Spittin Chiclets - Spittin' Chiclets Episode 239: Featuring Ron MacLean

Episode Date: January 27, 2020

On Monday’s episode of Spittin’ Chiclets the guys are joined by Ron MacLean (48:26) from Hockey Night in Canada and Hometown Hockey. Ron joins to talk about Don Cherry, Hometown Hockey, his legendary career and tons more. The guys are also in St. Louis for the NHL All Star game, so they recap their entire trip, the meet and greet, all the interviews, the alumni game and a bunch more. The boys wrap up with hilarious story from Whit and a Gambling Corner (02:19:08) from Rear Admiral.You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/schiclets

Hey, Spittin' Chicklets listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Hello, everybody. Welcome to episode 239 of Spittin' Chicklets, presented by Pink Whitney, the pink lemonade-flavored vodka from our friends at New Amsterdam Vodka. If I sound a little hoarse, it's because we've been out in St. Louis grinding for the last few days. We actually just left the arena. The final game hadn't started, the all-star game yet, but we wanted to take care of this before we left. Let's say hi to the boys.

Biz Nasty, Paul Bissonnette, the celebrity, the fucking John Lennon of the crew. What's going on? Oh, get the fuck out of here. What a great, successful weekend, though, R.A., and grinding is right. We ended up banking 11 total interviews. We've done now two podcasts,

and the reason why we left the game early, of course, is because we felt with the change of who we're dropping in this episode that we had to be live on Saturday night to record this as opposed to waiting tomorrow to do it over Zoom. Via Skype. So this is a very significant episode for us because this is a guy that we wanted him on before what happened happened. And now that it has, I feel honored that he was willing to come on and even have the discussion so i won't i won't say much more about that but uh what a week in st louis with yeah crazy and biz didn't say the name but it's ron mclean so everyone understands that

ron and don they made hockey night in canada they made coach's corner and it was we'll say an ugly divorce right i mean things were kind of uh a little crazy there for a little bit. But to get to talk to Ron and get to hear the stories that you'll hear in this interview, all of us leaving, I'm not going to say we were emotional, but it was a weird feeling having a guy who's like Canadian royalty in a way, two guys, Ron and Don. But Ron's sitting there telling us these amazing stories and talking to us after and kind of what all went down. And I think's it was cool for us to hear in person and i

think all you guys listening will really appreciate hearing about their not only their relationship but kind of how it all ended and i was thrilled that he came and joined and all right i guess i'll hop in right here and and right after the interview there was still work to be done but i think when he left the room everyone everyone was like, holy fucking shit. And then when we had a little bit of time to digest it on the way over to the skills competition, we were like, hey, John Carlson's episode is supposed to drop because we're dropping a merch collab with him. And, man, he's having a stellar season. And he was kind enough to sit down with us for, I'd say, close to an hour.

And he was incredible. Very sit down with us for i'd say close to an hour and he was incredible very very just humble right would that would be the word just a humble kid who's worked for everything he's gotten and we're gonna have to bump him back till thursday just because of the significance of this interview uh we hope you guys enjoy it i think we should probably try to talk about other things and move on from this but we are excited to drop that john carlson merch collab and ra i guess i'll throw it back over to you absolutely i just want to say about ron mcclain as you know i'm the journalism nerd of the crew obviously i was you know did that shit in college so for me to be able to interview him when he walked in the room with the all black lineup on

it was just like it's a star it's a rock star he comes in and you know when he complimented us when we told him you know how much work we had done it was like this is like you know like you like Gordie Howe had taken a picture with fucking Wayne Gretzky as a kid. It was such an honor to talk to him. And then the honesty and like, you know, this guy, this wasn't like prior situations, let's say. This is Ron McClain. He knows what he's fucking saying, and it was stunning to hear it, and I can't wait to drop, man.

But let's talk about St. Louis. We've been having fun here for a few days. First off, I think the lead is Layla, absolutely crushing those introductions. I mean, they brought her out specifically for the blues, and she was a natural. It was fucking unreal watching. I mean, I just don't like,

how do they think of every square inch of what the proper thing to do? And I guess what amazes me is some people sometimes still find a way to complain about things, but they fucking hit this one out of the park she's so confident on the mic now too so they brought her out last for those of you who didn't see it uh in st louis crowd went nuts and that was after um the the old anthem singer that retired came back out for his kind of final swan song and it just aligned perfectly and then of course they get to announce three guys from their cup winning team that was I don't know what,

less than six months ago. Four. Four guys, I think they had, didn't they? I thought they had Ryan O'Reilly, Jordan Binnington, and Peter Angelo. And Perron. Actually, if I was out there, if the wit dog was out there to announce the starting line, and now, number 57, David Perron.

Layla's out there. David Perron! R.A out there. David Perron! R.A.'s in the box looking back at me like, this girl is actually incredible at this. So to have their run, and a lot of people don't realize that. Well, actually, I shouldn't say that. I think people do understand for the most part that when the All-Star game is picked,

it's right about now in terms of the season. We just found out next year's Florida. Thank God the Whit Dog can play some golf on this little all-star trip next year. But that means that last year when St. Louis was announced, they hadn't won the Cup yet. So them going on that run and going on the magical spring that they had with Layla and then it all kind of coming together tonight with her announcing the all-stars. It was great.

I mean, both nights, the all-star skills and the actual game. Granted, we left a little early.'s a great atmosphere st louis i dog your downtown but you are loyal fans and this is a great sports city no doubt about it and i'll say me forgetting perron is kind of like my rick from red deer moment where somebody's probably like perron you fucking idiot hitting the steering wheel driving from calgary to edmonton like you described like i said so that should be a that should be a regular occurrence because people really like this. Eugene from, where's Jansen from?

Where's he from? Eureka. Eugene from Eureka's punching the steering wheel. You guys mentioned how great St. Louis was. We got to talk about Wheelhouse and how awesome the turnout was there because that was amazing.

First of all, I want to say this. I've had a little bit of problems in the past keeping my wee-wee in my pants. The fact that I didn't fuck anything out of that bar. I should be crowned boyfriend of the fucking year. All right.

So I could have been French dipping two in the fucking stall in the bathroom and I fucking held it together and that tells me I got a good girl by my side right now. But would you guys agree?

Biz. 100%. Biz walked in there. First of all the you follow biz into these things and already said it the john what just john lennon it doesn't matter we give him shit but i had the fun this this is a little off topic i'll go on a little rant here so john michael lyles we've interviewed him before amazing skater great career put the avalanche along with another a couple other teams i text him today shooting the

shit he's like great to see you buddy i'm heading to the airport actually pretty funny i saw biz at 10 in the morning sprinting down the sidewalk to go work for ea sports after we interviewed kevin bx's so you are the rock star of the group but walking into a wheelhouse there are women just literally tapping each other on the shoulders, taking pictures of the piss. Piss nasty. And you're just like, he's off the piss right now. Everyone knows.

He's dead sober. He's looking around. You're like, you're like, um, well, how would I describe you? You're like a, you're like a flower. I'm getting a little uncomfortable right now. You're just like, oh, hey, what's up? Yeah. Thanks for the support.

Well, that's because I was on mushrooms and weed. Thanks for the support, miss. And there's just three rockets. Like, biz. Me and R.A. are like, what planet are we living on? But it's a hell of a city. I've dogged it a lot. But they've shown up. And they've shown up in absolute droves.

Is that a word? Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Yeah, they certainly did. It seems like each city we go to, it's like more and more. And we just get more impressed. And they showed the love, man. And I thought we had a lot of – it was appropriate.

We had, I think, the most females ever turned out for a show today. And kind of keeping with that theme, the women's game, I thought, was the second biggest story from the weekend. I mean, it was, like I said, very competitive, 2-1, Canada won. I actually got chirped by Sarah Nurse after the game. She gave me shit. She's like, oh, yeah, how much did you lose tonight? I was like, whoa.

I was like, a couple hundred. I was like, you know, what am I going to do? Bet against my country? So it was pretty funny getting tripped by one of the players. Oh, I'll tell you what. And I tweeted out like halfway through the game. I'm like, these girls are buzzing. Coyne was creating chances every time she was out there.

I thought Poulin for Canada was exceptional. And Decker for the U.S. Decker was extremely. She's sick. Well, all of them were awesome. I thought that the Desbiane, I hope I'm saying it correct, the female. You are French. You should get it right.

Desbian. Desbian. For the Canadian goalie, she was just kicking. I mean, somebody made a joke that the Sharks should pick her up. So, yeah. Well, listen, I think that since we started talking about women's hockey and what needs to happen, there were times even earlier where I told you, listen, like as skilled as they are, you watch on TV, sometimes it doesn't translate. Being there in person last night, and granted, these are the 10 best from both countries.

That was as exciting and as good a hockey three on three as you could ever imagine. And I'm talking like girls are super skilled toe drags sauce passes shots it was all of it put together with the speed that they have in person I know I played the women's Olympic team the 98 team it is

and granted we're looking at what is that 22 years 20 years night and day it is so night and day now and like these girls the skill level the passion they play with and maybe on tv it still necessarily won't translate i'm just throwing that out there but in person oh my god that is as good as a hockey as you'll see and i think it made the skills competition that much better you've seen austin matthews make comments that he has sisters and he loves seeing them tj oshie's daughters were on the bench they got to witness these girls and it's all about like having someone to look up to we've

talked to guys in interviews through the course of this podcast of it depends where you grow up where you grow up if you have somebody to look up to and someone from your area has done it it changes everything in terms of like your goals and your dreams well these women now are watching these girls at home are watching star athletes on the biggest stage at the nhl all-star weekend putting on a show so i think there's 10 11 12 year old girls out there that are like that could be me and that's a huge thing and you could say what you want in terms of where they go from here i think that's the biggest question but if we could ever figure out a way to kind of go on a tour we've talked biz and and maybe maybe they hop into cities and either way if you go and

you see this live you will leave impressed i promise you i i feel that it should be consumed the way it was this weekend where it's a gathering it's almost like a rugby sevens meets uh like medieval times dinner and tournament where you you know you're gonna see four or five games over the course of like a day or two and just yeah make it intense and the energy high and and i i even talked to hillary knight because we ended up doing that ea sports thing uh on on saturday afternoon because they brought her in for that i think i would love to try to help out i think there's a chunk of our fan base who would be down with watching women's hockey consumed, and maybe not in the most traditional sense. But at the end of the day, the conversation is basically about, let's get these women paid a very fair salary for what their skill base is,

and promote it on a national stage. And it will continue to get better and to continue to grow. And fuck, for all those for all the people they're like no i'm not watching women's sports and they're kind of stuck in their ways well fuck like let them let them let them let them keep that opinion and we'll enjoy it we'll fucking have fun with it and they can but i i truly believe that you could probably change a lot of their minds over time if they just get shown the product and and they fucking actually give it a chance and it hurts because uh she is a canadian but pool and biz yes i interviewed her and decker after the

shit i mean that that she was the best player on the ice for either team i i have never seen her play live but that was an example of a player that for the first time you see in person you think holy shit yeah this girl's at a different level as were a lot of them so i think that it changed the entire weekend especially the skills competition and if anything we've gone from the girls partaking in fastest skater and a couple things in san jose while we take a step up and it's three on three 10 girls each side next year who knows yeah because i think they're now involved i don't think it's going to change it's only going to keep growing and let I love seeing it. And let's be honest, too.

The boys want to rest, and they want to joke around and go at house. And they were all out there watching, too. And I don't blame them for that. But these girls get put on that stage, and they're trying their... I know you guys laughed when I said last time. Their pussies off? They're working their lips off. I mean, is that what we're...

Oh, gee. I mean, are we we gonna get smoked by the feminists for that little one you're gonna you're gonna chop that out and not take it for context for fuck's sakes now um i guess since we're there so afterward i interviewed deckard as i mentioned and um i said i was like i'm a little nervous because like you know fucking people are gonna watch this you don't want to say the wrong thing where you're gonna fucking trigger and she's like you're nervous i'm nervous and i was flattered by that and after we were done the interview she she like chirped me she's like oh you're not gonna get

me on the podcast and then followed it up with like something else like call basically call me a plug and i said fuck i said i'll bring you on if you bring that same energy and and and you know and and let it fly a little bit and she goes that's all like that's me that's what i do and i even asked Hillary Knight, I said, who are the girls who are like chirp? You know, they're chirping and they're maybe even one of the boys, quote unquote. And she goes, oh yeah, Decker's definitely one of them.

So we'll probably get her on among with a few other ones and get some of these awesome personalities out. And let me tell you something. For everyone out there, Whit, did you pay your debt? Hey, Whit, did you pay your loss everyone out there, Whit, did you pay your debt? Hey, Whit, did you pay? You lost. Canada wins. Whit, did you pay? You think I didn't pay, you dumb fucks? If you spent

two seconds sending me a tweet, did you pay? Yeah, I wrote them a $2,000 cash check, and by saying wrote them, I didn't write them anything. I left $2,000 to them. My money, I'm sorry, USA, I love you. You didn't let me down. Don't worry.

Canada, take my money, $200 each, girl. And now I got people saying I'm cheap. So it's either do you pay or it's not enough. Fuck off. Get out of my face. I went to Bank of America in Clayton. I took out $2,000. I said to the woman, she said, why do you need $2,000?

Which is so amazing. Why do you need fucking business? Which is so amazing when bank people. Oh, look at R.A. getting defensive. Bank people often, you know, I'll take out big money. Why do you need this much? two grand, which is so amazing. Which is so amazing when bank people bang people often. Why do you need this much? I don't know, dude, because I feel like it. Well, I told this woman. I said, I'm taking this

out kind of as a risk, but I'm not going to need it because Team USA is playing Team Canada tonight, and if USA wins, I don't have to spend this money. She said, well, good luck. I hope those girls win. Sure, shit, I had to spend the money, so enjoy good luck i hope those girls win sure shit i had to spend the money so enjoy the money but to text me or tweet me or instagram did you pay your debt shut your mouth i pay my debts i don't need a tweet to remind me fucking rick from red deer there's

there's actually a federal law like if you're flying and you have more than ten thousand dollars on you they can fill out a fucking IRS form. I don't blame that. But that number come out in 1973. Oh, you stuck a nerve with that, right? It's never been adjusted for inflation. Well, yeah, he used to fly in tune from Vegas with like 70,000 on him each year, panicking. What's the most you've ever flown with, all right?

I had 25 cash in my nuts. My brother had 25 in his after the Bruins won it. And we had to go, because that's when the new metal detectors were coming out, where you're standing with your hands over your head. And it's like, if you've got money in your balls, it's going to show up there. So I'm like, dude, go left, because that's the old school one. It's like, now it's going to beep. Now they're going to fill out an IRS form, because you've got 25 on you.

And my whole fucking scheme was to not have that happen. So we pulled it off. Fair enough. You got 50k back There you go Oh that was just In Vegas I got another 25

With a guy back home Could you Could you imagine Being that person at the bank When I already got home And has to count that Nutsack money Well even like

She's like Why is it like moist And wet And he's like It was in my tighty whitey The whole flight home From Vancouver That's what actually

Fruit of the loom Tighty whitey's It's like outbreak In fucking Boston area Cause he's got His nutsack That's like happening It was in my tighty-whities, the whole flight home from Vancouver. Fruit of the loom tighty-whities. It's like outbreak in fucking Boston area because he's got his nut sack. That's like happening in China. I don't even joke around that. Fucking corona disease. The one time I went to Vegas and didn't gamble a fucking thing. I didn't put a quarter in a machine.

I went to cash my money and fucking said, fuck you. I ain't dropping a thing at my home. Didn't play a fucking set. I think you've told the story before. So when they won the cup, you actually had to fly. You always have to fly to Vegas to cash these tickets out, right? Well, this was back before the internet was pretty big. Now I kind of got local guys that, you know, shops I could use.

But back then, yeah. I mean, if you wanted heavy action, you'd have to put it in Vegas. Is there a system now where, like, I know you get the ticket, right? If you lose a ticket, are you fucked? Is it over? Yes. Even if you have a picture of it? Actually, if you make a copy.

Great question. If you make a copy and, like, have the serial number there, they actually will honor that. So a picture of it with your phone is fine. That or even like a Xerox copy. I know that's his story. What would happen if you won the lottery and they know that the ticket's sold? What about that? Oh, you're done, dude.

You need to get a ticket. Oh, that would be nasty. Imagine playing the same numbers every week for your life and then you hit it and you're like, where's my ticket? But if you lose it, you're a loser, so you deserve to not get the money. If you play the same numbers every week, and then the numbers hit, and you don't have the ticket, you're a loser. Speaking of money, we've got to tell the story that Joe Vitale said at dinner. Since we're on the currency issue.

What story? The story outside the cab. I just had to remind you what happened at dinner, and I wrote it down, about the Winnipeg Jets. Oh, my God. So Joe Vitale, we've had him on the show before, and for everyone kind of wondering, we're all over the map right now.

