Spittin Chiclets - Spittin' Chiclets Episode 308: Featuring Brian Burke + Josh Gratton

Episode Date: November 26, 2020

On episode 308 of Spittin’ Chiclets the guys are joined by Brian Burke and Josh Gratton. Burkie joined (02:51) to talk about NHL free agency, why he hates the NHL draft lottery, what needs to be done for next season and tons more. The guys are then joined by Josh Gratton (01:00:12) to talk about his career in the NHL, why he is so tough, post career and a bunch 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 308 of Spittin' Chicklets, presented by Pink Whitney. From our friends at New Amsterdam Vodka here in the Barstool Sports Podcast family, what is up, everybody? Hopefully you all enjoyed Justin Williams and Jerry D. Certainly sounds like it based on the feedback, and that feedback was very much appreciated. For the final episode of the month, we're happy to bring you Brian Burke and Josh Gratton, a longtime executive and a longtime professional.

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So now, time to enjoy the return of our buddy, Berkey. Well, it's great to welcome back this colorful character of the game, a character who's played many roles over the years, agent, GM, player, director of hockey operations, dean of discipline, and he recently released his first book, Berkslaw, A Life in Hockey with Stephen Brunt. Thanks for joining us once again on the Spittin' Chicklets podcast, Brian Berk. How's it going, Berkey? Good, I don't know. How are you? We're doing tremendous. So you're in Toronto right now, you just said, but are you doing one of these book tours

or are you going to pass on that? No, you can't. With COVID, you can't. We're doing it all virtual. We're doing a bunch of events virtually and a lot of media stuff, but no, there was going to be a book tour, but we can't. You seem like the type of guy that's really into the virtual type stuff these days, Berkey.

You weren't frustrated at all getting on with us. You're like, motherfucking Zoom. You know what the worst part is? Since they were very young, my kids could out-tech me on everything. So I have to ask my 14-year-old daughter to fix my computer. It's embarrassing. Berkey, did you have to wear that outfit today, or did you specifically put that on to come on our podcast via Zoom?

I put this on to come on your podcast, so I knew you'd dress like a bum. It's the Berkey uniform, of course. Yeah. Well, Berkey, before we get into the book, we want to talk about the postseason a little bit. Overall, did you enjoy the playoffs or what? Yeah, I thought it was fantastic, and I knew we were in for a treat when less than a minute into the first game,

Brady Shea kicked Jesper fast with a big hit there. And I thought right out of the gate, we got second-round intensity in the playing round. So I thought the league and the Players Association did a marvelous job. And then the players delivered. So these people say there should be an asterisk on the cup. I agree. An asterisk on the cup. I agree. An asterisk because this was harder than doing it like when we won it. Yeah, that's right.

I had written down, did you think mentally it was the toughest one to ever win under the circumstances? Yeah, I do. I think those players, especially Dallas, they go all that way. Like when you lose in the finals, I remember when we won the silver medal in Vancouver in 2010 you're sitting on the bench and Witt was there you're not thinking we had just had a great run you're thinking we failed and we got to watch these guys get their gold medal and we were all choking on our defeat and you don't realize till probably a couple years later what

an amazing feat that was to win a silver medal with a team that was picked to finish sixth. Same thing for Dallas. They'll realize someday how special that run was, but right now I'm sure they're not feeling it. Yeah, I think it probably takes a little while to at least settle in. And the problem was, it was like I talked about losing in the cup finals and how horrible it was, and this was just so much worse because of what they'd been through to get there

and still not to get to raise that trophy. But with Tampa, I mean, with what happened the year prior and then the slow start to the year before COVID hit, was there any, was there a moment when, when everything began again, where to you, that was like, all right, this team is just unstoppable. I think that five overtime game, I know it's early in the playoffs, but to win that game, if they lose that, it's just such a different story. I think.

It could have been. The one thing, what I like is Stevie Eisenman left a really good team there, and then they got swept. And I thought Julian Briseois approached the upgrades to the team with surgical precision. It's like he said, these are the very specific needs we have, and I'm going to fill them exactly. And so he gave up a couple of first- round picks for Coleman and Goudreau,

but they're not rentals. They're under, they're still under contract. They got bigger. They got faster. They brought in Magozian. They brought in Shaddy. They brought in Patty Maroon last summer. They brought in Luke Shen. These are all character people with a fair amount of hostility. They wake up kind of grumpy except for Shaddy. Those other guys all wake up drunk up grumpy and they're ugly. And so to me, they changed their whole look.

They kept their skill set, but then they changed it. It's just like our team in Anaheim in terms of clearly defined roles. You know, I use this quote with my players all the time. You go to the symphony and the first violin is elegant. She wears a white dress she comes out last and she's beautiful and stylish but there's a guy built like me blowing a tuba in the back row and they don't start until we both sit down i love it well i was going to hop in there i was going to ask you about vancouver do you keep a close eye on teams that you've been

associated with in the past and And if so, you know, seeing them get over the hump in that first round against St. Louis, you know, as an organization, where do you see them making strides? And do you think that in the next few years they could be a contender? Yeah, I do. I do follow teams that fired my ass. Thanks for bringing that up. It's a lot of teams, by the way. Yeah. Yeah. That's a lot of work in itself. No, I do. I do. that's a lot of work in itself. No, I do.

And I do a radio show in Vancouver, so I do follow their team closely. They've got some great pieces, but they got hit hard at free agency, too. They brought back Nate Schmidt at the end, but Chris Taddeb is a very underrated player. If he played in the East, people would talk a lot more about him. He's a shot-blocking machine, penalty killer, right shot, reliable, hits, and a great mentor. He's a really fast-tracked Quinn Hughes for me.

And then they lose to goaltender, and then they lose to Foley. Now, they got Nate Schmidt back at the end, but they were hit hard. But they got some wonderful pieces on that chessboard. Berkey, by all accounts, the bubble was a huge success, but did you think there was anything that either the league or maybe the union got wrong that, well, nobody wants to do a bubble again, but if they had to do it over, they might have done

different? I don't think so. I'll tell you this. I'm not shy about criticizing the league when I think something's wrong. The draft lottery, to me, is insane. Just stupid. In this one, I think they get straight A's. And the union deserves the same level of praise because they agreed to it all.

It's not fun to be stuck in one place for that long. It's not fun. And people say, oh, they have room service. It's not that bad. Hockey players move around. That's what we do. We like to move around. Being in one place like that without your family suck.

And the teams that went all the way, that was a hardship. So I don't think there's one thing that we could have done better. If they tried to make it more livable, they would have violated the bubble. If they tried to bring the families in the 14 day quarantine would have stopped them. I don't think there's anything they could have done better. The only thing they could have done better is you say, okay, for the Frozen Four, the Final Four, all your families better come right now so they can beat the quarantine in case you make it into the finals

so they'll be clear for you to be there. That's the only thing that maybe you could have done. But the players could have done that on their own too. I've long heard you kind of talk about the draft lottery and how ridiculous it can be i'm curious like how how would you change it what are the things that really drives you not to pisses you off or basically make you think it's foolish well it is foolish i mean what what did what did new jersey just move up or the rangers just move up 11 places so when we started doing drafts in all pro sports,

the principle is inverse order of finish. So the worst team gets the best player. Then we had crooked owners and we had to put in a lottery. Or we had GMs that were willing to tank. We had to put in a lottery. I accept the lottery, but it should be the fewest number of teams possible to make the incentive to

tank as low as possible. So in my mind, five teams, the five worst teams, do a straight lottery, and that's that. No one can move up more than four places that way, right? And a guy like the Rangers were on pace the regular season for like 90 points. They're picking ahead of teams that would have finished, like Detroit had, what, 57 points at the pause? That's not right.

And this is not the first time I've bitched about it. The Flyers moved up and took Nolan Patrick, moved up a bunch of spots. It's not right. If you get a shaving cut, wait, you're not taking the big Band-Aid out. You're taking the little Band-Aid out of the box. This is something we've got to cure. Use the smallest Band-Aid you can. Don't penalize teams that have a bad, Detroit tried like hell they're awful they should have got a higher pick than they did they got screwed Ottawa got screwed so to me that's problem number

one and they got to fix it and the league gets almost everything right this is the reason they don't want to change this all leagues are are like this, Whit. Because their guys passed this rule, they're very reluctant to admit it was a mistake because they approved it. So if you change it, you have to say, we didn't get this right. And they're very reluctant, not to the NHL alone, all pro sports. Think about it. I'm a GM. I'm like, geez, I voted for that.

I'm not voting to change it. So they're reluctant to change. I get it. But they've got to fix it. Second part they've got to fix is if you pick in the top three you can't come back to the buffet table for three years the highest you can pick is fourth we can't do an edmonton job again well they have a number one pick three years out of five or whatever it was we're not going to reward sustained failure those are the two phases i would like to see so far one's listening. Is that a shot at Edmonton, by the way?

No, it's a shot at the system. I don't blame Edmonton for anything. I'm just fucking around. I'm just bringing up the low scrap again for crying out loud. I'm not sure if it made the book. It's in the book. You know what the beauty is, Biz? Kevin Lowe would have shown up for that fight on time and happy to fight.

We hockey guys aren't afraid of a fight. He would have been there. He would have been early. Yeah. And you would have brought the six pack for afterward. Yeah, exactly. I'm curious. You have such a good memory. Last time we saw you, I remember after like, how do you remember everything? So you must've been had the, at least had the idea of writing a book for quite a while. What made it finally come to fruition and figure out the times,

the time's right to give this a go. Well, after we won in 07, Steven Brun who wrote this book and did a marvelous job, he's a great author. He approached me about doing a book after the cup in 07. And I said, no, I got too much hockey in front of me, but I started keeping a diary thinking maybe I should do a book. So last February of 2018 was my last year in Calgary the deal I made with the Calgary Flames is that I would come and at the end of each year they could walk away or I could walk away so Ken King the late great Ken King wonderful man called me in his office and said we want to pull a plug

at the end of this year so I said okay that okay, that's the deal we made. That's fair. They figured that Brad Treliby was ready to go on his own, and he is. He was. So no sweat, no hard feelings. Loved it there. But we went to the playoffs that year. So between February and end of April, mid-April, I'm not as involved as I was. I'm still consulted, but it's after the trade deadline. There's not much we can do anyway, right?

So I started making an outline, ended up doing 100 pages single space with some of these anecdotes, like drafting the Sedins, drafting Pronger in 93. And then you feel like kind of Forrest Gump, like I was at some critical points in like the McSorley-Breshear incident. I was the GM. Bertuzzi Moore, I was the GM. So they intersected in these points. The CB, both collective bargaining agreements.

