Spittin Chiclets - Spittin' Chiclets Episode 342: Featuring Georges Laraque + Teddy Purcell

Episode Date: July 6, 2021

On Episode 342 of Spittin’ Chiclets, the guys are joined by Georges Laraque and Teddy Purcell. Teddy joined (00:08:30) to talk Tampa-Montreal, recap Game 4, discuss his days in Tampa and tons more. The guys also touch on all the NHL news around the league, including the Viktor Arvidsson deal. The boys are then joined by Georges (01:54:34), to talk all things Montreal, his playing career, fighting and more. The guys wrap up talking some golf, ESPN, Barstool Athletes and more.You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/schiclets

Hey, Spittin' Chicklets listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Hello everybody, welcome to episode 342 of Spittin' Checklets, presented by Pink Whitney, from our friends at New Amsterdam Vodka here in the Barstool Sports Podcast family. What is up everyone? We're back home after another fun and productive week down in New York City. Thanks to everybody who tuned into the live streams and whatever other chicanery we got into down there. We also got five awesome interviews coming. We got you loaded for the rest of the summer. We already had one on the shoot too, so we

got a half a dozen ready to rock and roll. First, let's say hi to the boys. Producer, Mikey Grinelli. What's up, guy? Going on, guys. Spent the weekend down the Jersey Shore. Got the absolute worst sunburn of my life. But Rico Bosco hooked it up at DJ's for me, so it all paid off.

I had myself a fantastic weekend. Happy 4th. How does Rico Bosco hook one up at DJ's exactly? I think he's like the king there. He's the king. He's the king of DJ's. He got me to cut the line. Pink Whitney was flowing.

He got Pink Whitney in there. We got Pink Whitney hats. It was unbelievable. Did you have Whitney in there. We got Pink Whitney hats. It was unbelievable. Did you have to kiss any rings or anything? You look like a bottle of Pink Whitney right now. Let's see your stomach. Holy shit. Oh, shit.

Did you put the little Playboy sticker on? I was thinking about it. Don't fall asleep on the beach. Bad idea. The belly button ring. The wife in the, well, it was the heartbreak kid with Ben Stiller.

The first wife he had the movie. All right. That voice you heard was Paul business. He business. What's up, buddy? That was called the heartbreak kid. When he,

when he went on the honeymoon and then that guy, he put, put the miss was fucking his old lady. Was that what you were talking about? Yes. The one with Ben Stiller? Yeah, with Malin Aikman, the blonde girl. Yeah, it was his wife.

She gets wicked burnt, and she's wicked obnoxious, and then he falls for Michelle Monaghan on the side. Okay, I think that maybe that was a different movie. A different sunburn. But I'll say, I was hoping that the games in NYC when we were on the live streams were as exciting as the one tonight, but I tell you what, we got a series. The Habs are alive.

They're like the Undertaker coming out of the casket beside the ring right now. Yeah, and Seth fucking Kucherov has a chair waiting to put over his head once they land in fucking Tampa. Well, I will say the mayor of Tampa did not want this thing ending in four. She said she wanted to bring it back home to win it on home soil. So we'll see if she gets her wish. Yeah, yeah, a lot of people thought we were going to be all over her.

It's like fucking politician talking sports. Like, we don't get pissed off at that. But Ryan Whitney, he's a guy who likes to get pissed off. What's up, buddy? How you doing? I'm doing great, guys. Yeah, it was the first really entertaining game we got. I'm looking forward to chatting it all out with you fellas, but I thank God we're home from New York.

I mean, just a dump of a city, 99 degrees being in that smelly city. It felt so good to be home. Yeah, people were very upset at that mayor. It's like Veritech split the uprights, the mayor in Boston said. They don't know what they're talking about. She doesn't know that that makes it look like a complete jinx. But the Montreal Canadiens in winning a game at home in OT, good for the fans, good for them.

They'll probably get smashed in game five, but what a hockey game we had, and I'm looking forward to getting into it. Absolutely, yeah. She had a valid point. A lot of people are talking the same thing, should they not win and win back home. But anyways, yeah, in case you haven't noticed yet, the Habs won game four.

They're still alive. 3-2 in OT. Like the Whit Dog said, the most thrilling game of the series so far. Had a sweater to a late four-minute power play. Excuse me by Tampa. So we're going to bring in a former player on the Tampa Bay Lightning to give his expert analysis. Teddy Purcell is going to join us.

Before we go to that biz, can I tell the story of what you did with the beer when we left the restaurant in New York? Oh my God. Did you have that written down in your fucking notes? No, I literally just thought of it. Something made me laugh so hard at night in New York.

So quickly, before we hop to Teddy Purcell Could you remind everyone I'm from Welland, Ontario by the way? That has nothing to do with it. I mean, I'm not even chirping you. This is just so... All right, people. So we go to this nice restaurant.