Nothing's happened besides this weekend, so we're basically just giving you a rundown of what's going on. Cam Jansen, Andy Strickland, and Joe Vitale brought us to this place in town called Louie's. Listen, this place, if you're from St. Louis and you haven't been to this Louie place, Italian food, the best chicken you've ever eaten in your life.

I'll tell you right now, I went there Thursday night. I said, I'll be back here, I promise. And I went there Friday night, and I'm probably going there after we record this. But this food has been so good. And right when I walked in, the people said, yeah, Drake came here three nights in a row when his shows. We had shows in St. Louis three nights in a row.

He enjoyed it so much the first night. I said, that may be like us. By the way, I'm sidetracking, but Drake ended up sending in like his bodyguard team to the restaurant before he would come in to basically like St. Louis to basically like, I don't know, like what's it called? Biz scan for bugs. Business in the business taking a, what's it called, Biz? Scan for bugs. Scan for bugs. Biz is taking a hose right now. He's yelling in. Scan for bugs. Like, bro, nobody's looking to blow you up, Drake, in St. Louis.

Take it easy. I thought that was a little bit of a hero move to send in people looking for, like, bugs or bombs in the restaurant. But an unbelievable meal. So we're sitting there. And of this job, like, yeah, it's a lot of hard work. The coolest part of what we do now is when we do go on the road, we usually end up going to dinner with a couple guys that played hockey that live in that town. Whether we're the guys we interviewed, we know. It doesn't matter.

It more turns into basically an old school NHL road trip dinner where you're out with your teammates. And so we had Vitaly Jansen, like Biz said. So we're telling stories. And Vitaly, who who's a great storyteller you've heard him on this he's like oh my god have you ever heard about like tanner glass and thorburn and jimmy slater the gst line in winnipeg i'm like no he's like you haven't heard this story oh it's fucking great so i'm like what's the gst biz hops in can you explain what it is for people who don't know? Yeah, it's a Canadian tax. I mean, everyone knows it. I believe it's like 7% or 8%.

So you have PST and GST. I don't know what the GST goes towards. I think that might be like the healthcare side of things, but whatever. All right, so either way, it's a tax. It's a Canadian thing. It's a Canadian thing, and these guys are in Winnipeg. So we've got Tanner Glass, who played at Dartmouth. Great guy, great player, played a tough role.

This is basically their fourth line in Winnipeg. Then you got Tanner Glass, who played at Dartmouth. Great guy. Great player. Played a tough role. This is basically their fourth line in Winnipeg. Then you got Jimmy Slater. Michigan State. This kid was a stud. He changed his career a little bit to become a little bit more of a defensive player, but an unreal player growing up. USA Hockey representative. He's the center line. And on the other side,

you got Chris Thorburn. Him and his nose. Chris Thorburn. I played with him in Pittsburgh. One of the best guys going. Tough as shit, had a long career, ended up winning the cup with the Blues last year. He's kind of a black ace, but he was in and out of the lineup throughout the year. So these guys are running the show for Vancouver, I'm sorry, Winnipeg's fourth line. And Vitaly's telling me that once in a while, you know, these guys get hemmed in their zone.

You know, fourth line, right? If the first line, they get on the ice for chicago or st louis whoever's in town playing the jets and they pin in the gst line well that can get ugly the fourth line can get caught on the ice and you know all of a sudden it's a it's a 45 minute shift where you're getting dominated and all of a sudden what would happen is these jets fans were so passionate the puck would be in their zone for close to two minutes, and you'd hear, G-S-T, G-S-T, G-S-T, and the arena would start going nuts, and they're just going bananas.

You'd think they're going crazy for the offensive motion and the creation that the offensive team has. Well, no, they're just rooting for that fourth line to get the puck out. So sure enough, Jimmy Slater or Thorburn or Glass would chip it off the wall and get it out, and the place would go off. Only thing not going off was the horn, the goal horn. So basically, the Winnipeg fans are so loyal and know their hockey that well that just the fourth line, if they got hemmed in just to clear the puck,

Vitaly told me that Glass said the place would explode. So that shows kind of when hockey players get together maybe i didn't present that story as funny as it was at dinner but to hear fans going nuts when a line chips it off the wall and i mean my heart melted because i'm always sympathetic for the fourth lines you don't want them getting that minus because chances are one of them might be able to line up the next game or they might not even see a shift to the next period. So, Winnipeg fans, kudos to that on that one.

That's just funny trolling right there. Maybe there's old videos of that. And Glass gets it off the wall and out, and they're celebrating a goal. Dude, shout out to the food, the drink, and the service at Louie's Dive. Oh, Louie dominates. Everything was fantastic. And just to double what you said, Biz, the women do deserve their own version of the WN at this point i think they've proven that and you know you can't have two two leagues cannibalizing each other so hopefully the nhl does step up i had another issue i want to bring up

during the anthem man they do it in st louis they do in a lot of cities when when people shout out like a song a part of the song that's to their city like stars when they yell out i don't like that dude i think you should fucking... I'm kind of like the Hanson brother. I'm listening to the fucking song. I don't know. I'm not a big fan of it. Are you okay with Chicago and how they clap? No. I guess that's

in acceptance to the rule. I disagree with you not liking that. I understand what you're saying in terms of when one word comes up. When Dallas Screams Stars. Washington does it on red. But tonight when you did bring this up, I don't hate the blues because it's the last word. They say home of the brave and they yell home of the blues.

Yeah. And so I know what you're saying in terms of the song matters that much, Canadian and American. But at the very end, St. Louis is I can kind of get down. Wow, that's a good point. It's like a period. It's not the middle. They're just finishing it off. Instead of Brave, they're Screaming Blues.

I don't think you should get ridiculed for that opinion because some people do respect the anthem more than others, but I don't think it's a sign of disrespect that they're doing it. I could see where you're at. I think the other way, though. I think it's cool because it's unique to every different home crowd and how much they, you know, it's their little thing. And the best part is we can fill however we choose to.

Actually, remember, dude, Chris Jackson, remember, he was Mahmoud Raouf, and he wouldn't stand for the anthem during the NBA. I don't even know who Chris Jackson is. He was a hoop player, and he was one of the first guys to not stand for the anthem, and I was at the game with a guy, and I waited for, like, that three-second pause before it started. I was, stand up, Rauf! And the whole fucking guard and echo threw my buddies.

What were his reasons for not standing up? Let's not even get into that. I think similar to the same reasons then. But, you know, it was like fucking, I yelled the whole arena heard it, but it was just one of those fucking reasons. That was a humble brag that you snuck into a Celtics game, wasn't it? Boys, hey, yeah. Oh, speaking of that, sorry, we're all over the place.

Last night we're at the skills competition. We got our box, thanks to New Amsterdam, as always, and we're sitting there, and all of a sudden some clown comes up to me, and I'm going to call you a clown, buddy. I know you're listening. Wit, wit, wit, wit. I'm like, dude, you've said wit four times. I'm right here.

We snuck in here like R.A. would have. That's how we got in. Dude, I go, I don't think R.A. told everyone when he snuck in. Part of sneaking in is like fitting in after, not screaming in the dude's face that you snuck in that could then get you the boot. So congrats on sneaking into our box and saying that you're like R.A. Next time, just go about your business.

You don't have to tell everyone what you did. Although it's kind of ironic that you say that because sure enough, the Gretzky boys end up coming to our box. R.A. ends up downstairs underneath and he's got Wayne's fucking Wayne Gretzky's badge on his media badge. Yeah. And then he tweeted the photo out. So he said she's rubbing it in people's faces that he snuck in while he was doing it so it's funny how it comes around but uh we had the gretzky boys in our bar who else matthews and his agent stopped by connor what up judd connor mcdavid's family uh salt of the earth r.a was chewing his ear off

for 20 minutes but he loved you yeah i thought it was a mutual conversation but yeah no they were just unreal people do his dad's a bro and fan so we were at the similar age almost so we were talking about that generation uh just awesome people man it was a treat to talk to them yeah i got to chat with them for a little bit i think his brother's cam and sure enough he's named after cam neely his dad did tell me he loved the sorry what oh no i got this unreal story i was gonna call for it after you're done talking. Oh, no, I was just going to say that... I know this is like me on the soapbox of hockey and how good of guys that come from this sport are for the most part,

but you got the best player in the world. Many people say he's going to be the best player that's ever played up to now in Connor McDavid. And his dad and brother and family are the most down-to-earth people, and I just feel like that's not very common. and Connor McDavid. And his dad and brother and family are the most down-to-earth people. And I just feel like that's not very common in today's superstar sports age, right, where you meet people and everyone, you know, they kind of stand, you know, up top. They're a little – people kind of act, oh, I'm a little better than you.

I'm a superstar. That entire family is nothing like that. They sat there. They talked to us about hockey. Mr. McDavid was chatting about when I was in Edmonton. The brother's a fan. He listens to our show and he was chatting hockey. It was just like you meet somebody who could end up trying to act a little like,

they would have the reason to act a little better than you and it's the exact opposite. So to see like the best player in the league and his family the way they are, it kind of shows why hockey is such a great sport. It was fun to get to meet those guys. Matthew's in the box, like you said. Our whole area was bumping.

We were at a club last night. Yeah, it was a good time. The first time I thought I'd met McDavid's parents, or at least his mother, was at Marble when I was there filming that Sportsnet piece with Serge Ibaka, Penny Oleksiak, Bianca Andreescu, and Bo Bichette. So I befriended Bo Bichette while we were on set. We ended up going over to Marble that night.

And Bane Pettinger, who worked for Hockey Canada forever, who's now an agent for IMG, he texted, or IMG, I think, I forget what the name of the company is. Anyway, he's going to scald me for that one. He texts me, he says, hey, are you at Marble, he's going to scald me for that one. He texts me. He says, hey, are you at Marble? I'm going to be bringing over Connor's parents. So they come over, and I say hello. I said, oh, nice to meet you, Mrs. McDavid.

She goes, well, this is not the first time we've technically met. And I said, oh, when did we meet? She goes, well, they were at some tournament before Connor. I think even before he'd hit junior. And I was staying at the West in Bayshore. I always used to stay there because we used to get deals on the rooms for the nhl so when i go to toronto we would go yeah yeah you gotta swipe up there's 24 um we would stay there we would get cheap rooms so i i that was in my heyday i'd be running a muck like if i was going to toronto for the weekend i'd have like six kills four yeah i said four it's six yeah so whatever so i end up getting a room because i think i i had two rooms in this hotel because one of my

buddies was staying in one and then i brought one back and it was probably one of those ones we wake up and like i need to get the fuck out of there so i have my shirt over my shoulder i have my pants undone and i'm only going down a few floors and my shoes in my hand and I push the elevator down. I hop on and it was Connor and his mom in the elevator and I was like, what's up? And I just kind of put my head down because I don't even know if I've known. You're a bad boy. I didn't even know if I knew who McDavid was at that point because it was before he hit junior.

So I end up getting off the elevator. They go down the lobby and his the mom's like who is that and he goes oh i was biz and like and so this that was she goes sports so she reminds me of this story when the first time i ended up meeting her so it i guess it was pretty on brand for the situation and i and i thought it was funny and then i baited the old man to saying hey maybe he'll come on the podcast and tell us some Connor stories. But listen, he's going to tell about what it was like growing up with them. I was interested. I asked them all about the becoming, what do they call it?

Exceptional status. Exceptional. Exceptional. I was like, dude, I got to, because we heard the stories about they talked to the kids, like a psychologist almost. Steve Dimitrov. He's like, they came to the house. We had a big family sit down and they basically talked to all of us.

It was almost like DSS. I was like, oh, it's like a tryout. He's like, kind of. And his brother Cam was saying, yeah, we remember sitting down. And they basically, they're asking all these questions of what the family life's like. And then they go back, and the Hockey Canada team decides if the guy's ready playing-wise. But I was interested to hear kind of how all that went down. And he's the one guy who probably deserved it more than anyone else and i guess it'd be a perfect segue for um

i had it written down my memo pad for i think the last episode but we didn't get to it the the trailer for his um his recovery when he he fucked up his knee at the end of last season and and we actually i i remember reaching out to him during the summer about something and then just casually was kind of like how's your knee expecting him to be like oh it's good it's coming along and he was like fuck dude it's it's like not good and and and when he said that it was obviously with that tone in your voice where i was like holy fuck dude is like is this you know this generational player gonna have a shortened career because he fucking ran into a post um or wouldn't have exceeded to the expectations of the level

what he is right now and at the all-star game today because of something that happened in game 82 last season so the trailer had me fucking had me having goosebumps and i believe that the whole episode on sportsnet dropped either yesterday or today so i'm looking forward to watching that i believe it's a 42 minute piece on on basically the next fucking wayne gretzky folks and and a guy who sid's probably going to pass the baton off to um and and fortunately for us he he's he's going to be playing for a long time yeah the reporter uh ryan rashog is that how you say his last name? Yeah, he's an excellent reporter. And, yeah, basically the first doctor told him,

hey, you need major reconstructive surgery, and he opted to do rehab instead. So, I mean, get a second opinion. That was the lesson I took from it. I mean, not that I'm a player or anything, but it's a huge deal, especially when you think of knees and history of players. I mean, the greatest ever was his career was only fucking 10 years less than that because of knee fucking problems. But I think that

the documentary will be so cool to see what he went through. And in that time, you'll be able to end up realizing that there were times they were really worried where there was a chance you saw the Rashad thing where there was a chance you could miss the whole year if you got the surgery. They're trying to rehab. So the fact that the cameras are around for all of that, I think that'll be

in-depth look at the game's biggest star and anytime you can have behind the scenes stuff for the best in the world people are going to tune in no matter if it's like bad stuff where you're beating an injury or good stuff where you're celebrating the stanley cup that's what people want to see is the other side of guys yeah and adam phillips is like manager slash best friend and he's actually in the the documentary piece and i was talking to him like man like it's it's crazy how he just he's like he i i commend how he can be so tight-lipped and and follow it exactly like sid does and and he was like man he goes he's trying to follow in his footsteps like there's no riffraff like he has to protect his image and i completely respect that about connor and that's him being himself and really just looking at Sid being like,

I want that. I want the three cups or maybe potentially four. I want all the hardware. And not the bullshit noise. There's no noise. Yeah, he doesn't want the Instagram club. And that's his personality. I'm not saying that like that other

guys doing that or distracting themselves or whatever but he's being himself and to stick to that plan and that course of action just in order for him to be as good as he can be to entertain us in this fucking fan base tip the cap man because i tell you what i'd be doing at that age if i had that much success please don't tell please don't tell everyone you did it it was not pretty he said

you know he said he was surprised how much he had opened up when he was on with us and that kid I talked to him for 15 minutes

before I realized it was McDavid's brother that's how humble he was like you know some guys would drop the name right away he's you know

I should have figured it out because they're practically fucking twins I was going to say you couldn't tell there so he said his name was Cam Mcid and he looks like he did and you didn't know no he didn't he didn't say mcdavid he just said cam and i was like i am but like you know he's a humble kid he kept it he kept the choir for a while but i think there's a couple

guys we got up before we move off the all-star game we do got to acknowledge ryan o'reilly coming out with the kansas city chiefs coming on with the super bowl coming i mean they're you know they're in the state i know people used to not like them when they had a rivalry. Ben Nasty, he was on the Red Cabo with a Mahomes jersey, correct, Biz? Yes, he was. And then I guess I'll let you finish it off. There was one last one. Actually, well, Matthew Kachuk, he pulled off his jersey.

He had the, what's his name? Molina. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Legend. Molina, they love him in this town. That was a savvy move. But also, how about Thomas Hurdle coming down with the fucking Biebs mask on Bennington? That was

classic. I was wondering if that was a troll job by Bennington and he told Hurdle to do it because Hurdle came down and he buckled and went to his knees. So Hurdle falling was definitely trying to say Bieber will fall. Ankle bender? Wow. Hurdle, I respect that. That's a guy

from the Czech Republic not giving a fuck that he's just calling Bieber a straight-up ankle bender. You know those Bieber fans are probably sending him death threats. Oh, there's a couple 9.7s that want him dead. He's like, oh, am I getting DM'd by a rocket? No, they actually hate you because you made fun of their boy Bieber. I didn't appreciate it one bit. I'm a big Bieber guy, and I did not appreciate it. Oh, wow.

Okay. Now he's had a big weekend, by the way. We haven't even talked about him. Twin Hughes, that was the hashtag. He ran into his friend. Last night, we go back, me, Pasha, and Grinnelli. I'm exhausted. I'm tired.

I'm going to bed. Well, these guys are going back out. Next thing I see is Grinnelli, a picture with his twin, Quinn Hughes, Twin Hughes. They finally met. And at some point, I think you told me you were at the bar, and you just looked 50 yards away, and you just see Quinn Hughes flipping you off.

You motherfucker. I made the NHL. I made the NHL. I'm a superstar. I could have won Rookie of the Year, basically, the way my season's going. If there wasn't another dominant defenseman, suck on that, Canucks fans.