I was on the bargaining team. So I think there's, I think people will like this book. I think there's some interesting stories in there. Hockey fans and some front office workings. It shows I had to interact with players, interact with GMs, interact with coaches, interact with owners. I think people will like it. Berkey, did you keep the journal specifically for the book or also for sort of cover-your-ass reasons down the line potentially? Well, no, I'm a lawyer, so I keep a diary of important events anyway. Just so, like, when I was the GM of the Leafs,

so let's say Witt's the GM in Chicago. When I was the GM of the Leafs, so let's say Witt's the GM in Chicago. I call Witt at noon on Wednesday, October 15th. I make a note in my diary what we talked about. So if he says later, well, we never talked about that. I can tell you the time and date. I was in my office. So as a lawyer, I keep a diary, not to cover my ass smart ass, but to make sure it's like you can't question

what I say. No, this guy was more with when I taught a book recording stuff. So I enjoyed it. It makes you reflect on what you did, right? Like, you go back and think in your mind, I could have done that better. All right, I did a great job there. But I could have done this better. I could have. I wish I had changed this. So it was good. I enjoyed it. Brian is part of it also going back on these big moments. And once you've reflected on them, even if you maybe were wrong in some instances, explaining it and saying, you know, this is at that time why I landed on that decision. And, you know,

sometimes you got to eat it a little bit. Does, does any of that type of explaining go on in this book? Yeah. Like I'll give you an example the phil kessel trade so we we trade two first round picks for phil kessel and a second they turn into tyler sagan and dougie hamilton now phil kessel came in and did the job for us i i loved having him he was great but it's too high a price tag so at that time when we made the trade we were like six games over 500, like at Christmas time, so we start the season, we're doing well, we're clearly fighting for a playoff spot,

there's no way we're picking first overall or second overall, and we talked about the possibility of that, we said look, there's two top guys in this draft, Taylor Hall, Tyler Sagan, we can't end up giving up the first or second pick, and we're like, we're going to pick around 10th, 12th, 14th, somewhere in there. Christmas time, it looked like we were bang on. And then the 18-wheeler went off the cliff. We lost like nine out of 11 and ends up being a high pick.

Would I like to have that back? Yeah, I'd still like that fill, but I'd like to have that deal back. So when it was offered, was it not lottery protected, first of all? Were they asking that it wasn't? Most teams did not lottery protect picks back then. Okay. That started after I screwed up. Oh, Jesus.

Oh, good. Yeah, I'm sure fucking Steve Simmons had a ball with that one. Well, you know what? When I speak publicly, people say, what's the worst trade you ever made? Excuse me. And I say, how much time have we got? And that's what happens. I said, how much time have we got? I made a lot of...

It's not COVID, sorry. It's an allergy. No, but that's what happens when you think of your shit trades. You just start like twitching and sneezing. Yeah. Well, not just that. Whit, you've played sports. If you want to hit home runs, you've got to strike out. If you swing hard enough to hit a home run, you're going to miss sometimes. So I hit a lot of home runs.

I struck out a bunch. You've just got to hit more home runs than strikeouts, and teams keep hiring you. That's a perfect analogy. I talk about – last episode we talked about free agency, obviously, and you just mentioned the the hall Sagan draft, was it surprising to you to see Buffalo as a team, to see a one-year deal? I know COVID and the free agency and money has changed,

but what'd you think of that situation? I thought it was bizarre, but then I talked to, it didn't make any sense to me at all. But then I talked to Darren Ferris who represents Taylor. He said, look, if you look at the free agent market, a couple goalies got paid, a couple of D got paid, and no one else got paid. No forwards hit it out of the park.

And he said the deals didn't materialize, that we thought would be five-plus years of big dough. It just didn't happen. It's COVID. And the bad news is going to keep on coming, folks. These guys that aren't signed yet, those price tags aren't going up they're going down so he said you got a chance to play within the league center for one year hopefully the revenues rebound and there's more money in the system a year from now which i think is a safe bet um why not and i i think jack eichel is one of the top 10 players

in the league me personally i think he's a stud i think if he played anywhere but Buffalo, they'd be selling statues of him, right? Like, he's amazing. You just said calling with the GM in a hypothetical situation. That's hilarious because you know his secretary will be like, he's on a scouting trip in Myrtle Beach right now. I'll take a message from him. Yeah, Dale. I'd be Dale.

Ricky, during the process of making the book, was it fun? Did it get frustrating? Was there ever a point where you were like, the hell with this? I don't want to do this anymore. No, the chapter where I had to dictate the chapter about Brendan, about my son, that was hard. And they asked me to read the book onto an audio book, which I did. And if you, if you bother to listen, I don't do audio books, but if you listen to that chapter, you'll be able to hear, I had a hard time getting through that even 10 years later. So even now, I don't like talking about it.

But that was hard. The rest of it was like, you know, I'm a Harvard lawyer, Harvard educated law student. And like work comes easy. So Stephen Brunt, I would dictate a section. He would have it typed up and get it back to me. I would have it proofed and edited like within three hours like i'll take 60 pages read them fix them up not not change his language but typos or stuff i dictated wrong i went back i tried to get go back 30 40 years now right in this book you go back to when you played in college so i tried to get it right

and where they were set where i could check things, I went back and checked with people and said, have I got this right? Look at these pages, make sure I got it right. So I'm sure there's errors in there, but if they are, they're errors, unintentional errors. I tried desperately to get the book factually correct. Did you find it? I mean, as I get older, I'm younger than you, but do you find maybe your memory sometimes would play tricks on you would say, well, shit, did that really happen that way? And did you have to double check? Was that a frequent thing?

Who is this? Like, just in general, like, did you get it? It was a joke. I got me. I got it. Oh, my God. Hook, line, and sinker. As time passes on, the one thing that amazed me was,

I remember one time I was going through the airport in Toronto with Pat Quinn and a kid came up to play for us in Milwaukee for two years. And he goes, Hey Pat, Hey Berkey. And what are you doing? I'm an electrician. I got two kids. Great kid. And he walked away and Pat says, who the Christ is that? And I said, Pat, he played two years for us in Milwaukee. Like he wasn't some kid that came to camp one year. We had him in the system for two years. And Pat said, no idea.

And I thought at the time, boy, is his memory terrible? Guess what? I'm Pat Quinn. Like, like I I've, I've had guys come up to me that played for me and I'm like, they got to prompt me, play for you in Milwaukee, play for you in Freder up to me that played for me, and I'm like, they've got to prompt me. Played for you in Milwaukee. Played for you in Fredericton. Guys that played for you. Now, I can remember every guy I played with going back to Bantam, but guys that played for me.

Like, I was doing a part on my last year in Vancouver. I looked at the roster, and there were at least two guys there that I knew played for me, but I didn't realize how good they were and how important they were. Like, Marty Rusinski. You kind of get put in that spot when you were at the draft and Columbus drafted that kid, and you guys were all looking at each other like, what the fuck?

We got no notes on this guy, the Russian kid. You're like, I think he's a winger. Well, I talked to Jarmo afterwards. I think the guy's got six goals in six games now so far. But, yeah, we had nothing. And Sammy Cosentino, he's the guru. He's the swami. If he didn't know a kid, the kid probably doesn't exist.

So I said – they said Russian winger. So I said, I think he's a winger. And everyone at home is going, you idiot, we know he's a winger. Well, he stayed forward. I had my guy. Keeping with the TV theme here, You idiot. We know he's a wigger. I had my guy. Keeping with the TV theme here, you must have had a blast being back on with Juice during the playoff run.

I mean, he had a breakout performance. Everybody raved about it. I was in the States. I didn't get to watch as much as I wanted to. But just talk about the energy that he brought to Hockey Night in Canada during the run. Well, he's a star. He's a star. Like, he can break down and explain.. He's a star. He's a star.

He can break down and explain. I can explain a play. I can explain to you how a three-on-two broke down and didn't work. But I labor through it. He explains it quickly and simply in language that people can understand. He's self-deprecating. He's got a great sense of humor. He's not afraid of anyone on the panel.

He'll take a shot at anyone. Ron McLean, me, doesn't care. But that's the kind of player he was. Like, you know, I drafted him, and he was – the whole story about how he got signed, that's true about Federer-Federoth. You guys heard that? Yeah. He fought a teammate in the parking lot at Earl's in Winnipeg,

Federer-Federoth. And one punched him and cut him wide open. And he went back into the bar and he said to Dallas Eakins, I'm going to get sent home tomorrow. He was not an ATO. He was not an amateur trial agreement from Bowling Green. He's in Winnipeg in the IHL back then, I guess it was. And he said, they're going to send me home tomorrow.

And Dallas Eakins said, you don't know our boss. They're going to sign you tomorrow. And Steve Tamalini called me the next morning. He said, you're not going to believe what happened. And I said, two players fight in the runway? No. Someone hit a fan? No, it's better than that.

Two teammates fought. So we signed him. I think you've dated BXL a little too far saying it was the IHL. I think it was the AHL at the time, was it not? 2000 and this would have been – I left Vancouver in 2004. This would have been 2003. Unless I'm going crazy here. But, yeah, he was excellent, and you mentioned like the collab.

Even Anthony Stewart on there as well. Do you want to hear a bizarre thing? I asked – I'm at the draft. I just drafted Kevin Biexa. And a guy comes up to me and introduces himself and says, I'm Kevin's dad. I played against you in college. Oh, shit.

So I said, really? I played at Clarkson. I'm like, I don't remember a Bieksa at Clarkson. Okay. So I was talking to Juice on the set. And I said, you know, the day I drafted you, I met your dad. He goes, well, that's funny because he was sitting at home in Hamilton with me. And I said, a guy came up and introduced him. So he went to Clarkson. He goes, well, that's funny because he was sitting at home in Hamilton with me. I said, a guy came

up and introduced him. He went to Clarkson. He said, my dad never went to university. Some stranger came up and made up this story. I was like, oh, nice to meet you. Welcome to the Clarks. Just to get to talk to Berkey. Oh, shit. Berkey, when you're putting the book

together, how do you know where the line is on what to share, what not to share? Is that something you just got to go with your gut instinct on? No. I mean, these guys – well, Whit played for me briefly, and Biz knows me. They know I've got 100 stories I could have put in that book that would really embarrass people. That would bury people. Where a player asked me to do something for them,

or I made something go away, that's never going to be shared. That's off limits. My test was I wasn't going to put anything in the book unless our team had common knowledge about it. In other words, I'm not settling a score. I'm not telling a story that no one knows about. The guys that played for me during those times would have looked at the parts I put in and said,

yeah, I remember that. If it didn't have common knowledge on my team or my management team, it didn't see the book. If it was private in nature, a player come in my office, bare his soul to me about his parents, about his wife, whatever, that doesn't belong in a book ever. I know you're media now, but did you take any media to task in your new book? I haven't had a chance to read it yet. Absolutely. Let's hear some. Well, Tony Gallagher, Steve Simmons. What's his name?

Damien Brooks. Larry Brooks. Yeah. I'm not, they're not getting a free ride. I never got a free ride from them. Exactly. And to me, the sad part is I think the vast bulk of the media are honest, sincere men and women that try to get it right and work hard, and they're important to our game. The media are important to our game.

I've always believed that. But it's a handful of jerks that wreck it for everybody. And, no, I named them by name, and I can't stand them, and I don't care if they don't like it. Do you think that's going to be a – I was going to hop in there. Do you think that's a big element to bring in Joee thornton to toronto maybe to deflect some of that and you know and a guy who's been around so long he's able to come in and kind of settle those young guys down given you know the media there is fucking nuts well it's a catch 20 here's the problem with the

media here biz it's there's too many of them so if you look at the size of a dressing room you guys played in the NHL. You know why the dressing room's that big? For the media. We don't need a room that big for the players. If we had our druthers, you guys would be 10 feet apart, like when we were kids. So I can look you in the eye and say, we need more from you tonight. Or I can say, you can't cough up the puck like that. We've got them so far apart, they got megaphones. But that's so after the game, the media can fit in the room. So after a game in An anaheim there'll be 25 or 30 people in the room calgary 25 or 30 maybe 35 on a saturday night maybe 40 on a saturday night there's 80 on a weekday in toronto and there's 100 on a saturday it's a hockey night in canada game it's 100 media and so when you're not

playing well they all pick up a rock. So it's the volume of the negativity and the social media. It's not that the media in Toronto are negative necessarily. There's a handful that are, but it's the volume. And they've got to blame somebody. So one night it's me. The next night it's Ron Wilson. The next night it's Dion.

