Spittin Chiclets - Spittin' Chiclets Episode 303: Featuring Bill Armstrong + Brian Yandle & Mike Mottau (The Rink Shrinks)

Episode Date: October 22, 2020

On Thursday’s episode of Spittin’ Chiclets, the guys are joined by Arizona Coyotes GM Bill Armstrong and The Rink Shrinks, Mike Mottau & Brian Yandle. Bill joined (51:32) to discuss his first days as the Yotes GM, the OEL situation, having Whit and Biz in St. Louis and a bunch more. The guys are then joined by the Rink Shrinks (01:29:32) for some emails and to discuss their new podcast. The boys also talk about the new Sandbagger on Youtube, Doc Emrick, Joe Thornton a tons more.You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/schiclets

Hey, Spittin' Chicklets listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Hello, everybody. Welcome to episode 303 of Spittin' Chicklets, presented by Pink Whitney, from our friends at New Amsterdam Vodka and the Bastille Sports Podcast family. Well, boys, let's say hello.

Go around the crew and see what's going on. Mikey Grinelli, our producer. What's new, guy? What's going on, guys? I went hatless today because I wanted to show off the new haircut and get your guys' opinion. What do you guys think?

Unbelievable. Thank you. It was about time. Is it long in the back still or no? Oh, yeah. So you got rid of the split ends. That's what the ladies do. And then they grow it out a little longer,

and then they cut the split ends off. That way they have nice, fresh hair with things that we'll never know. So R.A. might have the longest hair in the podcast now. That's true. That's why I didn't say his name because he's got very long as skullet i could very well have split ends right now myself i wouldn't know the difference because i've never had him before that was the voice of paul biz nasty bisonette out in the desert what's up buddy nothing much trying to get back in shape guys been going about five or six times a week my body is so fucking sore though man my recovery is just not there even though i got the whoop on it's just like stop stop working

out please for the love of god so trying to get back in shape and that's pretty much all that's going on in the desert although things are cooling down here with it is perfect weather and we should probably think about maybe doing a sandbagger down in the desert pretty soon. Oh, speaking of, that's the third member of the crew, Ryan Whitney, the Witt dog. And we'll get to the sandbagger in a sec. Where are you right now, Witt? That doesn't look like the usual homestead. I have a home office.

So we moved in here about two years ago. And I finally made a room into an office. I got a desk. I haven't got the chair yet. So I'm on a ghetto chair. I got the background getting set up. I got the window open. It's a beautiful day right now. Don't worry, Mikey. I'll mute if I see a big old garbage truck driving by. I actually have a special, special thing going on the wall. I you know that that flag well the people

listening yeah they can't see you'll have to show this clip mikey um i have a couch in front of me i have a couple tables and i have a tv on the wall so i am full-blown home office guy now took me long enough i'm very excited we have plenty to talk about lots of golf lots of golf talk because i had my golf trip to pinehurst i'm going to go over that later we had the sandbaggers we can hop right into that i don't necessarily want to give away what happened because it only was released on wednesday tuesday evening now it's thursday morning as you listen to this i think you should have watched it already, but it's entertaining. Biz came to play.

I made some nice shots. Wagner's a mute. Yipper's a Muppet, but he looked phenomenal. I had people texting me. I had people saying, Yipper, he looks like a supermodel. So he's going to do phenomenal off of the coverage. Residuals from the sandbagger. Residuals from the sandbagger. Residuals from the sandbagger.

I've seen the 70,000 people have watched it. It came out like 12 hours ago. So I'm excited. I'm excited. Somebody tweeted, does he have the same spray tan guy as Witt? He looked bronze on the golf course. He had the aviators on. But, no, that was a blast.

A big thank you to Plymouth Country Club we won't divulge uh who won for those of you who have haven't seen it maybe we'll talk a little bit more next podcast but I've been getting ripped on for putting with my glove on I don't understand why on listen this is my thing putting with your glove on you look like the biggest idiot out there you look like a complete fool you look like an old time scumbag but you've been making putts with it on so it's like it's like the guy with terrible gear wearing hockey and he's nasty like who cares he just gets the job done but yeah when people look for the first time see you roll a putt with a glove on they think pigeon no doubt right off the hop so i have no feeling in that thumb anyway because my glove goes on my

remember when that guy stepped on my wrist and woke spare i went ass over tea kettle so i still haven't gotten the feeling back in at least my thumb area so i'd say half my hand i have big mitts so i'm interested to see where this is going like how a glove would give you less of a feel i would think but considering i have none i just i don't know it'd been fucking with me and then i started doing it with a glove on and i started putting it closer to the hole and in some cases actually making some fucking putts as you saw uh in the in the next two sandbaggers that'll be coming out but uh getting back to the action uh yeah wags didn't really say much but he can hit a golf ball. That's for sure. Yeah, he pounds it. He hits it right on the screws.

I mean, the funniest moment for me is when he absolutely splashes like an eight iron in on number nine, and it's just dead. It's just pin seeking. And you're like, oh, she chunked it. We're good. I chunked it. It lands five feet, and Wags turns around and says, chunked it? Did you get a chance to watch it all right?

I haven't yet. No, I was, like i said earlier my my mother's moving so i'm i got a bunch of shit down her house that that's been sitting here for years so i gotta move it to my place now but i will say you boys look good whoever outfitted he has did a fantastic job peter millar big shout out to that man ended up sponsoring the whole thing so uh thank you for the threads and of course, sponsoring the sandbagger. Mikey, I'm going to throw it over to you, but before so, thank you to you and Chase, our new videographer, who were able to coordinate. Clearly the production was a lot better than the last few.

We had multiple cameramen. We had a sound person on with us. We got some drone footage. So Chase did a great job of editing that down. And as I said, Grinnelli for organizing the whole thing. Yes. And thank you for that biz. I appreciate that. And speaking of Peter Millar, we are dropping a new golf belt, a Peter Millar golf belt this week. So you want to talk about that real quick? I just know Peter Millar makes unreal belts. So if you combine that with the

Chicklets logo, one of the best logos in the game i i think you're crazy if you if you put nice if you like playing a nice round and you're not a slob and you tuck your golf shirt in go buy this belt because you'll look phenomenal peter millar is all i wear pretty much golf peter millar coming out with the high tube socks the white ones that i wore on the golf course in the sandbagger when i drain that. What was that, a 25-footer for birdie? Yeah, legit. Birdie net eagle. What a moment. Check it out.

YouTube. Nice. I think by the sixth or seventh sandbagger, I'll figure out all the rules for you, Whit. No chance. We'll talk about this later. Whit, that little Norman Rockwell behind you that I see? Yeah, this is going up somewhere in there.

For people who don't know, Normanan walker was a famous famous artist and one of his favorite paintings ever it's called the rookie and you could see some bright-eyed bushy-tailed rookie walking into the locker room in spring training with the boston red sox had terrible ted no it's not terrible it's terrible ted lindsey ted william the splendid splinter, one of the greatest hitters of all time. He's given them the old veteran look how the game used to be biz, you know? So it's like a rookie sit down and shut up. What are you saying hi to all of us for? This is the big leagues. Go take a seat,

take off your shoes and socks and maybe you'll get a new pair of cleats. So this is going somewhere. This is how the game used to be. Respect for the vets. Not like some rookie coming to the Penguins and yelling, let's go wrecking ball when he's 23 big-eared, fucking fast, fast feet snap on the puck. No rookies like that back when Norman Rockwell did the

rookie. I was going to say, I'd love to see a 1970s like AHL version of that paint and we're like guys just hazing the shit out of some guy. They're just tagging someone together oh shit man well of course we are back to one episode a week so we do have two interviews coming a little bit later on today's ep we have arizona coyotes general manager bill armstrong our second ever active general manager we're happy to bring that one to you and we have the rink shrinks and that's a, not just the rink shrink anymore.

Brian Yandel and Mike Motto both joined us in Charleston a couple weeks ago to discuss their new podcast and whatever else happened to come up. Yeah, Mott and Ross Yandel, that's been going great. They actually had Charlie Coyle just the other day, so I think that episode will be dropping today. Same as ours, Thursdays, Thursday, Thursdays. So I had a blast talking to those guys.

I think what they're doing is great. And Bill Armstrong, we go a long way back. I mean, Biz, you've known him and he helped us in St. Louis. So I had a lot of fun talking to him. He's very, he's very specific in what he knows, like how he's going to get the job done. You know, he has a, he has an idea in mind of how he's going to go about to make the coyotes a

legit contender. And I don't think he's going to waver from it so i think everyone will enjoy that interview and uh shout out to the chicago boys because our first gm uh stan bowman he was on with with chief i think yesterday or i don't know when that's dropping but he he's got a probably a a bag bag full of tougher questions than we did right i mean mean, we're covering the league. Chiefs had some legit griefs. He made a shirt with a guy's face as a clown on it. So I'm wondering how that interview went.

Good for Chiefs. That's a big get. And the Blackhawks certainly have some explaining to do. How about Stan standing in there, though? I commend him as a general manager where if he feels that some of the media, at least the more popular ones and vocal ones, have have some questions he'll go out and sit down with them so yeah we i mean i wasn't gonna grill the guy chief seems to have it very personally out for him just given the fact that he loves the blackhawks so tune into that one in interviews

like that it doesn't matter like what sport or anything i i i like can't watch them there i get such second uncomfortable as well like yeah when you when somebody's like grilling someone i remember like the a-rod like steroid thing or was it did he admit to it i don't remember it was some interview where an athlete's getting grilled i just have to change a channel it makes me feel so awkward probably good that i interview people for a living if I can't even watch one. Yeah. So I just spoke with Chief, guys. Chief said it got very contentious at times, very awkward.

Don't even know what that word means. Definitely keep an eye out for it. But he said he respects him a hell of a lot more. Contentious means that there is moments of tension. Yeah. So they're going to actually be a moment where maybe those two aren't seeing eye to eye and it's getting a little bit heated. Contentious and heated. I think it's the same thing.

Okay. Yeah, I would say so. And that interview actually does drop Thursday, the same day as this episode. And just to get folks up to speed in case they weren't familiar, reminiscent of what the Rangers did a couple of years ago, the Blackhawks sent out a letter to their fans to acknowledge a rebuild that's kind

of coincidental that happened after everything that's gone down. But I'll read some of it from the Blackhawks. We recently said goodbye to a pair of popular two-time champions and acquired some new players via trade and free agency. We understand it was tough to see those respected veterans go and realize you may have some questions about our direction. We'd like to address that direction and share why we're hopeful for the future of Blackhawks hockey.

And then basically goes on to say, we're committed to developing young players. We're already the youngest team as a younger players develop. We've learned how to win consistency. I mean, I just thought it was a little bit of a word salad. Like if I was a, if I was a Blackhawks fan, I'd probably be like, okay, why is this coming now after Taves called you out? Why didn't it come out before?

And Stan Bowman sat down with the athletic as well and he said to those guys that he did sit down with taves keith seabrook and kane and said i try to explain to them that what we're doing now is no different than what we've been doing the biggest changes that would be in more open and transparent about it i'm sure the players maybe probably had something to say about that considering they kind of had to hear about things secondhand so it's going to be interesting to see how this plays out with these guys going forward. Know it? I mean, do they really want the power to rebuild?

It's going to be interesting as whenever hockey begins again, when they stink. And then all of a sudden over time, you see like these great players, Kane, Keith, and Taves, who can all still play at crazy high levels. I think that all – like Kane hasn't slowed down a bit. Maybe, maybe Taves and Keith had a, had a year or two where they weren't at their peak. Well, they've kind of come right back.

I know Taves was awesome this season and Keith the same way. Once he started getting more ice time, I don't think he liked going down to 20, 21 minutes. He said that, but when this team starts and those three guys are still at a high level and the team stinks and he's, is near the bottom of the league. That's when you'll wonder what's actually going to happen because are they

going to stand for that? Are they going to say at some point, get me out of here? I mentioned it could happen at some point. I mean, it's not exactly like a rocket science to think that at some point that these nasty three players are going to say, get me on a good team.

I'm not going to wither away my final years on some, an absolute trash bag team in front of 6 000 fans we said this last week yeah one of the things i think we didn't mention but it was it was obvious is like yeah maybe they do stink and those guys do have three stanley cups and they are legends and they still do have a lot of gas left in the tank. But given with what's going on with the league and the flat cap, like how many players do you think – or how many teams, excuse me, can make a trade for Jonathan Tays when they're going to pay him $10.5 million? Well, they wouldn't – Chicago would have to eat it.

Chicago would have to eat a lot of it. So then it hurts them even more. So they're in a bit of a difficult situation. And I'm not saying – and I've reiterated this a a million times they're worth every goddamn cent that they got but it also has put the team in a tad bit of a bind as far as you know bringing guys in and and managing the salary cap so uh check out that interview with chief and and uh the the drama in chicago is still ongoing yeah like i said i think meeting with the team biz now is like kind of like going to the drugstore after you have twins,

you know what I mean? It's like you already did everything. And now you meet with the team. I think the horse already got out of the barn, but, but a chief did have a great quote. What do you mean going to the drugstore after you had twins? Like that's,

I know I'm, I'm dating myself with euphemism, going to the drugstore to get, get robbers, like get contraceptives. So you don't still have a pregnancy. I actually love the reference now. I didn't really get it off the hop either. I was like, what are you going to the drugstore? I like get contraceptive so you don't still get pregnancy i actually love the reference now i didn't really get it off the hop either i was like what are you going to the drugs

i like it i like it thank you i appreciate it i thought you were i thought it was like a plan b joke or something you're going even no plan a yeah okay all right um we are we going to get into that that zoom call with uh with uh oh, you've been dying to talk about that. Oh, the guy from – the reporter? What's his name? Jeffrey Toobin? I thought he was like an executive at CNN. Dude, he was milking himself in front of the whole company.

What's this guy doing? Yeah. So I've been hearing more parts of the back story of it. Apparently he was on the other line with, with a guy, a sex worker, like via teleconference as well. So I think maybe he thought when he was like not talking and muted that he could go crank off to this chick.

And then when it was his turn to talk again, that he could just hop back on. And I don't know, I guess, I guess they were doing like a, was it a mock election? All right. I think it was like a mock

argument like what each play each person was playing a different role for like for a future internet segment and he put his thing down from from what i read put his thing down because he was done with that portion his laptop he folded his laptop down but apparently not enough and uh yeah everybody could see him it's like dude like i don't know if he's how old the guy is but he's got to be a baby boomer because only like a boomer would like fucking do something do something like this where go rub one out and the whole world can still see it because you didn't shut something right i'm afraid to pick my nose when we're on these zooms let alone just rubbing one out in front of the whole your team that where what so is he a what does this guy do i think he's a contributing commenter at CNN.

