Spittin Chiclets - Spittin' Chiclets Episode 229: Featuring John LeClair + Noel Acciari

Episode Date: December 23, 2019

On Monday's episode of Spittin' Chiclets the guys are joined by John LeClair and Noel Acciari. John joins (01:00:24) the guys in Philly to talk about his career, his time playing with Whit and his Stanley Cup win in Montreal. Acciari also joins the pod (27:35), but not before a sad prank attempt by Keith Yandle and Foley. The boys wrap up with some NHL news and a Gambling Corner (01:55:10).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' Checklets 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 229 of Spittin' Chicklets, presented by Pink Whitney, the pink lemonade-flavored vodka from our friends over at New Amsterdam Vodka. Well, boys, another week down in New York City, holiday Christmas party, got some interviews, a little tired from the week, but let's say hello, see how everybody else is feeling. Grinnelly, how you doing, my man? What's up, boys? In the lovely town of Burlington, Massachusetts, visiting my parents, recording from their bedroom right now because it has the best Wi-Fi, so it's kind of weird.

Is that where you were made? I think so, yes. You were conceived? I was conceived. You were not a load that your old man shot in the pillow. You were, in fact, morphed into the greatest hockey podcast producer of all time in that fucking bedroom. Wow, what an episode.

What a start. What a fucking intro. Holy shit. Let's go to you, Biz, after that one. What's going on? Next up, Paul. Biz Nasty, Bissonette. You look like you're home right now, pal.

I'm in Scottsdale, Arizona, and we're recording this on Sunday. And after this, I'm going to pack my bags, and tomorrow morning I'm going to head off to Kabul for five fucking days. And I'm going to decompress and relax. Is he going to put the phone away? my bags and tomorrow morning i'm gonna head off to cabo for five fucking days and i'm gonna decompress and relax i'm gonna put the phone away i'm gonna put that fucking phone away so if you're a friend of mine really don't text me don't send me the merry christmas text don't send me a goddamn thing for five fucking days i don't it's a naked pic i Unless, of course, yes, it is some nudies. But I'm going to be going down with my friend Jackie the Alien.

Don't ask why we call her that. And her family. And we're going to go – what are those things called? The Razors. They have a couple of Razors. We go do those. I'm going to go golf a little bit. I'm going to – Biz is going to be working on his handicap.

You know why? Because we got some sandbagger invitationals coming up so i am fucking thrilled to get a little rest because i want to get you know i want to recharge that battery so we can come back in the new year because we have a big week at the winter classic we have a big week at all-star at the end of january and we got to bank some fucking interviews for you folks. And Hey, rumor has it, we may be getting some of those, what do you call them?

The white, white elephants or the white whales, white whales, our Moby dicks, our, our Moby Cox. We're going to be maybe getting them in the next six weeks, folks.

So we, we need to be rested for you. Yeah. Biz is going to decompress by fucking oil drilling all over Baja, California for a week and last but not least uh buddy ryan whitney the wit dog what's up buddy not much guys pleasure to be here uh per usual let me tell you a couple other canadian cities got some nice shipments of pink whitney right before the holidays and it's been blowing up thank you so much everyone

for buying that i will say last night I was on the Pink Whitneys myself. They get you buckled. I mean, they catch up on you quick, and all of a sudden I'm like, oh, my God. So I've really enjoyed having that by my side for the holiday season, and I'm glad some people in Canada can enjoy it as well. I will say that don't get me going on Ontario. I get so many messages.

I got nothing to tell you besides LCBO. It sounds like a boy band. Whoever lets booze into your province is an absolute joke. Although they're getting things going, be careful. You don't want to fuck with the mob. True, but

okay, fair enough. I don't want anyone knocking. i don't want any boy band now now ontario's never getting it way to go whitney yeah gotta kick back to the fucking hells angels to get into quebec uh also biz you just mentioned dallas we are going to be doing a live show on december 31st at the rustic at uh 4 p.m sponsored by new Amsterdam vodka, of course. So be sure to come check that out.

G any other notes we should be aware of? Yeah. If you don't have tickets to the game, we're going to be given a bunch of way. So get there early enough and maybe you'll be lucky enough to get some tickets. We're giving away tickets for the outdoor game. Yeah.

And right now, if I'm not mistaken, tickets have the highest resale value of any winter classic. So these tickets are expensive and we're giving them away for free. Yeah. Wait, so our live show is free, and then we're also giving away free shit? That's awesome. Merch and tickets.

I'll pat myself on the back for that. Free tickets for the shit kicker. You know I'm doing a couple of biz 20s to make up for that. Yeah, Nashville, Dallas. It's going to be a lot of cowboy hats at this game, for sure. Speaking of the All-Star Game, the fan-elected All-Star Game captains were announced on Saturday night. Our buddy, the Nate Dog, he's going to be representing the Central.

Ovi's going to be representing the Metropolitan. Connor McDavid, he's going to be repping the Pacific. And David Pasternak, Paster, he's joining the big boys. He's going to have the C for the Atlantic. Wow. Yeah, I mean, it's putting him some pretty lofty company biz, but I think it's deserved. I mean, he's leading the league in scoring,

and I think he's certainly taking that leap where he's an elite player. Wouldn't you agree, Whit? I would agree completely. He's probably kind of worried. He's like, can I still wear my track suit to the club in st louis now that i'm captain because he ripped up all-star break last year wow we'll gotta see him again but yeah he deserves it completely the other ones you're not surprised at all um i think that he's gonna add a ton of spice and character to the whole all-star weekend

being a captain his interviews are so good he's he's got that his accent's so funny and just the way he talks i don't know even his commercial the dunkin donuts commercially does so i think that he's going to be like a lot of fun down there and because being a captain you're in the you're in the uh you know the limelight a little bit more he's gonna he's gonna be even a bigger presence in the league after after that weekend i couldn't agree more just such a different character and you know he deserves to be on the national stage for the year he's had so far and presence in the league after that weekend. I couldn't agree more. Just such a different character. He deserves to be on the national stage for the year he's had so far.

The redhead crazy Muppet. You know the guy I'm talking about, Grinnell? I think Cookie Monster. He's got the Lloyd Christmas chip tooth there in the middle we're talking about animal is that the muppet you're referring to the drama yes yes all right quickly this can this can be kept into the uh the podcast the rangers are playing anaheim and it's about to go off, and Anaheim doesn't have Getzlaff,

Gibbons, Silverberg, or Raquel. So I just unloaded on the Rangers. Ooh, thanks for the tip. Maybe I'll have to jump on it. That's a 12-30 start? Or one, maybe. Go ahead. I tell you what, Anaheim just doesn't have any type of luck with injuries, man. They had a tough year last year.

Last year, I think they led the league in man games lost. You would totally hit Miss Piggy, don't lie. I would like to see a life version of Miss Piggy to see if I would go on her. You know if you're at the wedding and everyone else is getting laid and you're just like, ah, it's like the one bridesmaid. You're like, I caught the flowers. I'm like, all right, I'll get a blowjob.

All right, moving right along in the spirit of muppet songs uh saturday night in toronto the maple he's got their first win from a goalie other than freddie anderson this season uh freddie's gone 18 8 and 3 so far and the combination of uh hutchinson and uhascosuo, while head guns 0-6-1 until Saturday night, Hutchinson came in, he gave up one shot. I'm sorry, one goal on 30 shots. Guys, I don't think I've ever seen a team go this late in the season before a backup gets a W. What about you, Biz?

That is shitty. You need backup goaltending in today's NHL. They got rid of who? McElhaney? Last year, I think. Yeah, Curtis McElhaney. And people were a little upset about that. And they really had a hard time finding their backup in Toronto.

And I don't know if they got anything brewing in the pipeline, but that's definitely something you got to address. And I hate to fucking bring it back to the Coyotes because it's just like the experience i live in and just having two goalies i mean darcy kemper just went down to injury and you know it's nice having the comfort of knowing that you have another solid goaltender anti-ranta backing them up but we also have two guys in the farm system as well aiden hill and then this russian kid i i wouldn't even begin to disrespect this podcast

by trying to pronounce his name because I would butcher it. You'd be disrespecting him, not the podcast. Oh, yeah, yeah. Sorry, that's what I meant. Fuck. See, now I'm even fucking disrespecting him again. But, no, they got to address that, and it's good that they finally got that help they needed.

Yeah, going back to Hutchinson, I felt bad for him. And I was so happy because he gave an interview. I don't know who it was with, but it was the Hockey Night in Canada last night. I saw it on NHL Network. And you could tell he was genuinely so happy and relieved. And they asked him, you know, it's probably been tough. He's like, yeah, listen, I've been, and I'm totally paraphrasing. I've been, you know, being as happy as I can with all the team wins when i haven't i haven't

been playing obviously i'm so fired up but to actually do something and feel like i finally helped the team tonight for the first time is such a good feeling and you think like that that sucks that's the wrong town to be a backup that can't get a win when the when the regular goal is playing real well and anderson's a horse but you do bring up a point, Biz. You know, maybe this win gets him going, and hopefully it does. Hutchinson, I'm saying. But if Anderson ever were to go down, knock on wood, they would be in panic mode.

They're fucked. Yeah, I have to make a fucking deal in that case, most likely. Fucking Biz. Anthony Duclair, this kid is on fire. He got his 21st goal Saturday night versus the flyers. He's got 11 goals in December. That's more than anybody else in the league. Yeah.

He also had a hat trick this week, including the overtime game winner against his old team, Columbus. And more particularly his former coach, John Tortorella, who said last year, uh, I don't think he knows how to play.

I don't know if he can just, just can't comprehend it or he's just stubborn, but he's running out of time. So he kind of got to really rub Torts' face in that. Did you catch that one, Biz? Listen, I think they had a pretty solid relationship, and I talked to Duclair about it. I could swear he was like, yeah, me and Torts are fine.

It's fine. They would chirp each other and stuff, or mostly Torts giving it to Duclair. But he was okay with it. He thought he was fair sometimes. And this goes back to me saying that when you're an organization, a general manager, you need to make sure you can trust the coach with personnel that, you know, can or can't fit in this organization.

I know it understands, or excuse me, I know it comes down to, you know, how you're going to structure your team, if you're going to play more defensive, and if you always, you know, want them on the defensive side of the puck and maybe playing some boring hockey. But, you know, this is tort saying that about a guy. Now he's in Ottawa. Now he's getting those reps because they are on a team where, you know, there's not any pressure to win there right now, right? It's just like roll out the lines.

If you make mistakes, you're still going to go because it's just like, hey, lines if if you make mistakes you're still gonna go because it's just like hey we're probably gonna get a lottery pick here and i think that it's nice because duclair has found a spot where he he could get in those reps and maybe get in rhythm and not be you know self-conscious about turning it over and trying something where he would have got reamed at torts and sat for it, where here he's like, okay, sometimes you got to learn by making mistakes. And he's gotten enough reps now, and he's been able to find his game to where people thought it was going to get to when he stepped in the league. He had a 20-goal season with the Arizona Coyotes. People thought this guy was going to be what he's showing this year.

So not only am I very happy for him him because i believe it's a contract year for him but just because like and i was hard on him when we talked about him on previous podcasts about you know i i don't know where he fit in i didn't know if he was you know if he's a bottom six well can he contribute by killing penalties what else can he bring and you know is he a top six guy can he sustain putting that out that type of offense where and and and you know even if he is making some mistakes it's worth it because he's producing at an offensive rate where hey you're gonna have to make mistakes in order to do so so he is he's been tremendous this year as i said i'm very happy for him and even a very bright spot on an Ottawa season

that's probably going to end being a top – sorry, not a top, a bottom three team. Yeah, I'll say something that people have mentioned a possible trade target and I'm all – because I think he is a free agent. I don't know if he's restricted or UFA. Maybe restricted. He's still pretty young, isn't he? Either way, I'm not going to worry about that. I'm just saying that if you have the ability to have a big year,

then it's great to make as much money as you can, but this might be a situation where he almost looks to sign an auto again. He's been around the block. He's finally found a spot. Yeah, the team isn't great, but you know what? You're playing a big role. And if you're a part of this team getting better and you've played a big role from the beginning,

well, all of a sudden you're going to be in a spot that really you finally found a fit in. So I wonder if he's looking to resign there. I mean, why wouldn't he be happy there the way things are going? They actually have been harder to play against than everyone thought. But this is what happens. When you can skate, you get a million chances. He motors,

dude, and in this game, if you can skate, you have a much longer shelf life and lives in the league if you can skate like the way he does. Part of me wants him to get traded at the deadline because I want to see if he can sustain this with even a contender and go on a little playoff run,

but I agree with you. I'd like for Ottawa fans to get him to see them sign there and fucking continue what he's doing. Because if it ain't broke, don't fix it, especially if you had a couple tough runs in other organizations. It's clear the grass necessarily isn't greener on the other side. Yeah, he's in a one-year deal right now, making $1.65 million. He'll be RFA after this season, so he's not quite unrestricted yet, but he's obviously going to get a nice bump in pay regardless of where he ends up.

