Spittin Chiclets - Spittin' Chiclets Episode 264: Featuring Joe Buck + Terry Virtue

Episode Date: April 23, 2020

On Thursday’s episode of Spittin’ Chiclets the guys are joined by Joe Buck and Terry Virtue. Joe joins (26:22) to talk about his legendary career, peeing in trash buckets, his Blues fandom and more. The guys are then joined by Terry Virtue (01:30:52), who joins the pod to talk about being Biz’s player-coach, playing his first shift with Ray Bourque, his career and more. The guys wrap up talking about the Michael Jordan doc, The Last Dance.You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/schiclets

Hey, Spittin' Checklets listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Hello everybody, welcome to episode 264 of Spittin' Chicklets presented by Pink Whitney from our friends at New Amsterdam Vodka here on the Barstool Sports Podcast family. It's Thursday for most of you, getting closer to the weekend, although we cannot tell the difference anymore. We're chugging along, we're making the most of it, We're having fun. We're trying to get you through the day. Let's say hi to the boys, see how they're doing today. Mikey Grantley, much better than the last time we saw you. Yeah, feeling a lot better, boys, but I will start off by saying I do love Zach Wierenski.

And also, I miss you guys. I miss getting on the road with you guys. I miss traveling. We were traveling so much before all this. Seriously. Can't wait until all this ends and I can finally get some good dinners again. We're like Vasco fucking Degama for a little while there. But next up, the wit dog, Ryan Whitney.

How we doing, brother? How's that golf with Rurro syndrome treating? I drove to Connecticut a couple times. I'm trying to do my part in terms of keeping the swing nice. Let me tell you, though, my body has never felt better. I'm working out every day. I'm getting limber. I'm losing maybe a little bit

of the fat that we've talked about so often on this skinny fat body. So quarantine body-wise, I mean, I have taken it to the next level. Let's see if it shows in the golf game, maybe a little more distance and overall a healthier lifestyle. How do you like that, Biz? I think it's tremendous. And I actually went golfing this past week with Joffrey Lupo and his buddy, and I hit a 75-foot putt for a birdie. No way. I knew you'd be proud of me.

Net eagle. True north in Scottsdale. North Scottsdale, great course. Very difficult, though, Whit. You got to – not a lot of – Target golf. It's kind of target golf. You got to hit it, like, to the exact spot. It's difficult.

You took the words right out of my mouth. And there's things about – I won't go into desert golf. I love it, but it's also very difficult. We can move on to other things. How are you doing, all right? Nobody ever asked you that. What's going on, buddy? I'm fine, buddy.

I'm just not chugging along. I'm actually – I'm getting my creative itches on I launched a late night internet show Off the Periscope I had many questions about this I saved them till this recording Yeah I had seen other folks at Barstool Launching different time shows

In the morning and stuff I'm up late at night I'm always bored Maybe I'll throw one of these out there If it falls on it face, so be it. If it gets popular, great. I got actually a couple messages from a former couple of retired guys saying they tuned in

so they liked it. So that's always pretty cool to hear. I know who. Adrian Akoin texted me about it and I'm like, what the fuck are you talking about? He was dialed in. He was loving it. There was one other retired player who reached out to you. No?

Yeah, it's not bad. The arm dog reached out. Oh, the arm dog's the best. Let's get Colby. Come on. It's time. It's time to return, buddy. Come on.

So, yeah, it's just kind of something different. It's another itch to scratch. And also, I know it's such a cliched internet thing, which I made a joke at first. I started a mailbag. You know, basically, I opened up a Yahoo account specifically for it, and, like, the first, within the first two hours, I probably had 70 questions, like, right off the bat. Really? What was the best one?

Dude, I, like, the other night, Paul, there were so many, I'm like, I'm just going to pluck five. The first five I pluck, I'll use, like, one of them was like, should Pete Rose be in the Hall of Fame? Yes or no? Real quick. Boom, boom, boom. And it's like, okay. And I can give reasons. I just try to be kind of diverse and all... Whatever. Okay, what's the basis

of the show that you're doing? Him being baked, watching movies, being R.A. at 3.30 in the morning? It's just... I mean, I loved Johnny Carson as a kid growing up. And into he obviously kind of david let him in back in the day it used to be carson then let him and let him in houston up until 12 30 so you'd get carson then let him in i mean that's how i kind of grew up and i didn't

like dream of being a tv like a late night host but it's like fuck it i'm sitting here you see other people doing similar things and i i like my first night i rushed through everything everyone's like no we want to hear you like talk about it But I'm so used to throwing it to you guys that I'm like, I have to realize, no, they just want to hear you. A dumb fucking idiot mouth. So it's like you don't have the vision of me on this zoom. Like, all right, hurry the fuck up and let me talk. Exactly. What's up?

I was just going to say the show can be found on our Twitter page to spit and chiclets periscope as well as the Barstool sports blog. I'm tuning in. I'm tuning into the next episode. Can I comment when you're on? Yeah. Now, the thing is, the comments come fast and furious. So it could be like my best friends from home, and I don't even recognize them because there's just so many of them.

My brain would explode. I can't even read to begin with. So what I did last night, I actually tagged the – tagged the questions beforehand, so then I didn't have to, like, you know, go through them, like, trying to find them, because they don't stop. They just come in. So, yeah, it could go 15 minutes, half hour, whatever. It's, you know, I'll find a few topics, whatever it was, pick up my brain that day.

Well, I'll tell you, like, you mentioned other Barstool shows, and Dave does this unboxing every night. My wife's starting an unboxing. It's Amazon, these packages. Every day, Jesus Christ. I'm not home all the time, so I don't realize this until quarantine time. But, R.A., going back to the mailbag quickly. Yeah.

I remember vividly loving and reading every week when Bill Simmons' mailbag came out. I was in college. It must have been 2000, 2001. And I remember reading it and loving those, looking forward to those. So that's kind of cool you're getting into that. Yeah, you know what it is? I realized, I mean, it wasn't like a master plan, but you can kind of use it as a Trojan horse to write about other stuff you care about. Like the kid asked about life advice, and there's nine million ways to go with that.

I brought up the worst advice I didn't listen to was when I went to college. My father was like, oh, you should keep a journal. Back then, you're 20 years old. It's like, what am I, going to keep a diary? You know what I mean? That's the stupid mentality you have. Then six years later, I'm like, fuck, I would have had Animal House Part 2 here if I fucking kept track of it because the sheet you see.

Well, some of the world's most creative people, they keep a journal next to their bed, and when they wake up in the middle of the night after dreaming something, they write it down. Well, I figured it out after a while. Apple Notes is like basically a journal now. It's great for keeping children down. Oh, God, we should have you read your Apple Notes to us right now and just go through the list. He writes down the coughs when he hits the bowl.

I've written legit blogs on Apple Notes. Yo, you got to laugh at Whit's joke there. Come on. I didn't want to lose track and pull a wit and totally lose track of where I was. His voice memo thing picks up on the cough, cough. Just C-O-U-G-H, C-O-U-G-H. Like Michael Keaton in Night Shift there. So, yeah, like the life advice.

He said, what life advice would you give to a 20-year-old? And I said, I wish someone told me then that the next 20 years of your life are going to go by in a blink because that's something that no one really touches because it's depressing to say that to somebody. Like you're going to take a shit and you're going to come out and it's going to be 20 years of your life are going to go by in a blink. Cause that's something that no one really touches. Cause it's depressing to say that to somebody like you're going to, you're going to take a shit and you're going to come out and it's going to be 20 years. Or if you're graduating college and you're just like, ah,

but the best times are behind you, man. It's over. I got that question the other day. I did an interview with a lovely young lady named Gabby from the ECHL. I forget her last name, but she said, what advice would you give to your younger self?

And I think it was when I began my professional career, and I said I would have partied far less and seen what I could have actually done as a player. But in the same breath, though, all those stories and silly things that I did has kind of led to this, which is, I believe, in the long run going to make me happier. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, if you were Biz Nasty and you were crushing salads and protein shakes every night, you're not sitting in front of microphones

right now telling people about shitty Cindy and Vegas nights. You chose a life that worked out pretty goddamn good for you, Biz. And Yolande catching me cranking it off in her basement 17 fucking times as a young adult. And your sister only dating Pauls. And me walking in pre-brunch, getting the old hacksaw Jim Duggan, Pauly going off the fucking top ropes on my sister Natalie. Yo, shout out to my sister. Hey, listen, they got married and they brought twins into this world.

So it all worked out. I mean, I have a special bond with my brother-in-law. I've seen his taint and it's hard to look him directly in the eyes. And he's heard about yours. There it is. It's fair. Yeah, maybe that was him establishing his dominance in the Bissonnette family. He'd be going just teeing off as Yolanda's hitting up the big omelet on the grill there.

Oh, you're a fighter in the O? Yeah, come take a look at this. Oh, yeah, cool. Watch this speed bag. Yeah, well, hey, we all have those decisions, bitch. You never know. I mean, I almost ended up in the fucking military. I was almost in the Air Force.

I was halfway. I was within a signature. Yeah, there was a movie, Pauly Shore, right? What is it? Pauly Shore goes to the... Yeah, what was that fucking terrible movie? I can't think of the name. All right.

Do you think you would have survived through the initial testing? Were you that much of an athlete? Because it was... I mean, to get through the first... I wasn't going to be a fucking Marine. No way. I was going to the Air Force. There was a reason I mean, to get through the first... I wasn't going to be a fucking Marine, no way. I was going to the Air Force. There was a reason I was going to the Air Force.

You know, I wasn't looking to physically challenge myself. I basically was going in. I'll be blunt. Like, back then, the way the Boston Fight Department hired was, you know, every white male hired, they had to hire a person that wasn't a white male, essentially. So the way to get to the front of the line was to be a veteran so a lot of a lot of guys would join the service to get veteran status because there was always a conflict where you would basically sign up for the military automatically a veteran once you do your four years now you get the extra

points on the civil service test so you can get on the fire department or police department or whatever you're trying to get on um excuse my stupidity, but I didn't realize, I thought every time you joined any type of sector of it that you had to, like, get in ridiculous shape first. Like, that was, like, the first order of command. No, the written one is to weed out the real, real, real, real dummies because it's a really easy test, and then they give you, like, a physical test. But the thing is, like, there's a test every two years,

so you take the test, you wait, you wouldn't get hired get hired so anyways long story short i i know that's what my dad did and that that would have been my guaranteed way to to get in was to do forward uncle sam uh but then i ended up getting a ridiculous fucking financial aid package for college my mother was a fresh widow not my father's still alive was my stepfather passed away so my mother was a single mother with three kids, and her fucking husband just died. So I basically got a free ride to school. And I never wrote a thing in my life, Paul.

I never, like, I wrote one paper in high school. I didn't have any aspirations of doing things. So when I went to college, I fell into it. And by my sophomore year, I was running the college paper. And then, like, I used to, like, get, like, a twinge of regret every time I saw a fire engine go by because I'm like, fuck, I always want to do that. And then finally one day, like, I was like, hey, man, it's cool like that.

I'm fine the way it went the other way because I had this talent, for lack of a better word, that I didn't know about. So at one point you were a little torn because you're like, fuck, maybe I would have been more successful down that route, but you think that you've ended up on the better side taking this path. Way better. I mean, yeah, I was actually in somewhat shape at a time, and if I was a fireman, that would have been my focus.

But I could just as easily be a bronze plaque on a fucking side of the wall. You'd be one of those guys competing in those ladder things now. Have you seen those fucking guys get up the building? I'd be one of the scorekeepers, Paul. Let me go to my second co-host in this episode. R episode all right things have turned out pretty goddamn good for you as well here so let's talk about you hosted chick that's all is good in the world of ra it it's funny man like

you know like i i live with every like i said every time a fire truck went by i would fucking get a tear in my eye like the ind Indian in that trash fucking littering commercial. And then at a certain point, it was like, fuck, man. You know, like, hey, thanks for doing it, Dad. But, like, thank God I went to college. R.A. was at the Gretzky party. Everything since then has led to this, you know. R.A. was at the Gretzky party, and he was just chilling with Wayne.

They're each smoking a cigar. And he's like, yeah, you know, I think this is the point where I'm okay not being a fireman. No, he's actually like, I'm going to bring it all together together wayne make sure you put that cigar out in a safe place exactly i'll take it for you i'll stomp on it 90 can you sign it i'm gonna keep it for 18 more years and then talk about it on spit and chicklets on episode 1800 and whatever yeah it's i know brother wit i'm fucking psyched. I'm blessed. Sometimes things come later than maybe you hope for, but that's for a reason.

If this shit happened 20 years ago, I probably would have been a real fucking idiot about it and been fired two years ago. I'd rather the wisdom of 47 than the fucking young spunk of 27. Well, we've seen one guy go down so don't uh you know don't change yourself but quickly i got one little you'll be bringing up as you grow up you grow older you have different uh aspects or you know opinions on life obviously as you age my mom recently told me she's in her early 60s she says she's never been happier ever she can't even compare she said your 20s are you're figuring out who you are your 30s

you're starting a family your 40s you're stressed about something and then as 50s 60s hit all stresses are gone so it's pretty cool to hear that it does get better especially when you're sitting in the third chair the chicklets podcast shooting the shit having his own fucking tv show late night on periscope and his own blog question and answer format. He's living. It's fun. Mailbag. It's been fun, so mailbag. What else we got here? It's called a railbag for RA.

Speaking of, I'm going to send the bat signal while we mention it. Yeah, he's got to take a little toke out of it before every question. Oh, shit. Well, apparently we had an interview uh today is wednesday tuesday night we did an interview and apparently the whole hockey world was watching the bruins on zoom watching the bruins win the stanley cup uh back in 2011 and i i caught some of it but apparently i had to catch a live you had to be there feidelberg blogged it and i guess it was just absolutely hysterical you know someone mentioned

kessler's name and Lucci's like, he's not in the league anymore. Fuck him. So apparently there was no moderator there. I would like to play a game where you guess how much the total wine throughout every Zoom call, like what a bottle of what they were drinking would add to. How about Wrecking Ball?

Rex was crushing Sunkist and I think Vodka, just dummying him one time. Feidelberg's blog, check it out on Barstool. It was awesome, the write-up of it. I was watching it. Now, let me tell you, I think we're looking at the first of what is soon to be a very popular, awesome thing to see. Now, those guys getting together, just now you kind of see how teams go.

