?

Yeah. They were both pretty big hits. So. How much time did you miss with those ones? Almost two years, two years combined, not with the neck thing. That was part of it.

That was part of the hit. Yeah. But it's not, that was, you were good. Just the nerves were, it was a net. That is my theory.

And that is the working theory that that's actually what happened. Because as soon as they did it, I didn't have headaches. I was able to start getting on the ice. Wow. Just ate up so much of it, eh? Yeah. But so what? Oh, well.

No, what are you going to do now? Am I going to look back at that and be like, oh, this is where, like I did for the longest time. I told Merle. Oh, you did i did i i looked back at the career and it's like a little bit negative at all this stuff and i even did it when i was retired for the longest time i when i did my actual first podcast with peters and yeah i saw that one revay uh like yes i was for the longest time i had the mindset that i wasn't happy in my career but now

i look back i'm like how yeah i was happy i'm glad to hear that no it's you had like you look back at it you're like yeah it's a little bit i had a great time playing in buffalo yeah what what made it snap like what made it like you realize i just i think i had to change my mindset about life in general how it's it's awesome and whatever and start changing my thought process on like certain things and ways to live lifestyle everything i think a lot of your kids playing hockey now i bet you yeah he was a big part of my my sonny six playing now and i want him to know like he he still doesn't quite understand the whole hockey thing and all that stuff because he wasn't around when I was playing. I wanted him to learn about that, be proud of his dad.

Then I looked back and I'm like, yeah, I was proud of myself too. Why not? You're a star, dude. But you get your own perception of yourself in your head. I hear you joke wit sometimes. I get some clips. I'll be honest. I don't watch your guys' shows. Oh, no, he's's got a burner he must have a burner no i just hear wit chirping himself

and i know you're joking around you know you know how good you were yeah yeah yeah i mean you joke around like i think self-deprecation yeah it was like the first defenseman that i ever played with i think that like had his head up skating and just laser beam passes and shot passes, head up like crazy. Well, I have a thing where – You did have your head up crazy, too. You're like Tom Brady back there. Yeah, there's a lot of me and Tom Brady.

Boy, you're so tall, you're seen above the line. Oh, yeah, dancing out there. My thing is, and we're pretty similar in a sense of like – yeah, like things didn't necessarily go for me the way I had hoped but I I know like in my heart like it was injuries and like you just said like what are you gonna do I mean like what are you gonna do like sit there and be better it was it was injuries and then in a sense to make it fun of myself yeah there were some there were some years where making fun of myself it's well worth it but

i look back and i'm like i played in the nhl i lived out my dream i didn't win a cup but i was really close and and i got hurt and and it's like if if you can't get over that that's what holds you back in the next step of life so i love hearing that you've kind of started you know realizing and it's true what merle said about having having um your kids and your son because even now with Ryder on the ice I know you're on the ice with your boy it's like it kind of already has like brought back like a little fire for me I was talking to Christopher Stieg about he's like it's great watching your kids play you get a little bit it's not necessarily at all the same but you get a little bit of that rush right where you're like oh good games again

you see them fired up to go to the rink and that's actually made me like miss the game a little bit more in a way it's where it's exact that's how i feel 100 it's it's how i feel like i'm so jealous of you buddy you're just like going to the rink it's just beginning for you and who knows he could not even play high school hockey but as of right now he loves it and it's like oh my god i really it's bringing back memories for me, the good ones as opposed to the shitty ones. Yeah. I mean, that's what you can focus on. You can focus on that in hockey and in life. Like, we all have our ups and downs.

And, you know, you start focusing on all those downs, it becomes contagious in your own mind. Yeah. Or you can think the other way. You move yourself the other way. So that's what, on top of, like, hockey, just in life, just trying to focus more on positive things like better outlook at life all that stuff and what why regret like what do i regret i didn't win the cup i really wanted that not that many guys like i know but it's i don't want that to be the overall thought about my career the thought should be oh i got to play in Buffalo.

Great times. Had some good runs. Had some great seasons. It was fun playing. The fans. And then I just started going back there doing alumni stuff. The fans, they don't forget. They love it.

It's like I was like, it was unbelievable. Go back, do some alumni stuff. They're super appreciative. You see all these people still wearing college jerseys. It's like, wow, wow, I can't believe that. And then you remember, like, oh, yeah, that's what it's like. These are great people, great city. It's awesome.

