Spittin Chiclets - Spittin' Chiclets Episode 339: Featuring Mike McKenna

Episode Date: June 15, 2021

On Episode 339 of Spittin’ Chiclets the guys are joined by Mike McKenna. Mike joined (1:01:56) to talk about the Vegas Golden Knights, how he got into TV, his pro career and tons more. The guys open up the podcast talking Islanders vs Tampa and give a full playoff update from everything they missed. The boys also touch on a hilarious moment from a Nathan MacKinnon press conference from this past week. The guys wrap up the show talking golf, movies and give a Game 1 recap of Vegas-Montreal.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 339 of Spittin' Chicklets, presented by Pink Whitney from our friends at New Amsterdam Vodka and the old Boston Sports Podcast family. What is up, boys? Everybody back on home turf once again. A little rest and relaxation after a rowdy week of live cast

and game watches and whatnot from Long Island and Boston. So hopefully, boys, got a little wind in your sails. Grinnelly, how you doing, buddy, back home? I'm doing well. Tons of merchandise dropping in the Barstool Sports store over the next couple weeks. And we got a goalie on the podcast this week. So it's about time we have.

We're really getting in-depth with the goalies and stuff. So I'm excited. Dash one. No spoiler alert. On who, me or G is g pizza up the middle send send me send the second line out send out a coach is great and tough tonight g i'm i better i better be on my toes here i gotta be ready for this face off here at middle ice we're down one zip you better be on point paul i'm biz nasty business it was uh fun having a nice weekend week with you in boston last week boys it was awesome i'll tell you what though i drank a ton

of alcohol when i was there that i think boston kind of sucks into that drinking culture and of course with all the sports associated i get back i think i'm gonna have a nice relaxing weekend well guess what the ufc reached out through uh instagram and they send me a message the fights were going down in glendale i've never been to ufc fight so they reached out through Instagram and they send me a message. The fights were going down in Glendale. I've never been to UFC fight. So they reached out, they say, Hey, would you like to come with a few friends? And at first I was like, Oh God, I'm coming off this heavy trip. But you know, I was like, I've never experienced it.

Then I found out a bunch of the coyotes guys were going, they got a party bus going down. So I said, I'll jump on board. And Oh my goodness. What a time boys. Boys, I had a blast there. I know that some of this UFC stuff doesn't sit well with people because of how gory it is. And yes, the reason that all these TikTok stars and YouTubers have picked the boxing route is because when you step in that octagon, you can see anything. And the first fight there of when they finally turned it on to the pay-per-view the the one guy snapped the guy's arm and when he snapped the guy's arm the other guy was still

trying to fight and punch him and it was clearly just hanging on by a thread and of course everyone's oohing and awing but they keep showing the replays and over and over and over. And I tell you what, this guy who got his arm snap, he stuck around to watch the other guy get his arm raised. He was an absolute champ, but it is modern day gladiatorism. Is that a word gladiatorism? Help me out. I don't think, I don't think it is in that case.

Russell Crowe made it a word after gladiator. He goes, Hey, forever and moving forward. Gladiatorism is a word. We're going to invent the word. This was like the modern day version of him coming out. Remember that before he got to the actual Coliseum, he was in the little one when he does the double sword cross and legit just chops the guy with the buffalo heads head off.

That was like the East Coast League of the gladiatorism. That's what they used to call it. And there was an NHL scout there who discovered him and brought him to the show. So he got a nice little fat raise. But I tell you what, it was an awesome time. They got the beats coming with the intros. Then that was the first fight of the pay-per-view side.

They had Nate Diaz third in line. And this guy, the fans were going absolutely crazy for him. He's getting cut up in the ring and he's still taunting the guy. He lives for getting beat up. He lives for getting the, and he's, so the press conference the day before he's just gassing weed, but then they must've told him, Hey, you can't do it on the screen.

So he's doing it. He's doing it under the table and all the smoke's coming out from he is just an absolute character so he was the third fight in line and and and the crowd was partly uh partly just as much entertaining that what was going on the octagon because uh i mean i'm sure you can imagine the type of characters you see at one of these events but it was a blast buddy and and i would recommend it to anyone and there. But there was no tomfoolery in the crowd. There was no fights breaking out in the crowd. You've been seeing a lot of this lately.

You're even seeing it in the NBA right now. That Suns guy, by the way, shout out to the Suns, he got in a scrap with the guy from the Nuggets. One of the best videos in the history of the Internet, I thought. Other than Dater right now. He's on top he's new that guy's saying sons and four sons and four after pumping two kids eyes shut holding them and just uppercut feeding them is and then for them to sweep is just an all-time video um this guy

this guy you just described he's the new guy on the with the ocean spray on the surfboard right now because even the other place all booker reached out to him on twitter he said somebody get me this guy's name i bet he was going to be sitting front row at the suns the rest of the run he's going to have the splinters in his toes just like comry that guy was born to play for the same east coast hockey league team for 11 years and then just take over the town his showmanship he was laughing as the fight began and then he's smiling as he's just feeding them the uppercuts as he remembered he had his chains just an all-time video uh i love that you went to those fights it is and like you say like people like they don't they don't like how gory it is well don't watch

i mean it is exciting it is definitely on the edge of your seat and you mentioned the tiktok youtubers let's not forget they don't they don't fuck with the octagon those little guys know they're doing the boxing they're i saw the tiktok guy get his wheels punched in bryce hall got punched by the youtube guy but they don't mess with the octagon because like you said those guys are machines and girls and girls imagine imagine imagine going imagine one of those girls just beating the absolute shit out of you have no idea they're five four they would put me in an arm bar and knock me sideways off the temple in 0.3 seconds hey hey i'll tell you what there's about seven fan bases now that would would actually pay to get that done and uh we'll talk about it maybe get in a rough

and rowdy against one of these girls but as i was walking six fan bases my apologies let's not get ahead of ourselves oh me yeah you i'm saying collective well i'm just saying i think that what do you mean okay you know you're talking were you saying well you said that one of these girls could do that to you and i said there's about six or seven fan bases that would actually collectively pay to see that so So it was a chirp. Okay, fair enough. So am I minus one or not? When you have to explain your chirp, it's not really a good chirp. I think 31 fan bases, actually 32 now would pay for it,

even the ones who like wit. Yeah, exactly. But love me or hate me, I'm bringing ass to the seats that's what it's all about you almost want it split down the middle I can hopefully get 15 to really hate me I think that I I think biz if you want to go that route we can go right into the islanders I don't care or we go in Vegas I'll I'll fight on any oncomers when I talk about NHL hockey you you do put me in a mental pretzel when we get into the shouting mats. As much like you do with Dave Portnoy.

But going back to the fights, there was another one that Lamar Odom fought this Carter brother. Aaron Carter. That was the saddest of them all. That was sad. Because you got to know those guys. They got the drugs, the issues, mentally. It doesn't. they have everything going. So, you know, they have no money.

They're doing that for money. It's like, I bet we can sell more pay-per-views of me having to go against ad reads for five rounds where they progressively get harder and harder. The font gets a little smaller each one. The words get a little longer that's what actually screws me is having re i need you to uh to teach me how to change the font to the size that you have via text on your phone have you seen on race yeah for people who don't know it's two letters per screen i i got a sore wrist from scrolling because the fucking letters are so big yeah i even got new

glasses but yeah i just like i just like a bigger font i don't know i don't know what it is but yeah back to that denver fan who caught a beat and he deserved it man he was leaving he went back and he tried to suck on the kid from a higher elevation and he got pumped so bad and the best was he was holding him it was almost like a little brother he's looking at the friend he goes huh your buddy's gonna keep oh yeah be getting up yeah kept getting up yeah Yeah, kept getting up. Yeah, get beaten up. I can't fucking talk. And he's dribbling on the face. Yeah, minus one. That's typical. But, like, his buddy did nothing to him.

We're struggling, boys. Let's change the goalie. Let's change the goalie. You three. His buddy did absolutely nothing. Like, he was just sitting there watching him get pumped again. So, yeah, you know, when a guy acts like an asshole, especially with his 1996 George Clooney cut,

and gets his face dribbled in like that, it's easy to decide who everyone's behind. Yeah, he was nodding at the camera. All right. He was he was kind of like watch this as he put his watch off or something and then before he saw him and it just went the exact opposite so this is one of the arguments going on right now well not really an argument one of the discussions is the higher ground when getting in a fight at a sporting event it is what would you say the advantages i got a great higher ground story can't wait a great higher ground story i i can't say who it is but anyone close to me or anyone who ever wants to ask me when we meet i'll tell you who it is but um this guy went to a concert

you two back in the day and he was with a you know his wife and another couple and the other couple, he really couldn't stand the guy. But he's like, yeah, I'm going to you to the wives or friends. So this guy brings two binoculars, right, because they're up top and he brings two sets of binoculars. And he's like, I'm going to make sure that they're going to have one. I'm going to bring them one. Hopefully they bring them for themselves, but I'm going to bring them one. But I'm going to have the other one. Right. Fair enough. Well, the girls are holding the binoculars and the other guy that he's not a huge fan of wants the binoculars hey let me see the binoculars no i'm using them hey let me see no i'm using them finally the guy who doesn't really like goes up and he's now below him right he's got the low

ground he goes up and he pushes the fucking binoculars into the guy's face oh right and it hurts right boom right near right around your eye socket it's gutless well you know what higher pushes the fucking binoculars into the guy's face. Right? And it hurts, right? Boom, right near on your eye socket. Gutless. Well, you know what higher ground guy did? Higher ground guy looked, and he realized that the chest of the other guy really couldn't stand, was just about knee high. And he just brought his foot back

and booted him square in the chest. And lower ground guy rolled down 10 flights at foxborough stadium watching you two so if you want to talk about the battle between higher ground and lower ground forever you want the higher ground i'm not kidding you was it the elevation hey so hey so not to bring it too far but fuck what makes me nervous about that is like what if the guy keeps rolling down he goes over the edge? Then you're really – I don't even think there was an edge at this stadium.

It was a dump RA, right? Oh, the old Fox Bowl. Yeah, it was like a glorified – not even a glorified high school stadium. So higher ground, you should always be like on the upper hand. Or just use the kick to the chest move. Or just do like a fall pull. If you're on the lower level, grab the guy and pull him toward you and kind of twist and hopefully you fucking chuck him down a couple rows but you know if there's people there you don't want to fuck them up too that's why you

avoid all that stupid shit in the first place there a i will say there has been way too many fights at sporting events lately it's it's not this is crazy this is this is is this because of the reintroduction yeah i think people just maybe haven't been out for a while and act like assholes like i saw on twitter earlier they had a deep they had a um land a plane elsewhere because people fighting over the fucking armrest like yeah i mean it's an elbow i mean so that means of two adults assuming one of them wasn't didn't have the common sense not be like all right you know what i don't have to like and they got in a fight that enough that the plane either had to be diverted or they had to stop stop the plane from taking off to get them off the plane.

I blame the airlines. They're making the seats too small. They're like doing a millimeter each year, so we're not noticing it. It's just such an integration. I'll tell you that. Oh, go ahead, Ben. Sorry, man.

Oh, no, no, go. I was done. I think that are there rumblings that I don't know if this would ever happen, and it should never happen, but sports games and these fights, they're going to end up here and no booze being sold at these games. People are going to start wanting out. Now, I don't think it would ever happen. I'd riot harder than they did for the Super League.

What? I would riot harder with the fans more than they did for the soccer Super League. You want to see fans revolt? You try telling a bunch of seasoned ticket holders to the Green Bay Packers that they can't buy cold beer. I'll be making those little bomb things that you throw with the Pink Whitney bottles. What do they call them when you make a homemade one?

Molotov cocktail. Yeah, there you go. There's a new shot mixture for the Pink Whitney beverage. We'll make an RTD ready ready to drink the call the moth make it a cocktail we could go full monster energy make it 6.9 alcohol like just you should even try throwing caffeine in it too just make it a full blown hey it's uh it's like a four four loco with a key bump actually you know actually i heard a good one what after the live streams slop todd i'd

never heard that before oh yeah ari was a slop todd after game three or whatever it was like i never heard that one before but no i was gonna say biz the flight to jf came back it's actually a nice little flight from boston to new york it's only 35 minutes you're in the air you got a real nice view of long island and cape cod and rhode island and stuff it's it's a it's a pretty cool flight plus you can see the you know skyline skyline of Manhattan when you landed and taken off as well. Listen, I know we've dumped, dumped a lot on, on the Islanders, but yeah, I've heard from a lot of people. It's a great area. It's,

it's bumping right now, man, especially after they got game one. Now, we've kind of fallen off the rails quite a bit here. Where are we going to start? Well, just to reiterate what G said, we do have a goalie coming on. We have a 14 year pro goaltender, Mike McKenna. Like, he was a suitcase. I mean, I don't like to call him a journeyman. I mean, I know that's probably what he was,

but he played for a bunch of different minor league teams all over North America, had a great career, the winningest U.S.-born goalie in AHL history. And he had a lot of great stories from his adventures on the road, and he works for the Vegas Golden Knights doing analysis now, so we had him on for that as well. So good stuff coming a little later. We'll have to get him on again down the road because we tried to we tried to divvy it up between just his knowledge of the whole goaltending situation because you

know he's played in a period of time where the the position has continued to revolutionize and it's happening at such a rapid pace so he helps break down a little bit of that i hope to get him on again to talk more about it because like i, we don't really know goaltending. We kind of just throw a shirt at the wall and hope it sticks. But, and also just, I play with him for a little bit, just such a positive guy. He was always great to the media and he was just always so insightful. So I know you guys are going to love the interview and he's,

I tell you what, he's a goalie. He's, he is, he is a full fledgedledged goalie, folks. Marches to the beat of his own drum. Oh, yeah. Well, we are officially in the semis. And three of the four teams that were here last year, Tampa Bay, the Islanders, and Vegas, all back this year. It's the first time that three of the final four are back

in the same consecutive postseason since 91-92, which the Bruins, Oilers, and Penguins all did it. Of course, it was Chicago, Minnesota was the fourth team. But the worm, the worm was there last year. He's there this year with Montreal. Once again, Montreal-Vegas is the first ever playoff meeting between the stripper capitals of North America, as I called it on Twitter, Las Vegas and Montreal.

Jake Evans could be available at some point in the semis. Kerry Price against Marc-Andre Fleury, just some absolute great storylines here. It's just Price's third semifinals. was there in 2010 there in 2014 but of course he got hurt in game one mark andre versus montreal max patch already versus the team he was on for 10 years lots of good stuff going on and just to get you up to speed this game is being played in about i don't know three or four hours we're recording right now the first portion of the show we're going to jump in later after the game to get you guys up to speed on that but I want to hear what you guys had to say going into the series yeah of course what we we thought about the first game but going into it I was

going to ask you Whit do you think that there's any added pressure for Marc-Andre Fleury knowing that you know where he's from and in the you know the mecca of the hockey world at least one of them all eyes are going to be on him that's got on him. You think that mounts a little bit more pressure, or you think it's just water off a duck's back for Marc-Andre Fleury? Hard to say. I would say that he's been through so much in his career, like losing the starting job and battling through things

that he never imagined he'd really go through when he's the first overall pick. So I think he's been through so much that he's just ready to play and doesn't matter. It definitely helps that the crowd is what? What are they allowing? A couple thousand in the Canadians? I might be dead wrong.

I heard that they're actually going to go full capacity starting as of Tuesday in the province of Quebec. They did this for the Habs. Is this they did they did this for the habs is this true listen i said i said the canadians are so important that could just make them break at kovats over like every other state down here and it's trudeau's team so it's just hey turn the switch they're gonna have a packed barn this series do not quote me on that i heard that from someone i could be dead wrong and i hope i am so we just waste it and i'm now minus two and we're down four fucking zip change the goalie i wouldn't be that surprised i rolled an ankle but i was gonna say

if it's not full i mean it changes a little bit the whole vibe in that arena but the way price is playing and actually you mentioned flurry the 2003 draft the best draft of all time business It's got Fleury, Weber, Stahl, Perry in this series. Still going. 18 years later. Guys turning 36, 37. It's just awesome to see. And Price is a serious, what would I use as a word? Panic attack for Vegas Golden Knights fans.

Now, we're going to talk, like you guys mentioned, we're going to talk after the game. Who knows how game one goes? But this is like what Ari says when he talks about Montreal and their history and how they end up winning in weird ways. And it's like shaping up as one of those seasons. I'm on Vegas, but I don't think it's going to be as easy as a series as everyone's mentioning.

I think that that's obviously their biggest chance of winning. That's kind of why I mentioned the goaltending situation off the hop. Mind you, Vegas, through parts of the season, especially playing against certain teams, and we saw it a little bit even against Minnesota, who, let's not forget, they went seven games with Minnesota. They went more the distance than Colorado ended up going, which kind of is a tip of the cap to Vegas, Vegas too because they can beat you any way you want to play

but there has been periods of time where playing against very defensively structured team this year Vegas have struggled to score goals I'm not going to put too much stock in into uh into game one just like I'm not the other series. But I do, I do feel that that Montreal can give them way more of a problem than even Colorado did just simply based off the fact that they are such a rhythm defensively. They are not allowing a lot of high danger shots. And let's remember here, even, even I would say in that last game, like Colorado smoked them

as far as like chances and shots generated. I think while Grubauer was in net, Vegas only had 21 shots on net. So they're going to have to find a way to generate like they were against a team who's really not opening things up much. Now saying that, their back end showed me a lot in the second round against Colorado. The forward group is, I mean, McKenna's going to get to it, just about the depth. I think he said that they've had 20 guys step into the lineup so far in this playoffs,

and 21 have a point. So that just shows you the depth, and they're able to really filter anyone in on that fourth line. Now shifting back towards Montreal, they kind of just got this special magic brewing. I think that they're going to need contributions even more so than they haven't gotten from certain guys. I think Josh Anderson needs to show face a little more. I think Gallagher was really good towards the end of that second round,

but even he needs to gear it to the next level, and they need to keep getting exactly what they've been getting from everybody else and we're going to also see how much this uh this petri loss in game one's gonna gonna affect them because because if we talked that's the one we talked about that's that that's that's the tough one right there so i know i've rambled on a little bit but i'm very i'm very interested to see how this series plays out i'm confident montreal was i trolling when i said montreal and four yeah a little bit but so what's your pick montreal i'll stick with montreal yeah um about the sweatsuit is it weird just hopping on like now you're like you're a leafs fan or are you just so above and beyond no no i i think that

it's i think it's kind of it will one it's fun to hop from bandwagon to bandwagon because once the team loses you're like fuck you i had my guy i was cheering for you yeah it's way harder going against a team that keeps winning but i think you should definitely have more leniency on me because it is canada's team that's a fact just now niagara falls is on the bandwagon selling out buffalo and the rest of ontario which going back to the stripper capital i think think Niagara Falls needs honorable mention. The Sundowner, which still has very loose restrictions on what you can get away with. And the other one is Tampa was really harping at you.

A lot of people chimed in. Yeah, I mean, it kind of dawned on me, like, oh, yeah, Montreal. Obviously, I fell in love the first time I went to a strip joint. I was 17 in Montreal, and you're drinking Fuzzy Navels back in the day because I wasn't much of a beer guy then, which was peach schnapps and orange juice with going to strip joints at 17. And then Vegas. Honestly, I'm not even that big of a strip joint guy in Vegas.

I'd say probably been there three or four times because it's a pain in the ass to get to some of them. You spend so much dough, and it's not even worth it. As far as bang for your buck in value, Montreal strip joints are premier, the best in North America as far as I'm concerned. All due respect to Mexico. I've never been to one there. The reason I was handing receipts to Barstool.

Yeah, it's like two fuzzy names. They do have a buffet. They do have a buffet. Phenomenal buffet, too, at the Chez Paris. Shout out to Chez. The only thing you're eating there is the roast beef, buddy. Oh, yeah. Oh, shit.

Vegas probably will lose, though, because if they do win, we'll be out there for probably games one and two, then a watch party for game three, and it would be a scene and a half with some special guests and some crazy action. I'm going to need a body double. Everyone wants it, right? So we know we're not getting it.

That's the one reason Montreal is going to win this series is because of how much we have for us if Vegas does. I'm going to need a body double out there, like a dictator from South America just to fill in on me for certain nights. A week in Vegas, man. During the Stanley Cup at my age. What's the other tournament called?

Well, R.A., you don't have to go as hard as you go, though. I kind of do, though. That's a great rebuttal. So when you have complaints during the shows in Vegas, right there, we get the time. Grinnelli Grinnelli is like my manager. He gets me all ripped up. He tells me I got to put a show on that night. Ray just heard Slop Tart for the first time.

He's going to be hearing a lot if we end up getting to Vegas. An Islanders fan called me a Slop slop tart tattoo by the second night yeah tramp stamp would you get the slop tart tramp stamp that would be sacrificial lamb as opposed to me chopping off my foreskin all right well actually we got to revisit vegas colorado before we get to the islanders because the after after the game's festivities were hysterical but first we do want to let you know that today's athletes deserve more than just your grandfather's tired old salty sports drink which is full of artificial dyes enter body armor this stuff right here made with potassium packed electrolytes antioxidants and b vitamins plus no artificial sweetness flavors or dyes body armor sports drink provides

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Body Armor, available for purchase in-store and on Amazon right now. Learn more at drinkbodyarmor.com. Once again, it's hot all over this country right now. Get hydrated with Body Armor. All right, moving right along. Vegas, Colorado. Yeah, you mentioned that, Biz. Vegas finished off the job, 6-3 victory.

They won the series four games to two. I thought it was a tough game for Philip Grubauer. I know Colorado had a rough end into the playoffs last year. They were on, I think, their third or fourth goalie. They had their number one this time, and he just, he had a rough night. Five goals on 22 shots, a couple of real duds, a couple of major hits. Nachushkin got buried by

Braden McNabb. Nate Dogg got crushed by Alex Tuck. A very physical game. But the talk was after the game. Gee, I know you get this queued up. Nathan McKinnon did his press conference. He obviously didn't want to be there, but they got to do this stuff. And none of the questions were particularly good,

and not that I'm fucking famous for this stuff, but it was like that's a rough one. And then Adrian Data, who used to work for the Denver Post, I believe he works for Colorado Hockey now, he had a question for the Nate dog. Gee? Nate, you know, I know you're a gamer and all this, and, you know, i'm just thinking maybe

out loud as far as in your shoes right now it's like all right we've done all the thinking we can do we've done all the game planning we can do maybe maybe you know just fuck it we'll just go in next year and just not think that anymore and just win this thing when we don't take that much is that am i on the right path at all with this like maybe you just guys think a little too much oh nice last one here for nathan inspector sports net one of the best i mean i'm still in shock we let off with dater and we didn't talk we didn't break down the game six at all but i guess hey you can't bury the lead right all right uh hey guys first off the hop have i asked some bad questions some of which we probably had to delete from the podcast they were so bad i mean we all know so i would never be one to criticize somebody for allowing it to get off the rails like that but i mean i

that's got to be the goat of all goat post-game questions like he just and then to boot with the aftermath ra which I mean, it didn't end there. It didn't stop. No, it kept going. It was the gift that kept on giving Pete Blackburn, a buddy on Twitter kind of, you know, made, made light of it. As did all the people, including ourselves. And he kind of got in a tete-a-tete with Pete and he brought, you know, and I have no problem with Adrian, just for the record.

