Spittin Chiclets - Spittin' Chiclets Episode 193: Featuring Max Talbot

Episode Date: July 24, 2019

On this week's episode of Spittin' Chiclets the guys are joined by Max Talbot. Max joins to discuss his career, some stories about playing with Whit and Biz, playing in Russia and a ton more. The guys also talk about the recent James Neal for Milan Lucic trade as well as some other NHL news. The boys also get a story about Ryan starting a casino during his NHL days.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 193 of Spittin' Chicklets, presented by New Amsterdam Vodka. We're sweating our sacks off here up in New England. Let's say hi to the boys, see how they're doing with this hot weather. Let's go to Grinnelly First down in New York. You guys still roasting down the city or what, Mikey? Yeah, it's a nightmare down here.

Apartment Hunt's going a little better, though. We've added a new teammate to the mix. We've added Rudy, Rudy Junda to the mix, Barstool Rudy. Wow. Not looking at studios anymore, boys. So this is big news. Time out. He's a handsome fella, too. So this is big news. Time out. He's a handsome fella, too.

That's residual kill central right there. Well, I was a little worried about that, though. Is he too handsome? Is he like, will he overshadow me too much? Bud, I'm telling you, from my experience, you need a good teammate. You got to snap the puck around. Right, Whit? What if you're paying with a bad partner?

You need a guy that's just not going to be complete um i mean ask wit man what's it like playing with a dean man who's fucking putting pucks in your skates when you're going d to d and you know all of a sudden you're the you're the the bad guy oh you're the one who can't just snap it right back up because it's not tape to tape yeah he's got 10 girls all over him like he can't bang them all so you know a little carryover but i was the guy that i was the guy that people said uh yeah i always get it tape to tape but he's fucking tape to tape to the other team half the time and he doesn't hit anyone so there's there's the complaints on the other side as well so you're basically saying that saying the girls might be potentially complaining about Mike's performance. Exactly.

You got the kill. Still got the kill, baby. Still got the kill. That's a stat. Still goes on the back of the card. Those other two chuckleheads you just heard from Paul, Biz Nasty, Bissonette, what's going on, buddy? You look like you're at your usual homestead right now.

Yeah, I'm in Arizona. I'm actually traveling to Minnesota for the first time in summer. I never been to minnesota uh in the summertime i heard it's incredible i'll be going there with the arizona coyotes to get a little bit of content with alex goligoski and derrick step on i will be hitting the golf course with them so i'll be sandbagging those guys as well taking a little bit of money of their hands. And fuck boys, the Coyotes. I mean, geez, there's a lot of talk around town. Ticket sales have skyrocketed since Phil Kessler came over in that trade. Jerseys are just flying off the shelf.

I am amped up. I cannot wait to get to our season breakdowns in September and divisional breakdowns, excuse me, and just stroke the shit out of this team. So that's all I'm going to say in my intro. Yeah, we'll enjoy the rest of the show. I'm sorry. All right. You and I

can cover the other 30 teams in the NHL for the preseason preview, but our man Biz Nasty, he's got the Coyotes, so we're good there. We're actually going to do a full podcast dedicated to the coyotes. Yeah, you can do a coyotes. I'll do a Bruins and Whit can do a Penguins one.

I'll be getting the Can I Brands lotion out and just fucking skiing out everyone on the team. I'm giving a corn fairy tour preview for the season. That's the third host in the squad, Ryan Whitney. You're on one of my favorite islands on the planet right now. Nantucket, it looks like, eh? I am. I came over to Nantucket with a buddy, Don the Billionaire, we like to

call him. His wife, just chilling, dude. I mean, this place is beautiful. Here's the only issue. I have this awful occurrence in my life where when I get a chance to play really good golf courses I've never played or ones I don't chance to play really good golf courses I've never played or ones I don't get to play often, it fucking rains. What do you know? It's pissing rain in Nantucket right now. Kind of an island where you'd think it would never rain. Believe it or not,

there's water sprouts that are popping up around here. For people who don't know, I brought you crepuscular rays. I brought you some cloud noise. Well, a water sprout, I brought you crepuscular rays. I brought you some cloud noise. Well, a water sprout, it's an intense, like, tornado vortex, dude, that forms in the water. YouTube them. They're all around here. Like, only I could bring a fucking water sprout to Nantucket.

But other than that, I mean, life's great. We've just been hanging. We've had an unreal interview the other day that we're dropping today, guys, and that's Max Talbot. We've had an unreal interview the other day that we're dropping today, guys, and that's Max Talbot. And you could tell from the first question, Talbot loves to get intense on his stories. He's an emotional guy, so I think people are going to love it.

He's a showman. And speaking of, well, that area, is that considered New England in Nantucket? Yeah, Nantucket's part of Massachusetts. I ended up watching a documentary last night called Heroin, and it was based in Cape Cod. Have you seen that one? Yeah, on HBO. Oh my god, that is fucking sad, man. I thought Cape Cod was like a really, really upscale, nice place.

Well, it's beautiful in the summer, fucking in the winter, these islands in the Cape Cod, dude, there ain't much going on. You could see how people, I mean, especially around here, that opioid crisis is like. Well, they said New England's insane for the opioid crisis. The Cape and the islands in the winter, dude, there's nothing to do. All right, well.

Sorry to kill the mood. No, that's all right. It is a beautiful area, Biz, but, you know, like everywhere else in the country, there's a fucking issue there. Although, to switch the pace on the documentaries, I was fired up the last couple days you guys saw on text i was just rifling off all these fucking ideas i have for this this podcast and and really the spit and chicklets brand like i i was talking to a friend yesterday about potentially renting an rv and just going around all next summer and just cruising around just content, content, interviews, blah, blah, blah. Because I watched that documentary, The Defiant Ones,

and that's the one with Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine. And actually, R.A., not too long ago, I think in 2017, you wrote a blog on it when it came out. I did. Yeah. Yeah. I wrote a review of it. Like you said, it's about Dr. Dre jimmy iovine who's a music producer and basically how these two guys from two totally different backgrounds you know an italian from from the uh from brooklyn and a black guy from south central how they basically met up and and kind of revolutionized the the music business and streaming and all that stuff but it does a real deep dive into each of their careers and how they got where they were but uh you really like that how biz i i've seen it that was the second time i watched it and i mean talk about reinventing yourself that jimmy ivine is it's fucking crazy the amount of things that he's accomplished i

mean seeing with dr dre but uh you know sometimes you know i get not negative but you know like question myself and you know you're like oh is this going to be good you know should i do that and then watching something like that just makes you be like fuck it i don't give a shit i might fail doing it but i'm fucking going nose first man and uh it just kind of gives me that extra little juice so one every once in a while i know there's a ton of people who've probably already seen it if you haven't check And, yeah, as I said, it just gave me that extra motivation. So let's fucking roll, baby. Yeah, definitely inspiration is hell. Biz, you were like a 12-year-old kid from Minnesota

watching Miracle to get fired up before a game. That's what we're going to have to have you watch before these podcasts because you were just buzzing. Yeah, that's my – Well, the business side of it, too, I really enjoy. And he was just a guy you were just buzzing. Yeah, that's my... Well, the business side of it too I really enjoy and he was just a guy who was just relentless. I'm always on the phone like that.

Not to the extent of that guy, but anyway. Check that out, guys. Busy Iveen? Busy Iveen, boys. The defiant ones. It's on HBO, streaming on all HBO platforms if you haven't seen it.

When you said Biz Rogan the other day, I was so fucked. That was funny. You got me. What? Do you play that? What's it called? Is it Sankatee or Sankat? How do you pronounce that?

That's what I'm playing today. We're supposed to tee off at like 2 o'clock. I mean, you couldn't be more in the middle of a fucking storm at 2 o'clock the way the radar is looking. So I don't know what's going to happen, but this course just, I've, I've walked around it before out in the lighthouse there. It looks beautiful. So I'm fired up. What happens when you have a tee time book, let's say you're booked for two o'clock and it rained in the morning. Do all those tee times get backed up into yours or they just lose their tee time well in a tournament that would happen um in the case of like play at a regular golf course so many people are going to

cancel that it usually doesn't become an issue that if you want to play in the rain i mean you'll you'll wait people will maybe wait around but most people just be like all right not today and then they you know people can fill in the spot spots that do want to play when the rain's done do you know what i'm saying like a tournament yeah the early tee times on a thursday push back to stay thursday afternoon thursday afternoons tee times they'll play the first round friday morning and so on and so on okay so let me give you an example okay you're you're i'm a crazy golf fiend i'm on vacation i'm gonna have to play pebble beach for the first time. And I have a 9 a.m. tee time. And it rains until 11.

And I'm like, oh, no, like I want to golf. And then all of a sudden, you know, 11.30 hits and it clears up. And all those other tee times are booked and people are amped up to golf them. Like what if they can't squeeze you in? Or do you get fucked because it rained during your tee time? Yeah. Oh, that sucks. It's like Pebble Beach. It's like Pebble Beach unless it's lightning, right,

where you have to be off the course. But if it's just raining, dude, you got to go. That's your tee time. You got to go play. And if they shut the course down, if the course isn't shut down and it's your tee time, that's your tee time, dude. You're stuck. But if the course is shut down, they'll get you out there after

or they'll get you back out there. So I'm playing golf with Steve Greeley, a buddy of mine. He's the assistant GM of the Sabres. So I'm just looking to really cover the Sabres in the early season preview because I got him on the golf course for a couple hours today. Tell him I'm sorry. Tell him I'm very sorry. He's got to.

He's like, he fucked us. He completely fucked us with those shirts. No, but we got him a care package of those shirts, so he's going to be all right. He'll be happy about it after. Hey, they were still sick shirts. Those were awesome shirts. Those were awesome shirts. That wagon with that low, that whatever decal.

What am I calling it? Logo. Jesus Christ. Wait. You said the heavy stuff's not supposed to come down for a while. All right. What do we got. I'll be the priest. Career low, 10 under, struck by lightning, dead. I couldn't ask for a better way to go, though.

Rat farts. How do you say that lighthouse name, Witt? I think Sankity. Sankity. That's a beautiful course, man, when they show the overhead pictures of it. Hey, have you had a chance to see YP's new video, Bastille Outdoors, that he dropped last week? I watched it.

That kid. Talk about fucking crushing it. I was really happy for him. The way he narrated it, he made it so good. He was really good at that part. And then the one video that's gone viral of of the sharks eating the fish is that not and apparently that's like one of the most rare things you'll ever see too yeah just perfect timing yeah our guy logan too our guy logan was the one who uh videoed that edited produced it was he yeah one of the boys he did an unbelievable job on that

who was the other videographer? Rudy, my potential new roommate. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah, it was footage of lemon sharks feeding on these mullet, the fish I call the mullet, I guess. And the scientists all chimed in. They're like, wow, we've never actually seen this on footage before.

We thought this is what they did, but we never actually saw it, like the way the sharks pack hunted. And then the way the fish were all in these kind of like YP described, psychedelic circles. It was some pretty wild footage, man. So if you haven't seen it, check it out. It was actually very similar to just an overhead of biz in Cowboys at the stampede.

Just shoot fish in a barrel. Oh, speaking of that, okay, actually, I'll get into that story right after this. But regarding YP, first of all, congratulations to him. He kind of bounces over to the hockey content as well because he's a big Blues fan. Everybody knows what went on with the chinchilla during their whole run. But a prime example, I get messages and DMs all the time about, oh, I want to work for Barstool.

Like, I want to be a content guy. It's just like, oh, you do? Well, then fucking start working start working even more because he started out from the bottom at barstool he wasn't a content guy and he and he put them and put himself out there he slowly worked at it he got the okay from dave in order to do this uh this kind of uh what would you call it like a national geographics show yeah nature show outdoor show outdoor outdoor show and and he fucking did it he didn't just say oh i want a job i think i can do content i think i can do this he he put the fucking sweat equity into it so for all you kids out there

who are messaging me or people or even even to the barstool network. Fucking work, man. It's not easy. You've got to put yourself out there, and you're going to probably land on your face a bunch of times before you actually might even get there. And, hey, you might even land on your face and you might quit. But I'm telling you, it's not easy. And it's a testament to him and how hard he's worked to get where he is.

And he's here now. Now he's a content guy, and he ain't going away. While we're talking about it, I cannot hire anybody at Boston, so people who email me asking for jobs, I don't have that ability to hire anybody. No, you're full-time, Donald. If I had, like, getting DMs, I mean, come on in. I'll give you a job. My fucking clubs, I'd love to get those cleaned every night perfectly.

You can come over. The pool is taking fucking years to finish. You can help over there. If you want to hang out and help me, let me know. Ryder needs a diaper changed. Ryder just took a monster smash, so can you run upstairs and change that quick and make sure to just spray his cornhole

so it doesn't smell horrible before you put the new diaper on? Speaking of messages, boys, I told you guys this one. I was furious. So I get back from Stampede, and I usually try to go through direct messages and answer fans sometimes when I do have time. And I get a message from a kid, and it's a video of me in my hotel room in Calgary, a video, and it says a friend of mine sent this over. I was fucking fuming.

Okay? So the last night at the Stampede. And people are thinking. Well, okay, so two people are thinking I'm going to tell a story to humble brag. Part of it, yes, I am. So the last night at Stampede i i picked up a girl and then at the one yard line that the whole cowboys is shutting down and i get a guy come

up to me well towards the end of the night anyway and he goes hey i got this girl and she wants to sleep with you like a guy wheeled up but he's broke her in the deal and i'm like what like which one and he and he points. And she was a beautiful girl. I was like, geez, okay. So obviously I'm going to go talk to her and see if there's any chemistry there. Normal girl. Awesome. So I tell the other one, I said, hey, she's coming back.

Like, well, then they were talking, these two girls. So I assumed that they were already friends. So we ended up going back, the three of us. They're having a ball. They were laughing laughing together their chemistry was on fleek like i said to the to the point where i thought they were already friends and so we get back and then i'm like okay so like are we doing this and and the one's like oh no like we don't know each other like you can go with her i was like oh shit you guys don't know each other i'm like that's cool like you can hang out in the bed gave Gave the girl my bed

to hang out in. Me and the other one went in the fucking shower. I wasn't rude about this. I'm not pushing the issue. I'm a gentleman. Here, take the bed. I'll go have sex in the shower. I'm going to be limited to a few positions just so you can

have my nice, comfy Westin bed. Shout out to the west in calgary downtown excellent excellent hotel um and so i see the video and it's when i came out of the shower and and luckily i had a towel wrapped around my waist and and my shoulders and the other girl was already in there and like i'm like what the fuck is this man like it can no one have privacy anymore and and the girl who who videoed i'm sure she listens to the podcast she just because she did reference it a little bit fuck you and you know who you are that's fucking bullshit and i can only imagine what other videos you got on there probably a couple of me who hit hitting the slopes too. Fucking make sure those don't get out. Fucking Christ.

Hey, Viz. What did he want? Like $100 for the video? No, he just... Let me see if I can find it. He said something, and I didn't even write the guy back. I found the girl

because she posted a picture of us like earlier that night. And people listening are going to be like, oh, well, that's your fault for bringing home a fucking fangirl. And it's just like, listen, I'm not going to judge someone because they listen to the podcast and they have a good time. I usually give everyone benefit without going in.

