Spittin Chiclets - Spittin' Chiclets Episode 192: Featuring Sean Burke

Episode Date: July 17, 2019

On this week's episode of Spittin' Chiclets, Biz sits down with former NHL goalie Sean Burke for part one of a two-part interview. Sean joins to discuss his career, tell stories from each of the cities he played in and discuss the infamous Mike Keenan. The guys really are all over the map this week with discussions about Tom Cruise, Baseball Movies, Golf, and Tennis. Whit also tells another story of Keith Yandle pranking MacKenzie Weegar.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. Hello, everybody. Welcome to episode 192 of Spittin' Chicklets, presented by New Amsterdam Vodka. It is the doldrum dog days of summer. It's sweaty, hot here in Boston. Let's say hi to the boys, see where they're up to. Grinnelly, where are you right now?

And are you sweating your balls off, too? What's up, boys? Yeah, I'm here in New York. I'm actually apartment hunting right now, trying to get out of this rat hole, this raining shit, this apartment. So, yeah, it's been hell, but I'm on my way there. Nothing worse than Manhattan in the fucking summertime. It smells like dog's balls. Next up, Whit Dog. Are you home these days?

You had a big golf tournament this week, right? Yeah, I did. We'll go into that later. Also, Grinnelli, I don't remember where we were recently together, and you finally were – oh, it was L.A. And he said, yeah, I'm getting a new place. I'm going to be paying like $2,000 now a month. Like, dude, whatever you were paying before makes a lot of sense

that there were racks in there because if $2,000 is like the big jump up, like you must have been living in a closet. Yeah, I was paying $1,300 in New York. So I had a steal before. $1,300 in New York will legit get you a footlocker. Oh, yeah, especially in Manhattan. I'll put it this way. I went to this place in NYC.

I wouldn't even walk in there to buy drugs. That's how bad that was. I feel good about it, too, though. You came in, you're like, wow, this isn't bad, man. Oh, yeah, your roommate was there. I didn't want him on, so we watched. If it was four in the morning, you would. That's our last member of the crew, Paul Biznasty.

What's up, buddy? Where are you right now? I finally got my equilibrium back to normal after the Calgary Stampede, and holy shit, boys, what a party. I'll get into that after this, though. When we were in L.A., obviously, we got Lupo, a very well-received interview for the podcast. Unfortunately, R.A., you were not there.

That would have been a nice little treat on top of that. Witt had that hilarious prank story that Yance teed up your boy. I forget his name here. False. False. False. Excuse me. Let me tell you you this was number two

i got more for this exactly this is the craziest part folks and you guys are in for another treat so we get a text from yan saying this wasn't even the first one that foals and yance had pulled on weger so this guy's just been getting tortured apparently there was a prank during the season last year and now you guys are going to get teed up for another one yes oh my god this stuff makes me laugh so weger sent the tweet out and i retweeted it and it said it was this i think he said in the tweet it was it was the second time they've gotten me like i have to get when's my turn or something like that well the story goes back to uh i don't know what game and I don't know what month, but I actually remember the incident and Weger got a penalty he didn't like.

And he fucking tomahawk chopped the glass like right near the ref. I think he kind of came close to him. I don't remember the exact situation, but I know that he fucking jacked the glass with his synergy and ended up kind of causing a little bit of a scene where, you know, Biz, if you get close enough to a ref, like even if you're slashing the glass next to him, it's not cool, you know? Oh, of course. I mean, I'm surprised he didn't get kicked out of the game, did he? I don't remember. I think he got a penalty. Either way, I'm going way too long into the part of the story. It doesn't matter. Similar to what Shen did when they allowed the hand-pass goal

against San Jose when they were by the Zamboni exit during the conference finals, correct? Exactly. Something where it's kind of not kosher to be doing that near the ref's eardrum. So what goes back, and Keith's like, so I'm talking to Keith, he's like, yeah, the first time was even better.

And so what Keith had Foley do originally is write, here's the text. Hey, McKenzie, linesman John Murray here. Just wanted to touch base with you regarding the other night when you slammed the stick. No hard feelings here. Knew you were frustrated. Let's just keep the sticks down from now on, eh? Also, I talked to Paros' office, backed them.

I backed them off. Told them you were a good guy out there. So this is Foley now playing the role of the linesman who kind of had a synergy near his skull. They still make synergies? Or is that when you were in the leagues? That was my stick, so that's all I think back to. Okay, cool.

Either way, here we go. Mackenzie Wieger is like, I guess, flipping out, but his response is great. Hey, John, I really appreciate that. It was very uncalled for, and my emotions took over. That'll never happen again. My apologies again. I didn't mean for that to happen thanks for

backing them off too i owe you one man thank you so he's very the paris isn't gonna be calling and then falls or john murray excuse me just responded no no no man you don't owe me anything has anyone from paris office called you yet though so he was trying to tee him up and weger didn't answer so i think he kind of figured something else was going there. But either way, the first prank had a nice little text back from Wieg, who's now gotten dummied by Foles twice. Maybe he asked his teammates, did the linesman actually text you when they talked to fucking Paros?

Not even close to that. Yeah. Keith didn't get the text that time that said, can a linesman get me in like suspended not gonna lie i hope i was hoping that was gonna go a little bit further no i know i i thought there might be more text but i guess he never responded i was waiting for more and never i think a lot of people are gonna disagree i think the second one was a lot better because there was a lot more uh back and forth between wiegerghur. Yeah. Fully, fully. I agree with that.

Even, even Brendan Shanahan texted me and he was like, Oh, like he was losing his mind at that prank stuff. So Shanahan, I think he listens to every podcast. We got to get him on. I know it's probably not the most professional podcast for him to come on, but maybe we'll, uh, we'll let the Leafs PR comb through it. And then not take out whatever they ask us. It worked for, it worked for Austin Matthews.

You think Shani could kind of tell them he can say whatever he wants, right? Maybe we can get William Nylander on now. Maybe he won't come on because he probably hates my guts for me being a little bit hard on him during playoffs. But from this moment forward, I'm on the William Nylander train. I think he's going to have a big fucking season and a very nice gesture. We should probably get into that right now, considering we're going right into the hockey. Yeah, we'll jump into that.

First, though, I mean, if I'm Mackenzie Wiegand's teammates, I'm watching every fucking little move he makes this year. He's going to be out for revenge on those guys, and sometimes there's collateral damage and pranks are involved. He's going to kidnap Yanz's kids. That's what's going to happen. One thing about Shanahan, though, Biz, who can tell him he can't come on the show? I mean, he's more or less his own boss,

no? Well, maybe they would talk him off the ledge and be like, maybe not the best thing, but hey, who knows? Maybe we can give him a few ad reads and he can come on and do your job because he loves it so much. No, it's actually funny you guys bring up that, you know,

people sometimes want to hear the interviews before they go out, which is understandable, right? Like Austin Matthews' team and the Leafs, it makes sense. Sometimes we go a little bit overboard when business is talking about just like giving people facials and stuff. No. Well, here's the thing, though. We should start adding stuff into the interviews,

and then when they get it, they're like, holy shit, this has to come out. But it's all it was never there. Like it's the reaction of these people. Just get these guys to start telling kill stories. Hey, man, we're just going to we're just going to send this to your PR person. Don't worry, it'll never go anywhere else. Fucking bribe him. Yeah, because you mentioned the kneel and the thing that was hilarious.

He sent out a tweet because he's changing his number. He told everybody, hey, if you get a new shirt, I'll pay for the change. And then Shani retweeted him and said, oh, you're paying? Thank God. Hashtag cash money. Hashtag Leafs forever. And sent out pictures of all his kids because they all have like each of Nylander's shirts.

So pretty funny kind of getting tripped by his GM there after giving him all that dough. Yeah, very nice gesture by him. I'd imagine that's not going to be cheap if the Leafs even make him pay for it. One fan with special needs tweeted out a picture of his brand-new sneakers as well, and he had 29 on the back of the Nikes, and Nylander said he was going to buy him a new pair. So some people were upset about the fact he's changing his number.

Shocker here. But, hey, he just wants a little bit of change of pace, and I believe that was his old number when he was playing in Sweden, when he was having a ton of success. And, you know, I think he just wants to go in with a fresh look this year. As I said, I think he's going to have a big year. A lot of people, ever since me being critical of him and his output last year, have been showing his analytics and how much offense he provides five on five.

I know the production numbers weren't there, but the scoring chances and the setups were. So I'd imagine this is his year to pop off. I don't know if other people were a little pissed off because it was Eric Lindros' old number too with the Leafs. Keep in mind, I think Lindros played under 50 games at the Toronto Leafs. So nothing to be upset at there. And how do you feel about that, Witter?

He's just a real cocky-looking fucking guy. I mean, that's the initial thought when I see William Nylander. I know that he's got skill, he backs it up a lot, but when you see him walking into ranks, you're like, this guy looks like such an asshole. I think it hurts him. I swear to God. He looks great. He looks polished, but some people can't stand it. And he just looks cocky and he acts that way. So when he doesn't perform to the what, you know, the contract he signed, I understand he's always going to catch heat no matter what. But he definitely has something about him that can

drive some people nuts. I don't know if you agree with me or not, but I, that's how I feel. And so when he does switch his number, you're going to hear people complain. You're going to hear people say that he thinks he's better than he is. I mean, that's just kind of like the aura he gives, but I still think he could be a great player. And I also wouldn't be surprised if in a year he's, he's not a Maple Leaf. I think at some point he will get traded. I know it was promised that he will never be.

He was given that promise as he signed that contract. Is that really going to withhold for this entire deal? No way. I could see a trade happening, but that would have to happen if his production is similar to last season where he is struggling out of the gate. But I don't know. I feel like it's just a matter of time.

Based off the analytics people are sending me, that the puck starts going his way, and it does get to the back of the net. And he has a full summer and a full training camp in order to get ready for this season. And he's not going to be public enemy number one. It wouldn't shock me at all if he goes and gets 85 points. You can see it at times he's that good. But what do you actually think it would cost to pay for all those jerseys?

Can you even put a number on that? I would probably say 50 grand. All they're doing is changing the lettering and the number. Or no, not even the lettering. I mean, there was no big noise when I switched from 6 to 19 my rookie year in Pittsburgh. Where was the articles about that? Maple Leafs, man. People brought their jerseys in?

They burned them. They just turned the six upside down and then put a piece of tape for the one. But, yeah, if they do have to make a trade of one of those big four, you got to think, like you said, Nyland would be the first to go simply because of the holdout man i mean teams don't forget that type of shit and biz eric lindros had 33 games with the maple leaf so anybody crying about wearing 88 you probably put a sock in it at this point that was a long time ago when it was a blink and you miss it thing uh we did have a trade though boys uh late tuesday blackhawks sent

atem anisim off to ottawa for zach smith this feels like another one of those change of scenery trades might be good for each guy the hawks get a little more sandpaper in the lineup sends get a little more skill uh the hawks also shave 1.3 million off their payroll biz what's your take on this one my friend well i mean hawks need to hawks are are in trouble with the cap space, are they not right now? Yeah, they're always having issues. They're always teetering. And you're getting a guy who's got a lot to prove. I mean, Zach Smith at the start of last year,

they put him on waivers in Ottawa, and he ended up staying up. I mean, he had a decent year. For what he's making, what does he make at 3.5? 3.25 million. 3.25. He had 28 points. I'm sure he's got a what does he make at 3.5? 3.25 million. 3.25. He had 28 points. I'm sure he's got a little bit more to offer, especially on an offensive team like Chicago.

And then Chicago released some cap space. I mean, Anisinov has had a decent run in Chicago. I believe he was there for their last Stanley Cup. So, you know, he's provided a lot to that organization, and sometimes it's just time to say goodbye. And, you know, even for Ottawa they get a a decent centerman I'm sure that he can fill probably a second line center role there um would you agree with yeah I agree with that I also think it's crazy I think it was earlier this year Smith was put on waivers at one point by Ottawa and it kind of shows how

how the you know the game has changed he's making making a lot of money for kind of his production, but people love having him on their team. I mean, the guys love playing with him. He's the type of guy who everyone just appreciates, right? Like, he goes out every night. He'll fight. He'll hit. He scores.

I mean, he's a good player, but it is crazy to think that anyone could have grabbed him. And understandably, his salary is a little bit too high probably to get taken off waivers, but I think he will help Chicago. I mean, they lack that. You think about their lineup, you think about the skill and especially how undersized they can be

in some positions. And he comes in there, he'll be tough to play against. He'll add something to that team. So it makes sense that they save a little bit of money. I need some of this probably bullshit. I mean, Ottawa they're brutal. He's not gonna he's not, who's happy if they're getting traded to Ottawa right now? No one.

Not too many guys. So we'll see the, you know, what kind of effort he pulls there. I mean he can be great when he wants to be, but that team's gonna not be great. We'll say that. We might have to go back to my betting routine of last season against them. Was I off there? Did they not try to send him down right at the end of training camp last year zach smith or was it in the midst of the season i thought it was midst of the season i but i i will

admit i i'm like very unconfident on that but i don't think it was out of camp that could be me fucking up it's been a long it's been a long weekend boys at the calgary stand yeah well you were you were riding that fucking bull. You fell off that bull. You might have knocked your fucking melon when that happened. Did you take a dive there, Biz, on that one or what? That was so funny. Can we talk about the Stampede, please?

Well, how much hockey talk we got left? You guys want a little break right now? We got a fair amount left. I mean, it depends how long we want to spend on it. Let's finish the hockey talk. We'll do the Stampede, and then we'll go right into the Sean Burke interview. By the way, folks, that was a two hour interview. So we're going to break it up an hour this week. And we're also going to drop the second part of the interview in a few weeks. And we're also going to drop the second part of the

interview in a few weeks. We're not going to do them back to back folks. So just bear with us, hopefully enjoy the first half. And I know you'll enjoy the full interview when it finally rolls out. Very interesting guy, very articulate. I want to thank him for coming on. I sat with him in my living room. It was done by Biz Rogan. I was just trying to give you a little break this summer with, so you can get your golf stroke. Hey guys, real quick. I want to talk to you for a sec about SeatGeek. Everyone knows that buying tickets can be complicated and confusing, but there is a you for a sec about SeatGeek. Everyone knows that buying tickets can be complicated and confusing, but there is a simpler way to buy with SeatGeek.