I've talked to him in DMs a bunch, but Pete was like, you know, chirp back at him. He gave the old, you've never been on the beat. You've never been in the locker room. As a guy who's been in the locker room and has been a blogger, that's like the worst chirp because it doesn't matter. Like if you can write about the game. I don't think, did he ask the question in the locker room? No, same.

No, he was basically pointing out you've never been in the locker room. You've never been a beat guy. Just the stuff that newspaper guys always say in a blog is like. I know, but like the point is, what does that matter? matter in other words you don't have the credibility that i have because i i've been in the locker rooms i've been a beat guy fears it's it's a beat guy complex to it like trust me i've been on them and i've been off them it doesn't it didn't enhance or help my writing really much i'd like to quote some guys like you all the time no disrespect i'd like to also defend all the reporters that hop on those zoom calls after games it's not that's not easy yeah it's not easy and it's brutal and yeah and most of the time like

these guys are aren't giving very colorful answers and as reporters they're trying to you know getting as as much out them as out of them as possible so hey man it's yeah that was uh hey what's funny because the question or whatever that was it was bad enough but then when he's like you want to say fuck it maybe on his face I think he said he was trying to talk like hockey guys

talk I mean I guess that's what if you're going for it work but McKinnon's reaction yeah his face timeline you don't even need to listen it was sound on yeah it was i think somebody's like what like it and i don't care i don't care that he swore it's like people that wasn't professional and you can argue with that or not i don't want you but that's what it was it wasn't he's like ah fuck it it was like fuck it like he got like

aggressive when he said fuck it and then you could see nate's face contort a little bit and yeah man i've been there too i've asked bad questions we've all done it but it was just the whole like the time it took place nate's reaction and just the staggered question my last i asked longer questions than anybody and even i was like jesus man and then it was just like even the question itself was kind of awkward like can you just put your feelings aside it's like well no you're playing for the fucking stanley cup you gotta you need to rely on your emotion here so hey it's a dual we're not picking on but here's the thing normally i get uncomfortable watching or seeing that type of stuff i actually kind of was like feeling where he was coming from a little bit and you could kind of like

sense the build-up of even him like you know being like you know man maybe this is the answer maybe i felt like saying fuck it saying fuck it man i is the answer. Maybe I found. Like saying, fuck it. And fuck it, man. I got the answer for you, Nate dog. And I think he's got it. And I think, I think we've got to print the, we got to print the shirts. We got to get it. Maybe that's their motto.

Next playoffs going in. They got the gear in the room. Kind of when, when Florida hopped on the, the, what do they have? Like spacey. I mean, obviously they're not on that train anymore that had to get uh put to the wayside all right right i uh what else did i have to say about that that whole series experience oh no the um the bad questions press conference then somebody sent me one where a golf writer i don't know who it was is asking mark leishman he basically asked him like do you know what you don't know and leishman's reaction is he's like wait do i know what i don't know and he's like yeah and he's like no but hey so i watched some clip i watched that there's got

to be a few other ones that stick up to you well it just it just hit me biz um today is the 10th anniversary of my press conference after the after the boston bruins on the stanley cup in vancouver um and when you said brian mcgonigal boston sports back home what do you have for the fans we gotta play it we gotta play it i really wouldn't be doing his job if he didn't play it at this point questions for tim or patrice please address your question tim brian m McGonigal, Boston Sports back home. Do you have a message

for the fans who've been waiting a long time for this? You've been waiting a long time, but you got it. You wanted it. You got it. We're bringing it home. How did you feel

after you got the question out? Were you like, yes, it wasn't too long. I got to pump my own tires. And he gave me a thoughtful answer. I had no idea it was on tv whatsoever because this was one of the first years where they herded all the media down to the ice so they can do all their post-game interviews which is actually a brilliant idea

by the nhl then you're not crowding the locker room as much so i was down there and i stayed on the ice as long as i could because hell when are you ever going to be able to celebrate on the ice when your team wins the cup and i'll never forget greg campbell was the last guy off the ice. Him and his dad and his mom was still out there. Like, yes, that conspiracy worked. We got it done. And so I walk off the ice. Right. And I see Tim Thomas and he's still in uniform and he's got his game t-shirt on still the one he wore under his Jersey. I'm like, where's he going? And someone handed him like the Stanley cup champion shirt. He put that on, handed the other one off.

And I see him go in a slight small room and I walk in, I was like, Oh shit, this is, this is like the cons might press. So, you one off and I see him go in a like small room and I walk in I was like oh shit this is this is like the cons might presser you know and I did I contrary to popular belief is I did have a press pass I was allowed to be there so I walked in and then they were just like you know anyone ask a question and I was like fuck it man I was very much the conduit between like the Bruins fans for Boston and like the Bruins at the time and I think I was still in some degree obviously but at the time I was like the spokesman almost. And I say, anything you want to say back home? I was like, you know, hey, say it, say it through me kinder.

And he gave the quote that fucking ended up on, it let off split center the next day. It was all over the place. It was a money quote. I mean, it was a, you know, you could say it was a dumb question, but the fucking quote was aces. So it was awesome. No such thing.

Just ask Dater. Everybody's talking about. If anything, all the players on the ice should be thanking him because all the focus went to him as opposed to what happened in game six. Grubauer should be sending him a fucking Amazon deck card. I thought you might take a victory lap. That was classy of you to not mention that. You kind of had questioned that the whole time.

And he's not the reason they lost the series but he had a tough night he so yeah obviously his numbers throughout the last what I think it was last four games he allowed 16 goals um I you said he had uh 22 shots I thought he'd only faced 21 in uh in uh in game six I think that what made it worse was the fact it was it was probably the one game that he wasn't there that they might have even deserved to win, I would say, just based off how they generated. You could just as easily blame the back end, and that's why I'm not going to pound on Grubauer. I think that when looking through the overalls,

the big four to me were I think that the D got exposed, especially in net front battles. They were just oversized. I mean, I was wondering why Byram wasn't in. He's not a very big guy either, and I don't know if there was an answer that came out as to why he didn't get inserted. People on Twitter were mentioning because they wanted Timmons

and Nemeth for the penalty kill. Well, how many penalties do they take? They don't take many. In the last two games, they took one in each game. It's like I think the one of them had one minute of penalty killing. So if that's the answer to why he wasn't in, well, no. And then maybe they just didn't want him to be exposed. The Caudry situation was, to me, would you say the biggest wit?

The biggest factor in the fact that this at least didn't even get the set. It changes their team. It changes that entire line he's playing on. And what is it now, his last three postseasons? Two of the last three. Three of the last four? Two of the last three. Sorry, two of the last three postseasons he's suspended as the team loses.

Yeah. That's fucking tough. I know at some point, I don't know, maybe you just got to reel it in come playoffs, bro. I think that to look back on that series, though, you can't even say if he was playing, they would have won. Vegas just outclassed them. The way those first two games went. Well, the second game Vegas played unreal deserved to win but being down 2-0 everyone was like I don't know and Vegas just rolled them four straight you know the city of Denver in like a 15-day span lost eight straight playoff games

with the the abs and the nuggets just getting rolled four straight by Vegas and um that's why Dator asked that question he probably hasn't got any sleep Suns in four so I don't know man it was kind of the the second period of game six you know they had gotten out to a lead Vegas kept coming back but it's 3-3 and then under 30 seconds left I think Belmar had the puck didn't get it out and like Petrangelo scores who's been sick I think hemar had the puck, didn't get it out, and Petrangelo scores, who's been sick. I think he's got points in four straight. He's like plus four or five in those games. He did a shirtless interview between periods, too.

That's a bomb. That's cocky. Oh, yeah. Yes. Just drop on the table at that point, Benz, right? And then after game six. I would never do that. Small.

No shit. For what reason? I would see reporters coming over with cameras and be like, let me put my shirt on. You got the spray-painted six-pack on. Bugsy would do his with all his tats. He's like, why don't you take your shirt off, Bush? Fuck you.

And the one thing I wanted to chime in on, Pete DeBoer said he thought he was the best player in the series on either team. Petro? Petro. And he was a beast, but even when he would make a mistake puck over the glass in game six, they, and I think they ended up burying on it.

I think he scored what? 10 minutes later. Like he, and listen for a guy who knows he's going to get back on the ice just because he's playing with that confidence. Sure. But knowing that that's such an important part in a game to not get rattled by that and not let not not skip a beat that's just mental strength that that's you you earn that over time and and he he's yeah I agree with

him I thought overall the Vegas back end that Martinez pickup and at the time I don't know how much gain he had left in LA and you don't know how much that was bringing, but, but to give up two second rounders and not retain any salary and, you know, maybe everybody thought it was a risky move at the time, but he, he was awesome. Then you saw McNabb who, who you talk about the physicality of that Vegas back end that hit, he put, who he hit.

That was a crushing blow and going back to the cadre thing i the reason i think it plays such a big factor is when when the stone line was just eating clock against the mckinnon line and just playing even and and we we see the numbers based on how much they were matched up against each other um on the road as opposed to home and it's evident it's evident what was happening who was the line to get it done in in games three and four it was it was the march or so line it was the second line i think and i think in the in game four march or so had the hat trick and i think it was carlson and march or so with a goal each to to to, to get it to overtime and game three nasty. Yeah. And, and, and that's where they got chewed up. So I don't want to,

I don't want to lay it on, on anyone in particular, because I think that it should be balanced out as far as quote unquote blame as to how Colorado didn't get it done. Mind you, they, I still think they have an enormous window is between missing Caudry for his suspension, the, the back end really letting them down and having some massive, massive breakdowns. And when those breakdowns came, and as we saw in game six,

it seemed like every single one of them was in the back of the net. They couldn't get that big save when they needed it and not the shit on Grubauer. The, the one where Petro scored, he way over commits on the shot. He takes himself way out of position. Like, yeah, Petro should not be left alone, but he was fucking in the corner. So I think they'll have some time to figure it out,

and I know that they have some decisions to make. And sorry for being so long-winded about it, R.A. That's all right, buddy. Say what you got to say. Another move, and I sent this over to the text thread. They had traded Ian Cole earlier this season in Minnesota for Greg Patteron, and then they flipped Patteron to Minnesota with a pick for Dubnik. They did need the help, goaltender-wise. They didn't end up needing Dubnik.

They sure as hell probably could have used Ian Cole a couple games back. They're concerned they were burying their bottom pair. And Cole still got some physicality, meanness to his game, which really would have served them well this series. could not have agreed more yeah good call the other shocking thing all right and you mentioned it was Nate Dogg saw Tuck coming to embrace himself and he still trucked him so you could tell like once he gets flying through the neutral zone Tuck is seems as fast as anyone in in the series he'll be playing in now or throughout this entire playoff.

So he's a truck. They are very deep. I'm excited to see this series because the crowd's going to be nuts. And then who knows if we got the biz nasty breaking news that is it the Molson Center? What is that arena now? I think it's the Bell Center. When was the minus seven? when was it the molson center

i asked for a labatt when i was there she's like sir this is the motion center i was like oh sorry i heard the wrong beer um the other video too biz the vegas fans still in the carl colorado fan flag it's like leave the guy alone man he's visiting from out of town like your team's beating them they're gonna get eliminated do you gotta steal the guy's, man. He's visiting from out of town. Your team's beating him. They're going to get eliminated. Do you got to steal the guy's flag and make him have to get up and go chase his flag down? Dirtbag move. Those guys were way too old for that shit.

And even if they were 22, the idiots were doing it. Dude, your fucking team's winning. Just leave the fucking visiting fans alone. They didn't have a good time. That's a couple fans being donkeys. That's not the entire. Is Tampa kicking out more fans? No, no.

I saw that in the text thread as well. That's Islander scumbag spreading rumors. Yeah, it was Islanders fans. They've been doing this all year. They don't let people stand in certain places to watch the warm-ups because what it is in Tampa Stadium, the first two rows are considered club seats for whatever fucking reason. So when people sit there, they don't want people standing around

when they sit down, their dicks over their shoulders or whatever. So they've been doing this all year. It's not new. I don't think it's fucking – I think it's kind of stupid personally. It's warm-ups. It's a half hour before the game. Let people stand there, watch their team warm up. But I guess Tampa's been doing this all year,

so they're just keeping with what they've been doing, however lame it may be. So, no, they're not picking on Islanders fans. You are. Just to quickly go back to the wrapping up colorado i don't know if we're going to talk about where they go from here no absolutely bednar bednar after the game um after game six i believe he said he wanted to take full accountability he said don't blame any of those guys this one's on me um going back to i was trolling a little bit as far as him using the calling out the guy's card i thought if he felt that the team was kind of needed something at that time,

they were already up to, if you try to get them ramped up and call out the big dogs before you go into the other barn before game three and four, you probably think you're going to be able to muster up a split. And then they didn't. So I think that at that point in time, like if I was a coach, I might have even pulled that card what like would would you have kind of called them out media wise wit like just to rev them up or or no i hated getting called out in the media although

that was the entire team right he didn't i don't think he made and i think he he didn't he didn't name anybody it was a general you guys sucked okay i thought that's different he said's different. I thought he said mainly the big guys or something of that nature. So maybe I'm mistaken. But either way, calling out the squad at that point in time, I thought that it might have been something I would have done. Yeah, let me clarify. He did mention the top lines. What I meant is he didn't name names.

He didn't name specific players. He did allude to the top players getting an outplayed by the other team. I think he kind of knew maybe a little. So I did paraphrase properly. No, you're good. It's more of a plus one for me.

I got, I got one back for the boys. Plus minus thing. So here's what to rush it. Here's what? His wit to rush the puck right here. So flip the coin, whether it's a plus one or minus

one oh yeah right it's like my first pass percentage 83 i'm getting the thing right i'm not taking a minus dude come on that was only when i turned it over but that was more below the goal line um what else do we have on this series um basically just what's going forward for the abs they have a lot of big unrestricted free agents that are going to be coming up in july uh lander scog sad uh p.e bellamere soda berg patrick nemeth uh they have no goalie signed for next year except for two guys on entry level deals grubauer unrestricted dubnik unrestricted uh johansson uh unrestricted group which is group six but it's still unrestricted kale mccarr restricted free agent i don't imagine he's going anywhere um here's the other thing too they have just three picks in the draft a first a third in

the seventh they've given up quite a bit the last couple years chasing a cup uh they give up a second for taves a fourth for namestnikov a fifth for dubnik a six for johansson and then they got dubnik three weeks later after johansson and neither one of them assigned for next year so you're kind of like i don't want a lot of picks right there for a couple of goalies that aren't coming back so yeah man the window's still open but they're gonna have to bring some of these guys back if they want to keep it going and I don't do they want to go full with Grubauer probably but he had a rough last game for them to make them think twice about it yeah and I think he's an unrestricted free agent and we have McKenna who's coming on talking about how how good of a skater he is said he's one of

the best in the league so who knows maybe they they think he's the guy and they give him another chance and I got I got rambling on I'm doing that quite a bit this episode with about the the Bednar situation given the core group of this team he's a young coach I think he's going to figure it out. I think he's a great coach. Let's say they have another second round exit next year. You know, do they think about trying to, to hand the reins over to somebody else who might be able to maybe figure it out? I don't know. Like how, how big of a shelf life does a guy have with this type of core group?

Cause you were in Pittsburgh and you saw, like, it's just like, they were trying to figure it out fairly quick. Yeah. That's a fair question um or something where if they get off to a really slow start next season but it's hard because they've been so good the past two years like no and guys like playing for them I don't think that that discussion has even been remotely brought up but you're just getting ahead of it and saying that it always ends up coming up it seems right if there's a if there's some more failure, you know, how many, how many coaches failed in Washington, right? It was like, I think in the end though, that group and where they'll go,

I think they're going to win a Stanley cup. I do believe in like that, that entire team. And when Codgers playing, it's a different story, but they got to get goaltending figured out. Look at the four, look at the four teams right now. Look at how solid they are in that position. You don't get there without just great goaltending. And he was great in the regular season, but he certainly wasn't what they needed in the second round.

And the final quote here from Nate, I'm going into my ninth year and haven't won shit. So he's obviously not too well. I saw a meme. It was like McDavid, Matthews, and McKinnon's descriptions of their first few years and then what Crosby had in his first four years, I think. And just like reminder.

Reminder, folks. Doesn't come easy. As if I don't do it enough, the greatest fact is. Bah. Bah. Well, before we jump over to the other. Is that how you make a sound of a goat? Goat?

Yeah. I said one of them. A goat is kind of like a sheep in some ways, right? Really? Yeah, a little. You are the warthog man. I was actually pretty good. Yeah, you've chased some down in your warthog days.

Maybe a sheep's a little higher pitch. I don't know. I'll have to check my email. Now do Sean Connery. Oh, Jesus, bitch, nasty. Don't make me do that again. Leprechaun Sean Connery. Yeah, I get put on the spot.

See, I used to. I don't get put on the spot. No, it's all good. You know, it's also all good biz Labatt. At Labatt, they don't care if you're good or bad at most things in life. They only, it's all good, buddy. No, it's all good. You know what's also all good? There's Labatt. At Labatt, they don't care if you're good or bad at most things in life. They only care if you're good at beer, being yourself, and not pretending to be someone you're not. And if you are, they're good with you.

After all, if you choose Labatt Blue Light, you're good at the most important thing there is, beer. We already know you're good at watching hockey, so be good at beer, too, with a pristine Canadian pilsner, Labatt Blue Light. We're going to be working with Labatt Blue all year, and we have some exciting content coming up, so pick up a pack and enjoy while you're watching the playoffs.

And now we're going to send it over to New York Islanders, Tampa Bay Lightning. A rematch from last year's semifinals, which was the East last year. There's no conferences this year, but they are playing for the Prince of Wales trophy. I don't think anybody gives two shits about that, but the league did tweet that out.

Did you know that, Biz? I knew that they're not going to hand out the trophies this year. Well, they're naming, they're giving them, I don't think they're going to actually physically hand them out, but teams are winning them. So whoever wins the Islanders-Tampa is going to win the Prince of Wales, and whoever wins Vegas-Montreal is going to win the prince of wales and whoever wins a vegas montreal is going to win the campbell bowl and that's the first time that uh the canadians have ever played for the campbell bowl because they've always been on the east's uh centric side

of things which is where the prince wales is traditionally gone so they're playing for they're all playing for two trophies that most of the time nobody touches exactly nobody gives a fuck but they tweeted it out for posterity i figured i'd mention it but either way game one in a battle of russian goaltenders volley was a bit better than vassie and the isles held on for a two to one win and take a one zero series lead in the cup semis uh the first time tampa bay has trailed all playoffs and of course teams that take a one nothing lead uh have a six eight seven winning percentage and best of sevens going forward uh john cooper said after the game our work ethic was there. Our compete was there. Our minds weren't there.

The Islanders got a pair of power play goal. I'm sorry, got a pair of power plays. Joey did nothing with them, but they got clutch goal scoring. Who else? Matty Barzell, once again. They got a two-nothing lead. It looked all over. The Islanders made it.

I'm sorry, Tampa Bay made it close at the end. They pulled the goalie, got a power play. But that was not enough. Islanders, game one. I'm not surprised biz what do you got you want me to start it off whit i was uh i i said it earlier in the episode i didn't want to put too much stock into it because i'm more interested to see how tampa responds because cooper said we sat down we watched a lot of video we think we figured a lot of things out based on

how they were structurally and in islanders fashion, they did a great job. And in the midst of the game, the bill bill check special didn't come out. The in-game adjustments were not there. They couldn't figure it out, but game two, I think that I read something that the Tampa Bay lightning in recent memory have won nine series when losing the first game. They were down one, nothing in the cup finals

and down 1-0 to the Bruins in the second round last year. So I think you said percentage-wise that a lot of teams end up losing the series if they lose the first game. I think I said game five. Oh, it was a game five? But I think it's around 680. I think it's a 660 to 680 winning percentage for teams winning game one.

But game five would be much higher. And that's the one I was talking about. So good call. And, I mean, I'm not going to dunk on you, Witt, but we talk about the depth in Pajot, and I think that Cooper even had some quotes here. I'm going to read them off to you. Molly Walker, she's a beat reporter lightning coach John Cooper points out that John Gabriel Pajot was one of the best players on the Senators and now he's in the third line role with

the Isles it just shows how deep they are so that's John Cooper I respect his opinion on a lot of things so we talked about the depth Stanley Cup champ. So last episode, I think you said that I was a, what were the words you used, Grinelli? He said it was the top three dumbest things you've said in the podcast history. Okay. So I'm just going to say, okay, fine. I'm still a dummy.

But if the debt keeps playing a role in the series, the way it has started, I would maybe like an apology towards the end of the round. That's all I'm saying. I'm a man of honor and integrity, this series the way it has started i would maybe like an apology towards the end of the round that's all i'm saying i'm a man of honor and integrity and you learn to live and be responsible with things you've done and said i will be there to do that if the islanders win the stanley cup this this rivalry with this fan base is so it's so not overblown now it's at such another level that I understand why everyone hates me but when you talk about the depth we weren't just talking

about the bottom two lines I believe you were saying you liked the Islanders overall team depth more than Tampa so right away I hopped on your throat. Last episode, I was a little testy. I think we were yelling at each other, everyone at one point, or I was yelling at everyone, but you know how it goes. I think it was your frustration at the fact that I was on a different bandwagon. I think I was just like, you were so down on the Islanders, and now all of a sudden you're such a coward to these fans.

Now let me tell you, these fans. You think Frankie poisoned me? These fans. For the most part, I think you run into Mets, Jets, Islanders. Now, Frank the Tank, for example, is Mets, but then he's got a different hockey team and a different football team. So he's a nutcase Met guy.

But in all the famous people that I know of, like KFC, if we call him famous he's a jets mets islanders guy so these people are such losers these fan bases i mean look at look at those teams so when you see like how much these people have just lost and lost and lost i understand their passion and i also got to bring up a um i got to bring up a tweet. I sent a tweet out. I was just talking about what time does the cup parade start? Because I thought after the second round, I mean, if Frankie Borelli ran over to the restaurant, he jumped on the table.