I think it was called Ocean's in New York. Great meal. R.A., myself, and Biz Grinelli had to shoot back home. So we have a nice meal wrapping up the day. And we had a couple, you know, IPAs or lagers, whatever the beer was. Doesn't really matter. So the meal ends, and let's get out of here.

And we wanted to go over to 7-Eleven across the hotel because I wanted to grab maybe some dessert, you know, some ice cream to just polish off the evening. And as Biz is walking around, he has this body armor, shout out Barstool and our sponsor body armor water bottle. And I look, I said, dude, did you piss in the water bottle? Because it's just straight like dehydrated piss color he's like no man uh i had a little beer left as we were leaving the restaurant so i poured it i poured it out of that beautiful glass into this body armor bottle and walked out and actually r.a had a little in his glass too and there wasn't much drink so i thought the body the backwash wouldn't be too bad so i polished off the rest so this guy's walking around crushing an ipa two people's ipa out of one body armor bottle to be fair r.a you

must only took a couple sips out of yours but being the veteran that i am i only poured half of yours out because i didn't want the bottom half just just in case there was a little backwash now i'll never leave a man behind that means a beer included all right i just cracked me up so let's go to teddy for style now i thought everyone might appreciate that we we appreciate you listening to me try to get through that story yeah what we'll get to teddy in one sec we just want to remind you again summer is here and that means cookouts and parties and pool parties. So make sure to grab the new 375 milliliter Mickey size, picking pink Whitney,

pink Whitney at your local liquor store. We've got some great pics over Canada day and the 4th of July. So keep coming. Enjoy. You guys take some fantastic photos with the pink Whitney. We got the account blasting them out. So keep enjoying the pink Whitney and try out the new Mickey size. Fits perfect in the back pocket of your Levi's.

Jesus, R.A. You sound like you're in Columbia already. And now Teddy Purcell. All right. Right now, we're going to bring on former Tampa Bay Lightning and current employee of Adam Oates, the legend himself, Teddy Purcell. What's up, buddy? Long time no see. I know. Nice to be back, boys. Good to see you guys.

Good to be seen. Good to be seen. You enjoying the playoffs so far or what? Yeah, it's been fun. I haven't watched, you know, every game, but the ones I have to get a chance. It's been nice to see the boys rolling again. Thought they were going to close it out tonight, but Montreal finally stole one. And I was just waiting for the pitchers and face-times

from the boys chugging out of the mug again, impressing me on a Monday night after a solid July 4th. It's like, hey, Teddy, look what we've done since you left. Yeah, I know. Every team I've been on now is the Kings and the Bolts. A couple years after I'm traded, they win two cups in a row. So I'm just waiting for my phone to ring on July 1st. Some team's going to sign me as a scouter.

You were this close to having as many as Gretzky. I was this close to – I know. It could be four times right now. You got Kunitzed. I know. I thought maybe the second unit power play for Tampa would be FaceTime and you and Otzi to get a little help, man. I was hearing on the broadcast they haven't scored one power play goal

the second unit all of the playoffs. It's all been the first unit. I know. I've seen that. How good is that first unit, though? That's been fun to watch. Those guys are just snapping around. Montreal don't even know what to do. Now they're just collapsing in front of the net,

and Edmond's walking down Broadway like one-timer. And then Edmondson's cross-checking everybody. He's cross-checking everyone. The puck doesn't know where it's going. Price is playing really good on it. They should have 30 goals on the power play, and tonight they hit four posts, and they give it to Kucherov, and it's hilarious.

No one knows if he's going back to Hedman, if he's one-timing, if he's going to point, if he's going to stammer. I mean, it's got to be the worst thing ever to be a PKer on Montreal. They got to be cringing when the boys are going to the box. I know the fact that they had the four minutes, three minutes on fresh ice and they could have get it done. But I have a couple of guys in Tampa I want to ask you about. But first off, for yourself personally, you know,

you're still working with Otsi. Have you been traveling around working with guys already like this early into the offseason? Yeah, I think a lot of we just got back from minnesota actually where it was out there for a week and there's probably seven or eight guys out there that we were skating with um i think it's just a weird time for everyone with the short season and the shorter off season now too i think guys just want to get out and get some reps and touches with him uh we're going out to new york next week and then we're going up to Canada to see some of those guys. So the next five or six weeks are going to be pretty busy of going around and seeing the guys. But it's busy, but it's fun. You know, you skate in the morning, then you can golf

or go out for dinner with the boys, catch up with a lot of guys that you haven't seen. And so it's a good setup. Did you teach Shifley how to maybe ease off on those open ice hits? I haven't seen Shifley yet. If there's one guy that could teach about not hitting hard, it would be me, though. Maybe that's why Otsi hired me. He knew this was going to happen at some point. Do you guys ever get phone calls from players,

like in the midst of playoffs, for breakdowns quickly? Yeah, a lot of those guys do. They love talking to Otsi, you know, just to pick his brain. I know, you know, he helps some guys in Tampa on the power play, just positioning and where to stay and how to break down the other PK stuff. And I think just from his resume and his history on the power play and getting points and being so successful, the guys love, you know, picking his brain

and trying to learn from that standpoint. Ted, you've played with a ton of guys over the years. Like, have you ever met a brain quite like Adam Oates, the way he approaches hockey on a mental level? No, I haven't. I mean, people could say I'm biased, too, because I work for him. But he coached me in Tampa. And when he first started this job, I hired him, too, to help me.