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Just download the SeatGeek app and enter the promo code Hockey today. That's promo code Hockey for $10 off your first SeatGeek purchase. SeatGeek. Right seat, right now, right from your phone. Yeah, there's some other news to get to, and then we'll get to the little stampede action. We don't have to go over every single one with a fine tooth comb, but there were a couple other names that people thought were going to go the first couple of days of free agency, but it took a little bit longer. Michael Furland was one of those guys, and he's heading

back out West after a quick stint in Carolina. He signed with Vancouver for four years, $14 million deal. The 27-year-old doubled his salary and doubled the length of his last contract. He was in that big trade last summer with Hannah Finland, home of the Calgary and Furland. Fox Hamilton went back to Carolina. $3.5 million for a 2020 guy isn't too bad, wouldn't you say, Whit? I agree completely, and tell me if I'm crazy, boys,

but we just talked about Zach Smith. Is Michael Furlan not like a better Zach Smith? Yeah. Will you give me that one? Absolutely. Right? I mean, tough as shit, hits people hard to play against, kind of does all those things you're hoping somebody

that you signed to that money can do. And I think that's a great deal for him. I mean, before the injury, he was great in Carolina. And then you saw him kind of suffer. And when you're coming, that's the only scary thing is, is the head shots and things like that. But I think that's a good signing. I was surprised to not see him go earlier.

And that's a nice little deal for him to sign. Probably not what he hoped going into the year that he would get money wise biz. I don't know if you agree with that, but still in the end, 14 million is $14 million. Yeah, so apparently he wanted to go back to Calgary. That's what I heard. I don't know if Calgary was ready to commit four years. I would say the reason why four years might be a long time

is just because he has had some head injuries and dealt with some concussions. Now saying the number three and a half is very fair for what he's produced offensively. He's a consistent 40 point getter. If he can get you 20 and 20 consistently for the next four years, that is an absolute bargain, especially with who's the guy who went over from Winnipeg to Pittsburgh.

I'm drawing a blank here. He got six years at three and a half. Did he not? Oh, um, yeah. So like when you're, when you're given a guy who's produced less, um, you know, in expectation that he does produce maybe what Furlan has already. Um, that's a very good deal. I think Canucks, uh, got a great player in Furlan and you said, he's just like a little honey badger does everything, uh, tough to play against. Um,'m happy for him. Four years, that's a healthy length of contract. And I just hope he holds up health-wise because if they can get that out of him, that's a win for Vancouver. And he left Carolina, like I said. Carolina knew he wasn't coming back, so they needed to replace

him in the lineup. And they did that when they ryan dezingle to a two-year deal worth 6.75 million uh he's 27 he's a forward as well he's a little cheaper than furlane they do they have very similar production uh last year dezingle had 26 goals 30 assists and 78 games played with ottawa and columbus one goal in nine playoff games biz what do you got on this one buddy i would say he's the one guy that got left out and probably thought he was going to sign for a lot more than what he's got. It's very similar to that Cody Franzen situation when he was a free agent defenseman and he thought he was going to get his payday. And, yeah, I think that's a great addition for the value for Carolina, a team who's on the up and up.

And he's still young enough where I think he can, he can blow up there. I think he's going to have some good numbers with that group of forwards. And, you know, I feel bad when guys don't get paid what they maybe thought they would have, but he's one of those guys.

Yeah. And people will say the playoffs hurt him. I think they did a little bit. I mean, he played in nine games with the blue jackets. He had one goal, no assists. But still, if played nine games with the Blue Jackets. He had one goal, no assists. But still, if you look, like, people kind of dogged him from the time of the trade to Columbus to the end of the year,

including playoffs, but he had 12 points in 21 games, right? I mean, that's not phenomenal, but it's on pace for 50 points right around then if you play the full season. And the playoffs certainly weren't great. That did cost him some money, and the playoffs certainly weren't great. That, that did cost him some money, but I think he could be great. I would, I mean,

if he goes in next year and gets 22 goals and 30 assists for Carolina, is that not a great signing? Yeah. Great bargain. It would be. And I would say that that is very reasonable to think he could do that. So if that is the case, I think there'll be,

there'll be thrilled to have him on a ticket like that. But it is crazy biz when, and it's like, a guy like that, I wonder if he's, and him and his family are like, what the fuck are you doing to his agent, right? I mean, that is for sure a real thing when guys are like, how did I not get

what I thought I was getting? Like, we talked, this is what, you know, this is what we thought it would be, and blah, blah, blah. It turns into this. How are you supposed to guess that would happen to him? I would never be able to figure that out before the year.

I mean, agents are certainly well-informed, but I'm guessing that his agent thought he would get a way better deal than this. Yeah. I mean, you said it. A prime example of getting dealt at the deadline, thinking it might help your stock going to a playoff team and even going to the second round.

I mean, we know torts. He likes guys who are a little bit rough around the edges and play a little harder, and I don't know if that's exactly the guy, and he didn't have the best showing in playoffs, whereas if he would have stayed in Ottawa, he might have gotten his four- or five-year deal at a better number. So who knows? It's unfortunate, but that's the way. That's the way she goes.

Yep, that's right. We also have some restricted free agent signings of particular note. St. Louis rookie phenom Jordan Bennington, he re-upped for two more years at $4.4 million per year. He was a restricted free agent. He got a nice bump from the 650K he made last year. He will be unrestricted after this deal expires. He's still only going to be 28 years old. So that seems like a pretty good deal for both sides, huh, Paul? He avoids arbitration. I think that's a fair number for both sides. I mean, keep in mind, man, this guy played a little over half of a regular season, had an incredible playoffs. I'd be a little weary giving this guy like a six-year deal because you still

don't know what exactly what he is he hasn't really dealt with any type of adversity yet so I think it's a great deal for both sides and and Bennington kind of has that mentality man he's playing with the house's money at this point this guy probably thought he was going to be in the American League of the East Coast maybe even Europe the rest of his career until he finally got his shake. He went into last year's training camp in St. Louis as, what, the fourth or fifth goaltender? And they had that other European goalie listed ahead of him.

And, you know, it's good to see. I mean, I would imagine with the way he lives, that money can last him a lifetime anyway. I mean, Christ living in St. Louis, that might actually last you two lifetimes because he ain't paying for any meals or drinks in that city for the rest of his life. And listen, I think he's going to go out there and prove it. And I would imagine that he gets a nice big ticket after that too. It's all about a two-year deal in that, hey, if you do what we think you're going to do, you're going to make bank. It's a total go out

and kind of prove that that wasn't a fluke. said it all perfectly biz i think that it's it's going to be great because for the blues to get him at two years if he looks as good as he actually was this year i mean who's to say he won't be this good i mean it was a long it wasn't just like a small sample size he did it he got it done so to have a goalie like that, making that little money for two years, that's great for the Blues. Gives him a chance to do it again. If he plays another full season, what he did last season and in playoffs,

he can go in the next summer in July 1st with one year left on his contract and say, hey, time to pay him. Yeah, no lube. No lube. Yeah. Sandpaper finish, baby. Sandpaper finish.

And if he did end up tanking, which I don't think is going to happen, then the Blues can say, hey, fuck it, we got our cup. If it cost us $8.8 million, big deal, we still got our cup. A couple other signings. The Habs re-upped a pair of Finnish forwards that were both RFA. Forward Joel Amir signed a two-year $5.2 million deal. He had 23 points in 57 games played last year. He came to Montreal in a trade last summer.

And forward, Arturi Lekanen, signed a two-year $4.8 million deal. He had 31 points in 82 games last year. The 24-year-old was a second-round pick back in 2013. A couple other deals we want to mention. Jacob Vrana stays in Washington, another restricted free agent. Two years, $6.7 million. Ryan Donato, two years, $3.8 million. That's $1.9 million per year to stay in Minnesota.

And there were a couple other UFAs I know, Biz, you wanted to mention. Defenseman Connor Carrick, he was UFA. He signed a two-year, $3 million deal to stay in New Jersey. They had obtained him during the season in a trade. Cal Peterson, who's basically the third-string goalie in L.A., signed a three-year deal worth just about $900,000 per year. It's going to be interesting because Quick has four more years left on his deal, but Campbell is a UFA after this year.

And Josh Archibald signed a one-year, $1 million deal up in Edmonton. He was in Arizona last year. Biz, what's your take on all these signings? Yeah, I mean, never a bad situation to have a goaltending issue when you got three decent goalies and that of course quick proven um uh you got campbell who's really coming his own in that la organization found his game after he come over from dallas uh and then this cal peterson is just a stud and he played a little bit in the american league last year uh almost a, and then got called up to LA at some point, played well at the NHL level. They got him on a very fair deal. So I'd imagine that at some point,

something has to break and one of those guys will get dealt. Don't know who that's going to be. As far as the Archibald signing, Honey Badger plays way above his size. Great penalty killer. Had a very good second half of the season last year with Arizona. I think he ended up with 10 or 11 goals. But a great addition, and he's going to help out that penalty kill. The Yotes will be buzzing next. Like, the Yotes actually have some expectations now, Bez. Yeah.

It goes into every year where it's just like, oh, what are the Yotes going to do? This year it's like we should make the playoffs. Well, Archibald signed with – Yeah, yeah, I know. Oh, okay, sorry. No, I know, but I'm just like thinking – you said at the end of last year 10 to 11 goals. It got me thinking of the Coyotes. I'm like, that team actually –

Yeah, I mean, I think they have to make playoffs this year. It's bust. There's going to be, yes, definitely some expectations, especially after getting Kessel, especially the way the second half of the season was um the only issue in the last the last two seasons with arizona is they just gotten off to bad starts i know it's just like this year you're finally like keyed into them i'm gonna actually be watching now i'll say this if they're able to stay healthy because last year was a nightmare second uh second most man games

lost all season due to injury last year, and they still ended up getting close to playoffs. If they can remain healthy, I think that they're going to slip in in the West. All right. All right. That's marked down on July 16th, guys, or whatever today is. And it's interesting, too, as we get to the sort of second tier of players, a lot of these restricted free agents, there's a lot more bridge deals out there.

No more guys getting paid for what they might do. Once you get, you know, the skill level comes down a little bit, then the bridge deals seem to go up a bit. Speaking of bridges, you look like you could have used a bridge getting off that mechanical bull up Calgary the other day. What was the story with that, man? We got to get into it. Well, the story behind that, R.A., is we ended up going to Lamley's,

a country clothing store beforehand. And I was the rookie who ended up getting the tight fit jeans, the tight fit cowboy bootcut jeans. So when they asked me to get on the horse, I couldn't even move my quad, man. It was like I was wearing, I was wearing cement pants. And then I had to use like a little, a little buggy thing to try to get up on it. And everyone's like, Oh, use the stirrup,rup use the stirrup i couldn't get my knee up that high and then uh yeah i just i fumbled it looked horrible and then everybody was chirping me so uh no that wasn't fake you asked me earlier if that was fake and drawn up yeah i thought it looked like you were like you know when you're a boxer takes a dive he just kind of falls that's it looked like you were just taking a dive maybe no i tried to swing my leg up and it just it

wouldn't go i thought i was going to pop my hip flexor out. But I guess I'll start from the beginning. The Calgary Stampede, to me, is probably the best party on the planet. Really? But the people are so friendly. It's 10 days long now. I went for four, and I went full throttle, and that was after a night out in L.A. where I barely got any sleep, so rookie move there.

But the amount of love people were showing to the spit and chiclets podcast it was incredible so i'll start from day one i i took that flight from la to calgary i land and it was wednesday and i'm like you know i'm gonna take it easy today i'm gonna ease into this trip i had a the guy fieri cookout on the thursday by the way awesome guy it's a shame we couldn't get any content with him because he actually has another beer sponsor, and I was there with Budweiser Canada. Not a big deal. Shout out to the sponsor.

So on the Wednesday, I get a text in the afternoon as soon as I land from Ryan Stone. Remember Ryan Stone? Stoner. Will he come on here? Stoner will for sure come on. He said he wants to. We used to play with him in Wilkes-Barre,

for those of you wondering who he is. I think he got a couple games up with the Pittsburgh Penguins. Yeah, absolutely. That was about it. But so I ended up going to Cactus Club. We'd start getting into one. We ended up going to Cowboys, and I was there until 2 a.m. So I wake up, hung over to the Gills.

We go to the Guy Fieri cookout, met some unbelievable people there. The Rubbies and Tuggies was the team I was on, and we had to cook ribs. The craft. This guy ended up bringing an 11-pound piece of Wagyu beef, Canadian Wagyu beef, to try to raise money for charity. He ended up raising $500 for charity, so good on the rubbies and tuggies. We didn't, or actually, I can't say anything about how the cookout turned out

because we have content coming out, but got to meet Guy Fieri. Everybody was going nuts for this guy. I think he's my wife's hall pass. Get the fuck out of here. No, I'm fucking around. I mean, maybe that'd be a nightmare, but dude, no joke.

She watched. I'm Guy Fieri I mean, maybe that'd be a nightmare, but dude, no joke. She watched I'm Guy Fieri and this is whatever his show is. I can't remember. Diners. Drivers, diners and dive in or something, but he's a monster, that guy. I mean, he's big time. Take a roll in the flavor town. I don't know. I looked up his network

though. I said on the plane, she's like, it's like it says nine million. Like, I don't know if that's accurate online, but I thought it would be like 50. Oh, I bet you he's making 10 million a year. Every time you turn on the Food Network, he's on there. So that was a great experience. Of course, I ended up going out that night. And then that led into Friday where we did a bunch of stuff.

We had a meet and greet with fans. We did that at Nashville North. Shout out to that tent. We did a bunch of stuff. We had a meet and greet with fans. We did that at Nashville North. Shout out to that tent. But basically every night I ended up at that Cowboys tent, and we ended up going up to the Skyboxes. I got to say some thank yous here. Of course, Budweiser Canada, they were there to introduce their new copper lager with Jim Beam.

They did a little collab. Kelsey Millsap was the one who took us around from Budweiser Canada. They rolled out the red carpet for us. I met another guy who was higher up with Budweiser as well. Labatt's, I should say. Todd Allen. So he was a treat. All in all, boys, the women are fucking gorgeous. The party is is incredible they have acts going on every night um also thank you to the guy who owns the cowboys tent and the whole all the bars and stuff paul vickers who ends up throwing the the whole thing on you guys have to promise me this we have to go there to do either a live show or just even do some some type of content with budweiser canada

or whoever else wants to bring us there because it is a blast. If you're an American and you're listening to this, this would be the perfect place for you guys to go on a bachelor party for three or four days. I recommend three because I did four, and I can't even turn my brain on today, and it's been two days since I've been back. Second day is always the toughest, though, Biz. What do you mean? You're ripping it up on a Saturday night.