But that's just a shitty fucking move. Why did she – when you went to roast in the shower, why did she stay? I don't know, man. Listen, I wasn't going gonna kick her out i'm not that guy i'm a pretty friendly guy and and and as i mentioned earlier like just because you're not gonna fuck me i'm not gonna tell you to leave like i'm not if any girl who's been with me knows that i'm not gonna force the issue if you don't want to fuck me i get it i'm not even that attractive if you want to fuck me just you know because you want this you want the pipe i'll give you the pipe i'm right down the trap anyway i'll keep scrolling

while we're going through the podcast and if i and if i could find it but but as i mentioned it's pretty deep in there because i didn't reply to the guy i i i wrote the girl i said what other fucking videos are out because your buddy just sent me one of me and i know it was you took it and she said she's like oh my god i'm so embarrassed and i'm like oh is this yeah that ain't cool man you know this is what this is what this is what i wrote to her yo i just had a video sent to me from my room any other any other ones i should know about shit what was the video dude i don't know what to say dot dot dot i said i'm asking how many you took that's my personal life and then she's seen

it and didn't reply so fuck you you know who you are especially when you get that post not shrinkage going on too busy all right i'm a grower not a shower if that could have been devastating no no what could have been devastating is people actually seeing that foreskin you have popping off that thing. That's what I'm saying. I would have never – I'd have less kills than Rene. Biz has a mountain of wolf in front of him. Don't worry about that video, but if the foreskin's going on there, get that off the internet. The Canadian government would, like, come capture me to use my foreskin for, like, science research and shit.

I saw one of the – I think it was on Reddit. One of the threads was speculating as to what Biz's kill count was. I thought it was pretty funny. Had all people chiming in. Any signings around the league? Yeah. We should probably get to some hockey. Actually, we had a big trade between the teams

of the Battle of Alberta, man. The Oilers sent Milan Lucic in the conditional third rounder in 2020 to the flames for James the Real Deal Neal. The Oilers sent Milan Lucic in the conditional third rounder in 2020 to the flames for James, the real deal, Neil. This is going to be Lucic's 13th season, man. Damn, that flew by. He still has four more years left on the seven-year deal he signed back in 2016.

It carries a $6 million cap hit. The 31-year-old tied a career low last year in points. He only had 20 points in 79 games. James Neal still has four years left on his five-year daily sign with Calgary. Just last summer, he carries a $5.75 million cap hit. He also had a career low at 19 points last year. He had only seven goals. It was the first time in his career he didn't score at least 21 goals in a season.

It's going to be Neal's 12th season. He'll be 32 when the season starts. I don't think Neal lost a score in touch, man, in a season. It's going to be Neal's 12th season. He'll be 32 when the season starts. I don't think Neal lost a scoring touch in one year. And for whatever reason, Calgary was a bad fit for him. But if he ends up alongside Connor next year, he could score 30 goals easily. What do you got on this one, Biz? Well, I couldn't be happier for both guys. And we know Looch struggled with the Oilers, and that's obvious obvious I think he's going to have a lot of success in Calgary and the the feeling of being wanted is a that's a that's a strong power and a strong motivator for him he's already made comments I know Tree Living wanted him bad because I

actually talked to Tree Living at the Stampede and he goes I I'm in the process of trying to get Looch and I said that would be such a great fit because they need that little bit of toughness to protect those other guys. It takes a lot of focus away from Kachuk. And I'm hoping that it kind of gives them that mean streak back because when he plays with that mean streak, man, there's not many guys in the league who can touch him. He's a fucking savage, man. And from what I hear, he's been training his absolute bag off.

I think he's going to go there, off I think he's going to go there and and I think he's going to get between 15 and 20 goals and and I think it's going to rejuvenate him um some people may think I'm crazy by saying that but they I also think that they play a little bit different style than the Edmonton Oilers and they have more guys around to work with especially up front um another thing too I don't know if you mentioned it, R.A., Oilers are going to retain $750,000 of Lucic's salary. So Lucic is now on the books in Calgary for 5.25. So I think if he can put up a 15- to 20-goal season,

maybe 35 to 40 points, he's really not like drastically overpaid. And, and especially with him adding that, that toughness and, and, and a lot of people who are like, Oh, skill and speed and the, you know, the way the game's going. Oh yeah. St. Louis shoved that theory right up your fucking hoop, sandpaper finish, no lube. So, so for him, I'm super excited. finish no lube so so for him I'm super excited um and I think he's gonna have a great season and a great time there and you know just he needed to get out of Edmonton that was that was number one uh going over to James Neal you mentioned it uh in a blog Grinelli and it actually got posted in the Edmonton Journal and you said the only season this guy hasn't scored 20 goals James Neal was was last season and him and Bill Peters didn't see eye to eye I think you know Neal just you know

didn't have that confidence he didn't just didn't fit in well there well man now apparently him as well he's training like a beast he's been on some crazy regiment this summer he's gonna go over to to Edmonton with a coach that he's familiar with Dave Tippett he had him in Dallas and you talked about he's to play with McDavid even even if that that James Neal speed and overall top skill has diminished a little bit he's going to be getting fed pucks right in his wheelhouse and and he ain't he didn't lose a shot he didn't lose that scoring chest you don't just all of a sudden, that just doesn't disappear. So great point by you, Grinelli.

And Witt, what do you have to say about this? Well, immediately everyone was really harping on Edmonton being the big winners in this trade. Initially, I kind of agree with that in the sense that the year Neil had was a nightmare. Not only was that the only year he hadn't scored 20, you also got to think about the fact how much hockey he played leading into last season. So he went to the finals two years in a row, correct?

Yes. So that's a lot of hockey, right? That's a hard thing to deal with. I think he probably had some fun after the cup runs. And I think that if you look at him going into last year, he was tired, he was run down, and then he gets to Calgary where he plans on playing with Monahan and Goudreau. Well, what happens?

Elias Lindholm comes along in that trade from Carolina, and he lights it up with those guys. So Neal's kind of spot on that first line. He loses, right? He's always been really good playing with really good sentiment. I mean, he's a 30-goal guy, no problem. Him and Malkin were incredible together in Pittsburgh. Well, then last year in Calgary, he wasn't playing.

He's playing third, fourth line, healthy scratch. He wasn't where he needs to be to be successful. Excuse me. Nice speaking. So now in Edmonton, you look, and maybe it does stay McDavid and Dreitzel. Okay. Then Neal's playing with Ryan Nugent Hopkins, a really underrated, good player that can feed him the puck

in areas where he can score. So I wouldn't be surprised at all. If he gets 25 goals, you look at the numbers last year, they actually, I think that they would have worked out. Um, his shooting percentage was so low. His career shooting percentages is around 11 or 12%. Last year was 5%. That's an enormous decline. Even as you get older, I mean a year like that. So last year it said if his, if his shooting percentage, even in the year he had was the same as his career, he would have finished with 21 goals if he played the whole season. That's such a what-if, right?

But you've got to think he's going to be in better shape. He was just at Roman Yossi's wedding where I was told by a couple guys he's in the best shape of his life. So real deal is getting ready to have a big-time bounce-back year and to get a chance to do it in Edmonton with people that can get him the puck, I think it's going to be a nice trade for the Oilers. Yeah, Whit, man, if you can find an over-under on James Neal goals for next season, I'd be all over that over.

I would probably set it at about 22.5, but I'm definitely going to take the over. One thing I wanted to mention was the condition on a potential future draft pick. Can I let you take that away, R.A.? I took the words right out of my mouth i love these conditions this is one of the most specific ones i've ever heard i mentioned the third rounder in 2020 uh the pick will be transferred if james neal scores 21 goals and milan lucic scores 10 or fewer goals than neil that's kind of if that happens then they'll get the other pick is it not the gap of 11 goals? So even if

James Neal gets 30 and then Lucic gets, let's say, 16, 17, wouldn't they still get the draft pick? Well, I read it off of CapFriendly and it said, pick is transferred if James Neal scores 21 goals and Lucic scores 10 or fewer goals than Neal. So I think Neal would have to score at least 21 and score 11 more than Lucic. That's the line. Okay, so if James Neal ends up getting 30 and then Lucic gets 18, they're still going to get that pick. So I could see a scenario like that where, yeah, right now going into this,

if I had to pick a winner of this trade, I would probably say I would put my money on Edmonton and the fact that James Neal will probably get 20 goals next season. I'm hoping Lucic gets between 15 and 20. Maybe he'll get even more. It would be a great scenario if James Neal went on to get 30, 35 goals and Lucic got 20, and then Calgary still ended up getting the draft pick so then i feel like everybody would win including both players which obviously were players podcasts i want to see happen i want both of those guys to go have success because both of them deserve it

based on the amount of fucking mental uh and and verbal abuse they've probably taken over the last year online now it's interesting also, like you said, have two rivals make a trade like this. That's a real thing. They've been trading a lot lately. Like Mike Smith went over to Edmonton from Calgary. They've been trading a lot. Yeah.

Hey, you got to do what you got to do to improve your team. The game's changed. The game's changed. This next announcement, it actually dropped right after one of our episodes it came out literally after i actually blogged it and then what happened was me and wits talked about it before an interview and we basically forgot to add it last week and that was the announcement that matt cullen retired uh he made an incredible video um that he released through the penguins website where he basically thanked everybody who had a role in his career. He had 21 seasons, three Stanley Cups.

He played 1,516 regular season games, another 132 in the playoffs. You know, and he wasn't a superstar. He wasn't an all-star. He's the type of glue guy that you see on just about every cup winner, though. You know, he blocks shots. He kills penalties. He has some touch. I love by his teammates.

And, you know, I think that's why he won three cups in his illustrious career. You know, people talk about Hall of Fame careers, and he's not a Hall of Famer, but I think he had a career that anybody would trade in a heartbeat. And one quote he had from the video he put out, I thought it was nice. He said, the one thing I want to say the most is thank you. Thank you to everyone who made my dreams possible. I'm grateful for every game, every moment, everything this game has given me. I will spend the rest of my life in awe of how

blessed I've been. I thought that was just an unreal quote. Matt Cullen, you guys both played against him. What's your take on this one? That video was incredible. RA, that was definitely the part that got me most when he said that.

You could tell how much he appreciates it and how much he actually realizes how lucky he's been. But the thank you to everyone. And you could tell his teammates loved him, right? I mean, this is a guy, 1,500 games. That is so many fucking professional hockey games. 1,500 too. Sneaky, sneaky.

But, I mean, he came out of college. He, he had some good offensive years too. And then he was great to, he could, he could really do it all. He could play up and down lineups. And I always, I think it's just, just so cool to see former teammates talk about a guy and so many people came out and just said amazing things. So when you've been around that long, uh, you've, you know, been been been a part of so many different people's lives in pro hockey and to all of them appreciate you and come out with those messages it was uh it was pretty cool to see because you're right biz i i didn't really even understand how long he's been in the league i always go uh hashtag the name and go look at all the tweets about him

right and uh i came across this one for colin Jonathan Bambouli, you know him, Whit. He was in Wilkes-Barre. And now he's doing media in Pittsburgh. Loved him when he was in Wilkes-Barre with us. Great guy. So shout out Bambouli. This was one of his tweets. His favorite Matt Collins story.

Morning of game six of the 2017 finals in Nashville. So this is the game they ended up closing out. The only three regular forwards on the ice were Cullen, Patrick Hornquist, and Carl Hagelin. After the skate, Bambouli walked up to Cullen. He goes, so are you guys ready for tonight? He goes, the Swedes are. That night, the Pens, and then he kind of commented

how they were buzzing in pregame skate. They won 2-0 that game, goals by Hornquist and Haglund because he was pumping them up. They were the only guys on the ice, and he goes, these guys are fucking ready to go. And kind of chirping himself like, ah, I don't feel too great. And sure as shit, those two guys ended up scoring the two goals for them, and they fucking sealed the deal.

So I thought that was a fun little story. Amazing career. Not a bad thing said about the guy. And fucking three Stanley Cups? That's how many he's got? Yeah. He won the one in 06 with Carolina and then the one with – I'm sorry, the two with Pittsburgh.

Fucking jealous. Biz, imagine when training camp comes, how he it's going to be for him. That's perfect example. We had Talbot on and he'll get into it too. It's he, he made comments about it. It's for the first time ever. I know.

And, and, and this guy played like 800 more games than Talbot too, who played like a lot of NHL games. I think Talbot played three years in rush either way. This guy's played so many games that this fall he's going to be like, he doesn't know anything else. It's going to be so bizarre for him.

Well, to be fair, Talbott did three training camps in Russia, so that's probably like doing 20 in North America. And he will get into that too. What's up, Panarin? Me and Panarin are together linked. We can go into that one. No, we should probably go to Truba first.

Yeah, actually, we got a couple things before we get to the signage. Yeah, we'll save the Panarin stuff for after the interview. It's long, actually. We gotta go, because we're already at like 45 minutes right now, just us. One a week, boys. People love this shit. Absolutely. So again, congrats to Cully on an outstanding career.

Great guy, great career, and hopefully he enjoys retirement. Some other news out of the Pacific Northwest, Ronnie Franchise, Ron Francis, was officially named the first GM of the Seattle Wichita McCulloughs. Still haven't got a name for you there, Biz. He mentioned how opportunities like this,

building a franchise from the ground up, are very rare, and that was really enticing to him. He was running the Canadian team in the Spengler Cup. That got his juices going again. He said he had a bunch of options, but this one was the most enticing for him. And his quote, quote, the fact that we're one of six teams with no state income tax makes it an attractive place for players to want to play. Biz, I got that quote just for you.

And unlike his time in Carolina, he won't have to worry about any empty seats. Seattle reached the NHL expansion target of 10,000 season tickets in just 12 minutes. They sold out the season tickets by the end of the first day, and they now have a waiting list of 25,000 people for Seattle season tickets. So what do you think on this one, Biz? Ronnie Franchise running the show. Well, a lot of people thought he got the shaft in Carolina

and had a lot to do with where that team was last year, and he's got his fingerprints all over it. I think he's going to have a lot of success there, and I think he's going to do a lot of homework on how Las Vegas kind of went about things. From what I'm hearing, a lot of the rules are going to stay the same because, I mean, fuck, Las Vegas paid $500 million to get a team and the rules were in place.

And all of a sudden, you know, a year and a half or whatever it was, excuse me, later, Seattle paid $650 million. I believe that was the tag on it. So they're like, fucking right, you're not changing the rules. So I think they're going to be able to build a pretty good team. I guess the only flaw going towards that is a lot of teams are going to be a lot more prepared for what's coming. But nonetheless, there's enough good players in the league to go around.

And some teams who have stacked up will be losing some good players. And they're going to have a fairly competitive team. So I think he's a great man for the job. I'm looking forward to hearing what the team name is, though, pretty soon. Or we're going to have to have you list them all off again, all right, to remind them what the options are. Let me pull it out right here. I think it's a solid move.

I think he's fit for the job. Biz, very well said. Very well said. I mean, I don't have fit for the job. Very well said. Very well said. I mean, I don't have much to add there. I'm interested to see how crazy the fan base is going to be because those numbers are wild. And you saw Vegas, and it became this instant just madhouse. Who's to say it won't be the exact same thing in Seattle?

Winning has to have something to do with it, but no matter what, the first year, people are going to love him. Well, and the fact that I don't know if you guys saw the picture of him online. Now that he's got the gray hairs, he kind of looks like that Mike Pence guy. I know we don't talk about politics on the podcast. Is it Mike Pence? Yeah, Mike

Pence, Vice President. Yeah, I don't think he, I mean, he's got the gray, but I don't think he looks like Pence. Well, if you go a couple of photos online, actually, one of the reporters made a comment about it. I thought it was funny. I liked it. So I don't know.

Maybe it wasn't. Maybe it's a swing and a miss. Fuck you, then. Yeah, he's got a couple years, though. They hired him well ahead of time. They usually kind of do it a year later. But like I said, he can put his own stamp on this team, and we're interested to see what he does.