Was it my message to you that sparked you? I don't think so. No. You did send me a little highlight reel that I had not seen before. The human highlight reel. It had not seen before it was like like a human highlight it was at midnight or something i was laying in bed like doom scrolling i texted tc i'm like saw that just saw this i don't know who put it on was

it the buffalo guys that put it on sabers buzz i don't know put it on yeah and i found it i'm like oh i'm gonna send this to tc i haven't talked to him in a while how awesome he is because it was an unreal highlight video and i sent it to him the next day he's like wow who did this this is awesome because he doesn't know like how anything works he's like what is this i didn't see it yeah well like did you i thought army made it for me is this ta is this what ai is dc i made this for you no but did you show that to your kid and stuff did you show it to your kid probably like yeah he's seen him yeah he's seen him he doesn't they don't really get it yet no he doesn't our kids are just a month apart they're like a little it's like they're like six months

to a year away from probably understanding a little bit more but um biz always brings up and i completely agree with him i'm wondering your opinion like in terms of regrets the only one i really have is maybe not taking the off ice a little bit more serious. And I know you were never one of the biggest workout guys. But you maybe misunderstand that. So we asked Merle, because Merle would come. Merle makes it sound like he never did a thing in the summer.

Me? I didn't. Me or him? I didn't. I can tell you. He would go it was it was he was in good shape no it was i don't think i was in that great shape i'm sure i could have been in better shape in toronto my first year but it was um bernal would come like he's the original trip extension guy i don't know if you guys know this oh yeah he extends every single deflect away but yeah he said he says to start building them in now actually there too because his

recovery day yeah there but he would come he would come in for a weekend like the skinny alice it's like upstate new york uh finger lakes region he'd come to the lake house just for a weekend and he'd stay yeah he'd end up staying for two or three weeks so those are somewhat detrimental to my health but we would i'd we still have my trainer he would do like part of the workout but he'd be like collin why are you doing this all this extra like warm up and all this stuff like guys like in there working me for like 45 minutes before merle even comes and shows up but that that's that's true but I had to learn that too I didn't know that when I first got in the league and then eventually I needed it and I had to have a trainer yeah like train me so that

took a pro that was a process too and I think that was that also helped me um once i was able to realize that there's a next level of shape that you can get into that i did like and i would keep doing the guy's name jay morgan throw a shout out to him he's like he used to come down because we'd be like at sunday i'd be on the margarita machine making marks for everybody and timmy's like yeah we're not driving up there he's like i'm calling jay he's gonna be down here tomorrow so the trainer jay he would drive down to the house like an hour drive and set up the the whole workout so we didn't really drive up there so we could just roll out of bed hung my favorite memory of merle's uh summertime was he so there's a party in in um nantucket every weekend memorial day called Fugawi and it's for like you know I'd say like 20

to 28 year olds right it's a little younger so at that time we're younger and he comes I'm coming for that weekend that's gonna be unbelievable yeah I'm gonna get down here this was say May 27th he left he left my apartment after the Stanley Cup finals like June

that was a real extension so the best part is as he's staying he's like I'll just work out with you so the first after the Stanley Cup finals. That was a real extension. That's about right. So the best part is, as he's staying, he's like, I'll just work out with you. So the first day we go out, we had a couple drinks the night before, and we drive to the work house like 30 minutes away, and he's like, nope. I'm like, what do you mean, nope? He goes, nope, and he

slept in my car right outside the gym the whole time. Come on. Even Reggie got up and went in. Roachie's like, you're going to sleep in the car. Yup. And we get in there. I was playing. This was when I was playing after

Switzerland. I was done. I don't care. I don't need to do this anymore. Tease, what was your experience in Toronto like? Could have been better. Yeah. Organization, everything's unbelievable yeah yeah it was top notch but our team our team just it's hard when you're not doing well there you know no yeah we kind of went in the gutter there for a while we went in that little tailspin and

oh they called it an 18 wheeler tractor trailer crash because we lost 18 games yeah I wasn't I was injured I was out I had my guy and my guy was that the worst stretch you've ever been on with a team 18 games. Yeah. I was injured. I was out. I had my guy and my guy. Is that the worst stretch you've ever been on with a team? We only won like 18 games on the Islanders, but 82. But probably not many. 18 games in a row.