You actually usually feel worse Monday. Yeah, but it's Tuesday. Oh, shit. You're on your third. Okay. Well, all right. So if you're saying bachelor parties, because I've never been, is it at noon like bars are going?

Oh, buddy, it starts at like 10 o'clock. People are lined up every day in the morning. It's already like it's relentless. And there's I think there's like 50 or 60clock. People are lined up every day in the morning. It's already like, it's relentless. And there's, I think there's like 50 or 60,000 people that show up to either the grounds or the like, and then of course the Cowboys tent gets residual off of that, but they show up to the football festival in general.

So there's, it's, it's a party every goddamn day. It does not stop for 10 days. People who live there, I think Commodore ended up going out all 10 or 11 days that it was because there's always like a kickoff day that before the stampede starts and he gets invited to all these oil and gas parties oh by the way i ran into commodore he was fucking

shit we were both shit faced on the saturday the last saturday um yeah um what else did i have to say um oh i got to go to the rodeo there for the first time i watched a little bit of bull riding a little bit of chuck wagon races i got to meet a guy named chance uh uh ben's miller he was involved in the chuck wagon races i don't know how he ended up finishing off because the finals was on the sunday and i met him on the friday but we got also got a little bit of content with him so all in in all, it was just an incredible experience. I got to go on, uh, you know, the Clydesdales, the big ass horse ride the, the, in front of the Budweiser wagon.

I got to go on that and, and wave to the crowd and stuff like that. It was, it was pretty cool, man. The energy was really high. So, um, so like I said, man, thank you to Budweiser Canada, Check out their new Budweiser copper lager. And I pray that you guys bring us back again for a live show and so these guys can experience it. R.A., I know you would have a blast. Yeah. Hopefully you'd leave the weed gummies at home

because I don't think you need them there. Moderation. It's more of a technology kind of place. So that's all in all I got, boys, and thank you for listening to my rambling here. Is that all in all or how many were put on the workbench? Oh, I'm

seeing the X again. I can't answer that. His face right now, he's like, oh, my God. Enough. Okay, we can move on. Is it time for Burke? Yeah, I think we should send it over to Sean Burke right about now. But wait, before we go, thank you to all the people who came up and showed us love. You guys are incredible. And our Western Canada presence is unbelievable as far as

chicklets listeners. And I just want to show you guys love back. Good stuff. Now it's time for Berkey. This interview is brought to you by Can I Brands, your trusted source for quality cannabis and CBD products that support a healthier, more active lifestyle. Can I Brands, your trusted source for quality cannabis and CBD products that support a healthier, more active lifestyle. Can I Brands has a selection of all natural products to help you feel amazing all day and all night long. One of the best ways to feel healthier, happier, and increased performance is to optimize your downtime. But so many of us have trouble unwinding and an even harder time getting a really good night's sleep. Well, it no longer has to be this way. You can re-energize with the kind of true

relaxation and quality sleep that unlocks your potential every day. Can I sleep? One of Can I brand's most popular CBD products, it's a calming, highly effective, all-natural sleep aid that works to release the day's built-up anxiety and restore your natural sleep cycle. With two different formulations in a sublingual oil and a delicious oral spray, there's a Can I Sleep formulation that can help you relax before sleep, fall asleep, and stay asleep so you'll wake up refreshed and feeling amazing. sleep and stay asleep so you'll wake up refreshed and feeling amazing. To find out which Can I Sleep formulation is perfect for you and explore the whole range of Can I Brands active lifestyle products, visit us at canibrands.com. That's C-A-N-I-B-R-A-N-D-S.com. And of course, use your Biz20 promo code for 20% off. This man was born on January 29th, 1967 in the beautiful city of Windsor, Ontario. And at the tender age of eight years old, the crazy switch got turned on inside the

man's head and he decided he wanted to be a hockey goalie. Coming up through the ranks, he found himself playing for the Ontario Hockey League's Toronto Marlboros for two seasons. In the midst of his stint with the Toronto Marlboros, he was drafted in the 1985 NHL Entry Draft in the second round, 24th overall by the New Jersey Devils. After his junior career, he then went on to spend time with the Canadian national team before eventually starting his NHL career with the New Jersey Devils. Other than some contract holdouts and some more time with the Canadian national team, this guy went on to play 18 NHL seasons for nine different teams, accumulating 820 NHL games. He finished with 324 wins wins i'm not going to mention the losses a career 2.96 goals

against average and a 902 save percentage a very fine career and let's welcome sean burke to the spit and chiclets podcast that was impressive a little a couple stumbles not bad not bad and 24th overall that's a first rounder nowadays. It was a second rounder back then. That shows your age a little bit, is the fact that that was, what, mid-second round then? Oh, yeah. No, it was third pick in the second round.

I know. That's a late first rounder now. I love it. Okay, so you grew up in Windsor. I actually didn't. I grew up in Toronto. Oh, fuck. Stay hot, Biz. Yeah.. Oh, my, um, stay hot does.

Yeah. My interesting story though, actually, my dad at the time, uh, was working at the Windsor, Windsor raceway. Uh,

he was a big horse guy in, and for most of my life, uh, pretty well. My whole childhood, my dad, he didn't go to a nine to five job. He was a,

he was a handicapper he went to the racetrack seven days a week and made a living betting the horses give me a break that was his job and what type of money we talking here would there be some bad years though would you're not able to upgrade the pads there was never new pads i can tell you that well you know not not to throw out the sob story early into this interview, but my parents were divorced when I was young. And my dad, to his credit, he raised four kids on a gambling salary. So ultimately, at the end of the day, I know it sounds crazy,

but, you know, he would have bad days, and we could always tell when he had a bad day. You know, he'd come home, and he was a little grouchy. He didn't do a very good job picking the ponies that day, but we never went without anything. I was able to play hockey, and my siblings were all able to do some things themselves too, but it was stressful around our house at times.

Oh, I bet. some things themselves too but it was it was stressful around our house at times oh i bet and growing up did you ever develop a little bit of not a gambling issue but did you gamble the opposite my dad never showed me how to read a racing form and when we were younger and we'd go to the racetrack with him we'd run around pick up old tickets you know that was a fun thing to do and right through till till now i have no idea how to read a racing form. I've never developed a interest in the horses. I did own a couple with him when I got older and I had some money to buy a couple cheap horses. A little humble brag there.

Yeah, yeah. Well, hey, trust me, these weren't Kentucky Derby horses. Oh, okay. But, you know, it was a way for me to get a little bit closer to him later on in life when that was his passion. And I recognized it, obviously. So we owned a couple of horses together, but I never did develop a real interest in horse racing. So how was your relationship with your mother? It got really good later on.

She would come down here. She just passed away a couple of years ago. And in the last 10 years she would come and visit every year spend time in arizona her health was never great my mother and father were from that generation where they thought a healthy meal was was pasta and bread and they both had diabetes at some at some point in their life developed it and never could really change their lifestyle so they never ate really that well and looking, uh, looking back, it's, you know, it's, it's a lesson. Uh, we're much more aware, our generation.

Yeah. Everyone nowadays. Yeah. And our kids are, you know, I, I make sure our kids, uh, eat healthy, learned early on in life. Um. Also a lot more information at our fingertips. Information.

Yeah. And, you know, just again, it, again it was it was that generation that just a home-cooked meal was naturally assumed to be healthy yeah even if it was a big bowl of pasta yeah of course and uh and but it affected them you know as they got older um it's one thing that i'm really big on in our family is taking good care of yourself because i saw the limitations for my parents' travel. They couldn't do a lot of things as they got a little bit older that you should be able to do in your 60s and 70s.

Of course. And so it was a lesson for sure. Wow. How did you want to become a goalie? Like you just maybe watching television or just they needed a goaltender one time and you liked it? You know, really, it was, again, it was my dad. He, he took, he used to take me to the schoolyard and shoot pucks at me.

That was probably to let out the anger from the gambling losses. Yeah. And now he comes to say it, it wasn't on days when he was winning it, we did that. So I actually got a lot of shots thrown at me here in the schoolyard, but no, he would, he would take me across the street. Um, you know, Toronto I grew up in Toronto I didn't grow up in Windsor I grew up in Toronto in a busy part of the city and uh there was a school yard across the street and at a young age my dad would take me across I'd have just gloves on and a stick no mask no equipment and he'd shoot pucks at me and quite honestly he could shoot because he grew up in Canada he played a little hockey and I learned quickly how to catch pucks you know there was no blocking in those days

there was no getting your body behind it you caught everything and from a young age um that was really how I started to play goal geez and then and then you eventually did you get drafted to the OHL or because I know you went and played for the St. Mike's buzzers and like the, the MJBHL. Well, I played high school. I went to St. Mike's high school. Okay. Um, so, you know, obviously that was a private school and you know, we weren't the kind of family that was sending kids to private schools, but I did have, uh, the ability because I

was a decent hockey player to get a scholarship to go to St. Mike's. And so I went to St. Mike's for four years of my high school, played the minor midget year, and then I played junior B. So I went from junior B to junior A, drafted by the Marlies, as you said in your terrific intro. Thank you. And then from there, obviously, went on to the national team. But most of my hockey and all my formative years was in Toronto.

You were drafted after your first year in the OHL. A lot of people assume because you were drafted by New Jersey, it was by Lou Lamarillo, but he wasn't around yet when you were drafted. No, Max McNabb was the general manager at the time. And, you know, looking back, it was such a great experience for me. I was actually rated a lot higher than I was drafted. I was, you know, talked about a guy that might go top 10 picks. The Rangers had interviewed me. I thought that there was a good chance.

And so, you know, I sort of slid back in the draft a little bit. And New Jersey had a lot of goalies at the time. So I didn't really think that that was a team that was going to draft me they had Billington Kirk McLean they had they had a lot of they had already drafted a lot of young well that was one of my questions I'd written down or written down I don't know either one works um your initial reaction to when you got drafted there was it one where you automatically were like, well, they already got enough goalies, so I'm a little upset? Or were you a little excited about it? I was excited.

I didn't have that information really at my fingertips. I wasn't really looking at the teams and saying, hey, this would be a better fit for me. I just was glad to get drafted. Sure. And with Max McNabb, he had some pressure because the team had never made the playoffs. I was a second-round pick, and he could have easily wanted to try and rush a guy in. Their goaltending hadn't been the strength of their team.

But he was really wise to say, hey, listen, I want you to go back to junior, and then I want you to go to the national team. So I had never heard of or had ever thought of playing in the Olympics. It wasn't something that I was really looking down the road at. But he said, hey, listen, you know, if you're going to be a good NHL player, we believe you need to develop a couple more years. And junior's just not going to be the best place for you. So he sent me to the national team.

And off I went to Calgary to play for Dave King and never really until years later realized what an astute move that was on his part because when I came into the NHL, I was ready to play. Absolutely. I was ready like day one. So was there an AHL back then? But you were too young to go there?

Yeah, I was too young to go to the AHL, and I had already played two years a junior. Well, after my second year a junior, I wasn't ready to go to the NHL, so I would have had to go back to junior again. Sure. And Max, to his credit, and for a lot of people, the reason it was so good was,

obviously, you go to the national team, you get a chance to play in the Olympics, but the schedule was incredible. You played in Europe a lot of games, and we were playing against the Russian national team. So at 18, 19 years of age, I was playing against Fedosov and Larionov and all those guys. Were you the youngest guy on the team?

No, I wasn't the youngest, but there was a number of guys that were in my situation, Cliff Ronning and people like this that all went on to have decent NHL careers. So that was a common thing for guys who were too good for junior and they would just they want to develop a little faster nowadays i mean like you look at austin matthews he went over to europe to play for a team there and he got to make some money back then i would imagine you were getting paid a little bit but not too much yeah it you know it was it was a little different too because your contract once you signed your contract actually ran. Oh, not like now. So, so those years ran off my deal. So you got your signing bonus. You got a little bit of money on the side. You weren't going to get rich for sure. Um, but when you're 19, 20 years old and you're traveling around the world and it's all paid for and you're playing hockey, um, you know, there's not too many better ways you think you can spend your development years absolutely and then so after your second full season with the national team you actually ended up going to new jersey at the end of the

year you played 13 regular season games and then you ended up being the starter in playoffs yeah we went right through to uh game six uh we, you know, we were one game, or actually game seven, we were one game from going to the Stanley Cup in my first year. And it was really a blessing and a curse all at once because I came out of the national program right into the kind of the fire

and we had success right off the bat. And I almost thought, boy, this is great. This is going to be like this every year. And boy, did it come crashing down after that for a couple of years. Kind of like after my great intro and I'm like, oh yeah, so you grew up in Windsor and you're like, no, I actually was raised in Toronto. You thought, go on. I like to think my 13 games of playoff run was a little better than your intro, but not

much. Okay, so what was the reason why you all of a sudden just stepped in with a starter were they having issues in net were there injuries yeah there was a combination that the team had never made the playoffs that we had a young team we had uh you know john mclean and kirk muller and brendan shanahan and we had this team that was poised to start to take the next step but they didn't have that goaltender and so the team was almost waiting for me to come in. You know, we had all been about the same age. We were all sort of on the cusp of being decent NHL players.

And yet I was the one guy that was still kind of sitting back, developing with the national team. And, of course, guys knew, hey, this is our second-round pick. He's a good goalie. You know, when he gets here, maybe that's another boost that we're going to get. And it sort of all went, it went together. I mean, it came together at the right time. Well, I think you were 10 and two and maybe 10, two and one in your 13 games at the end of the season. Were you guys in a playoff position that year before you got there? Or did just squeak in we squeaked in on the last day in overtime johnny mclean scored in overtime in the in chicago stadium

to to get us in the playoffs on the last day of the season and then we won two rounds and lost in game seven to go to the stanley cup how nice was his hair back then did he have oh boy he had good hair johnny what happened stress yeah johnny had great hair he uh and it flowed i mean he was never the fastest skater so it wasn't like it was kind of blown out of his helmet going down the ice but he did have a good good coiffure hair at those at that time so then you ended up spending another three full seasons in new jersey i was there three more years and uh you know as i said it was it was a struggle it was a real struggle i i was you know i was i was cocky i thought it was going to be easy um looking back i didn't i didn't put

the work in the next couple summers that i needed to and it it bit me and i really think that that was probably the low point in a sense that I really needed an attitude adjustment. And I never thought of myself that way. I was never really a cocky guy or a guy that took things for granted. But because it went so well my first year, I didn't appreciate how good the league was.