But I just hope they pick a name that is one of these names they haven't even heard of yet. They go off the reservation and pick something, hopefully. But we also had some big signings while we were gone. Defenseman Jacob Trubo. What a monster ticket he ended up getting. Seven years, $56 million with the Rangers, an $8 million cap hit. Whit, was this more than you thought, less than you thought, right around where you expected?

What's your take here, buddy? It's more than I thought. I think it's more than everyone thought. But you started here in numbers around like seven, seven and a half a while back. And so we had one more year before his UFA. So when you look at when you look at the initial number, you're probably like, wow, I mean, it's a bit of an overpay. You got to take a little bit of a step back. I'll give kind of two sides here. You got to give a little bit of a step back and realize that he's 25 years old and he just coming off a 50 point year. So he made an enormous jump last year offensively on a team that has three complete studs, right? So I'll say that the Rangers, besides Panarin, say last year's Rangers, they didn't have one guy that's as good as Wheeler, Shifley, or Kyle Connor.

So that's three forwards that he was, you know, I was a huge beneficiary of. You pass it up to certain guys, you get a lot of assists. I still think that these weren't phantom points by him. He had a great year. So he's young. That makes sense in terms of locking a guy up. The Rangers decided to kind of move in a different direction and get this so-called rebuild moving much quicker with the Panarin signing. That kind of changed everything. They understood that they needed it true, but the only thing you'll worry about is or understand they're going to have to change is like Stahl's there, Brendan Smith, Shatton, Kirk. So I don't know if they're going to

have to try to trade somebody. You'll, you'll see that, that, that blue lines much improved though. The team's much improved. The only worry is on the other side is that I'll give you a list of names of guys who are making $8 million or more next year.

Oliver Ekman, Larson, Drew Dowdy, Eric Carlson, PK Subban, John Carlson, and Brent Burns. Jacob Truba isn't in a class with those guys. So if you're a hater of the deal, you're like, wait, our guy making the same money as these guys? That's kind of off right now. But when you're buying up UFA years, that's just what happens. And if you think that Trouba wouldn't have gotten what he signed for

in one more year when he was UFA, you're mistaken. So the only thing I say is it's a lot of money now, but if he continues to build on what last year was, you're not thinking it's a lot of money in two or three years as the cap keeps rising. Fuck, there's so many things about this deal that you can teeter-totter on. And you mentioned one there. He's making the same as those guys who have really proven themselves.

I would say the best comparison would probably be Oliver Ekman-Larsen, who signed a year prior at the age of 26 for eight years with Arizona. Not a big deal. 8.25, okay? Trouba put up 50 points. I think Oliver's only done that one or two times oliver's not necessarily as offensive but he's also not playing with those guys that you did mention up front where their power play is ridiculous you also mentioned the fact that

he had other uh we have mentioned on the podcast that he had other d-man around where i wouldn't say he was able to hide behind but but he wasn't the main focus. But also, were they taken away from his ice time and his situations in order to get more points? The more I look at this deal, the more I like it. He's 25 years old. He's going to be making $8 million. The cap's going to keep going up.

This is going to be a pretty fair deal if he can maintain that pace. This is going to be a pretty fair deal if he can maintain that pace. Like if he's putting up 45 to 55 points for the next, you know, eight years or sorry, excuse me, seven year deals. This is a very nice contract. Obviously the worries are that all of a sudden he steps in and he is the guy and he's, and he's doing it with a team that is going through a rebuild. Although fuck adding him and then adding Panarin and these young forwards,

if they end up turning out to what they think they're going to be, fuck, maybe I did underestimate the New York Rangers. Maybe they are going to sneak into playoffs. But another comparable would be Hedman. He's making 7.875. Hedman has put up more points, but once again, he's playing on a team that's fucking like the Harlem Globetrotters. And he signed that deal when he was 25 as well.

So I don't know. The more I look at it, and it's not because I was playing tummy sticks with him online when he signed his contract and he was popping bottles of Opus One and I was congratulating him. I think this is a solid deal. And it's hard to find offensive right-handed defensemen in today's NHL. And that's just another stepping stone for that New York Rangers organization. Yeah, they're definitely going to have a much improved look this year,

especially with what they added, man. I'm curious to see what the Rangers do because, you know, I was talking last year or the year before, man, maybe they should look into trading Hank and try to get some pieces for the future, but they've really flipped the roster around quite a bit. One issue the Rangers do have, though, with him making $8 million now, Rangers have approximately $1.5 million in cap space, and they still have to sign Buchnevich, awesome Russian name, Lemieux, and D'Angelo.

And those three, based on, I think a couple of them don't have arbitration rights, but just based on what they produced, they're going to account for about $5 million. So the Rangers are going to have to make some moves here. And the guy that Jacob Trubel was traded for, Neil Pionk, he signed with the Jets a two-year deal, $6 million. It's a $3 million cap hit for each year. And that's a nice chunk of change for a guy who wasn't even drafted, man. So

kudos to Neil. That's a nice price for him. And I had a couple other signers we want to get to you. Oscar Sundquist re-upped with the Blues for four years, $11 million for a $2.75 million cap hit. The Canes gave forward Brock McGinn a two-year 4.2 million dollar deal uh that's carries a 2.1 million dollar cap hit forward jt confa signed with colorado four years 14 mil it's a three and a half million dollar cap hit uh the panthers signed prank victim mackenzie wieger to a one-year 1.6 million dollar deal and this one just came over the wire a minute ago nashville and col Sissons avoided arbitration. He signed a seven year, $20 million deal. Wow. A little different wits. What's your take on that one? Seven years. That's one of the, that's an, didn't they sign Yarncroke six

years, 12 million too, I think. I think they might've had another one like this. It's just a crazy little contract. doesn't really make much sense besides that they get to lock him up for a long time he gets some financial security the rest of his life and the cap it isn't too bad it's just you never see shit seven years with a with an average annual value of under five million is isn't really common let alone just uh just three man under three right when you're a role guy and you get a seven-year deal, that's the fucking powerball. Actually, you're going to hear in the Talbot interview

about when he went through contract negotiations when he was leaving Pittsburgh, when he talked about the security of it. And we're talking about a contract half that length. So congratulations to him. I love him as a player. He's a little honey badger. And I don't think it's going to turn into one of those – I know we always reference Wayne Simmons where all of a sudden

he's going to be getting 30 goals and he kind of left a lot of money on the table. I think they know exactly what this guy is. He's a true professional. And they got a very solid player who's a bit of a Swiss Army knife who can bounce around the lineup at a very fair value. So congratulations to him. That's incredible.

Seven fucking years. Oh, there's one more signing too. Which one you got there for us? Our boy Del Zotto ended up getting a nice one-year deal with the Anaheim Ducks coming off that Stanley Cup win. Man, a lot of confidence. Now he's back in California. He's a handsome devil.

I would imagine 30 off-ice tucks during next season minimum. If there's a prop bet on that, R.A., put me down for my life savings. You are a fucking piece of work. that, R.A., put me down for my life savings. Oh, you are a fucking piece of work. Yeah, one year, $750K deal for Del Zotto. Good for him. Good for all these guys getting paid. We love to see these fellas get paid. I think it's time to send it over to Max Talbot, though.

This was a great interview, man. What a funny guy. I love how when you guys get together with an old teammate and the story starts flowing, and it really does feel like the locker room. This was one of those interviews. So let's send it over to Max Dalbert. This interview was brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Hiring used to be hard.

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who was a complete beauty from the minute you met him. A French-Canadian, a man who won a Memorial Cup. He was a superstar in junior. He went on to score two goals in Game 7 to be the hero and win a Stanley Cup with the Pittsburgh Penguins, played for four NHL teams, played in Russia for three years. Oh, my God. And also in Wilkes-Barre, our rookie year, drove around an orange Nissan Murano I called the pumpkin.

Maxime Talbot, thank you for joining us. What's up, boys? How you doing? How you been, buddy? That was a great intro. I know, man. I've been working on it. I gotta take one thing back. I never won the cup.

I lost twice in the finals. Fuck, Talbot. I'm sorry. You know what? You won the cup i lost twice in the finals oh fuck talbo i'm sorry but you know what you got the cup that really matters though yeah i should have took it though i should have just said i wish i i wish i would have but the mirano thing is is definitely true that thing was a nightmare we need to talk about that right off the hop so you end up getting a nice fat signing bonus and most people go get the escalade but not max talbot uh-uh he got a nissan merano which okay nissan great car very reliable it's probably a five-star crash rating but you get it a burnt orange color and then you put the worst

rims on it i've seen it looked like you got it done at Pimp My Ride. That's very accurate. You know, the inside was actually orange too. And by the way, yeah, it made it even better. But my parents are still actually driving this car. Get the fuck off. I swear to God. I swear to God. When I was done with it, after a couple of years, I drove it for like my first NHL years also.

Yeah, because nobody would buy it. Hey, you bombed around in it too. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world, not you guys. But my parents still drive it around. So like you said, it's very's very reliable i mean it's been what uh 15 years so awesome though i'd like to put gopros on the outside of that car just to see people's reactions as they drive as they drive by with that thing

it's awesome it's a classic seriously i guess let's let's get to the Hall days. Now, congratulations. You actually had your jersey retired by the Hall Olympics. What? Did you, Topo? Yeah. He's a legend there.

I did during the lockout year. Yeah, thank you. It was great. It was awesome. Actually, I had my old junior coach here about a week ago. It's funny because his son, the old coach is uh benoit who was now coaching that in syracuse american hockey league and i always stayed friends with him he was my junior coach and we have like a video and picture of my second cup and his son is like three years old

he's on my laps and you know we're all like celebrating with the cup. And two days ago, I was in the gym with my strength coach, Mark Lambert, and his son got drafted by the Anaheim Ducks. And I think it was in the second round. And he's a great player. So, yeah, reminiscing the good years of Gatineau Hall Olympics. It was freaking awesome. Like that, I mean, the one year in the playoffs, Talbot, 20 games, 44 points. I mean, that's just unconscious for you.

Like, you know, you went on, you were a very, you were an offensively skilled checking, you know, player. But those stats in junior, I mean, what the fuck was that? Well, that's the cue. You know, everybody in the NHL, yeah. Well, everybody makes fun of the cue, right, because it's super offensive-minded. But I was on the ice. I was playing like 22 to 25 minutes.

Yeah, I had two great years down there. I was, like I said, I had a great coach and great teammates. Like we played, we won when we were 18 years old, which was kind of a surprise. And then the second year we went on, I was 19 years old, which was kind of a surprise. And then the second year, we went on and I was 19 years old and we kind of basically had the same team. So we won the Q again. But in the lapse of one year, like 365 days, I lost twice in a MemCup final and won the World Juniors with Team Canada

when we lost against USA. Oh, queso. Zachary Zet and stuff. When Fleury came out of his net and shot the puck on Colburn and it went back in the back. We were up 3-1 going to the finals and going into the third period,

we ended up losing that final. So it was a pretty sucky year, actually. Did it not hit Patrick O'Sullivan because he ended up getting credit for that goal? Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

You know your stuff, right? Yeah. I know a lot of hockey stuff. Not a big deal. Going back to junior two, you play with a jam. And he ended up playing in Wilkes-Barre with us and he had to play on a

fourth line with myself. And he was a skilled guy in junior and he was the one probably getting all those points fuck you exactly holy fuck i think i got stuck on your line once i didn't yeah you were furious i bet you're like what the fuck is this you know i used to do this is laundry in in hit in Pittsburgh his first couple weeks there. Ugh. Like, do you remember Bist? Like, you kind of came over.

It was filthy laundry, too. It was probably all stood up by itself. I'll say this. You were an incredible teammate. You were always a team first guy and that's probably a big reason

why you had such a good career. Thanks, man. Needs a lot. You were not bad yourself. And your last three years of juniors you went from 174 to 130 to 41 penalty minutes what was that all about how'd you go from so high to so low uh well like i mentioned at 16 17 i was just like trying to make my my place you know at 16 i think

i had like 15 kills or so 15 to 20 kills i, you know, trying to, you know, make my place in the league and show that I was not a coward. And at 17, I was still fighting and I was like more of a third liner. I used to play, my right wing was Alex Shemsky actually when I was 17 years old, which I, I mean, I don't even know, has he retired, Alex Shemsky? Yeah, he retired. How sick was he? He just retired, right? Maybe two years.

Oh, my God. He was unbelievable. Like, even his first couple years in the NHL, he was just great. I remember, like, he made it that month, and I think he was 18 or 19 years old. He made the NHL, and he came back down to party with us one night. I think he spent, like, 500 bucks, and everybody's like, holy shit. The guy is, like, so so rich he made the show so you know you know what it is but uh and then at 18 like i said i was like 20 22 to 25 minutes on

the ice i have all kinds of responsibilities so at one point you can't just go my coach is like okay max relax we got guys for that so uh 18 19 i, I kind of just focused on playing hockey. You just mentioned a coach. We're probably talking about Michel Therrien. I know he loved Whitney, but what was your experience like playing for him? Well, no, tell me. Tell me. I'll say this because I wanted to bring this up.

It was always worse for you because you got it in French, and it seemed even meaner. It was always worse for you because you got it in French and it seemed even meaner. You know, the bad thing about like having a French coach is it's bad for the English guys because they don't know sometimes when he's swearing and stuff. But I think it's worse for the French speaking guys because we know what he's saying. So he's like giving shit. He's getting frustrated and swearing like tabac in french and everything and you're like holy shit he's not happy but you guys at least i mean i lived

it in russia where the russian coaches just speak in russia you don't know what he's saying you know you're like okay whatever it's great can't be that bad yeah exactly but when you understand the guy like holy shit he's not happy and and michelle could really uh could really put up a couple swears uh in a row but but for me mike was it was amazing you know i had him uh for uh five years and he really taught me how to be a pro you know how to try to you know not go out too much and and and just showed me how to you know to work and you you kind of had that trust like that you knew what i could give him and he kind of didn't want to give me too much but on big situation it was kind of you know letting me go like and and and for that i always thought i thought it was a very good coach well yeah i mean

i will say you're definitely a guy who you know his his fingerprints are all over the cup winning team i mean he wasn't the coach, but a guy like you, who he really did take a liking to for a bunch of reasons, and then you go on to be such an important guy winning that Stanley Cup. So it makes sense. It's just funny, though, like that first year when we played together, the lockout year, like what are your memories? I mean, for Biz and I, I've told Biz, like it was the funnest year

I think I had playing hockey. I mean, did Biz and I, I've told Biz, like, it was the funnest year I think I had playing hockey. I mean, did you enjoy it that much that year as well? You mean the Wilkes-Barre year or first one, the lockout year? Yeah, Wilkes-Barre. Oh, my God. I was telling a story about a month ago about that you and Matt Murley actually started the home casino in your apartment. Get the fuck. They were running a casino.

Dude, that's like one of the most legendary thing I've ever seen. Like, we used to be like – we started with poker, right? We used to play once in a while. At one point, like, with Matt Murley that I salute, awesome guy. He's still in Japan, right? In Asian League or something? Yeah. He's done.

He's finally done. He's done. He's finally done. He's done? Okay. Everybody, we're dropping like flies, Talbot. I know. Crap. We're so old. It's freaking nuts.

But so like with Matt, just at one point, like, okay, you know what? The house always wins, you know? So we're going to start a casino and guys will come play. I think we played in the afternoon and we just started to drink a couple beers and stuff whatever but the first time at least you guys just got like like swept we took all the money all the players took the money with and matt was down like one or two thousand they were like holy fuck like so i think we tried it a second time. And correct me if I'm not right. Oh, Talbot, you have this story so dead correct right now.