I mean, people think we're mean to each other sometimes. Did you not hear those guys last night? That's a team, man. You're busting balls. And those guys getting back together. Lucic was the star, I thought. He did a great toast to Tim Thomas. But notice during the toast, he misspeaks a couple times.

And guys are just right away all over him. He's like, side, shut the fuck up. I'm trying to be nice. So's just like i i actually enjoyed it and i think now if you look to other teams imagine some of those blackhawks teams you get those kings guys together oh man you're looking at a chance to make some awesome coyotes team that went to the conference finals that one year yeah that doesn't count it's only cup winners so i can't do it either kunitz gets to do it 43 times but seriously those those you could tell they were so fired up and the craziest thing for me was that i want to say 10 of them said they had never seen the game though this was the first

time they were going to watch the game and i mean i guess it does kind of make sense like when would you have watched it at some point maybe it would have been on. I can't say if I would have. But it was awesome. And, I mean, Campbell and Marshawn going back and forth about the hairline. Now, a hairline, that's a touchy subject in the room. You start getting grief about the hair. It's a slippery slope.

And if it's true, the whole team's getting it up. And he went at Campbell, and Campbell went right back at him, was dogging his hat, was saying, Marsha, you're the baldest guy on the team. And how about Roberto Luongo's tweet? Someone made a picture, oh, there were 19 of the Bruins there, and he retweeted, this is precisely what my nightmares have looked like. Oh, my goodness.

Perfect timing. What a night. What a cherry on top for that night um uh it is tough to deliver a speech like that especially when you know that thing was live correct yes yeah oh yeah yeah yeah so like doing doing a speech in real time to all those boys knowing everybody's watching that is very difficult and and i would assume that uh i think you could pull it off wit you could probably go flawlessly crush it but it would be like nobody would want to listen to me say it

you know what i mean it's more about like shut up let a meaningful player like so so if you could get one team back together would it be the one that you lost in game six with the penguins if you do a zoom call yes yes for sure no doubt no doubt maybe that team in san antonio when we didn't make the playoffs in the ahl that was a real blast seriously great guys on a horrible team in the minors that's what ball i was playing uh after pregame skate when I went to the course to play nine? Was it a Titleist or a TaylorMade? Well, I was going to say, if there's a comparison, the off-ice activities must have been insane if they're even going to be on the same level. So I would be interested to hear that group chat.

Oh, man. Kind of mad I didn't get the Evite, the Looch. I mean, Looch fucking biz because I was in the room with all those guys. I'll never forget, man. I was surprised, too. There's nothing like— Hey, I'm surprised fucking biz because I was in the room with all those guys. I'll never forget, man. I was surprised, too. Hey, I'm surprised you didn't sneak into it, considering it's been going on all those other fucking Zoom calls. Imagine he broke into his room, it's R.A., he's got his Bruins hat on.

Hey, how many viewers did that have while it was live? When I was in there live and there was 10,000 at one point so I can only imagine unique viewers at least 50,000. What's unique mean at one point? Different people.

Different, like separate different people. All together basically. All right, I was just fucking cranking it out with that huge water jug

full of Vaseline next to his desk right there. Well, it was weird because there was like people sitting there partying,

and then you look on the TV, and not all the TVs, but one TV would have the fucking riot, like, was on. So you have, like, this fucking Stanley Cup celebration going on, and then, meanwhile, a mile down the street, you know, there's people burning shit down and stuff. Guys, I know this is a hockey podcast,

and we've been talking about the Bruins, so people who hate Boston. Probably half of our listenership here. We also have to talk about Gronkowski getting traded to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Oh my goodness. This is going to...

It's perfect that the last dance with the Bulls and how the drama unfolded and blah blah blah is happening right now. The last dance thing on the Patriots, what dynasty slash what's happening right now is going to be lit is what the kids say. Is that what they say, Grinnell? Lit? It's going to be lit?

It will be lit. It will be lit. The only thing is I don't think Belichick will give them the fucking camera room. Sorry, Whit. Yeah, well, he's saying that the cameras will be following Brady and Gronk, I'm assuming, right, Biz? Okay, I get you. But, I mean, let me say something as a Patriots fan.

The Patriots fans that are so upset by this, I think you're so stupid. He wasn't playing football. You got a fourth-round draft pick for, well, you get to get the seventh round as well, but he wasn't playing for you, right? Maybe if Brady returned, he would have. You know Belichick's going to flop that too. You know he'll turn into something. I said the other day.

They've been good with their fourth round picks apparently is from what I'm reading, but I read Twitter, so somebody's probably going to be like, this guy's an idiot. It remains to be seen, but what I think of Bill Belichick, I wouldn't trade him for one player in the NFL. I couldn't agree more. No.

That's a great way to put it. I wouldn't trade him for one player. And I would much rather have, I mean, Gronk's gone. They got a fourth-round pick. Great. He wasn't playing for you anyways. He was sitting in his, he was wrestling the Gronk show and whatever. Now, I mean, maybe it's going to be a couple years where the Patriots aren't great,

but Belichick, man, he'll make that team in two, three years. There'll be a wagon again, I'm sure. Yeah, until that pick fell out of the sky. And if Tampa does great, good for them. It's such a weird, like, who's upset about this that are Patriots fans? It doesn't make sense to me. Well, unfortunately, like fucking Biz just said, Twitter. You click there, you'll get every opinion possible. Twitter's good, Biz.

It's just who's saying it. That's the only thing. You've got to make sure you're following the right people. Well, anyway, the New Jersey Devils have interviewed Gerard Gallant for their position. Interim coach Alain Nesreddin, he's a legitimate candidate. He's interviewed as well. Other coaches that are still available for other positions whenever they become available, Peter Laviolette, Bruce Boudreau, Mike Babcock. There's still some big names out there. Of course,

we don't know what is going on with the season. And like New Jersey, there are four other teams that still have interim coaches. Jeff Ward and Calgary, the Stars have Rick Bonas. Up in Minnesota, there's Dean Everson. In San Jose, there's Bob Bugner. Technically, they're all still interim coaches. So whenever the season either ends or whenever it might be, there's definitely going to be some coaching carousel, which is per usual with this stuff. So anyways, hey, I want to say one thing. All this moving around, people are going to be home

and people are going to be looking to shovel in some food, Biz. We've counted on our favorite restaurants, and now they're counting on us. And while their dining rooms may be closed, they're still open for delivery with door dash door dash is the app that brings you food you're craving right now right to your door ordering is easy open the door dash app choose what you want to eat and your food will be left safely waiting outside your door with the new contactless delivery drop-off setting. Just make sure you still tip them just because you don't see them. They're still dropping it off. That's me. DoorDash deliveries are now contactless to keep communities we operate in safe. And right now, our listeners can get $5 off their first order of $15 or more in zero delivery fees with

their first month when you download the DoorDash app and enter the code CHICKLETS. Again, that's $5 off your first order and zero delivery fees for a month when you download the DoorDash app in the app store and enter the code CHICKLETS. Don't forget, that's code CHICKLETS, C-H-I-C-L-E-T-S, for $5 off your first order with DoorDash. So check that out by all means, but just because you're a free delivery man, you still got to take care of your delivery drivers now more than ever. Don't want to be a tightwad. No, you got to. A tightwad.

That's an old school thing. Tightwad. One other piece of news, the 2020 Ivan Halinka-Wayne Gretzky under-18 tourney that was scheduled for August in Edmonton, that's going to be canceled. It was pretty much the first big event for the 2021 NHL draft class. Kids born in

2003. Cancel on that. No need to have that. Did you just say kids born in 2003? Yes. 2003 born players. I know, huh? Jesus Christ. How the fuck does that make you old? How old does that make you feel?

We haven't even said our guests yet either. of them two for the price of one let's uh we'll fucking jump right at it we have terry virtue was a former teammate of business if i'm not mistaken right my old player coach right player coach reg dunlop nice yeah he was fun to talk to we got him but we also have joe buck uh probably the most famous announcer on the land, one might say. I had a blast talking to him. I honestly could have done another hour with him. It was a real treat. So I can't wait to get that over to you. We'll bring it to him very shortly.

Did you guys happen to see, this is not a Bruins thing, it is Boston, but the NHL had a Boston players chat, and it was K.Y., Hazy, Wagner, and Kreider for about 40 minutes. Oh, my God. K.Y. was on. He was like Eddie Murphy up there. It just doesn't matter the environment. He said Kreider looked like he was trying out for a character in Prison Break.

Oh, he was on fire. I think he had like two or three more like dunks and you're just like oh this guy's i think he got everybody in the chat yeah all over them dude it was fucking absolutely hilarious oh shit uh got a couple other news items here while we're horny for news. We haven't had much. That's a perfect opportunity. So I'll be working with the NHL. We're going to be doing those social media awards for the NHL. And Yans and Hazy, I believe Ryan Reeves and Tomas Hertel are in the finals for funniest player.

So Hazy and Yans got to go back to back. We got to get them in some like. What are they going to be doing in terms of the competition? Well, they've just got to pitch themselves. Maybe I get an expert to help me dissect their humor. Maybe I'll help them or I'll compare them based on their mic'd up sessions. Because they've both been mic'd up for games. So maybe I'll talk to a neutral party.

So those are some of the funniest going at it. Revo is a funny guy. He's a chirper. He's been mic'd up before. And Tomas Hertel, he's like the happiest guy in the world. When he walks in a room, you just want to smile. Hey, we've got to give a little shout-out to our boy Hazy. He made a food donation to frontline medical workers down in Philly.

He's up here in Boston, of course, but he called Angelo's, the local pizza and sub joint, and got some workers, got some food over to the workers at Penn Medicine. So good job by our boy Hazy. No surprise there. What a classy guy. Classy move. Absolutely. And I'm sure he made the people laugh when he placed two out of two because he's a fucking character. But anyways, let's send it over to Joe Buck right about now. This was an awesome one to do. I'm excited to release it to you. So without further ado, Joe Buck right about now. This was an awesome one to do. I'm excited to release it to you. So without further ado, Joe Buck. Well, it's quite an honor to welcome our next guest.

He's basically been the soundtrack to the American sports fan for this entire century. He's called 22 World Series, 24 League Championship Series, six Super Bowls, numerous Major League Baseball, All-Star Games, not to mention countless of other classic games. He's also appeared in a handful of movies and TV shows, including a recent appearance on the critically acclaimed Brockmire, and he's now called the game in four separate decades. It's my pleasure to welcome to the Spittin' Chicklets podcast, Joe Buck.

I just learned stuff about myself. I didn't know half that stuff. Thank you. If you're going to give a proper intro, that's beyond proper when I'm learning shit about myself. Well, hey, Joe, he didn't include, I don't think, unless I misheard you, the U.S. Open. He announces the U.S. Open now. He's a stick himself in golf. And so as spring's coming and we should be getting into golf,

I imagine that that's one of your favorite things to do now. It is. You know, I happen to live in a city, St. Louis and a state Missouri that has not put shackles on people out on a golf course. So I just was out chipping, but, uh, hitting balls. Now my wife, we have, we have twin two-year-old boys so my wife is not really totally into the idea of me playing in a foursome with uh separated people and socially distanced people but i can go hit balls that's that's how far my leash goes here in 2020 it's better than nothing yeah it is and i know a lot of people, friends of mine in California, friends of mine in Illinois, all over the place, they can't do it. So I'm going to do

it until somebody comes and arrests me. Well, our boy, Mike Caruso, as we mentioned before the podcast was trying to get you on. And the guy who ended up reaching out was Christian Fisher. That's how we got introduced. He plays for the Arizona Coyotes, of course. And you know, what was it like when you came home and your daughter had to tell you she was dating a hockey player uh well first i was free because i heard professional athlete yeah you've got to be kidding me i've been around these people my entire life since i was two trailing around after my dad and then then when it was okay, yeah, but he plays hockey, then I was okay with it.

But I did do my due diligence. And I've told Christian this. I went to Mike Caruso. I went to Doug Armstrong, the Blues general manager. I went to Hall. I went to – Any good father would do this. I don't need some young Paul Bissonette dating my daughter.

That's right. Brad Richardson was texting me pictures of this kid before I ever met him. I was like, are you freaking kidding me? I got to – he's like – I don't know what Richie, as you guys call him, said, but something like, hey, keep your eye out for this punk. He really likes your daughter. And now I feel like he's part of the family. I absolutely – and I know he'll hear this,

so I'm a little hesitant to even say this out loud, but I love that kid. He's a great young guy, and most importantly, he's great to my daughter and takes good care of her, puts up with her, so God bless him. I actually got to meet him because he came up to me at Pebble Beach and he said, hey, Christian Fisher, how do you work with Bissa and Ed? Jesus, that gets a mess. No, he didn't say that. He loves Bissa, but he's very, very nice guy.

And, uh, good for your daughter. Yeah. Yeah. He was out there with, uh, when I was doing the U S open, uh, I think that's the time you're referencing. Um, and yeah, so we got to do that last June and now we were all geared up for this U.S. Open. And I don't even know if I'm going to get to do it because they're holding it now the third weekend of September, which is, I think, week two of what is now the NFL season. So I don't even know if I'm going to do any golf in 2020, if there is any. I mean, who knows? We sit here at the middle part of April.

Joe, you're getting sick of people giving you like personalized play-by-play requests, like them going to get coffee or something like, Joe, narrate this for me and send it back to me or something like sex tapes or whatever. I feel like it's 1990 and people are handing me their flip phone or whatever was big back then or their answering machine and going, hey, do my greeting for me. back then or their answering machine and going, Hey, do my, uh, do my greeting for me. Uh, and you know, Hey, uh, Phil's not here right now. Uh, he's out. So leave a message. That's what I was doing back then when I was just starting. And now I'm,

you know, doing Twitter videos. It's been fun. It's raised some money. Uh, there are nothing that's going to the, uh, broadcasting hall of fame. They're not even that funny, but it's, uh, it's been something to do and people have seemed to enjoy it. I think if you have an English accent, they automatically get like 75% better just because those guys, the way they talk, there's been some funny ones overseas. I could not agree more. And I think that we have looked at British people forever and held them in higher regard than maybe we would if they were from I might from St. Louis or if they were from Alabama if Anthony Hopkins talked with like some

weird accent from like the Midwest I don't know that we would regard him as a great actor but he's not you know he sounds smarter because he's British I was curious to know how much of your attention gets towards hockey because you've got to cover all these other major sports. And, of course, with St. Louis making the run, I imagine you were a little bit more dialed in last year, but you're a pretty busy guy. You know, you could ask me this any year, and I swear to you, this is the truth.