I didn't respect it enough. And as you know, the minute you give a little bit back in this game, it comes back to bite you. And it's hard, yeah, it's hard to catch back up. You get behind the eight ball. At what point during your New Jersey stint did Lou come in? Lou came in the next year. And, you know, part of my struggles was probably that Lou recognized,

here's this young player that's had a lot of success early on, but he's not playing the way he needs to play. And yet I was kind of fighting against that, thinking I had already earned something and I was entitled to something. And as you know, Lou has never been any different to his credit. He's been consistently the same way as a general manager. He's adjusted and he's adapted a little bit in this day and age. But I tell you, he was good.

And looking back, I learned a lot more playing for him than I recognized at the time. So I asked a bunch of people on Twitter, I said, do you have any questions? And one of the questions I got in was, do you regret sitting out the 91-92 season? Now, I would assume that that was probably because of a contract negotiation. Funny, it really wasn't. The one thing about Lou was that he paid his players very well.

So when I became a restricted free agent just before that summer, it really wasn't anything to do with my contract. Lou offered me a very good deal, a very fair deal. I just didn't feel I was having fun. I wasn't enjoying the game. And I had the one option to go back and play in the Olympics again. So just because of the timing of things and the fact that I had played in the Olympics in 88

and we didn't win a medal we were close I I looked at 92 as a chance to have one more opportunity to play in the Olympics and till this day people would assume there was a contract of course there there wasn't it Lou was very fair he offered me a very good deal um I just I just needed to get back to enjoying the game and it wasn't going to happen in New Jersey i needed to kind of step away from a little bit um did that create a rift between you and him or was he accepting of your decision and it was a kind of a you know you guys kind of peacefully went your own way no no you there's never any um when you sit out and and you know i think that this is probably true for any guy that ever sat out when Lou was the general manager.

You're probably on your way out after that. It doesn't usually work out that well. Yeah. And, you know, again, looking back, I was stubborn. I was not mature enough to realize it's a business. I felt I was owed something. But it did work out well for me as well because I did get to play in the Olympics. And if I hadn't had that option, I probably would have sat for another

year. Lou was not going to just move me because I was asking to be traded. Right. Where does San Diego that year play in the mix? Was that the start of the year or at the end of the year? That was at the end of the year. So what happened was when the Olympics were over, Lou still didn't trade me. I thought, well, see'll see i'll show him i'll go back and play for the olympic team and i'll put him in a tough spot but then when the olympics end it's only february so now you're still owned by like shit i haven't looked this far ahead yeah i didn't really plan this out that well so now i've got march and april and i'm like, he hasn't traded me. So now I can go back with my tail between my legs. But it really wasn't an option anymore.

I had kind of made my bed. So Eric Lindros was on the 92 team. And the San Diego Gulls wanted him to come and play after the Olympics. But he wouldn't do it for an insurance reason. So they offered me the deal. And I said, well, I'll go to San Diego and play for a month and a half. And I lived on the beach. And, you know, the know the owner there comry was really treated the team well and i rewarded him by going out four straight in the first round of the playoffs were you having a

good time off the ice though you know what i i did enjoy that group of guys because we had you know ron dugey was there and we had keith gretzky oh he's a handsome fella isn't he ron duge he's still fucking giving he was really really handsome like he i follow him on instagram i'm like this guy must i'm is he married i think he's recently divorced to be honest um geez hide your wives hide your hide your daughters eh yeah ron ron duge was and i i remember this distinctly walking into a bar with him and going and sitting in the corner at a little table with a bunch of guys. And within 10 minutes, I think every woman in that bar found a way to come up and say hi to him. So he was Taylor Pyatt of the San Diego Diggs.

I'd never seen anything like it before. Yeah, same thing with Taylor Pyatt. I went to Blue Martini one night, and some beautiful woman came walking up, and she must have had a new tongue on. And she's like, I just want to say that you're one of the most beautiful men I've ever seen. And I walked away, and I looked at him. I'm like, are you fucking kidding me? Does that always happen?

You know, Pye's so modest. He's like, eh. Yeah, I wouldn't know anything about that. I have no idea what that feels like. Right, but it was nice hanging out with Pye Z, because I would always get the residual kills, and that's why I cleaned up my first year in Scottsdale. I had 50 that year.

That was a good year for Biz. So then you ended up getting traded to Hartford? Yeah, then Lou, he didn't even wait. He didn't do it right away again. He waited until the whole summer went by until the last week before training camp, finally moving me to Hartford. So I really sweated it out a whole other summer again.

And then Brian Burke and Lou had had a relationship. They knew each other, and Burke, he made a deal for me to bring me to Hartford. So you 100% think that was another mind game by Lou Lamorello? Because I feel like he's very spiteful in a sense where if you don't follow his order, and this isn't an insult to Lou because ultimately, hey, if you're in control, you're in control. But he's a spiteful guy. Yeah, I think there was some of that.

And, you know, I'm sure to this day, if Lou cared to talk about it, he'd probably have to agree that, you know, he wasn't going to let me dictate the terms. But they also had a guy named Marty Berder that was coming right in, and I don't think they really missed me after that. I thought they were going to miss me, and I thought I was going to really show them, but when Marty Berder came in

and they realized that they had the next 20 years taken care of, I don't think I was the top of the list. Sean Burr, who the fuck is Sean Burr? Oh, he played here? You ended up playing a decent amount in Hartford. That was one of your longest stands there in Phoenix. Were we there five years? Five years, yeah.

It was a good five years in a sense that I developed as a player. I went back to understanding that the game was really simple if you put the effort in. And, you know, as I told you about my upbringing, I was never a person who took anything for granted. I felt you had to earn everything you got. But as a young player, you can sometimes lose your way a little bit. And when I got to Hartford, I matured.

And I just started to understand that, hey, this is the toughest league in the world for a reason. And if you're going to be a good player and you have some ability, you can be a really good player if you outwork people. And I started to do that. I started to find that, you know, one of the strengths I had as an athlete was I had the discipline to show up every day to work. And you're not always going to play well,

but if you have that sort of a mindset and a professional attitude about the way you approach the game, it, it, it can take you a long way. And if, yeah, it finds a way to reward you. It finds a way to reward you. And even though we play in the greatest or played, I played in it, you played in the greatest league in the world. You can't outwork people. There, there is, there is a way to survive as an NHL player by not being the most talented guy. Um, if you show up to work every day and even the top players,

they're the ones that work the hardest too. So that, that I learned that in a hurry. Uh, once I got to Hartford and I was able to continue to do that for a long time. I'm curious to know what it was like playing for, uh, Pierre Maguire.

Well, it was, wasn't very long. I only played for Pierre for a short amount of time. It was, it was different playing for Pierre Maguire. Well, it wasn't very long. I only played for Pierre for a short amount of time. It was different. Pierre was, he was, people may say it was an outside-the-box thinker. He had some crazy ideas. Give me an example.

Well, I mean, the one example I remember is we were playing Pittsburgh, and, you know, Pierre had coached with Scotty Bowman, and Scotty Bowman was his idol. So he looked at this game as a one-on-one, mono-a-mono against Scotty Bowman. He was going to out-coach him. And so we came up with, not we, he came up with a plan to kill penalties against the Pittsburgh Penguins, where all Pat Verbeek would do is go stand right beside Mario Lemieux wherever he went on the penalty kill.

Well, Mario figured out in about 10 seconds what was going on. He went and stood out in center ice. And Pat Verbeek followed him out to center ice, and the puck went from Francis to Coffey to Stevens, and it was in the net, and Mario had his stick down already waiting for the faceoff at center ice. He was already lined up for the draw. He was already lined up for the draw.

And we, you know, as a team, you know how it is. We were embarrassed. Oh man, that is too good. And, you know, thinking back, I can understand that, you know, obviously there was no way to effectively kill penalties against the Pittsburgh Penguins. So you had to think a little bit outside the box, but it wasn't like that four-on-three against us

was going to be any less effective with Muriel standing out. Yeah, usually the reason they got a good PP is they got a lot of weapons, not just one guy, but that's an unbelievable story. You got any other quick ones from Pierre? Well, I remember, too, the next time we played Pittsburgh, he knew that Jaromir Jagr had an illegal stick, which a lot of guys played with an illegal stick. Why they had that rule at one time didn't really make a lot of sense anyway.

So he waited. He had that trick in his bag until the end of the game. And with about a minute to go in the game, he called Jaromir Jagr in a tie game on a legal stick and he went to the box for two minutes well we didn't score and the game went into overtime and we didn't score in overtime but as Jagr came out of the box he got the he got the puck and went in on scored on a breakaway and then came right by the bench took off his glove and saluted Pierre Maguire with the middle finger.

So maybe there's a few reasons why he's not well-liked in the hockey community, but I think he's hilarious. He tells a lot of good stories. Anyone's going to get hate when they're vocal like Pierre. He works, you know, again. I mean, I played a short amount of time for Pierre. He's not a guy that anybody's going to miss in the coaching world, I'm sure. But give him credit. He's been in this business a long time.

He works extremely hard. And I never turn off the TV when Pierre Maguire comes on. No, I love it. He's quirky, and he's just another personality in the hockey world. I think people need to lay off him and kind of embrace him for his quirkiness. I mean, similar to Don Cherry. He's getting a little bit senile, but it's almost like just take it for what it is, laugh a little bit.

I got to work with Don Cherry my first year retiring. I did Hockey Night Canada. No way. I did Hockey Night Canada for a little while with Ron McLean and Don Cherry. Oh, Ron's awesome. And the funniest thing that I found with Don Cherry was that he actually would write down the names wrong. So that when he said them, he pronounced them wrong.

I stole that sheet one day and put it in my pocket of some of the names that he had written down purposely with the wrong pronunciation. Just to stir the pot. Just to stir the pot. And what a genius, really, when you think about it, that he's got all those little things he does that have become his trademark. But they're not, he is a very sharp little things he does that have become his trademark, but they're not, he is a very sharp guy and he works extremely hard at his job. Okay, first of all, that's hilarious. On our podcast, me, Witt, and even sometimes R.A., we mispronounce the names, but it's just because we actually don't know them.

So maybe we should actually prepare. He does the homework. He just does enough homework that he can actually pronounce them wrong. You're just pronouncing them wrong. Yeah, okay you were you were raised in windsor ontario um i'm going to keep going back to that by the way uh another uh fan question we had was what was the deal with those brian pads that you had the crazy pillow pads in uh in hartford that was that was the company they they just came up with the design. I was never an equipment nerd or a junkie. I just went, you know, as long as it came in the right size and there wasn't anything too drastic, different about my equipment.

I never really got too into my equipment. But I found it really cool that that one design with the whale tail, it became sort of a real, you know, it was a trademark of me in those years. That pad was sort of something that was identified with me and the Hartford Whalers. And even this year when they were going to play one of the games, Carolina was going to wear the uniform, they brought back that pad. Okay, so that was another question I was going to ask you. Some people online get a little bit weird about the fact that the Carolina

Hurricanes organization wore the Hartford Whalers jerseys. Do you care? No. I think that any time you can honor a tradition or honor your organization, the Carolina franchise had a lot of years in Hartford, and they had a very loyal fan base. People don't realize that the biggest reason they couldn't make it in Hartford was the game changed.

The money, the corporations, the amount of skyboxes you need to sell to be successful, it wasn't fans. They had a great following. They had very loyal fans. So I think that, you know, it is a big part of the Carolina franchise. Well, that's good to know. Another coach I want to ask you about there that you had, and it was kind of the start of his career, was Paul Maurice.

Yeah. Paul was younger than me. One day, I'll never forget that. He's one day younger than I am. So I was playing for a coach that was a day younger, and he was only 29, I think, when he came in as a head coach. Was he ready? Or did he get the job maybe a little

too soon? How did you feel he did? I thought he did well. I mean Paul was a great guy. You know his career ended short as a player. He had an eye injury and went into coaching very young and you know he's a sharp hockey guy. He doesn't come across lacking any confidence. And I think that as the years have gone by, sometimes that may have come back to bite him a little bit because you know how players are. At some point, the guys want to play for their coach. They want to go out and go to the wall for their coach.

And Paul maybe sometimes has come across as being a little bit too confident. But is it just the hockey? Almost like he's the show as opposed to his players. And that's not uncommon. There's a lot of coaches that... Oh, I mean, we're going to get to him later. But torts, another example. Let's save that talk for later.

But I get what you're saying. He plays around with the media a little bit he makes it and and I'm sure it gets maybe sometimes a little bit boring as a head coach because you kind of want to be in that mix especially as an old player yeah and it's not rocket science you know like it's the players at the end of the day the game comes down to the players there is a lot of good coaches out there there's a lot of great, hardworking coaching staffs. I've always been impressed with the amount of work and effort these coaches put into the game.

But let's be honest. At the end of the day, it comes down to the players on the ice and what they do and the plays they make at the right time. And I just think it's got to the point a little bit where, you know, do you need to pay a coach $7 million to coach an NCAA team? Oh, we can get into him later as well. Yeah, and that's not to get into anybody specifically. Right.

But it's just to me, you know, I don't know when I think back as a player what the most important thing to me always for a coach was knowing we were prepared as a team and that I wanted to play for the guy. I just felt that when we stepped on the ice, that coach had the best interest of his players in mind and we were all in it for the same reasons. And to me, that's what you're seeing in the playoffs right now. You're seeing those kind of coaches, the Cassidys, the Gallants, you know, and these are all guys that I've known or played with. Rod Brindamore, how could you not want to play for these kind of guys? So that is where I think the game has come to.

You could beat guys down a lot more in the earlier, you know, years ago. Players don't want to put up with that anymore. I agree. Yeah, player coaches is the way to go. And, I mean, as you mentioned, I mean, Gallant had an early exit, but he's known as a player's coach and never really makes it about himself. He just kind of answers the questions. And it's always the guys who got the job done,

and maybe he needed to make adjustments if the team lost and kind of takes the heat a little bit. And, you know, again, obviously we know what happened in this playoffs they could easily won oh i thought they were i mean if they would have won that series i think they probably i mean they'd be playing in st louis right now that's my thinking and and of course uh that would have been an awesome series to watch um what was it like moving from from hartford to carolina and all of a sudden you're with the same team essentially but just in a different city?