Like if you just showed me the clips of the fan base after the second round, I, I wouldn't, I would have thought like, Oh, they won the cup. Now, like I said, there's such losers. These fans, they don't, they have to get excited because they never win anything, but they got excited. And I just sent out a tweet because when somebody responded to when's the cup parade, they said, yeah, the way their fans are acting, I, I'm very surprised they didn't do the cup parade last night, quiz 79. And I said, it's really incredible. incredible isn't it islanders true diehard

fans remember the four in the row they are sick to their stomach and the level of at the level of excitement for a round two win by the current majority of the fan base al arbor didn't even crack a smile after winning the second round if you can't figure out that i'm just like a little bit uh trolling on a saturday afternoon or whatever the hell i think it was thursday but let's be honest here you gotta know i'm just trolling of course the fan base is gonna get excited they've they're losers all they do is lose the past 30 years it's america's team right now so this team i'll be honest they make me nervous they really do i believe i don't know why it sticks out to me in this office. I said to R.A., R.A., you really think they could win the cup?

We have to find the clip. And you go, yes. Yeah. And then I was like, oh, this guy's kind of always like, you always have, well, granted, you bet 20 of those 32 teams. You have a lot of teams in the finals usually. You respected my insight enough to join forces with me. No, you had a beauty pick this weekend that we're going to talk about.

Tampa, I don't know if it was Tampa played like their worst possible game or the real scary thought of, no, this is just what the Islanders make teams look like. And Varlamov was sick. And Tampa actually came out hot. First 10 minutes, they were flying. I think from 12 minutes left in the first to the end of the period, the Islanders outshot them 15-2.

So Varlamov makes some big saves. And all of a sudden, they do their thing. And, yeah, it's a hell of a team. But I don't think they're going to win the Stanley Cup. If you think I'm going to fucking apologize for anything right now, I don't think they're going to win the Stanley Cup. If you think I'm going to fucking apologize for anything right now, I'm going down with this thing until the Borelli's restaurant blows up with excitement.

Oh, good save. Holy shit. Off the glass and out. Oh, no, you guys know. Oh, I also want to say, Frankie and I, people think we hate each other. I like the guy. I don't want his team to win. I want him to lose in game seven of the cup final OT.

That would be... Can you imagine, guys? Can you imagine? He would have a heart attack. But listen, if the Islanders do win the cup, I'm going to go be a waiter two nights in a row at Pirelli's. Wow. We need a con.

We need this blood con. Oh, my goodness. I'm sending blood right now. Two nights in a row. And we'll put calamari on the menu. At Pirelli's. And we'll put calamari on the menu. Wow. We need a con. We need this blood con. Oh, my goodness. I'm sending blood right now. Two nights in a row. And we'll put calamari on the menu. Apparellis. And we'll put calamari on the menu. And no, you can have Kunin specials because in the end, I think,

and now there's going to be a ton of people who can't stand me and reminding me of maybe others that I can't think of. But right now there's two men that can say they own me. Tim Jackman. He dummied me in an NHL game after 20 years of chasing me down. He made the most ridiculous photo of myself. I got no head getting jersey

and embarrassed. He owns me physically, mentally. Chris Kunitz. I get traded for him. He won 17 Stanley Cups after and it's just been a legendary Pittsburgh parent. Those two men. If the Islanders win the Stanley Cup,

I don't know, what's their fan base? We're going to Borelli's. We're all going to Borelli's. Millions of people own it. We're going to work like he worked a way to when he signed his big contract. I will be owned by forever. Forever, if the Islanders get it done. But it won't happen, and it's going to be glorious.

Hey, do you get to keep your tips? No. Goes to the waiting staff staff that's a classy gesture and i should have to like if anyone's shoes come untied that night i have to tie their shoes okay let's pump the brakes here buddy yeah i take that one back yeah cut that out my back i can't handle that and over and last thing i'll say about the islanders to make matters even worse, we were talking about the New York ambience and how boring they are. Yeah, you said that. Oh, okay.

Yeah, where is your spine? Let's get to you. Dude, you fucking dogged the Islanders, and now all of a sudden, it's just like stick to your guns for once. Like me? Fair enough. Come on, Vince. You can't just go to every team. gotta battle these fans all right i'm a softy man i'm canadian that's why i'm on the canadian ship i'm getting pressured man i'm

getting dms trio has my parents held hostage wit what i always got my parents held hostage i have to root for the canadians but i just thought it was fitting that that not only uh did i say that that they're now the the highest scoring team in all playoffs so that sucked that sucked too but go go habs back to the series man that second goal by vasilevsky was a tough one horrible that's i think he's maybe giving up two bad goals all playoffs but that was just an inopportune time for it to happen. And that was the difference in the game, man. And Stan Coates got benched.

If you saw in the Barzell goal, he just threw a cross ice right in front of the bench, picked off. And then he went for a bad change. And he went for a bad change. Not that he would have caught Barzell, but just the looks of it. And he sat there, I think, the rest of that period. They made an interesting point, had another sick goal.

And then like a couple chances at that last 15 seconds but you got to think they'll have way more going and cooper to say that's that's it's interesting i don't know like what if i looked at that game i would i i don't coach but i would have no idea like how to break down the islanders they just do this to everyone yeah it's almost like the way tampa looked the other day was the way carolina looked versus tampa in game one of that series. Like, yes, that was good all year, but confused in that game. This could be another coach card being played.

So we've seen the ref call out. We've seen the player call out. Now this is the I'm going to head to video and solve you mental torpedo card. Now we're going to even know even more about this whole series in game two we're going to know if trots is actually the mastermind that he is or cooper is going to retaliate with his pokemon card offense card uh barzell has taken a step in these last like five games maybe six games he. I mean, he is creating every single shift. He stops on a dime. He's so fast.

Him and point kind of remind me of each other, but that was a nice goal. The goals, the second goal on Vasilevsky business by Ryan Pollock. He had two goals all year. He's got four in the post season thus far. And three of those are game winners. So he's been bringing it lately. He's the two P brothers, man, Pollock and Pellock. We've been talking about them for years in the show. I don't know if you remember, but we started talking about them a long time before everybody else did.

Yeah, they are. Pretty great. Yeah. I mean, I don't know what else to say. It's a long series. That's what all. I'll tell you what we can say. It's almost time for Mike McKenna.

One last note. Volumov stopped 30 or 31. He won his fourth straight. Volumov and Sorokin has each won four straight starts for the Islanders this postseason. It's the third time in NHL history that a team has had two goalies

win at least four starts in a row in the playoffs. Eddie Johnson did it for the 72 Bruins. Of course, won the Stanley Cup. And Phil Meyer and Pete Peters did it for the Philadelphia Flyers in 1980, who did not win

the Stanley Cup. So a little depth. We'll see what happens on that note. A little depth in that there. Yeah, absolutely. It never hurts, Biz. It never hurts. But either way, it's time to bring on Mike McKenna.

Once again, he's the most goals by a U.S.-born goaltender in AHL history, 14-year career, bounced around quite a bit, some great stories. But before that, I want to let you know that this interview was brought to you by OCB Rolling Papers. OCB is the largest rolling paper brand in the world and has been one with nature, crafted naturally since 1918. So you know they've perfected the process for a consistently great session time after time. We've been singing its praises for months here on Chicklets, and I'm telling you, once you try OCB, you'll be singing with us because the papers are unreal. Unlike most brands that buy their paper from a third-party source OCB oversees the entire

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Cause it's so good. But right now we're going to send it over to Mike McKenna. Enjoy. Well, it's time to bring on our next guest. And this guy played goalie for 14 professional seasons after being drafted by Nashville in 2002. He dressed for nine different NHL teams and 22 teams altogether on his way to becoming the winningest U.S. born goalie in AHL history. And these days you can catch him given his Vegas Golden Knights analysis on AT&T Sportsnet. Thanks so much for joining us on the Spitting Chicklets podcast.

Mike McKenna, how's it going, man? Man, what a feeling to have you rattle off those terms and conditions for me. That's awesome. You should see my jersey and mask collection RA. It's stupid. Takes up a whole guest room closet in my house. Thanks for having me.

I saw the smirk as soon as he listed off how many teams he played for your fucking suitcase that's all i'm known for dude i actually like a couple of a month ago i was like i gotta memorialize this career and like this is my my stupid humor i'm like man i want to get a suitcase with wings on it and i got that tattooed on my leg like we're talking like six by eight like in the clouds with like my frame of my first game pro the day of it and then my last game pro the day with this big huge winged suitcase like come on oh yeah yeah that's unbelievable you got you got an artist out there that you're gonna hit up yeah i dude i got this guy named jason just loves hockey metalhead like i am we

were vibing man we never met before sat down for six hours and pounded out a big tattoo on my leg to memorialize an incredibly mediocre career you should go to who biz got his done from yeah the halloween guy he's got yeah he'll do the best um scarecrow that's rotted out in like end of november you still haven't moved off your front porch they put on his arm dude i saw the first i first saw the scarecrow when biz and i were echl all-stars together man that's right oh you guys played an all-star game together boys the idaho right yeah my buddy mike madill wheeled him in the room he's like you gotta meet this guy man you'd love him and he's like he's got like halloween on his arm and i'm like all right cool dude and then sure enough he comes in like yeah there's pumpkins yeah and then we ended up uh

reconvening uh when we played in Portland together, but we're going to get into your career a little bit later. Part of the reason we wanted you on is of course, you had the job with the Vegas gold Knights. Congratulations on getting that right out of your career, but you've been watching this playoffs. Obviously you're probably dialed into the carry price and Mark Andre Flurry storyline going into this conference finals. We just want to pick your brain on everything you got going. So I guess

we'll start out with the gig. How did you end up getting the gig in with the Vegas Golden Knights on TV? Well, just like my career, I kept fooling everybody. I mean, I like when I was playing, I did my best to kind of set myself up for this. I mean, I mean, I like biz, you and I were like two of the first people that were using Twitter years ago, right. For better or worse. And it kind of created something of a brand for myself. Cause like, obviously I was a number three goaltender most of my career. Like I was never, I never played a full season in the NHL, but if you combine all my years,

it was like two seasons worth, you know what I mean? So like I was there, but never really like in the club. So all along, I just like enjoyed social media. And I, like, I kept writing, I went to college, I have a degree, but I kept writing while I was playing. And then I would do, I do media hits, I'd produce all these things for teams. And I guess it kind of built something of a brand for me. And then my last year pro, I got a hit with NHL network, like on stage out of nowhere before the cup finals. And that kind of showed people, Hey, maybe you can do this on TV.

And, you know, Vegas kind of came out of nowhere. Like I'd already had auditions with a couple of teams before I retired, like the summer before I retired for things. And I decided, all right, I want to play one more year. And then Vegas came calling like pretty late in that summer before last season, I went out, I auditioned and I was like, I thought just taking the audition is to be like, okay, like this is going to be a great experience. And I walked away from it. I was like, man, like, I'm going to get this. I think like I knew I did well on it. And then they offered me the gig and, and, you know, three months after I stopped playing four months after I stopped playing, I was on TV as a studio analyst. It was, it was unbelievable, man. Oh my goodness. That's a quick turnaround. We were talking before we ended up recording and I get nervous before I do the coyotes get going on television a lot more than doing these Zooms. You don't get nervous before the television hits, which I would imagine played into the fact

that you were so comfortable and why they wanted you right off the hop. Yeah, I think it was like when I first started, I was pretty nervous because I didn't know what I was doing. They kind of put you up there and don't give you a lot of information. It's kind of like, hey, you're on TV, go for it. And I was always like, oh, man, what kind of notes do I have to take?

What cameras do I look at? All these things. So it was all swimming in my head. And I think by Christmas time last year, the first two to three months, I started to really get it. And now it's just like autopilot. The only thing I'm concerned with is getting my notes done in the morning so that I can kind of memorize them like a test as much as possible. So I don't have to look at them if I can avoid it. And then just being able to dance on my feet,

like for whatever reason, the camera, I love the camera. I don't know why. I mean, I was like the lead role in the fourth grade play, right? Like I, for some reason, I guess I just liked the attention. I'm a goalie and I'm an only child. So go figure. And I always remember from our playing days, even in Portland, whenever any media member would come ask you a question, you wouldn't just give your typical answers. You would normally have, like, a full-blown conversation, and there would be dialogue, and, you know, you spoke from the heart.

And I think a lot of – you became a bit of a media darling, especially towards the end when you got your chance back up in the NHL. Yeah, well, you know how that goes, man. Like, you you get a rep for it and you start to become a go-to guy in the locker room and i i can't stand that about how plain we are as hockey players like guys have so much personality that we don't know about and you don't have to give away secrets but you do need to at least like you said speak from your heart and be honest right and self-assess and for whatever reason i was was, I was always open and willing to do that. And yeah, I got the gift of gab from my mom. So thank mom. I mean,

she kind of steered me down this course, you know, so once I get going, it's hard for me to stop. I think we're similar in that regard where sometimes we might start going a little too long. Yeah. Yeah. That's like, you gotta tell me to like, just zip it. Like Mike, be quiet. I've got these little business cards that say stop talking yeah i need that myself sometimes i guess i guess the last one before i'll let ra or whit hop in here was obviously you you join up with the vegas gold knights the expectations come in and our expansion team and it's turned into what it's turned into now like it must you must be blown away by how they've been able to figure out how to run

this, this NHL franchise franchise and essentially set the standard. Yeah. It's sick, man. Like I, listen, I played in Vegas from 2005 to seven in the ECHL and we did well, right? Like we averaged over 5,000 people a game, but it was like a niche market, you know? And you wondered like, how was that going to translate to the NHL? Are they going to fill the place? And I think there was a little bit of apprehension at first, just because like the ticket sales, the season tickets didn't go like this, right? It wasn't like Winnipeg where they all went gone in like 10 minutes, but it was like a slow burn building up. And then like, it was just the perfect storm of things, right? Like for better or worse, the, the mass shooting that took place October 1st in Vegas, like galvanized this whole city around the hockey team. People in Vegas needed something to root for. They needed something to bond, to rally around. And that was it. Derek Anglin skated on the ice

and gave one of the most unbelievable speeches ever. And it just, from there, it took off, right? The underdog mentality, going to the cup finals. And like, you can't go anywhere around the city without seeing like stickers and license plate holders and and and gear and like dude i get recognized i never got recognized as a player i can't go anywhere in the city without people knowing who i am you know how strange that is for like a bum like me to have you're gonna be walking around the bodyguard yeah like it's like well i'm gonna tell you about my tats here i'll explain about this one

yep you just start talking and the person ends up leaving you. Yep. That happens all the time. Well, you mentioned walking around, you're getting noticed, but I don't know much about Vegas. Like I'm there, I'm on the strip or I'm at a golf course, but is it more so the people who are enjoying the team are living outside in communities?

Like what's the whole vibe outside the strip? Where are people living outside the city? Yeah, so like the players all for the most part live in Summerlin, which is the Western side of town. And there's nice pockets all around Vegas. I mean, Henderson, where the American Hockey League team is going to be up North around town. There's plenty of good places,

but it's like, it's way more family oriented than people would think. Like when you drive down the strip, you see all the like the gentlemen club signs and billboards and things. And you think it's still old school Vegas and like, it's still there, but you get away from the strip and it's kind of just another, you know, like desert community. It's not that different than a Scottsdale. You know what I mean? Like, and people, especially the players, when they show up

here, they want to stick around for a reason because it's, it's a great place to live. Yeah. Biz, you love this one. There's no state tax. And I mean, it's just a good place. Like the organization takes care of the players very well. It's run very efficiently. Facilities are top-notch. And obviously, there's a lot of good perks out here too. Mike, were you surprised that Vegas dispatched Colorado in six and kind of did it rather handily in that last game?

You know, I'm not surprised that they beat them. I wasn't sure how many games it would take or if they would, but I just couldn't believe how well they were able to contain the McKinnon line. McKinnon, Landeskog, and Rantanen, you know, you talk about like playing your role on a team and it was basically charged to the top line of the Golden Knights to take care of that line. So you had Stone, Stevenson, and Pacioretty in charge of taking care of McKinnon and his crew.

And so generally you want your top line to be your scorers, right? And in this instance, like those guys played defense and their scoring came on top of it. But five on five, they dominated them. They didn't let McKinnon get winding up through the neutral zone. They played on top of him. They didn't give him time and space in the D zone. And that was the whole difference in the game, in the series. And I thought that they did an

amazing job shutting them down and then the d scoring for the Golden Knights started to pick up early in the series it wasn't there uh that was huge Petrangelo played unbelievable so I I wasn't surprised because again it was like the series in the season I think was 4-4 or 4-3 it was it was split in regular season right and the Golden Knights actually had a harder time against Minnesota regular season and in playoffs, it felt like. So once they started to roll, man, like Golden Knights were able to adapt. They changed a couple things in series, and Colorado just couldn't keep up with those changes. I want to ask about the goal that Marc-Andre Fleury gave up,

the real bad one with the second left in the period there. What does a goalie tell himself after a situation like that? I mean, like I'm sure similar probably happened to you what does goalie say to himself oh yeah dude i have plenty of clunkers man i had a big career i had well i had one in uh conference final calder cup playoffs a couple years ago in rockford like an absolute floater that hit my blocker went straight up and in right it was just kind of similar thing and i mean what can you do it's in the net you know like you can't do anything about it you just go in you're mad at yourself but you you focus and i think the big thing for

the golden knights was to see how the players reacted to flurry like they all just rallied around him right he's like he's the heartbeat of that team man and like goalies don't just like you're not just there to stop pucks you have to inspire your teammates and like like wait you played with flower like biz you too like he's a guy that inspires his teammates man and they picked him up and he went right back to work he was really good the rest of the game and it's not surprising like he's been through so much in his career at this point that's just water off his back i said uh when we recorded after that that he would go in i could picture it like say sorry guys and everyone is so quickly to say don't even worry about it and

like say we have to help him out because the way the guys love him and like playing in front of him it's no doubt that he just brings out feelings from players to really get fired up to play so I agree with that I mean the whole team is just they're built for the playoffs right like we talked to Mark Stone and that's a guy who you can tell is like a serious competitor even talking to us he loosened up a little bit but he's probably the guy who really gets everyone going and when I hear Pat Turetti talk about him like he is a true leader of that team yeah for sure man like I played with him in Ottawa two years ago and I kind of knew like the legend of Mark Stone and how he gets so excited on goals and everything but like until you're in the locker room and on the bench and see it happen and like

backing up, like I usually was doing, you see these things firsthand. Somebody runs the, you know, they run the high five line after a goal and he's just so intense, but it's in this like super like whimsical childlike fashion. You know what I mean? Like he's just so pumped in it. Like it picks everybody up through the, through the locker room and it's easy to feed off of that. Like in Ottawa, man, I felt like he was our captain,

but they wouldn't put the C on him because he was, didn't have a long-term contract. Right. And I thought it kind of held our team back. Like the moment they gave him the C in Vegas, like his game went up and then everybody else kind of went up with it. Cause like, I'm still of that belief. You need a captain in the room. Like you need that one voice and he's so good about it. Right. He's not overly vocal, but just the way he leads on the ice you can see big moments that's a guy that you

trust that you depend on i don't want to try to kick up the old dust too much uh what did you make of the situation last year um with when alan walsh ended up tweeting that photo out because you know how uncomfortable it is when you have a goalie partner and you guys are in competition and you know you're trying to keep it somewhat healthy what did you make of that whole dynamic and he had you ever found yourself in a similar type of situation where maybe like an agent was coming in never an agent i mean that was just awkward i was shocked by it in a lot of ways because it's i mean how many times have we ever seen anything like that like never in the middle of playoffs uh but I really looked at it just how well Mark Andre and how

Leonard reacted to it you know like those guys it didn't phase them or their relationship at all and like I know both of them right like Leonard and I played together like I I know them and they just went about their business they played hockey they kept their eye on the goal but it is like when you have those things outside of your locker room like you wonder does it play And they just went about their business. They played hockey. They kept their eye on the goal. But it is like when you have those things outside of your locker room, like you wonder, does it play in or anything? And it didn't. It didn't affect the Golden Knights. It put things to bed pretty quickly.

But, man, it's definitely strange because, like, you can imagine, like, walking into a locker room like that, if your goalie partner, like, if something like that comes out, you're like, oh, man, like, are we cool? And it was. Like, they were fine. Like Marc Andre was still the teammate. He always was. And it was just bad, a big shock to the system, but they put it to bed really quickly. You also I saw you online breaking down some clips of flower.

I think it was more recently against Colorado for Rob Trent's platform. Yep. And you know, given Flurry'surry's age you just said it seems he works so good on his conditioning and his edge work that's why he's able to stay at the top of his game even later in his career well he's a thoroughbred man like when you see him like he i don't know what his body fat is but there's no way it's over like seven you know and he's not never been a guy who's missed extended periods of time due to structural problems with his body. So he's, he, some of us, man, like I never missed a game in my life due to injury, not one.

And you look at my career. Yeah. Right. Until Sweden. Right. But like, like you look at my career and the reason why it went as long and I got my chances is because I was always ready to play. I played through a lot of shit. I mean, I was hurt a lot, but I played through it and like flowers got energy

like crazy and it doesn't matter his age, you know? And I look at how he's improved his game over the years, man. It's just, it's wild to see like from when we came in, we didn't know about post integrations. We didn't know about proper leg recoveries and he just keeps progressing he keeps taking everything in from other goaltenders from goalie coaches working with them internalizing it and he's able to transfer it and i mean he's playing the arguably the best hockey of his career 36 years of age carrying a team you know and what's supposed to be the twilight of his career and i don't think it's the twilight i think he's going to write his own script so it's like that's probably the one

position in hockey sorry with the hopping that's that is constantly evolving non-stop as far as like like maybe dive a little bit more into that well put it this way like the biggest thing has been like these post integrations and what is that so that? So like, if you guys ever get into it, you'll see like VH, which stands for vertical horizontal, or you'll see RVH, reverse vertical horizontal. It's when goalies go down on the post, right? And they put their skate against the post. And it's what makes goalies look bad when a puck goes in that shouldn't, okay?

If it's done properly- Like why is he down right there? Exactly. And that's like goalies get in trouble when they get lazy in it. Right. It shouldn't just be pucks kind of close. I'm going to go down in it, whatever. Like you need to have a purpose for what you're doing. So we didn't really know about that until 2008, nine.

We started to do like one leg up on the post. Well, we started getting roasted. So then Jonathan quick comes along 1213. He comes in with this RV age, which was like skate blade against the post, which changed everything. And everybody had to learn this. Right. And some guys took longer than others. Some guys ended up out of the league because they couldn't adapt to it because of their hips or anything else. So like that was one change. Another change is just how fast the game's gotten like laterally. You've got to be able to skate. You've got to stay kind of narrow and try to be able to use your hands and your upper body and not just block. Like you have to be dynamic to be an NHL goaltender nowadays. So we have, we catch a lot of heat actually because none of us know a thing about goaltending.