So I obviously thought it worked and it helped. And in coaches, it's hard. You know, boys, once you get to the NHL, everyone thinks you're already developed and you're in the NHL. So now no one worries about that. It's like, let's get two points and let's win a game. So coaches have too much on their plate with systems and 23 guys and the time. So I think Otzi, you know, he doesn't have any kids either.

So he really does treat this like they're his own boys. And he gets fired up, you know, if the boys get a point or if they don't get hit or if they move the puck well that game if they learn stuff that he's been teaching he uh he's like yeah let's order another bottle of camas boys let's here we go and if they're offside he he disowns them yeah yeah he's like yeah if this guy wants to hire me back next year it's 200 grand because no one goes offsides and you stink so he won't work with chris crider no maybe maybe 200 grand who had the other one this playoffs that was worse and worse than crider no there's no such thing there yeah there was there was a worse one than criders there was one that let's call it crider jr it's

i'm drawing a blank though um teddy so you you got the uh experience of playing with kucherov his rookie year and and i know when you came on before, it's been so long, you described the type of guy and player he was. But just insane to see him miss the entire season and look like this in the playoffs. Or are you actually not even surprised? I mean, I'm surprised his fitness level. You know how it is.

You can bag skate as much as you want. But playoffs are 10 times more intense than a regular season game. Just for him to be able to play 20 minutes and compete and not look tired and his hands obviously his hands never missed the beat that's not that surprising but to come in and lead the playoffs by like nine or ten points when you haven't played a game in months is that's insane and i mean the guy loves how he's so funny like if you know you give him a bad pass or if you're not getting points he's like, if you give him a bad pass or if you're not getting points, he's like, yeah, meat potato. You meat potato.

And I'm like, cooch, not everyone's as good as you. Biz, he would hate you. You meat potato. Oh, yeah. No, I know. As soon as he came in the league, I had to get out of it. He wouldn't let me on the same ice. I probably told a story, too.

I can't remember. But I was actually off to a good start that year and i i was playing i was playing with marty and stammer for most of it and um cooch comes in the lineup and coops like hey you're gonna put you at this new rookie tonight i'm like oh yeah great like this is gonna suck first shift we're playing against rangers i went in the corner gave like a pass to the middle boom he buries it top block like against lungquist probably 10 seconds into his first shift i was like okay this guy's pretty good and the rest is history yeah put him with put him with capris off and see who dummies who first no and just every game when he was

coming up he was just getting breakaways just doing crazy stuff that you know he scored a one-handed goal in a shootout in long island one time to win the game it was just you could tell right away he was special. And then how good of a guy he is, too. It's even easier to root for him. Well, Biz, we've got to get an advertising deal with Oatsy, a little Biz20 promo code. Get a little discount.

Maybe he can get me back in the league, for crying out loud. I was going to ask about Tyler Johnson. I mean, we talked about so many guys this year that were i don't was he put on waivers at the start of the year or at least waivers a couple of times yeah a couple times similar to paul byron and there's many others and and obviously the playoff he's had has been extremely impactful as as many of the depth players for tampa has but you know you can't when you came in the league or when he came in the league you were playing with tampa you know what's he like as a guy and describe

maybe his game. Yeah. I mean, his game is speed and quickness, but then in the playoffs, he obviously steps it up. His playoff numbers speak for themselves. I remember he came up the same time as plot and kill or, and all those guys, and they're all big parts of that team. I think a guy that doesn't get talked about a lot is, is plot. is Palat. He's a rock on that team, man. He does everything so good. He plays hard. He's physical. He blocks shots.

He puts up points. You can play him in any situation. Unbelievable guy, too. So, Eisenman was pretty good drafting all those guys back in the day, finding those diamonds in the rough. Johnson wasn't even drafted. He was a free agent. He won the Memorial Cup in Spokane.

Then he won the AHL with Cooper in, where were they, Norfolk? Norfolk, yeah. Norfolk with one of the greatest teams ever. And then he comes in, and I think in 15, I think it was the assistant coach who was convinced if he hadn't broken his wrist in the finals, they could have got it done against Chicago. who was convinced if he hadn't broken his wrist in the finals, they could have got it done against Chicago.