It was really strange because the team was talked about moving to Columbus. We were told it was moving to Columbus. So at the end of that year in Hartford, we knew the team was moving. We had a meeting. The owner came in and said, guys, we're going to move, and 99% were moving to Columbus. So everybody scrambled home to find their dictionary or their encyclopedia or whatever because nobody,

we didn't have the kind of access to the internet. Sure. You're still spanking off to Fox magazines. Mad magazine. Yeah, yeah. It's a mad magazine, you sick puppy. That redheaded guy on the cover where you had to fold the thing up and it would make a different image.

Playboy was actually nude in those days. Oh, yeah? They don't have that anymore, Biss. You probably don't even know that. No, we just go right to the youjizz.com, and it's got anything you want. You can just find it. It's crazy.

You could have girls pooping in cups and stuff. I'm so far behind. You've never seen the two girls, one cup? I've never. I'll show, one cup? I've never. I'll show you on my computer laptop after this. All right. My Macintosh humble brag there. Where were we, Carolina?

Yeah, we're back to, well, Columbus. So we thought the team was moving to Columbus, and then it just sort of changed, and all of a sudden we were moving to Carolina. So that summer, everybody had to scramble to figure out, A, get down to Carolina, look for a house, and, you know, pack up, move, you're done. So it really happened almost in the middle of the night. You were packed up and you were gone, and you were in a strange place that

nobody knew anything about hockey, and it had no hockey history, And you were in the South. It was a real culture shock to go from Hartford, which wasn't maybe the best hockey market, but was pretty darn good, to Carolina. And you weren't there very long. That year was a bit wild for you, especially as a starting goalie. You ended up going from there to Vancouver and then Vancouver to Philly to finish the season. Yeah, I had a tough year.

I had some personal issues that year. I, you know, I didn't have a great, you know, there was some family with my ex-wife and different things that were going on. And, you know, looking back again, it was another stage in your life that was a learning experience to just, you know, there was a lot of stress. You know, the team had moved. I was dealing with some stuff at home. I had two young kids and I didn't handle some things as well as I would have liked to.

And it all kind of came crashing down at the same time. So it was that type of year where I bounced around. I didn't play very well. I got angry at myself. I got angry at myself. I got angry at the game. And quite honestly, I got what I deserved. You know, I ended up almost being out of the game and really needing to take another step back

and realize that, hey, you're doing something that most people would love to do, and you're taking a little bit for granted right now. What was Vancouver like? I mean, do you remember anything about there i remember mike keenan um i wasn't there very long and i remember being extremely excited to get traded there i thought this was the first chance i was going to have to play in a canadian market uh the vancouver canucks had the best team the women are decent too there that yeah there was no issue there um i you know i for the other guys anyway um but i i really remember thinking at the

time that this was going to be the best place i had ever played the team we had messy we had burry we had mcgillney we had this awesome team and I needed a change of scenery and I was getting to a place where I thought okay hockey matters the first time in your career you've had a good career but now you can actually play in a place where everybody's going to care about it and I played like shit I was terrible. I, I, I never got going. I never felt that Keenan and I were on the same page and I didn't last there very long. It was, uh, it was, did you guys have any blowups? Well, there was a blow up every day. I mean, you know, playing for Mike in those days, um, again, I have to take my share of the responsibility. I didn't play well,

but it was hard to play for him. And not just for me, it was a hard, he's a hard guy to play for probably in the best of times. But at that particular period, we didn't have a general manager. They had an acting general manager. Mike Keenan wanted the control to make trades. And so you could imagine the dynamics going on when your coach wants to be the general manager. He wants to move guys out of there and bring his own guys in that he wants. And you have all these guys, players, who are trying to show up and play every day. But there's all this stress going on around your team. Well, yeah.

And if you have a couple bad games and then all of a sudden you're healthy scratch, you're like, fuck, I might be getting dealt. Whereas there's a bit of separation between the GM and coach. I mean, nowadays, you won't see that. Back then, it was a little more common. Yeah, and players back then expected to really get reamed if they didn't play well. That was part of the mentality of a player. I can remember coming into Phoenix after we had lost the game

and Mike asking for seven or eight of us to meet him up in his hotel room five minutes after we dropped our bags off. So I went right to his room, and I didn't have a roommate, so I dropped my bag and went to his room. He already had the chairs sitting in a way that they were all facing the TV and he had his chair with his back to everybody. So when I got there, I sat in the chair and it must have felt to me like 10 minutes before the next guy showed up.

And I sat and stared at his back for 10 minutes while he watched TV. And then everybody came in and- No hello, no. No hello, no hey, take a seat, you know. It was just sit down and just wait. And when the other eight, and I'm talking, it was Messier and Bure and McGilney and Linden and Babbage, and when everybody came in and sat down,

we sat there for another 10 minutes. And I'll never forget because the Chicago Bulls were playing, and he was watching the Chicago Bulls game on on tv he's watching jordan michael and then he started talking but he was looking at the tv while he was talking and we were just all sitting behind waiting for it and sure enough it came he turned around and started one by one just going down the line and telling you what a piece of crap you were and how bad you were and the fact that he didn't want you, but he couldn't do anything because he couldn't trade you anyway, and nobody wanted you if he did want to trade you.

And this was just the way you got talked to sometimes. And when it was all over, you got up and you went for dinner as a team, and you never talked about it again. You never even thought about it. So he would lay into mess just like he would lay into you? Mess was the one guy he didn't lay into. And that's what I've heard. I heard mess kind of ran his show a little bit.

Yeah, and to mess's credit, he had won Stanley Cups. He was the captain. He had won a cup with Mike Keenan in New York and had really made... So he was kind of forever indebted to him because he called his shot. He said, we're going to bring this to seven and we're going to... Yeah, and it's Mark Messi. What are you going to say to Mark Messi? He's Mark Messi. He's like, no, I'm going to bring this to seven and we're going to. Yeah, and it's Mark Messi. What are you going to say to Mark Messi?

He's Mark Messi. He's like, no, I'm going to have you fucking traded. But, you know, he didn't hesitate to tell Pavel Bury that he was no good or that McGilney was no good or that I was no good. So was Bury one of those Russians when the coach talked and he was being positive and congratulating him, he all of a sudden knew English, and then when he was getting yelled at, he couldn't speak a lick? Well, he knew the F-bomb.

He knew how to say that word. Because I think every one of us told Mike Keenan where to go before that meeting was over. Which, if you really think about it, was not the way any of us ever grew up. It was really tough to play for a coach like that. Because Mike, in those days, wanted to get a rise out of you. And we all grew up respecting our coaches. You know, what he said, you listened, and you went out and you worked hard,

but you never wanted to tell the coach what you really felt sometimes. You didn't feel that was your place. He wanted that. He wanted you to stand up and give it right back to him. Yeah, we've talked about it before on the podcast. Rumor has it that, yeah, the more you would bark back at him he's like fucking right this guy wants it which hey if you're gonna have that type of mentality and talk to your players like that you want the ones who aren't mental midgets who

can hey listen accountability is one thing i think he probably brought it over the line but hey definitely a different way to approach it and apparently mess was one of those guys who who barked back at him at a young age whereas all of a sudden he had that mutual respect for him and along with all the other achievements he had yeah and of course a lot of it always depends on how you're playing let's be honest if you're playing really well you you know that the coach can be mad at you but it doesn't really make the same differences if you're not playing well. And I just wasn't playing well at that time,

so everything affected me because I didn't want to tell the coach where to go because I didn't feel it was my right. But I wasn't playing well enough either to feel like I could disagree with him. He was right at the time. I just didn't like the way he did it, but I couldn't disagree with what he was saying.

Yeah, maybe ease off the gas a little bit and let me find my game coach uh then you end up getting shipped off to philly towards the end of that season um what was that small stint there like well it was again it was it was probably just an extension of the way the whole year went i um i went into philly and we got knocked out in the first round. We played Buffalo and Hasek was so good in those days that we were sort of mentally defeated before that series began. But Philly, again, a great, great hockey market. I mean, if there is a place that has a sort of tradition and also just a culture that you feel the minute you walk in the dressing room it's philadelphia you could you could physically feel it the minute you walk in

that dressing room that this is an organization that has high expectations they've had success i'll be many many years now uh since they've won a stanley cup but but philly is is pretty well going to be the same no matter what year you walk in there, no matter what team they have, there's a certain feeling that you have in that dressing room. And you guys had the Legion of Doom at that time. Oh, yeah.

Those guys were, I mean, impressive. You know, big, strong, all of them. What was Lindros like? I mean, I'm assuming he's a great guy. I've heard mixed things though. He always a bit of an extrovert or or one of the two yeah we live together twice in our in our we live together on the national team he came and lived with me and then I went and lived with him in Philadelphia and Eric um you know he came from a a very demanding family his mother uh is really a demanding woman and high expectations for him, but also not afraid to stick up for him, not afraid to voice her opinion.

Well, she was the one who essentially orchestrated that trade right when he got drafted. Yeah. And looking back, you know, and as a parent and the way this is such a business, I can't say that I blame her. Now, the way you go about it a lot of times is the difference between being effective and not. But who wouldn't want to look out for their own kid when they're the next superstar? And Eric, but the problem for Eric, I think, was it put extra pressure on him. And he never, as great a player as he was and as much success as he had he probably would have to say too that he underachieved a little bit relative to the skill set he had yeah it's kind of like eli manning holding out with the chargers and then he ended up going on to new york

and winning two super bowls although yeah maybe he hasn't had an unreal career on the on the back side of it but you got two super bowls where if he would have brought philadelphia cup and it would have been a whole different story where he was never really able to get over that i mean he was a superstar but he's he ain't like he ain't one of the the top end guys he ain't an eiserman he ain't a you know a gretzky ain't a messier because i mean when you win you get associated in that that type of group absolutely and and eric i don't know if i ever saw a player that i personally played with that if you just took the hand of god or whoever and said i'm gonna boom create what the perfect athlete is it was him i mean at 18 years of age when he came to national team he was a man he was built like a man he was strong he was mean when

he needed to be he could skate he could shoot he worked hard he was good looking he had everything and yet he had so much pressure i think he put on himself early on that you know again it may be limited a little bit but but there's not too many guys that come along with that package that had everything at his age well he he was kind of like the the guy who had the shoe deal before he even reached the nba sort of thing i mean he as soon as he stepped in he had bauer i believe and then he had those bauer 30 30s i used to use those wooden twigs yeah and he was yeah he was just he was just a specimen and as you said he was he was the creative player. He was.

And to go along with it, he had an edge to him. And when you're that size and you're that strong, I mean, when we used to play some teams over in Europe, teams like France and Germany, and teams that had no idea, didn't know who he was, he would absolutely kill guys on the ice. You would cringe seeing this poor guy and him go for the puck, and the guy had no idea that this 230-pound mean guy was going to knock him out of...

Yeah, because they'd probably see his stats and like, oh, this guy just puts the puck in the back of the net. Yeah, they didn't know. And people found out in a hurry, but it was ugly at times watching some guys come up against that route. He was probably getting five-minute majors for routine hits. Oh, it was awful. I can remember playing Poland and places like that, and some of these poor kids had no idea who he was,

and he would just crush them. He ended up playing in Florida the next two seasons. I mean, Burry was there also. He ended up playing in Florida the next two seasons. I mean, Burry was there also. He ended up coming over. Was he your free agent that summer? I believe he was. You know, that's a good question. I don't know how Pav ended up in Florida.

He must have been a free agent. And he scored every night. I mean, you know, if there was a guy that scored every single game, it was Pav Val Burry. He would get a breakaway every game, and he'd score. And it was just amazing to watch. If he didn't get hurt that year near the end of the season, we would have made the playoffs.

We missed the playoffs because he got injured. But ultimately, that was a player that I don't know if I've ever seen a guy. You know, Eric Lindros had the whole package. Pavel was just so skilled. He just, and he loved to score. And with his speed, you know, if you could imagine that there wasn't the speed in the whole game that there is now,

he had that where nobody else did. And so every night he'd get a breakaway or two and he'd score a goal. Did you find your game back then? I know you said the season beforehand you were moving around. It wasn't very fun. Did you get back to where you wanted to be in Florida? No, I got worse actually.

That was the point in my career where I thought I was done. I really thought that because I somehow was able to win hockey games. But when I would drive home after games some nights, I would consciously say to myself, what were you doing out there? How did you, I had no idea what I was doing. I had lost sort of the understanding of what I wanted to do on the ice,

how I wanted to play certain situations. I'd play it one way one time, try it another way the next time. And I just never really understood what I was actually doing out there except just competing. And now you're getting older, and you're trying to play with just this energy and this compete, but you don't have the base, and you're not really thinking the game.

And so I was worried. I thought that at that stage, boy, I'm going to have a tough time hanging on in this league because I'm just, I'm not very effective. Um, but I somehow played well enough to have decent stats, win enough games. And you had a name to you at that point. So teams are like, and remember once again, technology and analytics aren't like they are now.

So if you could hide behind the save percentage and the goals against you'd manage to get yourself another contract how did you end up turning this all back around because you ended up going on to have a really nice stint with the phoenix coyotes well what happened was yeah i i ended up i ended up getting traded um and i you know, I laughed because at the time, you know, I was in Florida and nice lifestyle living in Florida and playing down there, but I wanted out of there. I didn't want, I just, I needed a change. And I, again, it was, it wasn't anything to do with the organization or anybody there. It was just strictly me. I, for some reason, I just wanted to, I knew there was something more that I could play better

and I didn't know where I was going to find it, but I wasn't finding it there. And I remember going into the rink on a day off and Brian Murray was the general manager and he, I was, I was playing ping pong in the dressing room with Pete Worrell, big Pete Worrell. And I would play ping pong all the time. And my, my son, Brendan was little at the time and he was in there. And I got a call that somebody came down from the office and said, son Brendan was little at the time and he was in there and I got a call somebody came down from the office said hey Brian Murray wants to see you so I walked upstairs and into his office he said sit down and he took about two seconds to say I just traded you to Phoenix and he was waiting for me to have a little reaction and I clapped my hand said thanks

and I jumped up and I shook his hand and I walked out. I don't know if anybody's ever been that excited to be traded. I don't know why I was excited, but he was expecting me to be a little bit disappointed. And yet I wasn't, I just knew I needed a change. And I walked downstairs and shook the hands of the guys and said bye and walked out the door and knew I was on to better things. I didn't know why, but I just knew this was going to be the start of something better. And the something better was Benoit Allaire.