My dad was the first voice of the Blues when they started in St. Louis back in the 60s. So even though he didn't know anything about hockey and he said, you know, he'd pick one guy out. Paul Vissena would have the greatest game of his life that night that he was doing the game because he was just focusing on one guy, one name and one puck. And that guy was touching everything. And it was on radio.

So nobody could really check his work, so to speak. But it was part of his DNA. And then as I grew up, I got sucked into the vortex. And then as I got older and I had daughters, my daughters and, you know, the aforementioned Trudy Buck, we had seats right behind the net. I've been a season ticket holder with the Blues since I was 21. And so I've been – it's the one sport that I live and die with. It's the one sport still that pisses me off tonight.

If they lose and makes me happy, if they want. And then I wake up the next day thinking, Oh, today's going to be a good day. The blues won last night. And it's the one open thing that I can go crazy for. And in a former form of our life, high five strangers, which I don't think we'll be doing anytime soon when they scored a goal. I love it. It's end to end excitement that I just can't get enough of.

So for them winning the Stanley cup, it was considering how they started and we've had good teams here with great players, but for that team to get it done, I think made it kind of all the more special I it was it was the best fan experience I've ever had uh in almost 51 years of my life wow Joe I know it was I think the 2013 season you jumped in the booth for a little bit did a few minutes of of a game is is hockey something you'd like to do at some point or do you like would rather keep it where it is so you're allowed to be a fan because otherwise, you know, because in your particular position, the media fan thing becomes an issue.

Yeah, I think probably the latter. I would rather just keep it where it is. And I don't even know that I'm smart enough to do it. I listen to Doc Emmerich and I'm like, Jesus, he's got every touch. He's putting in words that Wordsworth never used. And, you know, I don't know that I have that. I don't know that I'm quick enough. It blows me away that it's done and it's done that way and it's done on TV

where you can see all these touches and you can see where the puck is. I was never one that bought into that critique that hockey wasn't great on TV. I think hockey's awesome on TV. I've always thought that. It's obviously better in high definition, but I never had a problem finding the puck or following the action or whatever. And, you know, to listen to somebody like Doc

or my buddy Kenny Albert or whoever do these games, I'm in awe because it's much quicker and a little bit more kind of intense than anything that I do on the air. I'd rather just stay a fan. Growing up with your pedigree, were you instantly drawn into the broadcasting side, or did you ever feel like you wanted to be more of a player, or was more of your attention always towards the broadcasting side? I think I grew up like most kids, at least where I live,

where I thought I was good enough to play baseball. I tried to baseball in college I wasn't good enough I wasn't near good enough I tried to walk on at Indiana University um and from day one I mean I've had a broken neck I've had two dislocated uh shoulders I've dislocated my right and my left. Did this one pitching, my right one. I've had two back surgeries. God did not create me to play anything physical. So it's much better for me to be the little guy in a suit, standing up in the booth, calling it for a living. But I, yeah, I wanted to be a player. But I think I was so close with my dad. My dad broadcast for the Cardinals for almost 50 years. It was his life. He did football.

He's in both halls of fame. And I just saw how much he loved doing what he did for a living. And as a kid, because he and I were great buddies, I just wanted to be him. And so, yeah, I did. I want to play. Sure. Was I good enough? No.

And then the next thing was, well, I want to play. Sure. Was I good enough? No. And then the next thing was, well, I want to be that guy. And that guy just happened to be a Hall of Fame dad that kind of took me everywhere. I was in every city by the time I was 12. And so I knew what life on the road was like. I knew maybe don't look too close in the hotel bar for fear of what you might see. And keep all that stuff to yourself as a little kid. And be surrounded. You might run into R.A. of what you might see, and keep all that stuff to yourself as a little kid. The rules. And just surround it. You might run into R.A.

If you fucking wander too far in that hotel bar. You might. R.A. is trying to scalp tickets. You left them. So you just went into being around your father, and he's such a legend, and you learned so much from him. But I'm interested in the fact that since everyone loved him, you're going around and everyone's saying hello.

There's not social media. So it's like one thing he wasn't probably able to teach you was feedback you're getting nowadays as announcers. So you went into that as blind as could be because he never dealt with any of that. I mean, he just met people that really enjoyed him and said hello, right? And you've dealt with people who've said, oh, you're biased, and at some point you had to figure it out on your own, huh? Yeah, you could not be more right.

You know what? It's funny. I've never really thought of it in those terms, but that's exactly right. I mean, my dad, he was just himself on the air. He's like you guys are on your podcast. And I just started a podcast. I finally broke down and started one with my buddy Oliver Hudson. It's called Daddy Issues, by the way.

We both have daddy issues. But part of my daddy issues are that I followed this guy who was beloved. There was no social media. If somebody had a complaint, and there were plenty of complaints, I used to see letters that he would get. They were like from serial killers that had like magazine letters pasted together and these notes like they were racist and crazy stuff. And but but it took an effort. Now, you know, as long as you have a phone that you can type into, you know, you can tell me or anybody else today, you suck, you hate my team.

And it's a hard thing because I used to do the Cardinals. When you do the Cardinals or you do a local team, everybody's living and dying with that team's success. And that includes the announcers. So the announcers all do the games that way. And it's all year. It's 162 games. And then we show up and i have to be excited

for both teams and fans hear me yeah well they know i'm gonna get excited for their team at the home run but when somebody hits a home run against them all year long the announcer's like oh and that ball's gonna go yeah oh and now the astros lead the cardinals five to four and i have to go that ball is gone and the astros lead now five to five to four. And I have to go, that ball is gone. And the Astros lead now five to four. And people, whoever they're playing, the Astros are going, this guy hates my team. This guy sucks.

And so being the national guy has never been harder because of social media. And I'm the only guy that's ever done the World Series in the era, at least nationally, of social media. And at some point, you just have to kind of, you know, keep it over here. You know, it's there. I feel like I do a good job. I treat people right. And the rest of it doesn't really matter. So you make games exciting, right? Your voice, it gets you into the game. I've always thought that was great. And I've just, I think it's so hard to fake that energy, right? Like, I mean, you're going into this, you must love, you must love the competition that much because you're not able to,

to fake the emotion you're giving. And now granted the games are so big, but it's got to truly be there for you. Yeah, I really do. I hope that never changes. I feel like when it does or that starts to wane a little bit, it's time to go. I can't wait to get in the booth. All that other stuff we just talked about, the Twitter stuff and the social media stuff and the work and the travel and all that just falls away. And now the game starts, whether it's the first pitch or it's the kickoff

and you're doing a Super Bowl and it's like, man, I am in literally the greatest seat in the stadium. You know, in the case of the Super Bowl, you've got 100 million plus people watching the game. Maybe two people total are listening to what we say. Meanwhile, the rest are at parties or the sound's off. But you just, I love it. And you're right, I do. I love competition. I you're right. I do. I love competition.

I also love crowd noise. And so when a big moment happens in a stadium, there's nothing better than me just not talking. If somebody hits a big home run, I like to say it. I like to give the score, whatever just shifted because of a home run, big touchdown, and let the crowd carry it and and that's how i've always gone about it some people think well you know he doesn't care it's the opposite i care too much because if i'm at home i want to hear that natural sound and i try not to trample

all over it when i've got a headset on i'm sitting in the booth you kind of touched on your your laid-back approach now i was digging a a little bit for information off Christian Fisher, and he said one of his favorite stories is the one with the garbage can during a big moment in the playoff game. I believe it was a baseball game. I don't want to ruin it. I'll throw it back over to you. It involved a garbage can.

Yeah, well, I'm infamous for that one. I wrote a book years ago, and then you realize when you write a book and then you do the talk show circuit they're gonna pick the one story that you really it felt good to write about it but you don't really want to say it have it come out of your mouth when you're sitting on national television so I actually told this story on the Colbert show on CBS one night and I just felt dirty even telling the story. It was football. It was in Milwaukee. When the Packers used to play one or two of their home games, hard to believe that they weren't at Lambeau field for all eight of their home

games. It would go to Milwaukee and play a game. And I was in the booth and it was old Milwaukee County stadium. And to get from the booth to the bathroom was like literally mission impossible. Like you needed pulleys and ropes and ladders. And, you know, you had to ride on the back of a donkey to get to the bathroom. And the half wouldn't end. And all I do is drink water when I'm doing a game and it's going on forever. And then somebody gets hurt.

And then they're laying there and we're talking about the whole thing. And I've got to pee the entire time. So I'm drinking water. I'm holding it, and all of a sudden it's getting really serious, and I look to the left to the guy that helps me in the broadcast to spot her. I'm like, I've got to pee. And he hands me one of those little water bottles, and I just knocked it away. First of all, I have no chance of getting any of my pee into that bottle.

Maybe a Gatorade bottle with a big, thick nozzle. No aim with a guy with a torn ACL on the field you're announcing. Yeah, these are extenuating circumstances. Then, finally, there was a few people in the booth. I had them get out. I was wearing a parka because it was freezing, and they brought the trash can in front of me, and then I got stage fright. And so we're in a timeout.

The half hasn't ended. I've got to pee. It won't come out. And now as they're counting me back from commercial, the floodgates open. I start peeing. And on the first play after the timeout, Sterling Sharp, a great Green Bay Packer receiver, catches a touchdown pass. I actually called a touchdown on Fox television while I was peeing

into a trash can. Like Frank Drebin. We got to get that call. We got to play it. Maybe play it to open up our show. You know, it's funny. It's been so long i mean this is like we're talking about 94 95 somewhere in there it's been so long that i'm going man did that really happen it happened i guarantee you i i can name everybody in the booth and i

remember it but i've never heard the call since was it you who overreacted to randy moss moon in the green bay crowd yes do you regret overreacting um no because it's it's unfair go pack what's that yeah uh it's it's amazing by the way that packer fans think troy and me and we hate the packers and whatever oh yeah they they hate you guys all the packers fans all of a sudden it's like all we do is you know if you ask any other fan by the way that the packers play they kill me because all i do is kiss aaron rogers backside so i would too well that's what i was gonna say earlier but there's a part of me that would almost just really want to start pissing everyone off. Oh yeah. Like,

like you're not gonna be able to please everyone. Like I would almost be like, you know what? I'm actually going to bury that team tonight. Like, is there any part of that in you? Wait till my last year. It's going to be,

Hey, you're going to intro Rogers twice as the starting quarterback. You want to do the opposing team. And they're the offense. So let's get back to Aaron Rogers, the unbelievable unbelievable player where's nobody ever wore 12 where and rogers wears number 12 i'll just keep going on and on and on yeah um but yeah as far as the moon thing yeah i listen back to it and i cringe and i think um and randy and i are friends now he worked my wife works at espn every time i go visit her on the set of Monday Night Football,

Randy is the guy that pops up and comes over and gives me a big hug. He couldn't care less. It's ancient history to me. But when I look back on it, I'm proud on one hand because it was my gut reaction and I let it go. I'm cringed because I'm like, ah, it was over the top what I said, thinking back on it. And it was not just the fake mooning.

It was like the rubbing the ass on the goalpost part. But all that being said, it was a little bit much. But as I said earlier, you can't be a play-by-play guy and live that way because I would never be satisfied. I have to just live with whatever comes out of my mouth. And 95% of the time, I'm really proud of what shows up. Joe, your voice could be heard on, and I want to emphasize the background of the Linda Tripp, Monica Lewinsky tapes. When you found out that

happened, were you like, oh, they listen. Nice. It was unbelievable. So Linda Tripp, who just recently passed away. So this all came back. Oh, I didn't know that. I'm sorry. I didn't realize that. Yeah, she just died, like literally last week. She was the woman who basically recorded Monica Lewinsky on a telephone talking about her affair with President Bill Clinton. about her affair with President Bill Clinton. And when CNN ran those tapes, when they came out, I remember my first wife, my wife at the time, was downstairs on an old Stairmaster watching CNN,

and she came running up the stairs. I was still asleep. And she said, you're on the Linda Tripp tapes, the Monica Lewinsky tapes. And I was like, I don't even – I've never met Monica Lewinsky. What do you mean I'm on the tapes? And then you go back and you listen to it, and they're sobbing, and one's telling the story, and the other one's crying,

and then she's crying, and the other one's telling a story. And every time there's no crying or no talking, you hear me in the background going, here's the 2-2 pitch to Jeter. Ground ball to shortstop picks it up and over to first two out and i'm like that's perfect that's my life that these two people are involved in maybe the biggest moment in bill clinton's life the president of the united states and they've got the game on and neither one is paying one second of attention to the ball game hey i was reading uh i was reading you keep your phone on

and like commercials or text your buddies or see what's going on or did i read that wrong no yeah i keep it on during the game i mean i get texts from i'm not going to name drop but i get texts from people that i respond to immediately and then every once in a while depending on what they're doing on the other side of the phone connection most likely drinking they will throw word at me that i have to get into the game on the broadcast and these are again i'm not going to name drop these are high level people like are you are you really getting off on this like that i said uh octopus or whatever on not a world series game but that i think they feel like they're the Wizard of Oz behind the screen, and they get the dumb announcer, me, to be their parrot.

When I was at NHL Network, which comparing that to what you do, it's like comparing Grinnelli's toe drag to mine, but when I was there, I'd have my phone on all the time. I'd be like, hey, what do you want me to say here? What's going on? I loved it. You just stay in touch. What did you think of that segment? How did I do there, bud'd have my phone on all the time. I'd be like, Hey, what do you want me to say here? What's going on? I loved it. You just stay in touch. What'd you think of that segment? How'd I do there, bud? So I know.