Let's see. Also Saturday night, Blake Wheeler recorded his 616th career point with Winnipeg to pass Ilya Kovachuk for the most points in team history. It's a pretty big deal for Wheels. He's been with the team, obviously, for a while now. I'm not sure if he caught any of the highlights, but I'm not sure people foresaw this. Remember when he got traded, he was still kind of sort of middle of the road.

He hadn't realized his full potential, and he's really blossomed into a fucking true superstar out in Winnipeg. He really has. He really has. And there was a great article about him where he talks about, he liked, his quote was, I like me a lot better this year. And it's a long article. I don't know who wrote it. It's in the athletic. We'll get the name. Uh, maybe you can check that, uh, Marat attests. I hope I'm saying that right. Uh,

but great article. If you want to check that out and yeah, he's become just such an all-around special player that it makes everyone around him better and I think a lot of times he's uh he's almost had issues with being too intense I think that's some of the things he might bring up is that he just took everything so seriously I mean that's what I'm kind of guessing and and what it looked like to me because he puts so much pressure on himself but But he's a playmaker. He plays hard. He's a big guy. Talk about skating.

I remember Alex Goligosky, I think I've said this before, told me that Wheeler, he's the fastest player I've ever seen. This is when he was in college or just out of college. I was like, really? Because I didn't realize, like, watching him on TV, it didn't necessarily look like that. And then playing against him, dude, motors. And so being that big and being that good, it's been a hell of a career.

And you think back to Boston, it shows what happens when a young guy, when one fan base and ownership or GMs think of one young guy and how he can really turn around and change a view and an opinion on him because he's become somebody totally different. Yeah, I don't know anything about him that much, but apparently, I don't know if I've said this on the podcast before, when he was drafted by Arizona, and Don Maloney tried to nickel and dimle on a signing bonus,

and I think Blake Wheeler was like, oh, yeah. And he's fifth overall. Yeah, he's like, fuck you. I ain't coming here. So they ended up having to move him over to Boston. And whoopsie. Damn it. But, no, he's been having a great year.

And Winnipeg's one of those teams, like, they were a powerhouse for years coming into this one. And I feel like after, you know, their defense imploded and Bufflin didn't come back. And I don't know. I feel like they kind of no one's really been talking about them this year, but they've had a very solid year and have been doing a good job not being in the limelight.

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he's the 11th player in NHL history to record 13 consecutive 20 goal seasons to start his career. Some pretty lofty company he's doing. This guy just keeps doing it and doing it nonstop, huh? R.A., it's unbelievable, man. This guy's a freak of nature, just does it every year. He's like a robot. We talk about it with some of these players in the league. You know what you're getting every fucking night.

How long was that point streak he was on recently? Didn't he have another one going? long was that point streak he was on recently didn't he have another one going i believe he's got the record for american born player point streak in the nhl right the one year he went like fucking 40 games or something i i don't remember that exact number but i remember being crazy long yeah over 30 right and he gets every year he gets like a little point streak going. I would even bet that in six of his NHL seasons, he's had a point streak of longer than 15 games, which is crazy. I know. It's so easy for him out there.

Ever since he ever came into the league, it looks so fun. He looks like he's having the best time in the world playing hockey. He gets it, and the whole game slows down, and he just sets the best time in the world playing hockey. He gets it and the whole game slows down and he just sets guys up and his shot is sick. From the top of the circles, once he does that big wind-up wrister almost and just is picking

corners. I don't know. His whole swagger on the ice too. The guy, I told you, me and Sam Gagne were watching goals from the night before and Kane scored and went into the corner at home at the United Center, and you could read his lips. He goes, get the fuck up. And the whole crowd is getting the fuck up.

They already were. And it's just like this guy's a legend. So it was awesome to see that performance. Some people would argue that they were already going to stand up, but I believe that him saying that. If you weren't going to, maybe if you just got a beer and a popcorn and you didn't want to stand up, you were just going to clap against your shoulder like people do when they have a hand that's full.

No excuse. Stand the fuck up. Patrick Kane says so. I don't care if you spill your nachos, you stand the fuck up when Patrick Kane says stand the fuck up at the United Center, okay? Hey, boys, we haven't mentioned our guests yet. We have a pair of them coming up. We talked to John LeClair when we were out in Philadelphia a few weeks back.

He was a great chat with him, one of the great American players of all time. And we also caught up with Nola Chari for a minute or two. He, of course, had back-to-back hat tricks this week, which is a hell of an accomplishment. So we got him fresh off the press. Boy, something happened Saturday that I've never seen in 40-something years of watching hockey. Anaheim's defenseman, Mike DelZotto, he backhanded

the puck toward the board to try to get it out of the zone. And the puck just disappeared. A bunch of players surrounded referee Francis Chiron. You know, it looked like they were going to maybe take a whack at him or something. You know, four or five players. Turns out the puck went right into his goddamn pocket.

I had never seen this before. Biz, have you ever seen this happen before? No, I still haven't. No, but no, that is fucking crazy.

I mean, sometimes it ends up in players like pants and shit like that, but that's a, yeah, that's a trick shot if I ever saw one. But I didn't. You couldn't do that if you tried probably 1,000 times, I bet. No, maybe 10,000 times, maybe 50,000 times.

How are you going to shoot it in the best pocket? Well, if it's never happened before, then, I mean, here we go. Yeah, I didn't see it either, but your description was pretty solid. I might check it out now. I would be sure there was one player on the ice, though, that knew exactly where it was. Yeah, I don't think the ref even knew because, I don't know, maybe the adrenaline or whatever, he just didn't catch it.

But it took him a minute to find it. But it was pretty funny either way. Friday night, there was also some news. Joe Pavelski played his 1 his 1000th nhl game versus the panthers he's in his 14th season of course uh he's the 25th player taken in the seventh round or later to go on and play 1000 games in his 777 points are the ninth most from that group who was taken the seventh round or later uh did we ever catch any of this biz i know i know it's gonna suck i didn't catch the game but it was against against Florida when Yance had set the consecutive game streak.

I think he's fourth now, but Pavelski, man, what a career. It's hard for me to picture him outside of a San Jose uniform. And Christ, the more this season goes on, I think that maybe that's the fucking piece that made that whole team come unglued. But what a fucking tremendous player. You say he's a tremendous

golfer as well, right? Witt? Dude, he's known as being unreal at everything he does. Like Tom Gilbert, they won the title together at Wisconsin. They're good buddies. He said everything this guy does, he's just unreal at it. So you got to respect the hell out of that.

I'd love to get on a golf course with him, maybe when we're in Dallas, although he's got a game. Well, the reason I was saying that is because when it was Jovo's 1,000th game and he was a big golfer as well, the boys got him a foursome at Masters. Augusta. That's crazy they did that. I just didn't see what the what the gift was for for pavelski i would assume that it would have uh something to do with golf then

yeah hey joe uh it's wit remember when we were on the olympic team together uh yeah i sat on the bench you kept jumping over the boards and playing great hockey yeah can you bring me on your golf trip uh quickly though he talk about um we say like yeah you don't have to start in the nhl not everyone does we bring it up all the time pavelski two big years at wisconsin turned pro after the national title and then starts in the ahl though biz san jose's got good team in 0607 i'm assuming they had they had a really good run for a long time well you want to know how you get called up? You don't sulk. You go down and play 16 games in the minors, get 8 and 18, 26 points.

It's like, hey, force their hand, right? They had to call them up. So it's cool to see the career not come full circle, but go on this long, and it's not surprising. And Biz just mentioned it in the same game. Our boy Keith D'Ando played in his 831st consecutive regular season game to pass Andrew Cogliano for the fourth longest Ironman streak in NHL history. I know we don't like to talk about it too much, but it is all over the place.

It is news, so we do like to acknowledge it. And like I said, we talked to one of his teammates, Nola Chari. He had back-to-back hat tricks this week, so let's send it over to him right now and catch up with Nola Chari. And now we'd like to welcome to the show one of the hottest sticks in the NHL right now. He had consecutive hat tricks Monday versus Ottawa and then Friday versus Dallas. Then he added a goal Saturday night in Carolina just for good measure. He's already passed his career- in goals in just 31 games. Kind of wonder if the Bruins had their second line right winger this whole time and let him

slip away. Welcome to the show, Noel Achari. Hey, thanks guys. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas to you too as well. Have you ever been on a heater like this or has it been since street hockey? All right. Every Christmas I go on a heater. It's crazy crazy i think it's my name my mother named me after christmas and every christmas i go on a heater it's crazy why am i shocked that yans gave me foley's number and now foley's pretending to be a fucking achari on a fucking i know it wasn't fucking i fucking knew it how'd you know because i go there's no way it's going to work, Jens. It's embarrassing that you guys would even try to fucking stump the fucking

the creme de la creme of the hockey podcast world, Foley. This is domination. Foley, you just wrote your goddamn fucking death wish, my friend. Merry Christmas, fellas. Merry Christmas. Oh, you think, hey, your Honda Civic getting fucking towed is going to be the least.

What a pussy. So we still have them, though, no? Oh, that's getting saved. We still have the real Achari, yes. All right. Falls, I go, there's no chance it's going to work. Kim and Keith go, it'll work 100%. And Biz, right away, you go, who is this?

Yeah, that accent was like, wait a minute. I've heard a charity talking. The minute he got on the phone, I knew it was a fucking phony. So that, God. What a put fully. All the time you planned that, sitting around, watching games, gambling, you planned that. That was the accent you came with?

Yeah. That was what you thought was going to fool them to? Let's put it this way he won't he wouldn't be able to act in business he does bc that's how fucking bad of an actor foley is now second thing is he's kind of ruined his uh his reputation a little bit by that effort i think that that one was too predictable so mr foley i that's an embarrassing uh example of what you bring to the table in front of all of our spit and chiclets listeners. So, I mean, you're going to have to, you're going to have to redeem yourself. Just, just, he had all, he, it was like the, it was like the Wizard of Oz, you know, until you see him, you're more like scared of him. And then you just hear that voice and that pathetic attempt. And you're now fully lost a lot of his luster. Yeah, that accent is like he would call it.

Rhode Island accents have a fucking distinct sound like like Brian Barad. I mean, he's got a very distinct one, but he's going to call. Now is Noel Chari going to be calling in now? Right now. Yeah. Now we'd like to welcome to the show one of the hottest sticks in the NHL right now. He had consecutive hat-tricks Monday versus Ottawa and then

Friday versus Dallas and then added a goal Saturday in Carolina for good measure. He's already passed his career high in goals in just 31 games. It's not no wonder if he might have been the Bruins' missing second-line winger all these years. But either way, thanks for joining the Spittin' Chicklets podcast. Noel Achari.

Thanks, guys. Thanks for having me. No, you're very welcome. Thanks for joining us. Have you ever been on a heater like this? Maybe has it been since, what, street hockey? No, never. R.A. just chirping you right off the hop.

How do you feel about that? This is awesome. I guess you just get right into it. I'm ready. How's that locker room down in Florida? You guys must be just having a ball right now. I think you guys have hit every over since I mentioned on the podcast

six weeks ago. It's unbelievable. I mean, you guys are awesome. Gant is probably the funniest guy I know. Does he make you stay in the shower and watch him shave his nuts? He hasn't done that yet. I think he likes me, so he doesn't do that to me.

Oh, my. Hey, so the other night when you finished it off with the penalty shot goal, I mean, what's going to... At any point in time, I'm guessing you've never been that confident on a breakaway

considering the two you had prior, but do you still have any clue what move you were going to do at that point? Oh, I'll tell everyone I actually blacked out. I didn't know what the hell I was doing. I was like, you know what, I'll just grab the puck off the start and hopefully don't fall. I actually was thinking maybe sheet first, and then all of a sudden I did that. Fortunately enough, it went in.