So this is very interesting. And then it reminds me, I can ask you, besides his size and his athleticism, what does Vasilevsky do that just makes him above everyone else in Tampa? Oh, he's a great skater. It all goes back to that for me like if you look at all the great goalies over the years whether you go from i mean you can go from hasik to broder i mean mark andre is a great skater grubauer vasilevsky they're all elite you're throwing grubauer in

the all-time greats we'll get to him i'm talking about his skating right now amongst nhl goaltenders okay okay i got you okay and so yeah i mean uh but like if you watch these guys man like the way that they transition the way they shuffle they're constantly in motion around the crease but by the time the shot comes they're square they're set their feet are ready and that lets them play more aggressively than just hanging out on the goal line like they can be at the top of the crease and still move and still get square. And then, but like Vasilevsky is just freakish, right? His athleticism is in a different way than other guys. He can do things not just with his body, but as his mental athleticism,

the way he processes the game, right. Dude, like not many people are going to go behind the back and make a save anymore. Like there's a level of creativity to what Vasilevsky does that not every goal he has. And like, I think that's kind of really what separates the elite guys is like your competitive battle and your ability to adapt in any tough situation how important is understanding the game in front of you from like a structural uh standpoint like you do you pay attention as a goalie to what the the players are trying to do too because i've heard stories about when patrick waugh moved over to colorado him and Foote would room together and they would strategize

together as where like Patrick Waugh would essentially say this is where I need you here on the PK I need to see the shot from this angle and so on and so forth so is that something that you knew and is that something that every goalie needs to do I did and I think every goalie should like the worst thing a goalie can do is go into the locker room between periods and like get away from his teammates and not talk like Billy Smith. Yes. Right. And then go out and just try to kill people.

But like, dude, that was the old thing. Yeah. That was the old school way of doing things, man. Was like goalies are on an Island. You just let them do their thing. And like, I wanted every bit of information I could get because i wasn't very gifted athletically like dude i got scoliosis i got like short shins flat feet like like biz you've seen me without a shirt on man it's not pretty right like there's one thing this body was built to do and it was

play goalie i thought wit stood out worse than yours uh if i'm looking at guys that I've played with. I'll take it, dude. Sorry, Whit. Dude, I forgot where we were headed with this, man. Usually I'm in the worst body category. Normally it's me getting made fun of on the podcast. We're going to switch it up today. So when it comes to that stuff like penalty kill, I always wanted to know exactly what was going on on i always tried to process what other teams were doing

especially in meetings uh because i did i wanted to be able to direct traffic and help my teammates where we're going and especially like puck handles i love to get out of the crease and handle it and i wanted to know what the other team's forecheck was because like i had two goals i did not want my defenseman to take a hit that was first and foremost and then second i didn't want to turn the puck over i wanted to make a clean pass and if you don't know a team's forecheck like how are you going to do that like you got to know those things and I think that side of it's kind of been been changing towards goalies now being more active in the locker room we also got I think the two big stories with Vegas and Montreal Quebec hitting Marc-Andre

Fleury going against the Habs and Are you giving predictions on this series, or have you given any yet, or just kind of rolling with it? I hate making predictions. My gut says Vegas takes it in five. My heart, my head probably says six, but just because Montreal's so plucky, man, and they've won seven straight. I know they've had time off,

but I really like that top line, man. Toffoli, I thought he was awesome last year in the bubble for Vancouver and then like Suzuki can I mean he can fly he's got a good shot and Caulfield like this kid just has premier playmaker written all over him right like the way they're snapping it on the pp how it's gotten better as as playoffs have progressed and like Caulfield's gotten some confidence like that's a quality team in that regard I just think that the depth of the Golden Knights is eventually going to be tough to main tough to go against for Montreal like VGK's dressed 25 players

and 21 have had a point in playoffs like that's pretty impressive and it's coming from all over right it's de-scoring it's it's all throughout the lineup and that's just you know that in playoffs that's tough to contend with well I think the the fourth line had two goals in that closing out game at home against Colorado as well uh one name we haven't mentioned Carey Price and and you talk about guys changing things up going back to maybe at the middle of the year I don't want to say he was struggling but wasn't playing maybe up to Carey Price standard to now have you noticed anything different because he did get a new goalie coach as well and Sean Burke yeah I don't I actually don't notice much structurally, right?

Like Sean Burke's always been known as, hey, a goal line type of coach, right? Step back, let the play come to you. You don't have to attack things. Like he did that with Mike Smith, right? Reinvented his game. You saw that firsthand. Devin Dubnik got a jumpstart on his career again with Berkey in Arizona. I had Berkey for a while when I was there too. I've seen it firsthand,

but I haven't seen big technical changes, but what Berkey does so well is he's a very good mentalist, right? He knows how to get you in the frame of mind to play games. And sometimes with a goalie like Cary Price, who's so good technically, like you can overdo it. You can overthink what you need to do. And I think just having somebody in your corner, like, like Burke, who's done it, who just knows what it's like and kind of like calm you down, man, because I don't really look as much to how Cary Price is playing because he's playing like the best version of himself. Now

I look at like his press conferences and he's just, he's having fun, right? Like I can just tell that he's in a really good frame of mind right now. He's playing big, he's playing care free and he's enjoying it. And like, if you're a goalie and you're not having fun, you're never going to be your best. And right now price looks like he's just enjoying himself. When goalies do slump while they are a little bit off, Mike, is it usually just a mental thing that they got to work through? Usually. Yeah. I mean, cause like your technical base, you can rely on, you can always go back and drill on it and practice and, and it's different for everybody, right? Like I'd want to go and practice hard if I was missing something and that would translate for me,

it worked. Whereas other guys just need to get away from it. And that's where you really rely on your goalie coach, right? You need a goalie coach who understands you, what makes you your best version, right? If you're somebody who needs those reps, if you're somebody who just wants to do video, you got to be really in tune. And that's why it's a special relationship, man. Like goalie coaches and their goalies are, it's, it's different than any other one in the NHL or in hockey to me. And how, how easy is it for like an elite number one goalie to just lose his confidence and then regain it?

Like I was never an elite number one. So that's hard. It's like asking biz, what was it like running a power play biz when you were on the half wall sifting saucers over to go like yeah um man i remember when biz could play though dude you put points up in the coast as a man two-time all-star yeah nobody cares about the coast though we're here to talk about the show just kidding um but um actually it's probably a good segue at this point um what made you start playing goalie early on? I was a gear nerd, man. Like my, so first off, I was really lucky.

My dad and grandpa were off ice officials for the St. Louis blues where I grew up. So I got to go to every home game, right. They used to, they used to not be NHL employees, the off ice officials, and they would just give them a couple of season tickets. And like for me as a kid, dude, like this was gold. Right. And my grandpa was like one of the first founding fathers of hockey in St. Louis, like 10 guys.

They'd have to drive two hours to get on a sheet of ice. Now we've had like three dozen people in the NHL. Right. Okay. That was like, Oh yeah. St. Louis is a hockey hotbed now, especially with a lot of the guys retiring there as well. Yeah.

It's insane. Now my grandpa, he wouldn't believe it if he saw it, but like i'd go to these games and i just was drawn to the other team i'd go watch the other team in warm-ups and i'd see i'd just look at the goalies and i'd see the mat kelly rudy comes in the guy's wearing a bandana like dude you know and like patrick waugh comes in the building and when you're a kid it's like he's got this aura it's like it's like rick j that rick james episode of chapelle show right where he's like, I seen his aura and Charlie Murphy's telling the story. Like that's what Pat Roy's like walking in the building. And so I was just enamored with it, man. And so I'd look at their gear, I'd watch them in warmups and then I'd go home and I'd

get USA hockey magazine. I'd order every catalog I could find. And so I think the first time I played goalie was like five years, five years old and many mites. And I have video of it. My grandpa's filming and you can hear him go, we're never going to get them out of there. And so, but my, my dad and grandpa made me skate out for two years, which I'm really like thankful for. Cause like, at least I learned how to skate and use my edges and I still play forward almost weekly when I can. And I did while I was playing. I think it really helped me understand the game and actually be a hockey player and not just a goaltender. Never once did it scare you that these pucks would be coming at you? You don't think of this when you're a kid, the ramifications, man. Like it's just,

the gear looks cool. You get to be on the ice the whole time. And I just, that's what I wanted. And then you get older and these things start hitting you and you realize what what the fuck what decision have i just made right like these bruises you get now bad it hurts but you almost start to wear that with like pride dude you almost like i miss the pain of getting hit how that's fucked up but that's second twisted bro do you need any like surgeries you said you never missed a game, but you were injured. Are you healthy now? Yep. I never missed anything. So I played through the Calder Cup Finals.

I had a pulled groin both times, like bad. I pulled it skating off for an extra attack or one year of all things. But I never had surgery on anything. I think I had a fracture in my first index finger on my blocker hand. I never had a concussion that was diagnosed. I think I had a fracture in my first like index finger on my blocker hands. I never had a concussion that was diagnosed. I think I had one realistically looking back, but I was lucky, man. Like, it's funny though, because I didn't get hurt. And then a couple of months ago, I'm filming this, this thing, an on ice breakdown with Derek England. And I'm like, at the end, like none of us have done anything on the ice for, I was like, Hey, let's screw around.

Let's do a shootout. Like, so we do it. and i fucking throw my back out like so bad i couldn't move for two weeks there's no way i could have played so i guess i'm okay but there's just there's some underlying stuff in here that's going to be discovered as i get older so uh for all the the gear nerds that are listening to this podcast i i think the gretzky aluminum is probably one of the most iconic sticks for a player. What was like the goalie? What was the Holy grail as far as goalie gear back then? It was getting your first mask for sure, man. Like I had a player helmet, like the combo until I was probably like 12 and then I made the Peewee Quebec

team in St. Louis, which by the way, I know you took this thing, but like, were you there in 1997 i was there in 97 but we were in the beef remember the parade we were you were on top right with the yeah i was in the king's chair yeah so like we were in the b flight i think we were more concerned with like going to winter park and doing the tubing and trading pins and we were trying to win the thing right yeah no we were doing push-ups yeah so like we go and john wensink's our coach who like whole you know big afro for the boston bruins like challenge the bench and like that was my first taste of like high level coaching and hockey and i got a mask and my dad who raced cars

grabs out the old airbrush and paints it for me and it was just like this holy shit man like i'm a goalie now right like boost of confidence and we still got waxed in the tournament, but I felt like a million bucks, dude. I had a painted helmet. Like I really look like a goalie, like not this combo anymore. That was it for me. Do you remember, uh, do you remember the first time somebody dinged you in the, in the bucket? And then all of a sudden you're like, no, I've taken off. I do because I had this powder. My dad sent my cage to a powder coater that used to do his race car chassis. Well, I don't think it's the same type of powder coat you need for a goalie cage because the first shot that hit it was like this,

like explosion of silver right in front of my eyes and like half of the powder coating came off. And I was like, all right, that's, that sucks. So like, let's, let's try to avoid this. But listen, if you're a goalie, you're going to get hit in the head. Like I, I would always give guys one free pass. And then after that, it's like, come on, man. And some guys just never hit you. If they never hit you and they plunk you every once in a while, it's like, whatever, dude, you've earned it.

So after I'll go ahead with her, where'd your dad race cars? He raced open. We all across North America. So like IndyCar, kind of like the American league of Indy car i guess you could say yeah sports car club of america uh four-time national champion he won the president's trophy which was the top amateur driver in the u.s in north america i mean guys like bobby ray hall roger penske jimmy vassar those are all like indy car champions have won that same trophy so i raced carts a little bit in the summer, but I sucked at it. So I stuck to what I was good at in hockey. That's where you got the crazy Twitch. Yeah.

And then it transferred over to go. Now you said you went to the Peewee tournament. At what point did you think there was ever a possibility that you could play pro hockey? Like when did. Fuck. I never thought it like, I still can't believe I played pro. Like I, I think realistically, cause like I made the triple-A team in St. Louis when I was 10. And then we looked at the financials and went, no way. Right. Like nobody from St. Louis is making anywhere. And my parents shot it down and I played double-A hockey. I played high school

hockey in St. Louis for two years. Like Joe Vitale played four years of high school hockey. I played two and I went and I think my first inclination was when I was Bantams, I made the AAA team again. And we were like, all right, let's do this. Let's see what can happen. And I like one top goalie in every tournament. And it was kind of like, holy shit. Like people are starting to notice me, right? Like silver sticks. We won the Kamloops Bantam tournament, like, and just rolled quick. And that rolled into trying out for the U S team, the program at 15. I'm like, wait, you you were there again and you turned them down i remember which i don't understand why you were the best d there and you said no uh but like i didn't make that team and i

was pissed because i knew i was the best goalie there but i'd only been on the radar for like a year dude and so i got turned down from that but i made a junior a team in springfield illinois in the nhl which was still good hockey back then it was kind of moons too oh dude when you were 18 you didn't have to wear a face shield at all in junior like no cage wow what about what about a visor nope but we had springfield in the texas tornado in the nhl goons oh dude we had the dyche we We had Mark Deitch who just killed people. Some of these old names from that league were just crazy, man. If we'd have three-ring circuses going on, I can't believe I lived through it.

So you start getting recruited, and you end up at St. Lawrence. What was that process like? They just showed the most interest? Yeah, because I'd taken an unofficial to Notre Dame and then I took an official to Cornell and I had another one lined up to Colgate after. And like how this works sometimes is like your grades will kind of lead you where you're headed. Right? Like I wasn't a blue chip prospect at this point. And I decided on college rather than the OHL. Like I had O teams tell me they were going to take me early in the draft if I wanted to, but I like man i'm just not ready for that job anybody anybody offering

your money no i didn't talk to london so we were fine um but this has a big lawsuit going you can hop in on a couple years it'll be settled yeah so i i wanted to go to college i wanted to get out of the way because i didn't think i didn't know if I could play pro. I just, I thought college seemed like the right idea. So I took my visit to St. Lawrence and it just felt right. Like everything about it. And I knew coming in, it was going to be me and another freshman goaltender and I'd have a chance to play. And I love the campus. And I was like, boom, I'm taking this, uh, take my scholarship, canceled the one to Colgate the next week. And it ended up being the best decision of my life man I got to play a lot of hockey uh met my wife there like set me up for for my career I got drafted that next year and you know it was it was the right decision man

St. Lawrence is pretty cool place as cold as it is but it's it's special up there didn't you scoff a keg or something from Clarkson didn't you you have a little keg? Yeah, that happened. Yeah. So when we, uh, so Clarkson, when you pull into Clarkson, it's 10 minutes away, it's the biggest rivalry, like one of the big rivalries in college hockey. Right. And they have all their kegs sitting like on the loading dock. Well, that's where you'd go in. And we, it's a huge rivalry and we beat them my senior year. And my goalie partner's like, we're doing this. And I'm like, oh yeah. So we brought an extra bag and we dumped an extra hockey bag. We dumped all the hockey equipment out of it. And on the way out of the joint, this is probably like 2004 or five. So I don't think we were worried about cameras and I think it's okay now, but some teammates

rolled this keg right into an extra hockey bag and we slapped it under the bus and we brought it back and like beating Clarkarkson your arch rival huge deal so we tapped this thing and threw an absolute rager with it and then keg tossed and everything so we we beat clarkson senior year then stole a keg from him partied with it and like never got busted story man nobody got busted no clean night this is probably it i'm outing everybody and they're gonna come out yeah you just lost your degree yeah well bat blue never forget it so then after you finish up at st lawrence you go to vegas that's your first pro stop you're 22 years old what were your first impressions of vegas are you a gambler at all no i'm not like i played craps once or twice and i remember sitting there for like an hour and I won 15 bucks and I felt like a fucking King,

man. I was so excited, but like, I'm not a gambler at all. So it was actually a pretty good city for me. Uh, and I was only making 450 bucks a week plus housing, man. So it's not like you were going to be able to last long if you're blowing all your cake anyway. And, but it was cool, man. Like we had, if you wanted tickets to Cirque du Soleil or Blue Man Group you just push your request in like if your family's coming in six tickets to Cirque sure eight rows up boom mister like for guys in the coast you could be playing in Wheeling or you could be playing in Vegas right and it was just it was sick man like the connections we had like the blue man group would walk in the locker room before games and just be like wandering around and, and carrot top in character and shit.

Like, Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Was the team good? Yeah. We waxed everybody at home. We were like 18 and Oh, but we had this, we had this program where every ticket sold had a drink ticket on the back, a free drink at the Orleans and our mascot would get all of these tickets that weren't sold and he'd put like half the tickets in the visiting room and gave us gave the rest to us so the other team would come in and they'd have all these free drink tickets and they just get blitzed and we'd wax them and then we'd

collect all these tickets for when we'd go out after games and so we'd like you know we're not making any money so we'd like we tip the waitresses or the waiters like 20 bucks to start the night drink the rest of the night and then go wherever we were on the club to afterwards on the list dude it was insane for the coach that's sick um you mentioned carrot top so when i was with the coyotes my first year i actually interviewed him and we never ended up airing it because he went off the rails and he was talking about how he would head inside the locker room and like in the shower and stuff and start like making fun of guys cocks and shit dude he he would like carrot top would wheel it we'd roll into like 24 hour fitness and he'd be there and he'd go and like he's shredded up top with some toothpick legs and he'd pump out the

upper body in like a half hour and then you go play basketball and like so our dudes would like go play basketball with carrot top and then yeah like here it comes in the shower afterwards so like it's it's all real like he's not making things up but it's it's almost like this surreal vegas moment where it's kind of like this is par for the course i we're just gonna roll with this unreal winner plays wayne newton's team tomorrow at 12. My close personal friend, Wayne Newton. Did you ever meet him when you were out there? He came up to me. His wife sees me without my mask on at this function a couple months ago,

and she's like, Wayne, it's Mike from the broadcast. Here comes Wayne Newton over to say hi to me. I'm like, what planet am I living on right now? So now we're text buddies, you know? That's absolutely hilarious. Now, I know there was some of the team dinners. What was it? Treasures or something?

What was the deal with the team meals? Yeah, our owner, Diesel, his name was Charles. This guy loved to blow it out, man. And he'd throw a rager at our team sponsor, which was a gentleman's, gentlemen's club named treasures. And they were like on the dashboard treasures. Right. And he'd blow like 10 K on these meals, which is guys in the coast was, you know, guys are ordering like well drinks, right. I'll give me a vodka soda. And then like, he's like, it's all on the tab. And all of a sudden, boom, patrol everybody. Right. It just, it flipped the script, but man, like we had this one team function there and we had a guy on the team who let's just it flipped the script but man like we had this one team function there and

we had a guy on the team who let's just say like the girlfriends really didn't want this to happen because it was a gentleman's club right and so finally the girls ended up coming to this team function okay they were allowed to it was an appearance and one teammate paid a dancer to sit on a guy's lap. And we knew that this guy and his girlfriend weren't going to be happy about it. I didn't, I had not, I wasn't even actually, this is, I was on a recall at the time, but his, his girlfriend goes crazy, crazy. And she comes up and get your effing hands off my effing boyfriend. You eff it.

Like take your pick of derogatory words, calls this dancer. And the dancer's just like not expecting. And they both get carried out of there. Like they, she, they went banana. They almost fought. They had to get kicked out. And after that, the wives, well, there weren't wives. All the girlfriends were never allowed at another team function.

The rest of the season, like an appearance, they could not come to appearances because of what went down at treasures. And one player just trying to play a joke on the other dude. And it turned into this almost brawl in the middle of this place. Oh my goodness. This is fucking nuts. Any other crazy shit going on when you're playing in Vegas? That's pretty much it, man.

Like we had one, like a midnight game once in a while and like yeah we came out so crushed in the stands we came out through a big slot machine that was like 777 and uh yeah we did have a midnight game they had an 18 and up game where they showed r-rated movies on the jumbotron so it was just unique man like it was a really cool place to play but those were the those were the wild ones really like we didn't have anything too crazy beyond those, but dude, it was a lot of fun, man. Especially when you're making that little money.

How did you get your first opportunity in the American league? Yeah. So I got, I got called. I had like a couple of call-ups on PTOs, right? I wasn't on contract with anybody. Like I was drafted by Nashville, but they didn't sign me. They signed some guy named Pekka Rene and it worked out okay for him. And so I went to this Coast deal and I got called up a couple of times. My first real crack was in Portland, Portland, Maine on my third year. And I had a big summer actually with St. Louis going to Traverse City and then training camp and played really well.

And Portland slash Anaheim just had a ton of injuries. And it was like, bang, we need a guy on American League one way. We need you in Vegas or we need you in Portland tomorrow. Well, myself, my girlfriend, we had two cars in Vegas. I was ready to be out there. I get this one way in Portland, Maine and never look back. My wife had to drive the cars. Girlfriend at the time had to drive the cars 48 hours across the country. Some of these people don't know what the wives and girlfriends have to go through when we're getting shipped around.

Crazy, man. And I didn't know if I was going to stick. I was on an American League one way. And this is 2007, eight. But I did. I stuck there and played a bunch of games for Kevin Dineen. And that's what kind of like I I never played in the coast again. After that, my career just kept progressing from there.

What was your first opportunity to get in the NHL and play? It was Tampa, right? Tampa Bay. My first game was against you, dude. Did we start? My first start was. What was the score? Ah, four, three in overtime. Gary Roberts went crazy and sucker punched Matt Cook. And that put us on a five minute kill and you you guys scored twice too bad so thanks Gary uh but uh we I got my first chance I had

never had an NHL contract and I'm playing in Norfolk and I was out playing Kari Rommel and Mike Smith gets hurt or sorry Olaf Kolze gets hurt and there's like two months left in the season they're like okay somebody's got to come back up Smitty Mike Smith is there so sorry, Olaf Kolze gets hurt. And there's like two months left in the season. They're like, okay, somebody has got to come back up Smitty. Mike Smith is there. So they wanted Kari to keep playing in the American league. They call me up, sign to a contract on February 2nd. And I get called up. I've never even played in a preseason game.

And then like two days later, I dress, I get thrown into the game midway through in Long Island. And I look up and Rick Taka, like in Long Island, you look up and rick talk like in long island you back up in the stands like just a total munson and i look up and here's rick talk at waving over the crowd like ramo allows three quick ones and he's waving over the crowd i'm like shit like i'm going in like i'm gonna play in the national like this is happening and so i went in i stopped all 11 and then the next night i started against you guys in the igloo wit and uh we were leading three nothing going into the third

against flower and then yeah just uh we got four in the third to win you got three in the third and then you got one in ot malcolm had at least two he had the ot winner and i can't remember who else had the other goals but like did we tie it up late in the game? Yep. It was maybe 40. Was it me? Was it me? Oh no. Cause it was, it was a, it was a net front play and I know there's no way on earth you were down there. No, I tied one up against Tampa late, but it was from the point. Yeah. It wasn't that one, but that was my first, that was my first NHL start. And then the next start I had at home in Tampa was a 1-0 shutout. And then it was just all downhill from there.