I mean, this is like exactly what happened. So I'll go back. And it's never been brought up on this podcast, I don't think. Yeah, because it's illegal. We would always have the poker game. We had a good game on the bus, and then finally at home, we're like, all right, come over tonight or whatever.

So Talbot was there. Elaine Nazardine, he played all the time. Rammer, Ramsey, we got to go in there. So either way, so we're like, me and Merle, you know, we've been going to the casino here and there. We're like, we can't win. Why don't we just be the house? We got the bankroll.

Let's do it. So the issue being, me and him switched on and off from spinning the wheel through roulette and dealing blackjack. Blackjack was going okay, but we realized the fucking wheel was busted. So it kept landing on zero, and you guys were, like, hitting it, and it ended up fucking raking a bunch of cash from us. It was a whole scam, I think. So we had to give up the casino.

It did not work in our favor. Of course, we couldn't even win when we were the house. And I think at one point during the season where we had a couple losing streaks, like a couple games we lost, like Michel Thierry came out in the paper. Guys were freaking like playing, like gambling and stuff. So he heard about it and he kind of put it in the media. It was a good year, though. We had a blast.

I will say this. If I had to pick one member of our podcast who had a home casino going, it would have definitely been R.A. in his day. But, Talbs, I want to go back to that first year of pro hockey for you. It was a lockout. You're in Wilkes-Barre. You go from playing junior where you're putting up 100 points, and all of a sudden you have to kind of transition your game instantly

because we talked about Terry and molding you as a player. You became more of a checking slash penalty killer type. Yeah, well, I have to say again, I have to give credit to Benoit Gouraud, my junior coach, where at one point, you know, when you score 100 points in junior, you're in every situation. I remember some games, like, I tried too many fancy stuff. And, like, I didn't score my points because I was doing, like, geeking three guys, right?

I scored my points because I was dragging the net and playing simple. And sometimes when I thought I was good, I was trying this fancy shit. And Ben White, who always told me, sat me down and was like, Max, you were benching me. He's like, Max, he was venturing me. He's like, Max, you're not going to play in the NHL playing like this. There's plenty of guys with more skills than you. You have to figure your game out, and it's going to be by killing penalties, working hard, finishing your check.

And that year, like I said, I made the World Juniors, and that was my role. I was playing on third line with Tim Brent and Daniel Payet, and I played my role i was playing on third line with tim brent and and danielle paillet and and i played that role so i i kind of knew that i could do that at the the pro level and that's exactly what happened um in wilkes-barre my first year i was 20 years old i was put on the line and i i think i played most of the year with ramsey bid which was a guy that played in pittsburgh grammar was just a beauty like what a great guy. What a guy he was. I got to hear stories because you guys are giggling like idiots. Calvin, do you remember when he had the blister on his thumb? Do you remember that?

Did he not play? No, so he had a blister on his thumb and he never didn't play. He was tough as shit. But he was so funny with his low voice. He'd be like, wait, look at me. Wait, you don't fucking understand how hard I'm grinding to get through this blister butt.

This fucking blister is killing me day after day. And he was just so funny the way he told stories. But I remember sometimes he'd snap in French and yell at Talbot if Talbot was being too crazy. Yeah. Oh, yeah. He was rough. I mean, I was with Naz.

LA Nazardine was like my brother in that team where he was 30 or 31 years old at that time. And we bought a townhouse in Wolfsburg. I was there for two weeks, and we bought a townhouse. I didn't have any credits or anything. And they're like, let's freaking do this. And I ended up buying a motorcycle also. I did my lesson with like Flurry. And Flurry like, he bought like a nice V-Rod like our husband,

and the first time he drove it, he kind of just like fell on the side, you know? And he's like, that shit's not for me. So he sold it. So I was like riding my motorcycle around in Wolfsburg with no bucket on. With your big mustache. Yeah. My full man shoes. It was the time

of my life. It was pretty good. We'd go to Arena Bar and Grill, salute to Nicole down there. We had a good time. We had a great group of guys. That was in 2005, I think. You look at 2008 2009 where the pittsburgh penguins went to the standing cup finals and there is quite a

bit of that like yeah into it i'm talking like you know like flurry and and the second year going back and up and back like uh between minors and pittsburgh like that's where you build it you Like that's where you build it, you know, that's where you build championship. And it's not like just a superstar, obviously, stayed in Malkin Health and they never went to Wilkes-Barre. But, you know, it's the stories from down there that builds a team also. Yeah, you talked about Wilkes-Barre's development.

It was incredible. And I'd have to agree with that. Going to the next year in training camp, I was drafted Carcillo's year that was going to be Carcillo's first year um after signing his deal and a lot of people had him penciled in uh for for a fourth line role but you ended up coming into camp you were in freakish shape and you ended up surprising a lot of people making that team out of training camp yeah yeah i mean i always remember like daddy old chuck sitting me down and you know the like the day that i was gonna play my first game at the melon he sat me down in the stands and he i don't know why he didn't bring his office but he sat me down in the stands like max

you're you're gonna play you made the team you You're going to play your first game. But that year, there was, yes, of course, I was in shape. I was ready to go. But, like, Shane Endicott got hurt. Chris Beach, I think, also, which were two sentiments. And I ended up making the team, making the opening line roster and playing up until Michel Therrien got the job because Eddie Olch chuck was the coach that uh uh made the opening uh opening roster but that was that was that first year was fun too it

was sid's first year also so we played our first hl game at the same time and it was mario lemieux last year so i had a chance to play with uh with the legend the man itself so uh it was great we had it it was kind of the country club though. You know, we had like John LeClair, Mark Recchi, Zikwin Palfi, line of the line. It was, it was an old team and it was fun because it was, it was kind of, for me, the last year of the old generations, you know, like guys would do mandatory beer.

Like after practice practice everybody had to go to the little little bar and we'd have to at least drink one beer and everybody could go on their side after but it was kind of like you know it was very like relaxed and old school and and it was fun but then uh the more that you know Sid at one point took uh took over and uh you know the management like Greg Patrick which is good but uh lost lost his job to Ray Shero and everything, and Mike and Michelle Terran changed that thing also. So it was a great first year. It was fun.

I learned a lot, and I got sent down at the Olympic break that year. So I learned a lot for sure. Talbot, I actually remember vividly because when you were told you made the team, Merle's made the team too, right? Yeah, exactly. And then I remember that I saw you go up above the entrance to the locker room from the ice, out of your gear. And I'm pretty sure you called your parents. I remember you saying that. It's so meaningful that I remember it just as clear as I'm sure you do. Yeah, it's nuts, you know, because all throughout my life, my career has had like very vivid, like clear goals, you know. And obviously you want to play Ben Sam AAA and a Ninja AAA Junior.

You want to do like World Juniors and stuff. But the main goal of, I think think most nhl player is to play one nhl game you know that it's it's uh it's where you know you played in the show you can play one game or 200 for me you played in the nhl and uh i remember him telling me i i was gonna play that night and right away i mean i started crying stuff. And then I called my parents, and it was like, okay, I made it. And I think that night after the game and stuff, I'm like, okay, I got to find another goal after that, right after that. I was like, you want to win the Stanley Cup after that?

But then I was fucked when I won the Stanley Cup. I was like, okay, what's next? Time down here for me, everybody. KHL's next, man. I want to go play in Russia. I want to go play in Russia. I want to go play in Russia. We mentioned you scored. Go ahead, Max.

No, but I mean, that was it. Just making the first game was – and I had actually a 2-on-1 with Matt Merle in the first period, which I made a nice pass. He just missed that. All thrown one on the bus. Murrow's buried that. Things are way different right now.

He'd probably tell you that himself. Seriously, and I could still be playing too. Maybe not. Definitely not. We mentioned you scored the cup clincher, Max. How often do you gloat about that feather in your cap? Not a big deal. That's not a big deal.'s uh it's not a big deal uh that

it's very funny you know because now i'm i'm newly retired like you said and it's it's i i still can't you can't believe it right like in my head i still think that i'm i'm leaving august 15th to go into a training camp you know know, my brain hasn't processed that. I am not going to be playing hockey this year. I'm in the gym every day. Still. Like I, I'm just doing it for the wife to have big pipes,

you know, but like, still I, I enjoy the work it out. And I still, I feel I have that mindset right now. I'm still going to play, but it's,

it's, I'm not. So it's, it's tough to, to, to realize that. But saying that is that all throughout my career I kind of after I scored this these two goals game seven when we won the cup uh it's crazy brought

me so much you know in my life hockey standpoint and life and it was just it became like it was not maxed out but a hockey player is maxed out, but you know, the Stanley cup champion. So, and that's just going sideway. I was telling that I was doing some TV for the playoffs and the day of game seven this year, St. Louis, Boston, I was like, you know, that in one instant, in one game, the life of 22 guys, 25 guys, 30 guys with management, it's going to be totally different than the other 30 guys. It's like day and night, you know, because you don't win it.

People don't say, oh, the Stanley Cup finalist or something. You go to a charity golf event or you're going to, you know, of course, when you negotiate a contract, people see you more the longer you go in a playoff. But winning the Stanley Cup is like a it's like a tag on your shirt that's like you know so it changed my life in a way that two years after I was able to sign a five-year contract which I probably would have not had if I didn't play well that one special game you know so it's it is very special but at the same time I never let myself kind of appreciate it as much as I'd want to because I always said if if I just at one point if you go behind and you think about it too much you stop moving forward right and I was not done playing I always said when I'll be done playing I'll just sit down in my rocking chair grab a cigar scotch scotch, and I'll be like, that was freaking great. And I had the chance to do that actually June 12th of this year,

which was the exact 10-year anniversary. It was game seven, St. Louis, Boston. It was the exact same day. So it was 10 years, and I kind of knew I was not going to play next year. So I invited a bunch of friends to my house. That's awesome, man. Cheers on it. Yeah, yeah it's pretty cool you're an emotional guy max and and i think a lot of people are starting to get that at the start of this interview now i want to back it up though

i want to go to to the the sequence of events that led you to that stanley cup you mentioned they win the draft lottery and get crosby and all of a sudden everything starts to change yeah well that that team was the team was probably gonna leave if they don't get crosby it was gonna move you know so it's it's crazy how a lottery can can change the faith of a whole city of a whole organization and uh having said it was just, it was crazy what this guy has done for this organization and for hockey itself. You know, I was talking about him to a young guy last week. I'm like, this guy, every decision he made in his life

is to be the best in the world. And it's about hockey and the leadership he brought to Pittsburgh, not necessarily by his words, but by his everyday action. You know, we were always pissed at him because he would never take a day off and optional, you know, we had optional and he would skate. So guys like third and fourth line, you're like, take a break, bro. You know, we want to take the option. And when the guy plays 22, 25 minutes and he's skating, you're like, fuck me.

Like, you want to be able to relax a little bit. But Sid was always there, you know, working hard. And the way that he was able to make it work with Malkin also that we got right after has been amazing, you know, that these two, two, probably two of the best hockey player in the world. I definitely think so, uh, that are able to share that leadership and, and share that success. And it was Pittsburgh is an unbelievable city to play in. Unbelievable organization. It starts from the top, from, from Mario to Ron Burkle straight down the trickles through and,

and they take care of the family. It's crazy when you go play there, how well they take care of the players. So playing there six years was pretty amazing. Yeah, you played with Sid and Gino for six years. Do you think Gino is maybe overshadowed just a little bit by Sid? Because he's such a great player. Of course, it's Crosby, so he's got some competition. But I think Gino's a little bit overshadowed you agree with that I he definitely is but what I like to think when I think about these two guys what I like to say is is Sid is the definition of skills and Mulliken is the

definition of talent you know uh Gino can not skate the whole summer he's gonna come down and dangle everybody at camp. He doesn't need the repetitions. He's talent. He's born. He's natural. He's strong. He's tall.

He's amazing. But Sid is skills, right? Sid is like the best grinder in the league. He has to work so hard to be that good. It's all about repetition. His NI coordination is amazing not because he was born with it because he does a thousand tips after every practice he's good at face-off he used to suck at face-off one summer after the season he tells me max i'm gonna get so

much better on face-off this year he goes changes curves a little bit changes stiffness in his stick so the whole summer he's got a goal in his hand. Same thing for goals, you know. Like the first couple of years, we do like the, you know, the half moon, like the half circle on top of the, like the ash mark and the top of the circle. I swear his shot would like kind of like go down before it hit the goalie, right? He had a big muffin the first couple of years. Well, maybe the first year. He still scored like 100 points, right? He was not that bad.

But one year, remember him? I think he scored 30. He's like, Max, I can score 50 in that league. And once again, it changed his curve a little bit. And the next year, he scored 50. And it was like, wow, this guy is just so dope. Well, Max, I think he switched to a one-piece. Yes, he did.

You want to talk about Sidney Crosby's sickness? It was nuts. yes he did oh you want to talk about Sidney Crosby's sickness it was not like I know I used to copy his I used to copy his knob thinking I'd be able to stick handle like him because I fucking did the little twirl thing he does that's how fucking stupid I was well you kind of did went to fight in practice with no goalies but you know like shit at like a big like take a huge garbage can with like uh only blades right you used to use that two-piece like you mentioned before and you would go and they were they were like uh made by hand right they would do the curve like with the heating thing and they would just like be curved by hand so you would have about 200 blades in that big garbage can and you would just like take one by one and look at them about 200 blades in that big garbage can he would just

like take one by one and look at them and put one aside every 10 he was like oh this one's good and then the other 10 ones were were not good to him but i would look at all of them and i'm like you can't see any difference from my eye right but for him he was such a detailed guy detailed guy with his skate like skate stick club and he still is so it's uh yeah it was an honor to play with him because i got so much better just watching him like you did like this like trying to copy his mouth i try to copy his freaking i don't know strides i only did squats one summer to try to have quads like his um yeah hey so i gotta i gotta comment on the the talent comment on the the amalekon thing i think it was my third or fourth training camp with the penguins

and i'll never forget i was there a couple days early as most of us were skating and then gino showed up like the second or third day and this this is before camp had started. And they're like, Gino, where's your bag? And he's like, he's like, left it in Russia. He left all of his equipment in Russia other than his skates. And he fucking stepped, or no, actually his skates as well. And he put on skates out of the fucking box. And he came on for the inter-squad game. And he was far and above the best player on the ice.

And all brand new equipment it's amazing seriously that guy and the question i ask sometimes from people is like so who's the best player you ever played with and i always say for one game at his best i've never seen anyone dominate as much as evgeny malikin he is is, for one game at his best, I will take him before anybody in the world because when we won the Cup in 2009, he won the consmite, but the series

against Carolina, he just took over. Oh my God. And there's that goal, his third goal around the net where he pushed it, he went around the net or something and then he backed in shelf and he went to the middle of the ice and celebrated. It was was like a man versus child you know it was like when you play with and and you're like beer league hockey you just dominate that much well it is what he was it was unbelievable that's when his parents became the mayors of pittsburgh because they had him on

the jumbotron every time you'd score and then everyone fell in love with his folks. Dude, you talk about Russia? I went... Oh, we lost you. Oh, they heard you talking about them. Yeah. Uh-oh. Talbot's dead. Trim and Panarin are in a fucking casket together. Oh, jeez.

Yeah, good job. Date, the red dot on my forehead here on the screen. Click twice if you're alive, Max. He's getting waterboarded right now. He'll be back. Dasvidanya. Click.

I'm sorry? Oh, there he is. Oh, he's back. What's up, buddy? We lost you. I missed that one. It just connected to my car. Sorry.