And I'm in a bar, and people are saying you look like Grinelli that is a slap in my face and it's your fault so first off right when I got to the bar some girl came up to me and was like hey like you did a great job tonight in the fastest skater I know like don't be upset about the outcome and I'm like do you actually okay so maybe Grinelli maybe Grinelli should be up for boyfriend of the year then True Absolutely should be up for boyfriend of the year But also then I see Quinn and I'm like hey Nice to meet you and he's like fuck you He's like I get this so much

From everybody Grinnelli That would get annoying And I was talking to Pasha today I'm like dude This kid's almost like rookie of the year candidate Just lighting up his rookie season And everywhere he goes people are just like When you make the NHL It's almost an unwritten rule that you will not be compared to a producer of a podcast anymore.

That is not fair. You make the NHL, you can't have people yelling Grinelli at you. It's got to be just your last name or your first name. You're getting compared to a producer? Mikey Grinelli played Burlington High? It's not fair to that guy, but he took it in stride. He took it in stride, and it was Brady Kachuk who instigated

the whole thing. When I looked over, Matthew Kachuk shines a light on the two of them, and both Brady Kachuk and Quinn Hughes are flipping me off from across the bar. Hilarious. It's like when I get Brad Pitt all the time. It does get a little bit annoying. We can move on, though. Wait, I know you wanted to talk about the fastest skater contest and how much better it was watching it in person yeah i mean it's it's

the it's the way the whole nhl is the entire game of hockey it's an in-person viewing experience and fastest skaters no different it might be even more so than an actual regular season or playoff game that in person shows you how fast everything's going you guys were there i mean there there's a quick little whistle to start it or their first move starts it they are getting around the ice so fast and no matter what on tv it will it won't show but barzell goes around you know right away that he was faster than everyone else and it's by like six seven tenths of a second it's weird it's like it's such a small time difference in terms of like first and second place. But you can tell when watching them like, oh, that guy was faster.

And so it was McDavid and Barzal that were the closest. I think McDavid got to go after him and try to catch him and maybe missed him by a couple tenths of a second. But in person, that one actually kind of stood out to me in terms of everything else. The breakaway is the hardest shot. It's still cool, but nothing like the actual speed of one lap will show like being there and getting to witness it live. And that Barzell, dude, take the Islanders to the cleaners. Offer sheet type performance.

I tweeted it out. Not to stir the pot anymore, Islanders fans. You know I love you guys. I caught on the replay late night. By the way, shout out to Barrett Jackman. He was nice enough to invite me. Like you said, I bumped into the Gretzky boys and when they say hey all right come with us you kind of go with them you know yeah uh they're a lot of fun we had we had a blast and they're

good friends with barrett so shout out he's got a the ultimate man cave it's actually a converted like a horse carriage bond that he turned into a man cave it's separate from the house it's like a garage and shit oh that's where you ended up? Oh, yeah. I ended up back at Barrett's house. A handful of us went back. Jumped in a cab, me and the Gretzky boys. We were like the three best friends that ever had. R.A.'s going to fucking fly with 50 Gs in his crotch again.

He's going to go put a down payment on a lot at Gosser because he's fucking buddies with all these famous people now. Well, he can't fly with that anymore. You may think that he's exaggerating, but Friday night, R.A. met the Gretzky boys, and we were just in the box at the game, and the Gretzky boys came back in, and the first thing I hear is, R.A.!

I'm like, holy shit. It's these two and R.A. That's the crew. So to go back to Jacko's is pretty cool. That guy was as tough as they made him. Rookie of the year, too. Well, he's another guy who was at that alumni game. We got to talk about

the alumni game, guys. We haven't even gotten into that yet. Exactly. That was the next thing up. Paul Bissonnette with the performance of a lifetime. Well, I was just going to start off by St. Louis Blues run the best, if not one of the best, alumni programs.

They have a facility now where they have their own room, hot tub, the whole ordeal. And just, I mean, the names that they have involved here. These were the people that weren't even playing in the game. The Curtis Josephs, the Chris Prongers, the Wayne Gretzky, the Brett Hall. There were like the Bernie Frederico. There were probably 15 other guys on the bench who weren't playing in the game. And of course, all the more recent alumni. I mean, didn't Red Berenson

play? Red Berenson's 80 years old and he was flying around out there. Legit. Like the fact that some of the guys that played in that game are the age they are and still moving that way was pretty impressive. Red Berenson was one. The other Plague? Bobby Plague? Bobby Plague Bobby Plague

Local legend Yeah local legend And the way he's out there And he's shaking hands Kissing babies And he's He had to be older than Berenson I think

Did we ever find out Who Helmet Man was With the Let's talk about Helmet Man Because I'm sitting In the god damn corner Of this new practice arena And I see

Talking to Jon Hamm And I see people Jon Hamm great guy Great hockey discussion You guys are like best friends after that conversation Hammer's like, hey winner, come over here Talk to me about what you think about the season Hammer, I love it

Hammer is one of the coolest guys going Not one ounce of ego on him He said, I go, were you in Boston for the finals games in Boston? He goes, no, I was working He was making copies at a local Staples He was probably filming a fucking full-blown five-star movie. And we're shooting the shit, and we're watching. All of a sudden, this guy wheels in the corner.

He's got the old red Gretzky Jofa. I think it was duct taped together. Masked tape. I mean, we have a guy playing with Hall of Famers, Geek Carbono is out there. We got future superstars, We got future former superstars, and we got a guy with a fucking tape together, Jofa Red Helmet.

I think it was Jeff Brown, if I'm not mistaken. Was it? Yeah, I think it was Jeff Brown. Which makes it even funnier if it wasn't Jeff Brown. It wasn't Jeff Brown. I saw Jeff Brown's dangles. Check out his hockey D. We were supposed to interview him, but things ended up going a little late one day.

This guy, I'll tell you right now, the Blues alumni has put on a show. What an example they've set for other NHL teams' alumni. But to let a guy skate in your game with a red helmet that's duct taped together is a tough look, and it disgusted me standing in the corner being a judging fan. He's probably another Hall of Famer. We just didn't know the name. Toronto will kick him out of the Hall of Fame for wearing a duct tape together red

in alumni games with fucking Guy Carboneau involved. That was a funny little rant there. I do agree. Well, let me keep going into your performance because I go back to get a drink early in the game. I see my buddy Neil Neil Komodowski, and I love dropping names. Neil Komodowski is a guy a year younger than me.

We played together at the U.S. National Program. He went on tough as shit. Well, he went on to play for a little while, and I got to run into him. He's from St. Louis. So we're hanging out. We're grabbing a drink, and we're catching up. And all of a sudden, Grinelli comes flying out to me. I see him running from 10 yards away. This just scored and celebrated in the corner we're supposed up and all of a sudden Grinnelli comes flying out to me. Like I see him running from 10 yards away.

Biz just scored and celebrated in the corner we're supposed to be and I'm like, Biz scored? Yeah, sure as shit. First shift. Fucked up beautiful.

Just like Cardiff when I went over to Cardiff. First shift. Make your presence felt. And he celebrated in the corner I would have been and I said, big deal, fuck.

Who are the defensemen on the ice if Biz is scoring? You went on, I saw you get an assist. He ended up. Fuck. Who are the defensemen on the ice if Biz is scoring? You went on. I saw you get an assist. You ended up getting in a fight. It's a full-blown Gordie Howe hat trick in a big time, like, basically emergence for you back on the ice. You hadn't skated in years. Three years.

Yeah, dude. You still legit have it. Your gear wear is good. A lot of heat you took for wearing the half shield in warm-ups, too. You didn't even go no bucket in warm-ups. Can you explain that one? Heat handles puking at home. It was a respect thing to all the awesome veterans that were there

that played far more games than me. And, you know, I just kind of respect that. All right. Well, fair enough because you looked awesome in your gear. Can we get back to the fight, though, the night before? You got that, man. You did the local news quite a bit. At Louie's, Cam Jansen, beauty. You know he's a man of the people. He's like, hey, you know, be cool tomorrow. though that the night before i mean at louis the local news quite a bit at louis cam jansen beauty

you know he's a man of the people he's like hey you don't be cool tomorrow if he dropped the drop his gloves tomorrow for the crowd and i'd say you know what and my neck forgetting something he said it the first time and you were like yeah yeah maybe and then like 45 seconds 45 minutes later he said it again and there ended up being a third time. So I knew this was going down. But at the beginning, you were like, I don't know. I don't know. And it worked out that I slipped and fell down. And I think he was actually throwing a hit me by the looks of it.

I was smiling, having a good time. I thought we were playing tummy sticks out there. Jansen was shaking during the national anthem, buddy. He was fucking moving around like he was about to fight a full-blown heavy off the opening draw. I mean, there was no... Was he practice warm-upping and stick-handling outside

trying to stick around with some animals? 730 alumni game, everyone listening at home. Cam Jansen got there at 330. He was stick-handling a golf ball and shooting it against the wall four hours prior to puck drop. And let me tell you something. This is a guy who at dinner the night before joe vitale had to tell me this guy used

to invite me over and say don't worry i'm gonna bring my cats down we're gonna work on our stick handling around them vitale's like your cats sure as shit the cats would be in the basement and he'd have the pucks trying to stick handle like McDavid just did calling you out on Twitter. He's trying to do figure eights through live cats. So cats are getting a puck off the paw, and they're meow, and fucking Cam Jansen's ripping one-timers off the cat's tail. Joe Vitale's like, buddy, I don't want to stick a handle around cats. They feel pain when the puck hits their chin.

Please send them upstairs. Jansen's like, no, this is what's going to make us better. I'm going to go to alumni games in 20 years, get there four hours early. We're going to have PETA all over us. No, PETA, you understand these cats never got injured. They were playing defense to Cam Jansen and his rock hands. But what a guy he is. And that fight was fun because the fans enjoyed it, and you took a little bit of a dive, and he was still there just like...

Celebrating. Like nothing happened almost. It was good. It was like the anthem. Hey, you got to play to the crowd sometimes, folks. It's about them. It was a show. It was a sold-out barn for a charity, and Chaser and all you guys who put that,

not only the game, but the St. Louis Blues alumni together, you guys do an incredible job, and we appreciate you even inviting us to go. We met some incredible people. We love you. Mike Caruso as well, I mean, from the Blues. Oh, yes. He's the MVP of the week for us. He teed us up for a lot of these interviews.

I guess we should probably get into mentioning the names that we got, all right? Oh, absolutely. Let me use my brain. Let's see how accurate I am. We got in here Tuesday night, Wednesday morning. We came and we did Chris Pronger. We then use my brain. Let's see how accurate I am. We got in here Tuesday night, Wednesday morning. We came and we did Chris Pronger. We then did Tony Twist. We then did Patrick Maroon with Cam Jansen.

Good friends growing up. A former cup champ and a guy who gets the alumni games four hours early. That was on Wednesday. We also recorded our podcast episode. That was a busy Wednesday. We then go over to Thursday. We interviewed in the morning. We had the Kachuk family, Matthew, Brady, and Keith all together.

That was great. We had John Carlson, number 74, the guy who's going to win the Norris Trophy this year. Yeah, we're dropping a clothing collaboration with him as well. So let's check out for that. But 55 minutes of some awesome discussion about his career and the Washington Capitals and their future and past. That day we also chatted with Glenn Healy. Holy shit, guys. You just heard the reaction of my two favorite co-hosts I'm with.

Glenn Healy is a full-blown comedian and put on an absolute show. He told some of the funniest stories we ever heard. He was calling me Ray Whitney for half the time. We still don't know if he was fucking with me or he goes no i was fucking with him oh yeah he says that now i don't know if the first time you know but glenn healy is running the nhl alumni program he's completely changed all around in the past couple years and i think you'll love that interview and the last the fourth interview we did on thursday you forgot it a couple times now jordan binnington The fucking stud goalie.

And let me tell you guys something. Biz just mentioned how it's entertainment. The game is about entertaining fans. There is an aspect of that that I think hockey has always not had in terms of the NBA does it. Jordan Binnington made it clear that he kind of knows there's some entertainment involved. And we talked to him about his quote when he said, do I look cocky? Or do I look nervous? Do I look nervous? I'm sorry about that. Just you're buzzing we also talked to him about basically his entire rise and you'll hear some crazy stories of times that he

really questioned what was going on and what he did to combat his feelings of being ready to like kind of quit the game what a story that was so that was thursday i'll get into the last day which we ended up doing austin matthews thanks for coming he's got a fucking wrist thing on because his wrist is hurt he still came to chat with us jack eichel ever heard of him captain of the buffalo oh he was just dominates on every every single side of the puck he's leading that team to stay in the playoff race and then what do you know ron mclean and we already chatted about him at the beginning but I think it's

probably time to go to this interview and we can kind of catch things up after but thank you so much for joining this podcast and you'll hear all these interviews

coming up soon but right now we're going to go to Ron McLean well our next guest has been one of the faces of Canada for about 35 years

now most famously of course on Hockey Night in Canada every Saturday during the season he's won numerous awards for his work years now, most famously, of course, on Hockey Night in Canada every Saturday during the season. He's won numerous awards for his work. He's done a little bit of reffing back in the day, I understand, as well. It's an honor for me to have you on as a journalist, a major guy I looked up to. Ron McLean, welcome to the Spitting Chickens podcast.

It's a pleasure, Admiral. And Paul, I owe Paul for what he did for me and Welland for a show we do up in Canada called Rogers Hometown Hockey. And his mom and dad, Yolanda and Cam, were the honorary social conveners of our show, so it's great to do it with you, Biz. How do you remember all these names? Well, I think

you're born with that. Some people just remember names. Gretzky, right? We were just talking before we started about Wayne, and he can recall all of the goals, all 894. He can give you specifics. It's funny. I did the All-Star Game here in 1988, so I was 27.

You were two. You were two years old, Paul. And I did the All-Star Game in St. Louis, and I was very proud of an interview I did with the legendary Glenn Hall. And I asked our team to pull it for last year's Stanley Cup, and I looked at it, and it was god-awful. I was so just a Bambi, right? And Glenn was gracious and great, but it wasn't much.

There was no enlightenment out of the interview. Kind of like how we're going to be looking at this in 25 years. But that was Wayne. Wayne got a goal. They were up 2-1. His team was the Whales. They used to call the East. They were up 2-1 after 20 minutes because it was a big showdown,

Mario Lemieux and Wayne Gretzky. And as Wayne said, 20 years earlier, I went to the All-Star Game, Joe Lewis Arena, Detroit, and I had fire in my eyes. I was going to show Mike Bossy and Guy Lafleur that I was here to play and that I belonged. And he said, I know Mario's coming at me tonight. And Mario did.

He ended up with three and three. So saying that, were All-Star games a little bit more intense back then? Well, in fact, Gordie Howe, we're also talking about him off the air. Gordie played his first all-star in 1948 the year that bobby orr was born and he fought in that game and then uh bobby's first game was 68 bobby orr's first all-star game was 68 gordy how played in that one too

and he fought mike walton and then uh he played in the 1980 all-Star game with Wayne Gretzky. That was his first. Gordie Howe did. And Bobby Orr was two years retired. So that's – but Gordie kind of represented the intensity of it. Orr, for sure, famously blocked a shot, a Bobby Howe blast to preserve a victory, and I think it was 72. It was really – you know, the 88 game. I mean, Wayne had a lot going on.

He had proposed to Janet Jones, right? So the royal wedding was about to happen up in Edmonton. And, you know, that was one of the storylines. And then the intensity behind this, like when Connor McDavid rolled into Toronto recently, and, you know, he scored a great goal, obviously Morgan Rielly undressed, and then he put his number one in the air to kind of let T.O. know, let's not have any discussion of Austin Matthews or anybody else. I'm your man now. And so with Sid and him, let's say, it would be neat to see showdowns,

but it's just a different time. And you joke about the wedding being the royal wedding for Wayne. He's Canadian royalty, and, I mean, you're not going to like this. I put you and Don in that class because you were the face of Hockey Night in Canada for all these years. We grew up to you guys. I know everybody was very disappointed in how it ended, no matter what side you lied on.

But you mentioned early on how you were the Bambi. Were you really nervous getting into this industry? Oh, Paul, I was horrified. I remember I kind of fell into it. I was in Calgary working the Calgary Flames games and Dave Hodge had accepted a job. He was my predecessor as the principal host on Hockey Night in Canada.

Fantastic broadcaster. But Dave had received a job offer from CKNW in Vancouver. So he moved to Vancouver and he would fly in and do Hockey Night in Canada in Toronto but he said if there's Canucks home dates, I wouldn't mind working in Vancouver. So they needed a guy to do about 11 Hockey Night in Canada in Toronto. But he said, if there's Canucks home dates, I wouldn't mind working in Vancouver. So they needed a guy to do about 11 Hockey Night in Canada.

And a boss that was connected to my work in Calgary said, phone Don Wallace, executive producer of Hockey Night in Canada. Put your name in the hat. And they like young. They like to groom somebody. So you're 26. It might be just ideal. And I got the gig. And I was such a deer in headlights.