He was their MVP that run. So I thought what was cool was he took a different role this year, and that included he was healthy scratch for the game. They raised the banner, and they were figuring out the cap and what was going on. And obviously Kucherov ended up missing the year, so they were able to keep him. But they were looking to get rid of him a bunch of different times. So to have it be where you were the first line guy, like playing with Kucherov and who was the other winger?

Palat. Palat. To end up being on the fourth line, it shows the career Arke's had. He's been sick for the Lightning and Johnson. So he's a guy that they'll definitely lose. But without him, I don't know if they end up getting back-to-back, which they don't have yet. We haven't even gone into game two,

so I guess I'm rambling a little bit, all right. Yeah, we did mention Montreal won game four in overtime, but we want to do a little how we got here. Obviously, the last couple of games we have been on the ESNs. Game two, Teddy, that was a game Montreal. I mean, I always go to the unforgiving quote, Clint Eastwood, that deserves got nothing to do with it.

Like everyone said they deserve to win that game, but they didn't. At the end of the day, they outshot them 43 to 23. They were better on the power play. But just a couple of simple mistakes. These are the mistakes that Canadians really didn't make for the first three rounds. The Sorelli goal, I thought Price knocked that in on his own blocker, but the back, the backbreaker was the goal with two seconds left, Blake Coleman, an absolute Superman goal.

He's done this like five or six times. But then it was another mental error. Teddy, Joel Edmondson goes to, he puts the puck in no man's land, ends up in the back of the net. And that was still anybody's game at that point. What was your take on games? Yeah, I thought just for Montreal, just to be up playing better than they have in the first game.

Like the first game was like NHL versus AHL it was like the ice was like that it was like playing in the shark tank in 2010 um first period yeah first period like out you get out shot 20 to 1 it's the horn the sharks are going everywhere power plays it's like get me out of here unless you're biz who went shelf on the emmy and pumped him out of the game. No, hey, yeah, we were up 3-0, then lost 5-3. No, but hey, people don't realize, man, the Shark Tank was probably the hardest place to get out of the first period. If you could get out of the first, why are you rolling your eyes? Oh, you're agreeing with me.

Oh, I'm totally agreeing with you. It was a nightmare, the first 20. I remember playing there in tampa actually bringing back a tampa story we're uh that was when we only played the teams like once every other year on the western conference remember that with so you wouldn't go there a lot so we were playing there and we're out for dinner tonight before it was like the long road trip and the california road trips back in the day were tough like there's three hard buildings to play in three big teams let's just get back to florida so i remember me and vinnie were out to dinner one night

and i think chloe might have been there too when he's playing with san jose and uh we weren't playing good at the time i was like chloe i was like we're playing awful you guys might beat us seven to one tomorrow night it might be five nothing the first period vinnie was like these guys come out hard here? I'm like, are you serious? He was dead serious. He was like, oh. Then after the first period, it was like 4-0 shots were 25-7. He was like, wow.

Place is hard. Vinny, you've been in the league 15 years. Yeah, how the fuck did he know? I don't know. Those were the road trips that the guys always would take off. The California ones. They'd hit up the bottle service. Exactly. They have tans like Grinelli.

A big reason. Sorry, quickly. The Coleman goal, yeah, you mentioned. He has like six unreal highlight goals in his career. This one, you don't want to blame Sherrod. He's had a great playoff, but he kind of got caught a little bit oh shit it might have been edmondson i apologize it was it was charotte and weber that's what i was going to say if yes you're out playing tampa you're going into the second period one to one that's like a win in in tampa's building so cut

your losses you don't really need to jump up in the play now i know it's the finals and stuff happens fast, but there's only three seconds left. You should know that just hang back. So nothing happens. And now you're not playing catch up and they haven't had a lead in the series at that point ever. So one-to-one going into the second,

when you're playing better, that's probably a better chance of to win the game. So you don't really need to gamble there. I don't think. Yeah, that was, it was going, that was the end of the second it was going into the third okay yeah so the other thing is too when you mentioned the um the giveaway that made it 3-1 ra uh it wasn't necessarily the

wrong play the angle he took off the boards was wrong so it bounced kind of more into the slot where if he kept it more along the boards it would have got to his partner or maybe it was the center down low so he had the right idea he probably still could have wheeled but it was more about the angle he threw it off the wall and all of a sudden it's right on the palat stick so yeah it was still a one goal game at that point they could have tied it up late but after that it was uh you knew that was a smart play by cooch too on that one he was he was kind of going behind edmondson then he went and cut in front of the net, too. I don't know if that made him panic a little bit,

and he kind of got rid of it a little faster than he did. And then it was, like you said, it was a bad bounce off the boards, and Edmondson probably skipped physics class or geometry back in the day like we all did. No, he FaceTimed Biz before the finals, and that's what happened. Just took away some of his fucking brain cells. Then game three was a bit of a shit pumping too.