He's been with a bunch of different outfits over the years. I'm not as up to speed with the story of his business, but I guess people seeing you juggling out online is pretty much all you need when it comes to those stories. You're a sick puppy if you're cranking one off during work hours in the midst of a Zoom call. I can understand, listen, if you, if, if, if your only duty was to show up for that zoom call and it was all over and maybe they had

something else to talk about afterward, and then they were still on, you're like, okay, see you guys have a good one. Great. You know, great discussion. And then you think you leave the zoom call and then you start cranking one off. That's a tough one in the midst of the zoom call is a different story.'s just yeah could you could you forgive that a lot more wit if it was post post zoom call or at least yeah i mean the only way you can do this during a zoom call is if it's a 24-hour zoom call and you're like i gotta be on this zoom call for one day straight maybe at some point i'll try to mix one in but for the most part you you would think if you're on a zoom call that everyone you work with on,

and then you decide to like, take care of yourself right when it finishes, restart the computer quick, just get rid of it. You know what I mean? Sometimes like for me to get rid of a page, I'm restarting the whole computer. I don't trust just like control Q. So I, I, I, I will say that this guy, if he doesn't get fired it's kind of shocking right do you i think he's just gonna get sussy because i don't think cranking off is as bad as like some other things that you can do uh but uh yeah he's right now he's on sussy i think he's got a 10 gamer well so if in the middle of it if in the middle if in the middle like he said like theresa

you look good theresa's a girl on the zoom then he's getting fired right yeah i mean oh yeah i mean inspiration can't come from anywhere at any time and that may have would have happened here but it's again it's just like come on dude like what do you think and now now i know the new york daily news had like a news opinion piece like basically like oh it's natural we shouldn't we shouldn't all run from the m word that's like no shit everybody plays with themselves but most people do it don't do it on a fucking work zone where other people can see it i don't masturbation is not the issue here it's fucking learning how to use your electronic equipment how do you even look your co-workers in the eye after that one like like board meetings when things get back to normal when you're just like it's your it's your

time to step up and talk and you know everyone everyone in the room is just in their head chuckling about how you cranked one off on a Zoom call. I gave your driver a sick wrist rocket at the sandbag after you striped one down 11. Yes, you did. So I feel bad for this guy, but yeah, you can't be cranking it off at work, folks. Live and learn. Yeah, that's a no-go. Certainly not in that manner. Well, anyways, when we last checked in, there were still some names out in the free agent market

that were available to any willing shooters. And I just mentioned I was down my mother's helping her move, and I found an old puck, and I had been looking for it. And it was from this guy's rookie year 22 years ago. He was a help on that night. I had him sign it. Joe Thornton, 22-year-old puck. He goes to Toronto for one year, $700,000 deal.

He's going to wear number 97, the first Leaf to ever do so. Jason Spezza did offer his 19, Joe declined. Biz, let's go to you first. You're somewhat of a Toronto guy. Joe didn't want to buy Spezza the watch, eh? A little El Cheapo with all the money he's made. Is Sneaky a huge Leafs fan? Everyone knows that.

Yeah, I grew up a huge Doug Gilmore fan that was right in the area you know I felt their pain and you know sometimes they had some star players and they couldn't surround them like Matt Sundin and and right now they got it they got a good team and toughness is one of the things that they had to address they did so and this to me is is similar to when they brought in Marlo to nurture these young guys, but at a way less of a risk. $700,000 one year. Joe gets to go back home. He was talking about it on sports that I believe.

His old man's a Leafs fan. You know me, guys. I'm always a pessimist. Or no, optimist. You're an optimist. I'm an optimist. Leafs have not been able to get over the hump with this young core group. This is the perfect guy to come in.

In one of the situations I feel that they need help is maybe to deflect the amount of negative media attention and I think Joe is going to come in he's going to settle those guys down he's going to be able to take a little bit of the brunt of that and also help these guys with situational things like in practice letting them know them know where to be, how to act in certain situations. So I think this is a great signing. As far as gas left in the tank, I would imagine he's playing fourth line center with. Is that probably where they got him slotted?

Yeah, maybe he gets on one of the power play units here and there. Yeah, second unit power play. So I think this is a huge addition for them, and no reason to look at it negatively uh this guy loves the game he loves the boys he does not want to stop playing and he mentioned that he talked to joe montana he's such a legend he called a bunch of different people he mentioned former teammates pavelski and stuff that he chatted with but then a conversation with joe mont Montana who talked about when he left

for to become the quarterback of the Chiefs now granted I think that he was still like number one QB and Joe's game isn't that the elite number one center he's been for 20 years but this is a guy who just wants to be in the mix and he said I need to win a Stanley Cup and he truly believes this this team can that's the question uh you mentioned comparing it to marlo and bringing him in at a way less of a risk for sure money money wise it's not even close but it's so different in a sense that their their personalities are are like opposite at least from what i've seen i mean joe thornton he's loud he's a dominant personality he's an alpha marlo just gets it done on the ice very quiet off the ice and he

did a ton for marner and matthews but thornton is like he'll be the life of the room and talk about we've we've had we've interviewed joe thornton's teammates for years and and they've all said he's he has no problem in calling somebody out if you're not doing your job if you're not doing what you're paid to be doing and what the team needs you to do to win games he'll make he'll let you know the coach doesn't always have to do it if i'm kyle dubas i'm also talking to joe throughout the entire season and saying like asking about different guys i mean this this guy has played for so long he's going to be in the hockey hall of fame first ballot so why not get his opinion on maybe some certain players if they're if they're in the if if they're struggling for for for a month-long

stretch all of a sudden dubas and uh sheld Keefe is able to ask him and talk to him and kind of, well, what are you seeing here? It's like not a player coach by any means, but he's as smart as any coach in the league. His hockey IQ is through the charts and he loves the game. So I love the signing. I think that they've made a conscious effort to have a ton of speed and skill on the top two lines. And then like almost just physicality and grit on the bottom two.

I mean, they signed Simmons. He's not that fast anymore. Neither is Thornton. But it's certainly a different look Leafs team, which is all the fans wanted. They have more grit. They're tougher. And they have a guy now who's been around the league forever and is as hungry to win as anyone else. And I would love to see Joe Thornton win a Stanley Cup.

It would be just as good, if not better, than watching Ovechkin finally get one. So the Leafs kind of coming at us like Brendan Walsh described. When the one team, I think he played for them, when each line had a different forecheck so that D wouldn't know what the fuck to do. So that's kind of how the Leafs are doing it. You mentioned calling guys out in the locker room. Speaking of that, he had to call all of his teammates from San Jose,

which was a very difficult decision for him, of course, to leave there. I talked to Brent Burns. I think he reached out to basically every guy on that roster and told them before it came out in the media. So that just kind of tells you the stand-up guy that Joe is. And, of course, a difficult decision to leave. But if he wants a chance at the Cup, I think his best one is probably in Toronto,

given with where he could have gone. And every guy understands. There's not one guy who's upset. They're going to miss not having him around, but they get why he's doing it. Toronto has a way better chance to win the Cup than San Jose. And that wasn't everything, but he still has that dream in mind. All right, boys. Well, hey, listen, we're discussing lots of numbers and here's one for you. Did you know that a train traveling at

55 miles an hour takes a mile or more to stop? Well, it's true. It's also true that by law, trains have the right of way on all railroad crossings. In 2019 alone, 126 people were killed and 635 people were injured in collisions at railroad crossings. And from 2015 to 2019, 1,589 drivers went around a lowered gate and were struck by a train accounting for 15% of all collisions. These deaths are largely preventable and are caused by risky driving behaviors and poor decision making. While active warning devices do improve safety at railroad crossings, they do not prevent all collisions. Approximately 60% of all collisions at railroad crossings occur when active warning devices are present and functioning. So when approaching a railroad crossing, slow down, look and listen for a train at the tracks, even if the lights aren't flashing or the barrier isn't

coming down. If you see any indication that a train is coming, stop and wait for a train at the tracks, even if the lights aren't flashing or the barrier isn't coming down. If you see any indication that a train is coming, stop and wait for the train to pass. Don't try to race the train. You know it's true that there's no excuse, but you know it's true. It's no excuse that's worth risking your life for at a highway rail grade crossing. Always stop and wait for the train to pass. This message is from our friends over at NHTSA. I don't know who's crazier, the person who decides to go underneath the gate lowering that a train's coming or the guy throwing himself around the Zoom call.

Because if you are going to talk about trying to beat the train like you can't wait six minutes, are you shitting me? Who gave us that ad? It's our friends at nitsa national highway transportation safety administration great administration right there i mean imagine working for them and trying to explain to the people who are hit by a train trying to outrun the train dude the things coming down just stop yeah there's actually been an uptick in it i don't know if it's impatient people more more than there used to be or what, but enough that they want some awareness.

So if you're out there and there's a train going, man, pay attention to it. That's not something you can stop, and that's not something that can stop on a dime either. So moving right along, we've got a few other sign-ins to go to. Forward, Evgeny Dadunov. How do you say it? How do you say it? Dadunov.

Dadunov. I thought it was Dadunov. Dadunov. Well, anyways, he was unrestricted from Florida. He went to ottawa three years 15 million dollars five million dollar hit uh he's the highest paid forward on the sins right now at least until they expend extend brady kachuk at some point i gotta tell you boys i like what the sins are doing i know we've had some fun at the expense of this organization but on paper what they did at the draft i mean things are looking up for this team right now. Know it?

Definitely. I mean, you really couldn't get any worse. But I think that there's now some things there in place where you can look. You see the light at the end of the tunnel three years from now, right? I mean, you see, like, we talked about Shabbat nonstop and Brady Kachuk, and there's younger guys there that just need a little veteran presence. I don't think they're a playoff team, but I certainly don't think they're the same squad that was skating around this season.

This guy's had a bit of an odd career, but I talked to Yans and he said, he's sick. I think this is a great signing at 5 million. I think it was kind of just like, you know, the first wave of free agents had gone by. And to me, you know, based on where everything's at and what Yan says about him and his production, I think the Ottawa Senators got him at a bargain.

And in year, you know, two or three of this deal, when this team starts getting a little bit better and some of these young guys start producing more, and who knows, maybe even some of these draft picks they just drafted are in the lineup contributing. Ottawa is on the move, boys. They've been the butt of the jokes, but we're going to stick to Buffalo from now on until we see a change.

And Ottawa, you guys are good to go. Bobby Brown. We were on the golf course when I read my phone like in between rounds. I was like, oh, Dadinoff signed to Keith. He's like, oh, where? What did he get? I said, $5 million a year.

He's like, what? That's it? Kind of shows the market now and also how good of a player he thinks he is. So skill level through the roof. Yeah. Through the roof. What a thing. What a cliche.

All right, moving right along. Defenseman Cody Ceci. He was in Toronto last season after spending his first six seasons with the Senators. Well, he went to Pittsburgh on a one-year deal worth $1.25 million. There's any input on that one or what i hope he goes and crushes it because he dealt with a lot in uh in toronto i think he was pretty much the whipping boy all season long and then even dubas had to answer uh questions about him at the you know after after the season about you know how poor he was defensively and how they overpaid him based on what he did and then the analytics comment came in and that didn't go over well but uh you know

kind of a similar situation to where you know a guy can maybe go somewhere get a new look now the pressure is not going to be on him that he's not making a significant amount of money uh but you know i think uh for the most part people were you know scratching their head at it after they just bought now jack johnson getting another guy who who had been struggling. But I don't think there's a lot of risk there. It's a one year deal. And I hope he goes there and he thrives. I he's a first round pick. I remember the one year he had 10 goals. I was like, fuck, this guy's a player. And then things have certainly changed a little bit. I don't know if foot speed is the main issue, but yeah,

he was taking a beating. Toronto's not the city that you want to be the guy that they pick on, even though they decided that it was Larry Murphy one year. How'd that turn out? I think, I think that Pittsburgh, you know, you saw Jack Johnson was there. That's now over and, and they've made a ton of different changes. They had Olimata there.

It's like, they need made a ton of different changes. They had only model there. It's like, they need probably a little quicker D I don't necessarily think she does think, thinks he does that. But at the same time, he's going to go in there. He's played in the league a long time. And it's, it's just another player that with a team like Pittsburgh was paying a couple guys, tons of money. They, they need to have depth signings. They need to have guys make it under a million bucks, play it, playing a key role all right moving right along uh right after we recorded last week

with brendan gallagher he signed montreal six year 39 39 million dollar extension comes out to six and a half mil a year uh were you surprised that happened right after we taped or what i was i i i actually i i thought there's no way they're gonna like not sign him i feel like it would be shocking if at some point he wasn't on the canadians the exact player they need uh but certainly to say that it was going to be an issue and that they had just given out money to a player that that probably is a little younger and similar to to gallagher for it to happen like 10 10 minutes after we hung up yeah I ate that one I knew I would I actually said to Mikey wow how much how how much quicker could I

look like a fool than today it'll happen again I actually cut it out of the podcast too though you guys talking about it did you so you guys look extra smart right now wow okay thank you I thought no chance, but appreciate that. Appreciate that. Thanks for the heads up. And apparently, like the day before. Yeah, I'll delete what I just said as well. Guys, apparently the day before, talks had broke off

because they weren't anywhere close, and there was a little bit of tension. But they ended up circling back, and obviously Bergervan knows the value that Gallagher brings. I mean, five on on five he's one of the most impressive players in in the league i think over the last little while he's like the top five as far as as far as five on five productions concern uh we know he's a heart and soul guy there he's very well liked by his teammates you know he's going to take his off

seasons very seriously his father trains him he's going to keep in shape long into his career, I'd imagine. And to get six years at six and a half, I think that's a very fair value for what he brings to that lineup. And I couldn't be happier for the guy. He even said in that video that he released right after signing, he says he couldn't have pictured himself in any other jersey. And now there's a strong chance he does finish his career in Montreal. Yeah, it seemed like once those trade rumors came out,

things got down to the nitty-gritty and they ended up signing him quickly. And Montreal also extended goalie Jake Allen with the two-year, $5.75 million deal, comes out to $2.875 million a year per hit. He's going to be making $4.35 million this upcoming season. Montreal's going to have almost $15 million tied up in two goalies for just this season. And, of course, Caden Primo, he's the assumed although montreal's gonna have almost 15 million dollars tied up in two goalies for just this season and of course caden primo he's the assumed heir apparent to price so you gotta look down the line a little jake allen is probably the perfect candidate for expansion exposure when it does roll around he's still only 30 years old i don't know how much weed i'd smoked

when i read this i thought he got over 5 million a year so i was trying to make sense of this for for about 90 minutes i texted elliot friedman i'm like i'm like five million i'm like this is ridiculous like what i'm like it doesn't make any sense or does this have to do with the expansion draft and then i come to find out that they extended them for five point where's that 5.75 over two yeah and i think he was just being nice and he's just like okay he's he probably flashed back to when we were with him at Starbucks, like eight in the morning on York street. And we like offered him this joint.

He's like, yeah, I'm all good guys. Yeah. So, so we might've officially been, we'd be done being asked to be on sports net for any type of a draft. Hey Elliot, want us on the 30 thoughts pod? No, no, we're, we're good. Even after you nailed the Messnikoff business, they'll still want us on the 30 thoughts pod uh no no we're we're good even after you nailed no mess in the cough business they'll still want us back you you brought up the point of uh of uh the protection

for the upcoming expansion draft and the fact that they have primo in the pipeline so this is probably a move in order to secure that they can't pick him up yeah you would you would think yeah exactly it can it can protect uh price and primo and make allen available i think is primo young enough though where you don't have to waste the protection on him you know what i'm not they're still in their entry level draft if they're still in their entry level contract usually you can't take them for the expansion and i just don't know where that'll be by the time next year rolls around but if that is not the case you got to remember jake allen is a very solid goaltender he's he's kind of been that one B is that a fair statement in St. Louis I know he was at one point the starter

but they kept switching off and on and they were having goaltending issues but this is a perfect backup plan for the Canadians and if you're not wanting to burn out carry price at least in the regular season portion of the season when we don't know what's going to be going on with with how the scheduling is and how many back-to-backs and how condensed the schedule will be um i you know i i like them locking them up for a little bit i think he's got a lot of game left i think he's being paid extremely handsomely for this season but to have him for two more years at that aav it's uh it's a good number uh also you said when the when the league up, it reminded me, have we talked about the report that the NHL wants to have a game at Lake Louise? We have not discussed that.

That is the sickest. It's Mystery Alaska. Biz, I'm Stevie Weeks, and you're the guy, Skank Martin. I think, honestly, it would be the sickest moment of the NHL, like past few years, to see a game outdoors on the most beautiful lake in the world. Yeah, I said that. I love Lake Louise. So no fans, obviously.

They're not going to be able to. I don't know. Yeah, so it would just be televised. I think it would be unbelievable. Yeah, I would say it's very much in the preliminary stage, almost like, you know, like, hey, let's throw this out there. Because, yeah, if you can't sell tickets to it, well then again, who knows what they'd be able to do, but yeah,

it would be fantastic idea. I'll believe it when it happens though. That's kind of my skepticism at this stage, I guess. What's up G. The NHL is also doing the reverse retro jerseys. Apparently. What do you guys think of that? What does that mean? Like they're like the penguins released stairs, the flyers released stairs. They're doing like throwback retro jerseys for next season. But they reversed the colors. So the colors that you used to.