Oh, my gosh. We thought the Russians got you. Yeah. We're talking about Mr. Mr. Malkin, right? So my first road trip, I get to Magnitogorsk, and it's like the shittiest place in the world, right?

It's like a very small city, very polluted. And I get there, and I get in the warm- warmup and I hear, Marks, Marks. So I turn around and I get a tap on the shoulder. It's Mr. Malkin with gold teeth. He's like, welcome Magnificor. And then you got Tabushka Malkin in the stand with him. I'm like, holy shit, this is awesome. That's incredible.

It was great. It was great. Hey, did you go to Gino's club there called VIP? And then all the waiters had to wear prison guard uniforms? No. I never went there. Gino used to own like a supper club in Magnitodorsk, and I think it was called VIP, but it had like a prison theme to it.

So, I don't know. I thought maybe that it was still kicking and that you might have visited. No, I didn't have the chance. Like, I heard about it, but I, you know, it's not the place that you actually want to take your free

night out. I wouldn't pick my neighbor's. I'm just going to try to pull up Netflix via Google Chrome for a second here because I'm not going outside my hotel room. Max, you mentioned how the cup got you a new free agency deal, but I think you sugarcoated that a little bit. You signed with the cross-state rival Philadelphia Flyers.

How hard was that a decision to make, or did the contract terms make it pretty easy for you? flyers how hard was that a decision to make or did the contract terms make it pretty easy for you i well the contract terms i i mean it was i i had options in a way and that year i mean pittsburgh we were in may like and that was my i finished the season we lost in uh in first round against tampa bay and seven games and then uh we we went on a boat trip, me and Sid, in Europe. And I remember talking to him. I was like, you know, I want to stay. But right at the time in May, and before in 2011,

you couldn't talk to teams right before July 1st. It was not like a one-week prior period. But Pat Brisson has a lot of friends, which was my agent. And he's like, Max, we'll get four or five years. And Pittsburgh was still stuck at two years. I don't blame Rich. I love the guy and everything.

But I was like, I can't just stay for two years when I have five years. It's not so much the money, it's more the length of the term. Because as a third, fourth liner, you've got to pick the years and have a little bit of security so uh uh the day of free agency on july 1st i got a couple offers one for my actually i was a maple leaf for one week because uh i really sure traded my rights to uh

to brian burke and uh and and the toronto maple leaf so they wanted that one week period to talk to me and try to convince to go to toronto uh so Toronto was there on July 1st, Philly, Colorado, San Jose was there. And I wanted to win again. I wanted to stay in the East. And Michel Thierry actually called me the day before for agency. He's like, Max, what do you think? I'm like, you know, I know San Jose is interested, and I had like Toronto and Philly. I didn't know yet. But he's like, Max, he's like, you got to stay in the East.

He's like, for you, a guy that like, you know, kind of creates attention, likes attention with Pittsburgh. He's like, hockey for you is like at 7, 7 PM in New York and in Montreal. He's like, you, you want to be in the East. It's your style of hockey and stuff. So I kept that in mind because San Jose really interested me. But then when the day of July 1st happened, I made a list and stuff with leadership, captain, coaches.

I had a bunch of points that were important to me if I had to decide my team. And when Philly came calling, it was a team that I thought could win, that would treat the players I thought that could win, you know, that would treat the players well and that could win. So I picked the Flyers, which was weird for a lot of Pittsburgh Penguins fans. But I'm very, very, very blessed that it didn't take too long that they forgave me and they kind of, you know, when I go back to Pittsburgh, I still get a lot of love and still have a lot of friends there.

But going to Philly was not easy. It was an emotional, very tough emotional decision. But at the end of the day, we ended up playing Pittsburgh in the first round of the 2012 playoffs, and we beat them. It was that crazy series where every game was like 7-5. Oh, my God. Touchdowns. Yeah, that was amazing. That series was, like, unbelievable.

That was everything, like, Giroux going after Crosby and Brizgalov and Flory were, it was not their best series. You guys started playing with a beach ball halfway through that series. Seriously, it was nuts, but it was fun, and we ended up playing. I always said, like, if I sign a Philly, and that was my biggest fear, if I signed a Philly and that was my biggest year, if I signed a Philly and I leave Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh win a cup in the first two, three years that I'm gone, I was not

going to forget myself. It was so tough and luckily enough we beat them the first year and after that I was like okay, I'm good. I'm good. If they can win next year because I still had a lot of friends and if it was not me, I was happy for them. So they ended up winning two after I was gone a couple years later, but that was cool.

I know I keep going back a little bit. You mentioned the Philadelphia Flyers, and I got to go back to the first round of the year you won that Stanley Cup. Yeah. You got it. You got it, Whit. When you shush the crowd, you guys are down 3-0.

Everyone's thinking, fuck, man, they're going back to Pittsburgh for game seven, then who knows? Could be a first-round exit. And you end up baiting Dan Carcillo on the left wing

to fight you. What did you say in order to get him to fight you there? Because a fighter code is, hey, man, I know you need one right now but three nothing i ain't fucking changing the momentum for nothing damn playoffs playoffs yeah yeah playoff talking about class but like it's like uh i so i caused the first goal on my team right like uh i did like a stupid turnover and they end up scoring and then bang bang again they scored two more after that three nothing we get in the room i'm like i know i don't i'm not gonna score three tonight so i gotta do something and i just showed up beside

cars i played with him right so i kind of knew that he was uh an intense guy emotional guy and and the crowd was just going up it was so loud loud. And I was just asking, hey, Carsey, like you said, you give me one, you want to go? And he knew because we played together that he was going to beat my ass. So he's like, fuck yeah. He saw me getting beat up a couple times before. So he was like, why not?

I just think it was like so natural. It just, there was nothing that we said, like unrespectful things or anything. It was like, fuck yeah, let's go. And we went at it. And, yeah, I did that little, the crowd, like, I saw him from the corner of my eye after he put me down. And he was, like, going with his arms on both sides.

So the natural reflex of mine was the opposite of that. It was, like, trying to quiet the crowd. And I got a bunch of bucks and i think we scored a goal 20 15 20 30 seconds after that and we scored right after three goals in the next three minutes yeah we scored three goals three lucky goals like mike heaton like score our defenseman scored one like skates in the crease with like a baseball swing it was super weird like so we scored three goals and i ended up uh winning that game i think uh five three with an empty netter and i went on to

to win the first round you're like just as i planned it boys yeah no definitely not you know you you how many fights you had this and how many times that stuff like that happened maybe like four or five out of your three you know like that yeah exactly but like win or lose the fight i didn't even win that fight but it was just like sometimes and that's the the talk about you know removing fighting or not and we but sometimes i heard that when you have the debate about removing fighting in hockey, sometimes that moment comes back in a conversation because it was an exact reaction to the action.

And maybe it was just luck, but it did happen. It did change the momentum of that game. But it could have been anything else or anyone else, but it just happened that it worked that day. So lucky me. Okay, then you guys end up going on to Washington. Now, you know, we know the history of that. But there was one thing that I was reading about that was surprising,

and the first time you ended up meeting Ovechkin, and it wasn't a very good experience, and you're pretty vocal about it in the paper where you called him a douchebag. And have you since then matched that up? Or maybe was that kind of a knee-jerk reaction by you? And what was that first encounter like? Because from what I read, it was at the NHL Awards after you guys had won the Stanley Cup where you met him for the first time

in person, off the ice. Yeah. Well, exactly. The first time I met him was at the NHL Award. And after we won, me and Balkan were invited to Vegas. We brought the cup on the stage or whatever. And that afternoon before the awards, I think we're a couple of guys around the table gambling or something or we're standing up because usually when you gamble you're you're having free beers but i think there's a group of guys standing up and and so i bring back like four or five beers right and there's a group of four guys or five guys i bring back the beer and the veg can just like kind of scoop one of my hand it was not even there when i brought back the beer so it was an extra beer the extra one was for me so he's like kind of just like took it didn't say thank you

i was like fuck you man so i went to grab the it it was not that big of a deal but I just thought it was inappropriate at that moment and it was Ovechkin and Pittsburgh we kind of hated him because of the Crosby and Ovechkin kind of thing so uh the moment I called him a douchebag was uh uh 2011 I think where um they fly me in to promote the NHL classic in pittsburgh so i fly in from montreal in the middle of summer and they got that einst field thing you know with the net you got to shoot pucks to like field goal and stuff and that night i go out with a couple friends and i wake up at 6 7 a.m i got a radio interview to promote the winter classic and i'm a little bit hungover and i i talked to my buddies on the radio in Pittsburgh.

And I'm like, I forget we're on radio, right? Like, just like right now, you know, I'm talking to two buddies. So you forget of kind of like what you're saying. And you're just like, especially I was hungover. Yeah. And then the guy's like, so you got to plug in. So that's Jim. Oh, like, I'm like, oh, that guy's a douche.

But like, it just came so naturally without even thinking about it so there's no hard feelings like i i saw him after that and like you know i don't even know if you've heard about it but the next day like malkin was texting me from russia like he's like what did you say about ovechkin because it came out in like the european news and everything oh shit yeah yeah yeah oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, God. I was not proud of myself. I remember Jen Bolano, which is the communication person, was kind of pissed at me.

She's like, what the crap did you say? You're just here to promote hockey, and you're going to call the best player in the game the douchebag? What are you doing? Yeah, yeah, yeah, good story. Hey, that's funny. I want to go into flower a little bit because you guys obviously first, I don't know if it's the first time you played together was World Juniors

when you mentioned when you guys lost, but you went on, I mean, best of friends and to go through stuff together that you guys did is pretty special. Was it actually that friendship formed at World Juniors or did you know him prior? I've known him prior. I played against Marc-Andre when we were 14 years old. No, 13. We're Peewee.

So he was playing for Calais-France. We always played the two best teams, one against each other. So he was there. Then we played World Juniors. We played under 18, where he had his yellow pads, you know, bright yellow pads. So I played with him. And then after that in the minors in the NHL.

So we always stayed close. He lived like 40 minutes, 35 minutes away from my home. And we always stayed friends, you know. In Pittsburgh where we lived, like you said, very, very special. We had father's trips. Both of our fathers were spending time together. And the whole routine we had before games were punching each other in the face and saying stuff that didn't add any meaning about hockey.

We were just, like, shooting shit. Because Marc-Andre is still the type of guy that needs to be just relaxed and not think too much about the game. So just before we'd get on the ice we just freaking anything you know we were very very uh you know it worked for mark uh i'm so happy for him like i know the last two years where he won the cup which is very weird were harder for him because he was not the main guy but without flurry pittseter penguins would have not won one of those two cops and then he went out and make uh and he goes to vegas and what he's

accomplished in the first two years are pretty uh pretty amazing so uh the best of guys what you know the reputation of the guy just speaks for itself you know it's just uh the ultimate teammate and just a guy that uh so fun to play against in practice too like i've never seen like a goalie and a player like sydney crosby and margaret flurry going at it as much in practices you know sometimes it would slow down the practice because sid would always want to play his rebounds right and flurry would just never never give it up so they would go and you just do like a shooting drill sometimes or power skating drills.

And like you'd wait because Fleury and Sid were just fucking around like trying to score and finish every shot. So it was annoying. But that's how Fleury and Sid got better, I guess. Fleury in practice would be worth price of admission if they charged for Penguin fans again and if they charge five bucks. Like you said, he would never give up on a puck and even sometimes where he

was way out, he would throw his stick and somehow it would hit the stick and not go in and then everybody in the ice would be fucking losing their minds. It was a fucking blast to watch, man. Yeah, it was fun. It brought, especially the years after that with dan bosman

first couple years and stuff we play like mustache boys meaning like the shootouts after practice the last guy that would score would have to keep a mustache for a month you know that was super cool like i if i'm a coach i will do that for sure as a as a as a thing once a month and flurry would be the funniest before he'd go and shoot at it on a breakaway, we'd do a couple push-ups or we'd throw a stick in the air, do crazy stuff. It made it so much fun to go to practice and just shoot shit and be relaxed. Of course, work hard and get better while having fun.

Before you guys were teammates, who owned who when you used to would go head to head? On the ice? Oh, yeah. Whether games against each other or just shoot. No kill count. Well,

on that, it's pretty easy. He's been with me forever and my wife forever. Hey, he's living with me. I have her. Did he have her? Is he having a boy? He had his boy he had his boy that's all i

would say three months old four or five months old so that's incredible months old maybe he had this year in vegas so uh healthy boy big big boy too so he's got two daughters is pretty correct exactly two daughters uh and then one uh one boy now and uh yeah he's uh you know everything happens good for him but the thing coming back to your question before i would say that maybe he had my number and stuff but during while we played together it was great and then after that when i went to the flyers especially in that series that playoff run would beat them but uh most games i played against flower after that i i scored on him it was crazy like i had his number and even like i was having bets with him like before games were text i'm like i'm gonna score for sure tonight and uh ended up like

he bought me dinners like and stuff like that And you know that creepy guy, my wife, well, actually myself on one helmet, because he did one of his helmets, his goalie helmet. He did a bunch of his favorite teammates he had. So he's got like Sid, Dupree, a bunch of French gaming guys, of course. And then we're all in one of his buckets. And then before I went out with my wife, which she was a figure skater, she went to the Olympics, I think.

His bucket for the 2010 Olympics of Marc-Andre Fleury, my wife is on his bucket, that creep. And I feel like, and she was not my wife at the time, I didn't even know her. But I go to his home one night before a game and uh in pittsburgh in his library and that's his olympic helmet and i go like start like moving around i'm like i'm like that's my wife you're a creep man he's like well she was just a canadian athlete that i liked so whatever just a side story on that

that's yeah that's very ironic I gotta ask you about playing with Brizgalov he's he's a weird duck I played with him you gotta you two must have had some funny stories together I just couldn't understand anything you'd say he was he was such out of there it was it was funny it was different that year you know like you said about malkin so bris uh it was the exact same summer i signed as a free agent in 2011 i think so we signed a free agent uh they signed uh bris gallo yager and myself uh so i get there bris just signed a nine million nine year I don't know how many million dollars he's like the next goalie yeah exactly

he showed up to camp I was one of the first guy like you said in August mid August and he showed up to camp and he's got no equipment it's not just like a Ford like Mulliken without a skate he's got nothing so

and we're talking you know season started much he just couldn't stop a puck i don't think he wore the skates once that summer like he just showed up and it was like a beer league goalie he couldn't stop one i'm like what is that the guy we signed for nine years? So he was out there that year too. You know when sometimes you're not playing as good as you'd like, your personality's changed a little bit too because I'm sure Britt is a funny guy. He's not a bad guy at all. But that year, he had problems on the ice.

I think for nine games straight, he got scored on the first shot of the game. You know? I was like, what? What the hell? You were like, oh my God, okay, it's 1-0. We're going to score two to start the game, to win a game. But

all around, his winter classic too, the stuff he did with the tea, he was not going to be the starting goalie that year uh the winter classic he brought like a he said i'm just going to sit down and drink tea in the press conference the day before so he brought his big tea mug like to bring warm up on the bench and stuff like that so he was a character but he was entertaining like definitely not a bad guy but uh i guess he didn't achieve what he was supposed to do for nine years in Pittsburgh. But he really liked the universe, I guess, you know,

like instead of the HBO winter classic when he started talking about the card. That was a little weird because he was playing like shit and then all of a sudden like he's the center of attention for just being a goofball off the ice. I couldn't imagine Flyers fans were too happy with that. Yeah, it was a little bit of a distraction. And you know that we traded Brizgalov to keep him in the meantime. We got rid of Brizgalov.