It was the minute I got to Arizona, Benoit Allaire, the goalie coach here, took me into his office and said, Hey, I've always wanted to coach you. I know you're better than you're playing. And if we can work on a couple of things, if you're open-minded, I think we can turn your career around. In every organization you played for before that point right there, was there always a goaltending coach? Yeah, there always was a coach, but, but he was a guy like me. It was

either Reggie Lemelin or Billy Smith, a guy that had played but had not really advanced his thinking about the game. And so I was being coached by guys that believed the way I did. You go out and you compete and you work hard and you battle and you fight for your space and all those things. But you weren't sharpening the tool between your ears. And I wasn't playing with my head. I wasn't making the game easier. I was always making the game easier. I was always making it harder.

And I got away with it at times because I was a good athlete. But there's a lot more to playing than being a good athlete. Absolutely. And we'll also get into this later, but this kind of not only changed your career around, but maybe your post-career as well. it was for me you know it i believed i knew when the minute i sat down with ben waller i knew that him and i that i would be successful for him i knew i'd play well for him but i also knew why it was the first time a guy who didn't play the

game ben wa had never played at a high level, but he really studied, watched, learned, knew the game, and could put it into terms that I could actually understand. And probably a factor was he probably had that respect for you because you'd had a decorated career where it wasn't like a guy who played a long time who maybe had a bit of his own ego. He was like, listen, you're my project. You're a guy who I know can get back to that level, and I need to see if what what i've been studying what i've been doing actually works so it was kind of like a you guys helped each other yeah and that's a great point and he may have been bullshitting me he may never have thought that i was the guy yeah when they when

they told him they had just traded for me he might have walked into his office and buried his head in his desk this is actually my new office i destroyed my other one but the one thing ben why he he what i you know what i had mentioned earlier he was a guy that from that day on first of all i i i was open-minded enough to say listen i'm an open book right now benny i've played 10 years in this league and i don't know what I'm doing. So whatever you tell me right now, I'm going to try. And immediately we had results. I played better. I felt better.

I was more confident. And I knew now that what was missing out on my game was a technical side that I had never thought about for a lot of years. But also I wanted to play for Benny. Now I felt like,

hey, this guy who's believed in me, I need now to prove to him that, hey, listen, I owe you now. When I go out there and play, I'm not just playing for me. I'm playing for you as well. And I tell you, as an athlete, to have your family, you play for them, you play for your friends, but you play for your coaches, you play for your teammates. When you realize you're not just playing for yourself, it's a much easier way to play.

Fuck, Berkey. That's pretty deep shit, man. Well. No, it is. And why it is is because I know the situation when I was involved in with Phoenix, with Smitty, and then before him, Brizgalov, and then Dubnyk. Let's finish off your career, and I really want to dive into that stuff. Did the Philly fan story that you told me when you were walking out

happen on your first stint or when you were ending your career at the end? No, that happened on my second stint. And the funny thing about going back to Philly a second time was when I was told that I was traded to Philly, I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe that they actually wanted me again. And Bobby Clark was my idol as a kid. I had Bobby Clark posters on my wall. So when I got traded there the first time, it was such a thrill for me.

And then I ripped my posters down. Obviously, I went and found them, and I had an autograph from Bobby Clark when I was a kid. And then he traded me, and I was mad know so i went from loving them to not liking them but i couldn't believe they traded back for me and uh and so i thought well okay you know it's it's a it's a chance to go back now and redeem myself but it didn't work out that way. And to this day, I will go on the record saying this, there are no more difficult fans than the Philadelphia Flyers. Oh, they're nuts. These people are so loyal to their team.

They love it so much, but they also love to come and be so negative, and it gives them pleasure. I believe it gives them pleasure to actually make athletes miserable and i'll never forget i was you know i was not a guy that ever really got affected by the fans i tried to play hard and respected that hey they pay their money they're entitled to come and do whatever they want but when the game was over i felt like that was not the fans' time anymore. So I would leave the arena probably last most nights and kind of come out to my car and just never worried about anything because, you know, I was late and it was late and the game was over.

But this one night we had just beat Chicago 3-1. And I worked out after the game and was coming out. It was dark, obviously. I was walking to my car. And in Philly, the fans can stand way up above and look down at you when you're going to your car. And I'll never forget this one guy. He somehow decided he wanted to stay around long after the game

just to abuse me. And he started yelling, You suck, Burke. You're the worst goalie we've ever had. And I just buried my head and started walking to my car. But then i couldn't stop myself from turning around so i turned around i yelled up at the guy said what's your problem we just won three to one and he looks down he didn't even bat and he goes yeah but that was a horrible

goal you gave up and i never forget i just i got in my car and i drove away and i thought what is wrong with these people? A 3-1 win and he still wanted to kick the dog. A 3-1 win against the Chicago Blackhawks at home on a Saturday night. And this guy still wants to wait around and beat me as the game's over. I realized at that point there was no winning. Like you just, this is not made for you. Okay, fuck.

That's unreal. So we kind of hopped over the last part of your career that I want to talk about. I was playing in Tampa and one guy we always talk about on the podcast, polarizing figure, is John Tortorello. And I know that you guys didn't really see eye to eye when you were there. Well, again, I look back and I really, I think that anytime you're going through a tough situation, especially in sports, which is, you know, a high pressure, you're paid well, there's expectation. You know, you got to look at the other side of it too. And we all, we always fail to look at what the other person sees, the coach or somebody like that.

But Torts is just a really hard guy on goaltenders. And self-admittedly, he never really understood how to handle goaltenders, you know, how to talk to them, where they fit in in the form of the game plan. To him, it's like, hey, just stop the puck. Shut up. I don't want to hear about it. And if you don't stop it, you know what, I'll get somebody else who will. And I just, at that stage of my career, I was 38 years old. I had played a long time and I felt like I was a child and, you know, he, he just never really warmed up to what I was about and I never could understand how he could coach and think he could be successful that way. So we had some battles and, uh, some funny things too. I mean, you know, I can remember he pulled Johnny Graham that year, 11 times. He wanted

Johnny Graham to be the number one goaltender so bad because Johnny had been the backup when they won the cup and Johnny in his mind had earned the right to be loyal to his guys. I can respect that. And Johnny was, Johnny was a great partner. Um, but Johnny was not the most dedicated guy that you would look at and say, that's a guy that's your number one goalie. He was a talented guy, but he didn't have the mentality to be a consistent number one. So he pulled Johnny Graham 11 times during the course of the year. And so what I finally started to do was I said to Jason Serbis one night, who was our trainer there, who you know, I said,

Serbis, I'm not going to sit on the bench tonight because I'm cramped down in the corner, and 11 times this year I've had to go in, and every time I go in, I feel like I'm an accordion trying to get myself loose to get into the game. So I'm going to stay down the hallway, and I'm going to stretch. And every time that we get scored on, because Johnny's not playing very well, he's going to get scored on, look down and tell me if Tortorella's looking for me.

And so first Montreal, we were playing Montreal home. They score early in the game, and I look, and serves, gives me the wave. No, two, no, three. Well, we had the Blues in 6-1, and Tort's never put me in. So after the game, I go into the dressing room, and I'm getting changed, and I'm thinking he's coming in, and he's going to blast us now. Well, he does. He comes in, and he looks at me me and he goes, get out here. And I get up like a 10 year old and I walk out of the

dressing room into the hallway and towards his, where were you? I was looking for you. And he started just giving it to me. And I looked at him and I said, I was down the damn hallway stretching because you've put me in 11 times cold this year and I wanted to be ready. He goes, oh, that's a good idea. And he walked away. And I couldn't believe it. We just lost 6-1 at home. And I was the one. He's a genius.

And I was the one. Why didn't I think of that? And I was the one getting in shit. It just doesn't, it didn't matter. Yeah, where were your priorities at? I'd be an asshole if we completely hopped over Arizona here, or Phoenix at the time, I should say. Obviously, you got your career back on track,

spent five seasons with the Phoenix Coyotes, played with some pretty iconic guys, Jeremy Roenick, Walt. Give me some funny stories about some of these clowns. And Claude Lemieux as well. You played with him two stints. You played with him new jersey did you not i did i played a quote when when he was young we used to ride to the rink together in new jersey and um yeah there was an interesting group of guys because we had really good teams rick talk it was here when i first got here obviously jr as you mentioned walt we had a really good defense with teponoman and yurke lume

and in those years i still believe that if we hadn't had, if Colorado wasn't as strong as they were, you know, we just, it was so hard to win coming out of our conference. And we always came up against either Colorado. We came up against San Jose in the first round. If you could have got through that first round, we may have gone on to have a chance to win a Stanley Cup because we had the type of teams to do it. But also had you know there was characters on those teams and i

can remember you know one night we were in montreal and we were on a six game losing streak and um bobby francis was coaching and you know we had a 3-1 lead in the third period and we blew it and we blew it quite honestly because we got ahead of ourselves and and and Walt and JR and guys were starting to look for some cookies out there as guys you know will tend to do when you're winning a hockey game and you know you're a scorer and you want to get a you know an extra point or two but it bit us and they came back and beat us and we came in the locker room our team was so mad everybody was so angry that we had just blown a game we should have won and claude lemieux stood up and had won many stanley cups so another

polarizing guy in the locker room very much so maybe not well liked but i mean but the guy got the job done on the ice he did and the one thing about claude that you had to you had to appreciate was he was he was incredibly intense. He was very competitive. As you said, he wasn't everybody's cup of tea, but he had won. And he had seen winning teams. He had been on winning teams. He'd been a consmite trophy winner.

So when he spoke, you knew that it was coming from experience. And he got up and wasn't very kind to JR and to Walt and to the whole team in general. And it became an argument and then a fight and then Coffee Maker got thrown. And the funniest part of the story, though, was that poor Joey Juno, who was one of the quietest guys ever, was sitting in his stall and him and Claude used to ride to the game together. So he didn't say a word and this whole argument was going on. And then Claude looks at Joey Juno game together. So he didn't say a word, and this whole argument was going on. And then Claude looks at Joey Juneau out of nowhere, and he says,

Joey, why don't you tell me what you tell every – tell these guys what you tell me when we're riding in the car together. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. He threw him right under the bus. So poor Joey, who had nothing to do with it. What was it? What did he have to say? He had to pipe up? No, he didn't say a word. Poor Joey buried his head.

And he was such a good guy. I'd play with him on the... Did any of the big boys go up to him after? Go, yeah, what the fuck are you saying in the back? I don't... What are you saying in the car ride, you fucking asshole? I don't know. But you know how those car rides are.

We've all been there. You're riding to the rink with one of your teammates. And you're just shooting shit about guys. And, oh, this guy bothers me because he... Whatever. That's just all part of being on a team of course well like like the uber ride in uh in in ottawa exactly but poor joey who wasn't even in on this thing got thrown right under the bus so this day i never forget the look on his face any other uh jr or uh walt stories you know what i mean i i do have to say those guys were great.

They were great teammates and different. You know, JR, how do you not like JR? I mean, this guy has a heart genuinely bigger than anybody I've ever seen. He will stop and talk, and it's not— No bad days. No bad days, and it's genuine. I mean, he's not doing it when there's a camera. He's doing it, yeah, when there's a camera for sure,

but he's also doing it when there's not. He's just that type of guy. Played a lot of golf with JR over the years. His nickname was Found It because somehow he'd hit the ball so far out into the desert and nobody would be able to see where it was, but all of a sudden you'd hear him, Found It, as the ball came flying out like four fairways over. Nobody ever knew, did he really find his ball?

But JR's nickname was found, but he's a heck of a golfer. He definitely doesn't need to cheat on the golf course to beat anybody, but a little shady with the way he could find his ball sometimes. Especially when money was involved? Especially when money was involved. Uh-oh, uh-oh, I'm going to have to get JR's comments. Would you say that to his face and we laugh? Absolutely.

He would know his nickname's founded. He would know that. That's so good. Any other things you want to talk about with your time with the Coyotes when you were playing? Did you not end up making an All-Star game? I actually played in two back-to-back. And, you know, it was funny.

I played in the All-Star game i actually played in two back to back and uh you know it's funny i played in the all-star game in 1989 and then i went 15 years between all-star games and played back to back that's got to be some sort of record yeah if they keep records for that kind of stuff i mean you know at the end of the day i guess it shows the longevity of a career. But I credit a lot of that to Benoit Lair. I really do. I don't think that I, at that stage in my career, would have ever found my game. And so to be able to play in the All-Star Games,

when you play in the first year in 88 or 89, whatever it was, that can happen. You can get on a run. You can have a great year. But then as you get older and to be able to play back-to-back and to put good seasons together, that's where I give a lot of credit to coming to Arizona and being able to revitalize my game.

That's an unbelievable career. Congratulations on that. As I said in the intro, 18 seasons. Buddy, thank you for your time, and I'm imagining everyone's going to love the insight. We don't really get to talk to a lot of goalies, although I am going to try to get Curtis Joseph on here. He'd be a good commenter.

He's a very interesting guy, Curtis, and he's had a great career. All right. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. Anytime, buddy. Thank you. That interview was also brought to you by Roman Swipes. Most guys have tried different ways to last longer,

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once again to Sean Burke for a very lengthy interview with our own Paul Bissonnette. Biz, you've been crushing it lately in this interview game. Another job well done. What an unreal career break he had. It was good to get a real deep insight on it. So, good job, Biss. Yeah, he was awesome. It makes up for me not being able to think this episode. Dude, if I was in my 30s and just had four days at the Stampede, man, I wouldn't be

right for a week. So, we got you, man. Don't worry. That's what the team does. We pick everybody up here. Thank you, sir. And speaking of the team, one of the members of the team had a big golf tournament on Tuesday. Ryan Whitney, fill us in on what went down. Boys, I don't have great news. I do not have great news.

You know how much I talked about this. You know how much this meant to me. Just to get in was a huge thing. What do you know, though? Like two weeks, no, three weeks ago, I started just striping it. I mean, I'm every round. I'm around par.

I'm like, dude, I've kind of gotten to this next level. I'm ready for this tournament. And then we go out to LA on that ridiculous trip we had out there. And what happens? I come home and I stink. I stink. And the first day of this tournament, I was nervous. Not going to lie. I was really nervous. I'm home and I stink. I stink. And the first day of this tournament, I was nervous.