You know, there, it keeps me kind of going during the break and it keeps my mind working and I try to be, you know, snarky back to somebody giving me trouble or something that I've just said that somebody said, Oh, that was either great or stupid or whatever it might be. And two, I think it kind of gives you an outlet to the real world. You know, if you're on the set at NHL Network

or I'm in a booth at Giant Stadium or something, it's like the rest of the world is kind of cut off from where you are. So if something weird is going on in the world, or I don't have Twitter on for obvious reasons, but if something weird is going on in the world, or I don't have Twitter on for obvious reasons, but if something weird is going on in the world, I also like having, you know, contact with, with the outside world as, as I sit there, because sometimes it's relevant to, to what we're doing. Plus if it's baseball, there's plenty of time. Yeah, it's I do. Those are my longest texts it's like paragraph after paragraph

and then you uh call the next pitch you have enough stories teed up for a broadcast in case you've got to polish a turd that's the worst is when like you get a flat game and you're just you're not feeling it and you're just like oh fuck with two super bowls, I guess it was, or three now, we did the game in New York, which was Seattle-Denver. And that thing was like over in the first eight seconds. I was on the wrong side of that one. They hiked it over the head of Peyton Manning. It was like, okay.

And then it just got worse from there. And I remember being at halftime. I don't know what the score was at the half. But Troy and I are milling around in the back of the booth. And I'm like, Jesus Christ. You know you've got 100 million people, and the game's just not competitive. And he and I had each other convinced, well, my God, it's Peyton Manning. I mean, Manning's going to get this thing back in order.

And you can't count out Denver. You cannot count out Denver. And the second half opened up, andattle received the second half kickoff and percy harvin ran it in for a touchdown we're like it's over and and i i listened back to that game i have never heard myself say how much time was left in the third quarter more in my career. I was like, oh, and with that play, there's six minutes and ten seconds left. You just couldn't believe it was going that slow. You're like, I might have to go to the piss story. Hang on, I'm texting Schwarzenegger back.

Leave me alone. Yeah, Schwarzenegger. That would be a good one. Hey, so you mentioned Aikman, you know, one of the best QBs of all time. What's he like? He seems like with it. Like, I was he what's he like like he seems he seems like with it like I know he had concussion issues when he played right he's all good with that stuff he is you I for a while there when he got out of the game everybody was kind of coming to him

for comments about long-term effects of head injury head head trauma. And he really stayed away from all that. He didn't want to be the spokesperson for concussions. And he'll tell you that he retired because of a bad back, more than getting hit in the head. He is, he's one of my best friends. He is about 10 times funnier than you think he is, talking about off the air. He he, he and I, you know, enjoy hanging out. We both had young daughters. We both had girls at the same time. We, our lives have kind of paralleled each other. And I'm lucky that I get a chance to call a really good friend, a broadcast partner. Like I'm sure you guys do.

It makes everything easier. Like if I hated that guy and I've never been in that situation, but when you're piled into a broadcast booth, especially in a Superbowl, my dad went through this a little bit and you don't know that the guy next to you has got your back. That's gotta be a horrible feeling. And he knows that if he screws something up, I'll clean it up and vice versa. And that's a really comforting feeling. I hope I'm never in a situation that's

the opposite of that but uh yeah he's with it he remembers stuff the games that we did together and situations that that you know in a meeting room or whatever with a certain player I don't remember so his I feel like his memory is better than mine and I know I have not been hit as much as Troy Aiken's been hit let's try to get back to hockey after this one because we'll probably have some mad fans because they want to talk about the Blues. But another guy who came in, and even I was surprised at how good he was off the hop, was Tony Romo.

I thought the best – yeah, amazing. I thought the best thing Tony did was he got into it and he didn't try to sound like somebody else. He didn't try to sound like everybody else that's kind of come off the field. And, you know, for a while there, it felt like everybody tried to sound like John Madden. There was only one John Madden. And I think Tony, and he's been richly rewarded for it since.

You must love his contract. You must love seeing that. And so does Aikman. But he looks forward. You know, everybody else, I think, the great ones that have a sense of what's going on can not just do replays. We can all kind of do replays. But I want to know what the quarterback, in my case, Aikman or John Smoltz,

is looking at going forward. Like, how, if I'm Smoltz, do I want to get this guy out at the plate? Or if I'm Aikman you know we're in the red zone here's where they're vulnerable here's where I'm looking as a quarterback like that stuff to me is really compelling and that's that's you're right that's what Tony Romo did from from get from the get-go and you know he'll continue doing it but he was really fortunate in my opinion that he got off the field and was paired with Jim Nance. Had he been with somebody that wasn't as polished and as good

and as, I'm sure, nurturing to Tony, you can be as smart as you want and have played for as long as you want, but if you don't know how the mechanics of it work, you're not going to be any good. And I guarantee you Jim really helped Tony along with the mechanics of it. If Jim was a dick to him or prickly about it, he never would have been as good. It would have been impossible. I think sometimes guys get intimidated or jealous of the spotlight

going to somebody else or whatever it may be, and he was not a dick to him. If you're Jim, that's part of your own survival too if you make it work with this guy and he's great and you're you know with him you're going that that helps everybody so uh jim was great and uh is good at everything he does and tony was fortunate that he got paired with him well you want what do you want this today you want to talk about scandela's new uh four-year deal that he just saw we get like you know you talked about the packers fan we have like some rapid hockey fans canucks fans are bad they're kind of the packers fans of hockey right would that be a fair assessment and they actually

i just knocked over a picture of my kids what oh? Oh, no worries. So I just wanted to talk a little hockey with you. I don't know how deep your knowledge is of the game. I got a question for you. It's deep enough. I just said, I guess you guys, Scandella just signed a four-year deal with the Blues. I texted Armstrong. I said, how about you doing a deal and doing business in the middle of a pandemic? That's a GM that just, it's take,

what is it saying? Take no prisoners, right? He's just an animal. He's getting shit done. I think, what is it? Four years, 13 million? I like that deal. It's a good,

it's gotta be a good deal for both. But, you know, with everything that happened with Bollmeister and that scary situation, you know, I'm sure he was in line to re-up for another year. Was playing great. And really, it was a huge part of the Blues turnaround

when his hip finally got healthy last year. He's playing some of the best hockey he's played since he came to St. Louis, and he's not a young guy. So, you know, I don't know what the future is for him with regard to hockey. That seems like a stretch, but thank God he's okay. I know. All right, so I need to know your um or unsung hero on the blues team because everyone you could say or rather you could say bennington right for last year yeah for the cup run you know

who got better and who became i think a little bit more of a finisher but certainly when you look at some of their big moments especially especially the double overtime win against Dallas, I thought Robert Thomas played his ass off and really started to figure it out and get comfortable. He looks like to me, and I don't know him. I certainly know a lot of people that are friends with him and say, he's a great guy, but he looks like kind of a shy kid. And I felt like he started kind of coming into his own and, and really gave them depth.

They're to the point now where depth-wise, I don't feel like we've ever been in this situation before where Kyrou is having a tough time getting in the lineup. Decades past, it would have been like he would have been held up as the new great hope, and he's barely playing when they were going and you get the holby baker winner as a draft pick things are looking things are looking mighty fine in st louis well we've been through enough you know i it's it was heartbreak after heartbreak but it just seemed like a good group of guys that that uh it all clicked but bennington i mean to me

and and what do i know but but Bennington won the cup. For as much as I love Ron O'Reilly and the work ethic, and I know he wasn't healthy during the finals last year, really during the bulk of the playoffs, and he played his heart out, for them to win game seven on the road in Boston with those early saves that Bennington made, if he doesn't make those, it's a runaway train, and they come in second.

Yeah. Who do you consider your hockey villains? Like maybe even like back in old school days, like some guys you look at and you're just like, I fucking hate that guy. No diplomatic answers either. Well, Jonathan Quick used to piss me off just because – I mean, these are recent guys.

Quick pissed me off because he's just stuck it up the blues every fucking time he got, especially in the playoffs. And then I met him at Jared Stoll and Aaron Andrews' wedding. I was like, that's the guy? That's the guy? Nicest, most low-key guy ever. Oh, my God. I was like, I love this guy.

He's unbelievable. And he could not be nicer. And he and his wife are great. I'm like, I hated you. I hated you. I hated you. You just drove me nuts. You know, I go back to kind of those old Blackhawks teams. And, you know, Eddie Belfour and –

Chelios. Huh? Chelios? Must have hated him. Chelios. And now I know him because he's like Captain Cub fan. And every time I do a Cubs in October, I spend more time with Chelios in October than know him because he's like captain cub fan and every time I do a cubs in October I spend more time with Chelios in October than I do with my wife so

yeah I know well he and Hall are like I've never seen two guys hang out more and they're they're brilliantly funny as you know I'm sure they've been on a billion times but uh yeah it's funny it's it's a bigger point it's like you know people who think they know me and think they know who I like and what team I'm rooting for and what team I'm rooting against they have no idea I have no idea who I am what I'm about uh you know and and I think once you get to know somebody, it's like it just flips. It becomes just total respect. So whether it's Jonathan Quick or, you know, Charlie Oster, whoever these guys are, now you love them once you get to know them.

I got to go back to Aaron Andrews and Stolle's wedding. Was Larry David not there? He was there. I sat at the table with him. No. So our table, and I thank Aaron constantly for this, was Troy and his wife, my wife, me, and Larry David. And that was at the table at the reception.

And beforehand, they got married in this beautiful place at Yellowstone Club, and it's sunny out. And I thought I was in an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm because i'm sitting down and larry david who's been great to me played golf with him the guy's unbelievable playing golf with it's again you feel like you're on the show but he's sitting behind me and he's ducking behind my massive head and he's like oh my god this son this son's gonna kill me i'm gonna come to this wedding and i'm gonna walk away with skin cancer on my head and i'm i'm looking back like i'm waiting for the music that and that's just him so yeah

it was a blast i remember talking to him at the reception he's like are you are you gonna go out there and dance and my wife dances like crazy a Aaron, everybody's having a ball. And I look at Larry. I'm like, am I going to go out there and dance? Hell no. Because when I walk out there, at least in my mind, I feel like everybody's back here going, oh, let's see if Joe Buck can dance. Let's see if Mr. Sports has any rhythm. He goes, exactly.

Well, I'll never dance. Everybody's looking at me like I'm, you know, the comedian and on TV and this big, tall, you know, interesting looking person. They're just going to be watching me. And my self-conscious being won't let me go dance. Next thing you know, you're all over Instagram without your permission. Yeah, exactly. Well, yeah, that happens, too.

It's why wine and alcohol were created. So I want to bring up a name. You've been buddies with John Hamm for a while. Do you guys ever go to games together? We yeah we've gone to games i mean i've i've known john since we were i probably first met him when i was 15 16 he dated my best friend i'm so i'm two grades i'm two grades older than him My best friend was one grade older than me. And John dated my buddy's little sister. So I was John and John comes from, you know,

a crazy background and lost his mom at an early age. He lost his father right when he was getting out of college. And so he's been through a lot. And this family, my friend, Preston Clark, they really took John in. So I knew John from way back when. And we always remained friends. But he was always like my best friend's little sister's boyfriend. And then when I would see him in stuff when he was just starting out,

it's like, I don't know how people don't realize how great this guy is. He's a really good actor. And I would see him and stuff and think, if somebody doesn't find this guy, it's going to be a shame. And when he got Mad Men, I was with him right when he was going in for the audition. He's like, I don't know, it's like an AMC show. And he was about ready to cash it all in. And who knew that he was going to be the main man on this show that,

you know, put him up for Emmys every year and launched his career. But he was close to giving it up. So, yeah, I've been around John five billion times. He's just a boyhood friend. Do a lot of people know that, that he was potentially going to cash it in if he hadn't gotten that role on Mad Men? I think so. He's been open about that. I mean, he came back for a while, back here to St. Louis and taught at his old high school and was trying to make it work in L.A.

And as you guys know, L.A. is not a real cheap city to be in if you're not making any money. So he was waiting tables, waiting tables in St. Louis. And I think he was just frustrated. He's a brilliant guy, really smart, really funny, remembers everything. And so, I mean, he could have done anything but he's a you know good looking guy that can act and he's got great comedic timing but he's really smart and i think he uses his his smarts more than any other thing he has when he's acting um so i could just could not be more proud of the guy to draw it back to the blues i think when we had him on,

he was saying when he was bartending in St. Louis, when Chris Pronger was going through his struggles early on, he always used to head over to his dive bar, so he got to actually know Chris Pronger. Have you gotten to know any of those old-school guys that were there during that era where they had good teams as well, like the Brett Halls, the Gretzky's? I can't get away from Pronger.

If you can find a way for me to get away from Pronger, I'm in. Every time I turn around in an event, there's Chris. Our wives are friends. Yeah, I mean, it's a small town. We live in a small town. And I think the beauty of the Blues organization is a lot of these guys come from all over, but they get treated really well here, and they end up staying here.

So, Brett Hall is a great friend of mine not because he's a you know hall of fame hockey player he's just a good dude that i've gotten to know and played a ton of golf with and uh yeah all those old guys keith kachuk his kids were uh in school with my daughters that's how trudy met christ Christian Fisher in a roundabout way. They all tend to just kind of hang out here. So, you know, whether it's for Durko or God, I'm blanking. All those guys. I know. Huh?

All those guys are there. They just don't leave. They don't leave. And it's good because it's been good for it's been good for the Blues. And years past, they've only been able to celebrate the guys that have come through. I mean, how Gretzky's here all the time. I don't know if they ended up buying a house here in St. Louis,

but I see Wayne all over the place. So it's cool for that stuff. I don't know how I've waited 45 minutes to bring this up, Joe, but the 0-4 Red Sox comeback, when they're down 0-3, is basically everybody on the TV production side think it's over, already making plans for the World Series. What was going through people's minds at that time yeah it was uh it was not only the tv guys kevin millar is one of my best friends in the game and i think he's legitimately one of the funniest people that i've ever covered uh they're not

telling the truth when they when they go around telling everybody they knew, they knew, you know, it just took one game. It just took one game. They all were like, yeah, we're getting past it. And not only were they down 3-0, they got smoked in game three. And then it was like, okay, you know, they were 90 feet away or maybe at the end of that day, Robert stolen base this far away from not even getting to game five. But they ended up tying the game, and then we know the rest of it.