The next night it's Phil. So it's the volume that's the problem here. It's not that there's anything wrong with the media. Actually, the media here are really professional for the most part. But the social media, that's something I didn't have to deal with when I first came into hockey, and now it's massive. Go back to Joe Thornton. So go back to Joe Thornton.

Sorry, I didn't answer your question. Oh, it's all right. We can go off the rails. This is a rock and a hard place for me because I love Joee thornton as a player and i like him as a person i don't see a fit here this doesn't make sense to me it doesn't make sense to me where is he gonna play who's he gonna play with whose job is he taking what kind of look do they have him so i look at their moves so far and i think they've made some smart moves i like t.j brody had him in calgary i've admired wayne simmons, but it's the sleight of hand here. It's like you're

watching David Copperfield. Oh, we added Wayne Simmons. No, you didn't. You replaced Kyle Clifford with Wayne Simmons. So it's not like he went out and found a character guy with grit. You had one. You could have had two. You replaced Kyle Clifford. So I love Wayne Simmons, but net, net, okay? You're dressing for the game. You feel any different if there's just one of them in the lineup? You're busy.

You're getting ready. You say, I might have to fight tonight. I've got to fight Simmons or I've got to fight Clifford. But you don't have to worry about two of them. So that's number one. Number two, I don't see the fit with Joe. He's a wonderful human being. He's a good player.

He's on the back nine. He might be putting on 17. He's up there, but he's still an effective player. He's a wonderful human being. I just described Jason Spezza. Now they got two of them. I don't get it. Yeah going they're trying to go really all in deep with older veterans who aren't expensive to help out these guys make it 10 sheets who need

who need to be able to figure out how to win in the playoffs but it is because they have the speed up front on the top two and then it gets slower and slower as you look but at least they do have some toughness i look at as a fan like all right all right, well, you're adding something. Bogosian, I don't know how much he'll play, but still he's different than a lot of D-men they had. I agree. I like the moves. I like Brody. I like Bogosian.

I like getting rid of Andreas Johnson. Like he said, they have players like him. They got rid of Kapanen. They have players like him. I think Kyle's done a great job. I don't get the last one. And I'm amazed that everyone in this marketplace has bought into the idea that, well, they added Wayne Simmons. They netted out with the same, he's a wonderful guy. I love him. I wish he played for me. He's

my kind of player, but so is Kyle Clifford. So if you net out the toughness, the grit, the sand, the fighting ability, at best, it's a wash. Berkey, I know the cap is flat now, everything that's going on with the pandemic, but I could have asked before the pandemic, can you win in today's NHL if you're paying three guys $10 million each? No. Okay.

Short answer? Moving right along. Well, I hear it. It gets better. How about giving four guys $40 million? Yeah, that's exactly. They got half their cap. It's $81.5 million, $40 million, and four guys.

So guess what? The math doesn't work. They've got to trade Ney knee liner and get a defenseman. Changing, changing conferences. You put yourself in Stan Bowman shoes here for a little bit and, and look at the article that comes out with Jonathan Taves, just very emotionally upset at what's going on there. They don't sign Crawford's gone.

He doesn't think there was ever going to be a rebuild what's going on in Chicago. And how much of a point do you think a player has to say maybe he should have been involved when a GM is making moves? Do you look at it like a guy who's created a dynasty has the right to be informed of moves or no, you play, I do the, I do the off ice stuff. Okay. So what you played for me, you know what I'm going to say. You would have, but you were, You would have known what was going on.

So I think he's got the right and Patrick Kane has the right to be informed. They don't have a vote, though. And if you had popped off in the paper, I would have said, come in my office and tell me that. Come in my office. Now, here's my point. I think Jonathan Taves has been a marvelous player. I worry when you pop off in a marketplace and you're making $10.5 million, I worry about local reaction.

It'd be like, you know why we're rebuilding? Because we overpaid two guys. And I don't feel they've overpaid Jonathan Taves. I think he's earned every bloody cent he's ever made. I love him. ever made. I love them. But there's risk number one, locally, blow back on that because they wouldn't have to rebuild if they had more cap space. Two, you say to yourself, it's the same thing Jimmy Rutherford say to Pittsburgh. I've got two elite players. We're not going to a total rebuild. We're going to try and win. I don't think Pittsburgh is good enough to win. No matter what they do now with their cap situation. I think it's that window was closed for me because I look, I say, okay, in the East and I love Jimmy their cap situation, I think that window is closed for me.

Because I look, I say, okay, in the East, and I love Jimmy Rutherford. You know that. But I look in the East, I say, are they better than Tampa? Nope. Are they better than Washington? Nope. Are they better than Boston? Nope.

And this is the same thing. If you're Toronto and you add Joe Thornton, if you're Chicago, and you say, we don't want to do a rebuild we got these two studs fact is those teams aren't close to championship caliber in my mind so you're better off getting good fast or getting bad fast the muddy middle is nowhere to be the mushy middle since we're talking about jonathan i think jonathan daves has the right to speak up behind closed doors. And I think Stan probably wishes he'd consulted him,

but if they can't see there's a rebuild coming there, if they think they should still be going for it and sign Corey Crawford and add this and add that, I don't see it. I think I'm a pretty experienced hockey guy. I don't see it. You got three rings. Just remember when you go buy gas, you got three rings. You're putting gas in your truck. You're wearing three rings. Don't forget that. Since we're on the topic of GMs, Joe Sackick has just done an incredible job in Colorado. Another reload really in this free agency without giving up any major assets. Other than Iserman, I can't think of another guy who's

transitioned so well into that role from being a Hall of Fame player to now, you know, potentially a Hall of Fame GM. And sneaky. They're both sneaky. Iserman, what he's done in Detroit in the last two weeks, they've made major changes. And not a headline, not a whisper. Joe Sackett gives like three interviews a year. The Sphinx is a better interview than he is. And yet, look what he's doing.

He's quietly turned that team, which was already good, into a contender. Like, okay, so I don't make my predictions before the season until right before. And then I put the team side by side. I draw out the lineups and put them side by side. I confer with people, coaches, GMs. But I got news for you. Right now, I can't see Vegas or Colorado or anyone in the West approaching those teams on paper.

And they got good coaches. They got good GMs. And Joe does it quietly. He doesn't get in trouble with the media like I did and get all worked up and start yelling and screaming and threatening to fight people. Quietly, professionally does it. Fair enough, though. Denver's a market.

It's not going to be like that they don't have you you got six reporters in the room in denver it's so different there it is not at all similar to some of the markets in the league in terms of pressure from media and fans yeah you know what i agree with that and and maybe that's what they need to fill the building and keep it filled but they got a pretty good fan base there the media coverage it's always football there it's always college sports you know the difference but they got they got a great fan base in Colorado and they got to be watching this team now because I always prodded my teams on selling tickets my teams sold tickets we were fun to watch the traded chances we fought we. We hit. People like

watching our team. And that team sells tickets. Colorado's fun to watch. That's an explosive, dynamic team. I don't like the fact that they traded the Russian defense, and I liked him for a bite, but that's a good team to watch. Berkey, Petrangelo left St. Louis via free agency for Vegas. There was lots of talk about Doug Armstrong's philosophy on no-move clauses and bonuses. Where do you stand on those particular issues? I don't think I've ever given a full no-trade, no-move clause, ever. I think it was always eight teams.

I mean, again, memory is faulty, but I think you have to adhere to your principles, like Lou Amarillo, Doug Armstrong. They're not going to break. You can't, I can't say to Paul Bissonette, here's the rules and then give it to a star. I say,

you can't have that because we don't do that here, but then I give it to him. I think consistency is really important. I think I would have understood. I would have been just happy being there. And the reason you didn't do it is because they weren't even, you guys weren't even doing lottery protections back then. That's why.

The no-moves clause didn't even exist back in the IHL. We did a lot of no-trade. I think it was the IHL, Smartass. I think it was. Anyway, if you go back to when no-trade clauses came in, they're really inherently, if you think about them, they're pretty stupid stupid if you get to a point where you want to trade a player he should want out and he should just be able to say i don't want to go to certain places now here's the part that aggravates me you ask for eight to eight teams on the no trade list you give a no fly zone eight teams

all seven canadian teams are almost always on it. It's for tax reasons. But even your Canadian players give you a list with all the Canadian teams on it. It breaks my heart. I'd say, remember, I'd say to players who are Canadian, you just said you don't want to play in Canada? When you retire, the years you remember most fondly will be the years you played in Canada because people love the game here and they love you. My time in Canada has been so special working for Canadian teams.

Hey, not to hurt anyone's feelings here, Brian, but if you were a star player right now and you had to put three teams on your no-move clause, who would you pick? Who would be your three teams? Well, for me, I focused on the travel. Like, the travel is going to be – that's going to be a compressed schedule this year. So I'd say take three West Coast – take Vancouver, Anaheim, and San Jose.

Like, the travel's going to be a nightmare this year, I think. It'll actually be better because they'll compress the schedule. And if you have more back-to-backs, more three-and-fours, that's why goaltending tandems are going to be important. But my prediction is we're going to play around 60 games, and it is going to be – the Calgary Fl not going to fly to vancouver and play once they're going to play twice and then they're going to go right to san jose and they're going to play twice then they're going to write to la and play twice they've got it and i've been harping on

this since i worked in anaheim yeah the league does a this poor job on scheduling anyway the travel costs are unnecessarily high. Now that money matters and they have to focus on travel costs, they'll do a better job on travel. Understandably, nobody has a clue what's going to go on this year. You just mentioned you think it might be 60 games. Are we looking at possible division realignments? Are we looking at a thing where when I read that the league needs fans,

where so much of the revenue is created from the gate, how do you approach what's going to go on and when the season starts? If they're asking you. Well, first off, I think it's a fair question. Like that's, I want to know, as a season ticket holder, I want to know when we're starting. So in my mind, the league dragged out the bubbles for a very good reason. They could read the COVID-19 ratings and delay it as late as they could

and then pick two very safe hubs. They want to do the same thing here, right out as late as you can. Now, in my mind, at some point, that's a mistake. We have to play. People will find something else to do if we don't play. And they'll watch something else to watch on TV. We lost some percentage of our audience this year, whether we know it yet or not. We don't know what it is. But some people said, there's no hockey on. I'm going to watch the documentary channel. I'm going to watch Netflix. I'm going to read books. I'm going to learn French.

documentary channel. I'm going to watch Netflix. I'm going to read books. I'm going to learn French. We lost some percentage. We don't know what it is yet. So we got to play. In my mind, there's no question there's going to be divisional realignment because you need a Canadian division now. So there's a 14 day quarantine. They're not going to look at it anytime soon. They're not opening the border. So if the Minnesota wild fly up to Winnipeg to play a game, they got to stay for 14 days ain't

going to happen so you're doing a Canadian division and then they'll do tight like take a ruler and your Rand McNally map and I showed this on hockey night two years ago the old Rand McNally book we used to keep in our truck no one has it right they all have nav systems and GPS but if you take the geographic distances between the different cities in the U.S., you can figure out what the divisions will look like. What's the tightest travel? What's the cheapest travel? So you got Anaheim, L.A., San Jose.