That is so good. Has your phone been lighting up from our former teammates? I was going to say giving you shit, but they can't really give you shit for this. No, I really, yeah. All the guys have been like, what the hell are you eating? And I'm just saying, there's nothing, just cookies. NHL, drug test time oh hey Yance Yance said you eat cookies like you're going to the electric chair what's what's you in the this correlation with cookies you just eat them growing up all the time

yeah just big sweets and cookies are my trip tonight and I probably have about a sleeve of Oreos a night. Oh, so you're like white trash cookies. You're not going to good bakeries and judging them? No, occasional good bakeries, but you've got to stick to your roots and go to the

Oreos. The holiday flavors right now are unbelievable. The red. I was going to ask you that. What's your favorite non-original Oreo flavor? Right now, it's the Christmas holiday ones. It's the red filling. They're probably the freshest cookie I've had. And once I have one, I can't stop.

The freshest. It's the pen that eats a bag. Once I have one, I can't stop. The freshest. It's the pen that needs a bag. Hey, so this year, I mean, this summer, it was a big deal. You ended up moving on to become a Florida Panther. How hard was it saying goodbye to Boston? I mean, were you almost looking at them like, hey, can you match it and I'll be there?

Or were you kind of ready to move on? Honestly, it was very tough. I mean, being from New England. And I wanted to stay. But I knew that they had some guys that they wanted to look at. And it just didn't work out. And I was ready for the next opportunity. But I think the toughest thing was texting Z, Bergie, Marci, all those guys and just telling them,

hey, thanks for the four years and what I've learned. I actually almost teared up just texting these guys. It was tough. They were all very supportive. Who was the one guy from that core group that you really gravitated toward when you got there and he took you mostly under his wing? When I first got there, it was more Adam McQuaid. And then after he moved on, I got close to David Backus.

And then towards the end, Marci and I got really close. But just texting those guys, it sucked. It was just so hard and I mean fortunate to pray him four times I get to see him four times

Is it like hard to gain Marshy's trust when you get into that locker room and you're the new guy is he kind of a little cold off the hop? I think he just

he wants the team to succeed and if you give him everything and if you're doing the right things he loves you and uh like he doesn't like when people are screwing off or i mean he's he's hard on guys that do that like just do the right things and he'll like you and and i don't i i like that i I mean, of course, everyone wants to win. You've got to do the right things. And you hold people accountable, which is good. And, yeah, I think we got it wrong because, I don't know, we just got to mesh it all there.

So, granted, there's a couple guys in the league that might be a little above you. You are right in the hunt for the Cy Young Award this year. 12-3 right now. Just not an assist guy, just a goal guy. So I'm wondering, like, is it just shoot first for the rest of this year? It has to be. You know, it might have to be. I mean, I try and get one assist every once in a while,

but right now I guess everyone's been on a hot stick, so I might as well try and use it. Yeah, four of those 12 goals, a game-winner. How much right now, Noel, everyone's been on a hot stick, so I might as well try and use it. Yeah, four of those 12 goals, a game win. How much right now, Noel, is it confidence, and how much is it your line mates playing with guys like Huberto and Trocek? I think it's like a lot of the line mates. Those guys, Trocek

and Hubie, I mean, Hubie's special with the puck. He's got unbelievable vision, and Trocek, he's got good vision, he's good with the puck, and again, I'm going to play below the goal line, grab the puck in front of the net, and try and do my best to get to the open areas because they'll find me, which they have.

And it's been a lot of fun these past couple games, two games. So I think that a lot of people have said before that, you know, Barkov's the most underrated player in the league, and it's said so much now that he really isn't. But Huberdeau doesn't really get talked about either. So it's incredible to see this second year now, especially after last season. It's just he's taking over games. How fun is it to hang out with him? Because I saw him when you guys were in town at Lincoln and we were shooting the shit. He's like, I'll come on the podcast. I listened to a couple, just his old French accent.

I can barely understand him half the time. He's a riot in the locker room and he's an unbelievable player. I would agree. I mean, Bark, he's unbelievable too. I mean, both of those guys had over 90 points last year. How can you not talk about them?

But they're on another level, those two, and I'm fortunate to play with those guys right now. You came in same time as Quinville. What are the guys saying that's different in a positive way now that he's around, he's bringing that winning pedigree, and you guys kind of have got things going in the right direction here? I think he keeps guys accountable.

I think we have a shitty period. He wants emotion out of us on the bench. I think it's like we go down a couple goals and there's nothing there and he's after a period comes in and shows some fucking emotion like we're in this game and

just keep playing. I think the fact that he knows that this team can win, I think it's just about buying in at this point. And I think we've been – we've responded well to it. And I think we are where we are because he's helped out a great deal. No, it's funny you mention that because, like, you know, some of these fans, like, you know, I don't think they realize, like, how hard the schedule is and how hard it wears on your body and just mentally the grind itself.

And some games like the team's just not going to be in it. And it's amazing how Quinville, that's the type of experience he brings because sometimes you got to fake it. You gotta, you know, you gotta just like talk yourself into it. You know, yeah. All of a sudden you start showing emotion and then guys are caring more. And then all of a sudden they're taking it more personal and then boom, maybe they can kind of turn on that switch. Cause you know, some games you're just, and then all of a sudden they're taking it more personal, and then boom, maybe they can kind of turn

on that switch, because some games you're just fucking dead. Exactly. If you're not going to have your A game, bring your B game, or C game. When did you get put on that line with those guys? After we had lost to Boston

at home, so that next game against Ottawa was the first game. So you came in the room and the lineup board's up in the room and you're like, oh yes. Are those the two guys I'm really supposed to be with? I was like, I told them actually that first practice.

Hey guys, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to go get the puck for you guys and I'm going to go sit in front of the net and you guys do what you do. And if you put it back behind, I'll get it and give it back to you. And I'm going right go get the puck for you guys, and I'm going to go sit in front of the net, and you guys do what you do. If you put it back behind, I'll get it and give it back to you, and I'm going right back to the net. I think we kind of worked out in that first game against Ottawa, I think a couple of my goals were in front of the net, and that's where I scored my hat trick, first one.

No, what was that first meeting like with Mackenzie Weeger after all the pranks that went down when you first bumped into him in the locker room? Honestly, there's a God to you guys did that because I think I broke the ice. I was originally going to text him once I signed just being like, we good? Like, oh, well, just to like say something and then come to find out that happened. And I was, my buddies were texting me like, hey, have you heard Spittin' Chicklets yet? I was like, no, not yet.

He goes, you know what, you've got to go check it out. And I listened to it. And I was absolutely dying. And Yance texted me. And then I was like, all right, I've got to text Weaver and joke around with him. So I sent him a text. I said to him, I said, so I'm not a superstar. He never responded.

And I was like, Yance, you've'm not a superstar. He never responded. And I was like, yeah, he never responded to me. He goes, hold on. He had to put us all in a group chat. And then he's like, hey, this is Noel, actually Noel. And I was like, hey, buddy, what's up? And he still didn't respond. He goes, and then he said to Yancey, I'm not answering any texts that I don't know the number until I physically get it in person.

Oh, come on. on wow no more trust in his guard up dude he had his gun up he's like enough of this oh man so hey so that's funny that when you when you sign one of the first things you thought of was you needed to reach out to him to ask if you guys were cool yeah i just i mean no hard feeling it's the game of hockey. It is what it is. And we were both willing when we fought. And I knew there wouldn't be an issue. I just wanted to touch base and say hi and joke around with him. Why did you guys initially fight?

Was there some dirty play that happened beforehand? Or was it just you? It was, we were up, I think, 4-5-1. or was it just you? No, it was, we were up, I think, 4-5-1, and we had just scored, and I was going out to start the face-off, and he said, hey, you want to go?

And I said to him, it's 5-1. He's like, come on, I need it. And I was like, all right, fine, we'll go. No, you really don't. Okay, I'll give it to you. What's it like not paying state tax? Oh, it's unbelievable. Isn't it great? It's the greatest thing ever.

Uh-oh. Hey, Achari hates Boston. Write the headline, Grinnell. He tweeted out. Hey, so you won a national title at Providence. I think first and only national title for the Friars. What was that like? I mean, you're from Rhode Island to get that done.

Oh, that was wild. And to do it at the Garden was really cool because so close to home. And to be the only team to win a national champ. Yeah, it was a wild game. I don't know if you had any money on BU or not. Just my status as an alum, just my status as a guy on one of the beams in the weight room, a picture of him, that was my investment in that game.

It broke my heart, really did. Yeah. I actually see that every year. I went there this summer. I worked at a BU, so I saw your mug. It's a tough, tough side profile picture of the kid. No, what was the biggest adjustment you had to make going down to, like, a whole new locker room, new team, new city,

especially coming from a place like Boston going to the Miami area? For me, like, I'm a quiet guy in the locker room, and, like, once I start feeling comfortable with guys, then I start to loosen up. I was just nervous about how the locker room was with being such a close group in Boston. But honestly, it was probably the easiest transition with the guys here. Every guy was awesome. Definitely helped with breaking the ice with a lot of stuff. It is a close locker room in here,

and it's really cool to see and see it's just like Boston and how much fun we have on and off the ice together. And, I mean, that was my biggest fear going into it, but it transitioned really well, and I'm having a lot of fun with these guys right now. Who goes back at Yans in the locker room? Because he's obviously, you know, talking all the time. It used to be me, him, and Doner used to go at it.

So who's the guy who kind of disagrees with him most? I think he kind of just owns the room. I mean, there's a couple occasional. I mean, I think Becky might go at it with him a little bit. But he owns that room. There's a couple occasional. I think Becky might go at it with him a little bit. He owns that room. What he says goes. He's hysterical

with what he says. Honestly, I find out he's big on the movie quotes. If you don't get it right, he has an issue with you. Brushing up on my movie quotes. I might fit in there. I found that out the other day.

No, you got 50 games left, 12 goals already. What do you got in number? What do you think you're going to end up with this year? I wish I could tell you. 13? It'll be over or under 17 and a half. All right. That's a man looking for a Will it be over or under 17 and a half? R.A., you fucking... That's a man looking for a slant right there.

Yeah, everyone's like, oh, that's kind of a lame journal question, and R.A.'s like, no, I'm going to make a lot of fucking money, bitch. I'm hoping it's over 17 now. All right, all right, well, we're rooting for you. We're rooting for that whole team down there. Thank you very much for coming on. And, man, did your half-brother, Foley Achari, just not look good in his attempt.

But we'll see you soon. Thank you very much to the NHL's hottest sniper, Noel Achari. Let's first, we got to talk about Foley. And some people want to be in the content game. Well, when you get in, you better show up and perform because you can get buried in the content game too. So I'm thinking he's going to try to come back with something, God knows what, but everyone who has failed their first time

can see why it might be hard for him to give it another go. Jan's texting me right now, by the way. First things first, Jan's thought. They think I told you. They think I told you. And I said, no, Jan, wait till you hear the audio. It's a pathetic performance. I would say a negative six out of ten.

And Foley landed right on his face. And you mentioned it wet. You get to the bright light sometimes. And all of a sudden, you know, you, you had this plan in your head and then boom, you get punched right in the fucking nose.

He said, listen, he goes, when Grinnelli asked me to get off speakerphone, I panicked because that, that was the part of my disguise. I said, I mean, roll with the punches.

You got to roll with the punches a little bit. And also, Keith said to me, he goes, dude, you're from New England. So is a char, you didn't even have to do a pretend accent. You know what that could be? That could be a lack of preparation. And Foley, once again, if you come to the big leagues, you got to be prepared. And Jan said, just have G deleted. And I said, no way.

Not a chicken dicks chance. Foley, I'm looking forward to our next meeting, my friend. So we can move on from this, unless you have one more thing to say, Whit. I'm done. No, we can move on from that. We have one more thing to say, Whit. I'm done. No, we can move on from that. We did get some interesting comments from New York Island as head coach, Barry Trotz.

Trotz took exception to Nashville coach, Peter Laviolette using his top power play unit in an eight, three game in the third period. Trotz's quote, he said, I'll see Peter maybe in the summer. We'll discuss that a little bit. I wasn't a big fan of that.

It's eight to three and you're putting your guys blasting pucks, and you're putting guys at risk. That's fine. Everybody has their own way of doing it. I probably wouldn't have done it that way. It tells me a lot about him. I thought these were some eye-opening quotes. I mean, your power play is struggling.

Here's an opportunity to work on it. Is he not supposed to because he's going to be sensitive to the other fucking goalies' goals against average biz? I want your take on this buddy this is listen and the islanders fans are going to think i'm picking on them but i'm not i love trots i think he's an incredible coach a wonderful human being i love your organization i think you guys are the fucking real deal i saw you guys uh ended up getting another point in that anaheim game on saturday you guys are mutants but this is just ridiculous 26th in the league right now nashville is on the power play and they're just clicking

just over 15 okay you're you have an opportunity you get reps in games to solve one of your major issues and mind you an issue of why they got bumped out of playoffs last year their fucking power play in the second half of the year last year and playoffs was dog shit. So they got to worry about their own. And these coaches were, oh, they ran up the score. You are playing at the top level of sports. That whole fucking mentality, throw it out the goddamn window.