So, yeah, I mean, those are the years where you just go, God, I am the luckiest person in the world. You get to sit there. We just had Bill Simmons on our podcast, and I get it. You know, when you're doing the Red Sox and you have to, as the national guy, talk about how close they had been over those 86 years when they didn't win, Red Sox fans were like, will you shut up? You know, we don't want to hear about Buckner anymore.

We don't want to hear about, you know, the one-game playoff. We don't want to hear about Bucky Dent. We don't want to hear about any of that stuff. But you have to say it because it goes into how important this moment is, not just in baseball history, but in some ways American history. That's the way I look at it. So, yeah, that was – man, that was one of the most thrilling moments of my career.

And it happened in St. Louis in my hometown two years after my dad died. I mean, it was over. Once they beat the Yankees, they could have played anybody, and it was four games and night and night. They were not going to be denied. Did you have trouble separating? I know, obviously, we talked about you being a Blues fan. You can kind of fly your freak flag there,

but you can't do it with the Cardinals. How do you put that away? Obviously, you grew up calling their games. You have to be somewhat of a fan, but here you are calling their World Series loss loss how are you going to compartmentalize i really haven't been behind the curtain much in hockey um it's not a sport that i played growing up i just i admire it and live and die for it from afar when i was a kid i was on these cardinal charters and on the team you know i was on the team plane in the hotel.

And I learned at an early age that while my mood was dependent on if the Cardinals won or lost, if they just lost a heartbreaking game and it was a getaway day, they would get on the plane. Somebody would get out a wrench. I know you guys travel more now these days on your own planes, but they would crank the middle seat down, they'd get their meal money out, and the cards would start flying, drinks would start flying,

and they were having a good time. And I thought, why do I feel like I care more than these guys? But it's their life, and it's a job, and they can't think about losses like that. They have to pick themselves up and go play the next day. I think I lost a lot of that stuff when I was a kid. And then when I started my broadcast career, my first year was 96 and the Cardinals were a really good team then. And they were one game away from going to the World Series. They ended up losing to the

Atlanta Braves. And I remember doing that series. And when I sat there for Fox, all that other stuff went away. And I thought, you know, I'm not up here rooting for the Cardinals unless the Cardinals are down there rooting for me. And that's not happening. So it's easy for me to separate those two things. In fact, people in St. Louis think I don't like the Cardinals because I end up screaming and yelling for the other team too. You just can't win that stuff.

So I don't even think like a fan when I'm doing baseball were there any other stories from your book that you'd like to share on this podcast because we're we tend to bend the rules a little bit and you know we can go a little rated r so feel free to let anything fly that from the book that you'd want to tell them here I think the one that got the most play from friends of mine or when I was going through my divorce. Well, a couple of things. I mean, the whole reason why I wrote the book was because in 2011, I went for my eighth hair transplant surgery. And whereas I used to get those awake, the doctor at one point was like, you know, you can go under general anesthetic.

I'm like, are you kidding? I can avoid absolute torture and just go to sleep and wake up and all of a sudden i've got a bloody scalp and hopefully some more hair comes out of it i'm in so when i went in after a super bowl in 2010 you put your hat on fucker me fucking yeah i'll take ra and of course whitney's like uh-huh I got I got a balding thinning up top afro believe it or not sure so I go in and they put a tube down my throat and it messes up the nerve and it it screws up my vocal cord and I sounded like this when I was doing games and that's good if you're in like good fellas not good if you're doing a baseball game. R.A. would be your only fan? Yeah, right.

Hey, listen to my Joe Buck impression. Right, yeah, you can do it. Easy. Sounds like the guy I get the bad shit from. You sound like you're dying. You got it. So I end up going down to Cabo trying. I'm going through a divorce, wondering if my kids are ever going to love me again.

I go down to Cabo, never been a weed guy at all, never in my life. And I go down, I'm like, you know what? I'm going to – I'm getting high. I'm going to eat an edible, and I went to play golf with a bunch of friends down there. I drank tequila all day. Diamante? No, it was an El Dorado. Oh, baby.

Not a big deal. Not a big deal. Not a big deal. And I go to this dinner party, and they've got, like, pot brownies, which whatever. I've never had one. And a buddy of mine and I, we split ones, like, this huge-ass chunk. And about 45 minutes later, I'm looking at him like, I am the only one wound so tight that I'm the only him like, I'm wound so tight, and I'm the

only guy that can eat half a pot of brownie and feel nothing. He's like, well, you want to do another half? I'm like, yeah, sure, what the hell? I fire that in, and then somebody says, wait, we're going downtown, we're going to go to a bar. We get in the car, and then it all hit me.

And then you're done. Done. I'm like, my legs i i was just like i felt like spongebob i i'm going down to this bar and i'm sitting there and all of a sudden my legs i'm like uh i can't walk i can't get up and they're like what do you mean like we gotta go and the guys yeah we'll go in a minute i'm like no we gotta go now and i was sure that everybody in the bar i mean you know all these stories everybody you're always paranoid nobody knows i'm high and i get up and i i was gonna walk one way and the guy that i was with grabbed me and pulled me the other way and i literally when my head turned that fast i passed

out i fell down i went down on the little wharf thing and my head was under the rope. Like I was going to go down into the water and I sobered up like that. And I remember I had a dream on my way down to the ground. I had the security guys pick me up and they were friends of mine. I know the owner of the bar down there. And I was like, oh my God, we got to go. And I was like, I could have, whatever. I could have passed any test known to man. And that's my story on pot brownies.

And I'm just kind of a- Did you get your voice back? Yeah, I came back. Because of the pot brownies? I think so. Let that be the lesson. If you ever lose your voice go down to cobble play a sick track eat an edible get banged up and you'll be good once you fall in the water

you'll be fine as long as you don't go in have somebody there to pull you back up yeah it took like six months and it finally came back and uh came back for the 2011 world series they would freeze it this crazy home run in game six and they won in game seven and uh that's the 2011 World Series. David Fries hit this crazy home run in game six, and they won in game seven. And that's the last time I won an Emmy. It was the worst year. It wasn't the worst year of my life. It was the worst professional year of any broadcaster

in the history of radio or television. And I somehow won an Emmy because David Fries hit a home run, and I squeaked out, we'll see you tomorrow night. But my voice was dead. And I thought my career was over and I was going to end up, you know, doing whatever, but it wasn't going to be this kind of stuff. Well, I got to ask you this and hop in. All right. Sorry about this. Do you, do you have insurance on your voice now? Because I mean, considering where you're at in your broadcasting career.

It's a great question. I went after that insurance uh earlier on in my career it's so expensive for a voice for some reason that disability insurance for that just made no sense uh the premiums were through the roof so almost buying it well they're like he's from st louis he definitely smoked cigarettes so he's uh we gotta really build him up aya exactly that was my dad's uh advice to any kid that was getting into the business so like uh mr buck uh i want to be a broadcaster he's like oh you want to be a broadcaster huh start smoking and that's not really what you're supposed to tell kids uh but that's what got his voice to where it was joe i mentioned brockmire in your introduction.

I want to ask, how did that come about? And are you a fan of the show as well? Yeah, I'm a fan of the show. I'm a fan of Hank Azaria. Oh, he's brilliant. Brilliant. I mean, honestly, literally brilliant. If you consider that he does all those voices on The Simpsons,

I've watched him act. How many is it again? Oh, on The Simpsons, he does, I think many is it again oh on the simpsons he does like i think like 15 of them now yeah i think like literally 15 and they've been going for damn near 25 years 30 years yeah over 30 yeah i mean he's printing money in his basement oh but he's so comedically and i i just i think he's brilliant uh as an actor i've seen him deliver these soliloquies when i was on set with that but i i was a part of the original funny or die skit that they did like a five minute feature that i was in it because i lent i lent some sort of legitimacy to this fake guy jim brockmeyer so

i was talking into the camera like oh jim was a great broadcaster and blah, blah, blah. And then it turned into a series, and they brought me back for that and then gave me a bunch of lines to do. And I did them, and they kept bringing me back. So I think the episode that I'm featured in is this week coming up, which is episode six of their final season. And it's good. It's worthwhile. Yeah, I love the show it's

oh in your honor i'm going to take a leak mid podcast here is that okay what do you have no trash cans we've gone about well i got the i don't get shit to those i don't get stage fright with the bottles all right good yeah no he it really is brilliant especially this season the way they've done everything in the future and just like the the real subtle things he throws in there that you know if you're not paying attention the jokes go over your head but no i know well i think it's a mark of great writing and a great actor when a guy can be that flawed and that messed up and you root for him like he for his for his bad low life as as he is on the show there's a lot of heart in it and and that's what i love about it. So Hank's great.

He's become a great friend and you know, that stuff allows me to show different sides of my personality, which is such a win for me. If it comes out looking okay, doing this, you know, that, that stuff that I want to do because I feel like it's time to kind of of be myself well i i think your appearance on pmt did wonders for you because i mean i know when i listened to it i i totally changed my attitude on you i mean i i've never heard of those guys when i went on for the first time this this was years ago so i yeah you're like what kind of interview is this huh you're like what kind of interview is this? I was like, holy shit. You have to make a decision.

And it was on Skype, the first one I did, sitting right here. And I was like, I can do one of two things. I can roll with this, or I can look like just a complete stuffy asshole and get up and go, oh, I'm not going to answer that or whatever. So I decided to roll with it thankfully I work for cool people at Fox that allow me to kind of be myself and say what I want to say and so I can give them shit back and if I think if you give them shit back as the guy that's doing the Super Bowl of the World Series um it's it's surprising to some people

to hear me say certain things, but, uh, yeah, they'd become friends of mine and I like sparring with them. So it's, you're right. That, that was big for me. Just guys being dudes, right? Yeah. I mean, and, and you guys, you guys have hit the jackpot too. So good for you.

I mean, this is, to me, this is kind of the future of and and the present but certainly I think it's all trending this way where it's it's a real personal kind of uh interesting look at what was always kind of standoffish kind of prim and proper sports I don't I don't think people really watch it that way you're very transparent and self-deprecating was it always like that or or around that PMT time was that a time you made a decision or before that were you like, hey, I got to loosen up a little bit here because there probably was pressure coming into it given, you know, what your father had accomplished? I think forever I was hell-bent on just being a good soldier and being my dad's kid and doing things really

close to the back, keeping, keeping everything close to the vest. And then when I went through that vocal thing, I just, when I came out of it, I was like, fuck it. I'm just going to be who I am and I'm going to yell and scream. And if this fan base thinks because I'm doing that, I don't like their team. A, they're wrong. and B, who cares? I've been at it for a long time now. And so when I look back, and I was doing the World Series in 27,

and I didn't throw up all over myself, I handled it. I feel like I've earned the right to be myself. Now, I'm not stupid. I'm not going to just say stuff that's going to piss people off and alienate people. I think generally I'm a nice, welcoming person, but I'm just going to show that this is who I am. And so when I play golf and I'm cursing left and right,

and I've played in charity events, and guys that I've played with are like, how do you not curse on the air? Because the whole day I'm motherfucking everything I do. That's just the way you got to be. Well, listen, we want to thank you so much for coming on and joining us. And it's funny because throughout all this,

I don't think mental health has been really talked about enough. And part of that's sports. And when your voice gets back on the air, it's going to be great for people to be watching sports. What's weird is you'll be, as you mentioned, how much the crowd helps you. It'll be different.

You'll be announced in a little while probably with no fans in the crowd. But I think what's going to happen, and this is something that I just came across recently, because that's freaked me out. I mean, as somebody that tried to rely on crowd noise, if there's no crowd there, what are you going to do? I mean, it's going to sound dead. So I think these networks are going to wisely put fake crowd noise in. As weird as that sounds, what would be weirder is if somebody scores a game-winning goal and you don't hear anything.

You just hear the answer. There's no roar of the crowd. I've even heard about, like, virtual fans in the stands, whatever it is. I think you have to make the viewing experience as normal as possible, and that's going to come with some things that probably don't sound that great, but you're going to have to deal with some fake crowd noise and fake looking fans.

Or just give everybody a hundred milligram weed brownie. And then we can just fucking solve everybody's problems. Including a broadjack. All of a sudden, nobody has a voice or no, they all get their voices back. Excuse me. Everybody's yelling loud and clear.

Well, thank you so much, man. This is awesome. Thank you so much. Great to chat, man. I feel like I could do another hour with you, just me and you. Save it for the next time you come on. Absolutely. You guys got my cell phone.

RA, you want to call me? We'll just get weird, whatever you like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're getting a phone call tonight. It'll be about 1245 after he does a, what do you call it on Instagram? He'll be doing that. A Q&J? A Q&J.

Yeah, I go live on Instagram, smoke a bone, and take questions. Call it a Q&J. Well, great. If I don't pick up, don't get discouraged. Just keep calling me back. If I get up with my two-year-old twin voice tomorrow i'm gonna call your ass every five minutes if you're holding out for fox because of the romo deal too if you want to use that as leverage maybe you could start start a show with

them so yeah no that sounds great that sounds like nothing but a win for me if i uh this is of the midnight cowboy jokes completely died off he's still got him once in a blue moon well yeah I think you have to be old I was born in 1969 that movie I think was best picture in 1969 and the guy's name is Joe Buck uh John Voight uh Dustin Hoffman I met John Voight one night I took a picture with him he's like I was stunned he's like oh my god I always see your name on TV I see you doing these games and I'm like there's Joe. He's like, I was stunned. He's like, oh, my God, I always see your name on TV. I see you doing these games. And I'm like, there's Joe Buck.

And I'm like, I've watched Midnight Cowboy, and the whole thing starts. Where's Joe Buck? Where's Joe Buck? So I have this great picture with him. And then I met Dustin Hoffman and went through the same act with him. It's a great movie, obviously. But, yeah, kind of weird that I'm named that. Yeah, the only X-rated movie to win best picture. Of course,

it's pretty much PG 13 by today's standards. No, it's nothing. You'd like to watch it. Like what? Yeah. How, how was that X? Yeah. All right. Well, Joe, thanks a lot, man. We, like I said, I could have done this for another hour. We appreciate it immensely and we can't wait until there's drops. People are going to love it. Oh, good. All right, guys. My pleasure. Thank you, Joel. We appreciate it immensely and we can't wait until this drops. People are going to love it. Oh, good. All right, guys. My pleasure.