You got Vegas, Arizona. That's a grouping. And then at Colorado or whatever. Florida. Instead of playing with Montreal, you're going to go Florida up to Washington, Philly, that group, so on. So you're going to play. Now the question is, can you play the three American divisions?

Can they play each other? Canadian division is going to have to stay and play the Canadian teams, and that's okay. I think that will generate interest for a year. That will be fun. Can you imagine what you've played, the Battle of Alberta? I love that. I love that.

Plus, when we had back-to-backs, I always dressed a lineup that made sure that the second game would be interesting. So you can guarantee a sellout the second night if you dress the right people for the first night. Anyway, so that's what I see. 60 games, compact schedule. You'll need two goaltenders, more back-to-backs, more three-and-fours. Ricky, during the free agency period,

there's often PR battles between players, teams, agents. I think we had a little one here in Boston with Torrey Krug. There was lots of information from both sides going back and forth. Did you ever participate in media subterfuge, or did you deal with things head-on when you were in charge? How would you handle that type of shit? Well, with free agency, the way we did it was we only went after, on the first day, we only went after one guy at each position.

So it wasn't like we were making three offers simultaneously. I remember the example I gave on TV was we went after Brad Richards. So that July 1st, I was in Kandahar in Afghanistan, visiting the Canadian soldiers. Dave Nones made the pitch. But our pitch was, you're the only four we're going after today. And you've got to be truthful because players know if you're lying. They find out later.

They either sense it right away or they find out later. And players are smart. Players, you can't lie to players. So, Brad, we're only making one pitch today. It's you. You're the only four we're going to try and sign today. If we don't get you, we might do something else it's you you're the only four we're going to try and sign today if we don't get you we might do something else tomorrow but you're the only guy only forward and we made the pitch and you're about family and place to live and here's our

prospects that are coming here's our chances to win and we offered him I think six times six and the agent laughed at us he's like well when's the real's the real offer coming? So I'm in Kandahar. I'm on the base in Kandahar. I'm on a landline from a colonel's office, and I said, well, we'll go seven years, seven times six. And they were like, well, when's the real offer? So he got $63 million. He got seven times nine.

He got nine years at seven or seven times nine. He gets $63 million. We went to 42. We weren't even close. So we said, okay, we'll move on. What we always did is we set our price internally. So we said, we'll go to 42 and then we're done. We tried to sign Eddie Zoboski that same day. He said, we're the only defenseman we're coming after today. Eddie, you play for me. We love you. Come to Toronto. But we went three years and he got four in florida wherever he went so we set our prices internally i never had a great july 1st except scott niedermeyer and that's because i had his brother it wasn't because i was a great salesman he wanted to play with robbie so on a on a i'm thinking of an example like what kind of what happened

with the bruins and tory krug in that krug saying like there wasn't an offer and the Bruins say there was. How do you, would you ever come out and be like, this is exactly what happened. I got my diary right here. Let me read you the notes. I mean, when you think of players disagreeing with GM ownership in the media, how do you approach that? Well, there's no way I'd let an agent call me a liar, but I always put my players first. I would call Torrey and say, look, here's the date and time let an agent call me a liar. But I always put my players first. I would call Torrey and say, look, here's the date and time. I've got a copy of the offer we faxed to your agent or emailed it.

If I say fax, they look like an old man. So I still have the fax machine. Can you guys see it on the camera, see my fax machine? Oh, yeah, yeah. It's right next to the 8-track and the VCR. Patrick, my son, says to me, he said, Dad, do you have a pager, too? But I would call a player and say, Torrey, before I call you a liar and make you look like a jerk, tell your agent to retract that. Here's the offer that was made.

Here's the date and time. You've got the email. It's timestamped. We made an offer. I'd give the player a chance to get out of it gracefully before i'd get in a fight i don't like fighting with my players i don't mind fighting with agents but i i valued my relationship with my players so i would go to tory and say look you got this wrong don't look like a jerk fix it or tell your agent to fix it or i'm gonna fix it and that's that's the hard way. I'm going to go on and say, obviously someone's lying here.

Cause here's a copy of the offer. Ricky sticking with contracts. You're seeing quite a few buyouts. Obviously that's what the flat cap coming this year. Do you see it moving forward where maybe owners will start saying we maybe want a longer signing or less length in signing. So even if you're with the organization, it has to be less than eight years, and if it's going somewhere else, it's less than seven because I feel like these long-term deals keep getting bought out.

Or do you just know signing now that, like, all right, these last two, three years, he's not going to be that guy. We may buy him out. We were talking about this earlier. That's why Biz brings it up, I think. Yeah. Yeah, I think what GMs are doing now is, the answer to your question is

yes. This is something that should not have been given away in collective bargaining. And this is where the rank and file on the union has to pay attention. Eight-year contract terms, how many players get those? Just superstars. And yet they traded away stuff to get that.

It should have been a five-year contract max. And then you got a chance of getting a four-year deal, Biz. And Witt's got a chance to get a four-year deal. The star can only get five. Now, if they pay eight years on that deal to Petrangelo, someone's getting squeezed in Vegas. Why the union gave that away or insisted on that, I don't get it. Signing bonuses.

$35 million for TransOle's contract. Signing bonuses. The other 18 guys on the team or 16 guys on the team that never will get a signing bonus. If there's a lockout, they get squeezed. If we have escrow, that gets accelerated by the signing bonuses, right? Why did the union

protect star players, the guys who need the least protection in this deal? Why did the rank and file vote for it? I don't get it. When I was on the bargaining team, we had a cap of 10% on signing bonuses and a max of five years. Maybe a franchise player could get a six-year deal.

And by the time they kicked me out of the room and then they came back with eight years and no limit on signing bonuses. I'm like, what? But the union's going to go on. What? You've got 20 guys in the room. Protect all of them.

Don't protect one or two of them. I don't know if you go into this in the book, but a lot of times you'll see uh rumors start right whether a guy's getting possibly getting shopped and he might get moved or whatever somebody else is thinking if that's ever happened in a team that you run do you try to right away find where the rat is find who's giving this info out or you just realize that's part of the business we actually uh we actually would plant we had a guy in toronto we thought was we did – we had a guy in Toronto we thought was – we did.

We had a guy we thought was leaking in Toronto. We gave him something, and it didn't leak. Game of Thrones. This is unreal. You just do that shit to keep yourselves entertained, Berkey. No, we found out the guy we suspected was innocent, at least on this one. The problem is guys think the reason people leak stuff in the media is because I think if I make a friend of Paul Bissonnette, or I make a

friend of Ryan Whitney, or I make a friend of the Admiral, when I get in trouble down the road, I lose 10 in a row, somehow you're going to save my ass. You're going to go to bat for me. And the truth of the matter is you can't save me if I've started to sink. No one in the media can save you. It's a bad bargain. So we just tell our guys, wake up. Now, most of the weeks, I would say to our team, we get close on a deal. So we don't bring the coach in on a deal until late.

So you don't want to bring in a player your coach hates. So it would be me and Dave Nolens and me and Bob Murray. Okay, we start. We would do Whitney for Bissonnette. Okay, we're talking this straight. No one, climb up, no one talks about it. We do our own research. What do you think of Bissonnette?

What do you think of Bissonnette? But we say we don't think we can get him. Like, we keep the security on the deal. Now we think we're going to make this deal. Now we bring in the coach. The day before the deal, okay, Mark Crawford, I can get Paul Bissonette. What do you want to do? And if he says I hate him, okay, the deal's off.

Randy Carlisle, what do you think? Ron Wilson, what do you think? Glenn Gullison, what do you think? You only bring him in at the last minute because you don't want to bring in a player that he won't like or doesn't like, but you can't risk the leak. Most of the leaks, I'm confident on my teams, most of the leakage came from the other side. And I would state it to you, look, it's me and Dave Nones in the room.

They're the only two who know about this. So if I read about this, the deal is off. I was going to follow that up have you ever nixed one because it got out first yep anyone in particular you can mention on the pod in the vault all right all right maybe fax it over i'll give it a read would you say it's still a common tactic for some free, some front offices rather to feed, you know, maybe a story, whether it's true or not to preferred media? Well, I don't think you'd leak an untrue story. Then you just make an enemy, right?

So if I leak a story to you, that's clearly false. You're going to call me back and say, that was, that crossed the line. That's malicious. That's just evil. But, no, the leakage game, yeah, these guys, this is how assistant GMs get mentioned for possible GM jobs, right? They leak something to a writer and he says, oh, John Smith in Buffalo, the assistant GM, he'd make a fine GM. That's the currency that guys use in our trade. It's been that way forever.

It's not wrong. It's not evil. It's just hard for players. These two guys will know this. It's hard to read your name in the paper every day that you might be traded. If you like where you are. If you hate where you are, then you're like, yeah, great. Let's go. Giddy up. If you like where you are,

and this is what I worry about in Vegas with the number of names that were floated, where they were talking about making room for this deal to sign for Transable. You heard Alec Martinez's name. You heard Patch's name. You heard this guy's name. That's unsettling if you like where you are.

And if the team came after you hard and said, here's a five-year deal. You'll love it here. We love you. And then two years in, Nate Smith, see ya. Make sure you have your passport so you can get across the goddamn border. I mean, it's hard. When you look at storylines from the playoffs,

one of the funniest, funniest, biggest ones was the Alan Walsh tweet of the sword to Marc-Andre Fleury's back. You know, and being around the game and knowing him, does that surprise you? and something like that? Could you ever imagine an agent doing that without the player giving it the okay? No, never. I think the player knew exactly what was going on.

I do think this it's fashionable to go after Alan Walsh. I never had a problem with him. Like all my years working in hockey, I never had a problem. He was very professional with me. So I'm not one of these guys, so here's a chance to jump on Alan Walsh and punch him in the head. I don't think it was timely. I don't think it was helpful.

Like to me, okay, this is going to play out one of two ways. Either Renner's going to be the starter, and then this is terrible. It looks like terrible self-interest. Or we're going to battle it out and he'll get some starts either way untimely unnecessary really i think muddied the waters for no good reason um but to me you've got to be really careful if you're an agent and you whine about a player's ice time like to me if rob, if Robin Leonard was a stiff, that's one thing, but he's a pretty darn good goalie. And Marc-Andre Fleury, I feel, kind of got victimized here

because if Alan Walsh had stayed out of it, everyone likes Marc-Andre Fleury. How can you not like him? He's handsome, quick smile. He's a nice guy. He's a good player. He's polite. Great teeth.

He's like a poster boy for the NHL. And now he's stuck in this mess it was unnecessary Berkey I want to ask you this one Anthony DeClaire decided to represent himself as his own agent uh going to what I think is probably the biggest contract of his life have you ever personally dealt with a player who was negotiating his own deal and do you recommend it especially for a guy going into the biggest contract of his life um okay so let me go back answer your question last player that represented himself to me was Richie Sutter and I overpaid him I just I respected it because you're a lawyer I I overpaid

him now to give you an idea of the times if if you think the fax machine dates me, I think I gave him $195 when Pat authorized $190. Carrier pigeon? So there, Richie Sutter, who I admired greatly as a player, I overpaid him by, I remember Pat Quinn gave me a hard time. He said, I said $190. I said, I gave him $195 or

$200 or whatever I gave him. And Pat said, why? I said, cause he was sitting across the desk from me and I couldn't say no. So the difference would be that Richie and I had a relationship and he played for our team and I knew him. I think when you're a free agent, like if I'm sitting at my desk, I'm still running the Toronto Maple Leafs. I get a call from Anthony Duclair. I'm probably not taking that call. You know what I mean? Like I don't have a relationship with him.