You're in the big leagues the only time that that would be ridiculous if there was um emergency backup in net where it's like hey we're just gonna we're gonna play keep away for a bit here and let's just fucking all get out of here after right like we don't need to embarrass the fucking the guy who was probably working the fax machine at some company on Monday morning. Anyway, it's ridiculous, and I don't really understand what there's going to be to talk about. What's that conversation going to go like in the summer, Whit? I can't even imagine there would really be one.

He's like, bro, we were fucking working on our power play. We were dusting you. You were higher in the standings than us. Big deal. Quickly, though, you said the Islanders fans may think that you're picking on them. Well, I would more say they may think you're dripping on them. Did you see that video of last night, the Coliseum,

one part of it just dripping water the entire game? I did. It was the most disgusting display of an arena in the NHL's last, I don't know, two or three decades. Just old, dirty water dripping down on fans. Or maybe they were – I'm not going to say it was definitely on fans because I'm not sure about that. But either way, the visual was disgusting.

Team is still playing great hockey, though. Congrats to them. They are way better than I thought they'd be. And you said, R.A., one of the quotes was that blasting pucks at our players. I would assume that he means the players going down to block shots for the Islanders. Well, then just don't fucking block them. Get out of the way. Yeah.

I don't know. What do you want me to say here? Yeah. I guess because we're not used to hearing trots really give those kind of quotes, get out of the way yeah i don't know what do you want me to say here yeah it was weird i guess because we're not used to hearing trots really give those kind of quotes so i think that's what caught a lot of people off guard was that you know he kind of sort of called out one of his peers are you guys in agreement that it's ridiculous that if an nfl coach was like oh they freaking they're up 47 nothing they scored another touchdown let's fucking stop them i don't know man like

fucking work on your defense in a game on national television. Yeah, I agree. It's one thing if they're little kids and they're fucking, you know, it's JV and they're getting dusted by 100 points and people are getting embarrassed. But this is the pros, man. Fucking don't like it. Fucking shut up and stop them.

This is where I draw the line on the whole feelings thing, okay? Like, I can. Feelings. Nothing more I can... Feelings. Nothing more than feelings. Feelings. Go ahead, Biz. Sorry. Oh, no.

I was joining in and singing with feelings. A little acapella. Hey, this is a weird thing, man. The way the NHL kind of keeps scores on things. Jack Eichel, he couldn't play Thursday night versus Philadelphia, and the league comes out and says his streak ends at 17. It's like, wait a minute, he's not fucking playing.

So he did play Saturday, he got an assist, and now he's, you know, they call him the second Buffalo Sabre to record a point in 18 consecutive personal games. So, I don't know, man, this is some quirky thing. What's your take on this shit? Supremely disappointed. I just think it was a disgrace how

this all went down and it doesn't really make sense to me sometimes i i get i get part of it i don't understand the other part of it i just think that if this guy had didn't play in this game why should he be punished in terms of a cool uh individual accomplishment that i think was one game away from a poach approaching was it gilbert perot's all-time buffalo sabers point streak record i mean come on dude he didn't even plan he can't try to chase down a uh um a franchise record man that's that's bullshit that's that's the good stuff that we should be appreciating in the game and so the league's decision on that doesn't make didn't make any sense to me and then i look at i know it's totally different but in terms of comparing stuff that they're cool with and not and not cool with i

mean that's not the right term but patrick marlowe's iron consecutive games plate street continued even though he didn't like start the year. Right. I know it's different, but he missed NHL games. I mean, I don't, I don't really know. I just think that they kind of flubbed it by not allowing it to continue. And it was funny because it was, it was just a tweet that came out from the league that said that right.

All right. Or did people report that? No, the NHL.com said his streak is going to end because he's not playing. They even like reported before the game. It's just odd, man, the way they tally it up. By no means am I angry about this. I'm just going from different perspectives here.

I would imagine the league maybe took that stance because that's the way they did it in the past, not saying it was right to do it that way, but now they're just kind of like, well, those guys who set those records had to go based on this set of rules. Now,'s not the case it's like yeah like you you i mean it's it's just more news for your for your league and attracts more attention to more games and people following storylines right so that's where i could see it in the in the sense of growth and in media yeah you you want guys on these point streets now yeah I don't really understand

why they would like maybe do it for Marlo or they wouldn't do it for him because goalies biz that on a shutout streak if you don't play every game in a row I think your goalie shutout streak continues yeah so what's the difference there maybe it's just one of those things where like they had to make a decision and they didn't think of other variables and they got it wrong. So I don't know if they can go back and change it. But, yeah, I mean, some Sabres fans are pissed, but I just – I don't know. I can't find any – I can't find anything to be angry about.

Still impressive as hell. Still – I mean, you're still talking about it as long as he continues the streak, but it just would have broken a team thing absolutely yeah just some quirky way they they decide to keep the records but uh going across the pond uh buddy uppie he's gonna be playing in the spangler cup does that just mean potty time does a bunch of his boys like fucking loops and ob just jump on a pj and head on over to tear it up It is. I would have loved to have played in that, but it is sounds like a great time and it's team Canada sends a team of guys who are Canadian that are playing pro hockey in Europe or Russia.

I believe. I think they also occasionally will add like a junior college guy, maybe not junior. I might be making that up. And then Davos where it is, this is beautiful mountains. I don't know, ski town in Switzerland. Can you imagine what that's like? Uh, they, they are the host. So they, they play. And then the other two teams, I'm not exactly sure how it works. I think they come from different leagues all over. Maybe it's other Swiss teams. I don't

know. I'm not going to try to say, uh, but uh but either way dude it's a tournament over new years in a beautiful swiss mountain village are you kidding me i'm pretty sure that they're crushing drinks um we we have a funny story about the spangler cup team and it involves upy we cannot tell it to you right now but it will be in that little brian no we got to save it man we can't drop that right now yeah it was it was one of the funnier things. I forgot that was in the interview. What we'll do is we'll put it in one of the episodes maybe before New Year's. Speaking of that, Grinelli, and moving away from Spangler Cup,

what is the deal with the Boxing Day episode? Are we going to do a best of? Yeah, so on the day after Christmas or Boxing Day, we will be posting a best of episode i've been taking uh suggestions of fans like the best interviews they want from on the episode so send them over you can email them tweet them whatever okay yeah so any funny stories you guys can remember it's i'm sure there's a lot in there that you guys enjoy tweet over to granelli send them some instagram dms do what you got to do And we're going to compile that because the boys need a little break,

right guys? Yeah. Christmas time. We need a little, little break. Speaking of Christmas time, you might want to hook some people up for some tickets. That's why you want to use SeatGeek. Everyone knows buying tickets can be complicated and a little confusing,

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Hook some people up for a little Christmas gift there, Biz, if you need to. Had a little sort of a milestone. Ovi and Backstrom played their 900th game together. It's kind of not an unusual style. You just don't usually hear of it too often, but 900 games together and interestingly, Backstrom got his 900th point in the same game. He's probably, I don't know, would you say maybe, I hate to say

underrated. We feel like we say it all the time, but this guy's just sort of maybe floating under the radar of quite a bit, maybe just playing with Ovechkin. Hey, Whit? I think people never bring him up enough, but I bet you if you talk to Ovechkin, he does, uh, this guy's such a great guy. He, he's, he comes on that golf trip every other year in Europe we go on.

And the most laid back dude, like couldn't be a better guy to like go golf with. Like he's just a really, really nice person. He asked you about your own life, your own family. Like he's like, Oh, where you're from married. Like like he's not he he has zero ego and i think that's probably why he doesn't give a shit if people don't talk about him because he knows the career he's had um 900 points and i mean he's just played a 924 games so just under a point per game and a high pick he certainly lived up fourth overall beat me by one god damn

it and uh i'm happy for him because it's he deserved that stanley cup and he should be mentioned more often i saw a picture of him on stage with ovi and they both had those old school washington jerseys with the eagle on it was was he the year after ovechkin was drafted or was it the same year uh it was the year he was 2006 2006. When was Ovi drafted? 2005 or 2004? 2004, I think. Yeah, Backstrom was drafted fourth overall in 2006. Ovi was 2004.

So a couple years after, but fuck, man, what a tandem. But I'll tell you, this is what we say. You need to be bad and you need to get top five top three picks to change your franchise look at what they did two years apart they got their number one center and winger for the rest of their lives are you kidding me that's what i'm saying you gotta tank a little bit no you gotta tank completely done tank oh and another thing about him uh he's coming up at the end of his deal it was a 10-year deal right for for 67 million i mean back when he signed it that was a monster

and he lived up dude nobody ever questioned it for one second that's when you know you're a legend when you know you have the big ticket you don't even get brought up as being overpaid so here's the thing though does he end up like another Pavelski? Like, are they going to shell out the dough to keep this guy? Because all of a sudden, you know, you've got some – Well, Holtby, too. They have to pay Holtby this offseason as well. That's what I'm saying.

So it's difficult times in Washington. It's been a good run. But, hey, now it's all over. Yeah! I'm just kidding. I'm Washington fans. I'm kidding. If they get another one this year, they'll be like, all right, that's's all over. Yeah. I'm just kidding. I'm Washington fans. I'm kidding. If they get another one this year, they'd be like, all right,

that's cool with us. We got two. I'm starting more. Philip Heidel, one nothing Rangers. Did you get it in, R.A.? I did. I did, too. There we go, boys.

Yeah. I couldn't lay 160 on the rag, so whatever the hell they were. I heard there's also some controversy right now between back from OV, similar to the Barzell and trots uh drama so we can move on though uh hey uh boys i sent the picture of abyss i hope you won't get in trouble for it but did you happen to see the photo shot that arizona did when uh halsey came to town hey everybody's been talking about it online i i really didn't look into it that much to notice it like i mean like you know on twitter nowadays like shit like that goes viral every fucking every check mark was making fun of the coyotes and i was like shut up

in case you didn't catch it because a halsey got got traded to Arizona, and they didn't have a picture for him yet, so they took Darcy Kemper's picture, and they put Halsey's head on it, and then they put, like, a smile on it, because the picture from Halsey in New Jersey, he wasn't smiling, so they Photoshopped his smile. All right, stop making fun of the coyotes. It's like when anyone online, like, says something with the coyotes, I'm like, ooh, I get all poopy pants.

Shut up. One guy was like what did that i think it was philippe something i always i always take his tweets and read them on here because he has some interesting stats and he was like oh wow um hall and hall and kessel this is the best tandem since they had uh datsuk and hosa and i was that was pretty funny i I was like, shut up, man. Spike my phone. Fuck you, idiots.

Oh, man. Hey, boys, I think we should probably send it over to Johnny LeClair right about now. This old school guy was great to talk to. Of course, you know, me and the YouTube biz grew up watching him. He was part of some. He is a massive human being. He's a big dude. Yeah.

He is a fucking bear when he walked a big dude yeah he is a fucking bear when he walked into that hotel room so we got another live interview coming for you guys and uh i love the live one so enjoy what a pleasure you know if that i'm doing the intro we have a special guest this is a guy who at the end of this intro i'll i will i will tell you something very funny he said to me my rookie year. But before that, we'll go through this career. Stanley Cup champion in 1993. The Montreal Canadiens won 10 games in overtime. He scored two of the goals.

Thank you. Olympic silver medalist in 2002 where he had six goals in six games. Thanks for coming. Won the World Cup in 1996. An enormous win for USA Hockey. I remember watching it. One of the premier power forwards throughout the 90s in which he scored over 400 goals in his career, 260 bids in a six-year span.

How's that for a six-year run? How are you? Two-time winner of the Bud Light Plus Minus Trophy. No wonder it's named Bud Light. Johnny Lacks won it. And in my rookie year, told me, you're talking way too much, Ryan. Johnny LeClair.

Thanks for joining the podcast. Oh, it's awesome way too much, Ryan. Johnny LeClair. Great stuff. Thanks for joining the podcast. Oh, it's awesome to be here, guys. Thanks. So you retired how many years ago now? One year with you put me on the bench forever. That was a quick end. That was a quick end.