I've told you, Paul, I used to have, like, really the gig and I was uh I was such a deer in headlights I've told you Paul I used to have like really bad anxiety when I was young I'd get these panic attacks and the whole mess of uh anxiety and I will say Grapes was great like he he kind of sheltered me from a lot of bad moments I remember doing the first ever coach's corner and I was trying to keep my eyes fixed on Don Cherry's because the producer said Ron we like your work but when're interviewing guests, your eyes have a tendency to wander up and down the guest. And it's a little disconcerting to some of the viewers. You're licking your lips. Yeah, I was mortified.

I had this bad affectation, right? So I thought, whatever you do, stupid, rivet your eyes on Cherry's and don't let them budge, which is hard to do when you make eye contact. So weird. Yeah, it's awkward. And I got a tear developed on my very first coach's corner. A tear started streaming down my left cheek. Now, the camera's here, so the viewer didn't see it,

but Don's looking at me thinking, good God, is this guy going to fall every time I say I like fighting? Anyway, we got through it, and that was 1986, and as you say, 34 great years together, and a crazy, you know, we were kind of an arranged marriage back then because of Dave's decision to go to Vancouver. And then we were kind of an arranged divorce because, you know, just the way things shook down. And you were right there. You saw firsthand what a clumsy, crazy time. You know, I guess maybe some people who are more Cherry fans were a little upset considering that they thought that many times in your career that he had went to bat for you, which I'm sure he did.

Yes, he did. Yeah. Both of us went to bat for one another. And in this case, honestly, all I can say to that is because it is a hard thing to feel like, you know, when you're a player, you know, you fought how many fights on behalf of a teammate. And I always kind of liken Don and me to two American Hockey League defense partners. We weren't quite, you know, right. We weren't quite, the language wasn't perfect. Our attempts to teach honor and everything was like Don Quixote.

It was always a farce, him and Sancho Panza. But we were consistently there with our me, the left-wing pinko communist, and Don, the right-wing, you know, whatever he is. It was good to see that reflection of two guys so different that could work together. And then I felt like we were kind of in a foxhole. And then on this crazy event, which was just Don projecting a behavior on people because of where they come from and, you know, got it wrong, but chose his decision was not to say sorry and do whatever. You'd have to ask Don what, you know, he said they made it wrong, but chose his decision was not to say sorry and do whatever.

You'd have to ask Don what, you know, he said they made it impossible, which I can't believe they would make it impossible for Don. But, you know, anyway, he just decided what he decided. And I had no control, right? I was kind of, I woke up after a night at the Trappers in Welland. Well, he was in Welland when this all went down. Yeah, doing the hometown hockey. And it was hard for me to watch a Canadian icon

and what you guys had done for hockey collectively. It was hard to watch you go through that, and I'm sure it was just as hard for Don because you were between a rock and a hard place where this is your livelihood, and everyone can tell this means a lot to you doing this job. And having to come on the next day and already have something written or to say something,

people felt like you threw them under the bus. I mean, I didn't look at it that way, and I knew how bent out of shape you were about it, and it was sad. It was important to get... What I really hated about it all was that, as you know, we were shooting at your mom and dad's, and then we were shooting...

We did a meet and greet, a corporate event, and then we did stuff for the Canada Winter Games. The whole day. It was just like nonstop while I was on the phone. And your mind's racing. Racing badly. And I remember the one sort of request from Rogers was, when you apologize, Ron, try not to cushion it with Don's a great guy, and try not to, you know, just try to be unequivocal

and clear about what you're trying to say. And I was really scrambling to do that. So I did my quick apology, which I wanted to do, because I felt bad, Ryan, that we had, you know, it was an inadvertent mistake, but it was a mistake. And it was a, it's just one of those things that, you know, in my little world, Don knows my politics, my ethics. I am kind of that do-gooder that feels strongly about stuff like that. So I was upset that it kind of went sideways on us, and I wanted to apologize.

And I kind of thought Don would. So I never really dreamt that it would get so wild so fast. And that's the power of that quick. Right. And there was no real circling back. So it was a, it was just out of our control. And, and, but you know, like I said, 34 great years and hopefully Paul was asking, you know, how are you, how are you doing with Don now?

And I, I email over there and I wonder if he even sees the emails because Don's not the most tech-savvy guy. Anyway, that'll come. You know, that'll be the last. Time heals. Right. We'll figure that part out because, you know, I can't imagine that he doesn't still take a shine to all we've been through together. Like, we've been through some crazy moments together. And as far as, you know, I mean, Don would have kept his job if he wanted to keep his

job. So the idea that I threw the bus, you know, or ran the bus over him is, that's just not fair. But I understand. I totally understand why it feels that way. What I think is really fascinating, there's so many elements to this, but when you, as I did, sort of talk about an aspirational choice, I had to pick what I felt right over friendship. And that just doesn't appeal to the heart.

People want loyalty. People want friends for life. They don't want to hear that somebody's picking the intellect. It's kind of an intellect decision, which has no appeal, especially in our business. Our business is all about heart. But it's not always black or white. No.

You don't want your kids to just go along and do the wrong thing. Your best friend, he's your best friend. But this is an example. He does something awful. It's like loyalty only goes so far. That's right. So I think you make sense. What I was going to say about the entire thing is like Biz has mentioned it before.

Playing-wise, that's why there's the cool off period before the media come in but when break stories break like this this story was so big it's like everyone wants an answer right away it's like just if you didn't rush people into into giving the the immediate reaction it's like things would be said different but part of the rush makes it hard but i mean it was a crazy time i mean i know that in the end i think my opinion is when the dust settles it'll be about the memories and in years down the line you know and even the fans will be like yeah those those those coaches corners those hockey night in canada saturday night living on two guys who had this relationship with their friends but also would argue in the end that'll be what's remembered yeah i agree ryan i i hope you know that yeah i feel that yeah i just know because i know what we went through yeah you know i i know like i said two american hockey together remember us

looking for beer in pennsylvania it's hard to find beer in pennsylvania right so we were like two desperate souls wandering around the south side of pit looking for a beer distributor and i thought to myself well that reminds me of what it must be like for the two guys that roll off the bus in the ahl hoping to find beer right that's why you use the ahl defenseman term yeah um well go ahead i was just going to ask a question about this this industry which is you've been a part of it for so long but biz said were you nervous at the beginning my thing has been interviewing can be so tough. And I imagine now you've become so accustomed.

But even at times, isn't it wild how you do an interview and things aren't buzzing? And then when you're on national TV, how do you approach when you're not necessarily vibing with a guy? Well, first of all, you've got 11 interviews here at All-Star Weekend. It's impossible. I think for players and I refereed and certainly in broadcasting, concentration is everything. And it's really hard to keep your concentration through 11 interviews. If you're overworked and underprepared, it's going to show. So that's kind of the secret is to be as prepared as you can be

because on those days you're not clicking. You need to have stuff to ask. That might get you through. But on the days you're clicking, which is a lot of it's trust, right? That might get you through. But on the days you're clicking, which is a lot of it's trust, right? You know, if you can just think about how the St. Louis Blues won this Stanley Cup and went through so many, being last, you know, in January 2nd, to being in trouble against Dallas in double overtime,

to having the crazy glove pass goal put them behind in a series, to everything, you know, losing the sixth game here where they should have won. But somehow they kept their cool. And it's, you know, we – Similar. You've been through – yeah, for sure. Well, we can cut stuff. You're live. Even with the grapes ordeal, and I'll leave this, but, you know,

I kept saying it wasn't beyond my experience. It was beyond my education to figure out how the hell to say something that wouldn't incite a riot one way or the other. Like everything felt divisive. Everything felt self-serving. Nothing I could come up with felt particularly helpful. And that was my education maybe letting me down. My experience was just do the job and let them howl.

You can't worry about that. How did you get into officiating? I was starting my radio career, Biz, and a friend of mine who had gotten me into broadcasting, I had no aim to go into that, a guy was working as an operator at CKRD in Red Deer, Bernie Roth was his name, and Bernie said he was just going to start refereeing because they might give him some microphone moments, and he doesn't want to have a speech impediment from getting his teeth knocked in.

So he said, I'm going to switch from playing, we were junior age, I'm going to switch from playing to refereeing. It's a little safer. And I thought, well, that's a good idea because he got me involved at the radio station to come in and work pushing buttons part time. And then eventually I followed his lead into refereeing. And I remember, too, doing that and just the swirl of a game. He was probably novice or peewee, just a little hockey, but it still felt overwhelming. He was probably novice or peewee, just a little hockey, but it still felt overwhelming.

I'd played all my life, but it was hard to track, you know, 10 players instead of just follow the puck. But I really enjoyed it. And I always felt fantastic support for media because in both instances, refereeing and in our job here, you want to let your guests be the star. And it's not us against them. You're there to facilitate. And I refereed with this whole feeling of, okay, how are they going? Are they starting to feel unsafe out there?

Are they starting to lose their marbles? Then I need to step it up a bit. Otherwise, they seem to have it under control. So I don't even know if you know this, but I played in the game, the NHL preseason game. You reffed it. Oh, yeah. even know if you know this but um i played in the game the nhl preseason game you reffed it yeah 14 14 days ago 14 years ago from now uh 2006 and we played buffalo in pittsburgh yeah and and before the game somebody said ron mclean's reference like hockey night in canada ron mclean

like yeah he's a referee as well so i remember you called the penalty late at some point in the game but leclaire chintzy trip, terrible. Oh, no. You had to send somebody to the box. I was trying to play along, right? There was a new standard. The year before, we had 18,000 power plays, right? And I wasn't happy about it. I felt that we'd gone too far.

All these ethical agendas, when the pendulum swings, it comes crashing through, right? So we had that 05-06 season where Carolina and Edmonton played in the final and it was just power play after power play, and I felt it was too much. But anyway, so to try and make peace with the NHL, I agreed to come in referee, and I agreed to call one of their chintzy hooks. Get the fuck out of here. I felt so bad.

Leclerc, you know, Recchi was after me. Gonchar was after me. Brooks Orpik was after me. There was a lot of – but I loved that. You know, I was kind of used to it with grapes. So I'd been called a lot of things. What were some other silly things that you guys had to go through? And one other question before you answer that one.

How did it all go down? Would he just show up and the main topics would be listed out? Oh, no. Or he would go over everything? Yeah, that's a great question. No, no, he works at it, like, endlessly. We always talked on the regular season Saturdays. I would phone over at 9.30, and every Saturday morning at 9.30,

he would pick up the phone and say, Don's Bicycle Shop, Big Wheel Don talking. That was like our little ritual, right, for 30-odd years. So I would phone, and i'd sort of have a list of things that i had noticed that week don would certainly have had a list of things that he had noticed that week and kathy broderick a producer at hockey night in canada was really good at filing away things that might appeal to to don and his sensibilities because that's part of it right you know we especially in the early going you know guy could go end to end and you know

undress 15 people six times but if he wore a visor, he wasn't getting on Coach's Corner. So that's one of my favorite moments. We were in Pittsburgh doing a Stanley Cup. I don't know if you were just skating, Ryan, or what, or Paul. It was 09. So we're in the Sheraton on the island. What's that? I don't know what it's called.

So we're there watching a baseball game. It's the off night between Stanley Cup cup games and we're watching baseball and a catcher is talking about how he had had a really bad april and he was upset that you know his hands were frozen and bat vibrated and all the guys from puerto rico and the dominican who wore batting gloves were tearing it up and he just was going to have to try this because his career is going down the tank if he doesn't figure out how to hit in April and early May. So he gets up there with his batting gloves on, and the opposing team catcher, now Don and I are like this.

There's a table between us with peanuts and popcorn and beer in the garbage can in front of us, and we're watching the baseball game, and this catcher's explaining how he's going to wear batting gloves for the first time hitting a ball. And as he gets ready to face the first pitch, the catcher of the opposing team down below says, I thought you were one of us. And Grapes spits his beer out, and he fires his hand over. It just about caves in six of my ribs. He says, you see?

You see? I know what I'm talking about. You see what a suck? He's become a suck suck and everybody knows it. That's what it was like watching TV with Don. Same with Trump, right? We would have to, in the more recent Stanley Cups, whether it was in Nashville or in Vegas,

I would want to go back and watch the NHL network or highlights and just kind of figure out what did really happen in the game because somehow you're at them, but you don't catch anything, right? You know how that feels? So I really, I like to go back and watch the highlights, not somehow you're at them, but you don't catch anything, right? You know how that feels? So I really like to go back and watch the highlights. Not Don. He's got to have Fox News on, and

he wants to see Trump's speech for the third time, you know, and then grapes will start hitting me again. You see, now watch this. This is good. This is really good. He's going to go off prompter here. He's going to go off. He knows there's union guys over in the corner. He's going to get a rise out of them. So he's going to go over here. He's going to go off. Watch this. This is really good the corner he's going to get a rise out of them so he's going to go over here he's going to go off watch this this is really good imagine he says

he's in his 70s that great energy or what and that that's what we would do like over our beer in the stanley cup you're like you're you're like on the your phone you're like again yeah double yeah i tell you but but but i mean we joke about the trump stuff and you know how he's maybe a little bit more right wing than us what's wrong's wrong with that? You're allowed to be. You'd be both. But there's also so much good that he did as well, like with the military and everything. I mean, do you want to just touch on some of this stuff? Well, he reminds me of just the way Berube took over the Blues and brought that kind of sensibility to a dressing room.

He's even keeled in his own. Don wasn't, I don't think. When he coached, Don could get pretty, you know, hot and bothered. But he still, Don, like Berube, has a perspective that is, you know, Berube fought as a 16-year-old in a tough man competition in Williams Lake, B.C., and he survived it. And Don had to go through all that. So he had a carnal, primal, whatever it is, knowledge of courage.

And we kind of needed someone to teach us that, right? You know, it's all well and good to come at it with my, you know, the land of Billiken. Here in St. Louis, the university mascot is the Billiken, which is the god of how things ought to be. And that's what Don always said. Oh, you live in the world of Billiken, Ron. You're in, you know, rose-colored glasses. So we wanted, and right now, without a Don, let's say, you know, you need a train wreck. You need that.

You need that narrative tension. And you also need somebody that's got a good grasp of the trench. And he was really good. And then, as you say, Paul, he did that for the military. I mean, I hate to say it, but our military, he did. And that was what was so hard about the night that uh everything fell apart we had just done two tributes to two young boys who had died one from well and had died of mental illness that resulted in suicide he had just said that and he was on his way to the vimy ridge uh

poppy thing which is beautiful and and in the middle of it got off the rails there and you know what are you going to do? You can't knock this guy. He's doing God's work here. In between two separate events. Yeah, he's doing incredibly good things for those families of the fallen young boys. And so it's just one of those. He was always extremely conscientious about the work.

He was born to it. He read on the flights. All he read were the bios of divas and movie stars. He was really fascinated with television. In his days in the American Hockey League, the bus would pull into town, and he would get off the bus, and he'd say to his teammates,

we're going to turn on the TV, and if I can't name every actor and actress in whatever's on the TV, I'll buy. But if I can name every actress and actor on the TV when we move into the hotel, then you guys have to buy me one. He's like a gossip. He was an amazing Hollywood fan, right? Just amazing.

And that's why the outfits and that's why the lighting. He would spend, we would get into, you know, I'd be so excited, especially in my young career, I'd be so excited. It's game seven, the New York Rangers and the Vancouver Canucks. This is big. East coast, west coast. We do the opening and that, and then I want to watch the first period, and I'm like

a hawk. I want to watch. Don's not even looking at the game. He's in there farting with the lights and getting the chairs the right height so that he looks powerful. Just a TV... He's an entertainer. Don Bissonette. that he looks powerful and just a TV. He's an entertainer. He's an entertainer.

Don Bissonette. It was. Bissonette. Yeah. I mean, I had him in Boston. He was the very first coach I really remember. And I mean, that iconic thing on the bench, like I think it was in Montreal, like, you know,

all the dramatics he throws out that used to play leading to his clips. Well, I remember doing the all-star game in Boston in 96, maybe 95. I think it was 96. I think it was 96 because they just opened the building. Right. So Harry Sinden comes in, and Harry was mad at Don because Don had ripped. Steve Casper was coaching the Bruins, and he had benched Kevin Stevens and Cam Neely in Toronto. Yep.

And Don was livid, right? So he carved. He didn't like Casper anyway. So he carved Casper, and Harry Sinden, the GM of the Bruins, comes in to talk to me. Like, Don's not. He never does All-Stars, right? So he carved, he didn't like Casper anyway. So he carved Casper and Harry Sinnen, the GM of the Bruins, comes in to talk to me. Like, Don's not, he never does All-Stars, right? So I'm there alone and in comes Harry and he says, that was

despicable what you guys did. You guys, right? Guilt by association. I'm just sitting there. I didn't even say anything. But yeah, but anyway, I understand. And he says, and you're even worse for going along with it. And I said, Harry, you know Don. He loves Neely, and he just didn't want him left, you know,

and embarrassed on hockey night in Canada. He's not going to leave a guy in the middle of the field, you know, behind ironic, the conversation I was having with Harry. And Harry suddenly did like a 180. He says, well, he says, I know him. He says, I always wish I was never able to get back in a coach what Don had. You know, I wish I could find that whatever it is he has. The fire.