I don't know him. I think it's hard in a free agent situation to represent yourself. Probably not the best idea. Because, like, people love the bash agents. They're very important. They provide a very important and crucial service for players. I think they're calming it down on both sides so it doesn't get too vicious. I mean, that was just – i thought it was a little uh i guess when's the last time

that we've seen that ovi did it i think but it's well those guys are yeah but it's different with those it's like hey what do you want here it is it's so this one for duclair was very odd especially because of how different this summer is. I'm looking at your shirts, and we might have chatted about this before, but you've got the Sedins behind them, their jerseys. In 99, when you traded up and made that all happen to select both of those guys, did you think that Patrick Stephon had a chance to be one of the bigger busts in NHL history, or did you actually love his game? We tried to get – I tried to pick one, two, three in that draft.

I tried to get it right on his pick. Patrick Stephan was a good player. He got concussed. Oh, all right. All right. His career – and if Patrick Stephan ever watches this, we had him rated right there with the Twins. We loved him.

He would have had a great career if he hadn't gotten concussions. Fair enough. He would have been a good career if he hadn't gotten concussions. Fair enough. He would have been a good player. And we've talked about this. That's the worst first round in the history of the league. But not because of – Hey, my draft's right up there with it, I'm telling you. 99 and 02, something was in the water because 03, the year after, was a joke.

Somehow Biz got picked that draft. Well, three picks in a row instead of calling it a Sweeney like they do now. They could have called it a Berkey if you could have pulled that one off. Hey, I wrote my book in a shorter time than we're doing this show. How long are we doing this? Is this a movie? No, I just like to ask you all these smart questions that we just kind of guess on all the time.

We catch up with you. You get good opinions on everything. Soup to nuts. How long did the book take, Berkey? I don't know. I haven't probably put 200 hours in on it, but over two years. But little bursts of activity, right? So you write a bunch, and then Stephen writes a bunch, and then he gives it back, and you edit it,

and then he says, I don't like this. I need more amplification on this. But it was, you know, like I said, what I tried to do was give people hockey people and civilians, both a chance to see what it takes to be a GM, the interaction with owners, players, media, like, like here's the decision to make. Here's how you get the city. Here's how you draft Chris Pronger in 93.

Here's how you make this big trade. And I think people like being in the room. They feel like they're in the room when they read a book like this. You feel like you're sitting at the table. They love that stuff. But I'm looking at the cover. Is that Toronto's old seating colors? What arena is that?

That's Toronto's new seating colors. Oh, they're red and yellow now? Geez, how long have I been out of the league? Well, they were red and yellow in the old building too. Those are the gold seats. So we've got a mortgage. Those are the gold seats. A second mortgage on the house to sit there.

Those are the gold seats nobody's sitting in the last 10, first and five minutes of every night. You know why? So people who don't live Toronto, probably don't get, they think those seats are unsold. Those are bunker suites underneath them. Like this is the greatest scam in the history of the world. Somebody conceived that we can sell top dollar seats for a suite that has no

view of the rink. So they go down the stairway. They don't go up. They don't get in line to pee and get a beer. They go down the steps to a bunker suite. They got this nice suite attendant there. There's not private bathrooms in the suites, but they're semi-private, like down the hall. You might get in a line with four people instead of 400. And then you have to wait for a whistle to come out for the second period. So if there's sustained play without a whistle, these poor slobs are all backed up downstairs.

And so the seats are empty. But those are the platinum seats. Eating their caviar and doing their wolf and not even watching the guys on the ice. Yep. They're nice, though. I have to tell you, I do sweet visits during the game sometimes. Go out and talk to people and thank them for their business. Those sweets are nice.

Not enough pictures in the book, though, Berkey. I was just looking through the middle there. I will say, though, did you pick one picture where your hair didn't look unbelievable? Come on. This is ridiculous. His book. I'm jealous.

You just have a little bit of a coif on you. Thank you so much. Everyone check it out. Brian Burke. Burke's Law also with Stephen Brunt. So I think that that book's going to be great. I can't wait to get my copy. I'm going to send you my address.

And thank you so much for coming on. And I think for somebody who's been in the game as long as you have and had so much success on the ice, off the ice, but also dealt with tragedy, it's going to be an incredible read. So thank you for joining the show once again. Thanks for having me on, guys. You guys have become a legend. Thank you for having me on.

You may not have got the first three picks in the draft, but this is your third time on the Spit and Tricklets podcast, so it's a nice consolation for us. Once again, it's called Burke's Law, A Life in Hockey with Stephen Brunt. You can buy wherever books are sold. Correct, Berkey? Yeah. Excellent.

Well, good luck with everything. We enjoyed having you. Huge thanks to Berkey for joining us once again always a fun conversation with that guy got great stories and if you're looking for a holiday item certainly grab his book for one of your hockey loving friends all right moving right along this next interview was brought to you by our friends at cross-country mortgage america's crazy good mortgage company who make it easier to get the financing you need fast i know a lot of our customers have young hockey players at home and there's nothing cheap about bankrolling

your budding star. So if you need a little extra scratch to help out with fees or equipment or anything else, definitely check out our friends at CCM Cross Country Mortgage to help you out. Go to ccmlens.com slash NBD to learn more about your future home buying or refinancing experience.

And MLS 3029, equal housing opportunity. Now up, we have Josh Gratton and his international adventures. I would welcome our next guest to the show. This guy was never drafted, but still carved out a professional career that lasted for 15 seasons and made stops in seven countries. Four of those seasons were in the NHL split between Philly and Phoenix. He also won two Call of the Cups, including one with our pal Biz. Thanks so much for joining us on the Spitting Chicklets podcast.

Josh Gratton, how's it going? Good, man. Thanks. Thanks for having me, boys. A pleasure. So where are you these days? Where are you right now? I'm in Potomac, Washington. I just took a head coaching job here in the USPHL. So I just got here actually about a week ago, so it's all new to me, but I was living up in Collingwood, Ontario

for the past eight or nine months and just this fell into my lap, so I jumped on it and here I am. That's head coach. Wow, I love it. Yeah, I don't know really what I'm doing quite yet, but yeah, going in both feet and jumping in here, so it's been pretty good so far. The drill buster

is going to be drawing up the drills now. That's it. I'm trying to be like, I'm trying to be like Stutzi yelling at all the boys. Like he was yelling at me. Hey, like, okay. So we're a little bit more old school. So we were probably used to that. How funny were some of his fucking speeches and these young guys eyes would light up. Oh yeah. He would come in there and just rip on guys.

You're almost way to some of them might've went to the washroom and cried for a bit in between periods, if I remember right. It was pretty funny. Oh, yeah, he kept the boys. Remember in the Calder Cup, I think it was the second round against Wilkes-Barre, him going at O'Brien. Oh, shit, yeah, yeah. I think he was going to fucking kill him, I thought, after that.

Poor O.B., eh? Yeah. Getting into coaching, how did that all go down? I mean, did you know right away at the end of playing that you wanted to, or was it more just like, ah, I think this could be good for me? I wasn't sure. I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do a little bit. I actually went over after I was done playing my last year.

I went over to China and ran a hockey academy for a little while there. So I kind of liked it. I didn't really like living in China too much, but I came back because of the COVID. So So I kind of liked it. I didn't really like living in China too much, but I came back because of the COVID. So it was kind of worked out. And then I signed a contract with the Collingwood Blues, the OJ there in Ontario. And unfortunately, they're not going to play this season.

So this fell into my lap. And like I said, I wasn't too sure what I wanted to do, but here I am. Is that what eventually led you to Blue Mountain? Yeah. With your friends, the Collingwood connection? Yeah, sort of. It was a lot of personal stuff was going on as well.

So I just kind of wanted to get out of London, Ontario there. I was kind of going through some tough stuff and went up to Blue Mountain and met these guys up there. And they helped me out and have been best buddies ever since. They're a good group of guys there. We we're gonna talk about all that later on but we want to dive into your hockey career a little bit your my first memories of you was you and jansen terrorizing me when you play with the windsor spitfires oh they were together biz these they were on the same team these guys would be jerseys off in the penalty box like the fucking bash brothers and

everybody on our bench would be shitting their pants yeah that was when janny would go into the box and after a fight and just rip off all his gears start flexing i'd be licking the glass trying to scream it was just a bunch of two two heads like the bash brothers from mighty ducks he is not exaggerating this guy's licking the penalty box. Like, be in there right after, buddy. Yeah, we were two beauties there, that's for sure. Janny would be running around so much. He'd go

hit guys so hard, he'd break the glass. Like, probably once every 10 games, he'd run someone right through the glass. They'd have to put boards up in the back of the net, behind the net instead of the glass during the game. You were like a point-per-game player the last year in junior, too.

You can chirp Jansen. He had like one goal that year. That's because I was playing with Kyle Wellwood. He just put the puck on my stick. I could have scored half those goals with my eyes closed. So that's one of those examples where, I mean, it doesn't happen like it does now, but it doesn't happen now like it used to, but if somebody touched Wellwood, it wellwood it was lights out oh yeah they didn't have a choice

if they even looked at if they even looked at him or asked him what he had for breakfast I'd have to go and run him you had to get a piece of those guys oh man was that was what brought you to fighting I mean was it just back home in Brantford Ontario where that he can't bleed biz that's what brought him we'll get to that later yeah for sure yeah no I don't was it just back home in Brantford, Ontario? That he can't bleed, Biz. That's what brought him to play. We'll get to that later. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. No, I don't know. I just, like Junior B, I played a little bit, and then I just fight and just kind of got good at it.

Went into OHL there halfway through the season from, like, my 18-year-old year. So I was never drafted to the OHL, and I went to – Bert Templeton was the coach, and this guy was fucked up like oh yeah school he grew me to be like kind of the guy i was like he was fucked up he like it's hard to explain like he would be so hard on guys it was crazy rookies like he would sit on the back of the bus he would take up seven seats and the rookies would have to double up he'd bring his wife and dog on the bucket on the bus. How showtime of a move is that? What's that? That's what everybody talked about. The fact that he would take up the whole back of the bus and oh my,

so you'd have to walk by him to go to the bathroom. Oh yeah. Yeah. You couldn't change it. You had to wear your suit the whole trip because he, his wife was on the bus. He wouldn't let you change out of your suit. Oh my goodness. But he was, he was a great guy. Good coach. Like he got the best out of guys. If you played hard, he was was he was a great guy good coach like he got the best out of guys if he played hard he was uh he was a good guy to play for we had a good team that year

too so but that was uh kind of how i got into fighting a little bit is mostly the only way i was going to get ice with him as a coach you were kind of undersized too i mean you're not the tallest guy in the world but never really affected you at all in terms of fighting balance wise you were no joke yeah no i could i could hold my own that way but uh it was more because i had a pretty good chin i could take a couple punches off the off the head no problem but uh that was probably the only way i could hang in there with the big boys so we've talked about this multiple times in the podcast and when your name comes up how this guy like just talking about being able to take a punch and then rumors are swirling.