Yeah, they're pretty funky, man. I like them. You can sell a shitload. As long as the Bruins isn't the scared bear taking a shit. Fucking poo beer. Yeah, that's the worst. What are the good ones? What was the Penguins is awesome.

I like to bring back the red, black and white one that they lost the cup finals. And those were sick. I mean, they weren't terrible then. But like now I think they're sick, if that makes any sense. I think I lost the pamphlet I had. So you have to cover an expansion team now because I'm not going to lie. I'm not up to date on the expansion rules. And yeah, C yeah caden primo he's still got two years left on his entry level deal so pretty much fucking nullifies what i just said but i'm not up to speed on this i'm just curious

how how'd they be able to pull that off with with like the boards to make them solid enough where you like you you you drill them down into the ice the ice is that thick at lake louise it's got to be that's a good point though unless unless there to be. That's a good point, though. Unless there's a bunch of me out there and just no body check can even move the glass. Hey, they'll set up the boards that we had at our pod hockey tournament. Same quality ice, too. Maybe we could even get Chief in the game.

Chief's set of blades. The over-under on Chief Falls with the Barstool sportsbook is 73.5 and he's getting three shifts. The little mini-nets. Alright, boys. We also had a bunch of restricted free agents who stayed put. Didn't get off a sheet. It looks like guys who were

happy where they were. They wanted to stay there. The Rangers, they signed an important pair of RFAs. Defenseman Tony D'Angelo, two years, 9.6 mil. Goalie AlexanderAngelo, two years, 9.6 mil. Goalie Alexander Georgiev, two years, 4.85 mil. Biz, any shocker there for you? No. I mean, before the season started, Witt,

and you could probably chime in more on this, is, you know, especially given the numbers that D'Angelo put up in the regular season, I thought he was going to get probably a longer ticket. But, you know, clearly they just wanted to sign him to that bridge deal. I don't know if that makes him easier to move. I know there has been rumors that they are trying to move him,

but, you know, I think he's a very solid player, a great puck-moving defenseman. But, you know, what was your... Do you think they just couldn't land on a number as far as going long-term? I don't know if you think they just couldn't land on a number as far as going long term? I don't know if it was that they couldn't land on a number and agree how big of a deal he'd get. I'm sure he probably wanted like a seven-year deal, right? But it also could be maybe let's give him two more years, see if he for sure fits in here.

I know guys love him playing with him. I also think he's a little bit of a lunatic at times on the ice. So I don't know whether he's barking at his coach or he's yelling at a ref. The guy is nothing short of a fucking gamer, dude. Like he's competing his dick off every night. But I think there's times when he might kind of toe that line on the wrong side. The wires cross. The wires cross and he's not listening to anyone.

This is from watching him play and seeing how dynamite he can be offensively, and he just plays tons of minutes, but maybe they're not sure if they want him to a seven-year deal yet and see if he can kind of repeat how sick he was this year again. But still, I mean, he deserves to be making big money. He's running the power play. And they also – that team is – the Rangers are nasty.

The Fox is there too. They're not sure what they're going to have to pay him, and maybe they want him longer. There's just different decisions being made. So I think they're probably excited to have him two more years at not a crazy number right now. For sure, because I can't see his numbers going down with the guys he'll be snapping the puck to on the power play and the lineup they have moving forward

that's a nice price for uh georgie you have two and chester and he still hasn't signed yet so either way they're gonna have two nice goalies for a pretty nice price in new york however it shakes out uh biz in your neck of the woods christian fisher he re-upped uh two years uh two million dollar one million dollar hit Christian Fisher. Christian Fisher, big body, bottom six forward. You know, hopefully he can find his offensive touch at the NHL level, much like he found at the AHL level. And that's a great value for the Arizona Coyotes. All right, moving right along.

Grizzlyk signed. Grizzlyk in Boston. Took the words right out of my mouth once again. Defensive Maddie Grizzlyk. He was restricted here in Boston. Signed a four-year, $13.75 million deal. Comes out to a $3.6875 million cap hit. I think obviously with no Krug in town anymore,

he's definitely going to soak up some of those minutes. I think he's going to see significantly more time on the power play, whether the second unit or not. No doubt. I think that Bruins fans are ecstatic seeing this contract because he has been so good since he got there. He skates so well. He's able to break the puck out with such ease. And a lot of times it's just him carrying it out.

So I think when the Bruins didn't re-sign Krug, I don't think they plan on Grizzly being as great offensively. And for the sole reason, I think I think Krug shots just a different level I mean Grizz could could for sure improve that shot and he can turn into a real weapon he's awesome at getting the puck through he doesn't necessarily have the speed on like certain one timers that Krug could bring but the way he sees the ice I had the chance of skating with him when he was at BU he played four years there he actually tore his ACL I think his sophomore year so that was a scary time but you've seen what he's come back to become

and how easily he skates and how good he is with the puck and how smart of a player he is playing undersized, playing defense. I just love that. I love that deal. I'm so happy for him. Anyone who knows him knows one of the nicest, most genuine people you'll ever meet. He's always been the leader on every team he's been on.

One of those kids that was like a pro when he was 16 years old national team also ann arbor thank you uh now they're not even in ann arbor so i i'm very happy for him be you guy that that hopefully if he continues to improve at the level he has and how the bruins probably see it uh he could be making even more money at the end of this four years because he's got a lot of great hockey left not just to be you guy chowstown guy as well great kid from a great family so it's did you tell me his uh his dad does the ice at the boston gardens yeah yeah he's been part of the ice crew for shit 40 50 close to 50 years i think over there mr mr grizz he's a great guy great kid great family um also too when he was a youngster he said he's been like a pro since he was 16 uh what he was

coached by big jim veezy when they were kids and this this team were like him brendan kaya like little jimmy all these like future professionals like basically they coached these guys like they were pros when they were like six eight years old shit that probably wouldn't fly today they were loaded their team was the fitzgeralds played it. They were fucking loaded growing up. They had power play meetings. Those guys learned how to be pros from pros at a very young age. Learning about accountability. First thing they did was boot the parents out, beat it, and fucking see you later.

No one's going to mouth off to Big Jim Veazey, that's for sure. Yeah, you don't need any ring shrinks around there. Well, another local lad, but on a different coast, Irish strict-discret agent Adam Gaudette re-up with Vancouver. One year, $950,000. Biz, what's weird about this, when I put his name in the text, it got auto-corrected to hairdryer. Adam Gaudette to hairdryer.

I don't even know why, because I don't think you have a type of... What a shot at Adam Gaudette right there. Just calling him a hairdryer. Could have been. I mean, if it was Brock Besser, then it might be a compliment. One thing about Adam Gaudette, boys. Just calling him a hair dryer. Could have been. If it was Brock Bester, then it might be a compliment. One thing about Adam Gaudette, boys. Had a good year this year. Unbelievable streamer, too.

He's a big Twitch streamer. Plays Call of Duty all the time. I see you tweeting with him all the time about that. He is unbelievable at video games. He's one of those guys who's just so fucking good. So he could end his NHL career tomorrow, and he could be a fucking Twitch streamer. I don't know if he's making a million playing video games dude twitch streamers pulling a lot nowadays though

how many of them you think make a million not as many as nhl guys but still he could still make a living no stick with the puck a couple more signs here before we move along to some other big news no one patrick he was restricted in philly signed a one-year deal worth $874,000. And Ilya Mikheyev was restricted up in Toronto. He signed a two-year deal worth $3.29 million. He had eight goals and 15 assists and 39 games played last year. And yeah, Nolan Patrick, it's a crazy story right now

because three years ago, he's picked second overall. And you see right away, his rookie year had some big big games he had plays when you could see the the the the reason why he's taken so high and like what he could what he could actually do with the pocket how big he was and then what's happened with injuries since is scary and you know you see Heskin and Makar and Elias Patterson him, these unreal players. So it's probably hard for him to see his peers doing so well. And guys are, you know, talking about way bigger contracts. And he's stuck right now with an issue. And when you talk about head and migraines and concussions,

it's just scary stuff. So I think that all of us are wishing him the best, because when you have a talent like that who's going through something the way he is this young this young uh in his career and in life i mean you have to think of him and and send well wishes because um that's that's a dark tough time right now for i'm sure and i think that if you can kind of at least try to like if you try to think about being him how hard would it be to remain positive and that's like all he can do so we're thinking of him going through that and it's good he did get that contract to try to figure everything out well said well

said and uh there was one other sign in two i andrew mangi apani's re-upped with calgary two years 4.85 million comes out to 2.42 and a half mil per year uh so he'll he'll be staying put there but the other player too ra he was the the one having contract issues at the beginning of last season. I thought he was, he thought he was being undervalued. And then after the season he had, I think he finally got to the number that he deserves. He's a solid fucking player. No doubt. He won't be going anywhere.

I'm sure Calgary fans are happy for that. But the big news this week, man, the game is losing another huge name. After 47 years of calling hockey games, Mike, Doc Emmerich is hanging up his mic. He's done more than 3,750 pro and Olympic games. 74 years old. I'll tell you, the guy didn't look a day over 60. Called 22 Stanley Cup finals, 45 game sevens. I mean, he's been the voice of hockey here in the States for basically this whole century, Whit.

No? I mean, when you think of hockey in America, you think of Doc Emmer calling it. No doubt. I remember the first time I ever met him. It was my rookie year. We were in town to play the Devils. And at that time, how long did he – when did he stop doing the Devils full-time, R.A.?

Do you know what year that was? I'm not sure he stopped full-time. He did them for close to 20 years altogether, doing both, too. Yeah. No, but I think he wasn't doing every game anymore. But either way, I got the chance to meet him. He was so friendly and nice. And I was having a pretty good season or start to my career

and came over and said, oh, you played at BU. Asked me some questions about myself. Like, totally not even hockey-related. And I already knew who he was. I mean, everyone kind of knew who Doc Emmerich was and so the chance to get to meet him and truly how friendly he was and that's all the stories you hear is what makes him so special is like he treated every single person with respect in class it didn't matter who you were uh what you did he could be talking to Mario Lemieux he could be talking to the guy that's helping him uh pack his bags into the car, leaving the hotel.

It was like he was just such a friendly person and always had time for a chat. And there's so many people who wanted to talk to him. He had so many stories. I was reading the article Ed Olchuk did for NHL.com just about how much he's going to miss him and that he called him and said, hey, you got a couple seconds to talk. And Edzo said he knew right away because he's getting up there in years. and said, hey, you got a couple seconds to talk. And Edzo said he knew right away because he's getting up there in years.

And I think he talked about just enjoying retirement, enjoying his life now without traveling as much as he did and having to prepare as much as he did. And that's what they said. He actually talked about – a lot of guys were talking about how he made it easier for a lot of announcers to pronounce guys' names around the league. And there were certain ways that he'd write down their names so you could sound it out easier, along with just a notebook of never-ending stories, notes,

and all of that and all of the off-ice things, still the ability to call a game and, like, bring you out of your seat. I always was so excited, like, as a two-on-one was forming, his voice would just get, like, more excited, more excited as the play developed. And at the end, he just, his patented, Scores! Doc Emmerich just screaming and everyone going nuts so I I always loved him and what's what's crazy is like in a in the world of play-by-play like it's everyone hates every play-by-play guy right it's like Joe box socks everyone rips on everyone no one really disliked

Doc Emmerich I'm sure there were people out there who weren't big fans, but he's never received the type of hate that other announcers have gotten from a percentage of viewers, whether it's football, national basketball, things like that. The type of guy he was, the job he did, the league will miss him. The sport will. I can't agree more. A lot of positivity his way and somebody ended up tweeting something out about uh his

interactions at pre-game skates and i guess the word grateful comes up because he would always say can you believe they let us in here for free so you know he approached every game as if it was his last uh every big moment you think of all these outdoor games that he's called uh all right you hit it on the head he's been the voice of hockey in the United States, much like the likes of Bob Cole was in Canada. And he's going to go down as a hall of famer and a legend. And we're really looking forward to getting on the show to, to get into some of those notes and crazy stories that he has in that notepad

with. I think that he was just worn down, down right he's done about 400 interviews since he retired the other day so we'll give him a little time and we'll get him when who did we do that with somebody else we did that with somebody else retired or was doing him oh the emergency goalie for the that beat the leafs oh david airs we. David Ayers. We did him later on. You know, he went through the gauntlet of the media. We let it all cool down. We tried to get him on a chiller day.

Yeah, and Emmerich, I mean, he basically said he was in the game for 50 years. He thought 50 was a nice round number. I mean, like I said, 74 years old, the guy looks like he could easily be in his 70s. He just had the perfect way, like Witt said, of matching his emotions to what was at stake, what you were watching. Whether even it was a november game a playoff game he was just a master at it and uh i don't know because if doc enjoys a nice cold one but he's certainly earned a few and speaking of nice cold ones his likes those absolutely and budweiser ultimate sports sweeps is on now available across canada In specially marked cases of Budweiser

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They're ruffled. If I didn't do that Simpsons quote, I would never hear the end of it from Simpsons fans who listen to the show. I know you don't, but about 5,000 people listen to the show right now will get it. That's all that matters. You think 5,000? Yeah.

Yeah, it's a pretty well-known Simpsons joke. Maybe take the under there, but it's definitely a classic Simpsons. Anyways, what do you think, Biz? Should we send it over to Bill Armstrong right about now? We've been yapping for long enough. The man who's in charge of changing the coyotes, Biz. I'm an analytics guy now. I just needed Bill Armstrong to explain to me a little bit about analytics.

Now I'm full on the train. Without further ado, General Manager Bill Armstrong. Well, it's a pleasure to welcome our next guest to the show. After a nine-season pro career where he won a Call the Cup, he went behind the benches as an assistant and a head coach before eventually making his way to the Blues front office. During his decade in St. Louis, he served as director of amateur scouting and assistant general manager. And of course, he won a Stanley Cup in 2019. Well, his stay in the Midwest ended in September when the Arizona

Coyotes hired him to be their new general manager. So thanks for joining us on Spitting Chicklets. Bill Armstrong. Thank you very much for having me, guys. It's a pleasure. You guys are well-known in my family from two different avenues. My son goes to BU. He plays at BU, so he's absolutely petrified that I'm on the show.

There's not many dads actually get to go on Spin Chiclets. And on the other end, my daughter goes to Queens University, and she wanted me to hit you guys up with a sponsorship package for Pink Whitney because she drinks at my house drinks more than any on campus. And I said, I'm a dad. I can't do that. I was going to say, as long as dad's swiping his credit card and buying boxes of Pink Whitney, I think we're going to be good.

We're going to get along just fine. I think children are our best recruiters. Everyone who comes on says, oh, my kids wanted us to come on. They seem to be great recruiters. First off, congratulations. That sounds good about alcohol. Children are our best recruiters. Yeah, that's great.

That's a good way to start the show off. Yeah. So congrats on the gig, by the way. And I want to say, first off, you know, between the new ownership, the effects of the pandemic, the lease issues, the draft, the team at the cap, does it feel kind of like jumping on a roller coaster midstream right now for you?

Yeah, it was a hectic three weeks. I think for me to get my head around it, I kind of knew what I was going into. There was obviously some surprises. I had a few nutties in the office but for the most part because of my knowledge uh with players and background of them I was able to kind of you know sidestep a few things and uh and be able to get the job done and put together our team we're pretty much finished building it through free agency so that part was pretty smooth um and I was able to hire a couple guys that took care of

the draft so it uh took us a little while to get going but once we did we were able to put some good people in good places i was actually curious uh how nerve-wracking is it going into a meeting trying to become the general manager like how long do you have to prepare for that how long are you in the room and and uh and and yeah just how nervous were you in general yeah i always say like i'm a little bit better when I'm mad. You know, it's like when you're fighting somebody and you're mad, you're just a little bit tougher. You know, Florida gave me a great opportunity to go in there.