They just unloaded the offense and finally let the floodgates open. Yeah, the first 10 minutes of that game was like, I wanted Montreal to win that one, just kind of make it more of an entertaining series a little bit. But then after, you know, we were like, I remember I was watching with Jeff Carter at his place

and we were, Tampa went up 2-0 in 10 seconds. And then Deneau had that nice goal. We're like, oh, wow, this is going to be a good game. It's going to be exciting. And then Tampa was like, bing, bing, bing, bing, over. Yeah. That was the worst. That was our stream.

That was our last stream when we were ready to get out of New York. And that was definitely the worst game of the series in my opinion. I was trying to count all the fans. They said 3,500, and there had to have been at least 12,000 in there. Yeah, it looked – I mean, it didn't look packed, obviously, but it definitely looked more than 3,500. Teddy, huge reason why Tampa won that game too. Vasilevsky, man, like this guy, he's gigantic.

He stops everything. Probably the best goalie in the world right now. Is he the leader for the Conn Smith right now? I know no one's won it yet, but. Yeah, I mean, I think you can all argue all day about Point, Cooch, and then Vasilevsky. I know Point hasn't done as much in this series, so maybe you can a little more of an edge to Vasilevsky.

But yeah, I didn't play with him. I met him a few times, but just what the guys say about him, he's obviously everyone knows how athletic and good he is, but he's one of the hardest workers that they have there, and he's a dog. So it's, obviously, people can say, well, he's not lucky. He's talented and he works hard to deserve everything

he gets. Do you think Otzi would pass over a goalie as a client? Like, I don't know, man, or is he maybe smart enough to be like, I'll take you in? I think he is. I think he could, I think he could work with some goalies. Absolutely. He teaches guys on the senior tour on PGA. He just breaks down their putting, breaks down their shots, their swings.

You know the name Steve Quigley? Yes. Or Brett Quigley. No, the Quigley. Is that the one who played? One of the senior tour players played hockey down in the Florida area. I'm not sure, but I think it's Brett Quigley. Yeah, the Quigley. Is that the one who played? One of the senior tour players played hockey down in the Florida area. I'm not sure, but I think it's Brett Quigley. Yeah, he's a swing coach.

He goes to the range. What's that nice course? Bears Club. Seminole and Bears Club. Yeah, and he teaches them his stuff. Yeah, he just knows everything about the body anatomy. He's just way too smart for everyone. Yeah, another note on that game, too.

It was Dom Duchamp's first game back, but it made no difference, man. Tampa just fucking spank another note on that game too, it was Dom Dushan's first game back, but it made no difference, man. Tampa just fucking spanked them in that game. Six, three, one gives them a three zero series lead. I thought the Habs come out pretty sloppy.

Uh, the root of goal route. Yeah. And root of that. So price got us to stop that, man. I'm sorry. Like we were sitting next to,

um, Jose Theodore biz. I don't know if you heard him, but he said, he goes, oh man, that's a bad angle. That's,

that's what he should add. And then once you're down one, all in the whole of Tampa Bay, you kind of screwed, but we just mentioned Tyler Johnson a minute ago. He had a huge game, two goals, Vasilevsky, 11 straight wins over Montreal. I know he lost tonight. Third longest streak in NHL history,

as far as a winning streak over Montreal. So pretty cool thing for him and the Tampa Bay defense. They were key tonight. I'm sorry. Key in game three, two goals, three assists, five points total.

So I don't know what else you got in this game, Teddy. Yeah. I mean that game I was saying, you know, it was, I was hoping it was going to be a closer game just for, because the finals,

I don't know if you were biz wit, but you were like, this finals is embarrassing. So I wanted to, yeah. And then Danone came down and scored and I was but you were like, this finals is embarrassing. So I wanted to – Yeah, and then Deneau came down and scored. I was like, all right, this might be a game. And then Tampa, like you said, Johnson took over, and Tampa dominated them.

And it looked, again, like the first game, NHL versus AHL team. So it's funny, though. Like, you know when a player plays bad, the GM and the coach sit down, like, oh, this guy, you know, healthy scratch. And then the team wins. Or if you come in the lineup and you lose and you're out again in the next lineup, it would be GM and the coach sit down like, oh, this guy, you know, healthy scratch, and then the team wins. Or if you come in the lineup and you're losing, you're out again the next lineup. It'd be funny if the coach said, hey, Ducharme, you weren't ready. Now you've got to sit out

game four, bud, up in the press box with Kakenemi. Hey, things were going like decent. I mean, even game two, we could have won. Now you're back. We're getting run out of the building. Exactly. Boys might like Richardson more. I heard he's a good dude. You look pretty confident, Ben.