So you've been in Philly ever since? You still live here, obviously? Yeah, so all six. When I met you guys in pittsburgh um my family actually didn't come they stayed here in philly yeah i took the off days i'd come back and forth um and then i was done uh kids were in school uh you know we had a pretty good lifestyle outside of hockey here in philly and you know we've been living outside of philly here for the last 15 17 years well i didn't mention that um from vermont st albans vermont um ever go back there

or anything or is that is that kind of yeah i do i think vermont's a great place to go back um you know my mom's still there my brother and sister's there um you know it's it's uh it's still home um i enjoy going back um i enjoy where i live but i enjoy going back how often you get back once a year a couple times a year i try to get back a couple times a year. My mom's getting up there a little bit too. It's just like I said, I still got a lot of friends up there. Whenever I go back, it just seems like not enough time. That's a beautiful place.

I love it up there. When I found out we were getting you on the podcast, the last thing I remember about you, I'm like, Oh, my God. This guy was the biggest asshole in the rebound game that I have ever seen. Now, for those players who play rebound, you know what I'm like, oh, my God, this guy was the biggest asshole in the rebound game that I have ever seen. Now, for those players who play rebound, you know what I'm talking about. For you fans, it's a game where after practice, you know, the guys get to have a little bit of fun. I'd say advantage to the players rather than the goalies. And Marc-Andre Fleury was in that.

And the shooter shoots from the, what, would you say the hash mark? In that area. High and heavy. And if you were the type of guy to take a slap shot, you would probably usually take a half clapper, which was still kind of rude if you took a slap shot. John LeClair was tickling the fucking rafters. What if he played 20 years?

And zipping them by Marc-Andre Fleury's ears. And even Fleury was rattled, but he was so young he couldn't say shit to you. I mean, that was one of the beauties of being older than most of the guys out there. And he got away with a lot. Absolutely. So you were doing that on purpose. I mean, honestly, I played with a lot of guys. Fleury's one of the best, and I only played with him for a short time.

I mean, Flower was awesome. The kid's always smiling, just happy to be there. And he never said anything. So the more you can get away with, the more you'd go. You try that against Patrick, he's going to come out and drop your head off with a stick. just happy to be there. And he never said anything. So the more you can get away with, the more you'd go. You try that against Patrick, he's going to come out and drop your head off with a stick. But Flower just kind of smiled and went with it. So just took what I got.

Patrick as in Patrick Waugh? Yeah. Oh, yeah, fuck. You ain't messing with Patrick Waugh. So he's fit for a straight jacket. Let's talk about that. I got to go through with Patrick. So Craig Conroy is playing in the fraternity and gets called up first practice,

and he zips one right by Patrick's ear. Patrick comes skating out and just fucking chops him right in the ankles. It's like, welcome to the big show, kid. Just two hands. Below the waist, buddy. Oh, yeah. So it wasn't even like it hit him in the head. It just scored off.

No, I think it went over the bar, but it was high. It was just, you know, he's our starting goaltender. You're like, it's below the waist, he just scored on it no i think it went over the bar but it was just it was high it was just you know he's our starting goaltender you like it's below the waist and that's how it goes and that was kind of an unwritten rule everybody kind of what was he like on a game day could you talk to to patty yeah yeah i mean he was he's pretty normal i mean obviously with the goalie the closer you get to the game the less you stay away from him and stuff like that but um you know he just uh normal guy easy to talk to uh really one of the guys and um honestly never met a competitor like him i mean that guy wanted to win at all costs and uh i tell you what his fire to win did that translate to

maybe the card table on the plane or was he was he strictly competitive in the hockey world um patrick competitive everything does uh does. I know the golf course is extremely competitive when it gets out there. I'm not so sure about the cards. I wasn't involved with that part of the things with him, but he's competitive in whatever he does. When you played with him, you guys were probably still flying commercial, right?

Was it already padded? For parts, we were. We were Air Canada to the West Coast trip. That is crazy. I was still smoking on planes. Yeah, you know, center seat for four hours. It was fun. 91-92, that's what I'm looking at your rookie year.

I mean, who are some of the guys that when you think of your first year in the NHL, like they're kind of how I think about you? You know, like a veteran who played so long that right when you came in, you were like, oh, this is a legend. I mean, that team that I came in with in 91- 92, you know, we had a good group of guys there. You know, I had some not so much older guys, but guys that were older than me that were still kind of young and hung out with. Like, you know, Shane Corson, Mike Keane, Lyle Oldline. Those guys were still in Montreal.

And, you know, it kind of showed me around a little bit. It showed me, you know, the places to go to church and, you know, where to, you know, you know, they kind of showed me around a little bit, showed me, you know, the places to go to church and, you know, where to, you know, donate clothes, that kind of stuff. A lot of churches in Montreal. Yeah, tons. And then, you know, then you had the older guys like Mike McPhee, Brian Skrull, and Guy Carboneau.

You know, those guys really kind of taught you what it's like to be a pro. And I think, you know, for me, I felt really fortunate that I had a chance to come into Montreal. The history, the class that that organization had, the way they groomed people. You know, Montreal does groom hockey players differently, I think, than a lot of other organizations. At least back then. You know, when I got out, things kind of, Mr. Corey left and things have been different.

I don't know now as much as I do. What do you mean by that? Like the way that they would force you to carry yourself off the ice? The way you would show up to the rink and the way you would train? Yeah. It was an aura about it. You walk in that locker room, you see

all the Hall of Famers in there from the Rocket to Belvo to all those guys. John Belvo would pop in every once in a while and just talk to you. There's not a nicer man that i've ever met than john bellovo um you know there's just uh you know everything they did was done with class and how you know you respect the i know every team respects the crest and all that stuff but with the history they had and the respect that they had it just it went a long way like the locker room even feels like sacred. It sounds goofy, but it's true.

It kind of was. I mean, the old forum, that locker room there, it was just, it was. It was a cathedral. It was a museum. Guy Carboneau going into the Hall of Fame, I think, in a couple weeks. I'm assuming you have some crazy memories

of seeing that guy compete and just play on both sides of the ice. Yeah, I mean, Carbo was a great captain. He really was. He level-headed about everything he does. Everything was thought out. And just such a smart hockey player. When you watched him play, he was two steps ahead of everybody.

There wasn't a guy that he probably couldn't skate with half the guys, but he was so much smarter than them, he could shut them down. Just a great guy. Whit mentioned in the intro you're a power forward. You were pretty much the golden era of the power forward. You, Sheaney, nearly all those guys. But before you guys, it wasn't really a phrase. You never really heard it.

Who did you model your game after to become the power forward you became? You know, when I was playing in college and growing up a little bit, I played center a lot. So I wasn't really trying to do that stuff. That curve? No, I didn't have that. I didn't have that curve in high school. That switch. That's all I remember when I was watching him take Clapper's bar down.

His wedges. It was like a Lindstrom. It was gross. Just like this. But as I got into the league a little bit more and watching the Neelys, a guy like Mike McPhee on my team, or Shane Corson, those guys, how they drove the net, used their body, and things like that. And then, like I said, we played against Neely a lot in Boston.

We watched him dominate, and he dominated us a lot. He owned Patrick, man. Yeah, I mean, every game, he had two or three. Just a great player. And then I think it really clicked in is when, after Bernsie left, Jacques Demers came in. And, you know, Demers sat down with me and just said, you know, this is how I see you, a Kevin Stevens-type player,

that you've got to start driving that. You've got to start using your size and some of your speed that way. Did you work on tip drills all the time? Not really. I mean, I grew up playing all the sports growing up like any other kid. Played baseball, you know, like you just, you know, maybe I had some high hand-eye coordination from that or whatever. But, you know, of course, you're screwing around.

You're always trying to tip and knock things around. But I never like, like I know, I think Pavelski stays out and does like, you know, 30 pucks or 50 pucks or whatever he does, but I never really kind of did that kind of thing. No, not really. I just remember being like, I got to try to get him not to tip one, like try to shoot as hard as I could, 83 miles an hour, just be like tipping everyone. I'm like, all right, this is ridiculous. Can't try to beat this guy anymore.

Stand on the box. I mean, you were quite like the late bloomer in hockey, right? I mean, I'm assuming you were, were you big your whole life and then kind of grew into your body? Somewhat. I mean, I was always on the bigger side of some of the kids I played against, obviously. But, you know, yeah, things developed late for me,

obviously, you know, in college, it was just an average career. High school was different. I mean, with the competition stuff, did okay up until then. But, you know, my first couple years in the league were okay. I mean, I learned a lot, you know, and it took a little bit. But I think, obviously, there was potential there.

I got traded here. I got put in a situation that really helped me. You know, and then to play with those two guys, life was easy. Well, that brings us into the Legion of Doom line. So you get traded, and then you just go on a run. I mean, the first year you got traded in 94, 95, 37 games, the Flyers 25 goals. Were you put together right away with those guys, or how did that work?

I was. It was kind of interesting. When I got traded, we came off a road trip from Ottawa, and the next morning Jacques calls me at my apartment at 9 in the morning, and the coach calls you. That's never good. It's not a good thing. He's like, can I come see you?

And I'm like, well, what is it? I don't want to wait the half an hour to go. He goes, you've been traded. You know, Serge is going to call you, and Bobby Clark will call you. Wow, you wanted to see him in person, though. That's what I was going to say. That's respectful. Well, Jacques, there's not a nicer guy than Jock.

I mean, he was awesome. His personality and the way he treats people, he's really a real top-notch guy. Now you have to answer the phone call live. It's Jock Demers. He's like, did you say it yet? Did you say it? Thanks for the cup, Jock.

He's like, did you say it yet? Did you say it? Thanks for the cop shock. So, yeah, so Jacques called me, and then Clarkie called me a little bit later, and, you know, I was playing a little bit of wing and center back then. I just said, you know, where do you see me playing, wing or center? And he goes, you know, I envision you playing with Eric right now.

And I was like, yeah, that'll work. Oh, okay. I'll be there as soon as can. I'm guessing he was the most dominant guy you've ever played with or against, Big E. He is. I mean, that year, those five years before he started getting banged up a little bit, it was something to watch. It really was. Just a dominant.

I mean, because the fact he would fight, too. He could beat up anyone. I mean, he could do it all. I mean, he had speed. He had skill. and, I mean, the guy's an animal. Like, he's so strong. I think part of it is obviously Lindro's Hall of Fame, you with your accolades. People don't know much about Renberg. I mean, I just know he was a big guy.

Even myself, I don't remember his game that well. What was he like as a player? Renny was a terrific player. He's highly skilled, skated really well. He had a had a nice goal scoring touch to him and just really fed well like he read he could read players really well and got himself open a lot um and honestly the biggest thing with renny that helped a ton is um his forechecking was phenomenal like he could get in on guys and anticipate you know it's going up the boards or boards or lift the stick at the right time. He was great at turning pucks over, really was. I was going to ask about the Big E personally.

Leadership-wise, was he the guy in the locker room who was chatty? Would he just kind of sit and more lead by example? It was a lot of lead by example with E. Wasn't scared to stand up and say something when he felt the time was right. But it was more, I think he preferred to lead by example more than to, you know, to be the loud guy yelling and screaming that guy's stuff. You know, and I think each year he got better and better at it. And, you know, he did a good job of leading us.

Unfortunately, not all the way, which is not anybody's fault. I was going to ask you know, he did a good job of leading us, unfortunately, not all the way, which is not anybody's fault. I was going to ask you that, too. Like, do you think that, like, that was hard on him where he, like, you know, he didn't, you guys, I mean, you guys were dominant. You had to stretch a period there where, like, you guys probably should have ended up with a cup. I think you talk to any of that core group, you know, DeJardin, myself,

like all those guys that, you know, Desjardins, myself, like all those guys that were there for that stretch. You know, one or two cups is not out of the question that we felt we probably could have had. Didn't work that way. You know, Jersey was obviously a great team at the time, and we ran into them. We had trouble getting over that hump with them. I remember sometimes he'd take me to dinner.

I'd be like, he has to get to go have dinner after a game with Johnny LeClaire. And I asked you about the 97 Cup Finals, and you guys ran through the East and lost to Detroit. 97 or 98, sorry? 97. And you mentioned that was when you guys ran into Lidscherm and Murphy. You're like, these guys sticks. We couldn't get anything by them, right? It was, I mean, I've never been so frustrated in my life.

They, like, you know. They didn't even hit you. They didn't engage at all. They just stayed three feet away. You know, Lindstrom and Murphy are both so smart, so good with their sticks. They just sat there, you know, waited for you to pass, put the stick in the passing lane. You know, they made it really tough on us. They really did.