Well, we got rid of Brizgalov. Bobrovsky, sorry. We got rid of Bobrovsky. We had Bobrovsky at that time. But then I think we traded to get Mason to be the first goalie when we – because it was too much money with Dabrowski and Rizgal. But he was a character. What was Yager like when you were in Philadelphia?

Was he kind of a diva then? Was he still working? What was the situation with him there? Him and Giroux were outstanding together. It's funny because it exactly relates to what I just said about Rizgal because the year Jager got to Philly, he was just playing amazing.

It just clicked right away. And I heard sometimes when he got to Boston, when they got him for the cup run, he didn't play that well, so guys didn't really enjoy him because, of course, it's tough to lead when you don't have a good season you shouldn't change your personality shouldn't change your character but uh you know

when you're not playing as well as you'd like it's tough for it to to to lead a team and and jagger when he got to the to to philly it was just amazing he clicked with with him uh jiru and hartnell and they were just amazing together and uh jagger for me i mean i kept in touch with him, Giroud and Hartnell, and they were just amazing together. And Jager, for me, I mean, I kept in touch with him. Like last year I got bought out before my last season in Russia. I got bought out and I texted him. I'm like, hey, you got room on your team? Like because he's in the second league in Czech.

I was just, you know, fucking around. But he's like, yeah, sure, but we don't have any money. But come down, you know. So we kept – for me, he was, uh, it was amazing that year he was a different guy, you know, all the stories about Jagger that go and work out at night at the rink and stuff. But, uh, he did it in respect that year was playing so well. He, he was like, they're skating the young guys after practice, like doing lines of lines. And, um, he was, he was just great. He was, uh, an amazing leader. And, and, uh, he, he was weird also, you know, like praying before games,

like in his locker, his routine, pregame routine and stuff was super weird. But, like, I remember taking shots with him after every practice and, like, he's teaching me so much stuff. His knowledge of the game, his love for the game was, like, unprecedented. Is it true he was going to the the rink like late night to skate and like yeah weight vests or body vests on that's all true that's all true and like i said it it it was great for us in philly because we had trainers willing to work with him and do that you know i know with some teams that it kind of got

viewed as like you know for trainers they work hard these guys they're there all day at the rank and now you got a guy asking them to come back at night to open the rank or whatever so sometimes some some team don't like it as much like they don't they don't like that but uh but with the flyers it worked out good and uh and he is very particular it's like he's he works out so hard and he he did the life he lived that guy is um he's pretty crazy so we had a hartnell on and he was pretty quiet didn't didn't tell a lot of stories but we know behind the scenes he was a clown is there anything uh any story you could tell us about hartnell that wouldn't ruffle any feathers? I have too many to count.

Scotty was great. Scotty was great. You know, like, his person in Philly was, how many years he played in Flyers? Seemed like forever. He was such a, he was a legend in that city. Like, of course, like, you walk in the street, like,

he's an easy guy to recognize right you know you see him with a red afro but like he was just a funny guy you know he wanted to win he was playing with grit and uh yeah there's a bunch of stories like um but i think that i got like kind of like the slower scottie i know that before i got there you know he was getting older and a bit more mature and stuff like that, maybe in his young years, but we definitely had some

good night outs. You mentioned Russia a few minutes ago. You actually did three years in the KHL. It almost sounds like a prison bid when you put it that way. I mean, you must have enjoyed it there somewhat if you stayed there that long, unless you were completely broke. No, I heard that's why

Jagger went there, actually. But I don't know why Witt went there. Let's hear Witt's Russian story. I know you talk a lot about it. Hey, Talbot, were you like me, though? If somebody told you, say, I don't know,

say your third or fourth year in Philly. Like, if somebody was like, hey, would you ever play in the KHL? At that time, would you have said no chance? Because that's what I used to say. I would have probably said no chance. Like you said, my third year is when I was, like, still having success and stuff. But my fourth year, I played good, too. I mean, I'm talking about my fourth year when i was like still having success and stuff but my fourth year i played good too my i mean i'm talking about my fourth year of contract of

my last contract and then my my last year i was up and down in providence right uh boston providence my last year in hl and that's when i started to look at my other options you know because the later you you we saw guys our age kind of leaving the league earlier and earlier, right? At 30, you're getting old now, you know? So I saw the trend go on, and I saw my last year when I was up and down. I was still playing good, but now I had my second child, and I was like, I need stability, right? I can't just do the up and down thing and not knowing if you're going to make

the opening roster, so you've got to be in between two cities so i started looking towards europe but uh the the first like i think yadav stable came knocking my russian team before i was even out of playoff like i was still playing in providence uh so they called and they were super aggressive they're like they know they knew what type player i was it's like i'm like i'm not gonna go to russia like as a first liner right i'm not gonna play first power play you know what type of player i am and i you know did my study i called a bunch of guys that played in ktl they didn't call you it i'm sorry because i would have you know probably my study i called a bunch of guys that played in the cage i didn't call you it i'm sorry because i would have you know probably not go and uh i called yeah but i called all the guys

from the team the four other ramparts and i called uh most guys and that team was just uh a good match and i didn't think twice i didn't wait for Switzerland, like Germany. Uh, my wife one day, cause I was kind of hesitating and my wife is like, Max, let's fucking do it. Let's do it. And I went in a way where, um, well, she's, she's amazing. I wouldn't tell you about her. She's, she's just, uh, just to go through all this. And we, we, I think we've been married for five years and then we, I think we've been married for five years. And then I think, I know we've been married for five years now,

seven years together, we moved like 12 different places. Right. So with three kids and it went very fast, but so she's like, let's fucking do it. Let's go to Russia. And I'm like, okay. So we went there with low expectations. We went there with let's, let's, let's, let's live the experience. And if, if anything happens, like if, if we're not totally happy, babe, we're coming back. We're always, we're not stuck there. We're not like in prison there. So that was my meaning, my, my, my thoughts before going there.

The first day I got there, I comfortable and i tell you what i lived like exactly the opposite of what you live there probably i mean i don't know exactly the stories you told like i didn't hear it at all and i've been to yarroslavl like it's it's not not the worst town the arena is beautiful it's not a great town it's not a great town at all people who don't know, I mean... Compared to other Russia, it's horrible. Not only is it not a bad town, but it's also a very successful top-end team.

So you probably had great treatment. You guys... Put it this way. There's teams that don't all have matching fucking gloves to their shirt. You know what I mean? You can just look like an actual... Not anymore. Not actual... Not anymore. Not anymore.

Not anymore. The guy on searching had red gloves. I'm like, dude, we don't even have red in our uniform. How does this guy have fucking red gloves on? What year did you go there? You went there, what, three or four years before me? I was there the year before. You and I won the Calder Cup. Not a big deal. 2015.

No, no, no, no. I was there three years before you You and I won the Calder Cup. Not a big deal. Two years before you. No, no, no, no. I was there three years before you. I was there 2014, I think. 2013, 2014, I think. Yeah, so two, three years before me. I don't remember when I won the Calder Cup. That CTE is real, man. It's not a big deal.

Well, hey, did you go to the finals? Yeah. This year we did. So I played two years in Yaroslavl and one year in Omsk. But this year we played in Omsk. But you'll laugh about this, but during the camp, the rink, they did an inspection of the rink. Like end of July, the camp's been started or is about to start,

and they do an inspection of the rink. Inspection, sorry. And there was like uh kind of things in the foundation so they like the rink could have just broken apart i think it's like not even 20 years old that rink it was beautiful in omsk so the the in about two weeks they found like a beautiful rink well an average average rank in balachica in moscow like 30 minutes from moscow and they rebuilt the whole rank like nhl rank it's a 6 000 people rank like it's smaller but man like we had like but the sponsors got from so it's another top end

organization where like they rebuilt nhl gym uh saunas like it was the room was just amazing like it was unreal like breakfast lunch dinner like whatever you need like so my three years in Russia for me for my family I have three kids there I have five three and two the age of my kids so the middle one lived the three years of her life she lived there every winter right so that's what she knew and uh we never felt like in any well threatened or in any danger like my wife could go and walk the stroller at 8 9 p.m no problem that she'd do that every night of course the kids are sleeping but in the dark you know she could go uh in Yaroslavl my second year they built a baza you know you heard about baza it's like it's a negative word when you yeah but they build a

bazaar i tell you it's better than four seasons no so they build that explain what that is guys night before so yes so a bazaar in russia it's like a negative word because the bazaar is like an old way of russian thinking where it's usually a shitty building where the team forced the players to go sleep there the night before a game so they keep them in check right and sometimes when you come back to a road trip they don't want you to go out drinking beers and stuff okay everybody sleeps at the bazaar and it's like a cot in like a not even a tv it's a shitty room where you know the whole team stays there it's a shitty hotel or whatever every team has their own different stuff so now what teams do is uh kazan did that and now yadav slavos followed them but better so they built a base so there's a practice rink in there

like all like that looks like davos right with the wooden thing on the top and then uh you got amazing gym you got a pool with like five different sauna it's like four season pool the brits pool it's amazing you got uh tennis courts like soccer field room service so we stayed there the full year all the guys with family the imports we stayed there with the three kids so there was a park there was like a kindergarten there so like it's like you you show up there you drop your your stuff in the apartments and you're set up for the year you you could just stay in your apartment and and go to grocery store and not move and feel safe and just you know go through your year it was amazing it's

really like so i don't think there's another facility like that in the world like hockey wise maybe like we're talking like European football or something like that, like they have these training facilities. But this was top of the art. And so you asked me about my Russian time. It's great. Like, of course, you go 10 hours in a plane to China. Any one story where you were like, oh, shit, like this is Russia?

Like maybe a negative one yeah you killed but no but there's like there's always i always every time there was something that you know that was like because there is stuff happening of course there's like you know you go to mcdonald's drive-thru and there's a girl on the horse and shit like that you're like what the fuck you know you're like but that was happening in Philly too though. Yeah. Some nights, but like,

there's like some, some stuff you see with the treatments or guys that, you know, are coming back to play like a guy, one of her best player broke his thumb, right. During camp training camp. And now he plays for Phoenix.

Uh, uh, yeah. Yeah. He plays. Yeah. I love the guy. thumb right during camp training camp and now he plays for phoenix uh it's uh ilia he plays yeah i love the guy he's an amazing person right so he plays there so he hurts himself in camp when finland's for like a camp we have a couple exhibition games there like we don't need the guy for the camps are like on song right it's like army camp is the toughest thing i've ever done in my life. Like, it is. But I took it as fun.

I took it as, you know, training. It was an experience. So every time some shitty thing happened, I always said, oh, it's part of the experience, right? So, like, Lubushkin breaks his thumb, and the next day, he's like, x-ray everything. His thumb is broken. Next day, he's on the ice with his stick taped up to his glove his broken head glove and he's doing the whole practice like you're like we don't need him for six weeks he's one of our best defensemen you're like what the fuck guys what are you guys

thinking about you know so there's a bunch of stuff like that you're shaking your head like i had a coach my second year that I, I mean, I didn't, I don't think I hated one coach in my career, you know, like I thought there was a purpose behind everything shitty to do sometimes. But that guy was a bad human being. I don't want to name his name. You just have to look him up. But he was a bad human being.

Probably, you know, a guy that likes to drink. That was just just he was sometimes coaches like that there's a purpose where you think he's okay shitty with the veteran but he's good with the young guys you know there's there's the reason why he does stuff but he was not great with the young guys not great with the old guys uh not great with the imports i don't know what he was great with but uh i i just didn't mind him at all he was uh like he's not making us better at all so it was very frustrating right too he was like speaking russian all the time and uh yeah that was frustrating uh but you know all around

man that that experience like we you know the thing you practice sometimes at 2 a.m at night you know because there's a time change 2 a.m at night you know because there's a time change but you stay moscow time you fly to china and then you have to stop midway after five hours to put fuel and plane breaks down and then you have to go sleep in a shitty hotel in the middle of siberia so all these stories like that but crap it's it's hockey you're so positive you even said like even myself, even myself, like, I'd be like, fuck, this is terrible, where you kind of find joy in every situation. Yeah, but you love the game.

It's a testament to you. You play hockey. You're getting paid to play hockey, man. Like, it's a privilege, seriously. Like, there was a guy that called me this year, like, a skilled guy I played with. I don't want to name him, but he called me. He's like, so this team's calling me, you know, like, in Russia. He's like, I'm thinking about going.

What's your experience down there? Like, what do you think? I'm like, dude, don't go there. He's like, well, why? I'm like, because you're not going to make it. Because I know the guy. I know the personality you know like if you have to you have to be able to do exactly what the Russians they do you know you have to work as hard as they do to let's say you go to a restaurant you have to drink the same

amount of vodka as they do and they're going to respect you and then you're friends for life they're not going to bug you but if you want to bug you. But if you want to play the NHL and you're a cool guy and whatever, you're never going to go. They're going to hate you and they're going to ruin you. But if you do the work and you go there with a good attitude, they're going to love you. Okay, we're running a little long, but there's a few things off the ice I wanted to ask you about.

So we had Stephen Stankos come on the podcast during All-Star break, and he mentioned a story about his wife losing her tooth on the day of her wedding. Now, that happened to you as well. No way. That's nuts. I thought I was the only guy in the world that happened that. But, yeah, that happened to me, like I said, five years ago. How did it happen?

Well, I'm just, you know, hockey players, how many fake tooths do you have? So I just – I was just chewing gum in the morning. I'm getting ready with my dad and two brothers. I stayed at my parents' house. I didn't want to, you know, sleep with my wife the night before wedding, like super romantic. So I ended up going to my parents' house, and we're getting prepared, and i'm just chewing gum and my middle tooth like my big chick that just fell in

my she's got stuck in the in the gum so uh i ended up like and it looks like shit right you have that little piece of food like that little thing that just stays so you've got a bridge yeah like the little little baby yeah which looks way worse than having nothing. Oh, exactly. It was gross. Like, it's not. And, you know, to explain to people, when a tooth, when it sells or it gets undone, unstuck, it smells like shit. It's just gross.

It's just gross, right? Of course because you have the elbow of course you brush your feet but all the microbes like that i don't know like it so it was disgusting so i'm like i can't and we were like one hour before we're leaving so we call all the dentists we knew and and uh we finally like yeah we found one and just like stuck it there temporarily. I was able to be on time and celebrate my wedding. You talked about your wife and your kids. I don't know, Jackson, is he the oldest? Yes, Jackson is five. Lou is three.

And Florence Flo is two, just turned two. Why don't you let everyone know what you named his middle name, your first one, Jackson? That is not true. That is not even true. That's something. That's P.A. Parenteau in Denver. Oh, that's not true.