From like a skilled team standpoint, I felt like shifting it over to game four. The reason I thought Montreal had more success and they seemed more into it is they kind of, you know, they try to bully them. They try to be a lot more physical, a lot of face washes. And, I mean, you saw like how many times there was like three, four guys in the box together. Is it hard from a skilled team standpoint when they're just taking runs at guys yeah i think but i think tampa like they've had some they're mature now and they're veterans of the playoffs they've been on a bunch of runs a couple years ago you could say that remember when columbus like bullied

them and pushed them out of the rink they swept them i think they learned from all those deep runs and what it takes and maybe that year people were like you know they need to get bigger and physical I think they went on to address that and got you know big rig and they got that third line who are like buzz saws they're not the biggest guys but they play tough and they don't back down from anyone so I think it'll add another element to their lineup and now you see Cooch Cooch is not getting pushed out any series doesn't matter who it is you know he's taking his cross checks cross checks. He's in there. He's scoring from the tough areas. Point, obviously, everyone knows him. He's a gamer.

He's not shying down from anyone. So I think their experience from what they've had in the past, their failures, has really put them over the top. And now it looks like for the second year in a row, they're going to walk away with another one. And we talked about Hedman, guys, and the McDonough chatter needs to continue as well. It's like that game tonight,

the play he made in the game seven goal against the Islanders, the Gore goal, he started it all in the PK. And then tonight he makes the most ridiculous, like kind of pinch at the offensive blue line, keeps the play alive, goes in no look dish to Goudreau for a time for the tying goal. It's like to make it one,

one. And then later on, he does this cross seam head up, like shot past Kudrow who the tying goal. It's like to make it 1-1. And then later on, he does this cross seam head up, like shot past Kudrow, who had an empty net. And he hit the post. So the fact that they have Hedman and Sergeyev and then also McDonough, it's like what a player, what a trade that they ended up acquiring him from New York.

Yeah, he's a beast. Hey, I heard that the Panthers had a deal for him for Borgstrom. And before that, Borgstrom had ever played a game, and then there was something else involved, and it fell through. Where he was calling guys in Florida about schools and where to live. So you can imagine if Tampa wasn't able to get him when they were, because he is a beast. Yeah, he is.

He doesn't get talked about enough. But I think just only because for one, they're in a Tampa market. If they're in Canada, they're going to be all over him, how good he's been. And also because Tampa have, you know, those five other studs that get most of the attention.

But like you said, with anyone that knows hockey or watches it, we'll take that guy in our team any day. Like even at the Petrie, like, yeah, he probably should know his pension, but he just surprised him. McDonough kind of just waited and came out of nowhere and then obviously that pass is world class too but yeah he just goes about his business and he's solid every game he was a beast that whole islander series too he blocks shots he's yeah so smart he's so calming back there he's uh

he's been fun to watch well you talk about petri on that play he was probably looking at the two forwards who looked like they were back checking already i think it was goudreau and it might even been i forget who the other guy was so yeah he kind of lifted up his head and he acted like he was surprised it was just a great heads-up play by mcdonough and um and i you know i want to shout out suzuki because he continues to impress and the the poise and the patience he had to find anderson on the one nothing goal and amazingly dude i i literally tweeted out just give the cup to tampa and this enough and it was like as the tweet was being sent and i got sick internet at home boom they score it was a ridiculous timed event but suzuki made the entire play happen i thought yeah he almost had another one too in the third i I think.

Same kind of play. He like waited around someone, told you I back, I think he tried to backhand it out to Caulfield. But yeah, as a second year player in the league or whatever he is, first or second year, to be in the playoffs like that, making those plays under pressure is impressive. He's going to be good for a long time.

I was reading up. The LA Kings are the only other team to take a 3-0 lead in a series, a final series, in the last 22 years. Of course, their series got extended. And then looking at the Habs, they were only swept in 1952, so they avoided a big sweep tonight, going back to Tampa. We said earlier, I think there's Tampa 14 and 0 after a playoff loss going back to the bubble, and

they haven't lost back-to-back games in either postseason so far. I think Tampa tried losing that tonight. Families couldn't come up. They didn't want to be emotional. Bullshit. That's a joke. The media's coming up. The families can't come up? Yeah, and there's 25,000 people outside with

no masks, but you can't have people inside so now their boys are gonna go back to tampa and have the parade on saturday it's perfect they're veterans they didn't want to celebrate at home win one are they gonna go back to the boat tour are they gonna do it different this year i'm not sure probably you'll have a bigger one i'm sure right less covid they probably will have a normal one although the buck i know the bucks did it but it was still kind of COVID then. Yeah, the boat tour, right? I guess I can ask any of you guys.

How would you approach that going into the game? I mean, you don't play to lose. Hockey players aren't programmed to try to win. You want to get out of the way. Yeah, okay, all right. I was just joking. No, no, not you. Some people out there, Teddy, you never know.