So, for us, it was frustrating. And then we had some other problems that went wrong too with the things and um you know we lost to a team that nobody recognized at the time was a dynasty kind of a team and it was their first one exactly where did this come from so now it's a little easier to kind of accept it but the way that we were kind of rolling in the playoffs we we thought we had a good thing going going into that finals and uh it didn't work out after winning the cup relatively early it happens every year yeah uh it's a great feeling and uh it's so disappointing each year when you lose knowing what you're missing out on um you know like anybody i wish i had you know another handful in my pocket. But I'm grateful I got one, that's for sure.

We never talked about the celebration in Montreal. That must have been nuts. We had Odie on. Odie came on. Did you? Okay. Yeah, and it was so funny. He kept saying, you know, Wits, you know, Wits.

And then it came out, he thought I was Ray Whitney the whole time. I was like, no, Odie, we were in Pittsburgh together. Well, it's better than when Darren McCarty didn't even know that there was another host other than him. Yeah, Biz asked him 10 questions, didn't even know he was on. Oh, really? When he brought up the celebration, he's like, yeah, I think it was like a week.

I was in a limo for a week. Yeah, certain guys stretched it out longer than others, that's for sure. But it's just, yeah, it was amazing. The parade is something that just really hit home. It was just, it's surreal going through the streets and just packed with people and screaming and stuff. It was quite a time.

Invincible would probably be the word, where you're like, I could probably murder someone tonight, and I would get away with it. It feels close to that. It really does. You'd have to sign the cop like a hockey card. Sure. Straight no tea. You've never been part of anything

like that before, right? I mean, that's insane. Yeah, but it all started from the back end. I mean, when you got a guy in that like Patrick, you have that confidence. I mean, you got that confidence going. Everybody kind of feels it and feeds off it. I mean, shitty came in in LA and said, guys, I don't care how long, they're not scoring tonight.

Wow. You know, you get a goalie that comes up and says that. It's kind of... Well, I was going to say is that at some point it kind of becomes a joke in the room. So it's like, all right, boys, we're doing it again. Like, at what game is it like an inside joke in the team where guys are being vocal about it and not superstitious?

I don't think anybody wanted to. The further you go, the harder. Yeah, you didn't want to even bring it up. It was just one of those things like just let it roll. Let it play its course and don't talk about it and just enjoy the ride. Was there one guy in the room who was being looser than others, though? Could you remember one guy? Nobody pops out to me.

We had some characters like Gilbert Dion would kind of crack jokes and stuff like that. but can you remember one guy? Nobody pops out to me. We had some characters like Gilbert Dion would kind of crack jokes and stuff like that, but we had a good core of veterans, and we are in the Stanley Cup finals, and we're in the Stanley Cup conference finals. So the joking around was not as much as it would be as, say, a regular season. So it peaked at Rossi saying, boy, it's just, I'm not allowed to win. Well, he was dead serious, and he was. He's like, you know, it's going on.

Yeah. I think I might have been the game he winked at Sandstrom. No way. I think so. So that playoffs was memorable. I mean, the Kings that run, they beat Toronto. Gretzky gets the hat trick. Who did you guys beat in the conference finals that year?

We beat the Islanders. The Islanders, that was the year that the Islanders got upset by Pittsburgh. Well, Terjean got hurt. That was when Hunter decided. Oh, that was that year? Yeah, that was when he decided to take a run. That might be one of the craziest playoff years of all time, 93, like with Marty McSorley in game one or two.

Oh, the stick? The stick, yeah. That hit on Terjean. That's wild. Kevin Stevens. Kevin Stevens got hurt that year, too. That was the first. The Islanders That hit on Turgeon. That's wild. Kevin Stevens. Kevin Stevens got hurt that year, too. That was the first. The Islanders.

Holy shit. 93. That year was the best patch they ever wore on jerseys. That was a sick patch. That's a wit fact. Yeah, so things worked out. That was when Pittsburgh was dominant, and the Islanders knocked them off in seven. And we were staying in a hotel that night, and everybody's watching.

Everybody comes out of the hotel running down the halls like we're playing the Islanders. We don't have to play Pitt. I mean, I think we would have done well against Pitt. I really do. We had things in pretty good hands the way we were playing, but I think it would have been a little bit more difficult. So one of the most – I ask about this guy because I don't know much about him, but definitely a hero on that Canadiens team, Eric Desjardins.

Like, he scored the ot winner in the in the finals and what was he like because you end up playing with him in philadelphia as well i did i played with eric almost my whole career yeah the guy's a rock star like i'm telling you he doesn't get appreciated enough like he was the reason why that we were so good like you know the legion of doom and all that stuff we had good players too besides, like, our line. There was, you know, Roddy, Brandon Moore. There's plenty of other players that were really helpful to making the Flyers that good for that long.

But to me, the backbone of everything was Eric. I mean, he controlled everything on the back end, got the puck out of the zone, ran the power play. He just, he did everything. A lot of responsibilities. He did everything. He did everything well. You know, just a great leader, a great, I mean, A lot of responsibilities. He did everything. He did everything well.

Just a great leader. He formed all those other D that came through, taught them how to play the right way. Like Ninema and those guys. Wow, exactly. He's a guy that doesn't get the recognition. That's what I'm saying. You never hear about Eric Desjardins.

His career was incredible. And think about the responsibilities. He had to groom all these kids, run the power. That's a lot of pressure and especially you know where he was playing as well another guy you just bring up brindamore who i've just heard legendary stories like you got to kick him out of the weight room are you surprised at all he's a coach now like could you see that yeah you could see roddy doing something with that yeah absolutely um you know a guy that's highly focused um you know, really passionate about what he wants. And, you know, I think he's a great coach because he's not going to ask these guys anything he wouldn't do today.

Not what he would have done then, what he won't do today, which is, you know, impressive. You know, he's an impressive guy, and it's good to see. He looks like a military guy where he's so wound up all the time. He's so jacked, too. Is he a serious guy? He's serious. Roddy is serious, but Roddy all the time. He's so jacked, too. Is he a serious guy? He's serious. Roddy is serious.

But Roddy can be loose and Roddy can be, you know, he's not 24-7 like that. He actually had one of the legendary lifts of the cup in Carolina. Like, he had one of those. Like, he just went nuts as he put it up there. I remember him doing that. What? All right. You didn't chirp me?

All right. He's like, oh, that's probably the only cup party I didn't sneak into. I didn't bet on that one. Shit. That's the only party I didn't sneak into. Did you sneak into the 93 one? No, but actually, I want to bring that up again. The McSorley illegal stick.

Where were you during that? What was your perspective on that? We talked to Odie about it. Well, the morning skate, I was over. No. He's convinced that one of our trainers went over and measured his stick. Back then, everybody knew who had a stick and who didn't. It wasn't a secret.

It wasn't a secret. Nobody called it. Odie said Cabo knew. Nobody called it. And what guys would do is the last five minutes, you're up by a goal, you know, Jervie, go get me the X. And they get the stick with the X on it, and it's a legal curve. They played the whole game, and the last five minutes,

they'll play the game so they don't get busted. That is nuts. Certain guys knew. Certain guys had it and stuff. I don't think Marty's was a secret. The whole conspiracy thing and all that stuff, I don't buy that at all. Yeah, Odie said that actually it was Guy Cavanaugh who noticed it. He's the one who told

Damaris to make the call. It was white tape. It had a black X down the middle of the blade. He's skating around the last five minutes like, oh, I think he's got it. If you guys went down 0-2 to them, do you think it would have come back? I know it's a hypothetical, but they're a pretty decent team.

It would have made it a lot harder. It really would have. You lose the first two in your building. That would have been difficult. I still, like I said, I think it's one of those things when you feel good about your team on a roll like that. I still, like I said, I think it's one of those things when you feel good about your team on a roll like that. I still felt good about our chances. But it would have made a different series.

Such a ballsy call, too. I mean, if it wasn't, if he happened to switch sticks, then it would have been a penalty. I don't know if you remember the measurement. I mean, it missed it by about that much. Oh, yeah. It was illegal by nine inches. It wasn't close.

Was yours legal, that big old hook? Mine's legal. Yeah, well, I remember you saying that, actually. It wasn't close. Was yours legal, that big old hook? Mine's legal. Yeah, well, I remember you saying that, actually. Yeah, I mean. Somehow. The stick's more, it's a wedge. Like, if you turn it over and look at the bottom, it's pretty straight. That's why, like, I can catch passes on my backhand and everything like that.

It's pretty straight. Humble brag. It's more of a one-handed. Humble brag. You're the best. Couldn't get this guy a bad pass. You're the fucking best, Johnny. This could tire pump you a whole episode, for Christ's sake.

Oh, shit. Are you shaming guys who can't catch passes on their backhand, John? Is that what you're doing? Don't say I was snapping you muffins. I was ripping you passes. You were like, dude, you pass the puck so well, rookie. I love getting passes from you. What was your first impression of this donkey?

Dude, he hated my guts, I bet. I was like, well, what's with the afro, first of all? I still have it, I think. It's just slowly balding. Honestly, it was kind of a blur. That year was ridiculous. Our team, honestly, was a Stanley Cup championship team on paper, a dynasty team.

The only problem is half the fuckers were way past their prime and too old and the other half was just too young. Was Bugsy the only one on the team? Oh yeah. We had all these rookies. Bugsy's second year. Jackman, Witt, Scuderi. Orp's second year. Colby Armstrong's second year.

Max Talbot. Fleury. We had fun. With the young guys and stuff, we had a great time. This is one of my favorite John LeClair stories. So we're at Nakama. Biz, you remember this spot. Decent sushi. I will remember this as clear as day.

We're sitting around the bar. It was Malone, John LeClair, Orpik, myself. I think Talbot was there, but either way, I know those four guys. The fact I even said this makes me sick to my stomach. So we're talking about how this, you know, we were horrible. And he's kind of talking about how you guys are going to get good, what needs to happen. He was talking about the team.

And I said, if I'm ever an assistant captain of this team, so I said that knowing Crosby would be captain. He wasn't even captain. Either way, the minute it came out of my mouth, I was like, oh, no, Johnny. He goes, what? You think you're going to be an assistant captain on this team? Holy fuck. Let's wait for that year.

Whit becomes an assistant captain. And I was just getting smaller and smaller. And Orp was so Orp lovely. He's like, oh, you're going to be an assistant captain. It was just like I just was taught my lesson right there. But I did end up wearing an A. I was trying to get his number. I'm going to send him a picture of it.

I got to wear it for a month. He made you your word. No, no, Pittsburgh. Do you remember that? I do, actually. But you opened your up for a lot of things. I opened myself up for a lot. You were there when the mouse was in my shoe.

You were there for it all. Yeah, I mean, as much as we sucked, we had a good time. We had a blast. What's your memory of Ziggy retiring? It's one of my favorite stories of all time. So you tell it. Let's tell it from your perspective. He was nasty.

Oh, my God. Ziggy Poffy. Ziggy was awesome. I mean, super talented. Like, really good player. Funny as hell, too. In practice, not on his tape, he'd just stop and look at you like, what the hell is that?

Very, very cocky. Only guy I ever turt Mario, I think. Awesome. Awesome. So we're getting killed in Nashville, and he comes across the blue line and gets lit up. Hammered. He's like he was down for a little bit, and he comes to the bench.

I think he might have gone back to the tunnel. I don't think he played the rest of the game. Tarsi Horachuk. Yeah. He hammered him. And so we go back that night. Next morning we get practice at 11. Everybody's sitting around waiting for practice to start.

And Coach comes in. He's like, Ziggy's not here. Where's Ziggy? Guys, Ziggy's gone home. He's not going to play anymore for us. He just packed his shit and said, I had enough. Is that the biggest mic drop of an NHL career? Dude, I'm pretty sure he was at a point.

I think he was at a point per game through those 30 games or whatever. He was the only one scoring for us, too. So it was just like, okay, things got a lot worse for us. Did anyone fight Hordachuk? Was that why he was mad? Because nobody went after him? No, somebody might have gone after him. It certainly wasn't me. But it was more like he was just like i don't that's the type

of hit i made enough money and it was just it was a shit show between new coaches coming in and just nothing was working remember gonch at the beginning of that year i've never seen a worst player in my life it was crazy no no no he was Sergei Gonchar is an unbelievable player. Unbelievable. He was incredible. And the thing was, his career took off again. He just took a year off, though. Holy shit, did he take a year off.

It was like 60 games or 50 games. I think the last 30 games, he was incredible. But the beginning, I was like, oh, my God. And the place was booming. I mean, he just signed a five-year big deal. I think it was just shocking like, shocking to see, but that was kind of how that year went. The whole year went by.