I was pretty upset, I think, at the fact that I didn't get that job. So when I came into the interview with Arizona, I wasn't nervous. I was prepared. I went back to back home after i didn't get the job uh in florida and i i locked myself in my uh my office for for two weeks and wrote out completely exactly what i would do and halfway through that uh arizona called me so i started writing and doing research so when i landed here i kind of knew exactly what i was getting into and where i was going, what I wanted to get accomplished. So when I went into those meetings for interviews, I was throwing.

I was prepared. Much like your playing career. Yeah. How many times have you interviewed to become a GM? Was Florida the first time or had you done it prior? Yeah, no, Florida was the first time for me. You know, it's something you always dream about. Then, you know, you get going through the process.

And, you know, your first time through, I think you're a little bit maybe naive to the fact, you know, the second time when I was mad and I was a little bit more prepared for it, I think I was a little more thorough. I think I was a little bit more planned and calculated which helped me when I walked walked through the door here when you say thorough are you talking that you're writing down how you would approach kind of rebuilding that team or changing that team like it's not best basically like uh your thought process on any NHL team you're specifically looking at the Panthers with that interview and the Coyotes with Arizona yeah there's a lot of planning because it's pretty complex. Like you've got to think about five years out what your team's going to look like

and how do you get them to look like you want them to look like and the identity, how can you pull that off? And this was a really interesting situation because they'd lost their draft picks. So you're walking into a situation for the next two years that you don't have a first-round pick. And that's something that's probably a little disheartening, but at the same point, there's no excuses. I knew what I was getting into. I built the staff accordingly and basically said to them before they,

before they, we departed just now, it's like, we got to find one guy for waivers. We got to steal a trade. We got to get a guy from the American league that can play. We get one college free agent. We've got to find a way to put players next year in here so there's no excuses I knew what I was getting into and that's that's how I formulated the plan was to basically hire the best hockey people I could find and put them in the right situations I remember when I was playing in Pittsburgh Craig Patrick drafted me and then he was the guy there and then Ray Shero took over.

And as a player, you start thinking, like, oh, you know, this guy, he isn't the guy who drafted me, and you kind of wonder. Basically, every guy has to go prove himself again. Did you reach out to some core members of the team, give them a call, like introduce yourself, or are you just waiting until the season? Like, how's that going to go? I am. I didn't have a chance because I had to build the scouting staff for the draft,

and we had to build free agency. And there's so many things going on. You're trying to keep your coaches in line with, you know, the players that you're bringing in are the coaches on board because if they're not, then they're not going to play them. So there's a these things that are going on. So my thought process was the next two weeks I'll reach out to the players. They need to know expectations of what, as an organization, we expect them to walk through the door. And that's huge for me. I think any time that I've really had success in life, I've usually had expectations in front of me. There's been no gray areas. Biz is probably shaking in his boots over

there you might gas the fucking radio color guy we need a new culture on the radio well he's already gassed us both when we were in st louis we were talking about that before the interview started we we both went there on a pto and and now you're deferring to doug you know i wanted to keep you i had a four-year plan for you i I thought, okay, we can rebuild him. I absolutely want it. And Doug said, not a chance. I really sold you on getting body slammed the year before by Revo through the cross at center ice.

But what's that? Most guys got body slammed by Revo. Yeah, that's true. He got my four-year plan, though. Just going back to that press conference one of the things you mentioned is you're going to be using a type of hybrid between you know just like the old school mentality of eye tests and also analytics for a guy who's been very stubborn on analytics still doesn't really somewhat understand them is how are they used

like throughout an organization and how much weight do they have at the table for, let's say a guy in your position? Well, biz, I'm kind of like you, you know, we're not like, uh, Whitney who went to BU in those fancy schools, you know, so I would, yeah, like my son. Yeah. Um, but, but, but, you know, the, the analytics, you know, I, I, it was interesting cause you know, I heard so much about them and I wanted to get into them when they first came out, you know, and then I got my chance at understanding them. And really, to me, analytics are just, you know, it's like goals and assists. You can understand it.

It's no different. It's just another column. And there's a lot of things that are in analytics that don't make any sense and they don't have any value. You have to know what to measure. But I think there's a good formula when you use analytics to ask questions. Like I'll give you an example. You're at your midterm meetings and you get your analytical people in there and your scouts are all lined up and you formulated this list from one to a

hundred about, about the players and your analytical guys go, no, this guy's not right. This guy's in the wrong order. it asks a question to the scouts now they go back into the area and they look through the analytical eyes to see if there's any truth through it um they analytics are really good at asking questions and if you use them in that way uh they're really effective but there's so many different sources of information about background research you do through the trainers and the billets and all that stuff. That's, you have to have that along with the analytics, along with the eye test, and then meeting the player and all those little things. It all comes in, plays into factor. And I believe when you just use the analytics, you get vanilla. That's

what you get. You get a vanilla team because they don't see, there's more in hockey. It's the dressing room. It's the character. It's the, you know, one guy rubbing on the next guy in an irritating way that forces that guy to be better. I mean, there's stuff that analytics just they can't predict. I think baseball for baseball makes so much more sense. You can go all analytics. You really can.

I mean, you can talk about locker rooms, but it's one on one. It's different. Hockey is such a different game in a sense that, like, players' heart and players' attitude and locker room awareness just matter so much. Yeah, it's a moving game. It's just a different animal. But I do think that there's some interesting stuff coming in

that you guys will be talking about, you know, the speed factor, when they can really measure the speed factor, accuracy, you know, the sprints and the entire speed of the team. I think it's going to add a different element to hockey. You know, even when they record, you know, the release of the slap shot or the snapshot, all that stuff, it's going to add more interest in the game. It's going to give you more understanding of the game.

So I'm all for it. I love that. So we were ahead of the curve on our new amsterdam commercial wet with our with our radar shot there hard shot i haven't seen that one yet guys yeah it's on every fucking every day um go oh i was just gonna hop in there just uh you're known as a very good talent evaluator and going back to analytics can you carry the same weight as you just mentioned like based on junior and college, or is it kind of a bit of a lost shuffle at that point? And is it even valued less at those levels coming

and considering who you're going to draft? Well, it's getting to the point where as a, let's say as a scout, you're in an area, like say you cover the Quebec league and you went to one game, the analytics will slide across your phone and it'll tell you how much puck possession time, what effect he had on the game, you know, all the different things.

So instead of just going to the scoreboard and saying, oh, he had two assists, you can really have a better understanding of how the player played in that game. And it's just advanced statistics, but anybody can read them. They're not hard. It's getting people to buy into reading them. So in the junior, yes, it's becoming a factor. It asks questions. It's it gives you, I think a better way to be more accurate in the draft.

So I think every team will be using them, you know, to some degree. Bill, if you had to put a percentage on it, how much should analytics factor in personnel decisions or does it depend a lot on the player? Yeah, that's a good question um when you're doing comparison of let's say hey who this free agent we want to add um you know you hey what do you want do you want somebody that's gonna hunt a puck so you put it up on the screen hey do you want someone that's gonna win face-offs or if you're third or fourth line these days in the

nhl you got to be able to kill penalty kill so how good are you at how many shots do you block though it's all good information and then you go back to your scout and say, does this match the eye test? Then you go back to your scout. Does he have character? Will he fit in our locker room? You're using it as, but I don't know if there's a percentage, but you want to get a good feeling and you want to make sure you're right on your decision-making and hopefully it shows up that the analytics agree with you. So before, and, and biz mentioned,

you are known for being able to evaluate talent at a high level. And now as a GM, you really need to trust your director of scouting and amateur scouting because you can't go to every tournament. You can't beat all these things you were at before. So how does it, like you basically have to really trust someone and then also know I'm not gonna be able to have my eyes on these guys as much as I was before. Yeah. And you, and you don't want an overbearing GM that's you know sees a player once

and says oh this this is our guy like you know it's you just know enough to be dangerous as a GM and you can make a lot of mistakes what you want is you want hockey people that are grinding it out and and luckily for the Coyotes we were able to find two of the best that were sitting there. Darrell Plandowski, who built the Tampa Bay Lightning and his Stanley Cup team has joined us. He's going to be our new head scout. And then Ryan Jankowski is also going to join us. So we have two elite guys that are basically traveling the world together

as a tag team looking for players. So right away, those are the two first guys that we added into our organization. It was a huge find for us. I know you already touched on it, the Oliver Ekman-Larsen situation. That was one of the sticky ones you found yourself in as soon as coming in. And it seemed like a case of where if we're not going to get a solid return for this guy, this is not just an asset you give away. Yeah.

I mean, he plays 23 minutes a night. He's our captain. I mean, he's a great player. So I kind of inherited that situation. I think my first text was not congratulations. It was from the teacher. Hey, can we talk? Like, not even, hey, Army, great job.

Hey, like, hey, are you getting a nice house? Did you get a good deal? It's like, hey, you know what? We need to talk. And he didn't put his name down there. And I'm like, who is this? Like, you know? So anyways, I mean, yeah, that's how I got welcomed into the business.

But you know, you know, I had one conversation with OEL and we had a good conversation. I just said, let this die down and let it play out. I'll reach back out to you and we'll go from there and try to form a relationship on, you know, kind of a, maybe a new, a new new platform for us where this is all kind of behind us. Now he had that imposed deadline, a free agency, but that was on him. I mean, if hypothetically he wanted to remove that deadline

and open things back up, he could do that if he wanted to because of the no-move clause, correct? Yeah. That's like when your kids are, you know, you say you got three seconds to put that back, you know? It never works for me. Never works. I got no respect. Yeah. Oh, that's funny. I want to go back to St. Louis for a sec.

You had great success there and you know, your work will impact the team for years going forward. Is it tough to sever those ties and not have any rooting interest in guys that you brought into a different organization? Uh, it is. Um, I had great experience there. I was surrounded by, you know, you think of st louis right in the midwest and it's so many great people that i had a fortune to work with from larry robinson to al mcginnis to keith kachuk to marty brodeur and you know two good gms xgms

larry poe and dave taylor around me and then doug armstrong who i consider uh the best gm in hockey right now um surrounding me so i was a spoiled person to kind of grow up in that environment and just be in this. We used to have meetings like with, you know, the group there. And I mean, you got to bring your a game when you show up for that meeting. There's a lot of hockey knowledge. You can't have an off day, you know, you gotta, you gotta bring it. And I love that fact of our argument, say arguments, but you know, the conversation at hand, there's tremendous hockey knowledge in that room. That was, that was one of the greatest points, but you know the conversation at hand there's tremendous hockey

knowledge in that room that was that was one of the greatest points but you fall in love with your your players like david prawn and the robert thomas's and you know the jordan binningtons of the world um you know they're all part of uh you know when i get into the business and and we started drafting those guys and they're they're like family too uh because of the simple fact that you know they were able to produce a championship, and they're the only team in the history of the St. Louis Blues to do it. So they're special people. Perron was a good example.

You guys brought him back like 10 times during your tenure there. Yeah, I love – I mean, David's probably my favorite. Colton Pareko's up there too. But, you know, David is a special person because that's kind of how I got into the business really because i i got challenged at the table and we're going to draft him um and they were just saying are you sure you know then al mcginnis came down john davidson came down yarmulke calani are you sure you know he's got these went round and round and i'm like i had seen him i was really into scouting at that time and i saw him 20 played 27 times in one year. And I was so sure of it.

And I just stuck to my guns. And when we picked him, he turned out to be a heck of a player. Wow. That's how I kind of got, you know, moved up the ladder in St. Louis. But David's an incredible person because how hard he works at his game. And there's players that age that don't age well. He ages well. He's got more competitive.

His skills got better. His skating's got better. And he's a tremendous competitor. So, you know, he's probably my favorite experience of drafting a player. And, yeah, he's a good kid. And you mentioned Pareko. Well, actually, even before I get into that, what you said just reminded me. I talked to buddies of mine in scouting,

and it takes a lot of balls to stick to your guns and in a situation like that like seriously like it must because you have to be confident what you believe in you got all these people it's like i really have to trust myself and my thought process excuse me but you mentioned pareko how does he end up going in the third round was he small was he undersized i know he played in alaska and it was like of a random, but to go in the third round and you see the guy play now, it's like, how did that even happen? Yeah. He's, he's a tremendous kid. You know, he's, we had a kind of a little bit of a lead on him and then Marshall Davidson and

Danny Janelle and Jane Emick, our scouts there did an unbelievable job at kind of going to games that were far away. We felt like he was a steal so we never showed up we went to the farthest places away you know what i mean to see him and and then i went in in the last game i think of the season he was playing at edmonton and i got off the plane playing there was four head scouts and i never went to the game to the second period with like a baseball cap on i didn't even watch him i just wanted to see who was in the stands and i saw toronto and there's toronto minnesota was there and they didn't pick till after us I just wanted to see who was in the stands. And I saw Toronto and there's Toronto, Minnesota was there

and they didn't pick till after us in the third round. So I was like, okay. And the guys in Marshall Davidson's credit, he was all over me. Like he was all over me in that meeting. You take him and I got to give him a lot of respect for that. He was pounding the table for that. But yeah, we didn't take him to the third. And after we had drafted him, he kind of had the success.

I sent Marshall Davidson a text. I'm like, yeah like yeah you were right we should have taken him a lot earlier yeah well that that kind of gets into another question i had in which like how do you so you slaughtered him third round like that's what you basically decided so there's just no chance like i always wonder when people trade draft picks because they know their guy will still be there like what makes you think he won't be there in the fourth round? You can get another guy. How does that work? Well, you really target the teams that are going to the games to watch them a lot. You're always looking over, hey, LA's here or New York's here. And, you know, you go to the last game down the stretch,

and there's three scouts. So, you know, hey, listen, they got two third picks or whatever. You're like, hey, they're going to try and take them here. So, you kind of get a feel after you've done it for a number of years. You know, teams will step right up in front of you. Like, you know, two third picks or whatever, you're like, Hey, they're going to try and take them here. So you kind of get a feel after you've done it for a number of years. You know, teams will step right up in front of you. Like they know, they know that you're hot on that player. So like a science, it is a science. I think that was one of my strong points of doing the list of knowing where to, where the teams were to get. And then we'd interview guys, you know,

and say, Hey, like who likes you the most, you know, we try to find out. Oh yeah. So yeah, it's, there's a little bit of a game that you play. I mean, that's what the thing about scouting, it never gets old. It's a different player you're trying to figure out in a different area. And most times there are different rinks that you're going to it. It's, it's a great job in that aspect. Do you grill players like Stevie Y grills them? I've never been in the room. I've learned not to do that. You know, I think

one time, you know, Doug Armstrong, obviously him and I have a great relationship, but he's somebody that, you know, he was a big part of me, you know, getting better at the business. And one thing he said to me after I had said something to someone, he said, Hey, that guy's never going to sign here as a free agent. You know, they're always going to remember how you treated them. And I always remembered that in the meetings. And I always would, like, make sure that, like, just kind of set the question up, like, hey, it's my job. I've got to ask this tough question.

I know you got caught in some bad place on video doing this. I got to ask this question, you know. And I think you find a good science at presenting to them in a respectful way. I do think that there are teams that go hard at them and I think it works. It works, I guess, almost opposite because the player ends up hating that team. Bill,

are you a GM who will occasionally seek out input from veterans on the team to maybe get a better idea of what the team might need? Or is that something that you just stay away from? No, absolutely. They have input. I'm always about people coming in, you know, and having input that you have to get, they have to get ownership of the team. That's their thing. This is their team too. It's, it's as much as it's, uh, I have input on, on, on this being a little bit of my team, it's also their team. So they're the ones that have to, have to get in there and take ownership of the dressing room and the culture. So a lot of the stuff that, you know, we'll be talking about is stuff that they want to impose.

It's all about them. It's about their leadership. That's what's going to get them. If you think about St. Louis and the leadership they had with the Ryan O'Reillys and the Peter Angelos of the world, I mean, just great leaders. And you need that in your dressing room. It's the only way you win.

In order to be successful as a GM now, given with salary cap, there's an expansion draft coming, there's so many different areas that you have to focus on. How many hours a week are we talking here as far as what it takes? And is that something that you had to learn from Doug Armstrong? Because essentially you don't really have much of a social life. Hey, Biz, he's like 20 hours a week. This thing's easy.