18? Was it 16? I don't know. Was it that many? It was bad. It was like real bad. It was getting bad around like game six or seven. I'm like, fuck. His roster doesn't look great.

I probably should have called a team party by then. Yeah. I should have been on that. That would have been on me. I should have probably done a team party. I wasn't doing anything else. I was injured. You were injured.

I was banged up. Assistant captain. Yeah, hanging out with the wives and girlfriends while you guys were on the road. I just hung out with the girls. Who was your coach with the Leafs? Assistant captain. Yeah, hanging out with the wives and girlfriends while you guys were on the road. I just hung out with the girls. Who was your coach with the Leafs? Ron Wilson. Yeah.

Ron. He was pretty intense, too, wasn't he? No, not. No, I thought he was good, too. I think he was pretty, like, behind the scenes. He was like. He liked hanging out with us. You could talk to him, yeah.

Like, he'd sit there and have breakfast with him or whatever. Yeah, he liked to chirp. Yeah, he did. Hey, Arnie. You know, he had something to say. Yeah. Oh, yeah. He loved to chirp yeah yeah yeah he already had something to say yeah oh yeah he loved to chirp big time yeah he liked that was like different from like when i was with lindy he was more he was hidden yeah yeah he'd come right out with us and sit with us and eat breakfast yeah the guys and love laughing and stuff yeah real sarcastic you know yeah he was

good i wasn't a big carlisle fan be honest yeah don't get me going who is don't get me going with that guy but like did you were playing in buffalo i mean that's a sports town long island team not good but going to toronto and just being in that craziness there like yeah it was did you sign there or get traded? I signed there. I was still trying to stay in Buffalo, but I was becoming a free agent. And they had just got new ownership my last year there. Pagoulas? Yeah.

So they had a lot of money to throw around. And then they ended up signing Ville Lano. Ville Lano. You got a nice deal. Oh, yeah. And then disappeared. Took my job. You had a nice deal. Oh, yeah. And then disappeared. Took my job. You had a great playoff against Philly.

I offered them one year 2.5 to stay. They said no. Yeah. Yeah, I think he was playing. Was he playing on Philly against Buffalo? Oh, maybe that's what it was. And then they threw him a bone. That was your money.

He was playing with Breer, right? Yeah. That'll help. Oh, that'll help, yeah. Yeah, that Breer can play. Think about those teams you were just talking about. Miro and me were talking about this before this. Those couple teams where we went on those deep runs there,

three GMs came out of there from one team. That's Breer and Greer. Greer's evil. Holy shit. Three GMs off of one team one year's very, very Aaron Greer. Greer's. Holy shit. GM's off of one team. One year is pretty. I mean, so there's certain players you play with where you can see it in them where they're just such hockey nerds and they're going to have to do something. Yeah, but they're not even hockey nerds.

They're just like knowledgeable hockey leaders. Like when you look at leadership, those are like guys and i think that those guys getting to buffalo instead of when we talked about the guys that i came into the league with i saw what these guys were doing the way they're preparing yeah oh you're like you're taking a taxi before the team bus to go to the rink to get treatment and work and do this okay i think i might try that i was like jury did it and i'm like okay i'm gonna follow this kid around this guy around like i'll be the little lost puppy following him around he knows how to win or whatever he knows what he's doing i'm gonna do that so i started doing that so it kind of

changed that mentality in that way it goes a bit i mean it's contagious yeah it's a culture like it's it's the same our culture was horrible in Pittsburgh. And then Sid came and changed everything. Example, Boston Bruins. Culture. Example, so Zidane O'Chara. I played with him in Long Island. He got traded away. What was he like then as a player?

He hadn't developed into his body yet. He was awkward. Yeah, so I think they came up. You know how you can't throw it in the stands out of your own zone or yeah, I think that's the char rule. So you come around the net, go to make a pass and you just fire it in the stands. Yeah. But he missed it out, boys. And then he just turned into a dominant hall of fame defenseman. But he just see Susie with the big guns at the top of the front row there. just aim there's a day and i'm right there buddy we'll take the whistle on the diesel you're out of that i can tell you nobody's gonna outwork that guy ever anywhere he's gonna

i mean guys doing triathlons for fun he and i bet you he brought that culture and he was still just he was still real young what year was he born in? He's like 77 maybe. Chara's like 47 now, isn't he probably? Maybe 40. But I just think that he goes there, becomes captain, and he's the hardest working, most serious guy. He developed into a player, and then he instilled that culture in whoever was there with him. Who's going to challenge him too?