I was in the organization then. And he was changing sticks every week. Didn't he go through, like, 60 dozen sticks that year? Yep. He struggled. Oh, then he was a beast when they won it? Amazing. What are your memories of, like, first seeing Sid,

where you're just like, holy shit? You know you know honestly when i first saw sid and watched him uh he was everything advertised yeah the kid really was um very impressed with him uh still am um i think uh everything he's gotten he's earned i mean the kid works so hard i mean you know i remember after practice him just working harder than anybody you, trying to get better at everything all the time. You know, the only problem, the downside is, you know, he just he was a little mouthy his first year and it kind of cost us because we kept getting penalties. He kept getting 10s because the refs were just like, hey, rookie, you know, they're going to show him a lesson kind of thing. But other than that, not a bad word to say about Sid. 96 World Cup. was that the best

hockey you ever took part in ever? It really is you know to me that group of guys was something special we just we had a great team a great group of guys to hang out with and then you know the way it ended up losing the first game here in Philly then go and win two in Montreal against Canada in their in their place. It was just awesome. Who was your line for that tourney? I played with Tony Amante and Brian Spolinski. So you were on the ice for Amante's winner? I was.

I was right by the side of the net. Paul Coffey knocked me down. I'm on the ground when I went in. No way. Yeah, I can remember it. Yeah, that was a defining moment for USA Hockey, like 80 and 96, where all of a sudden there was you, Billy Guerin, Amante, all these stars in the league that I think late 80s, early 90s, they really weren't – USA didn't have many guys

that were, like, turning into superstars. It wasn't as many. I mean, you know, then you look at that group that came in with, like, Leach and Chelios and, you know, some of those guys, Hull. Any Hull stories? Hullie's the best. You haven't heard of Hall, Jan? No, he's probably our white whale at this point.

Really? Everybody wants him. He said he would come on. And then the last time I texted him, I didn't hear back from him. Is he still celebrating the cup? Well, that's the thing, right? So he's still on the heater. How great was him before the game?

Just crushed him like, this is legendary stuff. He should take over for Grapes now. Yeah. Is he the most confident player you've ever played with? He absolutely is, but there's not a guy that backs it more than him than I've ever met in my life. What, just like before a game, just being cocky and boom, boom? Just not a worry.

Like, I'm going to go get three guys. Don't worry about it. He'd at least get two. And he delivers. He's just super talented, super confident in himself. He's one of those guys that's a cocky asshole, but it doesn't bother you. He's got a way about it that it doesn't come across like it rubs you the wrong way at all. It's funny.

It is. It's funny. And like I said, it never really – There are certain guys who can get away with the cocky funny. Ed Jovanovsky was a teammate of mine who I just – every time he opened his mouth and said something cocky and arrogant, I fucking was in tears. And usually it was every time I would walk by him on the plane.

We glanced over the Gonchar situation. He did have that tough year, but vital was he uh to malcolm and and him becoming more comfortable with north america um well gino wasn't there my first year my second year for a little bit gino was there um i got a good story about that too um but i think it helped a ton i mean what i little i know of malcolm is uh you know he was kind of a shy kid coming in and um gaunch is a real solid human being like i think you know to have a guy like that kind of help malcolm come into the league and do that um it must have been a huge help for him but i i don't i'm not that close to the situation that i could say what do you remember about gino so we we're playing a preseason game.

I think it's up in the Newfoundlands or somewhere up, you know, in eastern Canada somewhere. And he goes behind the net and gives me a great pass. Right down the slot I'm coming, and I caught it. I'm skating a rut, and I do a Bambi, and my legs go flying. I end up going straight by the net, and I clip him, and I take his knee out. Springs his knee, misses the first two games of the season that was from you yeah so he missed the opening of the season because i took him out no shit i remember him and when he came and when he came

back he lit it up he broke like a record or something actually do you remember in the in the la trip when uh we were told that bugsy injured. And we were told that if we won the game in L.A., they'd fly Bugsy over for a rookie party. And we got it done. The boys were like, we need him at rookie party. Remember that? The team promised you to bring Bugsy in for a rookie party. They said, you guys, we'll fly Bugsy over for a rookie party if you win this game. And the Pittsburgh Penguins won the game.

Bugsy's reputation was no secret to anybody in that organization, I don't think. And it was so accurate, too. Dude, when Terry got the job, he had a meeting with Bugsy. He goes, I ain't here to coach rock stars, and then scratched him for three games. He never even coached him. But those were funny days. So you guys are in Philly. When is Michelle coming on?

Well, I figured you guys have been going to dinner. I figured you guys have been having some dinners. Yeah, I told them 930. Why the joke there? Did they not get along? Well, I think there's nobody that hated Witt more in this life than Gary. This guy hated my guts. He didn't like him.

He hated my guts. But I remember one time, and actually it was the day of my rookie party. We had a day game against the Rangers. We got smoked 7-1. You heard that song like seven different times, obviously. I get out. I get dressed. My shoes are spray-painted fluorescent blue.

And then meetings started with Terrian. He had 12 meetings with 12 different players. We were waiting to go out, and he's just sitting there. He wouldn't have meetings with him, and he's just sitting there. He's like, good luck out army go i come out like a beaten dog army goes in good luck army johnny lax just sitting there chirping everyone that was that was tough do you keep your finger on the pulse of the league watch games every night pretty much not every night but i kind of i follow yeah what do you think of the state of the game today

i mean the toughness has kind of gone away but the talent has gone up do you think of the state of the game today? I mean, the toughness has kind of gone away, but the talent has gone up. Do you wish there was more of a happy medium with the toughness? The game's great right now. It's entertaining. I mean, you know, it's fast. It's highly skilled. It's a really entertaining game. You know, to me, having played back a little ways, it's a little tough to watch a little stick check guy, you know,

a little tap on the stick and they get a slashing penalty, some of those kind of things. Yeah, a ticky tack. It's a little tough to watch a little stick check guy you know a little tap on the stick and they get a slashing penalty some of those kind of things yeah ticky tack it's a little tough to watch sometimes it's irritating um i get it i understand why they're doing it um but i just wish they could play on a little bit more um but for the most part uh i think the game's striving and uh it's it's in a great spot what about o2 uh you know gold medal game canada us they their team one of the greatest teams ever assembled but you had a great tournament yourself what do you remember about that two weeks it was awesome um we had hervey brooks as our coach yeah what was he like he was great he was um funny yeah he was i mean a lot of herby isms going on um you know i enjoyed it i did i enjoyed having a chance to spend some time with him and get to know him a little bit.

We had pretty much the nucleus of the same crowd that we had for the World Cup, the Nagano deal. That went good. Yeah. But it was great. I mean, I really thought we had a chance to win the gold. I thought we were better in Canada. I thought we had a shot.

You guys were running through that tournament. We were doing pretty well, and I still won that shot. Well, they got to play Belarus. That was the tournament. They played Belarus, right? Or no? Didn't they beat Sweden? Belarus thought there was some big upset, and it made it easier for Canada.

It might have, but I don't know. They were that good. I mean, they were good. I mean, it wasn't like it was a fluke. I could be thinking about an entire different tournament, by the Canada. It might have, but I don't know. They were that good. I mean, they were good. I mean, it wasn't like, you know, it was a fluke. I could be thinking about an entire different tournament, by the way. You could have. No, it wasn't your 90 World Cup tournament. Lay off the weed.

It was like a World Junior Tournament in 2010. You played in that? No. I played in two of them. What was retirement like? How hard was that of a transition from having that type of career and all of a sudden it's all done? For me, it was good.

The first two years were awesome. About six months after I got done playing, we took our family over to Europe and lived in Europe for a year and traveled Europe. Lived in Italy for six months and traveled to Europe for the other six months. Really? I spent a year doing that with my three kids and my Europe. I lived in Italy for six months and traveled Europe for the other six months. So I spent a year doing that with my three kids and my wife, and it was awesome. It was a great experience,

something that I'll never forget. And then you come back, and you set into the days get long. You've got to have something to do, and it's nice to be on your own schedule and be retired or whatever but um not having anything to do some days just it drags on you and it's kind of boring so well uh europe what's your where was your favorite spot where do you always go back to now that you've been there i mean we we lived in italy for six months at a house, and it was cool. We were in Tuscany region, and it was really awesome. We were there long enough that we got to meet people and know some people in the town. It was a small town of probably maybe 300 people, and it was a cool experience.

They all knew who the Americans were. Did they care that you played hockey? They had no clue. They didn't even know. No, they didn't know what hockey was. They're like, who's this giant? That's nice it was awesome

yeah I mean my daughter got confirmed and my son got his first communion over there and you know we were part of the community

it was awesome so yeah we enjoyed that the other countries visiting stuff to me Switzerland's just beautiful

the towns the way of life in switzerland um i just uh it's something so six months in italy do you think you can make homemade pasta like are you legit i did not do that you know if you do that and you're good at it then they expect it all the time that's what i said about scoring holes that's why i didn't do it they say dennis bomby told me that it is you start doing it too often, they're going to start expecting it. I said, okay, I'm shutting her down. How bad was the last couple?

You had real bad back problems, if I remember correctly, right? I had some back issues. The thing that really got me in the end, I think it was my second to last year in Philly, I went to go run Bergeman in Pittsburgh and he ducked. And when he did, I went flying the boards and I broke my shoulder, the knob of that bone. So I was out for a while with that

but it never felt right after. It wasn't ever loose. I never felt like I could move or do things the way I want. Never felt the same. Just never really felt the same. The back issues, obviously, between getting fat and older. General club. The back slows you down a little bit.

Yeah. I noticed coming back from my back injuries that I was a little slower, couldn't jump and move. That first step was not – it couldn't go like that because it kind of grabbed a little bit. But everybody's got injuries. It's just part of it. It's hard to detect.

Is it because you're 36 years old or is it because you banged up? Right, yeah. What is it? But then I look at a guy like Rex and the guy plays to leverage. Shelly would be playing now if they'd let him. No, she's serious. Do you ever stay in touch with Rex? You know, I see these guys once in a while out on the road and stuff,

and, yeah, I say I don't catch up a little bit. So it's always good to see those guys. That's awesome. Any weird hobbies you got? Maybe woodworking or some shit? Well, I mean, like you said, you've got to occupy your time. For you, it's probably not the money because you made a boatload of it. You've got to find a new passion. find out you gotta find something to do yeah um you know as far as like hobbies i i just it's to me it's fun to be busy like you know i enjoy doing things around the

house you know especially outdoors um you know the yard work the typical kind of bullshit stuff like you're just like a full-blown old guy. You just love raking the leaves. No, no, nothing better than getting the chainsaw out. I could see you in that thing. Anybody can rake leaves. You need a toy to play with if you're going to do that. Are you into cars or anything? Not really into the car thing.

Not collecting things. I'm not artistic where I'm going to go play a guitar and do that kind of stuff. Like I said, it was good when I retired because when I was playing, I didn't get a chance to see my kids a whole lot or see them play hockey or my daughter play tennis as much as I wanted to. So when I was done, I got a chance to do a lot of that and to be around quite a bit. So pretty fortunate that I had that opportunity. Do you have like a part-time job now or are you just completely retired? Yeah, he fixes chainsaws on the side.

Yeah. Other than the shop I got going on in my backyard. The last nine years I've been doing consulting work with an agency. We represent players, social management. So I've been around the game like that with us representing some guys. It's been fun.

We deal with a lot of U.S. college kids. We represent everybody obviously but i would say 80 to 85 percent of our kids are u.s college kids any desire to work in a front office someday or that not your speed um you know it would be fun um but uh you know if the opportunity came obviously it would be something I would consider. You don't want to go for five years. I think, like anything, you've got to put your time in. Right, right. So it would have to be like what's the end game. I don't mind working.

That's not an issue. If you want to come here and we see the end game of you progressing to a certain area, yeah, I'd be interested. But we're still ways away from that. Last question here. Are your kids any good? Do you have any future NHLers in there? I don't know about future NHLers.

My kids were good. They could play. My one son's playing at Tufts right now. Oh, is he? Oh, yeah. Are you going to Boston a lot? Yeah. Dude, thanks for the phone call.

You're welcome. Yeah, that's why. Oh, so you actually did really hate him. He saw me one time and ducked into a hotel probably. He said, I can't see that clown. That's why you never came to Martha's Vineyard for one. We made that clear. Fair enough, fair enough.

And then my other son, he's at the University of Miami, Ohio, and he's just a student down there enjoying life. Seven to three girls to guys ratio, I heard there. You could ask him. I'm sure he's got it right off the top of his head. My last question. Any one goal stick out to you, 410 of them or whatever it was? You have any one that you just remember so clearly?