You must have been so fired. After the game, I can't even imagine. All of a sudden, you're in the NHL. You must have been so excited, so happy when you were up there doing that. Yeah. I was in the coast, you know, a year and a half before. And like, I remember taking my Jersey off though. And just being like, man, like I did it. Like, I was like, fuck, like I did it. I played the national. Like I, I couldn't believe it, man. And it was all just kind of surreal. And then it took me a little while to kind of get another opportunity there at all, but it was just amazing, man. Like I never envisioned that at all. And there were some really cool moments along the way, like my parents coming in and all that stuff. My dad was there to hug me coming off the ice for my first win, like just fantasy type shit, man. Um, so when you get to that level and obviously you're happy and you know, you, you would have never imagined that in your life when you go back down to the American league.

And once you settle back in, is it hard to keep that same motivation to get back? Did you ever go through periods where it was a little bit – what's the word I'm looking for? You were a little bit distraught. Is distraught the word, R.A.? Help me out here. Fuck. I mean, yeah, it could be.

I don't know. Were you feeling good about yourself? I don't know. There you go. Thank you. I never felt – no, I never felt bad about it at all because I was getting paid. There you go. Thank you. I never felt, no, I never felt bad about it all. Cause I was getting paid to play hockey first. And again, like I wasn't anybody's prospect and that was the big difference, right?

Like when you look at my career, I was never on somebody's depth chart as a guy that was going to take over. Like I needed to play 30 games in the NHL for a team fucking lights out for me to ever have a sniff of getting a one way and sticking with a team. That's just reality, man. And all the opportunities I got, you can look at it. I outplayed my goalie partner and that sounds selfish. You can look at the numbers and see it though. Right? So all these times where they needed somebody to be a warm body and go back up, that was me. And I earned those. But when it came to having an advocate and somebody in my corner and being an early draft

pick, it wasn't me. And I never made enough of a case for myself. In Tampa, I wasn't ready. I wasn't. I started off hot and I couldn't carry it. And then by the prime of my career, midway through, when I knew I could do it, like that year in Arizona, 2012, 13, or 2013, 14, 14, 15, whatever it was, if I got a chance with Arizona that year I knew like I can do this and it just kind of the moment I got the guarantee in my contract and got sent down the next day I knew that was it for me like I probably wasn't going to be an NHL regular but I still kept grinding and trying for it I see you have one NHL assist your first season with Tampa who whose goal did you assist on was it anything fancy or just like a routine dump or whatever you know what's I prided myself on being a really good puck handler and I think that that was just season with Tampa, who, who was our goal? Did you assist on, was it anything fancy or just like a routine dump or whatever? You know, it's, I prided myself on being a really good puck handler and I think that that was just a leave it.

And then they went to the other end and Marty St. Louis probably took it and danced around. That's a wit. So I didn't, I wish I had more cause I was, that was always like bread and butter in my game. I noticed you with number 56 quite a bit during your career. What was the significance of that? Was your dad's auto car auto car or something yeah my dad used 56 for his race car

so and then my grandpa wore it as his hockey number later in life so it was just kind of the family number um you mentioned your time in ottawa you got to have some melnick stories this guy is an absolute character but every time we talk to somebody they got to keep it pg is there any uh any juicy stories you can give us about this character man like the craziest one was like the change room in ottawa is across the way from kind of like the trainers tables and the showers and things like you know how we always have different change rooms where you get into your street clothes right you got a locker there and i'm standing there and i got like a towel on thankfully at that point and i'll just just never forget, like here he comes, like Melnick comes wheeling around the corner with like this entourage of people, like 10 people.

And like both genders, dude, like guys and girls. And like, he's walking by and like guys are literally walking out like fully exposed. And he's just walking in wearing like a 10 year old replica Jersey. It wasn't even like an authentic. And I'm just, I'm like'm like this is surreal this is a locker room i'm trying to go take a shower like my like my hammer's out like why are they in here and that

was just odd and then we had like this golf tournament where at the start of the year we had this you get like a swag bag right and our swag bag was senators branded cologne a senator's belt an oven mat like a ten dollar oven mat so you don't drip pizza cheese on the bottom of your oven and a bottle of like apple jim beam that was the swag bag and it was just weird dude like everything about that place that season was just weird everything they couldn't sell everything they couldn't sell in the pro shop they would put it in your guys gifting bags i think that's what happened you weren't there for when that whole uber situation happened were you i wasn't there when it happened in arizona but i got called up the next day so i was there for when the media circus the media

circus what what was like was there a meeting in the locker room about all this oh yeah like it all started off by like it started off about two touch time right like we were all starting to kind of get warmed up an hour before and there's only like four of us in there for two touch and boro comes in borio comes in and he's like guys something's going on something's weird and we're all looking around like he's like i don't even's going on. Something's weird. And we're all looking around. Like, he's like, I don't even know if we're going to play tonight, man. I can't even find the guys. Well, like the seven or eight, five, six, seven, eight guys or whatever, they're getting reamed out in the office about what happened.

And we don't even see them until like 20 minutes before we're supposed to go on for warmups. Like I thought I'm thinking I might dress as a D that night, you know? And like, here they come in the room and it was like, everybody's seen a ghost, right? Like from, from Dutchie to wides, like, and it was just whole. And we had it before the game. It was like, yeah, some stuff's going to come out afterwards. We're going to keep it in house for now. We're going to do this to this. And it just, it was an absolute fiasco, man. And we, what was the score that night? I guarantee we didn't win. We didn't win hardly anything when I was there, but afterwards it was just like, it was so tough because the players didn't get a chance to stand up and do anything.

We just kept punting and punting and we didn't put the players out in front of it and it lingered and it turned into a battle with the media. And it just, it could have been put to bed really quickly. And it wasn't, you know, and I, and I felt bad for the guys, especially like Wides really – Weidman really took the brunt of that, right, got traded, and felt like he didn't really deserve that. AHL Defenseman of the Year. Yeah, so hopefully for Wides he gets to come back

and go right back where he belongs. But that was weird, dude. That whole situation was wild. They traded you to, who was it? Oh, Vancouver. You didn't really get traded too much during your career, but what was the circumstances there with Ottawa? What did you say?

Nobody even let you know? You just kind of had to find out on your own? Yeah, I only got traded twice in my career. For as much as a suitcase I was, that's always surprising to people. All my transactions were really because I went up and down between the American league and the NHL team for the most part. Um, and I signed a lot of one-year contracts cause that's all that was offered to me. But, uh, yeah, I get, I take morning skate with Ottawa and then I'm eating lunch and all of a sudden my goalie coach comes in peer grew and he's like, Hey,

um, got some news. And so, okay. So I go in the offices and the assistant GM who I'd met like once, McTavish, and he got hired earlier in the year. He's like, yeah, Mike, I wanted to let you know that we've traded you to Vancouver, who by the way, we're playing that night. And I'm like, what?

He's like, yeah, we didn't know how you'd react. But you know, it's a business. And I was like, okay, I'm in my 14th year pro here. I understand it's a business, man. You don't have to tell me that I've been in pro game for 14 years. Like I get it. But I've been away from my family for two months that year. Like I signed this contract for thinking I'm going to be in Belleville and help the goalies out and get the call-ups if they were there, but they had been there two months. They hadn't told me to get housing or not. So it was like, I'm a dead man walking. I know I am.

I thought I'd get sent back to the American league. No. So I hadn't seen my family in two months. They show up in the hotel the day before I got traded and we were going to be in the hotel together and then bang. And I was like, man, I just remember looking at him. I'm like, this is not what we agreed to this summer at all. When you guys were chasing me in the period leading up to this man.

And it was a big deal. My daughter was in kindergarten. We're moving to Canada for the first time. Like, and so I get traded and, you know, honestly, the part that hurt was like, that was it from the team. Like none of the coaches say for my goalie coach like shook my hand or said good luck I mean I played like a dozen games for him like Pierre Dorian never called me never texted never came to shake my hand he was in the building I played against him that night like dressed nothing and it's just like is this how

we're going to do business like I mean you mean, you've, you've been traded before, you know what it's like, people call you. And so that, that left a really sour taste in my mouth, but thankfully like, you know, Vancouver was cool for two days. And then I got picked up off waivers by Philly. And Philly was awesome to me for the rest of that season when I ended up ending my career. But, but yeah, man, that whole, the whole Ottawa deal was just like, come on guys, like treat your

players right here is the way i felt at the time in that situation right and then because i knew i wasn't going to see my family again for who knows and it was another two months until i saw i i think that's kind of one of the criticisms at least in the past i think they're trying to right the ship and figure that all out but there's many guys who are are willing to come on at some point and tell a few stories where they didn't have good experiences in Ottawa. Now, you mentioned coaching. Looking back, who do you think was the most, not detrimental, what's the other word, guys, that I always thought about? Instrumental. Instrumental coach in your career in order to get you to where you needed to be?

I got three. So I got, as far as a coach in hockey, Glenn Gullitson was a coach of the Wranglers. He's now assistant coach in the NHL with Edmonton. He was ahead for a while for Dallas and then Calgary. Gulley was amazing, man. He gave me my chance in the coast, which jumpstarted my career. He was an advocate for me. He got me called up. Just, I owe the world to him. But for me, goalie coach was Mitch Korn. And had mitch with the nashville organization 2002 i'm drafted by him you go to the development camps for four years and then we just became really close i'd work as goalie camps in the summer like st louis cincinnati we travel around and you know for never being in his organization he's become a really dear like mentor to me

right somebody i could always count on and he sent me to a guy named Chris Economo, who's not well-known in NHL circles, but Econ was like the skating guy for goalies. And I went to this Econ skate and we didn't touch pucks for two weeks. And I learned how to move. I learned how to play. And I went to Econ for every year of my career,

every summer after that. Now one of my closest friends, we're in a fantasy hockey league together called the EKHL. But it's those three guys were just like, they were it for me, man. And then, you know, you can go further. Like Kevin Dineen gave me a chance in Portland and I'm thankful to him too. And a lot of other people, but really like Gullitson, Mitch Korn, Chris Economo are kind of like my Mount Rushmore coaches.

You got to play in Portland. And for people who don't know Portland, Maine, like some of the best restaurants in the country. and you ended up somehow getting paid to be a food critic yeah do you ever crush a uh lobster roll at eventide oyster one that's the best lobster roll i've ever had in my life in the world that brown butter on it and oh eventide is one of the best restaurants on earth dude so you got paid to do this though. I did. So it was a social media thing, right? They lost their food critic and I tweeted and I'm like, Hey, I'm here. Let's go.

And I love food. Like I also, I'll go to kitchens and stage and kitchens in the summertime, which means like you go in and work for free and I'll do it just to learn, dude. Like I, I just love it. I like learning about cooking and being good at it. And, and the editor of the paper was like, really? And I was like, yeah, I was like, man, I, I used to, I wrote, here's my writing examples. Like I wrote in college, here's my writing

examples for goaltending that I've done. And she's like, oh, wow, you actually, you can do this. I was like, yeah, I'm not kidding. And so they ended up taking me to this restaurant called Pacerino. I took my wife there and I had like, I had a budget. I could spend 150 bucks and I got paid like 200 bucks to write the article. And I was going to keep doing it the next year. And then the team ended up get sold and moved to Springfield, Mass, which was like a huge bummer.

But like, I was lined up to be like their interim food critic, which was like mega awesome. You could have been the critic of Mardi Gras in Springfield. What's Mardi Gras, the strip club that's got the awesome buffet? It's the equipment guy, Ralph Calvanese, he could tell you about it in Springfield. That place is seen a lot, man.

That's all everybody who played there would talk about. I think they would go there legit every night to eat. Some of those dudes had like a seat at the table. I never went in, never did. But some of them literally had like a bar stool with their name on it. Pervert, pervert row. You got the name plate. Oh, unbelievable.

Your buddies come and tap it like the Notre Dame play like a champion time. Yeah. I just want to go back to Ottawa real quick. You were there when the Eric Carlson trade went down too, weren't you? Yeah. What was the story behind that? It was just, it was another weird moment right we were at this like we had a golf tournament that day where we got those incredible swag bags um that I tell you what I still that's a that's a damn good oven man Carlson bitched about it that's why he got dealt but yeah like

Melnick was like fuck this guy doesn't like myologne. He, he shows up and like putts around the green and does one media interview and then just leaves. And it's like, everybody's in limbo. Like, is this guy getting traded? We all thought it was going to happen. And then it didn't. And he's gone. And then finally, like the next day it all goes down. But like, we were all looking around, just wondering like, what's the deal here? Because you were waiting on it, waiting on it. And we had this like weird first meeting where like dorian stepped up and gave us like a two-minute speech and ran away so it was almost like he's working on this deal like non-stop right and it finally happens with san jose and then you know and then things kind of got normal we get tyranny

in and de mello they show up and they get like integrated right away like dylan de mello is an awesome dude like fun to be around but the whole team was just like what's happening here is he getting traded or not and like the whole golf tournament was just weird because of it the whole season was back to portland again was that at the site of biz's rookie party as well biz is that true no it wasn't my rookie party i knew i was gonna get i knew i was gonna get shit about this go ahead i'll let you tell me he was selling more clothes at another party shut the fuck up trunk of his car so we decided we're gonna do a rookie party in boston which i've done a couple there it's not always great because you're not really a big fish and you can't really go where you want but we wanted to get outside of portland business like

yeah dude we've i've got this guy man we're all set we're gonna hook it up and we went to some asian restaurant and let our rookies in because dressed up. So that was like strike one. And we kind of had to like gear them out, get a gear them down and put them in like t-shirts to even get them in. And we sit down to this place and the like, listen, the food was good. Food was good to your crew. Food was good. It was good. But then we got hit with like an $800 service charge for some dude that we didn't know. And then we got nailed for like 450 bucks for water and like they asked us about water and and like do you want still or would you like bottled sparkling sparkling and business like sparkling

we don't drink tap water and we're like dude it's the american league yeah we do and so we got crushed for like 450 on water and like i remember like i wanted to get like a different wine and they would only serve like cab sav with asian food which if you know anything about pairings you might as well like blow your palate out and go down the street and so that was a mess and then we ended up at some like some weird club afterwards the club sucked i i set that up through a buddy and i was the name of the club hey you know what you know when you said the writing was on the wall when you ended up getting sent down or traded i think that legit my pto is over when i booked that club for us just seeing the disappointment but here's the kicker so we end up going back um afterward because i think the boys were fed up

with the club so they had a little party up in the room and it was funny because when we were there last fighter fighterberg said i don't know if it's a boston thing but he got busted bringing up booze into the room where they said no booze in the room so i brought some up and then the security guy came up i ended up taking the fall and they said i had to i had to leave the hotel i got basically kicked out of the hotel so the guy watches me pack my stuff well luckily one of the girls that i'd met that night, we were still kind of texting back and forth. She said, I'm at this party.

Why don't you come join me? Perfect. So I show up to this party with my Tumi luggage. Well, I wheel in. There was a couple of guys from the party, a couple of guys from the team at that party, but didn't know the girl that had invited me. So I wheel in with my Tumi stuff.

And there's two guys from the team. They're like, Biz, what the fuck are you doing? Yeah. So it all worked out where i ended up getting to play a road game that night but uh yeah that was a tough setup for biz and i think i think i really lost the room on that one yeah i don't think enough guys got laid to be happy we all look back at it though it was just funny man like it wasn't as good as the Thanksgiving. I remember Thanksgiving at my place on the water. We ended up eating bacon at midnight and then you slept on my couch with my kids around. It was, it was very good. They really enjoyed uncle biz. Well, Mike, thanks so much for joining us, man. It's great to catch up and good luck with everything.

It's great that Vegas is winning and you're getting your chance on TV. There's hopefully they're in the finals when we're out there and we can see again. We need to, man. You guys got to do a're in the finals when we're out there and we can see again. We need to, man, you guys got to do a live show out here when they get there. It'd be awesome. If they make it to the finals,

we're coming out for sure. We might, I might be there a little bit longer than a week. I know. What do you got four days? Probably go four nights max there. Yeah, that's a long,

but Hey buddy, thanks again for coming on. And, and maybe we can meet up at one of these live streams. That'd be awesome. I'll wear my macho man outfit. See you, buddy. thanks again for coming on. And maybe we can meet up at one of these live streams. That'd be awesome. I'll wear my Macho Man outfit. See you, buddy. Absolutely.

Thanks, everybody. Appreciate it. Thanks, Mike. Huge thanks to Mike McKenna for joining us on the podcast. Great chat. When we got to have him back again, he's got so many stories. And like Biz said, the way he breaks down, the way the goaltending position has changed over the years,

it's interesting, man, because it used to be such a simple thing. Guys still didn't try to stop pucks, and now there's kind of a science to it. So thanks again to Mike for joining us. And I want to let you guys know, particularly you guys, that Sport Clips stylists are experts in men and boys' haircuts with specialized training and techniques. Cutting guys' hair can be harder than cutting a woman's hair. So when you go to Sport Clips versus a place that cuts women's hair,

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from start to finish. All right, boys, we were just talking a second ago. You said something about tying people shoelaces, which is a gross thing because shoelaces touch the dirty floor and stuff. Dude, when I was flying down to JFK the other day, I had to take a leak in the airport, and the dude had

his cell phone at the urinal, and he dropped it. It was like one of those kind of sponge things where your feet go over, and it kind of bounced over to the next urinal where another guy was taking a leak and he's like hey buddy can you pick that up for me when you're done so the guy stepped back and the dude in the urinal like actually i would have been like buddy i'm done help yourself i ain't like this guy actually leaned over into like the fucking urinal like not the urinal itself the floor and picked up now i don't think he got his

hands in anything and he handed it to the kid but i'm like dude like you just dropped it in a fucking pissy spot and asked a total stranger to pick it up and then he got he got jammed up he got asked that and he probably maybe he didn't even know what hit the sponge gutless move on the guy who asked asked him to grab it instead of waiting until he was just done with the area oh the guy should have been like yeah buddy you know what like it's right there with your phone like i would like i don't know why he fucking i mean it wasn't even like a nice thing to do. The guy just sat away from the stop pissing and stepped away, but it was one of those, I forgot to tweet about it.

I was flabbergasted that this person actually did that. He jammed the guy up. His natural reaction was just grab the phone, right? Even asking that guy to pick up that phone is one of the biggest slaps in the face I've ever heard of. Can you pick that up for me? I was like, dude, you just dropped your phone and pissed, and that's the total stranger to pick up that phone is one of the biggest slaps in the face I've ever heard of. Can you pick that up for me? I was like, dude, you just dropped your phone in a piss and asked a total stranger to pick it up.

To even have it go through your mind that he would pick that up for you is crazy to me. You drop your phone in the piss-filled area of an airport, maybe the most disgusting smell of an airport bathroom. I'm not even talking about the smell of shit. I'm talking about just the smell of whatever whatever cleaner they use it's so gross and to think that your phone is dropped into that floor and that another guy might pick it up that isn't in a hazmat suit you're crazy i mean if even if your best friend for your whole life asks you be like fuck you bro like that's that's gross you

drop the fucking thing put your phone away when you're pissing dude this is such a nice guy he would have just hopped out of the stall. I got it for you. Let's get a beer. Let's get a beer. Hey, might I make a call on it right up to my mouth? What team do you root for?

I don't know. What day is it? Yeah, that's, I think that maybe the guy just jammed him up and the other guy was like, put him on the spot and crossed his fucking streams big time. I, I,

that sounds like a Larry David skitry david got jammed up and yeah he's so mad about it where he felt the need to get him back yeah absolutely it's very similar along those lines definitely larry david situation but all right anyways moving right along a couple of final notes on teams that have done uh boston bruins a little more so they're requiem here in fact tucker asked did have a torn hip labrum which makes the fact that the team started him and it's with the season line all the more baffling instead of like going with the young healthy kid who clearly fucking had a knack for the job um Tukar is going to be UFA this summer he said he only wants to play for Boston he's going to need surgery which again good job fucking bees management like not overruling the fucking guy

wants to play uh sorry venting a little bit uh surgery means he's going to be out till january or february uh jeremy lazon um who i gave a little grief off for his series he was playing with the splint so egg on my face but i guess he fucked it up in the first round and how about this brad marshall got a ticket a parking ticket on his car in the north then guy makes has made 50 million already he's got another 30 minute i'm coming and a fan left him a note saying, oh, I'll pay you a ticket for you. I mean, there was only two $5 bills in there. I don't know what we couldn't see. But really, dude, this guy has $80 million.

I love Mashi, but I ain't paying this fucking ticket. And you don't get a ticket for nothing. You get a ticket because you parked illegally. I would have paid it if I saw a playoff run like that. I'm very shocked you're taking this route. What do you care if he fucking pays it? I mean, I don't really care, but I'm like, it's crazy to pay a guy's ticket when he, yeah,

violated whatever, it was very resident pocket or whatever. Okay, R.A., maybe Marshawn had 14 goals in the three games that guy bet on the Bruins that season, and he won them thousands of dollars. And he's like, hey, I'm going to pay your ticket. He should have said that in his Instagram when he was making sure everybody knew. Oh, R.A.'s telling the guy what he's going hey i'm gonna pay your ticket he should have said that in his instagram when he was making sure everybody or maybe he's telling the guy what he's gonna write his instagram now or he's like the guy from semi-pro where he'd let one of the boys crush his old lady like i mean

this that's obviously a there's levels to fandom there's a scale and yeah this one does land on on an odd one but that's a great point with i uh i also think that this is just a wicked loyal fan showing respect to a guy he probably thinks took a hometown discount. That's why I think there's part of the element to being like, I'm playing for less than I'm worth, and I'm playing my dick off, and that's why these fans love these guys so much. That's why I think so. They're all blue-collar people. I was drunk my dick off. And that's why these fans love these guys so much. That's why I think so. They're all blue-collar people.

I was drunk for a week. I was surprised to see that was your side of that, R.A. I thought you were going to be proud of a fan taking care of a boy that's grown into a man in the same city that you grew up in. Probably God knows how much money more than the guy. And look, I'm not giving Marshawn shit for earning his dough, but it's like he parked illegally. They don't give you tickets for doing nothing.