If you don't work that hard or behave that way in that manner and be a winner and work as hard as you can and devote your time to the game, well, then he's a leader. If you're not living up to that, so then everybody has to start living up to that. Then what? You got Bergeron in there. He's in there with them and all those guys and he taught marshawn they all continue it just and that's why you see how they've been doing for the last whatever and i've always i don't like the brunes

i hated playing against them it was a pain it was the worst playing against them because they play hard they play their system they play to win and that's you look at that from a leadership standpoint anyways. That's a great point. What else you got, Mark? We're here at Gretzky's basement here in Toronto. Do you remember the Gretzky workout

video, dude? Do you remember getting recruited by Gretzky, by the agency? You got any Gretzky stories you want to share with us? Yeah. Those are back to my younger days. Huge, huge Gretzky fan growing up. Didn't get to watch a lot of hockey, but they do the agency. We're talking about agents.

And you guys had Judd on. You got agents recruiting. I know that now it's like they're recruiting these kids at such a young age. I think when we were playing, it was like right before the ohl you were 15 and we had bobby orr came to the house yeah wow those are cool i did you have to try to sign you to their age yeah like like i my dad in his office at the house i grew up and had the or picture yeah and then one day he picked up the phone he's like dan whitney heby? He's like, yeah. He's like, Bobby Orr. He's looking at the picture. He's like, what the fuck?

He's like, Ryan, we got your agent. I was like, yeah. Did you go with him? Yeah, I was with Orr. And then Paul Kropelko was like the guy under Bobby for all the Orr hockey group. He was awesome, man. Intimidating guy. When Orr gets mad, man, he gets mad.

But he's the nicest, friendliest person alive. He used to call my grandmother like a couple times a year just say hello like the guy was he was a legend but in terms of him recruiting young kids like how does anyone's how did anyone say no to him yeah so the pki came to my house in syracuse and merle's on the margarita machine you want bob you want a margarita i don't remember the exact timing all that who was first bobby you hit on 16 yeah but then all of a sudden it was the week a week later he's getting him and his parents are getting flown to new york city to watch a rangers game go

to dinner with 99 afterwards they came back from that trip and was like yeah so that was cool it was that was uh img they had gretzky and all those other guys it was mike barnett jp barry um eddie mio so eddie mio came and watched us he watched a couple games of us play merle yeah and then yeah said, well, I want you to come in and watch a game, Wayne, and go out to dinner and blah, blah, blah. I'm like, holy shit. This is really happening? I'm 15. This is, like, insane.

All this stuff is starting to happen. That is the first sign where maybe you're like, man, I think I got a chance of playing in the NHL. Yeah. People are calling. Like, obviously there's something here. Yeah, because it gradually started happening that year a lot. Like, over the course of a year,

there's all these agents at every game that we played in nonstop. We're playing in this Metro Toronto Tier 2 hockey league. It's like a feeder system. Zubris played in that league and then went straight to the NHL from Tier 2. What? Vanius Zubris? I played with him, too. He's a monster. He was on that

second team. So all this Canada junior hockey now, how these teams are jumping out of Canada hockey out west, that's what this league did. They weren't associated with hockey. Independent. So he's 14 or he's 15 this other kid maglione was 14 they're wearing half shields it was it was two fight rule it was three fights to leave so you could get two fights and then the third one you finally got kicked out

it was it was mayhem that's the z-back team right how did you do it that like that's like young blood shit man i'm going up trying to stay out of fighting with merle merle you guys you know how he talks now he would not stop running his mouth oh merle's talk every much shit i don't know it was i don't think you talked like that in the nhl no he didn't say because you were i should have i should have i know you definitely should have you would have had it. You were the rat in the AHL. Come on, really?