I've never had it. You know, like, and there's been a lot of good coaches. And the guys that have borrowed things like Melbury, Brian Sutter, I don't know about Mike Sullivan, but a little bit. Tortorella for sure wasn't that ruined. But, yeah. Burns for sure. Like, Hockey Night in Canada, every Saturday night, it's so big.

But then you took over a long time ago as, you know, running the Olympics. And then it's not just hockey fans. Like, did you feel a different pressure that went with that? And more than anything, you must have some special memories from 2010. It hurt me, but to get gold in van, you must have memories. Well, that's reminding you that he was in the game. I know, it's big. I'll tell anyone, a Starbucks barista here that played in the Olympics.

Well, so was I, right? I was home in my Oakville residence watching it, because CTV, the Canadian network that carried the games, was not us. Oh, wow. So I didn't go. I was home watching, of course. You're just a fan. When that goal, when the U.S. ties it,

a 2-0 lead squandered, especially to see Shea Weber and Niedermeier, I think, were the two for the Canadian defense. Yeah, I think those two were on the ice. We got all twisted up. I say we, but we got all messed up trying to nurse that thing home. And I thought,

how in the world is Canada going to get itself together? But in the overtime, as they all said, they got an intermission to kind of reboot, and there was a lot of veteran guys who, again, wasn't beneath their shirt. I think it was Niedermar who was like, boys, we're fine, with one beat of sweat right in the middle of his chest, as Whit describes it, where he'd already played 25 minutes,

but he wasn't sweating. Yeah. Well, I remember Gretzky came in in Torino in 2006. So after Canada lost in the quarterfinal to Russia, Ovechkin beat Brodeur and they won easily. Canada was never in those Olympics for whatever reason. And Gretzky came into a little bar in Torino, Italy after the game. Him and Steve Tambolini and Kevin Lowe and Walter Gretzky and Bob Nicholson and the whole entourage of Canada. And we're having beers that are this big.

And Wayne said, Niedermeyer killed us. He said, not having Scott Niedermeyer killed us. Scott had a bad knee and couldn't play. So they went with 7D and they were trying Brian McCabe on both sides and they brought Jovo in and they just never found a game. They just never found it. And he said, that guy is the guy that stirs the drink. Ron, I want to ask, obviously you're a human,

so some days you're going to have off days. When you have those type of days, how do you get to the level you need to be at to go on TV emotionally or enthusiasm-wise? I think it's... Rock star status. Well, you know, I definitely, I'm a humble, I try to be humble, and when you say that,

of course it sounds insincere or disingenuous. But I love the guest be the star mantra. And I kind of revert to, why are you here? You're not here for you. You're here for that viewer that wants to be entertained and wants to laugh and wants to know something. So I just kind of revert to, what is the actual thing that you're doing and why do you love that? It's not about you. So that was how I got out of my anxiety like when i was suffering in my early career a lot of you know how do i appear how am i sounding how intelligent

and am i winning this and you know one of the great things emerald is when you're when you're in a you know we'll start to armor up when we're afraid we'll start to put on all kinds of disguises and we'll start to say things that aren't really us because we're scared. And that experience is the only thing that teaches you how to be unafraid. And I learned, you know, eventually refereeing was a great help, you know, because I was trying my damnedest and it just got away on me. You know, I got it wrong and I understood it wasn't because of a lack of effort or a lack of ability.

It's just the way it goes. Right. And so a lot of lessons from reffing. And then when you're in our vocation, and I think it applies to all life, but it's not a far movement from I'm not worthy to I'm better than you. And you've got to watch those both. Yeah, right. You know, for me, that's the great art is to just sort of,

and that only comes from thinking of the other. The greatest wisdom of all is to just concentrate on the other person and not yourself. Well, I was going to ask, what are some of your better memories of doing Hockey Night in Canada? Are there some, like, tee us up with some ones that you always tell. Well, I mean, for me, one of the funny ones is how Bettman and I kind of fell apart was we were in, and this gives you an idea of how uh cherry operates which is great so we are doing the 99 stanley cup playoffs and we do toronto buffalo on the eastern side in the conference final it goes five games buffalo wins going away hoshek comes back after roly plays the first game and they win easy we're sitting at home

for a saturday night and uh the phone rings r, looks like Avalanche and Dallas are going to a seventh game in Dallas. We need you and Don to go down for a coach's corner and you'll host the pregame show. So I phone Grapes. Grapes, we've got to fly down to Dallas for Union Arena. We're going to host the seventh game. All right. All right. So we go down and he goes right to the hotel, pick out a tie for his green suit. He had the craziest green suit, lime green. I go right to the rink, and there's a host, Scott Russell of CBC, gives me this device called a Humidex. And he said the big storyline, Ron, is the humidity.

The temperature outside Reunion Arena on the tarmac in this late seventh game of the third round was like 140 degrees Fahrenheit. And they were terrified that the heat and the humidity was going to kill the ice in this old rink. So Dan Craig, the expert ice maker, had been flown in, and he put ventilation ducts in the ceilings. They had all the doors of the arena four inches ajar for whatever reason. They cooled the ice an extra two degrees. They had gone to all these lengths to try. And he said, Ron, this Humidex, hold it up. to all these lengths to try and he said and ron this humidex hold it up because if when you press the red button if the humidity relative humidity is 95 or higher that's a problem they don't think

they'll be able to keep the ice for 60 minutes so i go on the air good evening welcome to the seventh game high drama here in dallas and one of the storylines we're tracking is the heat and the humidity and actually the humidity is the bigger issue so I have a device here called a Humidex. I'll just indicate if it's 95 to 100, we're in trouble. Bing. It's 99% the relative humidity. So Dan Craig has done all this, but we're quite concerned. Game over. We're quite concerned.

So now here's a feature on the late Rocket Richard. As soon as I threw to the Rocket Richard feature, Gary Bettman comes roaring in. We're in a Zamboni at the corner of the reunion arena. Bettman comes roaring at me. Ron, why do you have to be so negative? And I had just got off a plane, right? I thought I was going to have a weekend off. I had just flown into Dallas.

And when I thought about it, he's right. It was kind of negative. I just did what I was told, right? We were supposed to talk about the ice being a storyline. But it was kind of negative. Anyway, nothing what I was told, right? We were supposed to talk about the ice being a storyline, but it was kind of negative. Anyway, nothing I could do about it. It's done. And Bettman and I, like two bantam roosters,

argue a little bit more. You know, I'm, well, if it wasn't June 3rd, we wouldn't have to worry about the ice, would we? You know, and so forth. So that's that. And then I go back to this little dressing room that we're going to use for the coach's corner. And Don is sitting there with Alan Clark,

a boss at CBC at the time. And Don's, I said to Don, I said, Bettman wasn't too happy with me talking about the ice conditions and don says oh is that right he said would you like a coffee we got fresh coffee here so he goes and grabs me a coffee and that's that we don't talk about that anymore and the first period happens and we get on the air and don says hold it hold Content. A little something here before we get rolling. This guy. This guy kills me. You're a wise guy. You know everything.

Oh, yeah. Ron McLean from Red River. Expert weatherman. Oh, yeah. Here he is. He's going to tell you. You don't know a lot, Ron. Let me just explain what you don't know.

You don't know that they just come out of Denver the other night. That was their 350th sellout in a row. I made hockey in Denver, of course. But anyway, that's 350 straight sellouts. I bet you didn't know that, did you? And I bet you didn't know this either. I bet you didn't know that in Texas, they have more professional hockey teams per capita

in the state of Texas than anywhere in the world. Did you know that? No, you didn't know that, wise guy, did you? And you didn't know that the ratings on ESPN now are through the roof. They said the other rating the other night, 16-'t know that, wise guy, did you? And you didn't know that the ratings on ESPN now are through the roof. They said the other rating the other night, 16-2 or something, is the highest rating they've ever had for a Stanley Cup playoff.

You didn't know that, did you? No, no. Ron McClain, weatherman from Red River, flies in. He's got the chance to host the seventh game of a game to go to the Stanley Cup. You've got Mike Medano versus Joe Sacchi. You've got Eddie Belfort versus Patrick Roy. You've got one game, winner take all, to go to the Stanley Cup. You've got Mike Modano versus Joe Sacchi. You've got Eddie Belfort versus Patrick Roy. You've got one game, winner take all,

to go to the final. It's a Saturday night, long weekend in Canada. Everybody's in a good mood. Except you. Oh, no. I'm going to stand here with my little thermometer

and I'm going to explain that the ice might melt. Isn't that great? He was burying you. He had me. So that was ice might melt. He was burying you. So that was the whole segment. And then as soon as the coach's corner ended, studio door opens, in comes Bettman.

Thank you, Don. Thank you, Don. I would fucking pay a million dollars to see the video. There were times you said, oh man, he's not going to say anything to me right now. He's going to wait until we get on camera. And I loved it. He's making a show of it. If there was a secret to

our relationship is that I got a bigger kick out of me being, you know, the fall guy. I loved that. I deserved it, right? Bettman was right. I was negative but I hadn't thought that through like a lot of things. I would imagine at that point in time that had already happened many a times. Are there any other situations where he was like hey man you know as players you have to

learn not to take the bait right do you that's the hardest thing because someone's going to be mercilessly carving you and poking fun at you and teasing you and whatever they can yeah you got it you just got a got a soldier. But it was a fun one. And we had, I mean, we've had so many just great, I remember early in my career trying to get a watch, some of these stories are not going to work anymore, right? But I remember we were doing the seventh game of Calgary versus Vancouver 89. This was a long time.

It was ancient history. I have to explain to kids. I was four at that point, Ron. Yeah, it was crazy. So Vancouver's giving the Flames all they can handle. Calgary was like 50 points ahead of them during the regular season, but it's gone down to the seventh game. And Cliff Fletcher, the GM of the Flames,

famously had pulled the bus over as it left the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver after the sixth game defeat. He pulled the bus over and kicked everyone off but the players, and he, Cliff Fletcher, the GM, had a heart-to-heart with the team. And it was supposed to be the way they won, albeit in double overtime in the seventh game. So I said to Don, I said, we're just sitting having a sauna at the Westin in Calgary, and we're going to go back up to the hotel room and drink a couple beers.

And I said, you should say, you know, can't you just picture it? Cliff Fletcher pulls the bus over, tells the driver he's got to get off, tells the coaching staff got to get off, trainers got to get off, any media that's on the board, get off. And then he's ready to talk to the team. And then he opens the door again and he says, all right, I'll have the Czech, the Russian, the Finnish, and the Swedish interpreters back on the bus.

You know, that's a funny, Don. Now, no longer is that acceptable, that story. I'm sorry to tell it now. This will work for you, Don. But 30 years ago, yeah, that was a Don type thing, right? So we get on the air, and I'm kind of excited at my own mischief that I've created, and I can't wait to see Don pull this off.

He says, well, I heard the big thing is Fletcher had a meeting. Hey, that's what I heard. Yeah, so he pulled the bus over as they left the rink in Vancouver the other night, right? Right? That's what i heard yeah they play uh so he uh he pulled the bus over as they left the rink in vancouver the other night right right that's what they did right and i know he's lost it right he doesn't know where he's going now and i i can't chip in because i don't know i can't there can be only one bigot on this show so i said well he probably had to kick off yes i know he had to kick the coaching staff off course i I'm the one telling the story here. What are you, stupid? And again, I shouldn't laugh at myself, but how could you not, right?

That was so funny. And yeah, those were the days. I mean, I look back, my book cornered. It's like if you ever revisit some of the things we did, how we made it 34 years is a miracle. Was he like that right off the hop? Yes. Well, no, as I say, Paul, he was generous to me when I started because I was scared.

And he liked me. You know, Don is one of those first blush. He'll read you. And if he thinks you're looking through him with evil in your thoughts, that's it. You're off the list for good. He told it. Here's a good story. When he wanted to kind of explain to me what he's like, we were at the Meridian in Montreal.

So this is the 86, 87 season, my first year. And I was getting a little bit, you know, wise ass with my puns at the end or whatever I was trying to do. Because, I mean, grapes kind of goes to six minutes. And then I tried to deflect. You tried to get a little time. Well, more to just assuage the. And sometimes push back on them a little bit. Yeah, a little bit.

Right. And sometimes just with levity to kind of establish, okay, there's always two sides to every story. But anyway, we're sitting at a bar at the Meridian Hotel in Montreal, and he told the story of his brother Richard was a good ball player, so was Don, and his father was a great ball player. So they're at a midget baseball game in Kingston, Ontario, where the Cherries grew up.

And Richard is in the game. Don Cherry and his father Del are sitting in the first base bleacher. And the home plate umpire comes over and says, hey, Del, the guy that was supposed to umpire at second base can't make it. Do you mind if Don umpires at second base? And Del said, no, of course, Don will get out there. And Don says, Dad, I don't know anything about umpire. He said, oh, for God's sakes, it's second

base. The ball's ahead of the runner. He's out. Get out there. And so Don goes out to umpire at second base and in the very first inning makes a ruling in favor of his brother Richard's team well the opposing manager comes flying out of the dugout and kicks dirt on him and you know does the whole Earl Weaver and Don doesn't know what to do doesn't know how to kick a coach out and he's kind of hot about it and the game ends and Don's still mad at this guy made a fool of him and so he goes over by that visiting dugout on the third base side.

And the guy pops up out of the dugout. And Don just kind of leans into him enough that he loses his footing, falls back into the dugout, cracks his head on the bench, and is out. And Don thinks, well, I didn't mean to do quite all that, but good. I'm glad. So he said, now I'm walking home with my father and brother. And they're ahead of me talking about the ball game. And I'm in behind.

I got a stick in my hand, and I'm going along these picket fences. And all of a sudden, this car pulls up. And it's a big car with four guys, including that manager from the other team. And they get out, and it looks like Kingston, 1950s. We got ourselves a fight here. So the manager says to Don, Don, I just want to say something. No hard feelings about that little thing at the end. That was just me losing my footing. And you were good

enough to help us out umpiring at second base. You did a good job. You were right on that call about your brother at second, so don't worry about it. Put her here. And they shook hands and they left. And Don's father turned to him and he says, Donald, if you ever shake the hand of a man who's crossed you again, you'll not live under my roof.

And that was Don telling me, and now here we are, but Don saying, once you've crossed. You're dead to me. Those are his codes. So does that concern you about the situation? Well, of course. But except, Paul, we were 34 years. I know deep down he knows I was in a jam or a pickle. And, yeah, I'm not worried.

He's stubborn. He's stubborn. But you know. I'll wear him out. I'll smother him somewhere. I'll go over to the house with – he likes Bush Light. I'll bring him some Bush Light. Oh, this is a Bud Light podcast.

Maybe we can help you. Maybe we can give you some pink money to send over too. When the European stuff started and he was just so hard on European players who have proven that they play so hard themselves. Would he behind the scenes at least admit the guy's a hell of a player?

Even to you. Yeah, well, Bure, it was a good example. Bure took Bure elbowing Shane Churla and sending him to Pluto for Don to like him. But he did like Burry after that. And, yeah, he had guys that, you know, he actually had Europeans on his Boston Bruins. Matty Hagman and I'm trying to think who else played for him. Oh, this is right up R.A.'s alley.

There weren't too many Euros back in the late 70s. I mean, I think Matt's Nazlo, he was already gone by then, Cherry, I think. There weren't a lot of Euros. Yeah, he had Hagman. That's the only guy. But he had, you know, and he was very proud of Stan Jonathan, was our First Nations hero from, you know, was a Tuscahora warrior. So he had, you know, Don, he was just all about toughness, Ryan.

Everything in his world was, you know, if you're going to look away, you know, the Bruins rule was you look at that guy and you don't leave that eye until he leaves. Yeah. It was dog pack, you know. you're gonna look away you know that that the bruins rule was you look that guy and you don't leave that eye until he leaves yeah it was dog pack you know intimidation intimidation yeah and he and he was also you know he's you know sly like a fox in terms of uh i mean we all cherish our jobs and we all want jobs and we all you know so anything that was a threat to somebody's you know like when a junior hockey team loses a guy to a position player from Europe, that's not popular in that community. And Don spoke on their behalf.

Don was always, you know, a little bit of the voice for those who didn't have a voice. Well, ironically. When he went back and coached Mississauga, I think Spezza was there. You must have been like, I don't know how this is going to go. I believe Patrick O'Sullivan was coached by Don Cherry. Yes, he was. He coached him. First, he had Spezza and Brian McGratton was on the Ice Dogs team.

And I remember the very first meeting, Grapes called everyone. I went and skated with the team. Stupid, right? But I went out and skated with the Ice Dogs. And they call the team to center ice to discuss curfew for that night. And Brian McGratton's there. And these were Brian's days when he was a little more rambunctious. And so Don says, I say 11 o'clock curfew tonight.