It's like it's like when you hear about fucking William Wallace, he's 10 feet tall. He's like, he's got thicker cheekbones. He's like, is it just something literally with the bone structure in your face where it's like punching a rock? No, I'm just a rock head. That's it. No, I don't know. People used to say rumors like i took the bone out of my nose that's not true it just got punched out i heard it all it was it's pretty funny but it was like a kinder surprise by the end of the game he was picking out the pieces gotta assemble it back together that's it but there is a story there is a story where someone got you and they

cut you about i'd say probably an inch and then probably half an inch deep and there was just no blood. Yeah. I guess I wasn't drinking that night. My blood wasn't kicking in. I was going to say, like, I took the night off before. Yeah. No, yeah. I remember the one time I fought Hordachuk and he tagged me hard.

And I popped back up and we kept on going. I was remember the one time I fought Hordachuk and he, uh, he tagged me hard and, uh, I, I popped back up and we kept on going. I was in the box. I was like, my face fucking felt like it was hit. Like I got hit by a truck. I thought I was bleeding. It was my teeth are dangling from my mouth. I pull them out. I pull them out in the penalty box and give them to the, give them to the timekeeper to bring them back to me. The guy's like, honey, you won't believe this. I got this guy's teeth tonight.

I had him sign them. Yeah. It doesn't happen like that anymore. That's for sure. Yeah. So Josh, before the NHL draft, were any teams reaching out to you at all? Or did you have any draft aspirations or you knew you're going to probably have to latch on as a free agent somewhere? Yeah.

I pretty much knew I was going to be a free agent. I played harder than junior, but I was never, never really knew I wasn't going to be drafted. I came in a year later than everybody else. So I just, I was lucky enough to play on some good teams with some good coaches. And then I knew that I was going to have to take the hard road to, to the coast after my overage year. So it's, you know, I never really accepted, expected to get drafted for sure. And your first pro team, the San Diego Gulls in the East Coast League, I mean, it must have been all downhill from there as far as places to play, no? Yeah, no doubt.

We were living on the beach getting surf lessons before games there. It was pretty sweet. Was the crowd as good then as it is now? Because isn't it sick now for that team in the A? It's a blast. Yeah, it was good. It was good there. Now, I'm not sure if they play in the same rink.

I imagine it's the same one, but they were great. It was a good spot for the East Coast, that's for sure. So you're leaving, you know, juniors done. You said you knew you'd have to take the high road. How did it even come together with San Diego? Were they calling? Was that the only team? Or did you kind of have

options? Because you had a good year in junior that year. Yeah, I had a couple options in the coast, but Steve Martinson was the head coach there, and he liked guys like myself. And I got a tryout in Cincinnati with the American League team there, so pretty much it was my best option at the time. And I went to camp there and had a good camp in Cincinnati, but I got sent down 30 games.

So I had to fight my way back, wait out of that league. It was the fastest way to get out of there. So I got called up around Christmas time and never looked back. That's so nice, man. I was going to hop in. How was the adjustment as far as going from like the,

like probably the toughest guy in the OHL to going into pro hockey and like, especially back then, man, there were some really tough guys at the pro hockey level, in the minors did you adjust pretty well uh in the coast I did there was uh it was a little adjustment period but going up to the American League was with the big boys I think the one time I got fed my lunch by Radius of honest we were both kind of young but he was he was huge and that was the first time i really got my ass fucking beat up pretty good and then it was a wake-up call that uh these guys are men not boys anymore but uh but you never i mean you were someone that would just stand in there toe to toe so like it didn't really change in terms

of how you fought right it was just like all right well i'm gonna have to be a little bit better at it yeah it was just like yeah go toe to toe it like either you're going to knock me out or I'm going to knock you out. For the fans. Russian roulette. For the fans, he says. Yeah. Yeah. No, but, you know, I was young and a cowboy at that time and nothing would fade you.

There's some guys that could get away with it. But, like, there's a lot of good fighters out there. And I had to take my lick. It was the best lesson to learn is by getting beat up, you know was boxing something in the offseason you did or did you have to learn like on the ice from some from a mentor or someone who teach you how to do it no I didn't really box I did a little bit uh I did actually box one whole summer and then I went to camp this was when I was in Phoenix I did boxing the whole whole summer I went to camp and I broke my hand and my and my thumb like on one hand my left hand I broke my hand and then thumb. On one hand, my left hand, I broke

my hand and then the other hand, I broke my thumb. I had both hands fucking broken. First game of the exhibition after boxing all summer. I was like, fuck this. I'm not doing that again. Josh, just your third season pro Philly Phantoms. You guys win the Call the Cup in 05. Take us through that experience.

That was great. That was the lockout year. The hockey was so good. John Stevens was the coach. He was really good to me. We had a tough team. I consider that my first full year of pro hockey. It was an experience I'll never forget.

We had a group of guys that would go to bat for each other every night. We had a tough team. We had Fridge, Ben Eager, Fridge, Todd Fedork, Ben Eager, Riley Cote. There's a couple other. And every other team had a bunch of heavyweights too. But we had some battles with Witt and Wilkes-Barre there, a bunch of games.

And they had Binghamton, had McGratton. Jansen was in Albany. It was – I think there was like – The vision from hell. Yeah, it was hell. Every night you'd have to, you'd get through the game and then you're going to Binghamton. You'd have to get my lunch, my lunch bread by McGratton.

Come home Sunday and get Koshy coming and giving me another fucking lick and so. I've said many times that I've never seen, and I never will again, a player in a league like Brian McGratt in that year because he wasn't just beating the piss out of people he was an absolute show he'd like throw his hair back looking at the it was like it was absolutely out of slap shot i was in that rink as people don't even understand the size of bingo's rink and then to see this guy just like even david cosi was

tough as shit like there was he he would fight anyone, but Conor McGratton kind of always got the best of him. And it was in his head at this point. It was like we would go in there just shaking our heads. And then Spezza toe-dragging me for a Met fucking flying around. They were good, yeah. Chris Neal was there, too. So they were stacked with a bunch of meat, too. It was like going to war every night, man.

So you made an immediate impact with them. And you're such a Fly of meat, too. It was like going to war every night, man. So, I mean, you made an immediate impact with them, and you're such a Flyers-type player. So going there, I mean, you didn't necessarily think, I'm going to end up playing for the Flyers, but was there any part during that year, like, I have a chance to play on the big club whenever hockey gets going again? Yeah, it was after, like, mid-season, I started realizing I could play in the American League a regular shift

and be effective. And then the biggest thing was in the playoffs when I got an opportunity to play a lot of minutes in the playoffs when we won the Calder Cup. And after that, I knew that I was going to get a chance. They told me after the season they wanted me to stick around that summer and they were going to give me a good opportunity. And then I went to camp had a good camp and that was uh that year after that it was a few games into the season I got my first uh first call up there so it was uh it was good and and the Flyers were so good to me and the coaches Paul Holmgren uh Johnny Stevens Craig Berube they they groomed me to to the player that they they thought

I could be and it was really uh I owe a lot to them as a as a player and i still keep in touch with uh johnny stevens once in a while so he's uh he's definitely a mentor of mine for sure yeah guys love playing for him you're like hey can i get the i got all your drills for practice too by the way thanks for everything but all the you send me a board what's that no go ahead sorry i was saying you were gonna ask him to send you like a whiteboard you could be like hey I don't have anything. And Johnny, can you send me something? Yeah, I borrow his skates too.

Get the Bobby Boucher binder out, all the plays drawn up. Yeah. What do you remember about like your first NHL game, first NHL tilt? Who were all those against? The first NHL game was against Vancouver. There was no fight that night. The first tilt was against Andrew Peters. And I was against vancouver it was uh no fight that night the first tilt was against andrew peters and i was shaking in my boots so we lined up and i was like petey

can you give me one he goes he didn't want to but he respected me and said i go it's my first first time so we went it was a good fight and uh i'll never forget like i caught him it was a good tilt but after the game i go into we went out that night, and people all through the city seen the fight. I was like in Hollywood. I fucking felt like I was a rock star. Oh, yeah. I got this round, boys. Yeah.

This league's amazing. Yeah. It was pretty special. It was good. Now, I know you were only in Philly three games that first time, but it was Ken Hitchcock, and we have tons of stories on this show about him. I'm sure you've heard a few.

Did you have any stories with him, with his high-pitched voice yelling at you? Yeah, fuck, Granton, get a deep. No, he was good. But Brash, Donald Brashear was pretty hard on him. One story I'll never forget is he came in, and there was a bunch of donuts there in the lounge. And he grabs it, and he goes, what do these taste like? Brash goes, what the fuck's that matter? You're going to eat it anyway. You fat fuck.

Oh, my, my jaw just dropped. Like it was pretty heated. Holy Jesus. Did he say anything back? No, he goes, I'll have a good day, Brash. Grats is like, I'm in the lineup tonight. Yeah. yeah Gratz is like I'm in the lineup tonight yeah

yeah no shit yeah when thinking of some of your most memorable fights I mean the Mark Bell

one has to stand out I think that one went viral where he caught you a couple times where afterward they have the camera zoomed in on him

with the official and they're just like laughing like did I just tee off on that guy's face twice as hard as I could and he didn't even

fucking budge yeah you might even you might have even done an ass drop and then came right back up yeah that was that was hordachuk when he tagged me i dropped it almost touched the ground and popped back up yeah that was like ass to heels yeah and then he popped back up and then it was like you were a marionette on strings and they dropped you and then brought you right back up and you're like just chucking them it's like dropped you and then brought you right back up and you're like, just chucking them. It's like that power skate move when you shoot the dock and one leg out, it was almost nothing like that. But yeah, Belzey hammered me a couple of times that I've been hit so many times.

It doesn't even, I can't even remember half of them, but. I just watched that Peter's one. That was a pretty sick first NHL fight at home too. Yeah. They're, they're, they're buzzing. It was, it was pretty special. This place is going too. Yeah, they were buzzing. It was pretty special. Place is going nuts. Yeah, yeah. So when Philly traded you to Phoenix, you were psyched. What was your reaction to that? Pissed off, angry, whatever?

Like just that, whatever? This is a pretty good story, actually. So when that trade deadline came up and I was in the hospital, I just had knee surgery and Paul Holmgren called me and I thought he was calling me, asking me how I was. I'm in the hospital bed. He goes, Hey, grass. We just traded you to Phoenix. I was like, what? And I was like, and still, it's just literally got out of the surgery.

Not like that earlier that day. And then Wayne Grex, he called and said, ask me how I'm feeling, whatever. So I don't know, but I got traded when I was in the hospital. So it's kind of fucked up. Like, I feel great. No worries. I don't know but i got traded when i was in the hospital so it's kind of fucked up like i feel great no worries like i don't really care dude you're not part of my you're not our property anymore that's exactly it exactly yeah how was your time in the desert you probably loved it here oh yeah it was awesome grass was good to me we had a bunch of beauties there too we had like mike ricci owen nolan ronick comry donor donors the best but uh we had a great group of guys there was a good first year uh there was older team and wayne was a good coach like good players coach so i had a blast there and the city was awesome it's not a

bad thing and you had this the second ugliest nose on the team with three yeah that's it the first time i come in and reach mike ricci goes off fuck thank god now i'm not the ugliest guy on the team with Richie. Yeah, that's it. The first time I come in and Mike Richie goes, oh, fuck, thank God. Now I'm not the ugliest guy in the league. We got you here. That guy was like a sex symbol, they said, in San Jose. Yeah. You just mentioned Owen Nolan.