And you know how it is, boys. I'm sure there's a bunch of those guys banged up and probably have to get surgeries after. They want to get that thing over as soon as possible and not even give Montreal a chance or risk it. Don't even give them any hope. And I read the last sweep was the 98 wings, I believe. Yep.

And in that time, so, you know, that's – we're looking at a period where there's been three NBA sweeps and four or six World Series sweeps. So I like the parody of the league. You know, no one wants to see a sweep in the finals. That was kind of what everyone said before the story. I mean, before the final began. I think that in the end, though, like Tampa dominated that game. The shots were a significant margin in favor of them, and they're going home. I mean, they're not coming off the ice.

They're coming off the ice disappointed. By no means are they worried. They're fully confident they're going to smash them on Wednesday. Yeah, for sure. And, well, they hit four posts, too. I know anything can happen in the playoffs, but Tampa probably deserved to win that game, and the only reason why was Price was lights out again.

So, I think, yeah, the boys will be happy to hoist it at home this weekend. Teddy, any extra FOMO added, considering that you played there for so long and you still know so many of those guys? Yeah, definitely FOMO. You know, when I first came out of the league, it was almost like too soon to see the teams winning. I mean, it felt like that the year I got traded from L.A.

and then the boys won two out of the next three. Like watching an old lady on a videotape getting a real butt kiss. Oh, I know. By the way. R.A. in Columbia. Yeah, by a dog with a huge wrench. Woof dick. Little black.com, eh, Teddy?

Two on one. No back checkers. No back checkers, no. And just love her face. Just loving it, too. Hey, they got the mascara all over that, like the mascara all over. Why do they call you? I read, um, no, I'm, I'm happy for those guys now. And they won it last year. It'd be cool to win back to back again. Um,

you know, I still keep in touch with five or six of the guys that are not the training staff are awesome and see them in the summers and at weddings and stuff. So, uh, no, that's, that ship has sailed. Now I just want to keep seeing those boys win. And I was even – I was talking to the Kings guys the other day too, and Kopey was saying that the year they won the Cup, Ari, you mentioned that they're the first team since the Kings

to go up 3-0. Those guys were up 3-0 in every series that playoff run. How nice of a feeling would that be? Well, and they were also getting after it after every time they clinched. Yeah, I know, because they were sweeping. They had two weeks in between serieses. It was like a dream. Just racking up their miles.

Yeah, that was one of the most dominant. I think maybe the most dominant cup run ever. I think they went 16-3 that year, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, that's insane. That's like no stress, no anxiety at all in the playoffs. Imagine going into every city and knowing you're going to stomp teams. Teddy, speaking of ladies, you ended up getting engaged is that something you could talk about on the podcast because we want to congratulate you i think i have to now that you just asked and told her all well we could always take it out i'm just kidding yeah we did

it last friday and going back to the story of you know uh being jealous of your old team's winning and like a little salt in the wound. She's going to Tokyo for the Olympics, so I had to give her the ring before she went to the athlete's village and six-foot-thumb swimmer, 250 pounds and no body fat, or a basketball guy. So I had to lock that up pretty quick here before. The first ever porn filmed in the Olympic Village

from your new old lady. Hey, so they give out free rubbers. She's beach volleyball, right? Yeah, she's playing the beach volleyball. They're going in as the number two seed. Let's go. I know. Her partner is April

Ross. She's been in a couple Olympics. She's got a bronze and a silver. Her partner does. There's only one left for her to get. Hopefully, they'll come back with a little piece of gold. So this will be her first ever Olympics? Her first Olympics, yeah. So she's all fired up. And then unfortunately for you,

somebody was telling me at the Barstow office, it's just Japan residents. Nobody else can go. Yeah, it's just only domestic fans. So dumb. That sucks. I mean, so her job is traveling the world, playing this sport. But still, it's her goal always been the Olympics.

Like, is this something that she's been working for for so many years? Yeah. So she played indoor volleyball, like overseas and after college. And that's where those girls make their money. And they have good contracts over there. Beach is not as much for the money. So she switched to beach because she didn't want to live abroad anymore.

She's from here. She wanted to train here, and she missed the Olympics indoors. She didn't make it, so her goal was to try it on the beach. I think she switched over three or four years ago. If we had those guys' work ethic with her, her work ethic, we'd still be playing and making five or six right now. She's an absolute breeder too, Teddy. I know.

I said it. Our kids don't have college scholarships. I'm out. I want my money back. You can't say that. I'm like, I'm only joking. But yeah, they have good – You're like, worst case, they can go play junior, babe.