And don't forget, you guys, if you go out and screw up, you're not the one that's going to look bad. I'm the one that's going to look bad. Creeps. Yeah, so anyway, he says, 11 o'clock curfew. And Brian McGratton, you know, big, tall Brian, is towering over Don, and he's got his gloves on the top of his stick, and he says, Grapes, 10.30?

10.30 would be okay? Don says, 10.45. Curfew's 10.45. We got ourselves a deal. And that was how it ended, the first practice. He was worried. We were here in St. Louis when he made the decision to coach the Ice Dogs, and he was,

Don always had this feeling that people were going to come after him and, you know, give it to him, and they loved him. You know, he was always, because he's kind of a quiet, shy guy, he didn't realize that, you know, out in the community, they just can't get enough of him. Yeah, yeah. So everywhere he went, he was not going to be an enemy

or a guy that he was going to take some slings and arrows. But that kept him ready. I can tell you that. Now, talking about showmanship, we're seeing a lot more of it, I think, with some of the younger players. What do you think of that? Is it so much better for the game? Well, I was against it. I was always worried that you were – it's not that I'm against the celly.

It's just that I feel you're really flirting with inspiring the enemy. And why would you do that? Right. Why give them the ammunition they need? You know, I can't tell you how many games I've seen turn on a silly celebration. No kidding, huh? Well, even recently, the Kuznetsov, where the Caps rallied on the goal late in the second period, right?

Yeah. And they did the mock Kuznetsov, Devon Taves of the Islanders. That's right, yeah. And that turned that game. Yeah. You know, they were gone to sleep. Why do it? You know, and I think it's extremely,

I don't know how you feel, Ryan, but that's the risk. No, I think that it's, some of them are really cool and it's like fun. What kind of drives me nuts about the whole situation, I sound so old,

but is now like every 10-year-old in these games, they score to make it 8-2 and they're center ice celebration. It's almost like, guys, these guys are in the NHL, and the argument Keith Yandel always says to me is, you score a goal in the best league in the world, you deserve the right to celebrate however you want.

Well, everyone that looks up to you and sees you doing it, they think they can do it in a blowout on a Wednesday night. So I'm touch and go with it. I think it's cool, but you don't want it to get out of hand. blowout on a wednesday night so it's i'm touching go with it i think it's cool but you're just you don't want it to get out of hand that's kind of where i'll leave it out yeah you do it at your peril you you are definitely flirting with uh some kind of a pushback so watch that and then and then i mean they we're we're just trying to attract uh you know kids are so like you know they just the YouTube, like that lacrosse goal. Who's not going to be, everybody's going to do the between the legs.

You're a loser if you don't score a lacrosse goal now. Right, right. It's like a requirement at the combine. You have to prove that you can do it. Hey, we talked to Pronger. He's like, anyone try that when I was out there. Puck make his rest, but he'll never do it again. Exactly, yeah.

Like, well, I don't know, when McDavid waltzed Morgan Riley, you know, it was very kind of Morgan to let him finish up because, you know, 10 years ago that was going to be a broken... Last-ditch slash at the ear. For sure. Kevin Bieksa said that, right? And he definitely would have got at him. Were you at any of these games where they ever had, like,

issues, you know, between the benches, bench cream bars, or even in the hallways? No, Don always pushed to move the benches on opposite sides because he said that's a recipe for disaster. But I never worked in between the benches, Paul. I was always kind of back in the studio with grapes. And I mean, the only incidents, I remember Matt Cook coming at us. He was hot about something Don had said,

and that was in the, I think the 2006 Stanley Cup, but it might've been later on. And he was seriously mad. And I was in between Matt Cook, who's strong, right? His arms were like... Yeah, he's a thick little guy. A thick guy, yeah. So I didn't realize that.

When I grabbed his bicep, I was like, oh my God. What was he mad at Grapes about? Grapes had given him a hard time about, I think, a hit from behind, like a blindside hit. He had hit. I shouldn't be able to retain this. I think he wrecked LeCavalier's shoulder. I think he ran him from behind and Don called him on a

cheap shot, right? You know, being a rat. So Cook was upset about it. And I remember things like that happened, not too often, but that was one. We had Claude Lemieux after Claude Lemieux, the World Cup 96, which the Americans rallied and won 5-2. Yeah, he was great.

And Brett Hall was great. The whole team was great. Yeah, they were a great, great team. Power forward built team, right? Barron's and Kachuk's and so forth. Anyway, Claude Lemieux kind of blew the game. He was the right winger down in the left wing corner, and he fired the puck around the net to the right point, which is where he would have been.

So Grapes, you know, went on at the end of the telecast. He didn't like Lemieux either because Lemieux had hurt Neely and a couple other things. So he just ripped him a new you know what. And then the next morning we go into the lounge, Air Canada lounge, to fly home to Toronto. And who's in the lounge? Ron, Don, Claude Lemieux. The only guy, you know, that's in the lounge. So there was a few of those moments along the way where he had to face. Well, but to do that, you got to face the music. And he had no problem.

Listen, if I say it on the air, I'll say it to your face. He would, like Donald Brashear came in hot one night and, you know, grapes. Well, I'm standing here. What are you going to do about it? You know, Donald says, well, you're, you know, Grape said, well, I'm standing here. What are you going to do about it? You know, and Donald says, well, you're, you know, it's terrible what you did. Well, yeah, well, I'm right here. What are you going to do about it?

And then Brashear, you know, starts leaving the room, and he, oh, so you're going to run. You're going to run just like you run on Marty, huh? Let's go. Come on. This is like a Don Cherry. He's completely flipped the script. He knows in the back of his head that who wants to be noticed

punching out a 70-year-old guy. Yeah, that's right. Probably got a bulletproof vest underneath those suits. So many of those moments. I want to go back to the reffing for a second. I'm sure you're sympathetic to it. Because of the technology and we see the replays in slow-mo 100 times, do you think the referees in the NHL today get way too much grief,

or is it appropriate? Well, it's going to be interesting even going into these playoffs. How do they call, like, you know, I said to you, I kind of got unglued with the 06 crackdown that I thought was too much. It's such a challenge to get it right. I think, you know, the whole Vegas-San Jose thing last year, the mistake that was made on the five-minute major to Cody Eakin, I just think we have

to live with that stuff. I don't know why I think that, but for me as a referee, it was all part of the lessons. It's an awful thing to have a team knocked out of the playoffs on a bad call. Especially when you've got money on them. Yeah, there's money on it, and I think now the gambling is going to continually escalate our interest,

and it's going to be a revenue stream for sure. So I suppose it's got to be, you know, the saying is, let's get it right. But I think the righteousness about sport is actually virtue, not wins and losses and goals and assists. That's interesting. The real essence of sport is how do you face the battle? Just live with it. The warrior respects the battle, doesn't care about the outcome. I mean, you're probably familiar with Don Dankajan,

the 85 World Series. I mean, he basically, well, this city here lost the World Series because of a bump call he made. And he actually got a painting of it made, and he kept it in his living room just to kind of remind him that he's human and we're all frailty. Another example like that, Admiral, is the World Cup of Soccer in 06. Pele, Not Pele.

The arm goal. Zinedine Zidane? When he headbutted the guy? That's right. The Manchurian headbutt. Oh my God. One of the dumbest plays you've ever seen. He just lost his mind. Took himself out of the game, but what did he get when he went home to Paris? He got a hero's welcome. Exactly. They lost that game. They lost to the

Italians, right, because of that. You take your Gretzky out of the lineup. That was that. It was over for them. But in a way, the people who understood what had happened were forgiving of the loss. They were more interested in honor than victory. And I think the guy had said something in his ear that was inappropriate. Oh, absolutely. Sister and mother.

Yeah, one of his family. Yeah, bad stuff that just made him slam. As somebody who's so involved in the game of hockey and forming relationships with players, now granted you're in the studio, but still, guys going through, has it been weird for you to see how as the game's gotten younger,

there are no 36, 37-year-old veterans, well, they're far from a lot of them that are in the game a long time and become characters in the league because a lot of times, 30 years old, you're kind of running towards the end of the career now. P.A. Parenteau, just kind of a good career, nothing sensational, but he said 27 is the new 32. At 27, you're done unless you're really good. I think of 29 years old, I look at guys

signing at 29, I'm like, back nine. You're on the back nine at 29. You look at the special guys that Daniel Char playing at 40 in the NHL is crazy to me. Well, the Norse trophies that Lidstrom won seven of them, all after the age of 31.

And Doug Harvey won seven of them, all after the age of 31. And Doug Harvey won seven of them, all after the age of 31. Bobby Orr, of course, won eight, and he didn't get to 28. Well, and G.R. Dano won it last year. He was what? I believe he was the second oldest player to ever win the Norris Trophy. Really? Or maybe my stats are on here, Ron. I also thought Austin Matthews was on his entry-level contract this year.

Oh, it's okay. My brain's starting to click out. Yeah, but he said 11 interviews. He ended up kind of going all squirrely. Totally entitled to go squirrely. And that's what Pink Whitney's for. Yeah, exactly. My guys love it, by the way, Ryan.

I play beer league hockey on Wednesday nights, and they all have seats and seats at Buffalo. And you can get it there. It's harder to get in Ontario for us. Soon. Within the next couple of weeks. Oh, good to hear. They'll be over the moon. It's harder to get in Ontario for us. Soon. In the next couple of weeks. Oh, good to hear. They'll be over the moon.

It's like they're smuggling illicit drugs when they bring the pink Whitney. Someone said they had to pay $1,100 on $2,200 worth coming over the border today, which it's obscene doing that, but thanks for the support. Nice to see. The guys just love it. We actually put something in it that makes it addictive, so that's why we can sound so much of a... Yeah, nicotine in our vodka.

When we were in Welland, Paul's hometown, they drink O.V. as Old Vienna is a beer that, for whatever reason, has become the cultural beer of Welland. They love to drink O.V., and the saying is you can't spell love without O.V. That explains biz. Yeah, that's right. We've taken so much

of your time. We appreciate it, but a guy I've been close with ever since I played together with him was Colby Armstrong, and you've gotten to really know him with his works. What do you think about that guy? And I think he's kind of added a ton of energy to the broadcast. Yeah, he's a genius. I used to love Ryan when he was with Toronto and he had his ankle injury, and we were doing the Battle of the Blades.

Do you know what that is? Maybe your American viewer or listener might not know. It's a figure skater and a hockey player tandem. They get together and do Dancing with the Stars on ice. So Colby was supposed to compete in it this year. He used to be rehabbing his ankle with the Leafs and would watch us do this Battle of the Blades series. And I could tell he was always keenly interested in it.

He figure skated growing up when he was really young. His mother was a coach, right? His mother was a skating coach. Yeah, Rosie. And so he knows his stuff. He came on our Battle of the Blades this year as a judge and just blew our minds. He had technical, we call that stroking.

Well, he was supposed to compete, but then he pulled his hamstring. Tore his hamstring or something, yeah. That was ugly looking. But he's great for the broadcast, Ryan. He's a Red Deer Rebel where I grew up. He won the Memorial Cup with my hometown junior hockey squad and always a great leader. Funny.

You could ask him about snowbanks. He and I went to a bar in Moncton one time called Plan B. I don't know how I ended up in a snowbank before Plan B. What a name of a bar. Great spot. Only original music. Colby and I had a fun night there, among many. Let's talk about that infamous photo of when you got your shirt off when you were on the bar. That was in Victoria, great spot. Only original music, and Colby and I had a fun night there, among many. All right, let's talk about that infamous photo of when you got your shirt off

and you were sitting on the bar. That was in Victoria, I believe. The Social. It's now called The Social, the bar. Jeremy Petsing. Is that who has the bar? He owned it. Now he owns the local there.

The local, right. That's right. It's now the local. So, yeah, that was, as you know, the Cortinal Golf event, and the song was laughing my effing ass off, and for whatever reason, we thought we would do moves like Jagger to that song. We were on the wrong song. It was Justin Cortinal.

Sorry, Justin, to throw you under the bus, but I do that. Anyway, we decided we would get up on the bar, and I mean, a lot of people did, but I should have known. I can't, you you know not with that many cameras but no you knew something it's a party trick it didn't really go too far off the what do you mean it was awesome it kind of went viral there oh yeah it did yeah they I remember the CBC you know phoning Ron have you seen the picture no it's like yes you're like yeah it's my screensaver yeah that's right it right. It's just like that referee.

I got the mural put in my living room so I can stare at it and know that we're all human once in a while. How do you know the owner of the local? Well, I actually purchased a home in Victoria. I met some friends out there, and I love it. Probably once I retire, that's going to be my summer home. VGC Golf Course, it's unbelievable. Through Callahan O'Connor, one of my buddies, he introduced me to Jeremy Petsing.

And there's a ton of hockey players that are from there. The Ben boys, of course, Tyson Berry. And just really the community, Oak Bay. It's just so beautiful and quaint. I hate to say it, but a lot of places in Canada now, you go outside, I want to say hi to my neighbors. I want to walk down the street with, say, my dog or my girlfriend or my wife. I almost gave Ari a heart attack.

I want it to feel like Canada a little bit. Sometimes I feel like we're losing that and everyone's not as social anymore. And I just fell in love with it there. So great people. And I'm sure you know it's a good time. Oh, I love it. I just had a ball at Cortnall's, you know, dear friends. So we have Matthews will come up on our broadcast tonight.

He's not playing in the All-Star. He told us. He told us he's going to be with you. So, yeah. So he's obviously Lawton, Russ's son, and Austin trained together, and Matthews has been to Victoria a million times. And so I kind of got all the lowdown. Boris Doroshenko, right, was one of the skating coaches for Austin.

I think this story has been told in our podcast. So you mentioned Cortinal and how big of pranksters they are. So Callahan O'Connor, his father, he owned a nice boat and he had it right in the marina. So he called or had somebody call their house while they were having a nice dinner party and say, hey, Mr. O'Connor, your boat is sinking in the marina right now. There must have been some hole in it, and it's going under.

So Ben O'Connor puts his jacket on, he drives down there, and Cortnall ended up walking in the house as soon as he left. And he said, let's let him sweat it out a little bit. So those are the types of pranks that Cortnall was playing, and it's such a tight-knit community. That's great. I had to have one more. I know we talked about Don and his military stuff.

You come from a military family as well. Now, you were actually born in West Germany, correct? Yeah, Zweibrucken. So that was kind of a fluke because I was breached. You know what that is? I don't know, but it's upside down or backwards in the womb or something. And anyway, Mom was in 48 hours of labor, and they were worried, so they took her to the better hospital in Sviatbrook.

And we were actually living in Metz, France. Dad was stationed there. And yeah, up until I was 12, we were all over the country as a military brat. I loved that upbringing. I lived in Yukon in northern Canada, also in Nova Scotia, Victoria for a year and a half. You've been everywhere. Yeah, it was a good, you know, for me yeah it was a it was a good you know for me again like refereeing was a good to kind of teach you we're all the same right right uh so i was very

grateful for that uh upbringing and the only thing about it is for your for your hockey it's a test because you're you're moving away from a team you know you just finally make a team and then you got to go try and establish yourself again and once you hit peewee oh i went to ask you ryan you played in the quebec peewee tournament right did you play to ask you, Ryan, you played in the Quebec Pee-wee tournament, right? Did you play in it? I didn't. Whit will let you know. He usually talks about it every episode.

Yeah, I want it. We want it. No way. Yeah, we won it in overtime. We beat the Richmond Hill Stars in overtime. Great. Yeah, it was the coolest memory. I mean, at that time, he was on ESPN2,

and you think back to being 10 years old, and you're already talking about going to Quebec, I think 12 or 13 years. And then, you know, first you've got to get into Durham, and then we get in, and we ended up winning it. So that memory is like maybe one of my top hockey memories, being on the ice with your dad and all that stuff. We're going for Rogers Hometown Hockey is there, and Eric Lindros has been invited there.

So that's how things can come around, right? Eric, of course, you know, didn't want to go to play for Marcelo Bou. Was he right about that? And anyway, he's going to be a guest. I don't think we'll get him on the Sunday broadcast. Tara Sloan, my colleague on Hometown Hockey, will probably interview him on the Saturday. But how cool that Eric is going in as a guest of the Quebec Peewee Tournament.

Would you attribute your appreciation for Canada and every place because of the fact that you were able to move around and see every different place? I think, Paul, honestly, I actually go away from nationalism because of moving around a lot. I think everybody in Alberta is so proud of Alberta and hates BCers. And I'm generalizing. I don't mean to start a war here. Quebec and L. West are not exactly getting along right now. That's right.

So you have all these regional fights or feudsuds and fiefdoms and it's silly uh you know when you go to all those places everyone's lovely and everything's great and so you kind of learn to strip away the the flag waving a little bit because of that military upbringing and that's what i got out of it sounds a lot like now like the states like a canada used to you can kind of think of one whole canada but it's kind of it seems like it's getting fractured a little bit more like we are down here. We were always, you know, and now our little other big thing is we have First Nations that we never really resolved our issue with. We kind of came in, took the land and, you know, we like it.