Are you leaving Spartacus? No. No, it's not. It came out in the media that parental were like so we're going to play after a game something like that and i was watching that show spartacus i think it's on hbo so i'm in the plane i'm watching my show and i'm like guys it's my first kid i'm like guys i think i just want to name my kids spartacus because it in like the middle name because in quebec we don't get middle names right so like it's not like it's not on our yeah like yeah yeah no it's not a passport or anything so i i just wanted like to have something cool in his car but i'm just shooting shit right

and that's toronto the next day like like adrian data or something like the big guy from the avalanche like so max got his baby and stuff like a parent was like yeah yeah you named him spartacus i'm like no i didn't so it came out of the media it was like come on so that's it i i wanted to we talked about it in the plane like just like shooting shit but you brought it a little bit my wife didn't let you brought a little bit further according didn't let you brought a little bit further according this article where you said yeah it's just fun because like you i mean you could yell it out and it sounds cool because then you know when you say it'll name what you when you're when you're really upset at them you're like spodicus so and then you kind of brought

it even further so don't just pass it off yeah well i like to do that but uh yeah i uh well my wife would have never let that happen but it would have been uh it would have been awesome to scream like like you know like in the show like full whatever did it happen oh already has a little bit i got one last quick one you were in the KHL for three years, so you must have tried the Russian gas at least once, no? Not the gas, no. No, well, you know what they do now? It's not allowed in the rooms or anything in the hockey room,

so I never tried that. I heard about it. I never even seen it in the rooms. But I went to some bars or clubs in in in moscow and russia and they do the balloons there it's very weird like it just it's a black balloon it's like uh just uh so it's i guess it's gas so everybody's got it they put it like you take a beer and a balloon it's like and i'm like what is that stuff because everybody smokes shisha and stuff which is just tobacco right in russia it's like yeah exactly but these guys have like big black balloon it's just like just like you blow

a balloon but you take the air and like helium like you want to do a joke on helium like you change your voice but uh i guess it goes to your head i was never right i never done it because it's like it can't be healthy but it's legal legal in a bar. I'm like, what is that? You know, that alcohol, like the beer was only made like an alcoholic beverage in 2004 or something like that. We're talking beer. They didn't take it as a alcohol beverage before 2004. So yeah, exactly. But it's a, yeah, it's part of it.

It's part of the experience, boys. That's right. Max, we've gone a long time. We appreciate your time. Before we go away here, I mean, we glanced over Providence. It's just a testament to your career. You end up getting sent down by Boston in your final season in North America, and you didn't suck on your thumb.

You went down there. You played 26 games, you ended up having 21 points in that time frame. It just goes to show what kind of guy you are and how you approach the game of hockey. There is no one more on the planet who deserves retirement and gets to enjoy it more than you because you put your heart and soul into the game, and I'm so happy that people are going to get to hear this interview and know how you approached it,

who didn't know your personality beforehand. Thanks, man. It means a lot. I, you know, hockey brought me a lot, and it's seriously the best game in the world. And with also, like, huge props. Like, seriously, guys in Russia were talking to me about the interviews you guys are doing.

And it's pretty cool. It's all about the interviews you guys are doing and it's pretty cool. Spinning Chick-fil-A, it's all over the world guys. I don't know if you guys realize it. I'm sure you get some tweets and some emotions and stuff but you guys are doing a great job so keep it up because a lot of people are watching and it's pretty cool.

Geez, maybe we can do a live show in Russia or where? Yeah, let me be a rush to go to Korea. Hey, Talbot, thank you very much. And, dude, I mean, you're a natural at this. This is your second language, too. So I wouldn't be surprised at all to see you at some point in media doing something within the game because you're a hockey player.

You're in this movie. So congrats, man. Thank you. Well, you know I accepted a job with CAA, right? Oh, did you? Yeah. Thank you. Well, you know I accepted a job with CAA, right?

Oh, did you? Yeah. So I started to work with Pat Brisson at the draft this year. So I'm going to be a player agent, player development. Like I've been, you know, we did a camp in L.A. last week, and I'm going to New York in two weeks. So I'm going to do some development. Oh, not too shabby. You got the good road trip.

You got the good road fired up. Yeah, exactly. And I'm going to do some. Oh, not too shabby. You get the good road trip. You get the good road fired up. Yeah, exactly. And I'm going to do some TV back home also, like work with TVAR, RDS. I don't know yet. We're discussing with Bolt Network. But thanks, man. We'll see.

We'll see. I'm going to touch a couple things. You guys should do this. You should do the French spit and chiclets. We'll open up a French channel. Well, there'd be a lot of listeners for that. If you guys want to do something like that, I could do it with my best buddy, Bruno Gervais.

There you go. It could be pretty funny. Yeah, let's freaking do it. Thank you very much. Be good. Thanks a lot, Max. Much appreciated, brother. Yeah, we'll get all the kill stories on the next time you're on.

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true showman uh let me let me pass over to wet here he's just dying to A lot of people, I'm assuming, are going to be getting in touch with me and saying that I didn't bring up when he brought up the story about Crosby saying he could get 50, how I kept my mouth shut in terms of not reminding Talbot about the bet we made that Crosby would never get 50. Obviously, I'm going to keep my mouth shut there. So everyone's saying, oh, where are you bringing your, you know, you didn't bring up your old bet there.

Well, I never had to pay him 10 grand. If I bring it up, Tyler might be like, you fucking still owe me 10 grand. So don't think that I pussied out there. I was using my brain. Oh, I didn't even know that went down. But I got another story. Somebody messaged me on Twitter. It was a kid from a junior team.

And I'm not going to name names. I'm not going to say team names either. So apparently, a bunch of veterans on a junior team created a Facebook profile of a girl and like a couple social media accounts. So they had the Twitter and the Instagram in order to beef it up. And they baited a rookie into finally following this fake girl so the rookie was going back and forth so these guys are like saying sexual shit next thing you know the numbers being exchanged and all that kind of thing so slowly like one of the guys might have been like

hey i noticed you you followed that girl man she's smoking he's like yeah she's hot like we've been talking a lot like i you know and then it got they kept baiting him kept baiting him and then finally the fucking they're like hey like so like the whole team found out and they kind of made a thing of it like oh dude she's smoking good for you and then they got the kid to finally lie about the fact that he met up with her and crushed her so they were just so they so they kind of – they let it go. I'm burying this kid. I know.

So they let it go for a little bit, and then finally they all exposed them about lying about fucking kills. And I was like, oh, like I was reading the story, and I felt so bad for the young guy. But, I mean, hopefully they all laughed it off and, you know, just created morale in the locker room where you don't want to completely bury a guy. But, I mean, that's kind of a funny story, no?

Did they use his name to you? The person who messaged me on Instagram DM to tell me the story said, message me back. I'll tell you the full story, like with the guy's name and everything. And I just, I didn't even bother writing back. I don't want to know. I don't want to bury this guy on the podcast. But if the kid who did live out it listens, hey, fuck, whatever.

You live and learn. I mean, you're trying to impress the boys as a rookie, I'm sure. He may be starting to think that guys are going to be like, when are you going to see this girl? Are you just talking to her? So he's like, I'll get ahead of it. Just completely make a phantom up. Poor guy. And obviously that was the Coles notes of the story.

There's probably more to it. Mikey, is there an email where we can get all these junior kids and other people who listen to the podcast, even beer league guys, who can email us stories that we can read out on the podcast. Cause I noticed that PMT has been doing it when they put social out and it just adds humor to the podcast. Like I like hearing these funny stories. They told one about the other day about how this,

this girl wrote in about her boyfriend, how he's, he's addicted to David Busters where he throws tantrums. If he can't go to David Busters once a week, this is a grown man we're talking about. Yeah, so you can send the emails to chicklets at barstoolsports.com. That's the email, chicklets, C-H-I-C-L-E-T-S at barstoolsports.com. And we'll answer them there.

If you have funny stories, maybe once a week we can read off a funny junior story or whatever you guys got for us and just add a little more humor to the pod. Biz, where do Canadian kids say that their fake girlfriends are from? Because kids in America always say their fake girlfriends are from Canada, but where do Canadian fake girlfriends come from? Oh, I have no idea. I actually had a buddy who got catfished bad to the point where the girl,

she was supposed to come down, and she said she was like an hour away and that she called, she said her mother had passed away. She took out a fake obituary in the Sudbury newspaper. That's how long she, the girl ended up being from Niagara Falls and how he found out was her brother reached out because he found out she was doing it. And he went and confronted her. He went and confronted her at work about it

because he found out who the real girl was oh man this guy we called him squirrel from back home this guy's a treat maybe he'll come on the podcast one day and tell a story it's it's it's it's brutal it's like it's so pathetic anyway uh we gotta move on to uh to some more hockey maybe we'll talk about the russian yeah like you Biz, we don't really talk politics. I wouldn't say this is talking politics, but what's unusual is Terry Panarin, who's a prominent Russian player, he actually had some, I guess, harsh words

for President Vladimir Putin. A lot of the players are good buddies with him, probably most famously Ovechkin, but Panarin had some interesting quotes. He said, in America, you have two four-year terms and that's it. You can't come back. You've done some good for your country, haven't grown fat on anything, and you leave without a fuss, letting young blood in. This is what I think. He said Russia was rife with lawlessness and Russia had better people

for the presidency from Putin, who's been president for 20 years now. He says, yeah, I may look like a foreign agent right now, but it's not like that. I think the people who hush up the problems are more like foreign agents than those who talk about them. If I think about problems, I ain't coming from a positive place. I want to change something to have people live better. I don't want to see retirees begging. I saw a normal-looking grandma in the metro yesterday singing for money.

So, wow, I i mean these are huge huge comments for a player to come out and say this because like i say these players are always kissing his ass i mean he is a dictator he is a he's a former fucking kgb agent he's a psycho and all these players i don't know if it's fear i don't know if it's actual respect or a combination of both uh but for panera enough to make these statements i imagine they're causing some fucking uh yeah itipples over in Russia. I'd be curious to know what Ovechkin thinks of him because Ovechkin seems like he's a supporter of him, isn't he?

Oh, absolutely. Huge supporter of him. I mean, common sense tells you, like, I mean, I don't want to get killed either, but Putin's just a piece of shit. I mean, he's corrupt as fuck. And good for Panarin for speaking out. I mean, obviously I'm concerned about him and his family but uh he doesn't seem to be I know it's like does he plan on going back there I couldn't believe it I also wonder I mean it it came from a report in a Russian paper right who

even knows like you you can't even say it it was all said by him. You know what I mean? Like there's not much truth coming out of there very often. I think to some stories, there's just additions, subtractions. So, I mean, granted, I don't think he's come out and denied saying it, but you just never really know what was going through his head or how it all went down. Yeah, just interesting, though, because you hear about people in this country saying kind of love it or leave it and don't criticize the country and he's kind of saying similar things

but but about russia just kind of kind of interesting with all the stuff that's going on between both countries but uh hopefully he'll be here in training camp and fucking putin doesn't have him kidnapped before then uh what else what else you got going on biz didn't you say you had some some um tweets after we talked about the Zingle signing, how upset as a player podcast we were he didn't get his payday. Somebody was saying apparently Ottawa had offered him a five-year deal times $5 million before he got traded over to Columbus. Now, that might be a rumor.

That might be just something someone made up to tweet at me. But if that's the case, I don't know if that's an agent telling him to not sign it. I don't know if that's his own personal choice. I guess it always comes down to his own personal choice. But holy shit, dude. If you turn down a fucking $25 million deal and you ended up getting bent over, it's hard for me to feel sorry for you. Was it just like a random person like it seemed legit though apparently ottawa was trying to sign him before he ended up getting traded and if they

didn't lock him down he's of no value to them because they knew he wasn't probably going to come back based on their situation now i've heard a couple other ones i i mean i mean i'll mention this one because it was arizona mikhail bodker i think got offered a five-year times five million dollar deal here when don maloney was the gm and and bodker thought he was going to go to free agency and and and get more or or if not the same amount and he he ended up going over to colorado i i don't think he had a bad finish this season but then he went to free agency you know he only ended up getting four times four in, uh, in, in San Jose, more state tax. I mean, we got to go there and, and he's out of, out of his comfortable situation

where all of Reckman Larson was his best friend, where I was like, fuck man. Like, like to me at that point, it's just like, like you're being a bit fucking greedy, just fucking sign unless you genuinely didn't want to be in Arizona. But, I mean, we know how that story ended. He ended up in Ottawa. And I think he's got one year left on that deal there. So, I mean, some of these guys, man, they're overvaluing themselves. Five times five, if that's what he got offered,

he's fucking high off his rocker to turn that down. But, hey, if he's happy, he's happy. Another numbers game. Bad news for the dallas stars pavelski and perry are both set to play in their thousandth game next season could you imagine all of a sudden the fucking guys who had to play with him all that time they don't have to spend shit and all the guys who he just all of a sudden comes over like boom boom 2 000 games like fuck some of these guys on entry-level deals might not even get a first paycheck of the season uh the thing about to zingle biz i'm guessing some of those guys he probably just didn't want to play in ottawa for five years i mean the situation

is not the best so don't complain about money then. I'm not saying he has, but obviously he's probably disappointed about the number he got in free agency. We're talking about a deal. What did he end up signing for, $3 million? He signed a two-year deal worth $6.75 million for a cap pit of $3.375 million. Quick math here, that's just over $18 million left on the table. seven five quick math here that's just over 18 million left on the table i mean you gotta tell me he can't be happy if that's actually factual and he turned that down and ended up getting

six million as opposed to 25 well he's one thing though he still has plenty of money to spend on our new merch that we just dropped right baby what's up That's how you do it. A ton of new merch. A ton of new merch. We have bathing suits. We have basketball jerseys. We have koozie. We have sandals. Get them a fucking swipe up promo code, bitch. And on Thursday, we're going to be doing a Christmas in July. So we're going to be doing 25% off the entire store.

That's everything except for the Peter Millar stuff because that's done separately. Everything in our store will be 25% off Christmas in July. You can thank us later. Is it going to be snowing for biz? What's going to be the promo code? No promo code. You don't even need one. That's how awesome it is.

Honk 20. Honk 20. I got to go enjoy the day. I got to run here, fellas. Do you understand where I'm coming from? I want to talk about it was somebody forging Connor McDavid's autograph and selling jerseys. So maybe we can actually.

Good luck to Connor on that. I love you guys. I miss you. Have fun down at ACK. Oh, and Biz, please address the um the austin matthews picture of you paying for a bill that was uh i'll need to listen to hear you you're gonna you're gonna leave before we talk about that that should be your send-off let's hear what you got to say i just saw so many fucking hilarious captions that i was like, I could sit and read these all day.

Was it the main caption that said immediately reports cards stolen? Yeah, that's what I put for the main caption. Very good, Mikey. You're going to bury me like that? Very good. I made sure to comment that you pay for all my endeavors.

There are some listeners that don't know the backstory and and don't have social media so i'm sure they've heard the story went to the w there was like eight or nine of us i was by myself i paid for a full bottle of vodka just so happens when the bill came i was in the bathroom i did not time it that way this is how all the shit's so i got back and they're like whoa fuck biz we're really gonna try to skip it on the bill and i was like no i'll buy a bottle so i bought a bottle way more than i should have okay so this whole fucking thing started now i'm

the cheapest guy on the planet so the other day i was in town i finished my workout i text him i say let's go grab one and it the bill wasn't even that expensive. We went for a couple drinks at the W. It was around 4.35 o'clock. And I ended up paying for the bill. And this fucker ends up taking a video and doubles down after I go out of my way to get him back for whatever he thinks I owed him. The guys make – I think he's going to make $31 million in a 12-month span, and he buries me on his fucking Instagram, which, hey, it's hilarious,

great content. By the way, I did broker a deal, though he will come on the podcast again. I told him we should kick off the season with him again. So that would be a fun interview. But nonetheless, that's two nothing for Austin Matthewsews that sneaky fucker and i am going to get him back i i i don't i'm not a prankster we gotta call foley we gotta call foley oh he's gonna call foley's getting a call he's gonna be quarterback and a whole goddamn thing and if you thought that weger and achari one was bad oh baby oh i'm licking my chops austin matthews so you better

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Always use the right tools for the job. Your balls will thank you and so will your partner. Get 20% off and free shipping with the code CHICKLETS at manscaped.com. That's 20% off with free shipping at manscaped.com and use the code chicklets. I don't think we've mentioned it. Now that Pavelski's gone from San Jose, does, does Logan Kutcher get the C have they announced anyone getting captaincy?