Yeah, he quieted it up. I never played with him at all. He was a rat. He was doing it out of respect for the game. He respects the game. He does. But when we were playing Tier 2 before, and I know you were a maniac in college too,

is he never shut up. On the ice, at all times, just he never shut up on the ice at all times just yapping every guy on the other team even we get to the bench he's yapping like merle give me a break break from this like just let me just sit here and have some water he's just constantly bickering with it slowly coming out of him even on the podcast now is it he's getting fiery we got a hate text uh text from brendan gallagher because he was very vocal about his hit on Pellich. He called me Murr and R.A. Pussies. Murr's starting to kick up dust.

Back my old ways. He's coming back. He's getting comfortable. He was trying to wind you into fights and stuff or always scrumming and stuff? No, he was always just torment the other team. It's just nonstop. Whether you were a tough guy skill guy whatever guy he was gonna chirp you until you just were sick of it and i mean they're

all coming i would have them coming after me so they wouldn't be playing defense or trying to take my head off so instead of like worrying about defense i just think he liked chirping him just he was better than all of them so how was he with the ladies when you played with him? The Merle? I used to be the designated driver back then. Yeah, that's true. Really? Yeah, because you had a gambling addiction.

You had to trade to get to turn. He's like, if I drink, I'm going to forget to get the late game bet in. 45 minutes away. The ladies? Back then, no. I was too focused. He was too focused on us. I was Sibby Crosby.

I was dialed in on everything. Oh, fuck off. he was no not like playing that's why you guys could relate i was i was a sober driver i was a girlfriend wasn't going to get in my way of doing like getting yeah you were hockey obsessed i was hockey obsessed obviously not the player he was i was hockey obsessed like him did you have any thought of college or you were ohl from uh i think it wasn't as big then right like college or oh i was it was like after my freshman year so ninth grade year it was still like college i think at that point in time then i think it was that tier two junior league that we got into was a metro toronto league they were all going to the oh. Oh, we started to hear about this OHL thing. I was like, what is that?

Oh, this is how you get to the NHL. I'm like, all right. Get me there as quick as I can get there. Let's get to, I want to go to the NHL. You weren't there when Corey Pecker was there in Erie, were you? Okay, then definitely not. No, but why is... Corey Pecker, yeah.

Why does that sound familiar? You might have been there. Because you were drafted there. Is that where you played junior? He was right after me. Okay. Yeah. Because the fans were pretty rowdy in Erie. I wasn't expecting that when I went and played drafted there. Is that where you played junior? He was right after me. Because the fans were pretty rowdy and eerie. I wasn't expecting that when I went and played in there.

Were they the same when you were there? Yeah, they were pretty good. Where did you play, Biz? North Bay, then Saginaw, and then Owen Sound. What years were you there? My draft year was 2003, so I was in 2001 in North Bay. Oh, yeah, you're much younger. Yeah.

You only played two 01 in North Bay. Oh, yeah, you're much younger. Yeah. Yeah. You only played two years in the league. They actually won the league when I was playing in that four-year span. Who won the league? Erie had. They did? Yeah. Who was their big star then? I think Corey Pecker was one of them.

They had Boyz, Brad Boyz. Brad Boyz. Yeah, I played with Boyz. And Boyz was an underage my last year there. Yeah. brad boys boys yeah i played with boys and boys is an underage my last year there yeah yeah he was and he was yeah he was a good top-notch captain guy material yeah that's kind of when the culture there had changed and they ended up pulling one through and the reason i asked is like i remember how rowdy their fucking crowd was and they had a guy on their team score 50 goals or over 50 goals

and when he hit the 50 goal mark his name was was Corey Pecker. So the whole crowd. Yeah, I do remember. They threw dildos all over the ice. Oh, yeah. In the O. What? I don't remember that. Yeah, they threw dildos on the ice. That's a degenerate crowd. I mean, you're a kid, and you hear about that.

It's kind of like you hear about Black Sabbath biting off a bat's head in the newspaper. You're like, what? This is what's happening at these concerts? It's like, I want to go play at Erie, man. They're throwing dildos on the ice. I think 99 is actually here, so we got to wrap this up.