Same boat, yeah. We're figuring that out slowly but surely. But, I mean, it's both countries are just, we're fantastic neighbors and fantastic places. You know, I just was driven over here. I couldn't find the Ritz, my driver, who just moved. Not bad, eh, Ryan? Yeah, yeah. Ever since Serge Ibaka, right?

You're now living like the other half lives. Oh, come on. That was great. It was such a great thing. And what, did you enjoy Bianca or? Penny. One thing about Penny is her personality didn't show on camera. No, she's so shy.

She's very shy and very polite. And when cameras were off rolling, all of them, that Bo Bichette is a stud as well. But Serge, just such a good, especially the multiculturalism in Canada for him to be one of the faces of the Toronto Raptors and how open he is about doing videos and showing his personality. It was a cool little thing.

And Ron, when I got the call, I was like, what? I'm like, who? Like those people, me? What? I was like, you guys are aware that people are going to rip me apart with the fact that I got the nod for this. But it was because somebody had backed out.

But I was very fortunate to experience that and meet those people. Yeah, but you need somebody to kind of throw the little bit of levity here or a little bit of leadership here yeah so you have some experience with that right paul so it's perfect it made it well it's great ron listen to come on with us is great and i think people love hockey so much but it would be different if they didn't have people like you the way you guys present the game and present the product so it's it's nothing without the entertainment aspect and hockey inockey Night in Canada, for me,

the broadcast has always been so exceptional. And the little videos with music they play before playoff series, you know what I mean? Oh, my God. Those things have legit brought me to tears. It's like it makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck. You've done it for so long, so thank you. And thanks for joining our podcast.

Yeah, thank you, guys. And last thing I'll say is I hope things are able to be patched up between you and Don, and hopefully if that happens, we'd love to have you guys on and maybe talk about some stuff. How many ads will you sell? He'd just rip on Ron the whole time. Don just sits there. When we got him on together, I do the storytelling, right?

Don just sits and preens at how funny he was. Got to love him for that. Tell him this one. Love it. Thank you so much to ron mclean and um i think everyone listening if you could take away one thing from that entire interview for me personally it was that two guys who disagree on social issues that much and i think it was clear that they did disagree on many things were able to get along and be that good of friends and

a working partnership and today's day and age it's there's so many people that if you think different than me I can't work with you I can't be friends with you it's like those two guys basically personified a relationship that didn't agree on everything but put stupid things that

didn't necessarily like matter, but put stupid things that didn't necessarily matter to their relationship aside to get an unbelievable product out there for that long of a time. So thank you to Ron McLean, and thank you to Don Cherry for what you did as well, because that was an eye-opening, great interview for me to be a part of.

And I think that some people who are stubborn, they're not going to change their opinion on Ron McLean and how maybe he handled the situation and vice versa with Don Cherry. I just hope that people are able to actually listen to that interview, digest what you've heard, give it some thought, and then have an opinion. Just at least hear the interview, listen to it, listen to it maybe even again. And I hope that maybe you guys can see that it wasn't maybe what you thought of in the beginning and how maybe Ron threw him under the bus.

So this is an open invite. If Don Cherry would like to come on and also talk, this isn't just a one-sided thing. Our platform is a place where we feel anyone should be able to feel comfortable coming and telling their side of the story and ultimately let the fans hear how it all went down behind the scenes. But let me tell you quickly before we move on. Don Cherry waiting and waiting and waiting for the live TV to hit

to talk about the humidity machine he had is one of the funniest stories I've ever heard. Because him just saying, oh, okay. And then just like have it. And the fact that Batman was partly in the story as well. Don Cherry is the original king of content. Oh, you think I'm going to say something now? No, I'm going to wait till the cameras are rolling.

That's one thing I hope that doesn't get lost with everything that Ron said is like the fucking stories about Don that were absolutely hilarious. Like he was, I sense like, you know, he's got a still has a love for him. And it's just like, you know, Don's just an old fucking timer was kind of stubborn. And I was just fucking psyched that we had. This is way, way different of a scale. But we talked about Quenville coming back and there were some kind of nasty things that happened when he left Chicago. But in the end, it was the memories that everyone had. It might take a little bit of

time but in the end what are you going to think of with Ron McLean and Don Cherry you will not think of the end if you're a true hockey fan the last 30 years you will think of the amazing Saturday night memories of those two and I think that that all made it clear and ultimately what concerns me the most is is a guy like Don Cherry of course hearing how stubborn he is will maybe this be the one thing that he gets over? Because at the end of the day, that's a long friendship. Ron said he thinks he'll get over it. He goes, I'll wear him down, he might have said.

Exactly. And I hope he does. Life's too short, man. So we can move on. What else you got? Thank you to Ron McClain. And as I said, Don Cherry, you can come on anytime. It'd be cool to hear your side.

Absolutely. Open invite's always there. And I didn't get in because Whit was on such a roll. But just want to give a huge thank you to the city of St. Louis. The people here are amazing. I mean, the Midwest, you hear about the hospitality. And to be a part of it, we just want to tell everybody thank you. The food was great.

The booze was great. The people were great. And Whit, I had told you there was a clip I saw. I didn't want to sound like, oh, we're pro-Boston. But Layla Anderson's mom you know Layla the young girl who got the team rallying last year awesome story I saw a clip of her

mom talking and she said afterwards after the Stanley Cup they tallied up all the donations at the hospital that Layla was at and she said that like the vast majority of them were from Boston and it was like it was such a cool thing to know. Because we have some dickhead fans, and I'll be the first to acknowledge it.

But even during the Chicago series, everything was very polite. And then to know that people were like, hey, man, this is so much bigger than a game. That's awesome. It was a pretty cool thing. So I just want to mention that. Well, speaking of Boston, man, one thing I can't wait to get back home for is Dunks. Everybody loves Dunks. That's speaking of Boston, man, one thing I can't wait to get back home for is Dunks. Everybody loves Dunks. Us New Englanders, of course.

And with Dunkin' Go 2s, you can get a great deal on two of your favorites. Dunkin' Go 2s got a great deal. You get two egg and cheese wraps for $2, two bagels with cream cheese spread for $4, and two bacon, egg, and cheese croissants for $5. In my opinion, it's a pretty tough deal to beat. But that's just my go-to sense you can take it or leave it but you should probably take it duncan go twos a great deal for two four or five dollars america runs on duncan participation may vary limited time offer exclusions apply and

when we do have our pawn hockey tournaments up in new hampshire and toronto dunks is going to be hooking us up getting our bellies warm to get the day started. So meanwhile, moving on to the next subject, we're pretty much done with St. Louis. We have to also mention it's going to be walk-up tickets sold at the event in New Hampshire. We mentioned that we have that Booze Gardens that fits 500 people. There's about 250 people that are in the pond hockey tournament itself. But on the Saturday, if you're around Grinnelly's old college, let's make it a day of outdoor drinking and festivities

where we get to interact with all the fans. As mentioned on the previous podcast, a $20 entry fee to the Booze Gardens. It's going to be Pink Whitney everywhere. There's going to be beer available as well. That will get you, the $20 entry fee will get you two free drink tickets and, hey, we're going to be hanging around having a good time and it's going to be beer available as well. The $20 entry fee will get you two free drink tickets.

And, hey, we're going to be hanging around having a good time, and it's going to be a show. And the community at Lake Winnipesaukee is awesome. So if you are in the Boston area and you're not doing anything that day, it's just a two-hour drive, hour-and-a-half drive up north, and it's definitely worth the suggestion. All right, Doug, New England and the Wintha. I know we talk about these polls that come out all the time.

Well, the NHL released the all-decade first team, and a couple of no-brainers on here, but we'll read them off. We've got Sidney Crosby, Patrick Cannon, Alex Ovechkin, the forwards, Duncan Keith and Drew Dowdy were the defensemen, and Marc-Andre Fleury was the goaltender. And the second team was Malkin, Bergeron, and Stamkos for the forwards, Eric Carlson and Zidane O'Chara on D. And the goaltender was Henrik Lundqvist.

What do players take on this stuff? They don't give a fuck. But does this carry any more weight than, say, like a fucking ESPN poll? Or are they all kind of the same? They're all the same. A poll's a poll. I'm convinced that sometimes they may not pick the one that they wanted to in order to create conversation around it to drive traffic.

I actually think the first team, you can't argue it. Maybe you could say another goalie, but in the end, those two defensemen, those three forwards, is what it is. Somebody had an argument that the last decade team, Lundquist instead of Fleury, but it's splitting hairs here. They're both stellar goaltenders.

Put it this way. Stephen Stamkos is sleeping. His phone rings. Hey, Stammer, you know you made the second team, not the first all-decade team? Oh, all right. Players don't give up. By the way, all 10 of those guys, 11, 12, they're all loaded. Who cares what the NHL network or the NHL and NBC's all-decade team is?

And just for the record, it's chosen by a panel of NHL general managers, NHL hockey operations staff, NHL.com writers, and on-air talent from NBC SportsNet and TVA Sports who won a combined 13 Stanley Cups. And speaking of NHL GMs, it was pretty funny going into the arena last night when we – I'm walking with Biz, and it's like we say, you can lose him at any moment.

Everyone's screaming Biz. And all of a sudden, I see him screaming, Army! And we saw Doug Armstrong about 50 yards away, ran over to him, St. Louis Blues GM. Pretty cool to get to see the guy who built this Stanley Cup winning team and also invited us to camp,

and we had a nice little hello with him. It was cool. Well, what I said was, no, I said, Army, where the fuck are our contracts? And me and Whit were standing there and he turned around and he started laughing. He was like, he saw a ghost. He's like, oh my God, get away from me. Not these two idiots again, which is funny because when we talked about working together post career, the original conversation has started on that PTO in St. Louis.

So it all came full circle. We knew we'd be connected at some point at the end of our first career. And I think all of you know how I feel about Doug Armstrong, salt of the earth guy, one of the best in the business. And I was so happy that they didn't can him because at one point this fan base was getting very vocal about that they wanted a change at the helm and the owners and whoever

at the top making the decisions kept him around and fuck he's proved himself. Well just moving on to the a lot of the players they get shown on the Jumbotron a lot of dudes got beards now and I'm hoping a lot of them are using the Phillips Norelco OneBlade because it's a pretty cool instrument if you like to

trim your face up. Phillips Norelco has the most because it's a pretty cool instrument. If you like to trim your face up, Philips Norelco has the most innovative electric grooming tools to help you do what feels right. And the Philips Norelco OneBlade is the one tool that will let you trim, edge, and shave any length of hair with a single pass. It's easy to use for both your face and your body biz, so when you want to get prepped up for a beach like Miami, if you're going down a rough road. You're using that fucking shit before you're stuffing your drawers with cash from now on.

Absolutely. Keep that fucking stuff trimmed, boy. It ain't 1980 anymore. Hey, man, it's your style made simple. One blade does it all. Go to phillips.com slash Norelco Barstool to save $5 off the Phillips Norelco One Blade Face or

One Blade Face and Body Shaver by using the code chiclets so check that stuff out and like i said if you're a dude in this day and age you ought to be trimming it uh we had a 1000 professional game biz uh unfortunately you're not on the hershey beers right now but matt molson played his 1000th professional game not nhl combined with the ahl uh the hershey beers uh had a nice little celebration for him and he got fucking two points in the game. I'm sorry, two goals in the game. Good for him.

Good run. He had a lot of good years in the NHL and I think a guy who kind of lost a step, maybe couldn't skate at the NHL level anymore, but sure could score. Very, very well liked. And it doesn't matter. A thousandth game play.

I don't care what league it's in. I don't care where it happens. And Max Talbot was proof of that. He's in town right now, but he was proof. He got his 1,000th game playing ceremony when he was in Russia, I think, when he was with Locomotive. So no matter what league you're in, if you play 1,000 pro games, you should be honored. So glad that Matt Molson

got to get that honor in the AHL. And a nice little night with that celebration is cool. I mean, you're playing the game and you suck. It's still cool. It was your 1,000th game, but you're like, I was terrible. He had two assists. So you can go home and sleep easy at night.

No problem. There we go. And we got to actually, excuse me, my voice. Like I said, we've been here for a few nights. Our race faded. No, I'm actually not fading. I need to go home. It's so bad.

I'm actually, I still got a lot of energy. I'm just hoarse because, you know, I'm a fucking big mouth. But anyways, we're going to keep chuggingging along we had a pretty cool sign that come across the wire uh the la king signed jack jablonski to be their content coordinator working on podcasting radio and tv uh if the name sounds familiar jack was injured in a 2000 uh 2011 game and he was paralyzed and he's one of these young kids that you know we kept track of we have you know matt brown and uh in the boston area of course and you know it's nice to see that he's one of these young kids that we've kept track of. We have Matt Brown in the Boston area, of course. And it's nice to see that he's got a job in hockey, man.

He must be psyched, and we saw that, and we're happy for him, and hopefully he'll find some success in that game. A hundred percent. Everyone rallied around him when that tragic accident happened. I know J.R. was very involved with, in helping him back stay positive in his recovery because, you know, man, it was a grind for a while. And the fact that he's, you know, been able to transition his playing career to stay in the game and do something he loves on the other side of it,

it's awesome, man. And I could imagine there were some, you know, dark days for him and how much it sucked through what he had to deal with. But the fact that he's still trucking along and he's not using it as an excuse, it's perseverance. So all of our followers, if you don't mind giving him some love on social media and congratulating him on all of his success. And also, too, Nick Malafront, he's another Boston guy

who's got a good relationship with Boston. So he's in a similar situation as Matt. So I just wanted to give him some love as well. Atta boy, Nick. We got some Pink Whitney updates for the LCBO. So listen, guys. We got some good news in Ontario. If you're in Markham, if you're in Ajax, if you're in Mississauga, if you're in Sudbury,

if you're over in Peterborough, if you're flying around over in... What's another city? Toronto. Moose Jaw. Moose Jaw's in Saskatchewan, but you can take that one to the bank. Well, I need to think of another Ontario off my, oh, how about this? Oshawa. London.

What about the Hammer? What about Hamilton? Hamilton, Austin. What about Welland? What about Welland Business Home? What about Timmins, Ontario? I've been up there. World Under-17 Challenge.

Thanks, Kovalchuk, for walking me. That's why I hate you to this day. Well, we got news that the LCBO has finally given the AOK for the Pink Whitney to come into your province, to grace your presence, to come into your households and help you catch a buzz, help you enjoy the game, help you maybe get lucky with the girl you have a little crush on. No promises.

You never know what can happen when you have Pink Whitney, but the fact that it'll be in the province of Ontario now brings just a warmth to my entire body. You're waiting for the goddamn date, Whit. Just drop the fucking date. April 1st, you can all be sure

that it'll be there. That ain't April Fool's, you fuckers. It's coming. Hey, listen. April, April, you can all be sure. That ain't April Fool's, you fuckers. It's coming. Hey, listen. April, April. And you know what happens in April? A couple weeks in, first round of the playoffs. And now, granted, all you Ontarians probably are worried the Maple Leafs aren't in the playoffs right now.

But I think they'll get in. I'm confident they'll get in. And you'll have our drink. You'll have the pinkness to celebrate, to get waffled, to enjoy your life. Come playoff time. And now, listen, LCBO made it clear they didn't enjoy my boy band joke. I take it back, LCBO. I can make fun.

You can get mad. And now we're all together. We're a team bringing an exciting new pink drink to the citizens of Ontario. And they deserve it. And Biz was one of them, so God knows what he would have been doing if he was in high school or playing junior with Pink Whitney because you see what he does now when he's not even on the piss so thank you very much for being patient with us and I promise you'll be happy come April when it is in your province we might have to call the St. Louis fight about him because this guy's oh my

god when we're in person how many Adderall do you take none I'm I'm full-blown natural right now can you imagine that and for those poor suckers out there who don't imbibe with the old Pink Whitney, just want to let you know, new from Bud Light, it's Bud Light Salsa, and we know what you're thinking. No, there's no Bud Light in it. It's a light and refreshing hard salsa with a hint of fruit

flavor. It's got 5% alcohol, 100 calories, and it comes in four delicious flavors. Black Cherry, Lemon Lime, mango, strawberry, and you can get a variety pack as well if you want to mix it up a little bit. Go try it for yourself. It's just hitting stores in the U.S. right now. Sorry for all of our Canadian friends.

I guess some things don't change in that regard. But if you really love chiclets, try Bud Light Salsa mixed with the Pink Whitney. It's a perfect combo. I don't know if you've tried it yet. I know the stuff's been around all weekend. Oh, I have. I've mixed. Grinnelli's been dummying them. Yeah, I love the lime seltzer with

the Pink Whitney. It's just like a soda. I'll give it a shot when I'm back on the piss. Now, no, no. I got to say, though, with this Bud Light situation, they fucking, they sponsored what we got going down here in St. Louis, so we're very thankful. This has been, I would say, our most productive trip ever.