I mean, if it was a hydrant, I'd be like, fuck you, run the hose through his fucking, through his two front windows. But I don't know, you get a ticket. What do you think is more ridiculous, whether somebody did pay the ticket or a guy let one of the local sports stars crush his old lady? What's worse? I mean, mean well paying a

ticket probably because like the guy i mean i was not like a fucking nerd but he broke the you know not broke the law but yeah you got a ticket and you you get a violation like paying that all right let me ask you something who's worse in your mind the guy who paid the ticket who loves brad marchand or the dude who had somebody pick up his piss-soaked phone? Oh, the piss-soaked phone, dude. That guy had no fucking... Okay. That guy had... If you went after a ticket-paying guy more than that guy...

Yeah, no, no, no. Piss-phone guy. I don't know what the fuck he was thinking. R.A. was the guy to pay the ticket. Plus, dude, what ticket is $10, dude? Like, put fucking 220s and a 10 down. Like, all you can see is $10. dude? Put fucking 220s and a 10 down. All you can see is $10. Speaking of tickets, you should have seen the ones that

Biebs and Matthews had at the UFC fight. By the way, I don't know if I thanked the people from UFC yet. David Shaw was one of them. I'm going to get the other couple names of the people I got to thank for getting me the tickets. I was up a few rows, obviously. I wasn't with Biebs and Matthews on the court side. And then four rows back still on court side were the Coyotes guys.

So it went from mega stars to stars to up in the 20th row. But I tell you what. Go ahead. Go ahead. I apologize. Oh, no. What do you mean? I'm walking in.

Matthews is next to Bieber. I think Freddie Anderson is behind him, no. What do you mean? I'm walking in like Bieber's Matthews next to Bieber. I think Freddie Anderson's behind him and the camera just totally pans to Biebs. It's like, Hey, pigeon hockey. So let's get compared to him. It's we got to give Freddie Anderson the clout here more so than the other two. He looked good.

He looked great. He looked like he was ready to go. ESPN's account said, Oh, Justin Bieber shows up for the fights and completely ignored the fact Austin Matthews is next to him, so they better clean that shit up. They better clean that shit up before they pick up. The new rights holders? Yes. Come on, ESPN.

People are photoshopping shit in my stream. Yeah, they knew who Biebs was. They didn't know who Austin was, so better clean that shit up before the season starts. I love how cool clothes now are like leisure suits. You can dress so comfy and look sick if you're these young bucks. I've been on the jogging pants for years.

I wear jogging pants as much. They got all the fancy colors on. They kind of ripped off the guy from Forrest Gump who created the smiley face. All of a sudden, the smiley face is cool again. What's going on here, Grinelli? Tell me what's going on here some people hate all right people hate forrest gump right there's lunatics out there

no i think there's a small minority who do i mean what a movie forrest gump is is i wouldn't say universally admired but it's definitely admired by a lot of people i think i don't know that it's like aged into like this thing where like you have to see it i think it was of the time these special effects or something, but there's no real fucking message to Forrest Gump. There's no like overarching thing. Just to feel good though. Yeah.

Epitome of a popcorn movie. I'm not knocking it, but I mean, maybe for the more like critical cinephile types, like Forrest Gump is a popcorn movie, but there is a timeless quality tool. But at the same time, you know, I don't think there's any like true bold statements. If you put Forrest Gump, if he leans his head and the kid leans his head at the end like subtle detail hey i'll tell you what if i put forrest gump on a cross-country flight i've cried 20 times i'll tell you that

cry my dick off in my living room let alone 30 000 feet in the air i'd be people would be like calling the stewardesses like i'd be crying the motherfucking thing had no business beating pulp fiction of a best picture i'll tell you that though no business whatsoever um yeah i mean if it didn't have cocaine in it it ain't cool enough for me um that was heroin she snorted biz get you fact you'll know where the extra 200 went oh geez the edgy level just kicked her up a gear geez tarantino tone her down wasn't jen Jenny snorting some bad shit in Forrest Gump? Oh, I thought he was talking about Pulp Fiction. Yeah, weed.

Yeah, Jenny was snorting cocaine in Pulp Fiction in addition to injecting heroin. And dude, I want to say, let's get into Jenny Gump for a second. I think she's one of the most maligned characters in film history. I don't know if it's just straight up because she's a woman and guys hate her or whatever, but she's like, oh, she sucked in film history. I don't know if it's just straight up because she's a woman and guys hate her or whatever, but she's like, oh, she sucked in that movie. It's like, dude, she was a victim of fucking

child sexual abuse who was a fucked up person because of what happened when she was a kid. That's why she became a drug act and fell into all these unsavory characters. That was the whole point of her character. It was like, man, when kids get fucking traumatized like this, they don't have normal adult. So when people shit on Jenny Gump, it's like, like man you missed the point of the movie like she had such trauma

that's a great call all right and they have the scene where she's throwing stuff at the at the trailer she grew up and being demolished with the funniest part about all this is he said that movie didn't teach us any life lessons and he is just rifling them off right now. Yeah, I know. You are right. Yeah, you're like, there was nothing of significance, dude. It was like, this is significant. I love this. I love, I mean, all the time. I'll just shut up now.

The guy's sitting on the bus stop the whole time. He's at his stop. It was the perfect way to, like, dude, you're here. You're already, you could have been with with little forest for the last what did they name him r.a trivia question what was forced for his name's forest she says to him right kid was forced junior i just got it right yeah because that's um what's his face hailey joe osmond from the sixth sense by the way if we're talking about oscar ripoff and sorry the last thing before the head nod is he he can't even ask, like, is he like dumb? Is he mine? Is he OK when she says no? He's like not, you know, he's not like you, whatever, you know?

Yeah. And he's so happy. It's just what a movie. And the other thing, too, is like, oh, she dick tease Forrest Gump. It's like, no, no, no. She's had a he visited her college and it's on her fault. He nutted in his shorts before they got to the deed. Like, that's what the scene happened. She was going to bang him in college. And, like, you know, he needed Roman swipes, unfortunately. He didn't have one on him. Yeah, it would have been like, round two only gets better. And Biz also.

Now it won't wake up. And that's where the drugs come in. Just got to give me about 45 years. Let me take a quick nap. Oh, she would wake up. She's gone. But Forrest Gump Jr., he got fucked when he was in The Sixth Sense. He should have won Best Supporting Actor.

He lost to Michael Caine for The Side of House Rules, which is the most boring-ass movie ever. That kid was phenomenal in that movie. He should have got five Oscars that year, but Michael Caine was Michael Caine, so they gave it to him. Did he ever turn into a – Now, this could be so dumb. Did he do a lot as an adult?

He's an adult now. Is he still in stuff? He's been in a few movies. What show was he on recently? I think he might have popped up on Entourage in one of the last few seasons of Entourage. He kind of got a little heavier, right? Yeah. He played a – I remember now.

He's in Entourage. Yeah. Kind of like you could tell it didn't really end up going for him into his adult life like he had it as as a youngster that's lightning in a bottle stuff man like i mean he was the right age the right level it's hard for him you imagine that's got to be really hard on a guy who's have all the success at 10 to 14 years old and then all of a sudden like you don't have the luck to do it and it's not really any fault of his own you you could get really fucked up as a child star yeah oh that's yeah that's the because think about it there's no there's really no you're not normal it's like you got to continue to be a bigger star right from the age of of like five to ten well you don't experience like you don't experience

being younger and like kids just calling each other out and just living a normal life that any kid would live you just never everyone's just telling you the greatest from the time you can remember it's like yeah you need to get slapped around a little bit boom i mean six cents that was one of the all-time fucking i got the shit kicked out of me on the basketball court one time kid stole the basketball from me i went to get it back he put the basketball down and just slammed me to the ground i still have a scar on on my back. Some say I didn't deserve it. I got in a couple street fights early on. One of the first girls I was seeing, her ex went to the school over, ended up brawling his buddy on her front lawn.

He got me good. He popped me right in the nose. He didn't break it. Were you ever a part of – I was talking to my buddies the other day. I never was a part of one of these. Because as you guys know, I hate fighting. Where like at school, at noon, it's like, hey, after school, 3 o'clock, and then everyone's going to go there.

Did you ever have one of those? There was. Where all day you knew it was coming? I think so. That fight I ended up having on the front lawn, I thought it was going to happen between me and the guy. He ended up sending in the pit bull, the tougher buddy. Oh, that's unfair.

But, yeah, no, he got me good. I mean, that's one of the few. I mean, one time I was in – what was the area called in St. Catharines? But I think this guy was a cop, and, like, he was being a hard-o. Like, you know, when I'm out drinking, and he was being a hard-o. When I'm out drinking, I'm just having a good time. I'm not looking for scraps. What are you, 18?

No, I was playing pro at the time. Oh, okay. But I'll tell you what. In my head, I was there with my buddies. So this guy was just looking for one, and I was like, well, hey, I'm walking out. But if you want one, we can do it outside. So he came out. When you say looking for one, coming up to you chirping or just being a prick to everyone at the bar. Yeah. He was just kind of, yeah, it was just wanting to tilt. Yeah. So I kind of wanted to be the one to be like, yeah,

I think he, I think he needs an ass kicking. So let's go outside and do it. And I ha I had him in great position. I'd gotten with him a couple, then he was on the ground. And the next thing, all I remember is my buddy was holding me and he and and and but my butt i yeah i don't know if i so that's the thing so i was like i was like i remember where i had him and and where i was and and and then he said he goes his buddy came in and got you so my buddy was yeah what'd your buddy do dude it was like it was like boom on the ground and and i'll tell you what my buddy my buddy squirrel uh matt swica he's not a big guy i fed him once he's he's not he loves clam chowder and then yeah yeah he uh no he um you know he was holding me up i think he was more concerned about my health

because he was worried that because i because like i said like there was a period of time where i wasn't home so yeah so i went i went home and well that's why we're talking about them but the nothing's nothing dumber than a bar fight like yeah that's that's just like nowadays i mean forever you see the right punch hits his head dead or it's just so that's what i'm saying yeah i had i had a bit of a you know i was a bit of a squirrely one i guess i was just kind of always like you know that kid if like i was kind of challenged, I was like, fuck, I'll go. You were game on, you know? And then I was flight.

You were fight. But, but, but the thing is, we talk about the Wilkes-Barre incident all the time. When I ended up getting sent down to the coast, it almost ruined my career. Cause I remember when I was in Wilkes-Barre, I got out of the truck. Cause the guy threw a piece of pizza at my car.

Yeah. Like who cares? I got up. Who cares? Let it go. Let it go. Let it go. And up until that point in my life, I couldn't do it. So I guess we're going through morals of life here. Because of Forrest frigging Gump. Well, hey, you know what? Like they say in the movie, life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get. Well, you know what else you don't know what you're gonna get an ad unrestricted free agency carolina has given ufa

dougie in your face wit not an ad bitch that was stunking that was teeing up for such an ad read and i was like people are gonna puke but i love ufa because uh i got paid a little bit because i was gonna be one in a few years let's talk about it. Yeah, Dougie Hamilton, he was given permission by Carolina to talk to other teams. Of course, he's going to be UFA when the season ends. I know it's typically July 1st. It's been recalibrated for the crazy season. Elliot Friedman said that

opens the potential for a sign-in trade, which I don't know why an NHL team would do that considering UFA opens up, but he also mentioned that allows for Dougie Hamilton to see what other, what kind of offer Carolina makes. So it's just kind of an unusual thing where in a guy's going to be UFA for a team to say, Hey, go see, we can find out there, but it happened.

What do you think on a, what is it a big deal? Is it just kind of, it's not standard operating procedure, is it? It's not at all. It's not at all. And Elliot was writing. It's interesting to see it go down because now he's going to be able to, you know, does Caroline. Yeah. He can just totally just totally and good for him this is what you do you take advantage of a situation that you're put in uh biz i got a question for you do you think i kind of think it's a i kind of think it's an intelligent thing now i guess you say advantage to dougie hamilton correct i think i think that this is a genius move by Carolina

to now set the market and know what it's going to be where maybe they have the opportunity to match, correct? It's like, hey, go find out what the team's going to give you. Go find a bigger dick. That's what I'm saying. Maybe they're also saying, yeah, we're not necessarily that confident in the market and maybe teams that would even be willing to pay him and you know and can they even afford to do so i mean he's from toronto so toronto's cut came up i don't think they have cap space to just to bring

him in i don't know what he wants but because he's did you think he wants to go to toronto i mean he kind of begged not even saying that he does not even saying that he does right but I'm saying is like I wonder given with the COVID situation on the flat cap what is a d-man like him command now people people from Carolina are saying uh let him walk let him walk uh uh Slavin was was carrying him when they were paired up well I guess I've also seen online that that's not actually the case is his his advanced stats say that he actually was better but i'm saying is like listen this is the top free agent defenseman on the market right now correct i don't think anybody else is a close

second yeah ufas yeah i don't know who you put above him right now so but also what are you giving dougie hamilton and what is how old is he right now 27 okay yeah i mean how about this i guess you're saying he's probably looking at a petro deal then i would say that's a pretty fair number yeah because and and the the shop yourself out it allows him to sign and trade for the eight-year deal to get the extra year on it right and so petro petro got the eight years, correct? Or did he only get seven because he was UFA? Yeah, he finished with St. Louis, so he was only able to get seven.

And he could have had six. Oh, I fucking know. Can we look that up right now, please, G, Petro's contract? I'm glad you mentioned the extra year, so that's why the sign and trade's a fact. So my question was going to be, and that's before you said some Hurricanes fans, you're reading it, let him go,

but do you think it's more important for the Carolina to keep him or Bryndamore as the coach? If you had to, if you had to lose one, it's just total. I don't think it's a random question. Yes. Yes.

I'm just like, they like, let's say like they didn't have the money to sign either. I know I would say 100% you keep Brynden Moore. What's going to be difficult is it's, I mean, that's obviously a hard player to match. But then the way you have to look at it is like, can we go out and get two players at a $4 million number that could replace to our lineup of what he were to bring? Now, where you also have the advantage is you are able to sign up for that one extra year if, let's say, he finds out what that number is

that another team's willing to give him and come back and maybe take that extra year and drop down the AVV a little bit if he's happy in Carolina. The only concern, especially nowadays is is how how on average these big deals end up turning out on the wrong foot right it is is he's 27 i still think that's a good age to to lock a guy up even if you had to do so for eight years whereas yeah you also are concerned in years you know five six seven eight about what you're paying him as to as opposed to what he's bringing but i don't know by the way like he's pesci pesci looks nice like if he gets some more power play

time thinking of righties on the team and you could make an argument that they they with what they could spend on a couple other guys to get more deep and also having pesci maybe run the power play now who knows if that's a possibility and if he'd be as remotely good as Hamilton, but at least there's options here where I think that Caroline is comfortable and let's at least go out and allow him to see what he can get. And we'll know right away if we're in or out based on that number. And I think the one other thing that we haven't mentioned was the fact that they would probably get at least a draft picked out of it, right?

If they could work that out beforehand. Well'll get they'll get some because they're gonna want to he wants he wants them to get him over there because he gets that extra eighth year and they're gonna want something in return right so so it's it's kind of like a a very amicable thing that that's happening funny sorry is the team where hamilton's signing they really don't care because all they're actually saving a year do you know what i mean like if he wanted to go to a team that bad they're hoping that he just they don't they don't trade him right and then he just chooses your first day of ufa and you only have to give him seven years do you know what i'm saying now they will make a deal to make him happy but if you asked him deep down they'd rather give

him seven years yeah it's interesting because it's a great point it's a scenario we don't usually see in these type of situations man like the team saying hey go go get what you can and whatever check back or don't i also think this is uh carolina understanding this is a very very valuable piece on the market and probably the i would say even if you add the forwards and he might be the biggest name free agent this offseason and a reason why we're talking about it gabriel and the skyland is called oh land of scog lang and a scog okay yeah okay my bad my bad all right moving right along we get some coaching news as well the jack adams nominees were announced uh speaking of hot rod brenda moore he's one of them uh minnesota's dean evison is the other and florida's

joe quendle is the third personally i think this is dean evison's to lose uh quendle's a great coach i don't know florida a pretty good roster brindamore has done it for a couple years i don't think anybody expected minnesota to make the leap that they did this year um they're a pretty significant team in the chatter about the nhl all year so if i had a vote it's going to dean evison i can't argue with that. I mean, whenever these awards come up, oh no, not all the awards, but Jack Adams, it seems like you can make a case for anyone.

I mean, I don't, I think that Quenville did turn Florida around, but like you said, that roster's nice. They spent a lot of money. Brindamore, if you gave it to Brindamore or Everson, I think either one of those guys, 50-50. Yeah, that's exactly what I would say. And R.A., to go back to what you said about Landisgaard,

would the argument be one and who gets the bigger contract next as far as bigger free agent? That's a good question, man. I'm going to say Hamilton will get more money. I think Hamilton's bigger, Biz. I'm with to say Hamilton will get more money. I think Hamilton's bigger, Biz. I'm with you. Don't talk about it. I got Grinelli. I got the

whole Drew crew. All the cool kids are on my side, R.A. I like not even being involved in this argument. Larry Brooks, this just came over the wire just as we started to record. The Rangers have reached an agreement with Gerard Gallant to be the next head coach for the New York Rangers. Nothing official yet, but, Brooks, he's pretty wired in.

I'm sure that'll go down. I guess I'm a little mildly surprised by this, guys. I mean, Chris Drury's calling the shots, presumably for who the new coach is going to be. I'm assuming done in his homework. He's well regarded around the league and with many folks, so his decision, it's probably not a bad one, given that it's Drury. But I guess I'm just surprised that he went with Gerard Gallant for some reason.

I think if you're looking for a type of guy who's a player's coach and is going to be light to play for, I don't think Gallant's the guy who's ever going to bark and scream, not even in the media. He's going to figure out who's playing well enough to give that ice time and that role. I think that that's probably his biggest strength is being essentially a good motivator wit.

I don't think he's a massive X's and O's guy. I don't think he's giving a massive amount of time and thought into the game plan. I think he's just, he's, he's good on the bench at reading maybe who needs to go out next. Yeah. I wouldn't really argue with that. I think guys do love playing for him, but when you say you're surprised, I mean, the way he got let go in Florida, everyone was shocked. Shout out to the yellow cab they got him that was bullshit

and then vegas i think at the time we talked about like deborah was deborah's you know has a reputation as one of the top coaches in the game and he was available and we thought maybe vegas said like we're not playing the way we should we think we can deborah's available let's make this jump now but he's one of jack Jack Adams you know he won a Memorial Cup this guy's a good coach and now you get into a team in New York that is already kind of ahead where people thought they would be in terms of their rebuild and how everything's been revamped and I don't know I I kind of I kind of like to hire because it's it's a little different where I think I think David Quinn was probably harder on guys than Gallant will be.

Now, I don't know how it's going to go down in terms of you got to get guys to play a certain way. And I think there was maybe times, right. Where like Zabena Jad maybe isn't willing to go on the D side of the park and kind of wants to play a different way. And Gallant's going to have to get them to play a certain way, but he does it with these teams. He gets these guys, they play four lines and they end up being a team that's pretty hard to play against.

So I like the hire. I think it'll be good. The question is what they're going to do with Zibanejad there because he's RFA. And he's had one year where he was a superstar. I mean, this year he was 26th in the league and scoring right he's gonna want a ton of money like yeah i don't think any rangers fit what go ahead i was gonna say i'd be weary of what they're gonna give him given yeah and not to criticize uh his play but it was done

in the junk time when they knew they weren't gonna make playoffs right is that remember when he went on that massive right no the whole year prior of the pandemic he lit it up and i think they were like in the playoffs when the pandemic right and then to start this year he was not good and then when they were kind of out of it is where you saw a lot and remember i think in like a three or four game span he ended up having like 20 points so so you can't get lost in in the overall numbers you have to remember what he did throughout the full span of time now but it could also be argued the other way it's like yeah it's a pandemic year and you know his sample size as far as what his numbers are through his career he's gonna want a lot of dough he's gonna want a lot of dough they gotta figure it out because then they have

lefrenier coming up and who knows what he turns into and they got all these younger guys can kako demand to be paid a lot of money soon? I don't think so. I'll tell you what, the reason I like the Gallant hire is because I think it's going to maybe ease off and allow maybe some of these younger guys who have not found their way, find their way. And Gallant just seems like the type of guy

he's just like, go out there and play. And that's what he had with the outcasts in Vegas, a bunch of guys who had some game who maybe had been stripped from them because they hadn't been put in those situations and hadn't been given the ice time. And also, when you're making a mistake, he's not the type of guy who's losing his fucking mind and sitting you. And, you know, I think it's a great hire where these younger guys

and these skilled players would flourish. Yeah, and to be clear, I think it's a great hire where these younger guys and these skilled players would flourish. Yeah, and to be clear, I'm not opposed to the hire. I was just surprised it happened. Maybe because Drury's a younger guy. He's a younger GM. I was maybe assuming he would go with somebody fresher or somebody who hadn't been in the league before. Again, that was just an assumption.

But, yeah, Gallant's track record speaks for itself. I'm not opposed to the hire. I think if Glenn Sater was still in charge, this is the movie he would have made. So when Drury made it, I was, I thought it would have been a guy who maybe didn't have a head coaching job before just more for the youth factor. So, well, I mean, you got to look at other candidates to Rick talk. And I heard interviewed twice for them. He's another big name, uh,

head coach. And then did someone else just get hired as a head coach? But bingo, nice segue Columbus named Brad Larson, the next head coach. He was the assistant for the last seven seasons towards and Todd Richards. He coached AHL Springfield the two years before that. So the guy certainly paid his dues within the organization. He'll be the eighth coach in Columbus

Blue Jacket history. Talk at Anglant also interviewed for that job as well. But the organization decided to keep it in house with the guys familiar with the system, familiar with the players in the program. And they named Brad Larson the coach. Yeah, good luck to him. I was going to ask, are there any more availabilities as far as head coaching jobs right now?

The Arizona? Well, right, Arizona. But I'm talking more for Rick Talkett because I think that – Buffalo. Is Buffalo still – okay, so it's still vacant. So I would say that Talk's probably the biggest name free agent head coach available still. All right.

Yeah. Quickly, back to the Drury thing where he hired a guy who never coached in the NHL. I think it's tough first time as GM to go with somebody who hasn't been in the league. I think that would take in New York City. And I think it was between him and Talk. Hey, so when does Seattle's got to hire a coach? No. Yeah, you're right. In New York City. And I think it was between him and Talkett. Hey, so when does Seattle's got to hire a coach? No, like I think they're waiting for the Brindamore situation to play out.