Well, the first one, obviously. Who was it on? Troy Gamble. Don't know who that is. Oh, that's old school. You know what team? You know what team? He played for a couple different teams, didn't he? Name one. Toronto,

maybe? Vancouver. Canada. Somebody asked a question on Twitter and they said, who's the guy who drove the DeLorean in Back to the Future? Doc. Doc Brown. 1.21 gigawatts.

Okay. He already knows all the movie references. If you could hop on a DeLorean and go back and either watch any game or play any game you've been a part of, what one would it be? Play it again? Yeah. Oh, it'd be Game five of the Stanley Cup. Cup winning game.

Yeah, that's a no-brainer. Just sit there and suck it all in again. It'd be awesome. And then probably be that 96 World Cup. Sit there in Montreal and take that one in again. It'd be fun. Especially because you played there, too. Fuck.

I'm going to put you on the spot. Richter in 96, Warr in 93. Wow. Wow. I know. I know. I told him. put you on the spot uh richter in 96 uh war in 93 wow wow i know we're gonna slap in the face here um you know i ricky was ricky was the reason we were where we were yeah there was no question about it um and the same thing with patrick i mean pat Patrick's the biggest reason why we have a cop, but it's tough to pick. Yeah, Rick, he was incredible, that World Cup. I got one last one. What's the most underrated part of Vermont that people don't know about?

St. Albans. Everybody thinks Burlington, and it's St. Albans. I've never been up there. I love St. Albans. Come on. Everybody's like, oh, Burlington's great. You're going to the second best city there. What the hell?

All right. Well, John LeClair, what a guy. Thank you so much. And if I'm ever an assistant captain of this team, I appreciate you very much coming on, dude. You'll be captain one day. Keep trying. He's captain of this podcast.

Thank you very much, Johnny Lacks. That was a lot of fun to catch up with him. I hadn't seen him in 15 years, I think, since my rookie year, whenever the hell that was. But he is a great guy and had an unbelievable career. So thanks again. And Grinelli, you're the one who apparently knows a little more about the World Juniors than the rest of us.

I do. I do know a little. Well, all right, so the tournament's coming up. I played two of them. Not a big deal. Czech Republic and Halifax had a great time. I've talked about that many times. What, Jordan 2-2 ruined your life for a week? Jordan 2-2. The 2-2 train was the song of the week. And we crushed, we crushed the, what was it?

The dome? No. What was that place called? I've brought it up a million times. Liquor Dome. The Liquor Dome? No. What was that place called? I've brought it up a million times. Liquor Dome. The Liquor Dome. So, Grinnelli, tell the people who are the favorites and who are the Americans we should be looking out for. Well, so it's back in the check this year, Witt. So that's a little nostalgia for you.

But again, I've picked USA the past two years, and I hate to say this, but I have to pick Canada this year solely off the fact that they hosted it last year, and if I'm not mistaken, for the first time in World Juniors history, it was the first time that Canada hosted a World Juniors, and they didn't even medal. So, I like Canada this year.

They have the two best players with Alexis Lafreniere, who's probably the first overall pick, and then they have Quinton Byfield, who's probably the first overall pick. And then they have Quentin Byfield, who's probably the second overall pick. So I like Cannon a lot. That's not necessarily a good thing in World Juniors, though, sometimes. It's a lot of those sometimes the older teams, the guys who've already been drafted, they make the biggest impact.

But we'll see. Well, they do have Barrett Hayton, and Barrett Hayton's a guy that obviously the Coyotes biz knows pretty well biz what do you think of him I'm interested to see how he does I mean it's he hasn't really been getting his reps up here but I would imagine that he goes there and lights it up he has some his offensive ability he just like sees the game in a in a slower fashion he's able he's like the fucking matrix out there sometimes and he does it when he gets put in the lineup at the NHL level. So I'd imagine he'll be embarrassing a couple kids at the World Juniors.

And I hope he does because I don't know if you guys know how seriously Canadians take World Juniors. But if you don't medal, they actually keep you in like a jail and all the families of the team the year before. And they don't get let out until the other team wins a gold for Canada. So I'm really hoping that all those kids get to see the light of day with their families after this tournament in Czech Republic. Two other names before we move on.

Cole Caulfield, obviously this is his real first chance to play on the national stage since he kind of got showed up at the draft, kind of fallen a little bit. The Montreal Canadiens draft pick, he's the kid that's like 5'7", scores just a bajillion goals. How many does he have in Wisconsin this year? I'm not exactly sure, but another guy I really like too is the Russian goalie. I feel like Russia's goalies every year at the World Juniors are filthy. So this kid, Yaroslav Askarov, he's actually predicted to be a top 10 pick,

and I feel like any time you have a goalie that's going to go in the top 10ov he's actually predicted to be a top 10 pick and like anytime you have a goalie that's going to go in the top 10 he's he's something special I don't even I didn't even know about this kid but now I'm watching world juniors to see this Russian goalie the next Ilya Brizgalov is he a silly guy have you heard any interviews from him I haven't but I assume he's a pretty silly guy Maybe we should get Igor on to talk about him. Why do you have to be so mad? All right, Grinnelly, thanks for chiming in on the World Juniors. And, of course, you can read our buddy Jordy online as well on Boston.

He did a nice little breakdown. We also like to keep people abreast of the injury situation in case a guy in your team is hurt. We'll do a quick run around here. The Minnesota Wild left winger, Jason Zuka, will miss the next four to six weeks after surgery to repair a broken right leg suffered in a recent game. Arizona goalie, Darcy Kemper, is out week to week with a lower body injury. Cal Clutterbuck is out indefinitely with wrist surgery.

And we'd also like to send our very best and sincere wishes to Calgary's assistant general manager, Chris Snow. He very recently made public he was diagnosed with ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease. Oh, fuck. Which we recently discussed about Pete Frady's here in Boston. And, you know, we know how horrible of a disease it is. So he's actually a Boston area guy. He started off as a beat writer back several years ago.

And then he got into the front office game, and he's been having a pretty successful career. Chris, we're wishing the best for you, buddy, and we got your back, and we're hoping everything gets good for you, pal. We also want to send you and your family a Merry Christmas as well. I think that everyone should go read

the letter his wife wrote at Calgary Flames. She tweeted it out, and it was very emotional so like r.a said uh prayers to them and merry christmas absolutely and and guys i mentioned jordan tutu a few minutes ago um just want to congratulate him i believe on nine years uh of sobriety so he ended up uh sending out his post on social media on both of his channels and uh couldn't be happier for him and he's's just, he's a machine. Now he's posts all these workout videos he's been doing.

This guy's back in game shape. So I'm going to start, I'm going to have, start twitching thinking about the train in Halifax again. Don't do it to me, biz. All right. Sorry, bro. Also, we want to remind you about Jeremy Roenick's J.R. Charity Challenge. He announced it on the show last week.

J.R.'s Charity Challenge. It's going to be during the New Year's Day Winter Classic in Dallas. We'll be down there. You want to go to I don't even know if we use www anymore, but we go www.jrcharitychallenge.com to play against J I the chicklets boys, NHL greats, and whoever else joins up as the predators take on the stars and the shit kick a classic.

So be sure to check that out. Once again, that's a www.jicharitychallenge.com. Check that out on the day of the winter classic. And now boys, man, I don't know if it's because we're paying more attention to it or what, but there have been some incredibly impressive

empty net goals this year. Zach Wierenski had one Saturday night. Columbus was already covering the puck line, so it wasn't like it sealed the deal. But 195 fucking feet. He was in the trapezoid, basically, all the way down the other end. Boom, hits the empty net. Alex Petrangelo hit one snipe from inside his own blue line.

I don't know. I mean, I don't know what gives a shit about empty netters except for the gambling community, but there have been some impressive ones, needless to say, which is a segue into the gambling corner this week. Last week wasn't such a good one. I don't have the tally in front of me, but it was ugly. That's why you've got to follow me on Twitter

because that seems to be where the winners are coming from. Either way, I'm looking right now. It's slim pickings to go from. I basically got to pick a winner on Monday because the NHL goes into the Christmas break. I'm looking at the Blues. They're in LA Monday night. I know the Kings have been playing a little bit

better lately, but the Blues are a better team. Again, I have no idea what the money line is going to be, so we're going to go Blues on the puck line. I don't know, probably call it a nickel, probably 500 to make, whatever. I will have the blog posted Monday to update it in case I do have additional action. But the pick for today's episode, St. Louis Blues, minus one and a half on the puck line in L.A. Monday night.

And again, be sure to check my Twitter feed and in Boston for any blogs, any additional action I may have. What are you guys looking at? Anything? I'm looking at biz taking a piss right now. Awfully impressive. This awfully impressive. Isn't it a bottle?

Yeah, I usually do that one night. I don't know. I crush that. I've crushed that move at least 30 times recording these podcasts, just hosing in an enormous Essentia bottle, no free ads, because it's filled with piss. I need the big Gatorade bottles, though, so I can put my hammer right inside of it.

Drop it. That mushroom tip is? The old cowbell? Cowbell. Boys, what else is going on? Nothing, dude. I'm fired up, man, for Christmas. It's awesome.

Like, just chilling out. We'll be relaxing. Then we'll be going away to Dallas. But I think it'll be a lot of fun to take a couple days, like you mentioned, Biz. Put the phone away or at least kind of log offline and enjoy being around family and friends and appreciating what we have. And if you listen to Sirius Radio at all, I got to give a plug to the guys from the Evening Yak, which is actually on at noon, ironically.

So it's on Sirius. And on Friday they do this thing Big Cat was telling me because I texted him about it, this Friday Vibes, where they all – I think there's four or five guys on the show. They all talk about – they'll all have the producer play a song, and then they'll kind of explain, like, what kind of mood it put them in, and it's always positive, like why they're in a good mood when they listen to this song. And I listened to it on the ride home from Jersey, and it was one of the most chill, relaxed rides I've ever had back from Secaucus.

And by the way, I do have to mention, so check that out, Evening Yak, before I move on from Friday, Friday Vibes, Holiday Edition. But I want to thank everyone at NHL Network because I went, it'll be, I was on this week and that'll be it for a little while. So still have a chance to go there when we have some downtime but we've we've become so busy and we've been getting to do so many cool things with chicklets that um it just i don't really have time to get there anymore but i want to thank everyone there and i won't i'm not done going there hopefully next year if we get a couple days

or weeks off i end up going down but nothing planned but i want to thank everyone there because they were so great right when I was just getting started, and I actually remember like James Secoil, great guy, said to me the first day there, he's like, oh, I've been listening to the podcast, just, it was me and you, alright, and I was like, oh, thanks a lot, I think a couple people listened, so I always appreciated that,

really enjoyed working with everyone there, so thanks again for that, and we'll be seeing you soon. Well said, Whit, Well said, Whit. Well said, Whit. I think that's it on my end. I'm going to go see the new Star Wars in the next couple days and check that out and enjoy Christmas.

Other than that, I just want to tell our awesome listeners to have a very Merry Christmas, all those who are going to be celebrating. Biz, any parting words? They know I love them. I fucking love them. I love you guys. have a merry christmas have a great holidays i'm going to be off the grid for five days and and when we come back we're going to be giving you guys some some more uh some more of what you guys love

you should start a i could see biz having a holiday biz 20 promo code for doing like he'd come over and wrap your presents for you and then if it was like a single mom he also just crush her so it's like a two for one 20 promo code I'll come over and wrap your kids gifts and then put you on the work bench just swipe up

then wrap my hog after I'm seeing someone now I'm seeing someone was so I won't be fucking any moms anymore what's that. I love that. Maybe we'll get into that on another date. We'll see how it goes. I can't tell any more kill stories unless we maybe

I talk her into bringing someone else in. We'll see. We'll see if it's in my stocking stuff for this Christmas. Merry Christmas from Biz Nasty and all of us at Spittin' Chicklets. We appreciate all of you so much for listening and I hope your holiday is great. So I hope you also enjoy that best of episode.

I think that'll be a lot of fun. So have a great one. Peace. As always, we want to give a big thank you to our awesome sponsors and we hope you awesome listeners have taken full advantage. To check out Roman,

you want to go to getroman.com slash chicklets to take advantage of that great offer. And for SeatGeek, you want to go to getroman.com slash chicklets to take advantage of that great offer. And for SeatGeek, you want to download the app and enter the promo code Hockey for $10 off your first SeatGeek purchase. Everybody, have a great holiday and we'll catch up with you later. I'm watching it go Lots of people around Baby, please come home

The church bells are down All ringing so What a happy sound Baby, please come home They're singing deck the halls But it's not like Christmas at all I remember when you were here And all the fun we had last year

Pretty lights on the tree I'm watching it shine You should be here with me