This is a joke. What am I doing? I'm trying to get the Oliver trade done. I wasn't even able even shut my phone off. Yeah. So I tried to get up really early in the morning here with my wife and go for a nice walk. Right. Cause that, you know, if you get up early, early.

So I went down for a coffee and I saw the guys, they're all huddled around their computers, the staff. And I got into the meeting and I promised her I'd go for a walk, even if it was like 10 minutes. And then I looked around the corner and she was gone. And I was like chugging after her. Cause like, there's no time, you know, like you, if you, she was, she, she just had had enough of how much, you know, you're on the phone. So, um, you, you definitely have to pay attention to that. There is a balance, um, with all this stuff. I mean, the biggest thing nowadays, there's a lot

of specialists that surround you, whether it's cap guys, CBA guys, everybody's a SPAD draft guy. They're all specialists in what they do. So you're basically taking their knowledge, using what I call hockey sense and putting it into your team. But everybody mostly that's around you are pretty much specialists. So it is consuming, but you do have to rely on a lot of people's expertise. I mentioned the call of the cup in your introduction. You actually did the Reg Dunlop thing, the player coach coach then went and Peter Laviolette was the coach how did that all play out

way back in Providence? Well I finished up my last year I was captain in the American League I actually drove down 95 and I was crying I was about to go sell cars for my father-in-law and I came up with this scientific plan that my paycheck didn't run out till I think it was September 1st. So I said, I'm not going to work in another business until this happens. So a newspaper reporter called me and said, Peter Lavillette's going to become the head job. I was like, Peter Lavillette, we're good friends. He hasn't called me. I don't know that. So I left the voicemail and I said, Peter, it's army here. I said, I'm your new assistant coach. And I hung up. And, um, and he called me

back like two weeks later and he's like, that's, that works perfect, man. Sounds good. But he's one technical difficulty is we don't have like technical money for you to be an assistant coach. So you'd have to be like player assistant coach. I'm like, okay. So I, I went up to Boston and, uh, and I went as a coach and I had to run practice never been to the board before my first time ever explaining okay you go over here like a simple horseshoe drill it was to ray bork it was the most frightening thing i've ever done i actually if you think about it i never really explained it to ray bork i was actually explaining the drill to myself when i was on the board you know yeah but anyways a good story about that year was you know i said to peter i said i'm

done skating in practice i just it's it's over for me he goes yeah don't worry about it just put the coach's stuff on so it was a huge relief right like i didn't have to go and skate anymore and i could really do what i wanted to do at that time which was eat and you know and and so i remember going to worcester and uh he ran this great meeting peter runs great meetings during like five ten minutes he gets in there he gets everybody excited and then we fly out and in Worcester at the time had the greatest buffet you've ever seen in the world scouts actually like Ace Bailey if he was scouting Springfield he would stop in Worcester eat and so I actually this is a true story I actually ate twice I went through it it was It was so good. I went back again, and I got back to the coach's room. It was like I swallowed, like in a big snake, I swallowed like a cow. I get back to the coach's room, and he says, I got good and bad news for you. I'm like, okay, what's the good news? He goes, well, the trainers are able to go back and get your equipment. I'm like, what's the bad news?

He goes, you got to play tonight. I'm like, play. I haven't skated backwards in 29 days. I go, I just, so, so I missed the warmup and, and, and then I go into the game. It was frightening. So I had this guy, Matthias, but to Mander, I said, Hey, listen, don't pass me the puck. Like you cannot pass me the puck. And he's like, Hey, no problem. So I just picked back in the day you could pick and hold and that's what I did but I played so well in the first that I actually benched the first and second rounder in the second gave myself more ice and and like I controlled everything from the backside so I kept just playing myself till I ran out of juice and I

can remember going into the scrum and this kid I think his name was Matt Smith came in there and I jackhammered him in the head. And then the refs came in and the kid leans over and goes, aren't you the coach? You know? So anyways, I benched myself in the third, but the best part of the story is this, this fan wrote a nasty letter about my play in, in Peter Labulette read it in front of the front of the group. And he had to and that

was my last time that i ever played played hockey professionally but it was a frightening experience to miss warm-up not skating 29 days and then have to go in and play it was absolutely frightening the first and second rounder sent it in yeah the whole the whole fucking game to get your get your minutes and you had some other uh career achievements as a player you won a memorial cup with the oswa generals in 1990 yeah yeah that's going way back but it was interesting going through that people go to yale they go to the marines that was kind of my awakening to become a man you know was playing for that team we had great people lindros freddie brathwaite uh brent greaves is on that team and We had great people, Lindros, Freddie Brathwaite, Brent Greaves was

on that team. And there's a lot of great human beings on that team. And that was kind of my moment where I kind of grew up. Coach said to me, hey, I don't want to fight, but somebody's got to fight. So you're the guy. So that's, you know, and he put a lot of pressure on me. The coach was Rick Kornacki at the time, great coach. And he pretty much, you know, gave it to me every time and forced me to play hard. And we went on to win a World Cup. And to me, even when I scout or I build teams or I'm conducting with the, you know, stuff with the Coyotes,

that team stays in the back of my mind, just about the people that played their roles, the type of people you need to win a championship. I'm wondering, Eric Lindros, you know, you've heard so much about him, but like at that time, was it his underage year? That's when it was like, this guy's the next Wayne Gretzky or the next great player in the NHL. It must have been just a freak show to see a 16-year-old dominate like that.

We used to, we used to, a coach used to make a stretch, but we actually wrestled and I was the heavyweight champion, right? And so Ian Fraser, our captain, was revving up Lindros. He's like, I think you can take him. I think this guy's kind of, he's talking about, I think you can take him. So I didn't really take him serious. He body slammed me. Like he was 16.

I was pretty much 20 years old. He picked me up off the ground, body slammed me. I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. So, but his work ethic was incredible like back in the day i mean he he made us go as a team if you didn't show up in practice you know he'd run you he'd abuse you um he really made our team go and even at six he was just a man and uh a great competitor a great person and um he's somebody that made our team go you've got the game winning tuck in the memorial cup too no yeah yeah that was uh yeah it wasn't don't be shy i well i erased all the youtube so

i can tell it the way i think it happened my mind remember the bobby or where he revved it up twice behind the net and then that was pretty much what it looked like okay nice if you can envision that yeah that game you also there was an old YouTube. I think you killed a whole penalty. Just you held on to the puck like Ward did. It was that one that scrubbed you. Now that you say that, I think you're right. Yeah, you're pretty much correct with it.

Unbelievable. Oh, shit. So, Bill, you were head coach and an assistant in the AHL in the East Coast for a little bit before moving to the front office. Did you just get sick of coaching and realizing you wanted to build a team more than coach a team? you just get sick of coaching and realizing you wanted to build a team more than coach a team? I did get sick of coaching. I look at coaching. Like it was, it was going to law school. You know, I went there to, you know,

did my time understood it. But that's not, that's not what I love to do. But I think it gives me an advantage when I sit in this, in the chair that I'm in now, for the simple fact that I can go into the coach's room and talk and understand what they're going through. I think that's a big plus for me. After that, I noticed, like, you know, researching for the interview, you kind of folded up shop with the coach in 2004,

then you came back with the Blues in 2010. Were you just kind of in the minor leagues, USHL? Were you sort of building your resume in those intervening years? came back with the blues in 2010 were you just kind of in the minor leagues ushl were we sort of building your resume in those intervening years um yarmulke kalanen who's who's the uh gm in columbus he actually hired me with the blues as a part-time guy um so i was still into running hockey camps and and back in the day actually uh ryan whitney actually came in the lockout one year i think i was in wall pool or something yep and uh and I was running all the camps and that, but that kind of helped me a little bit.

You wonder at times when you're going through these things and you're, you're building three on three, you know, leagues for kids wondering like, what the heck am I doing? You know? And, and, but it's all organization. It's all managing people. It's all getting people excited about doing their job better. And if you can do it at that level, um, it's even easier when you're in the nhl but it's kind of all you connect the dots and you know i had to do those things to kind of be where i am right now but um i spent a lot of time

in the youth rinks teaching and coaching and and my son going through is probably some of the greatest moments of my life in hockey just uh him yelling at me at the bench telling me i was a bad coach where did your son play like minor hockey before BU and everything? Where were you guys at mostly? He did a little of the EHF. He jumped around. You know, he went to Avon, ended up at Henrikken, then up to Avon. And then he decided to play in every league in North America.

He went up to the Penticton, to the USHL twice, back to Boston, you know. So, yeah, I've got enough to write a book on him about youth hockey. But, yeah, it was a great experience as a dad. You know, him playing in the beanpot. I mean, Biz couldn't really appreciate the beanpot. But you can really understand the importance of that. It's the best. I didn't need to start playing competitive hockey until I was 20.

I wanted to do it when I was 16 when I was becoming a man, kind of like Lindros. Yeah, you have a lot of similarities there. Yeah, yeah. I just want to ask you about the cup win and just like getting that group together and just, you know, all that hard work behind the scenes finally paying off, especially for you guys behind the scenes where there were some times you guys, you know,

switched some personnel around and you guys were criticized heavily where there were some times you guys, you know, switch some, some personnel around and you guys are very, you know, we're criticized heavily for it. Yeah. Well, I knew we went out in the summer and got Ryan O'Reilly and got Bozak and, you know, it looks like we were going to take off. And the next thing you know, we're at the world juniors. And we're in last place. We're, we're picking the first overall. And it's just, it was a frightening experience. But our group was so good. I think that's what made them.

They just got to the point where they're like, okay, we're going to win now. And they just took off and they couldn't be beat. But we had to go through a lot of changes too to get to that point. And Binnington came in the net and he just, he wouldn't give it up. So it was, it's a remarkable year to kind of go through. The scariest part was game seven. Obviously you get there and you walk in the rink and you're like, I could never be,

I might never be back here. I can walk in here and be a champion or a chump. It's, you know, it's just a frightening experience. You have no control. You absolutely have no control over it. So it's, it was a remarkable season. It happened so quick. It's just like, boom, you know, it was on us.

But the team was just resilient and you got to give credit to the leadership and everybody that stepped into play and coach peruby was amazing too what did you do with your day with the cup anything special we had the nhl called me at 7 41 the night before and we had two massive parties playing one of my hometown and one downtown toronto and said sorry about this but you're not getting the cup and I was like what it's like yeah I can rush you so so anyways they they called me all the middle of the night all the way in the morning and finally they tracked it down and they got it to us um for 3 30 um and we went to my hometown had a big celebration I got

to be mayor for the day and it was just you know, it's, I'm not a big trophy guy, but that thing is incredible. I mean, just, it's, it's like having your funeral almost because people you haven't seen since grade two, they all come out, your teachers, your coaches. It's just like, everybody's on board with it. And it's just an amazing day. But I think the funnest part for us was we had like one of those old greyhound buses converted and this big like disco in there i was it was just amazing to have all your family

and friends on that that uh that bus awesome well i got nothing else here thank you so much for stopping by this has been great very excited for you to be coyotes gm and lead us to the promised land so i can dunk on these boys every single pod moving forward. I'm looking forward to working with you. You know, I really am. If you need any advice, just let me know. I'll be in the backup radio room getting people bagels and coffee. And nursing a hangover. Thanks so much, Bill.

I'm really happy for you getting a chance finally. You're well-deserved, and I appreciate all the stuff you've done, especially helping Biz and I that year. We we ended up making the squad but we thank you yeah that's great well listen thank you for having me on and not asking me any tough questions to get me fired that's awesome guys never would we'll save that for round two yeah round two around all right thanks so much bill thank you take care well big thanks to Bill Armstrong for joining us. Biz, another GM

who can beat the absolute tire out of you. By the way, have you seen the Burger Fan lately? Holy shit, he is jack city right now. Is he shredded? I think he's always been pretty cut up. I don't know when the last pictures of him to come out were, but he's looking extra diesel right now. I never used

those words. him to come out where but like he's looking extra diesel diesel right now I never used those words I didn't know how to respond you yeah you made funny yourself before like anyone could say anything I wasn't a punch diesel already gonna be cranking it off on the zoom call like tube and

fuck to the to the hold on images already it's got burger vans Get it off on the Zoom call, like tube and fuck to the gram images. RA's got Berger-Van's biceps, and Grinnelli's got Krug's new St. Louis quads. Speaking of jacked plays, the Kraken, they announced they added Gary Roberts as sports science and performance consultant. He will ensure the Kraken training center and team infrastructure will have the proper equipment and systems in place for a team release. I think people will listen to Gary Robbins. It's a great signing.

Everyone's going to be on the regime. Everyone's going to be training like McDavid. And who else has he got? Stamkos. So look out. The Kraken make a huge signing there. The Kraken. The Seattle Kraken.

I'm calling them the crankin from now on. I'm not. My brain can't change it. Doc Emmerich should have been around to announce a crankin cup. The Seattle tubins or tobins, whatever the fuck that guy's name is. Shit. I think Gary Roberts will be perfect. I mean, I doubt he's moving out there.

I don't. I shouldn't say that. I didn't read anywhere that he wasn't. But I think he Roberts will be perfect. I mean, I doubt he's moving out there. I shouldn't say that. I didn't read anywhere that he wasn't. But I think he's got – that's something where he adds on to what his gym and, like, the way he makes a living at home he adds on and just joins Seattle because he's able to give so much in terms of what he's done with his career and how to stay healthy off the ice. Yeah, I think the key word there is consultant. So he's probably not going too far in Toronto.

He can fly in every once in a while, check in. All right, boys, we did say we had two interviews. We do have the rank shrinks, plural. We're going to bring them on in a second. First, we do want to let you know that this interview is brought to you by Cross Country Mortgage, America's crazy good mortgage company who make it easier to get the financing you need fast.

crazy good mortgage company who make it easier to get the financing you need fast. Go to ccmlens.com slash NBD to learn more about your future home buy-in or refinancing experience. NMLS 3029, equal housing opportunity. But wait, have you talked to Yandel since they dropped the rank shrinks plural yet? How's the podcast life been for him? He likes it. He said it's a blast. A lot of these guys they've chatted with so far,

they enjoy talking about how they began playing hockey and what type of leadership they had, whether it was from coaches or other teammates, in terms of what helped get them to the highest level. So I think everyone really enjoyed it. I think if you've got kids in the car, that's kind of what Brian's talking about. You know, something you can listen to with your son. I think at times this might get a little not for, like, 11-year-olds

where the rink shrinks are only going to be out there teaching you what it takes to become a better player and a better teammate. And a better parent. Both those guys and a better parent. Mike Motto and Brian Yandel, salt-of-the-earth type people. They're called foxhole buddies, Biz. You know, if you're stuck in a foxhole, you've got one of them with you.

They'll help you bury the bodies, that's for sure. But not on their podcast, because it's PG. Alright, without further ado, here are the ring shrinks. What a pleasure it is to be joined by two spit and chicletschicklets veterans, Mike Motto and Brian Yandel, two legends, good friends of mine.

And interestingly enough, before we get into what these guys are doing now, Motto's played in the NHL for quite a while. He came in and Biz said, did you play hockey? So a very interesting beginning. Hit the brakes on that. I said, did you play in the NHL? It was my bad. But to my defense, listen, first of all, you're the type of guy you knew everybody's curve,

like what tape they use. And I was a bit of a fucking space cadet. So no offense. And you weren't on the pod when Mott's came on. That's correct. That was that long ago when Mott's came on. We had a time. I think we ended up having a nice dinner that night.

It was a great day. Yeah, we took it pretty deep. And I think it's safe to say a lot of guys in New Jersey had very similar builds and kind of looked exactly the same, like Lou was making them a fucking factory. We listed off like five guys who kind of were like the same height, same build, and have that same kind of chin on you, kind of like Justin Verlander a little bit. Oh, I'll take that. He's with Kate Upton.