Thank you, Joel. I appreciate it. A huge thanks to Joe Buck for joining us, man. As a guy, I mean, we were all thrilled to have him. We've been listening to him call fucking World Series and Super Bowls for the last 25 years, so having him on the show with us was definitely a thrill for us. Yeah, he's a great guy.

Huge hockey fan. It's funny that he does keep that as his real passion. I love how he said he actually gets angry and happy based on other sports. There's no chance he's going to be as invested just because of how involved he is from the broadcast side. But I was shocked when he said how many World Series and League Super Bowls he's done because he's been around a lot longer than I realized. Yeah, he's been around a lot longer than I realized yeah he's been definitely a treat a treat to

listen to and it was a treat having him on he's definitely a hot shit love talk I gotta thank Christian Fisher for making the connection and oh we got to mention Joe Buck again he said his new podcast coming out check it out I'll be tuning into that

I don't have many on my list but that's definitely one I'd definitely listen to. And what's hilarious is right before we get in record, I had the TV on and we literally just talked about the movie Midnight Cowboy with him because the character's name was Joe Buck and they just started on TV just as we were starting to record.

Man, that's crazy. Like, just the odds of us picking this time. That's a coincidence. Were you going to say Coinkydink? I was going to and then I thought people would be like, oh, what a loser. Yeah, but you buried odds of us that's a coincidence a coincidence were you gonna say coinkydink i was gonna and then i thought people would be like oh what a loser yeah but you buried yourself by doing the beginning of it you had to go on i know i couldn't i got that noise biz you'll be biz i know but even i would have cringed afterward come on yeah i get a few whoppers yeah a couple quick notes and then uh before we throw it over to Terry Virtue for interview number two.

The Columbus Blue Jackets said in a statement that the contract with Mikhail Grigorenko is a one-year, $1.2 million deal. It will be refiled on July 1st. It was rejected by the league due to, I guess, a misunderstanding regarding filing windows. Pierre Lebrun said he was offered double that in the KHL, but it was more important to him to get back to the NHL. And the reason why contracts to Demchenko on Montreal and Barabanov on Toronto were approved and the one to Grigorenko was not is because they have different unrestricted free agent status

as players who were never previously drafted or played in the NHL. A lot of people are curious about that. So those guys were eligible for entry-level contracts, whereas Mikhail Grigorenko was not. The Senators have named Anthony LeBlanc president of business operations. And big news up in Toronto. The National Women's Hockey League is coming to Canada. The league opens its sixth season.

God knows when that's going to be. An expansion team will be in Toronto. They'll be debuting in Toronto. Five players have already signed contracts to join the Toronto franchise. Again, for the upcoming season, we don't know when it's going to stop, but congratulations to those ladies. Congratulations to hockey fans in Toronto for getting yet another squad to root for. What's the team name?

Or they don't have it yet? They didn't have it yet. Okay. At least on what I read, there wasn't anything. Let's see if they beat Seattle or not. Yeah, maybe, yeah. Oh, shit. Well, I did mention our boy Hazy.

He had some food hooked up for the fine folks of Philly. Well, everybody needs a nice little delivery these days. And one place you don't want to deliver too quick, Biz, you know what that is? The old boudoir. You don't want to be early in the bedroom. We know most guys have had this problem. You want to last a little bit longer, but memorizing cup winners and MVPs and doing a Rubik's cube at the same time, it doesn't always work. That's why the folks at Roman, an online men's health company, are changing the game with

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You can get your first month of swipes for just $5 when you choose a monthly plan. That's GetRoman.com slash chicklets. What's your trick, Whit? And oh, God, when he was doing that ad, it reminded me of a story of trying to make it last. I was playing in Wilkes-Barre, and I was at the Arena Bar and Grill, and I wheeled this fucking hot cougar. I bring her back to her place and i know i'm gonna blow in like fucking 10 seconds like it's one of those so so i faked the old piss and

go to the bathroom and crank one off and she oh you threw one in the dirt i threw one right i wasted the pitch because i didn't want to fucking in 10 seconds that's that's like i'm young too, right? So you can't even joke around about it. You're just plainly insecure. So I walk out of the bathroom. She goes, did you tug one off? And I'm like, yeah.

And she kicked me out. No way. Oh, yeah. I never heard that story. Na, na, na, na. Mate, so think about it. Na, na, na, na. You should have been.

Hey, hey, na. Man, so think about it. Na, na, na. You should have been. Hey, hey, hey. Biz gone. Wait, so you were just. Man, that's why. It would have just been a compliment. It would have been a humongous compliment to her. I know, but you're young and you don't know that. I just heard that.

You can't be giving me the boot. You were only doing it for her. Na, na, na. That doesn't always work either, too, man. Disgusted. That's all I heard. I was rattled. I was choked up. She gave either, too, man. Disgusted. I was rattled. I was choked up. She gave him the boot, folks.

That was the reverse walk of shame. Before Uber existed. Oh, yeah. Wait for the cab, you prrrrigin. As I flutter off to the front of the driveway. Na, na, na, na. End the podcast with that one, G. Na, na, na, na. And the podcast with that one. G, na, na, na, na.

We need interview number two first. Oh, yeah, yeah. No, but I know. I'm just giving him a heads up. I know you. I'm fucking with you, buddy. Yeah, yeah. No, Terry Virtue, we had a good time chatting with him, so we're going to send it over to

him for part deux right now. Well, our next guest, he played for about, looks like about 20, 21 teams all over North America for about 16 seasons. He won back-to-back Calder Cups, 99 and 2000. He also won a Memorial Cup as a coach back in, what was that, 2011, I believe. Welcome to the Spittin' Chicklets podcast, Terry Virtue. Thanks, guys. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. I think I could have done a better intro than that. I would have been stroking you off as the best player coach I ever had.

Well, he was a player coach. The question that I have to ask, I get to talk to Sean Collins today, and he said, I'd like to know what Vince thought about you when he walked into the room and saw me as the player coach. Well, Terry, that's what I was going to say. I've only had two in my career, and Sean Collins was the other one, so you win by default because that guy's give-a-fuck meter. I mean, you know Sean Collins.

It's tough getting that guy off the couch. I can't believe I didn't bring this up yet. I met Sean Collins' wife, and she said, yeah, I think he'll come on. So he's now coming on. It's done deal. I can't wait for it. But, yes, I know Brian Yandel told me stories that he'd go to class, or that was a phantom, but he'd leave the apartment in college at 8 a.m.

and come back at 6 p.m. and Collins would be in the same spot on the couch that he had been in the morning. And then every game he was the best player on the ice. So, yeah, I know we're getting a little bit away from you, Terry, but we'll get into you now. Well, he threw some stories out to talk about Ben, but he's like, just leave my name out of it. I said, your name's not staying out of this.

No, no chance. I played against Sean since we were 10 years old. He's always the best. Listen, we've got to start off the interview in a different way, though though and because we're all stuck in the basement quarantining ourselves and i'm guessing you're doing the same so during the corona interviews we're gonna bring up like what are you doing where are you at and like what's the day like for you when you with you just trying to stay inside so i live in uh in uh uh shrewsbury math now so So trying to stay inside. I'm actually running a business with another guy I played with 25 years ago

called the Power Play Energy Group. So we just manage people, and it's in the sales business, so it's kind of tough. We just found out there's not going to be any more going door to door, so it's kind of a tough thing right now. So just hanging out,

watching a lot of the news, trying to get my son back from Canada as he's not in a hurry to get back right now. Are you still coaching at all, Terry? I know Shrewsbury's in Worcester. I know you played in Worcester for a long time. I actually coached Shrewsbury High School this year for my first year. I had some friends there. Their job came open, and I didn't know if I wanted to do it, but I got a lot of friends

that their kids are coming up to the Shrewsbury program and they wanted me to start coaching high school. So I did that this year. It was actually a great bunch of kids. So it was interesting. Anyway.

Did you ever snap on them? I snapped very many times just for stupid things. Kids throwing gloves in the handshake line. Kid going down trying to hit a guy with five seconds left when we're winning 5-1. I snapped many times. I apologize for using the F word too many times with him because, you know, you don't know what's going to happen with that. Yeah, when the temper gets going, you can't know what's going to happen with that. When the temper gets going you can't control yourself I hear you.

Yeah when the temper gets going you try not to swear too much at the kids nowadays the way the kids are brought up but they were a good bunch of guys good bunch of kids. Well that's where you played mostly in pro was for Worcester the Ice Cats and the AHL was that probably one of the most memorable spots of your career? Yeah, so if you think about when you play hockey in the American League,

IHL, you know, even in the NHL, I think everybody would go, why do you like that place? It's a shithole. And I tell people, I said, wherever you go in the winter, it's always a shithole. But, you know, in Worcester, we, you know, the first year here, it's always a shithole but uh you know in worcester we you know the first year here we weren't a good team but we had fun we were you know win or lose

we were at the bar after the game we uh you know i became friends a lot of people away from hockey i think that was a big part of it you know i had had so many people come visit me down and down in the wheel because that's where i had my house my off-season house because my wife was from there so i had a lot of people come down there for the country music festival from the area so i just always became friends here that's where i know you from you were playing there when it was the wheeling thunderbirds and then it turned into the wheeling later uh nailers years years later you just mentioned you know going after the outfit after the game having pops and stuff like that.

You spent a decent amount of time in the ECHL. Of course, it's really unfortunate what happened with those guys recently. But, like, what are some of your fondest memories from playing in the coast and maybe just some crazy stories of, like, things that players don't experience who go right to the NHL or even the American League? So, I will start off when I first started the East Coast League in Rona, Virginia.

My paycheck a week was $241 a week. Plus we had to pay our own rent. So we had four of us living in a three-bedroom apartment. It was a nightmare. Like, I don't know if you ever drink Canadian Club whiskey, Biff, but I can't even drink that stuff. and that's what we'd have to drink because it was so cheap for us. So that's what we would drink.

There I had Frankie Bialowis on the team, the animal. I'm sure you guys have heard of him. Come on. Yeah, he was on my team, and first game, the National Anthem is going on, and we're on the blue line, and we look over at the bench, and he's banging his helmet off his head, broke his helmet across his head. Just to intimidate the other team,

or maybe was he having a little too much lace bite or something? Maybe. I don't know what he had. But my first game in exhibition season, we're playing the Greensboro Monarchs at the time, and about seven minutes in a line ball happens I get to go fight with a friend from back home we're in the third or fourth altercation so we get kicked out and uh we go and sit in the stands together and watch the

game and it was fight after fight after fight I used to fight a lot in junior and I grew up my brothers kicking the shit out of me and stuff so I was used to that but I went home went back to the hotel and I called my dad I said I don't know if I want to do this this is this is crazy you know this is crazy you're too much he goes well stick it out to what you're saying we're going to Johnstown the next day for an exhibition game the coach is suspended I am on the bench my d partner is coaching us in Johnstown. I said, am I in slap shot or what? Like, what the hell is going on here? Sure enough, there was no fight that game.

But you had to be tough to play in that league back then, I'll tell you. And you were seeing a glimpse of your future a little bit with what you ended up doing for Biz. I mean, you were the player coach yourself years later. But I'm wondering, like, I always get interested when I see HockeyDB and I see guys that are from Ontario. And I don't know if you grew up there or not, but you ended up playing at WHL. So, like, how did you get out west?

So I was born in the Scarborough area. And then my family was actually from the Old Town area. You'll like that. They're originally from the area. So we moved out west when I was four. So played in the Western League out there. It was a great experience.

It was, you know, travel was crazy. It was a tough league. So that's how I became out there in the Western League. How did you end up on three teams in three years? Because I wasn't very good. I was not a very good hockey player.

I tell the story growing up. I wasn't a very good hockey player until I was probably 15 or 16 years old. I got a friend that tells me, you know, I never did any summer stuff. I never went to skating lessons, did anything. But my one friend tells the story, when I came back to the team when I was 15 or 16, I just had a skating stride. And it was so far ahead of everybody else. And that's how I became a player.

But I still wasn't very good. I was a really late bloomer. You know, I think if you look at my 20-year-old season in Portland, I kind of started to hit my own stride there offensively. So, you know, and I always stuck up for everybody. I was going to hop in there and ask you, like, up until that point, like, had you gotten much confidence from coaches at the pro level? Because clearly, you know, it took you a little bit of time

to adapt to the junior level and finally start putting up some numbers. And then you could see earlier on in your AHL career, they weren't exactly where they were your last year. But then finally you caught stride. I mean, Christ, you had 16 tucks the one year for the Worcester Ice Cats. Yeah, it was, you know, it took time. Like, I didn't get anything coming out of junior. That's why, you know, I went to the East Coast late.

I wasn't a guy ready to go to school. I had offers to go out to the University of New Brunswick and have Katie out there. I just said, you know what, I don't want to do that. I want to give this a shot, see what happens. Went out there, got, you know, look, I got a couple of opportunities in the East Coast. I got traded around there a couple of times, just, you know. So I was almost ready to retire, go to school in Edmonton, take an oil, job in oil and gas business.

A good friend of mine said, you know, go to school for a year. I'll just tell you what courses and take, uh, and then I'll hire you coming out. You know, you'll, you'll be making 70 or 80,000. And, you know, back then in 90, whatever, 94 would have been, you know, would have been great money back then. So, but, uh, you know, that, that one summer I got an offer to go to the Oilers training camp and, uh, you know, it just kind of went an offer to go to the Oilers training camp. And, you know, it just kind of went from there.

I had a great training camp. And then, you know, I ended up getting sent down to Wheeling at the start of the year, but then got called up after Link Gates did a snapshot on the team. Well, Terry, I mean, that's why I got to ask you. As you go from having a decision where you might quit playing hockey to go in the oil and gas business, and you fast forward years later of grinding it out, and you get to fucking play in the NHL. It goes from that decision to the fact that you got to live out your childhood dream.

How crazy was it that first game? Like, could you even believe it? No. No, I couldn't believe it but it goes back to you know i was playing in worcester and uh st louis blues your guys favorite mike keenan mike keenan was the coach of st louis blues gm i was having a pretty good year in worcester i might even been leading the team and scoring at maybe that time not a big deal and like no no not at all and like they wanted to call me up to St. Louis.