Pretty intense fellow or what? Yeah, he was. He was really good to me. He was on the tail end of his career, obviously, and he was good to the young guys. When he's scoring, he was really good to me. He was on the tail end of his career, obviously, and he was good to the young guys. When he's scoring, he was really happy. When things weren't going his way, he's kind of a grumpy guy. I guess that's the best way to say it at that age. But he was great.

He was a good guy to be around, a good guy to learn from. I think that lineup, I'm looking through this team, it's crazy. Because they had a lot of good players. I mean, I feel like i feel like phoenix arizona should have had more success over these past 20 years because some of these guys i mean i guess they're on the tail end of their career but still you got to play with the yans right oh yeah that's when i first met yans he's a beauty half he came in as a rookie and then we got along great great. He stayed there, and he had a bunch of buddies that went to ASU there, Arizona State.

So we would hang out with Arizona State, like all these guys, and go to their pool parties during the year and stuff. It was pretty fun. I was with a guy. I was with a buddy of mine, Mike Shaw. He went there to ASU. He's like, I partied with Gratton before. It was unbelievable.

I think we had his hockey fights on the internet at 4 in the morning one night watching them dummy people yeah maybe but they uh yeah he had a couple guys i think he went to prep school with and they were going to school there so we uh we hooked up with them and they uh they hooked us up with uh with all their their girls and stuff like that to hang out with so it was it was definitely a good time we used to go uh on the campus with a book in our hand and pretended we were going to school there so we could go and stare at chicks the old the old days uh was there anyone that you were afraid to fight was there like uh oh my god he's the he's the one guy no not really i i didn't i knew that i was gonna get my lunch fed to me when I fought George Rock.

I didn't really want to fight him, but we played together in, in Phoenix. And I always said to him, first chance I get, I'm going to fight you. And he never thought I would. So first chance, first shift, I went after him and he gave it to me pretty good. I love the question. Is there anyone you're afraid to fight? And he's the one story he tells is the guy said, I'm fighting you when we play against each other. Sick puppy, this guy.

Sick puppy. Go ahead, Aaron. And then you were kind of bouncing around a little bit in the AHL after the stint in Phoenix, right? And then, like, finally end up going to Europe. Was that just looking to make more dough? Or how did that all come about? I mean, Russia, by the way.

I shouldn't even call it Europe. Russia, yeah. Yeah, pretty much was just kind of getting sick or getting getting asked to fight in the american league and i got a chance to go uh over to russia and uh go play for that team in russia the vts with that chris simon that was there and yeah it was good the money was really good the the hockey was really good but the town sucked but that mafia boss that that brought us all over he just used us as human toys if he wanted us to go fight go ahead we were just as human puppets it was pretty fucking crazy actually oh my goodness so you're so you probably have a couple stories just like

everybody else of like just stuff that doesn't fly over here going on oh yeah fuck you come down we'd be losing and he'd have a bunch of his buddies up in their box. And it would be the third period. In between periods, he'd come down and just rip on us. And he goes, Josh, fight goalie. So next, your first shift, you got to go run the goalie and fight him. If you don't, he's not going to pay you. The one time we had a brawl right off the bat up in Omsk. They had a big battle he had with with their team and

he called uh the day of the game and we're in omsk and uh he's like we wants his buddies wanted to watch a big fight on tv so they started me darcy row just a bunch of all bunch of meat and right off the puck i don't even think the puck dropped like hit the ice and our gloves are off and we were suckering guys going running around like our heads cut off it was brutal so we get suspended like 15 or 20 games i had 21 there was 21 games left i got suspended for 20 and they bagged the piss out of me for fucking two and a half months just to play that one game that meant fuck all oh my goodness but the owner still paid you because you did what you were told. Exactly. And he said, and Nazaroff was

the coach. He was an old fighter. Oh, he hates us. So Naz, he's an idiot too, but Naz said, he's like, the boss says if you guys don't do this, don't bother coming back

to the town. So you have no choice. It was unbelievable. Varro had 374 pims that year, Vince, in 34 games. So Darcy Varro used to play for the Syracuse Crunch, correct? Yeah, yeah. He played for Wilkes-Barre too. He was part of that gang squad that they had. They had like him, Konopka, like Morasty.

They were loaded. And if he got past two goals on him, it was going to turn into a brawl. Yeah. You almost want to keep it close just so you didn't have to go and deal with that shit there. Oh, yeah. Actually, two years prior, he had 511 pims. Yeah, that was in the Russian Super League.

Is that the metric system? Yeah. Holy shit. You got to love the KHL. 20-game suspension, you still get paid but this is obligatory anyone who played in that league did you experiment with the russian gas at all oh yeah well yeah oh yeah and since we were since since like the boss would get us on the everyone on the gas he'd go josh you gotta take double sorry so i come i come home that summer. I look like Ivan Drago.

Okay, so what's it do? Are your recovery rates just a lot stronger so you can chuck weights more? Yeah, so they have two different things. They have like the injections like through IV, and then they have this gas mask that you take like before games. So the IV's got all sorts of cocktails on it for sure. They're coming out of the cement wall too right oh yeah yeah like it's the the doctor brings this big big briefcase on the road and you

get hooked up the night before games if you're not doing it everyone else in the league is so you're kind of like behind like it's and you they don't really give you a choice you're like you're doing it so here's how how unreal did you feel on it though oh yeah i felt like i was a hockey player like i didn't get tired hey my story was when i was on and i thought i could play in the nhl again and then the next day of practice i couldn't skate or pass i was like what the hell happened that thing's legit yeah it's crazy it just makes you like you don't get tired it just oxidizes your blood or whatever they do. But there's some beasts over there. So some of them have probably been on it since they were six years old.

I think Hennessy told the story about the same owner. Did you ever have any situations where they kind of force you to go out and get hammered with them? Oh, yeah. They bring us to the village. They bring us the mob guy to the village there, and he has a big compound. And we went there when the canada won the olympics when crosby scored their goal so we were watching there for two days and he wouldn't let us

leave we were trying to leave we were passed out and he would wake up he'd go out and with brandon sugden was on the team that year too and they were out there shooting guns i was in the wash and puking because i was drinking so much then we get the next day it was like you wake up and you're out you're stranded at the village you have no way of getting out of there he goes let's go we're going again and just starts drinking again it's he's a nut man but the one time so he i was in the washroom and he was like saying so yeah he asked darcy row how many goals you have darcy goes uh say just say three i don't know what he said and then he goes ask chief chief ch, Chief Chris Simon. And he's like, 10.

So I was in the washroom. They go, Grants, when you come out, say you have a lot of goals. So I was like, he asked me, I got 20. And then he brings out a big wad of cash and he gives $1,000 per goal. I had two goals at the time and he thought I had 20. So I went home with 20 grand cash. Oh, my. He didn't check the sheet. He just like he doesn't care he's just too

worried about being fights either your human toy so it was pretty funny they're like so it was pretty good what did you think about panarin was it just ridiculous he must have been so young yeah he was young he was so good like he was good but i never thought like that he was gonna be as good as he is right and like he was what 18 skin and bones like and then he went to world juniors that year and they i think they might even won that year world juniors and after that he uh he came back and was lights out the rest of the year but he was playing at 17 years old and keeping up with uh with everybody so but he's uh he's a lot better than I ever thought. I always say to my buddies that good thing. I'm not a scout because I didn't think he was going to be that good. Now he's talking one of the best in the NHL.

So you're going to be playing a fourth line plug on your team on the first power play this year. Oh shit. Just four guys in front of the net. That's it. Yeah. You got to hire someone to the squad who can evaluate talent because we just all go for strictly toughness. So you ended up coming back. I mean, we want to call their cup together. I mean, at the end of your career or at least towards the end of your career,

that must've been like, I mean, I had a blast playing with you. It was kind of like, especially for that time, we got to bully other teams around because there weren't like a crazy amount of tough guys, but just talk about what that did for you in your, in your spirits at that time. Yeah. You know, like coming back, I came back and I was on a tryout there with Manchester. John Stevens got me to try out. He was the coach and he was our type of player's coach and playing for him.

And when you came in, you took the load off of me so me and you could do it together. It made it a lot easier to play. And the boys got to play their game like wheel and neil o'neill like the the tougher teams in the american league usually usually did pretty good and the skilled guys could play and that year uh playing with you and winning in manchester and playing for stutsy it's uh it revived me as as it gave me like made me realize how much i liked hockey coming back from r Russia because you get kind of a sour taste being over in Russia.

But that year was probably one of the funnest years I had in hockey. We had a lot of laughs that year and a good group of guys. Hey, we had Sabourin, too, who was a lefty mutant. And how excited were you to see him score that first NHL goal in his first game after the Matthews incident? I was cheering in my living room by myself. I was so happy for him. I text him right after that.

That was special because he had a hard road after that a couple of years. After his first year, he had a really good year in the American League. And then the next year, he was in and out of the lineup. And then even I think when he went back, when the team moved to Ontario, he even had a little tough spell down there too. So it was good to see that he stuck with it. And I was really happy for a guy like that that grinded his way through it. And we both know how hard that role is to play.

So I'm really happy for that guy. He got another contract, yeah, I think in Toronto. So he's doing good for himself yeah he uh he grinded for sure i was really happy to see that happen and dude like i said it was such a blast playing with you and we had three guys to carry the load so it wasn't just one of us so uh after that you ended up going back to europe a little bit though yeah i went to finland after that and then you know finland was one of the best years i had like finland's amazing i ended up i ended up meeting a chick there and i stayed there for over the summer

and uh into the into the following season but the summer there in finland those fins know how to party man they uh they do it up right they go at festivals every weekend and fucking they drink they do it up right let's put it that way it awesome there. What city were you in? I played in Pori, which is a small city. But in the summer, I stayed right downtown in a good spot, right in the center of Helsinki. And Helsinki is unbelievable. Yeah, it was trouble. Let's put it that way.

It was trouble. That's the best way to describe that place, just like trouble. Yeah, that's how we'll leave it. Yeah, like trouble yeah so yeah that's how let's how we'll leave it in the yeah in the summer it doesn't get dark eh so the daylight all day all night so it's you go into the bar at 11 and it's light out and you come out it's still light it's kind of a mindfuck that is after that season in finland i see that there was no games there did you take the air off were you injured what was that what was going on yeah i i was i was injured i had a bit of a concussion.

I had problems there. And that was kind of the start of my concussion issues. It just started catching up to me. And I was getting concussions fairly easy, not even fighting, just like small hits. And I think I got two or three that year. And then I was struggling throughout the summer. So I wasn't really getting cleared to play. And I was struggling throughout the summer.