She's a rocket launcher. He's a handsome devil. Yeah, he is, but he's taking a couple selfies in the mirror. He's got his shirt off. Now I'm pumping your tires, Mott, so there you go. No, but so everyone knows Brian Yandel is the rink shrink, and actually Mike Motto is a rink shrink himself. They've joined forces on all places you can get podcasts.

New England Hockey Journal presents the rink shrink. So these two guys have a podcast. They're here to talk about that, and they're also here to just kind of shoot the shit as we tend to do. How have you guys been? Everything's great. How did this begin? How did this all come about?

It was like Alan when it was like first there was one wolf and now there's two, You know what I mean? We loaded up. The ring shrink wolf. It wasn't – we couldn't just have one ring shrink. We needed a deuce. So how many episodes so far? We got two episodes down.

Getting another one next week. So just kind of popping the cherry i guess yeah exactly so what are you getting into you're getting into emails similar to what we did and stuff brian like just answering questions maybe not in a in a different way that we do it you're a little more official yeah i mean you guys are pretty official like a referee with a whistle but the um i mean you guys obviously have what you have here, an unbelievable podcast and a great following and everything. And we're trying to be more educational towards the hockey parent

and also the player, something that maybe you can turn on in the car as you're going to the game on Saturday morning with your kids and try to tell some different stories, obviously, and get some good interviews like you guys do, but also really try to dive into what guys were doing when they were younger. Did they play multiple sports? Did they play hockey year-round? When did they start getting good?

Were they the stud when they were 10, 11 years old, or did they develop when they were 14, 15, 16 years old? You know what I mean? So all those type of things, trying to keep it pretty pg-13 um but you know we're having a lot of fun as mott's and i you know no wife swap stories like on the ring segment on yeah we're gonna hold the wife so i'm sorry that was a good one that was probably one of the best uh ring shrink stories that you were told in this pod mott so like what would be a a story that you would bring to podcast? Are you guys going to do a very similar thing in the fact that you get these crazy stories and you bring them up? Yeah, so I mean, Bri has a couple from the parent side of things.

But really, it goes back to the education of, hey, what to do and what not to do. Kind of checklist for parents and players. It's an educational thing. We have some kids, so we kind of keep it between the lines. And my son's starting to listen to, you know, he listens to you guys all the time, so it's pretty good. But, you know, get some guests on. But my stories are pretty vanilla now, you know.

Former Hobie Baker winner, people who don't know. And I think, Motts, there's got to be listeners who didn't hear the first time. When was that, when we first came on? Had to be three years ago, four years ago? It feels like probably three years ago. I'll look it up real quick. It was in episode 5 and 0 sitting on stools. Now we're in this beautiful spot in Chucktown, you know?

I would imagine Buddy had good etiquette as a hockey parent. Did you, I mean, growing up, did you have a father who had good etiquette and knew what the fuck to do and didn't make you look silly yeah so he didn't play hockey and my mother's from cape brent nova scotia so she said that i can play hockey because i'm half canadian so so it was her idea to even get you into it well yeah your brother and i even my brother who's five years old rob uh had been playing so i just like any other younger brother you want to hop on the ice but my dad was great he just he never applied any pressure he would show up when he could uh after work and there was never that awkward car ride home so we uh you know it was just a great environment to to kind of just play and have fun and so not having a father who didn't

play like where would you where would you learn more about it would you be consuming it by watching and did you hang around maybe with another buddy on the team whose father did? That's great. My older brother was five years older. He was a really good player, so I watched him really closely. And then I would watch every Bruins game. And that's what I tell the kids now. They're not really being students of the game.

They're just watching the highlights and the cool shit that is that, you know, is super high end skill, but how do you get the puck out on the wall consistently? How do you, you know, like, you know, the little things. Yeah. And that's from watching, you can learn that stuff. So even watching your teammates, like I learned a lot while I was playing, you know, it was, so you just try to pick up and, you know, like you're saying wit, like he was very observant of certain things and kind of followed players and

like rain man, you know, a little bit and picked up on some i am a little on the spectrum maybe yeah that's all right but we grew up you know with fred cusack and derrick sanderson at least us announcing the bruins game and you watched like we were taught by our fathers and you know obviously i can speak for ryan and myself that you know our fathers kind of talked us through the game and saw the plays develop and all that type of stuff and now i mean fortunately for us it's you you know our fathers kind of talked us through the game and saw the plays develop and all that type of stuff and now i mean fortunately for us it's you you know you're sitting around having pancakes in the morning and you can throw on the nhl network and it's unbelievable to be able to watch but you don't actually watch the entire game and that's kind of part of what we're

trying to get to here you know what i mean is and and teach these kids you know and and also educate parents and coaches about you know it's not just about, you know, the highlight real goal, not just the toe dragon. What makes, you know, the play? What, how did that play develop? You know what I mean? Obviously, yeah, it was a goal, but what, you know, what were the five plays leading up to it before it, you know? I think that it's interesting to go through that because when you hear somebody like Mott, and there's so many players out there who made it to the highest level in the world without parents or even siblings. You had a brother that never played. And that always kind of amazed me because my father, who learned a lot from Buddy, Buddy Yandles was a great player and he knew so much.

My dad was a fan, but he still taught me so much about the game. So I'm always interested to hear when a parent's able to at least be hands-off enough to be like i'll let somebody else try to do this because there's so many parents out there who don't know the game never played and still think they're experts it's like dude what do you know about this you know but they just want to be involved and i think the best parents who never played if their son or daughter's in a sport whether it's hockey or anything else that they know nothing about just kind of sit back hope they have fun i think that's probably what you guys are yeah and there's so many different things out there right now that kids are being basically told, like, if you're not skating year-round,

if you're not going to these tournaments in the summer, if you don't make this team, if you don't make that team, if you're not on a lead team versus playing for just your regular town, you're not going to make it. And it's not true. You know what I mean? Like, there's a lot of different variables, obviously, that go into it, and a lot of it might just be, you know, shit luck and, you know, some of its genetics and things like that.

But it you know, there's there's a lot of different avenues. And our second guest was a kid, Ryan, Ryan Shea, who just graduated from Northeastern. And, you know, he went the Catholic school route in Boston here, which a lot of kids like with myself, we played. I played in both, both prep and Catholic school, but Ryan played in the Catholic conference, which a lot of people were basically, you know, frowned upon. You got to go somewhere else. You got to go somewhere else. You got to go. And, you know, his explanation was, you know, I talked to my coaches, my coaches said, like, when it's time for me to move on and go to the USHL, you know, they're going to let me go.

But at this point, I'm going to play, you know, in all key situations. I'm going to get as much ice time as possible. And, you know, that's what you want, right? And that was, you know, his freshman, sophomore, junior year, and then he ended up going to the USHL and now just signed a contract with the Dallas Stars. And four years in college, right? And four years in college. So in your opinion, where are the games going?

A lot of skill development now. It's a lot of hand stuff. Do you think it's excessive? Do you think that the kids aren't learning enough about the intangibles early on? Because there has been the other argument is like try to develop their skills as much as possible, and that other little stuff is maybe a little easier to teach later on. Yeah, so that's a great point because the game from the top down is like super skilled, super fast. But those guys are so elite with that stuff, they can get away with not thinking the game from the top down is like super skilled super fast but those guys are so elite

with that stuff they can get away with not thinking the game not everyone is is that gifted correctly right yeah so that's a good explanation so we just try to you know we try to like tell them that there's better there's more ways than one to be a good hockey player right so if you can outthink someone you know for me i wasn, I wasn't the biggest, strongest, fastest guy, so I had to process the game quickly and, you know, anticipate, and that gave me that extra step or whatever. But, you know, Brian and I are on the same page with, you know, kind of just breaking down certain things

and allowing the kids to try to become better hockey players in other ways than just going around a cone and toe dragging and flipping it up, knocking it down. And one of the things, just to add to it, is all these kids now if you go to a practice like biz if you went to a youth hockey practice i think you'd be blown away and even wit because you're not there either an ra yourself but you'd be blown away with the the skating ability and the skills that these kids have but one of the things that you don't see a lot of and one of the things like lots of there's there's not a lot of guys teaching like hockey iq there's not the just skill you look at a guy like ryan o'reilly right like is he the

fastest skater in the league is he the best does he have the best shot does he have the best no his brain is what his brain is what makes him and the guys that con smith went to last year you know what i mean like it's guys you know there's a lot of people that that they look sexy out there but when it comes time to play the game, they can't. And as the game gets faster and more skilled, you see like, oh, well, that's all I need to do, like you said. So it is interesting to see that you have so many coaches that love, you know, basically helping kids become better players,

but they're just not getting the right things across. So I love knowing that you guys coach. And, Mats, you help coach your daughter too. Yeah. The girls are way more coachable. Oh, yeah. They listen. And a couple years ago, I did the Duxbury High, the high school.

Duxbury. We live in Duplexbury. Duxbury Mouthwash. Yeah. Pinkway. We're on the other side of the track. So 6 o'clock in the morning, all the girls are all ready to go. They come out on the ice.

They dump the pucks out. and they're just skating around. No one touches a puck. I'm like, what's going on here? They were like sharks with minnows around when we got on the ice. Unbelievable. But, yeah, so it's pretty cool to have a different perspective. I'm coaching my son as well, which, you know, to your point, is just trying to get them to start thinking the game.

It's a blend between using your head and the skill work that they're putting in. Do you get mad at them? Oh, yeah. Just once in a while, you're like, right, what the fuck are you doing out there? Oh, I just tell them, I'm like, I don't really care if you're the best player, but I just need you to listen and focus on being a leader

and doing the drill correctly when I draw it up, because if you're the one fucking it up. I look look real bad i'm not doing my job kid well have you guys oh go ahead well i was just going to say with the women's hockey and trying to get it going professionally now that you have a daughter and one that plays is that something that you're going to try to get behind in order to create a league where they're able to sustain salaries and these women are able to do it professionally where they're being compensated for their time well i i think that game is is a great uh product and you know i don't know really the ins and outs i heard of a few rumblings but you know that they wanted to partner up and um i you know i just for right now i just think that there's

such a like a uh a growth and a boom with youth hockey for the girls, and it's just going to continue to grow because there's a market for it. It'll play itself out, I think, at some point just because it's so popular. Right, because back in the day, there was just one girl that I played against, and she ended up being on the 98 Olympic team, but she had to play with the boys all the way through. So you're basically optimistic by the time your daughters of that age, there will probably be a sustainable professional league set up

where they're being compensated more because that seems to be the issue that keeps coming up. Yeah, I would think that. Take care of Daddy Mott someday. Remember when Hennessy ran over his girlfriend when she was still playing with the boys? Yeah, that was the best. What happened there?

Tie. Oh, boy. Our boy was, I don't know, it was like seventh or eighth grade. You know Josh Hennessey, who was interviewed? His girlfriend was like good at hockey. She's out skating and she had the puck coming across the middle. He just ran her over. It's like, hey, pick your head up.

You want to come? On the tracks and the trains coming through. Scott Stevens in men's league coming through with just a shoulder. But they were like legitimately dating at the time. It was Paulina Correa he got though. What do you got R.A.? I want to talk to him about the actual podcast

and I mean it's brand new to you guys. What's been the biggest challenge so far for you first B? I would say that the hottest thing is kind of i mean obviously coming up with content right um walking down you guys know how it is trying to get interviews with guys and stuff like that so trying to make sure the guys are coming through and uh and then you know just just making sure like like for us it's it's marts and i so we're kind of the ones staring the bus

here you know what i mean so it's a uh it's definitely not easy and there's a lot of ahs and you knows and and you know and that type of stuff that fortunately because it's it's not on the radio right it can kind of get part uh get cut out a bit which is nice yeah so eric siemens at the new england hockey journal has done a good job of kind of putting us in a good spot you know with the platform and everything so So we get in there. We have our bullet points to kind of hit on. And then, like I said, we're on the same page. So we go back and forth about certain topics and then have the guest in. And fortunately, we've known the guys pretty closely. So it's a pretty comfortable situation so far.

What have you thought about the playoffs so far? I mean, who's your squad? This is now with Dallas up. No, Dallas has moved on and tampa's up three two motz was all over vegas i was kind of a shocker i i did all his money i i was like theodore that guy anaheim getting rid of that guy's crazy looking at it now. You know, you could just shovel your shit over to him and watch him dance. You know, like that's my type of partner. How do you think you would have handled the bubble mutts? You know what? You know, I can find my fun anywhere, right?

But I think bonding with the guys. I was an intangible guy biz as well. I think bonding with the guys. I was an intangible guy at biz as well. So male stripper dances, organize a good master's pool. You mean what? Like before the game started, you'd come in with your jockstrap on, get the boys laughing and giggling and loosened up.

You were that guy? Yeah, so it would be more like if someone was in a slump, I'd really key in on them. I had a whole routine. Get them going? Yeah. Let's hear the routine. Let's say biz hasn't scored in fucking two seasons, i'm really feeling realistic yeah come out of the curtain around the pole around the pole signature move

and then climb up on you right you know maybe back straddle yeah but back my ass into you expect tips uh maybe at the bar you know like free round here and there but the floor routine if necessary get the heels clicking yeah exactly so uh you know it was more of a slump buster you know yeah you probably got the biggest beef curtains too the heels clacking tribal tattoo tramp stamp yeah real slutty but more of uh he's an avon guy at heart oh yeah i was just more of a uh i don't know i would call myself daniel boone like a real pioneer with bringing the bush back bush ghani looking so good did you ever get the mangina going well i don't got a good one he's you know when you tuck it in would you tuck it it in for the boys? Would you give them a...

Oh, yeah. Yeah, there would be a bunch of the bulldog, you know, all the staples. Okay, so you were doing this while in New Jersey. What if you would have been doing this when Lou walked in the room? He's got a good Lou story. He's got to go with it. I think he appreciates when people come on and tell stories about him. I might have to keep that one for off.

What is this about this fear that he's put into players? No, I just respect him. He gave me my opportunity. What, was he doing the Mangina or something? No, he was kind of the guy that gave me my opportunity after I was in the minors for six years. So I just – Yeah, I know.

You don't want to – I wasn't asking you to tell me where he buried the bodies and shit. I was just saying – He had lots buried the bodies. How many times did he catch you late for curfew by making you sign the sick at the front door? Yeah. No, that's – I was always good like that. But we did have – there was one story there.

We were going around. It was pretty serious. We were leading into the playoffs and um you know everyone had to come back with you know we got pumped by by pittsburgh it was like seven three and uh anyway we had a day off we had to come back with two things we could do while going into the playoffs and then uh you know i was the last one to go and you know everyone was like on edge and i was just like uh you know i was playing a bunch of situations blah blah blah like a hockey stuff and i go hey and uh i'll let any middleweight know that i'm tied down and uh you know not to be fucking around running around out here and it was just

dead silent like everyone's like looking at me the friend said it's dad's dying laugh at night. All right, we'll let you throw your pillows, Motts. Go get them, Motts. Thanks for taking care of business. We always joke around about the Lou thing. We have the utmost respect for him. We don't take hockey maybe as seriously as he does, but describe what the environment that he puts in place in New Jersey is like, at least from your perspective when you spend time there.