Yeah. And also this just came over. G just sent this from Joe McDonald, who's covered the Bruins here and hockey in the extensive New England area for a while here in the Buffalo. Sabres would like to interview Jack Capuano for head coaching position, but the senators are not allowing him the opportunity so oh that's tough if you're Jack Capuano that's kicking the dick yeah he's a guy who hasn't I don't think he's been a head coach since the his island his day so funny here's a hard when he was head coach here's a hot take for me I think that if if which I would imagine happens Brendan Moore stays in Carolina that

talk it might get hired in Seattle. I think he's going to get hired because there's also a connection there. I think Francis was on the team, and we might have talked about this before when they won their cups in Pittsburgh. So there's a connection there as well. And I just said I think he's the biggest name now

as far as availability because Gallant's gone. Also, Providence coach Jay Leach interviews for the arizona job as well bill armstrong had coached him back when they were in trenton in the east coast league together back in the day and when leach played at providence college armstrong was the coach of providence so they got a history together as well um you also said van ryan right in in arizona i did not but i think he's another guy that's getting interviewed there's also a connection there between uh st louis when they were there together. So that's just the other

name I've heard popped up. So coyotes might have their next head coach soon. All right. Well, boys, one thing I do not miss when I work for Boston is job hunting. It can be miserable and stressful, bad experience a lot of times. And zip recruiter knows that zip recruiter wants to help make things easier for all the job seekers out there, which is why they're teaming up with Barstool right now to help us find the newest upcoming interns to join the pirate ship this summer. By going to ZipRecruiter.com, you can see all the upcoming opportunities open for this summer. ZipRecruiter attracts the best candidates for us as employers,

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A couple of the hockey notes here. Steven Johns was a defenseman for the Dallas stars. He's going out on a roller hockey adventure. I'm going to read his Instagram right here. So obviously you can't play the audio. He said, someone asked me the other day what I like to do for fun. And I didn't give him an answer because I don't have one.

I'm writing this post because I'm tired of letting depression destroy my life. The realization that my career has come to an end has fucked with my identity. I'm sorry, has really fucked with my identity. What I'll miss most about the game of hockey is providing inspiration. So I've decided to roll blade and road trip across the country to hopefully help others facing their own battles. I'll be documenting along the way to share my full story because I know what it feels like to be alone. For me, I watched, I watched one video and it changed my life and made me want to do this crazy thing. If I can still inspire one person to climb out of their hole, then that's a successful trip and exactly what I'm aiming for peace and love.

I mean, it's quite an adventure to take on visit this stage. I mean, the kid just stopped playing hockey recently and obviously he's had some, you know, difficulties that he's, he's bringing out to the forefront here. So, I mean, hats off to Steven Johnson doing this, man. It's not. And yeah. And, and, and opening up and, and, and yeah, letting, letting himself be vulnerable there. It's awesome. So any support that we can throw his way, what's his Instagram. Does he, do you have his name there? It's I know it's.

Yep. S underscore John's 28. So S underscore J O H N S because people can't spell anymore with the number 28 S underscore J O H N S two eight. So if you want to chime in or donate or do whatever you can to help by all means, check them out on Instagram. And guys, it's, I mean, you're, you know, you're coming out of a situation where you played hockey your whole life and and now you you know you're you're into the real world and you know it's it's difficult I mean I'm sure wit you had

your certain struggles I had my struggles I talked about it on the the ring shrink actually I went on their podcast and uh you know really awesome that he opened up and that he's doing all this. So any, any type of support that our fans can send him do so now. Speaking of street hockey and roller hockey guys, we are next week. We're going to open up registration for the street hockey tournament in Detroit, which will take place August 6th and August 7th. I'll post a link on all of our social medias where you can do it, how you can do it. But are we doing, are we doing like tears in terms of like skill level?

Yeah, there's there's different divisions. There's an A level, B level, C level and D level, just like the pond hockey. There's a coed, there's street hockey, there's roller hockey. We're bringing out breaking out all this. This is going to be a time in Detroit. It's going to be unreal. The setup is so fucking cool. There's bars already getting involved. There's going to be pink, in detroit it's going to be unreal the setup is so fucking cool there's bars

already getting involved there's going to be pink tons of pink whitney involved we have some nhl players who are actually already reserved a team to play so it's going to it's going to be a blast so definitely get your get your boys together and get a video going we should get john's uh maybe to get him a team and and maybe you know raise a little bit of money for whatever charity he's raising money for that'd be awesome he's obviously part of money for whatever charity he's raising money for. That'd be awesome. That'd be awesome. He's obviously part of the Blade gang, but that's cool.

I'm actually dying to try the Detroit slice of pizza. It looks sort of like a Sicilian slice, but I guess Detroit has its own type of pizza. I'm very much looking forward to trying that. They serve it at Borelli's, actually. You went to Cranbrook. Borelli's has Detroit-style pizza. It's awesome.

All due respect to them, I kind of want to try it one day. Yeah, I'm going to be serving it. Yeah. Did it say where he's starting? By the time my fucking shoelaces. Did it say where he's starting his journey? I don't have it in front of me. I mean, I pulled up his Instagram.

I don't know if he has that all mapped out yet or not. What, to be honest with you? I just mean, it's hard. You've said it is. We brought it up a lot and it doesn't. It's not just the NHL. It's any sport. And I think millions of people are all, you know, I don't need to hear it.

Everyone's got a difficult life. You made millions, big money playing a pro sport. Everyone has their battles. But when you're done with what you've done your entire life, you don't know what's going on. You don't know what to do. And for him to put that out there, I really feel for guys like that a lot and hope that they find their way and i think he's just more more than anything looking at like i don't know what's up let's just see where this takes me and it is very

honorable because it's definitely not an easy time in his life love it well said whip yep exactly well said yeah i don't know if he's got it mapped out yet, Fiz, but obviously we'll keep folks up to date as soon as we know. And moving right along here, this is – well, we're not going to name it, but there was a particular shop online that posted odds on the next team to leave town for the four major sports. The Oakland A's were the favorite at plus 110. The Arizona Coyotes were the next team, plus 350, along with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, all Tampa Bay Rays, plus 110. The Arizona Coyotes, the next team, plus 350, along with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, all Tampa Bay

Rays, plus 350. Sacramento Kings, plus 550. Memphis Grizzlies, plus 950. Oklahoma City Thunder, plus 1,200. And the Cincinnati Bungles, plus 1,500. I think Oakland A's are pretty much a guarantee that they're gone. They basically

tried, the owners tried to extort a new stadium from the public, and they were like, fuck you. Because the public is wising up this shit. When owners do a worth billions of dollars, it will build our stadium, and the public tells them to screw. If they leave, big deal, because a lot of these times when they build stadiums like we see in Miami, the public takes a bath on it.

The politicians want to kiss the owner's ass. It doesn't work out in the long run. So the A's, they're looking at Vegas right now. They could be the third last Vegas team in the last few years, which further indicates how hypocritical all these sports leagues were for years saying, well, we can't have a team in Vegas. Then teams will take a dive because of the gambling, which is like the stupidest fucking argument ever.

And now they're about to put it. That was the card they were playing back then? Yeah, basically. As if there wasn't like 600 billion dollars illegally gambled elsewhere in the fucking world but yeah that was the card they would always play like so did you bring that up because did you bring that whole thing up because coyotes were on the list um well it came across the timeline i mean i sent it to the thread the other day yeah i mean not just because it won't you know why it won't happen? Because if it even comes near that, I'm going to reach out to all you

Spit and Chicklets fans, and we're going to do what they did with the Green Bay Packers. The fans are going to own the team, so you could have your stake in the Arizona Coyotes, and I'll run the charge. Yeah.

Hey, you know what? You know what a Green Bay ownership thing is worth? Right here. If you own Green Bay Packers, like, ownership, that's all I want. You watch your mouth about my Packers and my Coyotes, R.A., okay? I got enough problems with Aaron Rodgers not showing up to camp.

It means nothing. We got to shift it over to Witt. Well, we can either talk about the sick league or we can talk about golf, Witt. What do you want to go with first? Put Witt to sleep. I don't know. I mean, golf is just a horrible loss for that kid

jesson hadley bogeyed the last three holes what's crazy is he's won one time on tour it's the puerto rico open biz nobody who's ever won that tournament has won again on pga tour that's a it's like a legit, it's a whammy. Holy shit. And AHL, I think somebody won again, but it was that tournament again. So I, I felt bad for him. R.A. Won more than the R.A. Hit the,

hit the bet of the year. So he won more than the purse of that tournament. Uh, uh, we'll, we'll delete this after, uh, I don't know who's listening,

but yeah, I had, um, dude, what, what's crazy. I'm, we talk about my golf bets all the time.

I, I, I'm not the fan that you are. I got friends who listen. They'll tell yeah, I had – dude, Whit, what's crazy? We talk about my golf bets all the time. I'm not the fan that you are. I got friends who listen. They'll tell me, bet this guy, bet that guy. I never heard of Garrick. Is it Higo or Higo? Higo. He's a young South African.

I don't even know if we're saying his name correctly. 22 years old. Never heard of the guy before the other day. I literally saw his name and threw a bet on it. And he was 48-1. And I put the tv on sunday afternoon and i actually had bet harris english as well who was 30 to 1 he was one stroke back to start the day so all my is like oh man english is right there that's all you want when you back off a guy in the running on the last day a guy a stroke back is even ideal because he might be less likely to choke well english had a rough fucking day well lo and behold he go like he i was i always

get ace and eagle confused he was two under par it's the same thing same thing right okay well there we go he aced a hole in the front nine he gets within two boom boom boom all of a sudden he's one back the fucking leader bogeyed the last three holes so in the last hole i'm sitting there watching on instagram if if the guy hits the, it's a playoff with my guy. If he misses, I win. And he fucking missed like a 15-footer, like way wide. And I went 4800 – no, not 4800. 48-1 winner I hit because the guy missed a putt.

And he was four strokes back, going into the back nine. He got a couple of birdies. The other guy hit three bogeys in a row. And I finally went – finally have to talk about my gambling bets for 10 years, hit a pretty good-sized one a hit. If I can hop in there now. I didn't know the story. That's an awesome way to see it all go down.

I don't think he had a hole-in-one. I know I said it was the same thing. No, not a hole-in-one, but he was two. He had an eagle. Yeah, an eagle. Two-under par. And we're not going to say the number, but I'll tell you what. When you told me what you won, I was thrilled for you, buddy.

Thank you. I got so excited. There's certain numbers that get me moving. That number got me moving. He usually has a dollar sign in front of him. So, yeah, that was fun. And now moving on to the sick league with the Brooklyn Nets versus the Milwaukee Bucks.

Like, this is the biggest joke ever. Like, Kevin Durant gets into, like, barely a pushing match with the Brooklyn Nets versus the Milwaukee Bucks. Like, this is the biggest joke ever. Like, Kevin Durant gets into, like, barely a pushing match with the guy. I think it was P.J. Tucker or the guy, whoever the hell it was, on Milwaukee. His own fucking private security guy runs to the court and, like, puts his hands on the guy in Milwaukee. Like, are you kidding me, dude? Like, you're his private security guy off the court. Like, during the court stuff, that's not your position to run out there.

It's insane. Absolute joke and embarrassment that's not your position to run out there. It's insane. Absolute joke and embarrassment that you need a grown man to come out. And no one's even throwing punches, dude. They're like fucking talking shit to each other's face. And this guy comes on the court to defend them? Brutal, dude. I like the NBA players, but that's such a bad look. You should hire him for your trip to Borelli's.

No, I got... Yeah, wait, that table has 100. No, I got Glennie, that table has 100. No, I got Glenny Balls. Who else? Big Ev. All the big boys. Maybe Duggs will walk in front of me. Dana White? Or Dana White. I'm thinking of the UFC. Dana Beers? That would be shit-faced.

What's he going to do? Yeah, it was... You kind of said it all. I mean, I don't even know how that's allowed like that guy should be banned from the building he ran on the court like he's not in the game he's not on the roster although i think somebody said on twitter that he's paid by the nets he's an employee of the nets even if so though like that's not his like i know space to jump into like you know it

wasn't on the street it wasn't waiting in line for a bar it's like no that's that's his area of work like that's like you know someone run into a cubicle and fucking getting you back. So wait, so the team hired a bodyguard to be able to go around? I don't know if this is correct. I think it's his personal security, but technically he might end up being an employee of the Nets. I kind of threw that out there reading a tweet, right? It was a little irresponsible of me.

You want to call me a journalist? It's kind of funny how to the level of bullying these nba players have gotten if they got their own personal security guards on salary by the team yeah and i'm sure durant probably does buy the nets but regardless of who pays the bill the fact that like the guy ran on the court and like no he touched he put his hands on fucking tucker man like like uh he should have i mean because if he suckers the security guy then he he's going to get suspended. But I'd be like, fuck you, dude. You don't work here.

Like, this ain't your place of employment. Get the fuck off my court. I don't know. This is a bad look for the NBA. I look for Durant, too. All right, moving right along. I wrote a blog on Saturday. I know you guys are a little younger than me,

but it was the 40th anniversary of Raiders of the Lost Ark. For my money money the best action adventure movie of all time so i i spent about 900 a thousand words praising it uh i was interested to see if you guys had any other options for the best uh action adventure movie of all time um not much of an action guy i would say the like revolutionary ones as I grew up what do you mean revolutionary like the legendary ones you mean so so what are a what you're saying is the fact that at the time there was no special effects like they had to make these scenes happen and then capture them as the ball was actually rolling and right is that kind of what you mean they were what they were called

then as practical effects which means they were actual physical things and not computer generated however though there were some raiders the last night was very early on the computer generated stuff because george lucas created the company industrial light and magic so at the end when he opens the arc and all the ghosts come out that stuff is actually a lot of computer generated stuff so that was actually at the forefront of it but the majority of the effects actual stunts actual practical effects like yeah that giant ball that he outruns that was a 300 pound ball of like fiberglass and you know plywood and whatever else it was made of and if that actually hit harrison 40 would have been fucked up i mean if that was a real stone it would have weighed like 6 000 pounds but yeah the the effects were actual

things so it wasn't guys plugging into a computer like we see so in so many other movies now every movie basically where it's a bunch of ones and zeros and you see it on the screen this is they actually had to make these stunts happen make these things happen so that's why it's so much better than so many other movies like i love mad max fury road terminated too but they had to actually make these things happen on film and film it it wasn't just like putting shit in the computer. Would you consider I'm trying to think of what would be considered an action movie. I just looked up one that I think of and I loved

the movie. I was 11. True Lies. Arnold Schwarzenegger. It's a big time action movie. The girl danced in it. I was 11. I remember the girl danced in it. Like, oh, I was 11. I was 11 during that. I was 11 during Trade Places.

Do it. Do some more. Oh, my God. Yeah, true. I just had to Arnold Schwarzenegger IMDB because I couldn't think of the name of the movie. Great, great action movie. Yep. A hundred percent.

And all these movies you named they're worthy competitors i just i think there was action movies before raiders and then there were action movies after and then the worst part is like all these i don't want to acknowledge it because it's almost like giving it credence but like that fucking nerd show the big bang theory that was on cbs somehow for like nine years worst worst show ever like the girl the girlfriend was like oh even if he wasn't even in that movie, the same thing happens. And, like, so all these nerds, like, run with that same theory.

It's like, what are you talking about? Like, if he wasn't in the movie, like, they would have never found the fucking act. Like, it just makes no sense. And all these other nerds, like, pig pile on it. You know, she said if Harrison Ford didn't play. She said, with or without him, the Nazis find the act, open it, and die. It's like, well, wait a minute. You're assuming that the Nazis still find the or without him, the Nazis find the Ark, open it, and die. It's like, well, wait a minute.

You're assuming that the Nazis still find the Ark without him. It's like they only found him because they found him fucking digging the hole. You know what's crazy? I didn't want to admit it. I haven't seen the movie, and you just told me the ending. Well, no, I didn't tell you. Yeah, I guess I did indirectly. I usually do give a spoiler alert, too.

You never saw fucking Raising the Horse, though? You know what? Listen, hey, if you get spoiler alert too. You never saw fucking, you know what? Listen, Hey, if you get spoiler alerted on a movie from four years ago, it's kind of your own fault. Yeah. Yeah.

By the way, Nixon cheated and all the presidents meant too, but anyways, fuck blossom and fuck that nerd show. And for feeding that shit, because like, yeah, they don't find the awkward out in the end of Jones.

So when people tell you that, Ooh, they would have made the movie out of them. It's just some fucking, I never thought in a million years I'd hear R.A. say, fuck Blossom. I know, seriously. Unless he said he tried to fuck Blossom.

I think that if you like in the show on Big Bang Theory, was that the running thing or did she say this as her own personal like non-actress? I don't know the characters on that show because I wouldn't watch it, but one of the main characters, she was on a date with him

and they watched Rated as the Lost Ark. Oh, it's a funny storyline. Okay. So we're getting mad at a fictitious person. And the whole, it says if he were in the movie, the Nazis still would have found the Ark, taken it to the island, opened it up and all died, just like he did. It's like, but no, that's like you're making an assumption that things would

have happened. It's like, no, it was a stupid plot point. plot point so anyways when i tweeted the blog a bunch of nerds were like oh it wouldn't have happened anyways which is a giveaway that you i would say put them whoever said that on the list below the espn person that didn't mention austin matthews instead of justin bieber and we just bought hockey rights and then then here's the best goal scorer in the league walking in with the biggest pop star on the planet. Oh, let's not mention him. That's tough. Whit, have you finished Mayor of Easttown yet?

I did, and what a show. I mean, I don't know. You don't want to spoil it, but you can praise it. Holy. That scene, dude, I was on know. You don't want to spoil it, but you can praise it. Holy. That scene, dude, was... I was on the edge of my seat. I can't remember. There was a scene in True Detective Season 1

that was similar, I think, with the bikers. If you remember that scene when he went in with the bikers into the ghetto? Yeah, yeah. That was similar to just being so like, I can't believe this is happening. What's going to happen here? Amazing acting.

The storyline, the way it finished off. I thought that was a fantastic show. I cannot recommend it enough. Love it. Unreal. Love to hear it. Looks like I'm not getting any sleep tonight. First episode isn't good.

First episode, I had to watch twice, and I got through it, whatever whatever and it picks up and then episode four or five oh yeah the all of the end the last six episodes were just so good and then the last episode the the girl i told you a woman from medford julia nicholson who plays our best friend i mean those couple of scenes she does is just like so when can we like we're kind of talk about it when do do you talk? I cannot give this away, but did you? No, I can't say anything without giving away. Yeah.

Any sex in it? No, not really, actually. No shits, no nipples? No, it's not a show about it. You don't watch it for sex, Biz. Oh, I was just asking. Well, Biz already watched the show about the strip. Remember, you said there's a show.

Oh, P-Valley. He goes, I'm in. Yeah, P-V Valley, by the way, it's still check P value. And if you have stars, but no, I'm glad you liked that way. Cause it was good. And like I said, you, yeah, the murder mystery is part of it, but it's also about the, you know, the main character herself and like kind of everything she goes through. Biz, I know one last story you wanted to talk about the dude, put in quotes, swallowed by the whale here in uh gate cod i listen it was a top story one of the top stories on twitter i don't know

if it's true i i might believe this less than the octopus teacher with the octopus teacher there's video proof it's like this guy did he get was he in a whale's mouth? Come on. That's what he's saying. He was in a whale's mouth. He got eaten by a whale, and then he was in the mouth. It's the most elaborate tale I've ever heard. It's really hard to sit here and say that, like, it's 100% false, but it's 100% false.

He wasn't in a whale's stomach, dude. No, no, I don't think they ever – I think if a whale wants to swallow you, he will. Oh, I don't think they said that you he will i don't think they said that it uh he he's trying to say that he was all the way inside the stomach i i'm the way i read it he said the whale try to swallow him is what he said i think what he said was he was in the compartment of this big mouth and then kind of like the whales like kind of like wait a minute i'm not really used to stuff like this is undercooked.

Yeah. This is something's not right here. Has anyone got a napkin? Well, yeah, you might've, he might've like kind of tasted the rubber from his snorkel. I don't know. He was, he was, I think he was lobster fishing at the time, but the way I, once he, once he kind of figured it out,

he thought originally it was a shark that ate him. He said, or bit him. I think he said ate him but it would have been like now you would have been bleeding he a shark couldn't have downed him in one bite it's so then so then he came to figured out he was in a whale's mouth and then he said the whale spit him out and you know got got back on his way now it was also reported that years ago he survived the plane crash where the other people on the plane uh ended up passing away so maybe this guy's just got the the most bizarre luck in the world if that's true that could be then it could be legit it's really hard to call him a liar but i think it was more than likely that kramer actually hit the golf ball in the

whale that ge George ended up removing when he said he was a Marine biologist. If you don't watch Seinfeld, you don't know what I'm talking about. But if you do, that was more likely to be the case. And I think this guy getting brought into a whale's mouth. It's funny. Did he just get it? Did he just swim to shore?

And then he's like, dude, I was just in a whale's mouth, guys. And everyone's like, let's call the news. Like you just believe him that much. You're not a little questioning like really yeah because again if it's that whale that big is he trying to swallow you is he not there were no witnesses again if it happened and the guy's getting doubted whatever but what's funny there's a twitter account called a whale fact at a whale fact and back on february 10th 2020 it, if a whale ever attempts to swallow you whole, just know there's been a huge misunderstanding. And then on June 11th, a couple of days ago, they retweeted their own quote and said there has been a huge misunderstanding.

What do you mean? Because they said back in February, if a whale ever attempts to swallow you whole, just know there's been a huge misunderstanding. And then their story broke. And then they retweeted it. I know. I'm sorry. I don't get it, though. In other words, they already had a headline about it. And they're like, oh, my God, this actually happened. In other words, if the whale really tried to swallow this guy,

then there's been a huge misunderstanding as far as the whale. I thought the misunderstanding was something I was supposed to catch on to. The whales don't want the smoke is what they were saying. Yeah, I mean, if they wanted to eat people. Even what sharks do. I hate when we get these videos like the news is close by when sharks swim in the ocean alongside people in Miami. It's like, yeah, it's the fucking ocean.

It's the Atlantic Ocean. That's where sharks are. If you didn't have people with cameras looking down on them, they were there all the time. All right, they're trying to make sure nobody goes in the water where the sharks are. Dude, don't go down. Chat them when the fucking seals are there. Don't go where the food is.

It's pretty obvious, man. So you don't think that people who spend all this to go to all these people who go to spend vacation and chat them like you don't think the town should have people out there checking to make sure if there's a fucking great white right off the shore that the beach is closed? Yeah, but you should know that anyways, if you're going to chat him on this fucking. But some days there aren't any spotted, so you can go in the water. And I anyway, I guess anywhere when you when I go in the ocean, I assume that this fucking sharks there.

And I just hope I don't get that. That's that's I mean, I swim in the ocean, no qualms at all. And if they're going to be at our pool, it's a resort. It's their home turf, man. Like it's a home game. It's a home game. They're going to be playing. They're going to be sitting courtside.