I don't believe they have yet. And yeah, I would, I would think he would probably be the number one pick for that, for the C right. I mean, Thornton Thornton's probably, or he's going to be back for one year, but I don't think they want to give him, give him the C, right? I mean, Thornton's probably going to be back for one year, but I don't think they want to give him the C again. No, because if you're giving it back to Thornton, you're basically saying that you don't think Logan Couture is ready. That too, yeah.

And then, I mean, Brent Burns would be a good candidate, but I just see them giving it to Logan Couture. He's kind of the heart and soul of that team. Proved a lot of that with the situation with when Pavelski went down and just how he took that leadership on the ice in the playoffs. So yeah, I would imagine that he probably

gets it. I'm just surprised they haven't announced it yet. Yeah, I mean, it's still only July. They probably would rather do it maybe closer to the season. Because if you get buzzed now, then it's going to kind of fizz out. They'll probably do it when it gets a little closer to the season uh what i wanted to mention saturday was a huge anniversary it was the 50th anniversary of uh the moon landing oh yeah i should have had this noted down did you uh and honestly i was i was talking to my wife yesterday

and i said i think it almost feels like it feels like taken for granted at this point because you know everyone says oh we can put a man on the moon, but we can't put fucking tinfoil in the microwave or whatever silly things they come up with. We can put a man on the moon, but we can't fucking do A, B, and C. I don't think people realize just how much of a fucking huge deal it was way back then. I watched a shitload of stuff all weekend.

They had this stuff, how it actually aired. They played it out in real time. I mean, it's just crazy that JFK said, we're going to the moon. Here's millions of dollars. Figure it the fuck out. And nine years later, they were on the moon. And it took 400,000 people combined

to work on the whole moon mission. Like when all was said and done, mathematicians up to the astronauts. Come on. Okay, so it's underappreciated by me. I just kind of like, oh yeah,ians up to the astronauts come on okay so i it's underappreciated by me i just kind of like oh yeah we went to the moon big fucking deal because the amount of things that we can do now that wasn't my era um mine either by the way for the record well yeah but you you obviously have a lot more respect for and have a lot more knowledge towards it i didn't know

any of that stuff you just said now there there are a lot of people seem to think that it isn't even true, including the guy who was heckling Buzz Aldrin at the 50th year anniversary, and he ends up clocking the guy. Have you seen the video? Oh, yeah. That was actually from a couple years ago. That wasn't the other day, unless he punched somebody else the other day. Oh, I thought that was on the 50th anniversary

because I'd never seen that video. So did he end up getting in trouble for that no no i the guy tried to file charges and either he ended up withdrawing them or they just got thrown out because yeah he it was a couple years ago the guy he i mean he was disrespectful he was he was calling him a fucking fraud and a liar i mean this guy went to the fucking moon and that's the other thing because i'm glad you brought up the conspiracy stuff people who fucking talk that shit are absolute fucking idiots. It's so disrespectful not only to, again, the 400,000 people who worked on those missions, but also the people who died, the families of the men who died.

There was the three astronauts. I forget their names off the top of my head. They were killed trying to do one of these missions. I mean, they fucking burned to death in one of these tiny shuttles. Come on. Oh, yeah. Yeah, Gus Grissom, he was one of the guys. I mean, and to say it's fake and manufactured,

it's like an insult to the memory of those men and, again, all the people who worked on it. And it's just so fucking stupid to say. Like, it just discredits it. And it sucks that they did a show a few years ago, like how they would fake it because it just feeds into it. And there are so many idiots online today who buy into the stuff. Right.

Now saying that, apparently, if you do watch, there's two videos, one that proves it and one that tries to discredit it. Apparently, if you do watch the video that discredits it, it is convincing a little bit. Now, like you're saying, I haven't watched any of them. It is bullshit if, in fact, they did land on the moon, which I have no reason to doubt that they didn't. So, yeah, that's a shitty situation.

As you said, it kind of diminishes all the accomplishments of the people who got them to get on the moon. I think we can move off of that. Congratulations to Roman Yossi. You mentioned the fact who got got them to to get on the moon um i think we can move off of that uh congratulations to roman yosi you mentioned the fact that he got married bo horvat and matt martin recently so a lot of these hockey players getting their weddings done in the summer uh any other ones uh grinnelli that you can think of off the top of your head uh not off the top of my head no okay um i had to congratulate one of my best friends um we don't see each other much now because he's still in the niagara region but tyler bilby i he lived in my

house in welland for a while we lived together in the summers when i was back home extremely supportive of my entire career um just it's just an unbelievable guy he um he he was coaching in the junior b league he was an assistant coach he took a little hiatus just to focus on his work and, you know, and go in that kind of direction. But he was just named the head coach of the St. Catherine's Falcons in the Junior B League, and I'm proud of him, and he's pumped. There was a few articles that came out in the Welland paper and in the other papers as well.

So I want to congratulate one of my buddies. Good luck to that team. I'm going to go back to the Niagara region probably later in August, and hopefully they're in training camp and I can pop by and say hi to the squad and make sure they have a great season for my pal Tyler Bilby. So I'll be giving you guys updates on the St. Constance Falcons all season and how they're doing.

So I just had to get that out of the way. R.A., did you see that lacrosse video? falcons all season and how they're doing so uh i just had to get that out of the way uh r.a did you see that lacrosse video i'm i'm gonna start getting into lacrosse because they got a professional league going and hell baby i love lacrosse they've been posting clips of highlights that one kid's pass behind the back pass one time or all able yeah it's funny because a lot of celebrities come into barstool sports so you don't really get starstruck too often, but he's one guy that if you know anything about lacrosse, you get starstruck when he comes in.

He's the Wayne Gretzky of lacrosse. He started this league and he plays in it. He runs the whole league. He's president of the league. I think I'm going to start getting into lacrosse. I think we should maybe... Lacrosse guys are fucked, too. They got crazy

stories um sean backman um him and who's the other one him and uh and brian o'neill i played with them in manchester and they went to yale they said that they would party with the lacrosse guys at yale and they said they were fucking insane and of course the yale thing ended up coming out which which ended up being false. The whole rape allegation thing. That was Duke Lacrosse. Excuse me. Which was bullshit. I don't know if you guys have seen that 30 for 30.

That is fucking young girl and the police officers and that politician ruined some people's lives. Fuck them. But these Duke or these Lacrosse guys can party. Yeah. Lacrosse has gotten huge the last several years.

It was basically non-existent when I was a kid. Nobody even knew what it was. And it's exploded. Vancouver's got a team. Maybe that'll be my team. I think it's indoor lacrosse. So it's not the outdoor. NLL.

Yeah. NLL. RA, I put up a a debate online if you were forced to only drink one juice the rest of your life would it be orange or apple so you have to pick one of those two uh you might not be a cider guy but cider is considered an apple juice in in the debate oj is very acidic. Yep, that's the issue because I do get a heartburn. If I have my Prilosec, I might go with OJ just because there's nothing like a nice glass of OJ in the morning.

But as far as the acidity, yeah, that might sway me to apple juice, man. I love apple juice. Get your bottles moving in the morning, too. It'll get you a nice, if you're not a coffee drinker, apple juice will do the trick. Oh, it makes you shit? Yeah, yeah. It's not a laxative, but juice will do the trick. Oh, it makes you shit? Yeah, yeah. It's not a laxative, but it'll definitely move things along for you.

I was actually surprised. So I put the poll up, and I did it for 24 hours. Just under 39,000 people voted. Wow. That was a lot of people. Shit. And orange just edged out apple 54% to 46%. I voted for orange juice.

I wish I voted for apple, though. You guys kind of just reconvinced me there. And another thing, too, is I had to remind people afterward that cider is considered apple juice. So that might have swayed people's opinion early on. So a lot closer than I thought. Of course, don't blame people for picking orange juice because it can mix with alcohol and different types of alcohol and uh you might not and you may not be a cider guy honestly i i can't i i didn't

even i didn't vote it's it's difficult because i don't mind drinking a cider every now and then i love apple juice but i also love orange good thing is guys is i can drink both so fuck you interesting that apple juice is never used as a mixer in alcoholic drinks like OJ is. You ever consider that, Biz? Say that again? What? Like how apple juice isn't used as a mixer for like booze drinks, whereas OJ is or cranberry juice is. Nobody's ever ordered like an apple juice vodka, you know?

Not true. I've seen people mix apple juice and Jack Daniels and they call it Apple Jacks. And that's the old cereal, right? J is for Jacks, cinnamon, toasty, Apple Jacks. Yeah, there you go. There you go. We're buzzing right now. We don't need wit. Fuck wit.

Let's just kick them off the podcast. You know where I was yesterday, Biz? I was in a library yesterday. You know what a library is? Actually, there's been some controversy around library right of course there's always controversy lsu spent 28 million dollars on their new locker room and some girl tweeted out a photo of an lsu library that just looks like trash and they're like priorities here folks yeah and i'd have to kind of agree with her and i know that

there's i mean i thought that lsu locker room was a bit excessive. Now, I kind of – Jack Mack had a funny tweet about it. He said, 90,000 people don't sell out every game to go see Cindy study in the library. Correct. Correct. But I also think that it is a little bit excessive to have flat screen TVs in every single stall. And, like, they had, like, sleepers.

Like, it looked – honestly, it looked like it was a fucking episode of pimp my ride they looked a little bit god it looked a little bit like uh tacky to me no i mean i hate the ncaa i don't watch college football anymore largely because i hate the ncaa and yeah you look at that 29 million dollars i think you just said business to do that locker room over. Now, from what I understand, it's money they got from donors, so it's not actually coming out of the school budget. And as far as the picture of the library, someone said it was a storage area, like not the entire library looks like that.

I understand the girl's point, though, that these players get TV screens in their fucking stall, but we get fucking a leak in the library. I don't know, man. It's Division I football. It's these kids. They fucking – they tramp all over them. They exploit the hell out of them.

So I figure – they probably figure, well, this is something – at least we can't pay them. Let's just let them have some sort of luxury here. Now saying that, I'm not picking the library side of it. I think it – but like looking at the entire situation, I think that it was excessive to spend that much on a locker room, and I thought it looked a little bit tacky. And if you're spending that on a locker room,

the library area looks like that. I don't know, maybe just divide it up a little bit, or if you're LSU, fucking fix your fucking library. So I'm not picking sides on that one. I just thought that it was excessive to have a locker room look like that, and it looked like shit. Funny enough, when I was at the library yesterday, they were actually doing part of the library over.

It's fucking kind of combining the two stories here. What I did, I actually went online to reserve a book. I actually do have a library card, and there was a book that's no longer in circulation called Outrageous Conduct. You're familiar with the Twilight Zone biz, the old TV show that they just brought back. Yeah, and I think it was 82 or 83, there was a movie, Twilight Zone, the movie. And during the filming of that, an act of Vic Morrow and two child actors were killed.

There was a helicopter crash while filming a scene. And the fucking one kid was crushed by the helicopter, and the other kid and Vic Morrow were decapitated. And it ended up resulting in this crazy trial in Hollywood, like I said, 82 or 83, and there was a huge book on it, Outrageous Conduct. And if you wanted to buy it online, it was like $100 because it's no longer in circulation.

So I reserved it at the library and went to pick it up. I just started it last night. I guess it makes a lot of Hollywood look bad. I mean, the book's 30 years old, but it's supposed to be a real good one. And a couple other books I've been thumbing through all this time. Wait, let's go back to that. So it is a true story? Oh, 100% true.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, Vic Morrow. He was actually the coach of the Yankees in the Bad News Bears. And he was killed. He was actually the coach of the Yankees in the Bad News Bears, and he was killed. He was decapitated filming this scene. And it turns out it was illegal. They weren't supposed to be filming at night. The kids weren't supposed to be on the set.

Basically, John Landis, who was the director, he also directed Animal House, he fucking just broke a shitload of rules. And, you know, the books about, like, Hollywood arrogance and ego and, you know, basically people pushing the envelope. And after that accident, it ended up becoming, they ended up coming out with a whole bunch of new regulations as far as filming and stuff. It really was, it changed the shitload. Oh, I bet.

Because, because, because I mean, I've done commercial shoots, not a big deal, a humble brag. But on the other side, when I did biz does BC, it was no rules. We did a completely guerrilla style but when you're dealing with these big productions i mean these people can only be on set a certain amount of time if you ended up going overtime you got to pay them time and a half you can't like there's so many fucking rules that's why it's it's it's so expensive to put on these big movies because of the amount of things you have to pay for. I mean, even nowadays you see, rarely, you see stunt doubles end up dying

and stuff like that. Actually, one died during the filming of Deadpool 2 in Vancouver. Yes. It was a female motorcycle driver, and she ended up going through a pane of glass, and she died. So I understand why they have all these rules in place, but that's an interesting little tidbit there with that book. Yeah.

And also he was acquitted, John Landis and whoever else. Nobody was convicted or went to jail or anything. And then what happened in a similar story, it was I think I want to say five or six years ago, they were filming a movie about Greg Allman. It was a Greg Allman movie, and it was a dream sequence, and they were filming on a bridge, on a railroad bridge. They had a hospital gurney on the railroad bridge,

and the guy, the director was what they call stealing his shot. They weren't supposed to do it. He figured, oh, we'll do it while no one's here. Well, a fucking train came, and fucking they saw the train coming. They're like, get everyone screaming, get out of the way, get out of the way. The train was coming, but they were like so far out on the bridge

that they had to like run towards the train so they can jump off to the side. Oh, no. Everyone's running. Even the actor, William Hurt, he was playing Greg Allman. He almost got killed too. He bailed out of there.

And what happened was when the train hit the fucking, the bed, the bed knocked one of the women, one of the women who was working on the movie knocked her into the path of the train and she got killed. This was like I said, about five, six years ago, this poor, this poor girl got killed and the director actually got convicted. He ended up doing jail time for, because of his poor decision-making led to this poor girl's death.

Oh my God. Yeah. It was pretty, pretty bad stuff. So I want to cheer it up a little. There are also a couple of hockey books. I know people are asking a lot of time, you know, any good hockey books. And I was reading this summer. It's called Line Change by Matt Brown. He's a local kid from Massachusetts. He got checked during a high school game a few years back, and he broke his neck, and he's been in a wheelchair since.

He's been pretty friendly with a lot of the guys at Boston, and he's a real inspiration, Matt and I haven't finished the book yet but I've been getting through it and Matt's a real inspiration to do what he does he goes around he speaks to people and you know having to live with the situation the hand he's been dealt he's been nothing but cheery and classy

about it great kid another book I've been flipping through as well it's Hockey 365 Daily Stories from the Ice by Mike Comito. And it's basically like each day of the year, there's a different story for something that happened in history that day. It's not a book you read in a traditional fashion. Just kind of flip through and get some cool stuff that I'm going to plan on

incorporating into the podcast once the season starts back up. So a couple of hockey books if you want to leaf through. And also The Outrageous Conduct is the other book I mentioned if you want to try to track down. right i told uh oh that's interesting so thanks i don't i don't read a ton but uh who knows maybe i'll in my older age i'll start uh but i think that should probably wrap it up we've had a long one today between max talbot who was a great interview and me and biz get rolling talking about goofy stuff and next thing you know it's fucking almost noon so uh everybody have a great week great weekend and i will catch stuff, and next thing you know, it's fucking almost noon. So everybody, have a great week, great weekend, and I will catch up with you next time. Somewhere between a boy and man. She was 17 and she was far from in between.

It was summertime in northern Michigan. Splashing through the sandbar. Talking by the campfire. It's the simple things in life