Well, I think, and it goes to any organization. I was kind of a suitcase, so I was able to see what worked and what didn't work in different organizations. And it's the accountability, right? So it started with Lou, and that just goes right through the organization. You know, so he held guys accountable. There are no gray areas. So you either knew you were doing the right thing or the wrong thing. So when you left it up to players to kind of decide on what was right and wrong, there was a lot of gray area, and the results kind of proved itself on the ice and its sustainability. So with Boston, the accountability came from the room,

and that's probably probably the most the healthiest but lou definitely you know had his finger on the pulse you know some people might call it micromanaging or attention to detail but it was uh definitely everyone was on the same page do you think that that wears on certain players it's kind of like bill belichick in the patriot way right it's he's got the finger on the pulse as you said so much to where maybe it's a little stuffy it's like holy shit he's coming down he's coming down every didn't they had didn't they used to pull up the l's everyone used to put the l on their forehead when lou is coming down hey he's coming he's coming like is that yeah that's yeah i mean it's

you know once you're from the outside looking in it looks like it might be kind of a task to be there but when you're in it and everyone's kind of you know you still had you know some knuckleheads in there and doing their thing but ultimately the the main goal was to win and not a lot of surprises either which is probably nice exactly yeah no one's going off the deep end no less it's maybe cam jansen yeah oh yeah calling him up or no who didn't he text lou one time yeah he texted i think the number but but now saying how strict he is i feel like he's got a soft spot for the knuckleheads no and he keeps him around he'll always have a tough guy and it's on his team if not two yeah he's a very uh you know let's just say generous person at the

at his core right and he's helped out so many players you know from you know my buddy Colin White he has unbelievable stories about how Lou has helped him along and um you know you know the good times and the bad times uh but kind of believed like believability in you like even when you're just kind of on the fringe that's why why I respect him a lot. What's Whitey say? Not bad for grade 9 Novi. Every time he opened his check. I don't know. What was it? Not bad for grade 9 Novi.

I think he was done with school then. Who were the guys that were popping off when you were in New Jersey? Must have been Parisi. Zach was kind of coming into his own there and Eliash was the constant. Berto was obviously the... R.A. says Eliash should be in the Hall of Fame. I could...

I looked at his numbers. I mean, it's no joke. I don't know if Hall of Fame, but he was sick. Yeah, and he had some jam to him too. He had a little sandpaper to his arm. A little Kucherov where he's kind of a snapshot. Yeah. But you also had great guys like Gomer and Jay Pandolfo and, you know, Colin White, those type of guys that were, you know, consummate pros around, right?

Yeah. And then Johnny Oduya was my… How do you do ya? Yeah, I do him. Gomer's crushing the content game now in Alaska. Yeah, he's doing well. Taking over. Actually, well, you just mentioned Gomer's crushing the content game now in Alaska. Yeah, he's doing well. Taking over. Actually, well, you just mentioned Gomer.

Did you ever get to see Bruce Springsteen when you were working for Lou? He told that story of how Lou called him up in Albany, made him come all the way back down to Jersey to go watch Bruce Springsteen perform to see his work ethic. Yeah, I heard that. And I wasn't there then, but Gomer has some great stories as well regarding Lou and, you know, just going up and being candid and, you know, just being Gomer.

So, Bri, it looks like you do have a couple of rank-shrink emails. Old school for us. Yeah, I got a couple. A couple for the boys. All right, let's read one of them at least. Let's hope you can get through one faster than the last times you came on. Take Biz doing an ad read. Today, Junior.

I know. Well, reading's not my strong point. We all know that. So I call this one Papa Rambo Goes Nuts at a Ref. This is from Cannon. He didn't say his town, so we're just going to go with Revere, Mass. Severe. Severe.

Even I know that's a shithole, and i have a hard time keeping track of all these little towns this place has uh um so canon i was reffing a gold medal game at the bantam minor hockey tournament with two pretty solid teams about two months into the second period i had a parent screaming about i was going to kill me i look over and he's climbing the glass with a knife in his hand guy is full-on screaming about how he's going to stab me and kill me and run me over the parking lot. I had kicked out his kid from the game for spitting at another player when he was celebrating after scoring a goal.

So clearly it stems from the top. It's a trickle-down effect. It's a trickle-down effect. Oh, my God. It's not like he got scored on either. He scored. He scored the goal and spits on the guy and uh you know and then you know obviously police were called and all that

type of stuff but i mean talk about a guy that needs to be listening to the ring strengths on the way to the game in the morning are you kidding me well i think he needs to listen to some meditation tapes or something he needs he needs maybe some breathing you know what he needs put the knife away no he needs a skipping rope in the corner get it get his hand he needs he needs maybe some breathing you know what he needs put the knife away no he needs a skipping rope in the corner get it get his hand he needs to get that's maybe that's what this is what they do they get out their energy channel your energy elsewhere that was one of the stories you told last time oh that was a good one that was a good one uh yeah so mott's what do you think about him uh he would need to lay down on the the couch do they know uh the original story

how yeah yeah yeah so a buddy of mine like the ring shrinks that it kind of came about because a buddy of mine um who you know he was calling me all the time last year about his team and he was having issues with his coach and all that type of stuff and and i'm like dude i coached three teams and i've talked to you more this year about your team and your son than anybody else. I'm like, I'm like. I'm busy. Yeah, I'm busy. Like, I'm working.

I'm coaching. I got a million different things. I've slept for a half hour this week. You know, like, what's going on? He's like, this is what we're going to do. He's like, you're my rank shrink. He's like, I'm going to set up, you know, a couch in my garage. You're going to come over.

We're going to invite these other hockey parents, and we're going to say to them, you know, like, you'm going to set up a couch in my garage. You're going to come over. We're going to invite these other hockey parents, and we're going to say to them, you can tell your story, and then you'll diagnose them. I'm like, all right, you need 14 Bud Lights or Budweiser's, because I know you're a Budweiser podcast, seven shots of Pink Whitney. And no weapons. Yeah, and you have to forfeit your license to carry.

So that was kind of how the whole thing started. I like that. And no weapons. Yeah, and you have to forfeit your license to carry, you know? So that was kind of how the whole thing started. I like that. Hockey parents are sickos. You guys have a hard time straddling that line. Obviously, we've got probably a little different audience than you. You mentioned kids are listeners. Do you have to, like, catch yourself frequently from maybe talking like you would on this show? Not getting canceled.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's definitely something. I mean, we're locker room guys, right? And we usually like to let things fly and kind of talk nonsense. But, I mean, we can talk ragtime with the best of them, obviously. And, yeah, so it's definitely hard to try to toe the line and think about your 13-, 14-year-old son listening at home. You also don't want to get handed divorce papers either. Yeah, yeah. Hey, so we got the big member guests at wallston this weekend and ross dr rink shrink ross is playing with keith what's it like playing with keith in this thing

oh man it's an adventure i mean it's it's going to be a little toned down this year because of covid obviously and there's not as many of the parties and all that stuff but uh it usually you know the the first day is is an absolute you know it's it's a grind because we got to qualify which is uh you know we'll be qualifying tomorrow and then it usually involves a quite a few drinks afterwards and a little bit of a party and then you know we all know how keith is with the responsibility of like the curfew and all that stuff like a minute before the tea time minute before like last year i think we were like three holes in and the guys are like these these guys like oh like i heard you hockey player i'm like no that's that's not me that's my brother and you know he's uh he's rolling in you know after the third hole and last year was a

funny story he he came in he was a couple holes so so we played friday a match and uh we're down like three at the turn and i'm like that's it i'm like i'm like let's go so it's probably noon i grabbed him a white russian i grabbed myself a pink whitney and uh and it was just it was game on we ended up like closing the guys out on 17. They couldn't handle us. So it was awesome. But, yeah, it's a blast. We have a good time. A lot of jokes.

Obviously, all of our buddies are up there. Yeah, it's a time. Which is usually a later tee time because he's the better golfer. So when we get done, we usually jump in a couple of carts and bomb around with the cooler and watch him play and some of our other friends that are pretty good. So it's a blast. It's pretty wild watching him hit a golf ball, isn't it?

Just like how consistent he is with it. Some would say it's wild seeing you hit a golf ball. Well, yeah, for different fucking reasons. Well, he sees three balls, so he's got to rip the middle off. Yeah, exactly. It's not always easy. Yeah, I need a shot clock out there, too. I stand over the thing for about two minutes.

Well, boy, this is great you came in. What else you guys want to chat about? Anything else on your mind hockey related? I think Tampa's winning this year. Yeah, me too. I can't wait until the Islanders lose. Now you're going to have Dallas fans sending anthrax to your house.

You didn't pick for them. These fans are nuts, bro. We're not picking up any listeners in the Dallas area, I guess. Oh my goodness. Dude, I picked against them and they they're like, yeah, they're going nuts. You doubted us. Don't try to jump on our bandwagon now. It's like, well, fucking Colorado lost 10 guys off their roster.

Only one team can win, too. Oh, yeah. Considering the circumstances, Mott, and everything, the pandemic, the bubble, all that, have you been impressed with the play that you've seen? Yeah, early on, it was obviously a little sloppy, but it was kind of cool to see. I was interested to see how much intensity would be there. It was like a big hit early in that New York-Carolina series,

and then a fight. I was like, all right, the boys are getting going here. Brady Shea crushed Jesper Fast. Yeah. First game it was at noon. Yeah,a crushed Jesper Fast. Yeah. First game, it was at noon. Yeah, yeah. Everyone was like, whoa. Yeah, it was awesome.

I mean, to see elite athletes kind of internally self-motivating. And then the product obviously got better and better as the guys got kind of their legs and their timing back. But, yeah, it's been great. I was a little less productive at work when there was games on it like 12 3 and 5 and you know just watching those long days those i think we you guys we hung out for one of those so yeah all right you got anything else for these guys i think i think yeah you got another one for the ring yeah let's get that read as many as you got man fans love this stuff yeah because they're all sickos. So I got another one here, and I call this one the coach gets mill buried in the stands.

This is from Ontario, and it came from a summer hockey tournament. So this is from a ref's perspective again. So coach acting like an idiot, new shit about hockey. After the second, we had enough of him and tossed him. The game ends. He opens the door, yells, you know, hey, go, you know. F yourself. Explicit.

Very, very explicit talking about the referee's mother, which is a huge logo. Like Jackie Moon. Jackie Moon lost it when that happened. Yeah, lost his mind. So this is the referee's mother uh which which is a huge like jackie moon jackie moon lost it when that happened yeah lost his mind so this is the uh the referee i snapped off my bucket jumped into the stands and started smashing him other parents jumped jumped in my partners joined me in the stands one bad got one dad got body slammed and had two vertebraes broke in his back the guy i went after pretty sure ate from a straw for a few weeks

to top it off the arena attended trying to break up the fight was my dad hey the ref sounds like a complete lunatic yeah he's a psycho he's he's like the bar bouncer guy who got like taken away from being the bar bouncer because he was too much of a snap show and he was like just waiting for one of these fucking coaches. You're breaking customers' jaws at an alarming rate. Please stop. But, I mean, it's hilarious because all these guys, like, I mean, know who you're messing with, first of all. But it's like you're in a rink. Like, enjoy the game with your kids, right? Like, these people are out of control.

And hopefully they, you know, they can start tuning into the rink shrinks and learn, like, hey, it's only a game. Like, this is a summer tournament game. Like, guys there in shorts and a t--shirt they probably got a cookout going outside afterwards like just chill out like enjoy it same dudes plan to march instead of target for having to wear a mask on exactly what kind of schedule you guys have what weekly show bi-weekly what's what's the plan there so we started out we're're going biweekly. Like Witt said before, it can be heard on Apple, Spotify, at the NewEnglandHockeyJournal.com. And we're going, like you said, every other week just for starters

and kind of ease into things here and see how it goes. But so far it's been great. A lot of New England area listeners, but hopefully we get the chicklets bism. Yeah, absolutely. Well, everyone knows where to check it out, the Ranked Strengths. Thank you guys so much for coming in, and I look forward to listening. And can I be on?

A hundred percent. How many games did you play, Motz? 321, I think. So you got a guy who played 202 trying to treat a guy who played more than him, almost double like a peasant. So I'm sorry for that off the hop. I should have done my research, but I owe you a beer. One last thing. Bi-weekly

means twice a week, right? Not every other week. Oh, yes! Oh, man. No rebuttal. You can think of one next episode. All right, I'm smart now. Done. All right, got me. We were both right.

Biweekly occurring every two weeks or occurring twice a week. Yeah, because I know that guys at work, some people get paid weekly and some people get paid biweekly. That's not twice a week. Right, right. Yeah. No, well, it's funny because it actually means both. It's weird.

I'm on not even dictionary.com, which I don't know. Merriam-Webster, definition of biologically occurring every two weeks or occurring twice a week. Well, it's something new every day. Every other week. I stand corrected, buddy. Thank you. Big thanks to that dynamic duo, Mike Motto, Brian Yandel, the new Ring Shrinks.

Good luck to them and their success with the new podcast. Always a pleasure having those two on. Motto, he's definitely a piece of work, though,to, Brian Yandel, the new Rink Shrinks. Good luck to them and their success with the new podcast. Always a pleasure having those two on. Motto, he's definitely a piece of work, though, huh, Whit? He's on his own little level there somewhere. Yeah, exactly. Mike Motto. I like those calls on Motto. I like that.

The French way. You could see the fear in his eyes when I asked him about Lou's stories. Like if he said one that he would, like Lou would send guys to kidnap him and like fucking waterboard him and shit. Alright gang, hey listen, businesses have had to be very flexible this year, from working remotely to pivoting their business models for long-term

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ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire. All right, boys, now that hockey's over, you know what season it is for me, Biz? Watching season. Got to catch up on all these movies. It's never not watching season for you. Right. Well, it's just I watch a lot more hockey during chiplet season.

You've been tweeting about movies and documentaries like crazy lately. I can't keep up. I don't know how you do it. Yeah. Well, I mean, I'm a night owl. I like to write at night, so sometimes I'll watch during the day. Sometimes I mix it up. But I'll tell you, you've seen that show The Boys, right, Whit?

You watched season one? I have. I've actually – I'm caught up. I've watched both seasons. I never in a million years thought I would like this show. Like, superheroes, I'm not into that stuff. But it's not about superheroes. You know what I mean?

And what is it? Is it a dark comedy, black comedy? Yeah, it's based on a graphic novel, which is basically a comic book in book form. And yeah, it totally subverts the whole comic book superhero genre, basically. You're not supposed to treat them as heroes. They're basically a bunch of assholes who are all corporate sellouts. And that's what the show is about. But it's brilliant, man.

It's just funny. There's no sacred cows in the show. They make fun of everything. They just dropped season two on Amazon, which actually they teased it out. They only did like a couple, like one episode at a time. And then they dropped like the last few. But if you haven't seen it, by all means,

check it out. It's definitely a unique show. I mean, it's not a... Homelander is... You just... I don't know if I love him or despise him. It's like that guy's... I've never seen him in anything. He looks like Bradley Cooper. Yeah, the guy – I forget – oh, shit. I forget the guy whose name he plays in, but he was on that show Banshee.

I think it was on Cinemax. People love that show. I've never seen it. But, dude, the guy's from New Zealand. So anytime you see someone from a foreign land who's able to master an American accent and plus the tech kind of take this sort of evil Superman role on, it's definitely good shit, Biz but you should certainly check it out. Would you think an American accent would be the easiest to disguise if you were

from a different country, as opposed to like someone English trying to knock off a French accent? Because I feel like so many people are able to America. I'd say so many people are able to do it. I know we were actually talking about it before we hop back on, but bull rat hit the girl the girl he's married to she's i believe british or maybe even australian and when she was in uh wedding i'll find you i will find you uh but uh anthony star is homelanders name sorry but good call going back to the boys uh any any other famous actors in it no uh all no-namers well Giancarlo Esposito from Breaking Bad yes yes he's on it I mean if

you ever watch the show you're the worst uh Aya Cash she starred in that show there's definitely faces you've seen from other shows and guest stars or whatever but actually um what's his name um not Randy Quaid Dennis Quaid's son is the star Jack Quaid it's actually um what's his name um not randy quaid dennis quaid son is the star jack quaid it's actually his father's job dennis quaid his mother's meg ryan he's the star of the show but yeah there's some familiar faces but it's you can jump in either way and uh another thing too i caught that craig cotton documentary on hbo you know craig cotton for those of you not familiar he was the star of um one of the number one fucking radio shows in New York City. It was Boomer and Cotton. They were number one.

And then he got afternoon or mornings. Pretty sure they were mornings. I never actually listened to them not being down in New York, but I'm 90 percent sure they were mornings. But they were the number one show in the land, basically. And then he got arrested, you know, for some sort of ticket scheme, some embezzling thing. And basically, he was supposedly such an excellent blackjack player that people would give him like hundreds of thousands of dollars to play blackjack with their money. And he would guarantee winnings. Now I don't know anyone who would do that.