Not going to lie. I was really nervous. I'm like, Jesus Christ, it's at the Country Club. This place is beautiful. It's this unbelievable golf course. They got all the officials out there. All these old mass golf does a great job. Just an unreal organization. They put on a fabulous tournament. So I'm

you know, the juices are flowing. So I started drinking it. I had like a drink at like eight in the morning and my first round at nine. Well, what happened? So I figure, all right, you know what I'm going to do? The country club's a really old course. It's been around since the late 1800s. We're talking like 100, 150 years. I don't know. It's an old track, one of the best in the country, but their range is really small. So you can't hit like long club. You can't hit your driver, your three wood.

They have these yellow balls there that are like limited flight balls. So you hit them and then they just drop out of the sky. So you don't really know how you hit it. So I was going to go to this other range, golf course, real nearby, Brookline golf course, whatever it's called. I go there Monday morning, it's called i go there monday morning it's closed that's the start to my day i'm like this is not a great sign not at all so we drive in i park my car i'm walking in and some guy first thing that anyone says to me goes hey can you uh

not park there tomorrow when you come back for the second round please park behind this building i'm like this is another tough start we We're 0-2 here on Monday morning. Well, little do you know, I warm up. I'm feeling great. I'm feeling actually phenomenal. I was hitting it so good on the range, just irons, and the caddy's like, my buddy Derek, he's like, let's get out of here.

You don't want to be hitting it this good right now. I'm like, okay, let's go. You know, it's never good to be just striping it on the range. So I get over to the first tee. Wouldn't you know, I meet the guys that I'm playing with. One of the guys I know very well, Ben Spitz. This kid, we played on the same Pee Wee hockey team. We won the Quebec Pee Wee World Championship.

Thanks for coming. How are you? It was like on ESPN2 back in the day. Huge deal. We took it down. He was like a golf phenom growing up, but he was a sick hockey player too. So it was really nice to be paired with him. I hadn't seen the kid in no joke like 15 years.

He's an unbelievable player. The next kid is this kid, Nick Macario, unreal player. I'm dropping names right now. This kid just got into the USM, one of the top players in the state. Great guy. Right away I could tell I'm going to have a fun pairing. Good dudes. So we're sitting around.

What do you know? I look over next to the first tee. There's two smoke shows sitting there. Just stand there. So I'm just kind of sitting on tee bucks. What do I say? Look at these smoke shows. Who are these girls?

Are they out to follow us? Nick Macario says, those are my cousins. So now we're over three from my beginning of the first round of the mass. But still, he's laughing. I told the story of when I brought one of my college hockey teammates home for Thanksgiving, and he was, like, making out with my cousin by the end of the night. So, yeah, I had some little story to go along with that. Well, what do you know?

I get on the first tee. I retweeted the video, Mass Golf Putt. And for everyone who hasn't figured out yet, if you're not into golf talk, fast forward, because I'm on a little rant here about my whole two-day experience. So I retweeted this video, Mask Off, but I pounded Driver Down 1. Biz, I'm nervous.

Like, dude, I am, the kid, one of the kids, Nick in the group said to me, are you more nervous for this than NHL games? I'm like, bro,

that's not even a question. Dude, I just used to go to nhl games and show up like here i'm fucking shivering in my boots in my how many people were at the t there was probably like i don't know 20 30 people standing there it's more guys warming up right on the putting green right next to the t but you know it's just more about like the tournament's on it's like pressure's on like you can make a 15 on this hall it's more about the whole setting but i stripe drive i know i went off topic here guys and and jump in whenever you have questions mikey i don't know what you're laughing at i stripe drive

so i'm thinking all right you know nice shot into one i had nine iron into one it's a long hole nine irons nothing i thought i'd have like six iron i missed the green i short side short side means that you leave yourself no room. You're in the rough, and then you have like five feet, and then the pin, and then there's all this green. You should have missed to the other side. Well, I did that six of the first goddamn seven fucking holes. I was six over par through seven holes.

Just losing my mind. They got the two smoke shows. The Macario cousins following me around. I'm just like, what's going on right now? I'm the loser. God damn it. And by the way, the two kids I played with Macario cousins following me around. I'm just like, what's going on right now? I'm the loser. God damn it. And by the way, the two kids I played with, I've already said their names. They're on to match play.

Match play starts. Everyone will be listening to this on Wednesday. Wednesday morning, 32 players out of 144 got into match play. I didn't. Well, both of these guys did. There are two guys who could easily win. So as I'm six over through seven holes, these guys, they're both one under. So I'm just like, what a loser I am.

You know what I was? I was walking down the fairway of the sixth hole. I'm sorry, I was walking to the green on the seventh hole, and I'm thinking, these two are like me at BU, at hockey, and I'm like a walk-on who's a scrub who can barely skate and fucking can't stick handle the puck like they're probably like oh god this guy sucks yeah like they weren't they weren't they're awesome and maybe they like kind of in their head they were like not necessarily that I suck but more that like he's not on our level And that's the whole point of the thing I'll go into later.

So either way, I ended up grinding out the rest of the round. So I'm six over through seven, and I get to the 18th tee six over. So I had played even par golf, and I started playing good, and I felt good, and I was drinking. Mouse golf. I'm not trying to admit. What's it called when you get yourself in trouble? It's like a term used in court.

Self-incrimination. Self-incrimination mask off. I'm not trying to do this right now, but I had a couple of drinks going and I loosened up and I played some great. I played some great golf. You know what I did on 18? This is just the first round, folks. We have today to get to, which is the second round. You know what I did on 18?

I pounded driver. I'm talking like middle of the fairway, 150 yards out, pounded. And I'm like, dude, I make birdie here. I shoot 76, five over. I'm kind of in the mix here. Like, that's pretty solid. What do I do? I hit it long right.

I'm talking dead. I'm talking we're looking around for the ball. And some kids like it's over here. I'm talking dead. I'm talking we're looking around for the ball, and some kid's like, it's over here. I'm like, you motherfucker. And now all these people are standing over there, and all these people are watching, and I have to hit this incredible shot to get it on the green, and it's rolling downhill.

No chance I'm making four. I'd love to make five. I flub the chip. The chip goes about six feet. Oh, God. I know. And I'm like, is this happening right now? I just grinded all those holes from you know, from seven, from eight to eight,

18, I was doing it and I hit it on the green. I got 20 feet and I make double at an end of my day, 79. I was just like, Oh my God, like a bummer rattled could have been better, but I'm not like that good. So it was like kind of like some positives to take out of. So today I go into today guys. And realistically I would have had to shoot in the end. I would have had to shoot two under to get into a playoff to get them.

Exactly. I would have needed to shoot three under. It was, it was, I said, go into the, to the course. It was a 1% chance.

I have to go out and put my, you know, not my career best, but in situations like this, it would be 1% chance. I have to go out and put my, you know, not my career best, but in situations like this, it would be the best round of my life. But what happens guys? What happens today? I get there and I'm feeling great. I'm feeling great. I had a couple McUltras in my kitchen. I had two McUltras in like eight minutes. And then my buddy picked me up and we went to the course and I'm warming up and I'm hitting it great again and i'm like dude i feel awesome right now like i'm gonna actually go striping around here like i was talking so confidently because it was so true in my head

like i have game right now and you know what happens as i walk off the range i see our boy Keith Yandel who shows up to watch me fuck off. My boy, my boy, who then went on to take about 15 pictures of me eating a hot dog at the turn and took a picture of me yesterday at the pool with my shirt off, just like chirped me. But he shows up, and I'm starting off 10. I'm starting off 10 on the second day. I stripe it down the middle. I got 75 yards in.

Keith's like, dude, this is, I'm rarely walking with him. They were having a blast. So I hit it to like 15 feet. I just missed. Nice little start. Even par through one, you know? Next hole, par five. I pound driver over this hill.

I got 200 yards into the green on par five. So I'm like, here we go, boys. I hit it right, hit it right up into the weeds. Not a great shot by the whip, but Keith doesn't mind. And by the way, of course, after the first hole, Keith runs into a guy, he goes, this is my dad's buddy, some random guy. He's like, this is unbelievable. So Keith's hanging with him. And what do I do? I hit this amazing flop shot to like an inch. Tap in birdie. I'm one under through two. I won't go through all 18 holes, but just get my drift here

because there's one more thing to come that you'll love. 12, par three, down the hill. Beautiful shot. I hit it to about 15 feet pin high. Just missed the putt. What's happening here? Exactly what I said to Derek. I'm feeling it.

I'm like, boys, I'm one under through three. This is the easiest three holes in my life. We get to 13, like a 460 yard par four, really tough hole, crazy green. I pound driver down the left side. I'm talking, I'm 140 out, 140 out. I take my 50 degree wedge, which is my 120 club, because it's a little downwind, and I stripe it to about 15 feet left of the pin. What's going on right now, Whit? That's what Derek says. He goes, something's brewing.

We got something brewing at the country club. I hit it, and what do I do? I get up to the green, and Keats now walked behind me. I haven't seen him the whole hole, and who's he standing with? Kevin Hayes. Oh, for fuck's sakes. What's up, Hayes? What's up? Now I'm like, boy, something's going here.

Something's going. I just missed the pot. No worries. Kind of a crazy green. It was like a great one under. Still one under after four. Going to a par five. I go up and I say to the girl working at the tent, I'm like, yeah, do you have any ice? Because I needed

ice for my Yeti cool, my Yeti jug. She's like, no ice here. I'm like, yeah, do you have any ice? Because I needed ice for my Yeti cool, my Yeti jug. She's like, no ice here. I'm like, okay, can I grab a water? I'm just thirsty. She's like, yeah, it's three bucks. I'm like, I'm playing in a tournament. She's like, sorry, the three bucks here. I was like, all right, I'll wait till the next tee when they're free. But either way, she was also the same girl. I tried giving her five bucks when I got a hot dog and she wouldn't take it. I guess they can't take tips either way respect to her i told her though you should just stuff it in your pocket and the person next to me started laughing like no one would know if you took the five bucks so either way we're on to the par five the 14th hole and i'm one under par i hit drive i

hit it really good but it's a little right get a good little kick but i can't go with the green and two i gotta lay up kind of in the weeds. I lay it up, hit a nine iron to about 30 feet. Not a great shot. How the fuck do you remember every shot? I remember every single shot that every person. So the weird thing about me is when I play golf that night, you could ask me and I'll remember every shot, every single person in the group hit.

Oh my God. I can tell you your score after we play that night 100% every time. Okay, back to your game. So I got 30 feet for birdie. I'm one under two and I'm now seven over for the tournament. I hit a great putt. I just missed

it actually, but no worries. One under through what? Five now? Yeah, or four. Either way, I'm still feeling great. Next hole. Hazy's now there for his is his second t-ball he's hitting keys there and the macario's got his some of his family members there we get a couple group and i what is with do we bounce driver down the middle again pounded down the middle again and i hit this five iron into the green it was 210 i hit a iron, just a little left of the pin, actually a pretty good shot, just rolls into the rough.

No worries. We're walking up. Derek says to me, no worries. You get that up and down. No problem. No problem. We get up there, and I look. I say, where'd Keith and Hazy go?

Where'd they go? Derek looks. He's like, they're right there. I go, no, where'd they go? He's like, oh, my God, I don't know. So immediately, mental midget wit myself. I was kind of, they were nowhere to be found. So listen, I call myself down.

I'm like, these are my boys. These are my boys. I've got money. I chip it to like three feet, just a beautiful chip out of the rough, and easy up and down, just as my caddy said. What do I do? I miss it. Three footer?

I miss a three footer. Oh, fuck. It hits the lip on the right. Really pathetic. But what happens then? I'm walking off the green. I fucking slap my thigh. If you can hear it.

Slap my thigh. God damn it, Whit. I see Keith and Hazy coming out of the woods. I'm like, where'd you fucking go, dude? He goes, I had to piss. I'm like, where'd you fucking go, dude? He goes, I had to piss. I'm like, I just bogeyed that hole. Can we fucking not leave my side for the next couple hours?

I striped drive. I'm sorry. 16, beautiful par 3. I hit an awesome 9 iron. I got like 15 feet. I miss it. Should have made that one, but a beautiful shot. I'm even par 17. The pins back right. It's like there's a shelf and then it goes down. The pins up on the shelf.

You can't miss long. You can't miss left or right. I hit it 10 feet. I missed the fucking pot. I can't goddamn make a fucking pot. I can't buy one, but still great golf. I'm even par ninth hole. Just another just fucking, you know, could have been a birdie wasn't a birdie

had to punch out par how'd you get to the ninth here's what happens they leave keith after nine dude anniversary taking off guy i'm like oh i'm kind of like you really have to go and hazy's like i gotta go i'm like fuck this isn't good well. And Hayes is like, I got to go. I'm like, fuck, this isn't good. Well, Cliff Notes version is those guys left, and I fucking tripled the fucking 12th hole. I tripled the 13th hole, and then I doubled the 16th hole. You mean because you started on the back? I started on the back.

So when I say the 12th hole, it's actually the third. I tripled the real third. It was my 12th hole. I tripled the real third. It was my 12th hole. I tripled the real fourth, my 13th hole. And these are, I mean, it was just such, such dumb. Here's what I'm learning, guys. And I'm sorry to bore people, but when I'm at my best, I can play with the best players in like relative terms.

play with the best players in like relatively relative terms, but they're my worst is so bad that they're like, it's, it's like, that's like the game of golf. It's like, like how bad are your, you're saying those other guys there don't have bad days like that. Well,

no, they, they might have bad days. So I ended up shooting 79, I think 82. Oh, I know. I think 82. Oh, I know. I blew it.

I was 20 over par for two days and you had to be five over to get into match play or six over to get into a playoff. But like the whole game of golf is it's like, how good are your misses? That's all it is. And my misses are so fucking bad. Sometimes with these good players, these guys, these guys I see that I have no problem admitting this is how good I'd want to be at golf. I work so hard at it, but I'm a psychopath.

And learning that you just have to have misses that are playable, not like maybe a skull fuck out of a bunker that goes out of bounds and then re-dropping in a bunker from your fucking knee and having it plug. It's like what sport is like this besides golf? Because no day in my life did I show up to the rink and not be able to skate or hit a one timer or fucking pass a tape to tape. I did that very well. It's like,

you don't forget that shit. But in golf one day, it just, it feels so different from the next day. And even the highest level players battle through like different fields and not having it one day it's just it's a weird sport some kid said to me tonight oh i gotta give a shout out kid tyler curry so we're hanging around after and we're watching the playoff and there's eight guys for two spots in the match play and this kid's hanging around i end up shooting the shit with him i gotta give him a shout out because he gave me his vape

i hit this kid's vape 50 times. It was just one of those jewels. He was like, dude, are you really asking for this again? I'm like, well, once you told me you had it, I feel like a college girl that's just dying to have your jewel. Either way, we were chatting about golf. He's saying

how hard it is. It was just the whole fact of watching the guys who are trying to get in the playoff and are at a different level than myself and just wishing I'd love to get there someday. But it's hard as shit because every single hole is like complete disaster. Whereas the best players are never thinking like I'm thinking. You got a question. Yeah.