Can you steal home ice is the question. Yeah. All right. One last final goodbye. Ned Beatty. I know you guys are younger than me. Fantastic character actor from the 70s. He was Bobby and Deliverance.

I don't know if you guys ever seen Deliverance. Dick Tracy. Otis ands. He was Bobby in Deliverance. I don't know if you guys have ever seen Deliverance. Dick Tracy. Otis in Superman. He was in Network. He was nominated for an Oscar. Just a great character actor over the years. He passed away over the weekend, so I want to give a shout out to Otis from Superman. Just a legendary character actor. Have either of you guys seen Deliverance?

That was when Burt Reynolds was in. What did you say the actor's name was passed away? Ned Beatty. Oh, I thought it was Warren Beatty. I said Dick Tracy. My bad. Is that his brother?

I think that's all I got for this podcast. No, that's all I got. And, hey, boys, we're going to take a 20 here. We've got to be back in a few hours to talk about game one, too. So let's go catch up, watch hockey, and we'll be back. All right. What's up, gang? We're coming to you right after the Vegas-Montreal game ended.

Everybody's been waiting for a Canadian team to play a non-Canadian team all season long. Well, we got it in game one in Vegas and Montreal. And Vegas was the 4-1 victor. I'll tell you, Biz, Montreal, I thought they had good early chances in this game. Marc-Andre Foy made an incredible save on Brendan Gallagher less than a minute into the game. Then the Habs got another three for a dollar after that mark andre for he made huge saves early

and that was sort of it for montreal they kind of shot their water early vegas takes the one that lead after shade they had to beat price he kind of was looking the wrong way uh martinez made it two nothing quick comers yeah quick comments yeah cold caulfield cut it to two one on the power play his first playoff goal ever uh but then Yen Mark made it 3-1 Holden made a 4-1 put it out of reach uh so yeah you look at the score Vegas dominated but I don't know if Montreal got an early goal there if Fleury's not in form fine form then we could be looking at a different game but it's not and here we are it looked like they just adjusted very quickly back to kind of the way it was against Minnesota and we talked about how

they can play any type of game and I'll tell you what their execution just on on everything especially that first goal like that's you know they're Montreal's in an okay situation all of a sudden boom you lose a defensive zone draw and I can't even blame Toffoli for not getting in the lane because the way it was set up it got snapped back pretty quickly and McNabb just gives it that one touch wit and Theodore was lined up for the one-timer but he was he was so like way more inside than normal so as to Foley as the outside winger he just couldn't get in that lane and by the time it was off the stick they'd already established that front presence to Foley wasn't in the lane and zing.

It was a bang, bang play. You're looking at it as a coach and you're just like, that's just perfect execution by Vegas. And nothing really Carey Price could have done on it. And then you look at the other one, you just kill off the penalty, the puck over the glass. So you kind of dodge another bullet. Well, they become full strength and they have that zone entry.

It was kind of a fortuitous balance of the fact that it popped out the theodore but the only person not fooled on planet earth that that thing was a pump fake and it going back the other way i think his stick was at 90 degrees by the time he pump faked it and i thought i think he threw his shoulder came out of a socket. That was unreal. One of the filthiest pump fakes I've ever seen. And you know, he's got that confidence after scoring that first goal, but that is just like,

we talked about all these other guys who have gotten them to where they are. And I don't think that he'd really had his, I think he's been fairly quiet up to standards up until now, but all of a sudden you got him going now i mean they're up to cobb and and that and then one thing i i would look at is montreal is so used to playing with the lead that when you're down to i mean they're they're they're not necessarily built to play from behind well you know at least in the sense of a good enough team that has a goal like flurry and a good back end but they talked about it in the pre-game meeting i think some media members out there mentioned like the paul bassinet being a fan of the team now and

wearing the gear like you're gonna go down one nothing two nothing easy so they knew going in how to kind of approach it and they made it to one the fake what a play and i actually looked or thought about it i think headman's the best defenseman left in the playoffs right i think pellix there but ben petro and theodore there's no one else with those two right sergeant chev's really nice and so is ryan mcdonough in tampa but petro and theodore together are the top two d men on one team playing at that level yeah and tonight he's capable level and he's able to snap it out of the zone to eat. A couple plays that started breakouts, long stretch passes. He's a horse.

It was just an overall dominating performance, besides the beginning where Flower was ready. And Carey Price, which could have been 7-1 easily. The save on Marsh or so was sick. The Stone save. Stone's face, he started laughing, basically. He's like are you kidding me like i pretty much picked up right there an awesome pass by patch already who has

actually i don't know if he had a point tonight did he but he has a point in every game of the playoffs leading up to tonight i don't even remember if he had one tonight he didn't i tell you what he was doing a couple reverse hits forsberg style on charotte he got him pretty you think that was a penalty or do you thought, you think he got him a good bop with the shoulder? And I think it was payback for earlier. And then Sherratt ended up getting about a three for a buck after the, after the reverse hit,

he got him with the two shots and then he got him with the big cross check. And I think he knew he knew. Yeah. He knew to lay off right after that. The Romanov hit on Petrangelo was ridiculous, though. He kind of tried dangling him, thinking get away with it. Kid just took the body the entire time, ran him over. That was early in the game.

Interesting to see Montreal's power play. Caulfield missed a wide-open net on basically the same play about 10 seconds earlier, and then they get another chance with another wide-open net. So their power play was zinging it around quick. But Vegas didn't score on their opportunities. You think that that'll improve. But overall, people wondered,

Canadian division versus another opponent. It looked like a different league out there tonight. When it came down to execution, for sure. Yeah, the shots weren't crazy. And if you look at all the – they out-hit Vegas, which for the most part, if you don't have the puck as often, you're going to out-hit them. But I just think if you look at the two teams top to bottom,

now maybe it was one of those games where Vegas had their best and Montreal didn't. And I said that there was no chance it was like playing on the road. It was more just awesome for those Canadian guys to be in a full barn. They were probably feeling it early in that game. And they came out great. But it was just the depth and the fourth line on Vegas played so good. Reeves is in the zone.

He had a couple different chances. That Carrier is a monster. He's from Montreal. And then Colasar, Keegan Colasar, WHL guy, big body. So that entire team is – they look nice, man. They look like they want us out there in Vegas for that party. Oh, yeah. Well, one game closer to that.

And Vegas. Except they let me in. I might not get the invite now. It'll be you guys. You, dude. I was on the pregame calling them the doormat of the league four or three years ago. I was using my voice to call out my take and how bad it was. Oh, geez.

Yeah, Vegas on the power play, 0 for 4. They had a 5 on 3 in the first. They didn't do anything with that. Montreal, 1 for 3 in the power play. But interestingly, Biz, three of the four goals from Vegas came from defensemen. Was it Holden? I already rattled him. Yeah, Holden came in

for hag he scored the past two games now yeah yeah holden uh martine isn't dead or in the end mark at the other one so i mean they didn't even have to rely on their on their big game shooters so far i'm sure we're gonna see them in the next the next game but and yeah man thing uh are also are excuse me because i don't want to forget this is you you know, no Petrie, no chance, right? You got to get the puck out. You got to be able to play in guys' faces, take away time. They made it sound like Evans was going to be available soon too. They said they got great news on – and who was the other one too? I'm missing.

There was three guys who were like – seemed like they're just about to be healthy, could potentially be available for game two. So you just said it. Like you talk about the the back end i don't think they i don't think they even have someone to match like theodore's ability let alone petro's well if they don't have man they don't got a guy to for like petrie to match one of them yeah it's uh yeah it's time you see i saw some icings by the d in Montreal. Saw some turnovers.

And once again, Tuck. My prediction's not looking good. The bowling ball. Tuck, Alex Tuck is flying. Yeah, he was a force out there once again. I mean, Price had a ton of highlights here, but there was one goal, two of them. The first one he just lost. He looked the other side, but it was either the third or fourth goal. He totally

lost sight of the puck. That was pretty uncharacteristic. Oh, that was the holding goal. Yeah, he couldn't. That was just a wide open net for him. Yeah, he missed the pass. And yeah, by the time it was already on holding stick, I think he was still looking the other way. So usually not a good sign. Yeah, but I mean, to me, Mark

Andrews was the player of the game here. Like I said, Montreal, if they get an early lead like they've been doing all playoffs, they kind of sit on it, but because Fleury was in the zone nice and early, kept them off the board. Also, too, we were talking about our wages. I bet under five and a half, Vegas is up 4-1. They pull Price with four minutes left in the game. I basically was going to the ATM to get the dough out

because there was no way I thought it was going to hold. But lo and behold, they missed about three, four shots at the empty net. Vegas didn't. Montreal couldn't score. Thanks again to Fleury. And then they ended up putting Price in with like 30 seconds left. I didn't give two shits about that game for the last couple minutes. And then you text the thread.

And me and Pasha were on the couch going nuts. I think flurry made at least a couple you know a couple good quality scoring chance saves and then they had about what three or four on the empty net yeah it was that was i mean that's i mean if i if i was a gambling man that's kind of what would get my rocks going you like to just make sure you're cashing out in the second period yeah ideally you don't want to have to sweat them out but like what's it once it once it's over and you got it done it's like oh you can just breathe a huge sigh of relief but yeah i basically wrote it off once i saw the uh pulling price with four minutes left i'm like there's not there's no way there's not going to be a goal in four four

minutes here but i don't know what happened so i had a horseshoe up my ass um another couple good couple good gambling stories this podcast yeah by. By Barstool Sportsbook. Keep the change. Yeah, actually. Actually, I don't think I got any picks for you when we talked about the U.S. Open this coming weekend. I don't know if you had any picks. Yeah. On Father's Day.

I've played two rounds of golf. So that's nice, man. I'm so happy. So I haven't really been watching. I didn't see anything this weekend i know i saw the end of the fourth round but john rom lights up that course tory pines and i don't think you can go till wednesday because the covid thing that he dealt with at the memorial he's probably the favorite actually but that guy is will probably be right there come sunday i'd

be surprised golf ra i've told you though though, I never bet a tourney winner. Rarely do I bet a tourney winner because I like doing the daily matchups, picking guys just round one, round one against each other. I don't know. I feel like it's so hard to pick an actual winner, but you seem to get on the board with just high odd guys who are kind of always in the mix. I was going to hop in and ask you, what makes him so good at Torrey pines just the way he hits the

ball um he's just super comfortable there he's so it's a really really long course i think it's playing like 7700 yards uh the fairways are tight and he drives the ball super long and super straight he's just got every aspect of the game i mean he's top five player in the world, maybe top three, but he won his first PGA event there. He canned an Eagle pot from 50 feet on the 72nd hole to win it. And I think I don't, he might've won there again. Like I don't, he's just been, had a lot of success. He's been on the hunt at this course until now with the U S open there and everything playing even tougher.

He's just a guy who feels comfortable out there. That's where Mickelson's from. I think is he – is Mickelson from there? Like San Diego or he lived there and he's trying to get the Grand Slam, but him repeating after the PGA would be one in a billion. When you say he eagled the final hole, did he kerplunk it like an iron from outside or above? No or it's a par five it's a par five it's the hole that um tiger woods made the putt on to get into the playoff to beat

rocko mediate when he had his like his broken leg it's like the pot like the famous putt um oh which sucked because in this in this major if you go to overtime or what do you call it? Playoff. It's an 18-hole playoff the next day. That would blow. No, dude. So they got rid of it. I don't know if it's into effect now being gone, but at some point they've already said that that's going to be gone. I loved it.

I was like, yes, there goes my Monday. I just get to watch these guys go to battle well not for tiger he's got to play 18 on his knee and then he tiger was down on the 18th hole in that i think and that went to a playoff they ended up playing like the 19th hole 20th hole they don't just keep adding on days make them you tried again round two of the playoff will be tuesday uh june 25th no so um yeah how did us how did we lead to the playoff talk oh the course and where he got the the bird the eagle to win rom it was a par five it's that hole and he was uh long and two and he just like putted the thing took forever to go and dropped in and then the guys behind him like had to birdie and

they didn't but he ended up winning. Wow. Yeah, Ram is the chalk, 10-1. But I'm looking at the field, man, and this is another one of these events where it looks like more than half the field is 100-1 or more, a lot of 250-1s. He's the Canadian, right? Yeah, he's the one. He's a machine.

Throw some money on him, all right? He's a machine. Yeah, I'm going to sprinkle the infield, so to speak. But, yeah, I mean, 125 to 1. There's just, I don't know. Even like some of the big-name guys. I mean, Speed, 20 to 1. Let's see, Patrick Reed, 28 to 1.

Bryson. What's Fino? Fino, 28 to 1. So, I mean, for the guys who everyone likes, there's some decent prices even. What's Xander Shoffley? That's a guy I'd probably chuck some money on. 18-1? Yeah, throw some money on him, all right.

Is that the guy who was in contention the last time? The blonde hair? No, that's Zalatoris. That's Shoffley. He's, like, young. Shoffley's finished, I think, second in every single major, and he hasn't won a major, and he's one of the best players in the world, and he's from San Diego, or he lives out there,

and he's just somebody that's, like, very due. Xander. An 18-1 is not too bad. Xander. These guys are all cool, man. There's just so much talent. It's crazy. The amount of players out there and playing golf and trying to make it is nuts.

My boy, Garrick Higo. How would you say his name? 66-1 this week. Don't bet him to win this week, all right? Yeah, I don't know if he's going to win two in a row. Oh, another thing that popped up during the game. Matthew Bonneby calling out Sean Avery for a little rough and rowdy action. That come out of nowhere, huh?

Like mentioning rough and rowdy? No, he did like a minute video, like basically like saying he wants to fight Avery and rough and rowdy. I don't know. Do they know each other? I would assume they do. Yeah, I think they know each other. I think they crossed over maybe in.

Oh, they played together? No, maybe. Because I know Barnaby played in Dallas at some point. Maybe they didn't cross over, though. I think Barnaby – Barnaby wasn't there all that long. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, but he mentioned – yeah, he actually mentioned, you know,

one of the comments Avery made yesterday against his benefit. He referenced that in his video too, so I don't know. If Avery fought and did all the lead-up video to promote a fight, there would be a lot of eyes. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I would imagine he's not interested in doing that, though. Yeah.

Right? No. Unless he was angry and pissed off at a bunch of people and he wanted to take it down on someone. I wonder if he's got the thought of like, hey, can you guys just not repost that? I don't really care. I don't want to deal with this. Oh, yeah. He's he's still got the holiday but if you told him how much money he

could make might change his tune well uh so he just he just uh had a new show come out he was in he says he's in episode six i asked him if you wanted to come on and talk about it i just texted with him yesterday he said he'll come on yeah he's the Tampa insider. He's a Tampa diehard. And so I'm combining. I think he originally fell in love with to lose. I think he originally fell in love with Sergeyev. That's the guy he was always pumping. So maybe he'd argue my Petro Theodore is better than Hedman Sergeyev combinations. Maybe we'll get him for next pod.

What do you think, G? Next one. I think that'd be great, especially if we can get him to commit to rough and do you think G next one? I think that'd be great. Especially if we can get them to commit to rough and rowdy too. That'd be even better. Let's just get a legit number from the barstool people. Like, Hey Avery,

can he get a million dollars for fighting? And if we can give him a number, he could be like, I'm in. Yeah, definitely be some buys on that. Shay theater or another one of those guys from the Great Vegas giveaway, or thievery, I should say, from their draft.

Remember, he's one of the guys, what was it, the Ducks said, don't take him, and we'll give you him because we don't want you to take Clayton Stoner. I mean, obviously, a lot of teams had a lot of regrets over that draft, but probably one they might have wanted to hang on to out in Anaheim. Just stick a knife and twist it, all right? Yeah. What would be the number?

Kick an organization when they're down. But they ended up having a few, right? Because I think who else did they lose on the back end? Montour? Not to Vegas. No, but I think they had to make a decision on a couple guys from the back end. Well, they sent Vatson into Jersey, and then they got Henrik back. I mean, that's just another defense.

You know what it was? I think it was they ended up protecting Montour maybe instead of Theodore as well. Oh, okay. There might have been some crossover there. Or maybe I just completely made that up, and nobody calls me out on Twitter about it. No, never. Nobody ever calls us out what uh what's the number that you need like to fight a rough and rowdy if they were like hey this is what you're getting paid that this number would make you say yes right what perks your ears up i don't know i i there's a part of me that is like,

God, I'm 36 years old. Should I be fighting in a rough and rowdy? That's me. You can get into my body. You can sleep in my undies one night, and you can feel how I feel when it comes to fighting as an adult. But money. Part of it that would be fun is the aspect of getting back in game shape and the whole training aspect of it.

But finding an opponent that i genuinely hate would you have to hate him that's what i'm saying yeah that's what i mean like i don't really have any animosity towards anyone enough to to to want to get in the ring with them yeah yeah yeah like it's a good point you wanted enough to train and make some dough but once i said i'd go i'd go i'd go toe-to-toe with some ad reads i think that that would be more entertaining honestly five rounds we should get some amazon bots and then have them like be like reciting the ad read you have to repeat it but they can just sucker you at any point when you fuck up say antioxidants paul that you'll maybe uh maybe i can get into the wrestling side of it because i like the the creating a persona you know oh man who oh uh you know who they were i saw a video

of recently ra and you probably might know a bit a bit more about them is uh roddy roddy piper oh yeah the the documentary on him recently oh yeah I'm watching those right now. Was the movie The Wrestler based on Roddy Roddy Piper? No. No, I don't think it was based on any particular wrestler. I think it was just based kind of, I don't know, based on every wrestler basically from that era who went through hell for the whole fucking sport. But no, it wasn't based on Roddy Piper.

Okay. I'm also kind of obsessed with the guy who played the wrestler in the movie. Well, that's who I was just going to ask about, Biz. Get out of my head, guy. Oh, no way. Wow. Probably one of the most self-destructive people as far as his career went. It's actually wild to hear in more recent interviews but yet he still kind of

carries that tone where he doesn't really care if he doesn't like you he's going to tell you to fuck off so my whole thing is i don't know anything about mickey rourke i he was a stud i would love to see a documentary i would love to see a documentary on him and like you just said i've like google image him i'm like this guy was a stallion and then he gets that role as the wrestler and at the time everyone's talking about mickey rourke comeback so i didn't know who that was but i knew what the movie was about and then you see this guy you're like that's the guy i saw those pictures of like what was his role and throughout his career in terms of how everything did he get fucked over did he have drug issues no i think he was i think he was

his own worst enemy now going back to how he started all right you'll probably know more he went in an absolute tear with his first like three three to five movies yeah that were like boom boom out of the gate i mean diana was a huge smash back in 82 then rumble fish the pope of greenwich village with eric roberts i mean that was one that really put him on the map year of the dragon uh a chinatown Mafia movie. Great, great gangster drama. It's probably unheralded. People probably don't know about it. Year of the Dragon, if you can find it,

check it out by all means. But yeah, he was the next big thing with Wittenbiz. Oh, Angel Heart's another one. Like, he was going to be the star. He was like Leo at that time. The way his trajectory was on. Yeah, exactly, Biz. He was the next big thing.

And then, you know, the drugs, the ego, bad career decisions. And, you know, within a few years, he was making shit. He basically, you know, I would say within five years, people wouldn't hire the guy. He was kind of blackballed because he told enough important people to go shove it up their ass. That's what happened? It was telling people to fuck off already.

And then it was like, did he ever get arrested and stuff? Was he in like New York City crowd partying? What was that whole story? He was getting Botox and facial reconstructions. It went all these weird places. Yeah, basically. He did a great job in that movie, dude. And I think he got ripped off for the Oscar, too.

I mean, he was absolutely phenomenal. I'm going to double-check my work, but I'm pretty sure he lost the best act. It's a Sean Penn. I feel that he couldn't be put in a perfect role, and it's kind of very similar to maybe how you could summarize his career, too, as an actor, and it's what propelled him back up. And I don't know how much he's done since but i mean yeah he i i'll watch clips on youtube about like some of the interviews he's done he's he go watch

some of his interviews with like letterman or or whoever he he he does not skip a beat he does not sugarcoat anything and it's it's it's quite refreshing this article is the the star the star that should have been like it's just interesting reading through this looking at these pictures and looking at the pictures too of him now it's like oh my god how is this the same human so much plastic surgery a lot of plastic surgery but it almost like it almost suits him at this point he's found the look to work with he's just he's i don't, it's kind of like he still looks like a rock star. Yeah, he looks weird. He just looks strange now because he's had so much work done.

Wasn't he in Iron Man? He was in Iron Man, right? Yeah, he was in, I think, the second or third one. Yeah, because after the wrestling, that put him back on a lot of people's radar. He still kind of looks like a full-blown rock star too like iron man 2 he was in yeah kind of gives me that axl rose vibe a little bit but he was he was incredible in the wrestling didn't i just looked yeah year of the dragon 1985 it's it was uh basically set in new york chinatown it was about uh well chinatown

mob and stuff real good shit it was very violent it's like i said an underrated uh gangster movie you can i don't rent it on amazon or whatever but if you're looking for old school gangsta flick check it out mickey rock year of the dragon but any other final notes you wanted to add uh about maybe just a little tummy stick action grinnelly hasn't been feeling great guys he's been traveling like crazy editing these podcasts late during the playoffs we moved to two weeks. So it was twice the amount of work last week. He's lugging all the gear around from,

you know, long Island and involving himself in the streams, stick taps for Grinnelli. He's got another late one. Show him some love on social media tomorrow. He helps grow the YouTube channel. He does it all folks. And also a big thank you to Sean as well.

Our new videographer who, who was helping quite a bit in Boston. So as well our new videographer who who is helping quite a bit in boston so these are the guys behind the scenes who make the engine run they make the engine run there's one way you can show the love and that's by the bathing suits the spit and chiclets bathing suits finally finally are coming they drop friday in the barstool sports store women's bathing suits too i would love some of those bathing suits uh i would love some of our gear sent to me i need some more gear um what was the other thing that you just mentioned for all the spicy fellows out there we got the the bull rat man keenies coming the pink whitney man keenies uh could you imagine seeing one of those things oh

fuck dude with you hey you probably have just as much chest hair sasha barricone legit i haven't shaved anything in so long i'm just a giant bush um i gotta say thanks to granelli yes sean and thanks to me uh for just having an awesome episode none of you guys ever said thanks to me so i'll say thanks to myself oh wet thank you for everything pal thank you for being you and keeping me honest to you hey habs and five all right everybody have a great week and we'll catch you later as always we like to thank our fantastic sponsors here on Spit and Chicklets. Big thanks to our longtime friends at New Amsterdam Vodka and Pink Whitney.

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