That's fucking bananas to me because you know, there's a reason that casinos in Vegas are worth $6 billion. It's because of blackjack. But anyways, this guy was like getting people's money and not doing what he was supposed to do it. He ended up doing a year in jail and HBO teased the doc a couple months ago and it come out the last week or so.

I didn't think it was good, man. And I don't know Craig Cotton. I have no issue with one way or the other. I don't care what he did or didn't do. I just thought HBO docs, they've been slipping for a while now. And this one, it wasn't good. It felt like somebody was trying to clean up

this guy's PR image or almost like a favor to somebody. It was like, Oh, this guy did a bad thing. And he's sorry. And it's like, and lo and behold this week, it comes out, he's getting rehired at the company he used to work for WFAN. So I don't know if you saw it. I wasn't too crazy about it. I know you haven't seen it yet. No, I, I, I'm not a big fan of documentaries when it's not, um, completely unbiased. I don't know if that's possible now, but by maybe a company who has no ends with any side, you know, and they really give you the story. I haven't seen it, but it sounded like the guy was kind of a scumbag.

I'll say that. I mean, how many people did he scam money out of? Well, that's the thing. The documentary never interviewed any of his alleged victims. That's what I'm like. Why are we going to talk to somebody here? I won't even get the story of what he actually did from the documentary. Let's get Chief to interview him.

We'll get the real truth. And I have to change the channel because it's so awkward. I rarely chime in on the shows, guys. I watched a show called Zero, Zero, Zero, and it was recommended to me by a friend. I've watched two or three episodes now. It's about the Italian mob mob the mexican cartel and then also a family who is in the shipping industry so they're the ones shipping the drug and they intertwine it all and it's all involved in one show so i thought it was cool i mean i know there are a lot of shows about the mob and

the mexican cartel like you got nar, the list goes on and on and on. But I thought this one was really well done. The acting seems very good off the hop. And it's very, very violent, as I'm sure it would be if you're in the Mexican cartel and or the Italian mob. Yeah, it's tough business idea. There's like gutting pigs and like drinking blood and shit. It's nuts, nuts man these people are nuts uh well we got some golf talk we weren't done with just a sandbag a wet dog you just came back

yes i gotta quickly quickly um quickly discuss my trip to pioneer stall my buddy so we had a blast every year it's uh six of us for six guys who went to trinity trinity college is written right outside hard for a bunch of losers. The Banthams, I think their nickname is. So because of this year, we had three guys drop out prior to the trip, which was supposed to be in April, and then when all the shit hit the fan, we moved it to October. So still later in October, three guys couldn't go, so we replaced them.

And one of the guys that replaced a dude from Trinity was Jans. So Jans is on this trip so i sent my team or our team i should say um i think we were calling each other team trash i really don't know why i guess we're trash we're trash buckets but we all had chiclets uh shirts and my buddy mike shaw who owns loco and fat baby and in south. He, he made us hats, the double S for the Southern swing. That's what we call the trip, the Southern swing. And then we made a, he made a sick white hat that said Southern swing and cursive and pink because one day we wore the white with the pink logo, pink Whitney shirts,

Peter Millar showed up. So like I mentioned before, Shazi and myself, we drove down to Philly we met our buddy Gary we played Philly cricket I played like shit I hit it awful shot 77 I I want to play that place again though I had nothing I was like I gotta find something before we get to Pioneers so we go to Pioneers now it's Ryder Cup style now we hadn't beat Trinity I think in three years I don't know if we ever beat him it was pathetic every year we're losing to these. And I think everyone throws up whatever 500 bucks and then their side action, but you know, it's more about the bragging rights of winning. So we have to win this year. We have to win.

And they added Keith and then this other kid, Chris powers, who's nasty player, good dude. So he actually went to Trinity. So Keith, by the way, I met, I didn't finish story. So he's, he wants to get gear for his new team. So he got shirts and and like quarter zips made with the trinity logo the bantam it's like a rooster but to add keith's touch because he didn't go to trinity or any college he threw some jordans and a red handkerchief on the on the rooster so that was just the dynamite dynamite, what is the word,

uniform for this squad they were playing against. So we start off at number four. I'm three under through five holes on number four. I'm absolutely striping, and I end up shooting two over on the final 13 holes, shooting one under. We actually lost two to one in points, me and Foles. We lost to Powers and Keith Yandel. So they had a sick comeback. Yandel made a bunch of par net birdies. Powers sprinkled in some birdies. So we lost to powers and keith yandel so they had a sick comeback yans made a bunch of

par net birdies powers sprinkled in some birdies so we lost two points to one we come in i think we were i think we were down there was nine total points available for each match i think at that point we're down six three nah five five four or five and a half three and a half whatever it was so all right shit well we got to get going. Well, the next morning, then we just got buckled. We had this villa at Pioneer's. Pioneer's is the best place in the world. I'm telling you, this place is so fun.

There's 19 different golf courses. They set it up. There's a par three course. Everyone check out Pioneer's. The place is fantastic. So, we're in a villa where four of us, I was one of them, had our own rooms in the Carolina. But then there's a villa with this huge common room, sick, big screen TVs. They got a card table outdoor.

They got a sick patio set up. They got a, you know, kitchen, all that that you need. And then there's four bedrooms with two bedrooms each. So eight of the guys are staying in this villa. And then there's one huge common room. So that's where we're hanging out at night. So naturally, after the first night we go there, you're up till two in the morning it's just like am i gonna sleep on one of these trips nope i'll just wake up 36 holes the next day

so in the morning we played number three which is like 5 000 yards par 68 so fun this course is six like a mini number two it's just beautiful layout they just redid it such a blast because you don't need to you're not getting pounded if you don't hit the ball that far everyone can score so we come in from that team trash we come in and it's we're down five at that point uh so there's there's been 18 there's been 18 points available and you know we're down we're getting smashed dude like it was so, so annoying. I'm like, what the fuck is going on? I played against Jans at number three, too.

He made seven par net birdies. He was unstoppable. So him and Jay Driscoll gave myself and who was with me that morning a beating. I don't remember who my partner was. That's a slap in the face to whoever it was. But I'm sure it'll come back to me there's a lot of golf so we're down the team's down we're right we're now going to number two so we get over to number two you got caddies now at number two at the championship course and

my partner got waffled so we are starting the round off and the caddies come over and the caddies like he seemed very the two guys seemed very grumpy right away and the kid one of the kids in my group powers he's on the other team with maharis they're on the other team playing that's and he's carrying up a couple shirts he just bought the guys like i ain't carrying that i'll carry booze so just a tough start turns out these guys were unreal gary and eric i think so we get a couple drinks into this match right and we see the drink cart girl after two we get a couple drinks into this match, right? And we see the drink cart girl after two. We get a couple drinks. We buy these guys some white claws, right?

So the caddies want to have some white claws. Well, we get to the 6T, which is this monster par 3. That's 7. That's 6. So 220 yards. And this guy gets, the caddy gets on the phone. And he says, yeah, hey, what's up? Like talking to a girl.

Yeah, we're on an awful backup on six. You want to bring us out some drinks? He's like, just two lemonade vodkas. And Harris hears him. He's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, two. What about those white claws we got you a couple minutes ago? He's like, okay, yeah, yeah, six. Bring out six.

These players need one, too. So we finish the sixth hole, and we're walking across the road to 7T. And all of a sudden, a car pulls up. This girl's got six unreal, fully fully loaded like triple vodka pink lemonades pink whitney next thing you know my partner has crushed his and we all did and he can't even stand up he can't even swing he's whiffing so finally after the ninth hole, we had to give him the boot. Let's go. Go take a nap.

No way. Go take a nap. And even he knew. He couldn't talk, couldn't walk. Just an absolute mess. So would that leave the Whit Dog to do? One on two. I had to play one on two.

Our squad, I don't know what's going on with the other two foursomes, but I got to go one on two, and I grind it out. I shot 76 on number two. I grind it out a point and a half for my squad point and a half point and a half i come inside and uh all of a sudden i realized that we've really helped we've we've we've this deficit is isn't as bad as what we thought right so we're in the hunt going into the next day we tee off dude at eight in the morning down three points in pouring rain it's 55 degrees biz i'm telling you it's raining sideways one guy had on shorts and a t-shirt dude i looked at him on the eighth hole he was like a frozen icicle and he also shit himself he had to take the towel and chuck it in the woods just a disaster

you're up all night boozing keith Keith Yandel the night before gave the most incredible. What song is it? Some Biggie song. Ivor sounds like Survivor. Biggie, it is when you go with the trash and the Trinity crew. Biggie and Eminem have some song together. I don't know what it's called. Keith Yandel went word for word the sickest rap performance cover I've ever seen in my life.

Just crushed it. That was about 230. He finally shut it down after that. Dead wrong. Oh, dead wrong. We need Keith to do this. sickest rap performance cover i've ever seen in my life just crushed it that was about 2 30 finally shut it down after that wrong oh dead wrong we need keith to do this jesus this guy can perform so the next day fast forward we finished the rain round the last nine holes oh by the way we're getting like cigarettes and drinks from the car girl like after the pouring rain stopped 10 minutes later she's like did you guys get hit by the rain uh you see my shoes right now there's water coming out of my foot joist so it was just a gong show but finally the last nine we go in and we're tied we're all tied right

so we go out there and the last thing we got we got to go seven hole matches seven front seven overall the seven front seven back 14 holes overall, still three points available, nine points for the three foursomes because we're running out of daylight. Well, what happens? Long story short, my group, I birdie the first hole, right? We go one up. We then tie the next 12 holes, an unreal match. So we got one point for the front after seven, but then we tie eight, we tie nine, we tie 10, we tie 11, we tie 12, we tie 13, we get to 14.

We're the last group and the cards come flying back. What are we at? Boys, boys, we're down. If you don't get more points than the team you're playing against, we lose. Because when you've lost the Ryder Cup, you have to get more points than the team you're playing against, we lose. Because when you've lost the Ryder Cup, you have to get more points. A tie, the Ryder Cup stays with the team who won the prior one if you tie the current one, if you know what I'm saying.

Right. Okay. So I say, well, listen, we got one point in the bag, and this hole's for two points because we're tied on the back and we're tied on the overall. We got to win this point. Or at least we have to tie this hole to win the Ryder Cup. My partner hits it a little bit right.

He chips it on to 10 feet. Guy I'm playing against, he hits a beautiful bunker shot to 5 feet, so he's going to make that. I know he's going to make it for 4. I got a 40-footer for birdie. I'm stalking this thing. I have to two-putt to win the Ryder Cup. What did I do?

I fucking rolled this seven foot breaking 35 foot putt. Last rotation, dead center. Get the fuck out of here. All three points. Team trash takes it. The celebration begins. We stayed up till 430 in the morning that night with Chinese food and wrap. We actually went out that night and we went to get beers at like 10 o'clock

because we ran out of beers. We get out there. O'Connor in the store, I go, how many beers should we get? He goes, as many as we can carry. There was four of us. We got about 100 beers. We got back to the room at 10.30. Jans goes, do you know we're leaving in the morning?

We drank one eighth of the beers we had but we finally got a win it was a fantastic weekend i saw my buddy oki at the dry cleaners yesterday in east mountain and we were both i go dude do you feel normal yet he's like not at all he had no voice squeaks i gotta do it i'm trying to pick up my clothes he goes i'm here to see if they'll dry clean my lungs. So there was, I'm forgetting some things. Just in all, that's a long talk. Oh, my God. I felt like I was there.

That was at number eight, too, on the 14th hole that I just canned this 40, 30-footer just to win the Ryder Cup. So an awesome trip. Our squad got it done. Shout out to everyone. And yeah, I mean, I'm forgetting a lot of funny lines, which is frustrating. O'Connor also had a CPAP machine.

I don't even know what that is. Which I heard Lars from Barstool say, only for old or fat people. And he's not that old. Sleep apnea, right? Yeah, he said it's like he stops breathing. So we were taking that old. Oh, sleep apnea, right? Yeah. He said it's like, he stopped breathing.

So he just, we were taking like hits. Oh, I do that. We were taking hits of his CPAP. Yeah. This lady is trying to claim I have it, but I don't believe her.

So I was thinking of having someone come over to do that, to test me for, for how many times I wake up through the night. Cause I stopped breathing. Cause I can't, I can barely breathe. He had to do a sleep test where they go breathing. Because I can barely breathe through my nose. Yeah, so he had to do a sleep test where they go in,

like he was like completely stopping breathing. Yeah, and they'd be like, oh, and you wake up. That's brutal. Happens all the time. That's the consequence of eating punches your whole life. But, Whit, you nailing that putt, like I could just see it now, a seven-foot break. Oh, it was a monster out to the left to right monster putt that like

honest to god i was like this is like not the easiest two putt in the world and i canned it by the way net i just remembered another line ned had which ned is so positive like he's been on the show he's just always such an optimist like he could be down four with four to go we're gonna win this match he was in a fairway bunker 310 yards from the hall there's a lip over it somebody's like netty hit the hybrid you gotta hit the hybrid he goes even golf digest wouldn't let me do that so just non-stop like guys just and then i do want to shout out my drunk buddy who's had to walk off number two well i was gonna ask about him the next day he locked up five and a half out of a possible six points wow in his two matches so the dude came to play he showed up that's what it's all about wit

that's a foxhole guy that's a foxhole guy he for sure is he for sure is so i uh i had a go down to one person though does it make you dial it in even more? Yeah, I was dialed. I was dialed. I was dialed that day. Like, I was four over, but the course is hard. And I was giving out shots. I think one guy got one and one, and the other guy got two and two. So it wasn't a lot.

But still, I was grinding. We actually said on the 13th tee of number two, like, we had had a guy really buckled in the group, and he was gone. So we actually finally, like, came to grips with like we're we were pretty buckled as well it's like you wake up you're on number three at 8 10 in the morning with the john daly so it's like you know the next thing you know you're on your your your you're on your like 27th hole of the day it's five o'clock and the other thing is the guy didn't eat lunch after the first round he was upset with how he played so he went to the range and putted to get ready for number two he didn't eat so you got to eat in between these things if you're getting after it oh for sure

like a bugsy malone move but it wouldn't affect him or or you could just have the car girls bring you over some cigarettes instead you know that you know you're getting fucked up when the cigarettes come out like once, the cigarettes out. It's like if there's cigarettes and 12 guys telling stories for 14 hours a day, you know it's one of those weekends that you need three days to recover. Well, we've went long here. That was an unreal story. Fuck, I need to get on one of these trips one time.

Yeah, but you can't play 36 a day. Oh. I don't think you'd be able to. You know what I'll come for? I'll come for that little short course, the 5,000. Yes. The 5,000. We'll do that one back to back.

And the cradle, the part three course you'd love to. Perfect. Perfect. All right, guys. All right. I enjoyed catching up, and I look forward to chatting with you guys next week. Check out the Sandbagger on our YouTube channel. See how it all went down with Wagner and Yep.

And thank you so much for listening. We love you all. Peace. Have a great week, everybody. All right, before we close up here, I just want to send my condolences to the family and friends of Robbie McIntosh from my hometown of Charlestown. He was a well-liked coach to so many kids, football, hockey, baseball, softball.

He taught so many kids how to play the game the right way, so many games. So we lost him since our last show. I just want to send my condolences to again his friends and family uh tough loss for the community okay moving along we want to thank our sponsors as we do all every week here on chiclets big thanks to everybody at new amsterdam vodka and pink whitney uh big thanks to our friends at nitza for keeping the road safe big thanks to everybody up in bud canada a huge thanks to our friends at crossTSA for keeping the road safe. Big thanks to everybody up in Bud, Canada. A huge thanks to our friends at Cross Country Mortgage. Hopefully you're taking advantage of them. And big thanks to our longtime friends over at ZipRecruiter. Have a good week, everybody. When the road looks rough ahead

And you're miles and miles from your nice warm bed You just remember what your old past did Boy, you've got a friend in me Yeah, you've got a friend in me