And I said, you know, okay, but I was only under an American League contract, so they had to sign me to an NHL contract. And it wasn't a very good contract. And my agent's going, don't sign this. This isn't a very good contract. I'm like, I said, Freddie, I said, do you know where I've been?

I am going to play in Maple Leaf Gardens tomorrow night. That's what they're telling me. So I signed the contract, not a great American League contract. I take the warm-up, thinking I'm going to play. Ottawa just won their first game in their new rink. Mike Keenan's all pissed off at the team. I take warm-up, healthy scratch. Never played. I was up in st louis for two weeks i had i had friends and family at the game it was like are you shitting

me this is this is unbelievable so how many warm how many warm-ups did you do in that stretch just one warm-up and and it was in Maple Leafs Garden. It would have been. I went to see the Marlies play when I was three or four years old, watching some of the greats play over there. You know, a dream. Was there animosity? For two. But Mike Cannon?

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, there's quite a bit. I mean, when he sent me down, it was funny funny i was there for two weeks never played practice there for two weeks i go i get called into his office i sit in front of his desk he reads the paper for about 20 minutes and i'm just sitting in front of him looking at him are you kidding me i said are you kidding me and i'm like that's the shit I hear when I want to get him on and tell him to go fuck himself. Like, I respect what he's done as a coach, but, like, that type of shit, dude, fuck you. I would have fucking went over the desk and fucking choked him out.

I'm telling you. I'm telling you. So he tells me that Dallas Eakins is coming back from injury. I go for lunch with Dallas Eakins. Eakins goes, I still have two weeks left. I said, what's he thinking? And then I said, and, Biz, I said exactly what you said. I went over to the desk after him, and Eakins said,

you probably should have. You'd still be here. Because that's the kind of stuff that he wanted, right? You know, that's the stuff he wanted. I showed up at his training camp the next year, and'm riding the elevator with uh jamie rivers up the elevator and he comes on the elevator shakes my hand and i don't shake i you know i don't squeeze a hand you know tight he gives me you better throw him a lot harder than you shake hands once you got off the elevator i looked at ribs i said i guess i know what i have to do here at this camp. So, you know, he just was that kind of guy.

To me, I'm not, you know, I'm not a fan of his. Well, you know, so you ended up back in Worcester, but in between those spots, you were in Providence slash Boston, and you had a huge year, and then you get called up that season. You play, you know, your first four NHL games. What do you remember about those? And as a defenseman, do you remember Ray Bork and kind of meeting him and getting to play a couple games with him?

Well, yeah. So I was with the Friar Management Group. You know the LeChances, Whit, because they're a BU guy. So Mark LeChances was my agent. He was working for the Friar Group. So we had the same group out of Boston. So Ray kind of knew who I was, so he really treated me well. My first shift in the NHL was with Ray Bork,

an idol that I've always had. It was just one of those things. I got a photo of me sitting on the bench beside him. It's something that goes a long way. You want to call the cup, like I mentioned, on to Peter Laviolette. Were you surprised with the success he's had in the NHL? No.

You know, if anybody asked me who my two best coaches were growing up or were playing pro was him and John Paddock. Like, he was just one of those guys that could adapt he treated people great i went to a coach's seminar and i asked peter one time i said uh you know i said is there anything you've changed that you coached me and he goes i did one time and that was when he was coaching the islanders he uh he actually said he thought he had to be somebody he he wasn't and uh and he said he wouldn't do that again i you know i haven't heard heard much about it lately but i know when he went to carolina he said he wouldn't do that again. I haven't heard much about it lately,

but I know when he went to Carolina, he kind of went back to family orange. He used to have us over for barbecues during the run. We were over at his house having barbecues, kegs of beer. We had such a tight-knit group that the coaches' staff was involved in that, too. And he was young. He just basically retired maybe two or three years before you know i i battled

with them and things like that so it was it was one of the best seasons i had with with him on on and off the ice it was just one of those guys that you know you you keep the good relationships with so that's that's such an interesting conversation to start because i was thinking the same for that Jeremy Carlton where he's stepping in a situation where he's taking over for Quinville he's so young like what's going to be your like sometimes you second guess yourself about how you're going to come in and maybe for whatever reason you rub that group off the wrong way and like they just you never end up clicking and fuck you that that was your chance to coach in the NHL and you never get it again. Like, that's happened before, correct?

Yeah, there's a lot of guys come in and they think they have to be the big hard asses and be somebody they're not instead of just being down to earth. And, you know, nowadays the way these kids are, you know, they want you to say hi in the morning. They want you to make sure that you know that you're welcome around the team. I think back in the old days we want you to make sure that you know that you're welcome around the team. I think back in the old days, we were always so scared of coaches.

Oh, shit. Boston Brewers, I'll tell you a story. You guys will like it because it's cock-a-bait. You know, with Pat Burns, I loved him for two weeks. I had him as a coach, but I'm on the ice with Sean Bates during practice, and I got him laughing before practice because that's just who I am. I was always relaxed. And Sean's like, you can't make me laugh out here. I go, Bates, it's practice.

Like, what do you mean we can't be laughing? But I think that's how we grew up back in that day to be afraid of the coaches. Now it's like, no. You know what? We want to be known. be afraid of the coaches now it's like no no you know what we want to be no one you know like i think the kids want to be known as as uh you know human beings really now so and you got to be a real sick puppy to be walking around a dressing room like mike keenan like if that's not how you

truly want to be like if that's him to the core then i guess it's like holy shit that's pretty sick and twisted but what's even more sick and twisted, if he's having to put on that facade every day, he must be even more miserable than the fucking players. Right? I mean, that's crazy shit. Yes, I'd say so. Give him the fucking Oscar.

Hey, pass it up, Joker. Nope, fucking Keenan's got it. Yep, that's right. You just mentioned Pat Burns. That must have been a pretty cool experience though, playing for a Hall of Fame coach. I know, you know, it was only a cup of coffee, but playing for a guy like that must have made the experience that much

better though, huh? You know what? He treated me with so much respect. You know, I always had good things to say to him. I mean, we were, it was, it was a rough time for the Bruins. We weren't playing well. And, you know, I remember him being in the media, you know, taking the pressure off the guys.

He was taking a lot of the responsibilities. When they were sending me down, like I knew Dave Elliott was coming back in the lineup, but they only had, you know, I was basically a sixth defenseman. So, you know, usually carrying seven defensemen. He actually told me into his office before, you know, like before the game and said, hey, you're not going to play tonight. I want to keep you around a while longer. And, you know, he usually doesn't do that with guys.

And he actually did it with me. And so, you know, I found that out later from Beche again. He asked me, he said, what did he say to you? I just said, you know, I'm not playing tonight. And you know, so he treated it with respect. I think maybe it was the age that I was at, you know, I was an older guy. And so he just, you know, you know, I had nothing but good things to say about him.

Can I ask you about the season and I'm fast forwarding here in your career, but can I talk, can I talk about the Austin Ice Bats in the Central Hockey League? Is that Austin, Texas? Yeah. Can you just give me a background? I mean, Austin, Texas, one of the sickest places in the country to live.

I don't know what it was like 13, 14 years ago, but, wow, what a time it is now. And that's full-blown Southern hockey right there. Like, did you have a blast? You know what? I didn't have a blast i was you know the year before i was in wheeling player coach i left to go to grand rapids they offered me a lot of money to go for the last month of the season to play and i went i still want to be player coach or or just earn a nine player coach i just want to get right into coach and i couldn't find a job well somebody just set me up with uh with this daniel bill mcdonald's and he was an incredible guy so we went there and he tells me the rink's not you know he goes it's not a nice rink and they were moving out of their bigger rink basically into a minor hockey rink and i walked in going oh my god what the hell did i

get myself into what a shithole but the couple months, had a good time. We enjoyed Austin. You know, you're going downtown to all the bars there. It was great. We'd get the babysitter to do that. But it was a good time then. The ownership sucked. So the owner actually fired Bill McDonald the day after the Super Bowl

party, after they sat beside each other. And I think we had 13 points out of 16 games in a row, fired them. All these owners down there, they're all Texas guys that know nothing about hockey, and they just fired them. And I'm just like, holy. So I actually called Brad Trelew from the league because he was running the league, then the GM of the Flames because he's a friend of mine,

and I knew him from when we played. He's the best. Yeah, you know Brad. That's right. He's the fucking best Yeah, you know Brad. That's right. He's the fucking best. He was playing there and he actually said, he goes, Virch, you got to get yourself out of there. He goes, the owner's not going to pay.

He's not going to pay your full salary. He's not going to pay your insurance in the summer. That's just the kind of guy he is. I made a couple calls to San Antonio to see if they needed a player. You know what? I didn't even call Binghamton. And they just called me out of the booth and said, we're not making the playoffs.

We want to bring in a good leader like you just to show the kids, you know, the proper way of doing anything. And I said to the assistant coach, I said, what, just show them how to get to the bar properly or what? But they brought me into the last 25 games, you know, and it was a good way of finishing off my career. But going back to it, it wasn't that good of a time down there. It was just a bad experience all around for hockey. It was a shithole ring. The ownership wasn't very good. The bus rides were unbearable we were going from from austin texas to

uh we're going something we were going to uh new mexico it was it was it was bad but i just wanted to get into the coaching thing that was that was my whole thing i wanted to get back into you know i wanted to get into coaching i thought that'd be the easiest way and still be part of the game they say once you're out of the game of coaching, it's hard to get back in. So that's kind of how I tried to stay in it. So as a player coach, I mean, are you coming in and being loud and vocal, like, guys, horrible pass by me? Did you yell at yourself?

Well, I always did when I played. You know, I basically say, you know, it starts with me, but it was funny because my first experience was being a player coach in Wheeling, and I think Biz probably didn't like it because when there was a car that came up, I'd go out on the ice and take him off. So I'm sure he wasn't too happy. No, time out.

Hey, listen, not to pump my own tires, but I think you guys realize I adapted to pro pretty good at the ECHL level. That first year, I played 14 games. I had 10 points. Two-time all-star. I got two-time all-star, bitch. But, hey, I thrived off that shit. That was a fun time, and I was going to actually ask you about that.

Is ranked as far as fun moments in your career, how would you have ranked that season? I mean, it was a weird one because we were so stacked early on yeah it was you know it was fun and you you talk with glenn all the time on this and glenn patrick makes it so fun i mean you know i i you know i tell the story about how many how many is natty like to drink i asked him one day i said glenn why do you drink natty lights he goes because it's less alcohol content i said said, Glenn, when you drink 24, it works out to be 12. You get what I'm saying?

He goes, oh, yeah, because he'd come over to my house for dinner, him and his wife, and he'd always bring a 24 at Natty Lights, and there's not too many of them were left over. Come on. It's like when he went home, yeah. So one of the funniest things I was,

we were in a meeting with Toby toby o'brien in johnstown and uh and he wanted one of our goalies and he knew we were throwing him on waivers and uh so since we're in the meeting after the game we go in there and he goes he goes we guys should be trading to us and and we're like for what he goes i don't you name it i said have glenn a 24 pack and natty light next time we come through on the bus. Sure enough, there's a 24-pack and Natty lights on the bus for Glenn the next time. And we traded the goalie to him. Hey, what are some of your most ridiculous minor league stories? Just like the ones where you're like, this is fucking crazy shit.

Crazy? Well, there's so many of them. I mean, you want a broken brawl. Like this is fucking crazy shit. Crazy? Well, there's so many of them. I mean... Like one thing's at the intermission and shit. Okay. So we're in Utah. And we're in Utah. Who were we playing? We were playing... I think we were

playing Worcester, to tell you the truth. It was my year in Utah. And one of the Campbell's brothers, it was Eddie Campbell's buddies from the Worcester area, Shrewsbury area, were up at Park City skiing all day. And so they're

skiing, drinking all day. In between periods we come, there's a big commotion coming out. We go out, one of Eddie Campbell's buddies jumped over the glass naked and was running across the across the ice got got tackled naked on that come on yeah so it was it was the thing they took him the other room they didn't bring him to our room they took him into into the into the other room

it was uh yeah stuff like that and then as you talked about, when we're in Toledo, you know, they used to be able to smoke in the rink in there, and you're sitting in the stands while they're smoking cigarettes, basically, beside you. It was crazy times. It was crazy. The fact that that Zamboni was able to be a Zamboni in a professional hockey league in North America is beyond me. I think it broke down every time we played there, and it was, what,

the second ever Zamboni ever made? Yeah, maybe that's what it was, but I remember sitting in the stands, and actually Sean said, you took over my spot after I left, but there was a lady right in there, and I got to know her kid, actually. There was a lady, and her kid was sitting right there, and got to know her pretty well. It was funny. But, you know, you'd be in skirmish along the glass

and they'd reach over and bang you on the head, things like that. So the other thing was, I don't know if you guys know, but my junior brawl I was in back in the Tri-Cities in Seattle where we went to the stands. And I was one of the guys that got suspended out of it. I didn't realize that I was that involved in it. It's a famous fan brawl if you go on there. We were playing Seattle in game one of the playoffs,

and there's 13,000 fans. And Rick Kozenbeck was our coach. He said something to the fans, and beer and hot dogs came all over us, and he speared one of the fans. We all thought we'd go on and take on the fans. There's people in the stands. We got hockey sticks. People are swinging hockey sticks at us.

It was a crazy night. My dad asked me, he's like, were you involved in it? And I'm like, no, I don't think I was that involved. And then the video, you can just see the three of us, like my number and my name right there. So there's three of us got suspended out of it. But it was a time back then. It's a little different nowadays.

Way different. When the career came to an end, and I know you wanted to get into coaching, but was it hard for you? I mean, we've talked to guys where the first year or two can be kind of a struggle and then people who don't feel that way. But for you, was it hard when, you know, the childhood dream kind of came to an end? You know what? When I was, you know, like 35, 36 years old,

I'm starting to sit with the coaches more than I am the players telling stories. I kind of knew that was the time to hang it up. But, you know, friends of mine own the junior team that I played with out in Tri-Cities, and the assistant coaching job came open. So I knew it was time. It was a good opportunity for me. You know, I think after I actually quit coaching,

I've had more struggles since then because, you know, I went right in from playing, basically, to coaching. And then, you know, coached for five years straight, and then I wanted to be around my son and coach him. So I've had more struggles with that, I think. That's what I talk about. I hear a lot of these people saying about concussion problems

and how they're having troubles in life. I don't think it's really about concussions. I think it's you're done hockey now. You don't have 20,000 fans or000 fans or fans asking for autographs. Bingo. You know, they're just going to tell you, they're going to tell you, they're going to tell you it's something else. So you can just kind of give up and blame it on that.