I feel like we say that, but this is... No, pound for pound, this was... I know we keep saying that, but... We're just stroking ourselves off. This was bizarro world. But anyway, Pink Whitney Bud Light Seltzer is actually one of the signature cocktails at the Pond Hockey Tournament,

and we do need a name for it. So tweet at Spittin' Chicklets and Bud Light with your favorite name for the drink and we'll put it on the menu for the tournament. If your name is chosen for the menu, we'll send you guys some Spittin' Chicklets gear and a whole bunch of Bud Light Salsa merch. So throw your submission

in. We'll see what we got. I'll even send you a few bottles too. Did I tell you about the Pink Whitney Junior Hockey story that I was told? I cannot mention the league that this happened in, but there was the—and it wasn't OHL, WHL, or Quebec League. It was before that. But nowadays, you know, the refereeing and the people who run the league,

they're very against offensive discussions on the ice, I'll say. In a sense, talking shit has kind of gone away because you can't say anything that could personally really offend someone. Well, in this league, there was a little report sent in after the game from the referee to the league office to try to figure out, we heard a player say something about Pink Whitney to another player. We have to look into this. We don't know if it was offensive speech.

Well, sure as shit, they asked down the line, and thank God an intern went this league, said, that's a drink. At a point, this referee thought Pink Whitney might have been like an offensive, maybe a comment that shouldn't be shared on the ice, maybe a sexual comment. No, it's just a Whit Dog's drink. Like working their lips off?

Yeah, exactly, like pink something. It's all pink and the don't worry about that part. But either way, the fact that leagues are now catching on, that pink Whitney isn't anything you should be worried about, it's more just something you should enjoy. I thought that was kind of funny. Yeah, pink definitely. Maybe nobody else did.

No, pink is definitely innuendo. I mean, Aerosmith made a song famously pink about, well, vaginas, Paul. Right up your alley. Paul's on his phone. He mean, Aerosmith made a song famously pink about, well, vaginas, Paul. Right up your alley. Paul's on his phone. He goes, what? Pardon? My spidey senses went off. Did you say pussy?

I can smell it. So we're always talking about these young players and being showmanship a little bit more, getting a little more, not as fucking old-fashioned like we used to see. Well, the Sharks are letting players pick their own goal songs, man. So, I don't know, Biz, if you scored, what would your goal song be? On or off the ice? I don't know. God, you're putting me on the spot now.

I'm already thinking you're going to ask me next. I got nothing. Biz, you told me one. Well, no, I tweeted at Marlo's wife, and I'm trying to find the tweet here. So give me it. Pardon? Marlo's wife mentioned it on Twitter, right? So I saw that, and I said, I would play The Prayer by Celine Dion and Andrea Bocelli,

but they have to play the entire song and put the video on the Jumbotron. No significant reason to your wonderful husband but that song i said claps but i should have said slaps and because he's a legend they'd probably allow it i don't know if you've ever heard that song the prayer and when they perform it live and you can watch it on youtube now i sent that off before i took my flight yes i purchased the on-flight wi-fi because i'm a fucking baller now you got your dick off on that flight didn't you listen to that dude i fucking i watched it over and over like six times and the lady beside me like she could obviously see that i was crying i was leaking now she's like i wanted to blow you

before you were crying now i just really want to marry you sorry buddy that's what happens to you dude boyfriend of the year don't put those thoughts in my head um but what a song folks i recommend you go watch it if you haven't if If you're having a bad day right now, and even if you're, oh, these guys are rambling on, and you're Rick from Red Deer, and you're upset because we forgot what the fuck a natural hat trick was,

just put that song on, and I'm pretty sure you're going to enjoy the rest of your day. I think I'd maybe get a different song for each type of goal. If you score a power play goal, you get one song for that. You get a shorty,

you get a different song for that. By the way, natural hat trick is three goals in a row with nobody else from either team scoring. You have to score the three goals in a row that the crowd sees, experiences, celebrates, and that the announcer mentions. So nobody else mixes up anything else or gets in between your three goals.

That's a natural hat trick. Well, when you said, when you missed on the line, do I look nervous by Binnington, that was a Rick from Red Deer moment where people are like, that was so obvious. How did you not remember that? So that from now on, when we fuck up something that's obvious.

Well, maybe Rick from Red Deer should send Wendy from Winnipeg a couple dirty pics and just have a nice little FaceTime session and not worry about what good old Ryan Whitney who's trying to just finish off a productive week is saying. session and don't worry about what good old Ryan Whitney, who's trying to just finish off a productive week, is saying. Don't worry about me. And Rick from Red Gear, just enjoy your time driving down to Calgary and rooting on the flames. Wait, speaking of worrying about you, I think one thing I've taken out of this trip from St. Louis

is to not play videos at the bar. Oh, God. This is a fucking crazy story. Do we have anything else before the end of the episode? Because this is kind of like the Larry David ending that we had a few episodes ago. Some stuff happens to me that doesn't happen to other people. Would you agree with since we met? Yeah, 1,000%.

And your wife always says that as well. Stuff happens to me that you can't really explain it. So Mikey and I, we're hanging out today. Do you want to go into something else already? Sorry. No, I will finish with the quote. Just a couple other notes. Alright, I'll give a quick story. Maybe you'll think I'm a little out of

line in this. In the end, I really don't care. I'll tell you the dead honest truth and Grinnelly's here to back me up or disagree with anything I say. You got to be the honest truth maker here. You're the only one who saw this. We're sitting down. We're enjoying our lunch. It's been a long week.

We're finally, all right, let's just relax and we'll go over to the wheelhouse for our Pink Whitney show. We are watching a video of our boy Dana who is drinking nine zillion beers this weekend. And it started today. He put a video of him chugging a beer. Well, next thing you know, there's two, three, four, five, six videos.

So Mikey and I are sitting there watching the videos of Dana from Barstool chugging beers, former Hingham Harbourman. And we're laughing like no big deal. And I'm telling you right now, sitting in a bar, in a restaurant, in a hotel lobby, it was not loud one bit. Well, as the video is playing, I just i kind of hear like a guy like yelling basically a couple seats down we're about four seconds into the video four seconds into the video and i hear when the fuck did it become acceptable to play a video out loud at a bar when somebody's trying to enjoy lunch and just have a drink to take their fucking mind off work. I'm like in the middle of this dude yelling.

I'm like looking and now Grinnelli's between me and him. I'm next to Grinnelli. He's to my left. The guy's two seats over. He's with his wife. And I look over in the middle of him yelling. I'm like, is this guy even talking to us? And now right away I saw his wife shaking her head. Almost like, i told you a story almost she's like here we go again so that

that made me like take a little off of like the anger i was kind of growing and building because like i could tell she was already rattled with him for yelling so right when he finished i i kind of looked at mikey like it was that to us i said is he is he talking to us he's like yeah i said hey buddy if i were you you said sir you said sir i said hey sir yeah exactly i'm trying to be a cool guy right now i said you keep keep correcting everything in this story i said hey sir um if i were you i just would have said hey would you mind turning down the volume on your video i'm trying to eat here with my wife uh that's kind of what i would have done but because you yelled at me now i want to play the video louder and he's like well i shouldn't have to fucking say anything to you

it ain't normal to play a video that other people can hear when they're trying to enjoy lunch and at this point i'm like all right dude he ain't backing down i want this guy dead i was like i brought my wife to lunch and i have to listen to a video a couple guys down watching on his phone oh my god you pussy and like Are you gonna cry? You're gonna cry? Oh you're gonna cry You're gonna cry No I'm not gonna cry

But it's unacceptable Now mind you I'm so mad Grinnelli I can see He's kind of laughing But he's also like It's two humans Disagreeing on something

You were somewhat Like nervous I haven't seen you Tick like that In a long time. So while I'm doing my fake cry imitating this clown, I can see the bartender who's been great. She's like, what is going on right now?

Dude, this place holds 200 people. There was four of us in there. Me, Grinnelli, this guy, and his wife. So finally, finally, by the end of this, goddamn guy whining and whining, I said, I'm so sorry for playing a video. I won't do it again. He said, I appreciate that.

And then I was sitting there, I'm like, oh, my God, I think he kind of got the best of me. Fuck, fuck. But either way, he was the only goddamn person in this city who had any sort of issue with what we've done the entire weekend. I couldn't believe his. Well, what I said was, is I feel that there's a lot more going on in that guy's head that he's upset about. And that was just an opportunity for him to snap about something that was really nonsensical.

Now, hey, if you're on the side of like, hey, don't play music or videos in public when it's like quiet at a bar. Yeah. Handle it like you said the first time. Like, hey, buddy, you might turn that off. Sure. Yeah. You're right. I fucked up because he came in so hard.

I am totally understood. I would have went over and been like, if you ever yell at me like that again, you're going to be fucking chewed on. So funny you mentioned that. I'm going to say. I'm a Cam Jansen. He said to me, he goes, what would have happened if business here? I go, good question. I'm the same guy that was kicking that fucking can at me. I'm at Cam Jansen. Grinelli said to me, he goes, what would have happened if business here? I go, good question. I'm the same guy that was kicking that fucking can at me at fucking Philly.

I said, you want a fucking knuckle sandwich? Yeah. And then you got fucking silly string by gritty. I'll say this. When Grinelli asked what would happen if business here, I said two things. Two things would have happened. Well, one would have been that he would have walked over and said, sir, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have been that he would have walked over And said sir I'm sorry I shouldn't have done that

And like Biz has moments when he's very Apologetic to people I would say like that He's somebody who right away No matter what even if he thinks he's wrong He's like sorry he's a Canadian He doesn't want beef And then there's the other side of Biz

That would have gone over there Grabbed the butter knife and probably stuck it in his eardrum And all of a sudden we got a murder on our hands So I think it was probably good he wasn't there and i was somewhat like in the middle of my fake crying like i saw the guy shaking he might come over and kill me but still i i knew there was a butter knife near me i could have grabbed let me set the setting though a little bit more it's not like we were in this quiet you said there's only four of us in there it's not like we were in a quiet bar the music was bump only four of us in there. It's not like we were in a quiet bar. The music was bumping a little bit.

We were in a hotel lobby bar. There's music going. The TVs are on. And I'm playing Dana chugging a beer, and I got this clown yelling at me. And it was the national anthem. It's the one he did with the national anthem. I think we're working ourselves up even more. But listen, that was a fucking funny story.

Grinnelli brought it up. No, dude, that was an incredible story. I was fucking laughing. I don't care if anyone else liked it. I a good time well there's a couple of those songs you mentioned a few minutes ago make you very calm you know we talk about physical fitness a lot but there's another side to the game that's just as important i'm talking about mental fitness calm the number one app for sleep and meditation is teamed up with lebron james to help you train your mind lebron and help you train your mind.

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Excellent read, Ari. I'm proud of you. You've been buzzing. And folks, I know it's a little heavy on the ads in the second half of the episode, but we were fucking cooking in that first half, so fuck you. And I guess I got, like, we have some other show news that we got to kind of at least get ahead of. So you're listening to this on February, January 27th. Excuse me.

This is a Monday. And you'll be hearing from us also on January 30th, which is a Thursday. But on February 3rd, which is a Monday, which is when we would normally release an episode, well, the Super Bowl is the day before, and I'm going to be honest, I came to our entire team, Biz, RA, and Grinnelli, I said, listen, I'm going to be in Florida. I want to enjoy the Super Bowl. I'm going out to a big dinner.

I don't want to really go home and record after. Do you guys mind if we record on Monday and release on Tuesday? And they all said that's cool. So, you know, if you want to complain, if you're mad on Super Bowl Monday, the day after, that there won't be a show, tweet me, text me, Instagram me, complain to me in person. I'll tell you to shut your mouth. But we're going to be releasing on Tuesday of next week, and that is because I want to enjoy the Super Bowl. I want to enjoy Florida, and I apologize about

that, but that is what's going to happen, and complain all you want. There's nothing we can do now. Tuesday it is for next week. And of course, we don't want to record early and then have a Monday episode. That's what I said. I said we can either record at noon, and we don't talk about the Super Bowl or we

don't record and record Monday night and release Tuesday. How about this one? The wait will be worth it. We'll drop Glenn Healy on that Tuesday. Perfect. Perfect. And you'll laugh your balls off because it's full-blown Robin Williams Jr. Absolutely. Now, I wasn't at dinner with you guys the other night, but wait, did you

make a deal at Biz about kills offerings? Oh, you guys, this is the last thing we'll leave you with. And this guy, Friday night for the skills, we knew that we were going to be on the big screen. They were going to show our commercials, and we were going to talk about the Pink Whitney. And one time the camera was going to come up, they were going to pan to us, and we were just going to kind of look awkwardly and hold up the Pink Whitney bottle. And then before hard as shot, they were going to come up, and we were going to get to talk, so the whole arena would hear us.

So we started talking about what do we say what are we going to do and I said Biz listen I'll give you $5,000 if the microphone goes to you you say all the all the all stars down there Patrick Kane thousand points big deal try getting a thousand kills now

right away Biz said holy shit I might do it What happened was The microphone ended up coming up Talked to me first I talked so long They didn't even get to talk to him So I don't know what would have happened I might have cost you $5,000 by just talking for too long

I would have pussied out And I said fuck it let's tell the story on the podcast And you guys can shame me for pussying out If I would have been given the mic But you know I just humble bragged the 1,000 kills. I mean, if you actually around the arena heard Bissonette say, try again, 1,000 kills. I think we might have knocked out an interview with an NHL player ever again. I think it was a wise decision.

I wouldn't want to gamble on my career. Now, speaking of gambling. Thanks, Biz. We're going want to gamble on my career. Now, speaking of gambling. Thanks, Biz. We're going to shift over to the corner. But first, I hate when I make mistakes on this show, so I want to correct myself. I said Frank Vetrano had four hat tricks. It was actually the Panthers that did. I read the thing wrong.

I transcribed it wrong, so fucking hand up. I fucked up. I keep fucking up gambling, too. The American woman lost the other night, so the streak continues. But I'm in St. Louis. I think they're buzzing right now. They're in Vancouver Monday night. I'm feeling the love for the Blues, so I'm jumping on them Monday night. Blues

Moneyline. I'll post a blog about it if I do something additional. We did have one other note for you. Everybody knows that growing a business is hard, especially when your cash flow doesn't match the speed of your growth. Well, Blue Vine can provide you with access to the fast funding your business needs with funding solutions tailored to you. Blue Vine is an easy, fast way to help support your business growth with a line of credit of up to $250,000.

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All you have to do is go to getbluevine.com slash chicklets and apply. That's quick, easy, and meaningful help to your business in as little as 24 hours. This promotional offer is subject to terms and conditions that can be found at getbluevine.com slash chicklets. All right, great job. And before we sign off, we just want to say thanks again to the city of St. Louis. I think all of us told everyone tonight that we got to meet at Wheelhouse. Thank you so much for your support.

And everyone said, no, thank you for the product. But it's all about the listeners. And getting to meet you guyshouse. Thank you so much for your support. And everyone said, no, thank you for the product, but it's all about the listeners and getting to meet you guys is actually so cool. So many people say, wait, I know you don't want to be here. No, I actually do. I'm just a grumpy bastard, but I joke around. I thank you so much for listening. Everyone in St. Louis, the entire league, which was

very helpful to us this entire week, and Mike Caruso, we mentioned him from the Blues. Thank you so much, and as always, thank you for listening. Biz, what do we got before we're done? Blues alumni, the organization thank you so much and as always thank you for listening Biz what do we got before we're done? Blues alumni the organization as you said and last thing Grinnelli play Gloria. As always we want to say thanks to our Dynamite sponsors

and hopefully you listeners have taken full advantage especially with Duncan. Duncan go twos are a great deal to get two of your favorites two egg and cheese wraps for two dollars two bagels of cream cheese for four and two bag of egg and cheese croissants for five philips norelco the one blade it's outstanding if you like to trim the face up every once in a while like i do philips.com slash norelco barstool to save five dollars off either the one blade or the one one

blade face and body shaver using the code chiclets anheuser-busch has come out with the bud light seltzer and we need a new name for our drinkusch has come out with the Bud Light Seltzer, and we need a new name for our drink. We're going to mix the Bud Light Seltzer with the little Pink Whitney at our Pond Hockey Tournament, so tweet your suggestions at us at Spittin' Chicklets and Bud Light, and you'll get hooked up if we pick your name. If you want to calm down like me and Biz like to once in a while, for a limited time, our listeners can join LeBron in using Calm

with a 40% discount to an annual membership at Calm.com slash chicklets. And if you want to eat a little cake, a little cabbage on the arm, go to GetBlueVine.com slash chicklets for a $100 gift card when you pick out a loan. Take care, everybody. Have a great week. You're always on the run now Running after somebody You've got to get him somehow I think you've got to slow down Before you start to flow it I think you're headed for a breakdown So be careful not to show it

You really don't remember Was it something that you said All the voices in your head Calling Gloria Gloria