All right, TC. Reunited. Awesome. You go from getting the full game experience to the full basement experience. Awesome. Well, hey, thanks for having me, guys. Thank you, TC. Great time. You're a great teammate tc love you love you guys thanks before we go any further i gotta talk to you about kraken today we're talking about

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K-R-A-K-E-N.com slash chicklets and see what crypto can be. Not investment advice. Crypto trading involves risk of loss. Thank you so much to TC, Tim Conley. Awesome guy. I really enjoyed him kind of opening up a little bit. Him talking about never wanting to be a part of talking about his career and appreciating it, it kind of was shocking in a way that he was willing to open up with us. And I like that because I've known him for so long. And he was, like we said in the interview, check out his YouTube highlights. He was a game-breaker and incredible player.

So thank you very much to him. It's Masters Week, guys. And it's my favorite week of the year. I always say Masters Week is my favorite sporting event of the season. It's not just about the Masters. It's about you know NHL playoffs are starting. You know that spring is arising. Arising?

Arise? Arised? Arisen? Arisen arisen wow all right i can't talk guys i'm awake i'm awake i'm oh there we go i'm awake fucking awake but augusta boys i'm looking forward to this week here's the issue is scotty scheffffler is basically like Tiger Woods now. And if Scotty Scheffler putts. Really? Yeah, he's hitting. He hits the ball the last two years better than anyone ever since Tiger. His strokes gained, which is basically like ball striking, like fairways hit, greens hit.

It's at a level above the competition similar to Tiger in his heyday. Yeah, easy posh. The problem is sometimes he can't putt. He's like me. Like, he cannot putt. So he's figured it out a little bit. I guess the last three weeks he's plus putting stats. And so this is an exaggeration.

If Scheffler putts good, not even great, he'll probably win the Masters by five or six shots. I don't want that. I don't want that. I don't want that. I don't dislike Scottie Scheffler. All I want is a back nine that's exciting. Two years ago, Scheffler ran away with it. I think he four or five putted the last hole and still won by a couple shots. Last year, Rahm kind of ran away with it. The Masters, they say it doesn't begin till the back nine on Sunday. I just want two, three, maybe four guys,

if I'm getting greedy, in the hunt on Sunday of the back nine. So I cannot wait. I was looking, I mentioned Will Zalatorrez. I'm a big Will Zalatorrez fan. It would be kind of crazy if he were to win the Masters, but that's somebody I'll be rooting for. Ludwig Biz, we talked about Ludwig Aberg, talked about Ludwig Albert. Albert. Albert. I don't even know how you say his last name, so I just call him Ludwig. Or Ludwig.

He is that new superstar based on, what was our podcast? Oh, Subpar. Subpar. We talked about him. Yeah, he's a stud. He's a stud. Stallion. Stallion.

Stallion. So maybe you could make some money betting on him. Top 10, top 20. No, I don't know who's going to be winning? Who? Justin Thomas. And then he's going to be doing a sandbagger with us. He's got a new caddy.

He fired his caddy. I won't be watching. I'm actually boycotting the Masters after we found out that they, in fact, do kill squirrels on the golf course. That's why you never see them there. So I have a line with PETA. We're actually going to be putting out a documentary, a behind-the-scenes documentary of the murdering of all the squirrels

at Augusta, the cult. So you guys can have fun watching your cult broadcast. I'm good. Any final words before we move it along? Wait, did you catch the Curb finale last night? No, no, I got to catch up on that whole season and kind of watch it through. I've seen bits and pieces.

Was it good? Yeah, I really enjoyed it. I mean, no surprise. He tied it into another infamous finale that you probably figure out. But yeah, great season. Great show. But boys, long one today. Let's wrap it up.

Not for you. All right, you going to sleep now? Yeah, I could catch up on some of that. Sandbagger Wednesday, 6 p.m. Eastern. Tune in. Don't miss out, baby. Peace. You can get liquor cheap,

but how much is your love? They say a drunken speech is just so good. I like to poke the bear. I like to poke the bear I like to stir the pot But then you come on in And take it up a notch You hit me with a cheap shot A cheap shot

She hit me with a cheap shot A cheap shot I bet she needs a detox to cleanse her mind. Another week rolls in, we're on the road again. Thought I was safe and sound in my minivan. I received this sound in my minivan But I said something that crossed the line And I know she felt it Someone said she could have a free one on the chin

She went below the bell shit She had me with a cheap shot A cheap shot She had me with a cheap shot, a cheap shot She had me with a cheap shot, a cheap shot I think we need a deep talk You've been so on time