So I wasn't really getting cleared to play. And finally, I waited until I think it was December or maybe even a little later. And I went over to check for 20 games. And I didn't have to fight. I got to play. It was a little lower league. It was the Augers team that he owns there. So they were good to me there. And I just played.

team that he owns there so they were good to me there and i got i just played and then the next couple years after that i i i was healthy more or less until uh last my last year pretty much but you played in france as well too how was the hockey there uh it was okay i was when i i i got to put up a lot of points for the first time in a long time there so yeah you're saying okay that means shit you were just yeah yeah nice let's let's call a spade a spade it was shit but i had i had a lot of fun you were like the sydney crosby over there yeah i felt like it kind of like when you were in england at two points a game right yeah you go there get the tires pumped a little bit you come back and you're like oh fuck back to reality yeah trip over the gas yeah that's right but um grass you you obviously in your personal life uh fell through

some tough times um i mean talk about this experience you went through recently you you ended up moving to blue mountain calling wood area for about eight months to i i guess i'll let you take over describe the whole process you went through yeah so i was uh getting out of hockey i was tough i i didn't really know what I wanted to do. Hockey was pretty much the only thing I had, like, structure-wise and purpose. So when hockey was done, I went through a pretty hard time trying to figure out what I wanted to do and concussions and depression and all that stuff. So I was in a dark place for a little while.

And it was a good buddy of mine kind of helped me out and and hooked me up with these people uh up in calling we got me a job just to stay busy and get my my life back on track a bit I was uh I was hanging out with the wrong people and doing doing some stupid stuff in London so I was uh grateful for grateful for him he's been my best friend since I was I was a child so he uh he's seen how dark dark the days were for me and I went up there uh to Collingwood and I was lucky enough to to get introduced to these uh these group of guys that own a gym up there it's called Permittive Patterns and uh they they've helped me through a lot a lot of tough times in the last

eight months or nine months and And they're just good guys. There's three brothers that own the gym. And then there's two other guys that work with them. And the older brother, Luke Barella, is his name. And he kind of runs it. And he works a little bit as a life coach in a sense and helps people when they're in a little bit of trouble or helps just just just a kind-hearted guy that really helped me through uh through a lot and then his brothers

are twin brothers and they're they're really advocating for uh mental health they actually swam 32 kilometers across georgian bay which was fucking incredible you sent me the video dude 32 kilometers you guys are machines. What's that temperature of that water? It was in July, so it was like swimmable, but they were in the water. They didn't touch the boat. They were in the water for, I want to say it was close to 16 hours straight, and we were on the boat.

There was about six of us on the boat with them, like supporting them. And they swam 32 kilometers. And unfortunately, the one brother couldn't finish. Like he just, his body just gave out on him. And the other brother did finish. And it was probably the most incredible thing I'll ever witness in my life. These two guys are the closest things to Navy SEALs that could be. Like they're just, they're machines and they're mentally so strong and just to even attempt something like that. I couldn't,

I couldn't swim fucking 500 meters without sinking all alone. These guys going 32 kilometers. So it was, it was something special. So going there, was it like a discipline structure where you'd wake up early in the morning, you'd chuck weights, you'd work on the mental side of things and like it was just kind of like a like a an overall experience yeah in a sense and it wasn't supposed to it wasn't i didn't go there for that reason i just literally went out went went there just to get away from way from london at the time and get away from what i was doing more or less and i i was just a coincidence that i felt like. Like I met up with these guys, I met them up through a friend.

So I went there for a workout one time and talk to them. And then we just started a routine and I went, we'd go every day in the morning before like six, six in the morning. And they put me through a workout. Then I'd go and then come back later in the afternoon. And just, they've helped me so much that words can't describe what they've done to me like they've pretty much saved my life just single handedly

with how they approached me and got me out of that dark day so I owe my life to those guys so you must feel so much better not just mentally but like physically your body it must just be so different now waking up and not feeling kind of hung over and shitty all the time. Yeah, it's, uh, yeah, it's incredible. Like, I, like,

I'm just so grateful, like just to get a second chance to, to, to like, that's the only way I could say that I'm just grateful for everything and everything that happens, that happens now. I just appreciate so much more. And they, they've taught me, they've taught me to be grateful. They taught me that I'm lucky enough to get a second chance. And these guys are just starting out in their fitness. And they're opening up a brand-new gym facility. And they're going to do great things. But like I said, I'm appreciative and grateful for everything that comes my way now. It's almost like I rejuvenated and got a chance to chance to do something

special again. So it's a, it's, it's a good feeling for sure. Talking rights. Gosh, I actually want to go back to Philadelphia, 2008, 2009. You split between the phantoms and the flyers. You were there before Peter LaViolette in dry Island. The AHL team is in the same town. I just want to rattle off a few names here. Maroon, Giroux, Carter, Richards, Hartnell, Lupo, and Upshaw, all in the same city at the same time.

Yeah. Every one of those names you just rhymed off, they're a bunch of beauties, and we had some good times. That's for sure. And then Riley Cote on top of that was there. Like, the times that those guys had, they made my cote on top of that was there like the the times that those guys had they they made my experience the second time in philly so much so much fun like they they knew how to have a good time but they came they came to work too every night and uh the work hard

play hard that was that was the model for sure i saw is is riley cote they he started a podcast with nasty i think right yeah i did i think I think they have a couple episodes or one or two. They just started out. Riley was a big help helping me with the medicinal stuff, like the CBD. I don't really smoke weed or anything like that, but the CBD oil has really helped me a lot. And the psilocybin mushroom has really helped me moving forward, too. So he was a big part of that I know he uh he advocates for it and and everything he's done to to help uh athletes for that I know that he

has athletes for care he's really passionate about it and I'm really grateful that uh he helped me out through a lot of that stuff as well I talk about the mushroom use I feel like it allows me to dig a little bit deeper we have such just like a hard shell exterior where it kind of softens you up a little bit and you're allowed to express more of your emotions, no? to people as like it just makes you dialed in and focused in a sense and uh like i don't i don't know i i said to myself after a month taken i was like how did i live without this because i felt like my brain was actually working like you know what i mean like my brain wasn't working until i started taking this and i i'm not sure if it was that or it's uh like placebo effect but so whatever it is it's working for me so i'm gonna keep on going with it that's the reason ra does it all the time i was gonna say you forgot the dancing bears biz that's true yeah

you're probably taking the like more than recommended dose all right so you're taking an ounce a day what's micro mean are you on like a schedule for it, Gratz, where you take a certain amount of pills? Yeah, I take one pill. It's.01 of whatever. I take one of those every three days and a day off and then a three-day repeat that. And it seems to be working for sure for me. That's awesome. Happy to hear that.

It's nice to see they've made some strides in the states. I mean, we're recording this around election time and states are legalizing this. I mean, if you told me that 30 years ago, 20 years ago, the states are going to be legalizing this stuff, I would have told you were crazy. So it's nice that doctors and medical professionals are coming into this with clear eyes and realizing there's some benefits to it. I got one more for you. You played in Scotland, man. I mean, Glasgow, that must have been unbelievable. RIP Sean Connery while we're here too yeah it was a good time there I had a good bunch of guys there Scotland I had never been there it was a tail end of my career right and I was skeptical of going over there and it was a it was a last minute decision I hadn't really skated I was

pretty much considering myself finished playing hockey and that and then I got a call I was pretty much considering myself finished playing hockey and that, and then I got a call. I was, I had nothing, nothing going on really in the winter that winter. So I just decided to just go and take the leap and go over there. And I had a blast at Glasgow. Brayhead is where it is in Glasgow and the fans there are awesome. The league is, the league wasn't, didn't have a lot of fighters. So that was a big reason why I went. When I went there, there wasn't too many guys you had to deal with, so I got to go there

and play hockey and enjoy it and have some fun. Just on the bars afterwards. Yeah, exactly. They are awesome. Gratz, we want to thank you for coming on. That's all I had, but glad to hear you're doing well. Glad to hear you're going to be coaching this upcoming season.

Yeah, you deserve that, Gratz. We're going to have to keep following're doing well. Glad to hear you're going to be coaching this upcoming season. We're going to have to keep following your team here. Maybe offer up a case of Pink Whitney on the board for the boys. Are these guys legal drinking age? Depends. No, 20 or 21 in the States, right? So yeah, no, I guess not. Okay, you can give them out.

Grats, thanks so much. It's really good to hear where you're at. I'm happy for you. Thanks, boys. I appreciate it, and I love watching you guys or listening to you guys, so keep doing what you're doing. Huge thanks to Josh for joining us. We had a good time shooting the shit about his very interesting career. Hopefully you enjoyed it as well.

Gee, I gotta say, Tuesday night, we dropped out later. Sandbagger, man, the boys were looking pretty sharp out there on the course. They were looking sharp in RAR. Unfortunately, we had to switch to wearing pants on the course the last few sandbaggers. You know, it's getting a lot colder out there. Fortunately for us, Peter Millar makes the most comfortable pants on the course,

and they're comfortable enough to wear all day. I mean, the Whit Dog talks about it all the time. It's also perfect for your swing. Prov ample flexibility, also perfect for Thanksgiving when you need a little flexibility for the feast, but you still want to look good. Like I said, the wit dog won't step on the course without him. There was a lot of talk about business pants in the last sandbagger. So you're definitely going to want to check that out. Like we said, visit petermillard.com slash chiclets and use code chiclets at checkout for a complimentary performance hat. And again, these are wrinkle resistance. They look natural. They feel good. Tons of versatility. And again, it's Peter Millar. It doesn't get any better than that. So petermillard.com slash chiclets use code chiclets at checkout for a complimentary performance hat yeah biz might want

to get a bigger size next time he looked like one of the american gladiators out there that he talks about so much a little little tight around the rim there but anyways that was awesome stuff the video like you said it dropped tuesday night big thanks to our friends at whoop uh you can still check it out on the spit and chicklets youtube page what else you have g well i was gonna say thankfully for peter millar that they're so flexible and versatile that Biz had no problem on the course at all. They might've looked tight, but man, was he striping the ball out there. Yeah, that was a lot of fun, man. I checked it out. We did the live, uh, ask me anything live watch and huge thanks to everybody who tuned in. I know it's Tuesday and a vacation week, and I know we've

got several thousand people who tuned in. And again, if you want to check it out, I know you want to go to our YouTube page, Spittin' Chicklets. It's good stuff. It's like having a couple of stand-up comedians out in the course with you. So hopefully you guys enjoy it as much as we did. Also, too, we want to remind you that Chicklets is dropping a whole bunch of new swag just in time for your holiday gifting needs. Be sure to check out all our social feeds as well as

BarstoolSports.com slash chicklets on Black Friday and Cyber Monday so you can take advantage of those early discounts. Again, we've got a ton of great stuff dropping, plenty of gifts for the holidays. A couple other notes here. We're not exactly sure when the 2021 season is going to start for the NHL, but either way, the other two peckerheads will be back next week. We'll be back with our full muscle show, so it won't be just me and G going back and forth playing ping pong here.

Biz and Whit will be back and we'll be back in style. And one final note, happy Thanksgiving to all of our American listeners and happy Thursday to all of our Canadian listeners. Have a great week, everybody. We'll catch you later. And as always, we'd like to thank our fantastic sponsors here on Spit and Chicklets. Big thanks to our longtime friends at New Amsterdam Barter and Pink Whitney. Big thanks to our friends at Earnest for getting those student loan rates down. Huge thanks to our new friends over at Cross Country Mortgage. Like I say, if you need some dough, hit them up. See what they can do for you.

They're great at it. And a big thanks to our friends at Peter Malar for making us look hot as hell on the golf course. Have a fantastic week, everybody. We'll catch you later. May the good Lord be with you down every road you roam And may sunshine grow to be proud Dignified and true And to unto others

As you have done to you Be courageous and be brave And in my heart you'll always stay Forever young Forever young Forever young Forever young May good fortune be with you

May your guiding light