But it ain't that you got to keep moving to the system. That's that's PTSD right there. That's all of a sudden you've been doing the same thing your whole life. And now it has been taken from you. That is a shock to the system. That's PTSD right there. That's all of a sudden you've been doing the same thing your whole life, and now it has been taken from you. That is a shock to the system. My old man's been through it, and he still goes through it. And you go back to these guys doing these losses and these things, you know, they're really going after their old trainers, not the teams.

I've never had a trainer that put me out on on you know out knowing that i had a concussion all my trainers are i've been top-notch people great guys i've treated them unbelievable they would have never put me out on the ice if they knew i had concussions and yes i played with concussions the next day it was it was part of hockey and people didn't know about them back then and you know for you to blame the sport and to blame your trainers and i don't i don't feel it's right all right well i i'm down to hear your side too buddy and and you've lived it firsthand so i'm not going to tell you no because i i'm a little bit more on your side than most people think but dude we got to thank you for coming

on i guess the last question i have for you is when you first met me and you didn't have a long period of time with me. We played 14 games together, maybe six weeks. Like, what was your honest opinion? Were you like, this guy's a fucking loser? Well, you're a little bit cocky, but cocky and arrogant. But that's the way it was. I talked to Sean today.

We had a lot of cocky, arrogant guys between you and Fata and Andy Chiodo there. I mean, we were talking about that today, saying there's a lot of guys. Man, that Drew Fata was a good fucking hockey player, dude. Yeah, he was. That guy was a truck, could skate. Terrian hated his guts. I'd like to get Drew Fata on.

Hey, do you like that? I know, guys. I know. He was a hammer. I sat in meetings with Michelle Perrion during that training camp, and what a piece of work he was. He would have his feet up on his desk having a chicken wing in one hand and a trigger on the other.

He is an alpha male. But he wanted me to play exhibition games that year, and I was just skating and getting in shape. I said, not a chance. I said, I don't want to play any exhibition games that year, and I was just skating, getting in shape. I said, not a chance. I said, I don't want to play any exhibition games. I don't like using the word alpha on those types of guys because they're flexing their power. They're not flexing their muscles.

These people know they can cave his fucking face in. They're just worried that this guy's going to bury their career. Okay, I sense, though, that Darian, like, with his, I don't know, with his buddies and stuff, is kind of like the bully. I mean, the bully sounds bad. That has a bad connotation to it. But I think he was always, like, demanding of respect. Maybe I'm wrong.

Maybe I'm wrong. Yeah, well, I mean, he did demand it. I wouldn't say it was necessarily earned. You know what? I got to know him away from it a little bit. He was good having a beer with and things like that. I hear a lot of good stories when he's at the golf course with guys that guys get along with.

Yeah, like I hung out with Jose Theodore, and he's like their buddies. He's telling them, like, this guy's a really good guy. So you start hearing other things, and players hate coaches. We'll see if we get more news that Tarion's actually the man. I'm a little harder on these old-school coaches because I'm more in the sense of I thought they were flexing their power, but I hear you. Yeah, but that's the way it was back then.

You flexed your power, you know. I had one of the best old-school coaches was Jimmy Robertson, and he was one of those guys that he actually quit coaching in St. Louis, and I was one pronger, and then we're there, and I asked him one day, I said, why'd you quit hockey? He goes, because it's no fun anymore. It's too serious. He goes, nobody goes out night before games anymore.

And I found that interesting. He loved to have beers with the guys and loved the guys to go out and enjoy themselves. That's the old school guys that I enjoyed. There's nothing more old school than retiring because you can't go out for beers with the boys. Well, well, well, no, he just said it was too serious. There's too much money involved now. And he was old school. He won, you know,

he won six Stanley cups with, with Montreal and he was the St. Louis blues. First, first captain. So he was, uh, you know, he, six Stanley Cups with Montreal. And he was the St. Louis Blues' first captain. So he was, you know, he was an interesting guy. He actually called me into the office one day. He called me in. This was in Worcester. And he said, I don't know what the hell you're doing out on the ice anymore. Do you need to drink a 24-pack of beer the night before a game to play?

Well, drink a 24-pack of beer. So I went into the dressing room. All the guys were like, what did he say to you? I said, well, if I need to drink a 24-pack of beer, drink a 24-pack of beer. So I went to the dressing room, and all the guys were like, what did he say to you? I said, well, if I need to drink a 24-pack of beer, drink a 24-pack of beer before the game. They said, so you just got to suck to get the green light from him or what? And I said, I guess so. Damn. That's going to be like Glenn Patrick.

But anyway, buddy, thank you for coming on. Hold on. I got another question. I got another question. Uh-oh. Do you still skate at all? I skate with the Bruins alumni. I do that. I do those games because, you know,

some guys ask me, they say, why don't you play at the Bruins alumni game? They need some guys. And I play the beer league game, but I won't play anymore. I haven't played in a couple months because I was chasing some guy around. He was mouthing me off, and I just, you know, I have a hard time. I tried to beat him up a couple times. So I tried to grab a hold of him two or three times. I was going tohing me off, and I just, you know, I have a hard time. I tried to beat him up a couple times.

So I tried to grab a hold of him two or three times. I was going to say, listen, I was going to say that makes total sense because I could picture you at Hockey Town. Biz, this place in Revere, Massachusetts, Hockey Town, dude. Saugus. Saugus, sorry. Both terrible. One side of the rink is glass, plexiglass.

The other side is a brick wall. And I could see Virtue buzzing around there, chasing guys down, celebrating goals. No, no. No, no. I'm the opposite. I don't celebrate, but these guys would be winning seven or eight. But these guys would be winning seven or eight, one,

and they're hooting and hollering. I'm just like, are you guys fucking kidding me? Like, it's like – Hey, time out. Hey, time out. Are guys rubbing guys out against the cement wall? Like, if you get hit high, are you bouncing your head off a cement wall, or is it higher up?

No, it's pretty low. That's towards you. Oh, it's pretty low? Like, oh, geez, that's like – that's old school. Real low. All right, well, hey, Terry, thank's pretty low. Oh, it's pretty low? Like, oh, geez, that's old school. Real low. All right, well, Terry, thank you so much. That was a blast talking to you, and wish you all the luck. What's your company?

You want to give a shout-out to it? It's called the Power Play Energy Group, and we're out of Worcester area, but we work in the Boston area quite a bit. And like that, we're trying to go nationally. So it's a good little company. And give a shout out to my son's buddies, Sal and Ben. And Terry, I mean, we got a lot of the white elephant in the room here.

Like you have a stutter. We don't need people thinking you were crippled the entire episode. You crushed the stutter, though. You really do, Terry. Just as you guys did. Well, that was good. I was a little bit worried. You guys are a big deal.

Terry, you reeled that stutter in the entire episode, buddy. I'm fucking proud of you because I've seen you get heated, dude, and you go a while. It's like a fucking lawnmower. Hey, tell the story about the pizza in the hotel room. Oh, yeah. Bonds was my first roommate. We were playing in Cape Breton.

We were roommates together. So I'm sure it was Bonds. I'm sure he was telling you a story. Okay, so I got to ask. Does he have your blessing to tell the stuttering story? He does. He can tell the stuttering story. Yes, he does. He can tell the stuttering story, yes. He can.

He's the best at it. He's the best. You know what? It's funny. The story about him, back in the Maritimes, we used to play in Moncton, and there'd be three or four teams in the one bar. And I knew Frankie Bailoa was pretty good because I played with him. And I'm sitting there at the bar with Frankie

and Bones comes walking by and pulls him off the chair. And Frankie off the ice is a nice guy. He goes, Virch, Virch, what's with Dennis? What's with Dennis? So he just wants to champ at the title, Frankie. But that's how Bones was. He was always

walking around looking for a fight and wanted to, you know. But One of the greatest guys I know. Yeah, Bones is the best, and we appreciate you coming on. You've got passion. We love it. So we'll talk to you soon. And a big thanks to Terry Virtue for joining us for a nice chat. I always like catching up with guys who used to play with you, Biz.

They get a little bit of dirt on you. Guys just light up like Christmas trees when your name comes up. First-ever player coach. Well name comes up first ever player coach well really first ever coach and his shoulder pads were like two face cloths one on each shoulder this it was insane how old school this guy was and uh just a great teammate good man and he had a nice long career absolutely and we do want to mention that interview was brought to you by budweiser the classic great, great-tasting Budweiser is a proud sponsor of Spittin' Chicklets and is also a proud sponsor now of the East Coast Hockey League Player Relief Fund programs, a league that is near and dear to you, Biz, from very early in your career,

and also Terry as well. And the support will help go to players, coaches, and all the staff that help to make the league a vital part of the hockey community. And a reminder to everyone to stay safe stay indoors do your part out there and luckily and get budweiser delivered to your door with now all over the place in canada three of your favorite delivery sites also check out budweiser.ca slash one team where budweiser is supporting hashtag one team which is raising money for the front line check it out once again budweiser is supporting hashtag one team, which is raising money for the front line. Check it out once again, budweiser.ca slash one team.

Speaking of one team, boys, Sunday night on Twitter, I think the entirety of North America felt like one team watching the same television show at the same time. That's a rarity. The Last Dance, the Michael Jordan, Chicago Bulls documentary. I thought so far so good. The first two pods I thought were outstanding. Witt, let's go to you first. I thought they were great.

I might have expected a little bit more, but that's just because of how many people have been talking about this before. It was actually supposed to be released on the off nights in the NBA finals when there wasn't a game. So that was going to be kind of cool for basketball fans to have something for basically two weeks straight. But that team, I didn't realize how big of a deal they were globally. I mean, that clips of them going, was it Paris or something?

That was just, Jordan is, if he's not the most famous athlete of all time, he's right there. And, oh, dude, that guy was a a how about him just giving it to his teammates ron harper on the on the practice court there's just mj didn't give a shit an assassin he was an assassin and you watch those highlights and it's like you forgot how good he i mean every night he did that the dunks the behind the back i mean that one famous one he goes he switches hands just because he can't like like yeah he was that good like he was like on a different level than everyone and one good thing for me watching it i don't really know like how the story played out other than winning i don't know the other there must have

been other drama that's gonna come out oh yeah i mean i didn't i didn't know scotty pippen was underpaid yeah that was he he wayne simmons themselves yes he did he did he took the he took the long term. Seems just like a down-to-earth guy, though. Took care of his family. Just seems like a good dude, but he was fucking pissed off. And to me, rightfully so, considering how cutthroat that GM was. And then to find out that that character in Space Jam was probably created because of him. Do you think that that's the case? Or is that just like a, what do you call it,

a coinkydink? Was that in the documentary? No, no, he's talking about just Space Jam being, having that little guy. I mean, they were so mean to Jerry Groves. I kind of felt bad because he's dead dead and he's not there to defend himself. I know, I know, but it has to be included in the story, you know? No, absolutely.

Absolutely. It's just like, you know, I mean, he fucking, granted he had Jordan, but he was the GM for six titles. If you watch it, what is so true, and I'm not the first person to say this, is Jerry Groves, you could tell, deserved more credit than he got but wanted way more

than he got as well so it would have worked if it was just forever like the guy that was maybe not talked about as much in terms of being the architect of the team if he didn't have an ego it would have been fine but he was just so adamant about letting people know like when he went on that thing

about organizations win championships not players just so adamant about letting people know like when he went on that thing about the uh organizations win championships not players just so blatantly looking for aggressive for the spotlight like buddy know your role take a back seat and just enjoy the success why do you need to be the upfront figure it's michael jordan you can't even he's five three that guy people i i think will probably either remember or learn for the first time that like Scottie Pippen was a bad motherfucker oh yeah he was a phenomenal basketball player who was you know obviously

overshadowed by Jordan a bit but he was no slouch in his own right and that was crazy he was the equipment manager on his fucking division 2 team and he like hung around got a scholarship and ended up fucking you know becoming a hall of famer he grew 5 inches in one summer i think that that document said pippen ended up making 101 million he made more than jordan made more than jordan everyone's got

a cool take it easy on feeling bad for scotty yeah he wasn't what exactly it wasn't he was wrapping on a can for nickels for bread you know know? $2 million in 91 wasn't all that bad. Hey, he should be grateful because the era before them, there was not even these TV deals that he could take advantage of. I think he made close to $120 million, actually. He made $20 million one year, I believe, in Portland. Jordan probably makes that in a month on his fucking sneakers nowadays, though. That's where it's

like damn it did you ever have a pair of air jordans biz oh yeah i've had a bunch of jordans yeah i i had the the original the very first pair i had them when i was probably like 12 years old i have no idea a lot of them off the truck all right no these are legit these ones are legit but it was it was funny though in town town when things did fall off the truck. It was like in the scene in Goodfellas, like every Italian guy got a yellow sweater on. But everyone, except everyone in Charleston, would have the same white Reeboks with the green lettering on. Like 80 guys wearing the same fucking sneakers. I think we should wrap her up.

Absolutely. Thank you very much, everyone listening. And thank you to Joe Buck and Terry Virtue, two awesome guests. It was a treat to talk to both those guys, and I think that that's about it. We'll talk to you next time, what, Monday morning you'll be here. I think we can

all agree, Roman swipes as opposed to going to burn a pitch. Don't throw one in the dirt if you're with an old cougar from the woodlands in wilkes-barre she'll boot you right out of your house and now mikey play it you'll never love you As always, we'd like to send a big thanks to our Dynamite sponsors. A huge thanks to all our friends over at New Amsterdam Vodka and Pink Whitney for taking great care of us.

A big thanks to everybody over at DoorDash. You guys have been taking care of everybody during this crazy time. A huge thanks to everybody at Roman, Roman Swipes, taking care of the boys out there. And a big thanks to everybody at Budweiser Canada, taking care of Canada during these trying times. You're soothing us very well. Have a great weekend, everybody.