So when those guys left, did it, did that rattle you like that bad wit? Like when your body's left or was that just like, no, it didn't. No, it didn't.'t but like car i'm kind of like a karma karma guy on the course i'm like oh my god like it was just a great vibe with them right like the fact that like the fact that i'm making it sound like i'm like blaming them i'm not at all like i i just yeah you better be careful what you say about keith buddy i'll be having your boy foley and prank you foley can't prank me he knows I did I don't I don't mind the golf stories I mean there might have been a few

people who uh who already dropped off but uh buddy that sucks but uh hey you're rich you're living you live and you learn um next year even so if you get in match but you might have to make that story a two-parter yeah exactly that was 45. We'll put the second round on the second half of the Berkey interview. Well, next year, there will be no Mass Am talk. It's next year, I'll be in Scotland on the hockey players trip. I always talk about it's actually

scheduled during when the Mass Am would be. So there'll be no, there'll just be golf trip talk next year, and that'll be all hockey guys. People will enjoy it a little bit more. And speaking of golf, the British open AKA the open is this weekend. What did you bet anybody? Any tips for any listeners out there?

No, I haven't yet. I'll do daily matchups. I don't really bet the winners. I feel like it's so hard to guess somebody to win a golf tournament, but I like the daily one-on-ones. But my one friend did send me a text that he's all over Mark Leishman. I think it's like

$100 to win $13,000 or something like that. I could see that guy maybe getting it done. I will tell you, there's some huge bombers in there. After you get past McElroy's to chalk at 8-1, then you get Kepker at 10-1, a couple 16s. But once you get past 30-1, I would say

80% of the field is 30-1 Ohio. I think there's a real good potential for a big bomb to come in at, you know, 50 to 60 to one, you've got a hundred on that. Then you got a nice fucking, a nice month for yourself. Uh,

either way, did you guys see, you know, Ken Campbell of the hockey news? He's probably not one of the more popular hockey writers out there. He tweeted about the cup. Did you see this one? Whit?

No, I did not. He said, uh, Ken Campbell's tweet said, I'm sure the next guy from the cup. Did you see this one, Whit? No, I did not. He said, Ken Campbell's tweet said, I'm sure the next guy from the St. Louis Blues who gets the Stanley Cup will be thrilled that Robbie Fabry's dogs were eating spaghetti and meatballs

out of it on Monday. It amazes how the NHL allows, nay, condones players treating the cup like it's dog bowl. He got ratioed the fuck out of that one. So then he got a shitload of people complaining. Then he said, I'll just cut and paste my response.

So the fact that someone cleans the cup makes it okay for kids to shit in it and dogs to eat out of it and players' girlfriends to pee in it. Glad we cleared that up. Silly me. I thought this was about showing respect to the trophy. So he got ratioed. I love the voice you've given. Yeah, good job with the voice, sir. All right.

He got ratioed from fucking here to Manitoba and back. So then what's he come out with today? A tweet that says he wrote a blog and tweeted out saying, I'm doubling down on my tweet from last night. So now he's just trying to get clicks because he knows everybody's pissed. But we're on to you, buddy. We're not going to click on your fucking blog. And I'll tell you one thing about this Ken Campbell guy.

Not only does nobody like him on Twitter, he cuts the fucking media lines during the Stanley Cup. He got caught fucking twice cutting a line. Oh, who busted him? What do you mean, Kutz? What do you mean that? What does that mean? Well, the food line, right?

No, there was the line to get on the ice after game seven when the Blues won. All the media's in this gigantic line. Everybody who's been there knows the protocol. You get in line, they take you out on the ice so i was behind uh a man and a woman they i don't think we're with the same outlet together they were shooting the shit he just comes over and he just gets right in front of him like you could see a line there and uh they were like excuse me and uh like the line starts he's like oh excuse me he doesn't look like the end of the line he just goes right behind him and like gets like in front of me i was like yeah pal

the line's still behind him like i stepped in front of him like he just like tried end of the line, he just goes right behind him and like gets like in front of me. I was like, yeah, pal, the line's still behind you. And like I stepped in front of him. Like he just like tried to cut the fucking line. I mean, it didn't seem ignorant. It was one of those like, I'm going to pretend I don't know where the line is. He's a line cutter. Yeah, line cutter on top of crying about the cup. Can't be fucking with no line cutters.

But I mean, the hockey news, man, that thing used to be the hockey Bible like 10, 15 years ago. I used to get it sent to me up college. And now, I mean, do people even talk about the hockey news business much anymore i don't know i mean i mean i think stevie stevie eiserman ended up feeding his horse out of one of them out of the stanley cup so like i mean this has been going on for years and years i mean they wash the thing i don't know like i don't personally give a shit. I'd be doing a lot worse out of that thing, let me tell you. You'd have to give the thing a Z-pack by the time I was on, was it?

Any of the fucking basic. Four girls and one cop and biz. You're drinking squirt juice out of it? Oh, shit. Yeah, he always gets some fucking awful takes, though, that people whine about. So who knows? I mean, whatever.

I mean, to each their own. I usually try not to get worked up about stuff like that on twitter anymore i barely go on there other than to tweet the fact that we did the podcast yeah young young page used retweet and said what if i told you a chinchilla pooped in it too like because i guess boris dropped it who's a deuce in there as well. Hold on, boys. Let's talk about liquid IV for a second. Liquid IV is the fastest, most efficient way to stay hydrated. Are you trying to drink more water? Well, liquid IV hydrates you two to three times faster and more efficiently than water alone with an added bonus of vitamin C, B3, B5, B6, and B12.

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starts running into the wall i don't know if if he was trying to bang on the glass, and he fucking shattered the thing. Then he looked like he wanted to fucking cut himself with the blade afterwards. Oh, because his entire job is to be there and cheer people up, not to be there and scare the fuck out of little Jimmy. You couldn't have scripted it any better, because it was the devil from the New Jersey Devil. What's his name? The New Jersey Devil. Oh, his name? The New Jersey Devil. Oh, that's his nickname? It's not like spooky or something?

No, it's just the NJ Devil. Oh, okay. What the fuck are you guys laughing about? Sometimes it's like a last thought. Hey, what's the devil's name? The Devil. Oh, God. I mean, it's fucking...

Oh, well, no, you're right. The pig in Carolina. And it was dead. It was dead silent after that. All the kids just like everything stopped. So it was pretty good. They turned it into some good content for the NHL, Twitter and Instagram. So if anything, it worked out and it all was a costume was a pain in the

class. Yeah. Go ahead. Got them fucking talking. That's for sure. What the fuck are you laughing at, Whit? Nothing, nothing. I just I'm actually thinking of and that's for sure. What the fuck are you laughing at, Whit? Nothing, nothing. I'm actually thinking of that kid in the costume.

What are they called again? The people who hate you, Biz. Mascots, yeah. He must have been so horrified when he broke that glass. That's when you know, oh, this is a complete disaster. He's lucky he didn't get fucking hurt, too. Tell me about this tennis match that I missed. Oh, my God.

What a match. Unreal. It was Wimbledon men's final. Djokovic. Yeah, that's how you say it. Djokovic versus Federer. And it went, it was, it can go, what, five? I forgot to even say it.

Five sets. It can go five sets, but in the fifth set, they'll end up doing a tie break because if you have to win by two in games, it could be 25, 23 or whatever. Now, wasn't this the first year they up doing a tie break because if you have to win by two in games, it could be 25-23 or whatever. Now, wasn't this the first year they instituted that tiebreaker? That's what I heard. That's crazy. I don't know if it was the first year, but

it's definitely recent, if not this year somewhat in the past couple. Or maybe it was the first time it happened. But anyways, you got two of the three greatest players today, the other one being Nadal, and they're going head-to-head for the fucking title. One thing, it's going five sets, but they just kept going back and forth, back and forth.

I'm not even a huge tennis fan. I have to relearn the rules every time I watch it, like I just showed DeWitt a minute ago. But it was just a phenomenal fucking classic match. But I was kind of a bummer, though, with it. They did go to this new tie-breaking score, and they basically play for one last point, Biz, instead of, like, keep going and keep going.

Oh, really? It's not like a shootout, but it's also not like going to five, six overtimes. I'm trying to think of the perfect analogy, Wiz, but I'm not coming up with it. That's pretty good, actually. I feel like at that point, you're running on pure adrenaline. Let them play it out. So you're saying that, yeah, it didn't end up going to like 15-14. Yeah, so you have to win by two.

So basically what happens is these guys, they win their service games for the most part. I mean, they don't often get broken. And so in the end, it can be, you know, win, win, win, win. You're just going forever. Instead, they're like, all right, we'll go to 7 or 11, whatever the tiebreaker is. But I'm kind of with you at that point. They've been on the court close to five hours. And that Federer guy, tennis does not seem like the type of sport

that after like 26, 27, you should be that good. I mean, it's so hard on your joints, the stopping, the going, the actual ability to be that athletic on a concrete clay or grass surface doesn't seem like it'd be great after, say, I mean, maybe I said a young age, say 30. Federer, he doesn't slow down. This guy, he's a gazelle out there. He kind of looks like Niedermeyer.

I don't even think he's sweating by the end of these matches. Yeah, tremendous athletes. And they showed Woody Harrelson. He was probably whacked out on edibles trying to get to his seat, but the guy made him wait until there was a break in play, which I got a kick out of because, you know, Hollywood people are used to everybody letting them do whatever they want. So the guy's like, nope, sorry, you got to wait.

But he seemed like he was a cool sport about it afterwards. I'm sorry, Biz, go ahead. We got more. Yeah, I was going to say, speaking of actors, I wrote a blog about a week or two ago about Tom Cruise. Grinelli told me you got a kick out of... It was Tom Cruise's birthday, so I said, in honor of his 57th birthday,

here are the top five Tom Cruise movies. Did you catch it, Biz? I won't be offended if you say no. I know a few of the boys were critical of the fact that Top Gun didn't make the list. Yes, I did acknowledge it. Let me run them down now. Number five was Magnolia,

which probably more of an ensemble movie than a Tom Cruise movie, but he was good. Did he get nominated? Number four, Jerry Maguire. Number three, Risky Business. Number two, Born on the Fourth of July. Number one, Rain Man.

And yeah, I did say Top Gun. I did not include it on purpose. I think Top Gun is his most overrated movie. I saw it at the theater when it came out as a teenage boy. It should have been right in my wheelhouse. And I just didn't think it was that good. It would just look like a chopped together Navy or Air Force commercial. It didn't have a great story.

I just didn't care for it. But I knew I'd get a bunch of shit because everybody loves Tom Cruise and Top Gun. I would have to put Mission Impossible in the top five just because it was revolutionary for its time was it not? Revolutionary might be a tad extreme yeah it did help bring back the spy genre I would agree with you yeah well at least for me right

because I didn't watch the 007 originals like all those ones coming up so I would put that on my top five if I had to put one where he maybe didn't have a main role, it would be Tropic Thunder. I thought he was excellent as that bald guy who had the fat suit on. Yeah.

And at the end, he's dancing. Yeah. That would put him over the edge and put that movie into my top five. Yeah, I did have him on my secondary list. What's your favorite Cruise movie, Whit? I love Top Gun. Cruz is a midget, though, huh? He's like 5'4".

Yeah, I think he's like 5'6", 5'7". He's definitely not big, but I mean, he's... All right, it's funny. The bigger issue I had with your recent movie talk is the fact that you didn't have the Sandlot in your top five baseball movies because that was a full-blown disaster. Let's get it straight here.

That was just a Twitter poll. It wasn't a blog, but, yeah, I didn't have it in my top four. They only let you put four movies on a Twitter poll, and I said, what's the best baseball movie? I had Major League. I put Sandlot in my top four baseball movies. Yeah. All right.

Come on. Go ahead. All right. I had Bull Durham. Bull Durham's there. Boom. Bull Durham, Major League, no doubt about those two. Now, I'm old.

I have the natural. I know that's an old-school pick. And who was my fourth one? I'll even take those three in Sandlot. No, the Bad News Bears. That's a definite old-school one, which it's kind of a precursor to the Sandlot. Here's why I didn't have The Sandlot. It's just an age thing.

The Sandlot came out in 93. I wasn't a little kid when it came out, so I don't have that nostalgia connection that everybody else does. I was just a little bit too old when it came out, so I wasn't a kid. If I was born 10 years younger, I'm sure I would have The Sandlot in there. I just have a little more love for those other ones. But The Sandlot is a great movie movie there's no doubt about it sam so i do understand that because san lot is 93 i'm 10 years old i think i'm will clark just ripping doubles to the opposite field little league field at green boston situate and benny the jet rodriguez and that fucking kids

terrible long fisher hat fit like the stupid hat that kid had on the Benny Jack gave him a new one. Like I just would, if Sandlot's on, I'm finishing it. I can have a messy diaper. Wait till the movie ends. Cause this is my, this is my flick. I did actually love the natural to Robert Redford. That's Keith Yandel in hockey. Yeah.

I understand where you're coming from, but I will say both Durham and major league are like one a one B and then Sandlot's like number three. Yeah, I definitely see that point, but maybe I will have to do a top 10 blog so that I can expound a little bit more on it. But I've definitely been having fun, man, writing a lot more blogs. Like I said, I didn't for a while, but we talk a lot about hockey, so it's good to express myself in the movie and TV way.

So I'm glad you're checking it out with Doug. Yeah. What else we got, boys? Anything? Guys, real quick, be sure to check out Rough and Rowdy on Friday. It's going to be at Fort Bragg, military theme. It's going to be pretty awesome. As well as on Thursday of this week,

Young Page News will be dropping the first episode of Barstool Outdoors. That kid's crazy, so check that out. Both of them are going to be awesome. All right, boys. Well, I hope everybody enjoyed Sean Burke. We'll be bringing again part two in a couple weeks. And everybody, have a great weekend, and we'll see you next week.

Peace. Peace. I'll see you next time.