Yeah, exactly. Go play the dub. Hey, boys, real quick. I want to mention our friends at Labatt. At Labatt, they don't care if you're good or bad at most things in life. Good. That sounds good. They only care if you're good at 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 be good at beer too with the pristine canadian pilsner labatt blue light we're going to be working with labatt blue labatt labatt blue light all year we have some exciting content coming up so grab a pack and enjoy the last few games of the stanley cup we don't know how many we're gonna get but how about headman the first player in nhl history to score a goal in all 12

months of the year we talked about the bat thing though did they hire ryan malone for their marketing commercials i haven't seen him i don't know bugsy twin no i'm just saying that what ra just said it sounded like bugs you wrote it. Grab a beer, be yourself, don't be anyone else. Do good and drink beer. He's writing beer jingles now. The guy can do it all. Grab a beer, hang with your buddies, light a fire and watch it burn. A big lineup change, Montreal, they finally went to Romanoff.

I mean, people have been clamoring for this guy. They've been riding their top four D for so long. Were you surprised it took so long, Teddy, for Duchamp, all the coaching staff to get him in? Yeah, I mean, he came back in the – or he played in the C. He was physical. You know, it takes – he can skate. He can – he's not afraid to make plays for a young guy.

And especially, like what you just said, if those guys were just playing those four big guys too long and Tampa anyone can watch if you're a hockey fan or not just those guys were coming at those d and waves it must have been it looked exhausting just watching Tampa come at him and four check and hound puck so and against a team like Tampa they're just too good you can't play with 4d I don't care what 4d you have it's just too hard. And so I thought he came in and did a good job tonight. Obviously, the goal is icing on top and makes the coach look like a genius. But I think that was pretty stupid for them not to have him in the first couple of games.

Yeah, I thought the best sequence of the game was early in overtime. That fucking unreal save that Vasilevsky made on Suzuki. And then it goes the other way and price makes two huge saves down the other end. It's just been a great goaltending show. What do you think? You said you're going to wrap it up Monday night or what? Are they a lock Wednesday? Wednesday? I'm sorry. Yeah. Wednesday. I think it's going to be a lock at home. Like you said, price was, you knew what they were going to price was going to steal at least one game.

He could have done it in game two, but they had those mental mistakes. I think tap at home at home ice building family in the stands. It's just a matter of time. They're, they're not going to, they're not going to get away with six or seven game series here. All right, boys, this question applies to all three. You Shay Weber gets called for the high stick four minute double minor or a minute and a half left in the game or whatever it was. How much are you guys shitting your pants if that's you in that situation if this team scores your season is fucking over because you are penalty and shade bro but have all the respect

in the world for the guy it was just one of those accidental things but i mean how much is a guy shitting himself in that box or is he a guy like yeah he probably went through a couple of diapers in there but and and like he's a guy that everyone likes. And, obviously, he's had a great career and he's an honest player. And those guys love him. He's their leader. And, like you said, it was just shit luck. And he probably had so – or he did.

He had so much guilt and anxiety in that box. And I was kind of glad they killed it. That was – Exactly. And, you know, he goes to war for those guys every night. So, that was a – would have been a shitty way to end it on a harmless call. Now, if you cross-check someone in the head or something, then that's your own fault.

But a little play like that that could happen 10 times a game and to have your season like that would have been hard. He would have had a lot of sleepless summer nights for sure. Yeah, I think if it was a selfish penalty, you don't feel bad in a play like that. The other part is, too, he had to get through the first minute and then sit in the locker room the entire intermission thinking about the next degree. Don't look at Jay.

Don't look at Jay. Clean ice, too, for Tampa's power play. That's what we're feeling in hockey right now. But they did a great job killing that. They had a better chance to end it shorthanded than probably Tampa had. Did you think for sure they were ending it? Oh, I was looking at my house. We had 20 grand on it.

No, I honestly, like I'm not rude for the Canadians, but honestly, Teddy, I was a hundred percent hoping they killed it just for Weber. Cause like, I honestly, you gotta think they dig a little deeper with a guy like that. Like no one, you know, it was a tough buddy. They're digging deep already. They're trying to keep their season alive. Doesn't matter who's in there.

You might give another 2% because even 0.02% because it's Shea Weber, man. You don't want to let that guy down. You got him staring across the room at you. I don't know. I think that's where a respect factor can make just that much of a difference. I trust our raise opinion over wits. Hey, you know what? After all, he's got the credibility.

How many street hockey tournaments is whitney one oh shit well teddy thanks so much for coming on um haven't seen you in quite a while maybe we could get together in the in the summer here we got a street hockey event coming up come to that or we could come to you in the fall but uh it's great catching up with you congrats on the engagement And hopefully you're married to a gold medal winner in a couple weeks. Thanks, boys. Yeah, it was a long time. For sure. Had fun like always and hope to see you guys soon for a couple of cocktails.

Yeah, get those wrist curls going. Awesome. We'll see on the golf course. You and Bugsy Sandbag are coming up on the West Coast. I'm practicing. Can't wait. All right, boys. Tell O.T. we said hello.

I will. Big thanks to our buddy Teddy Purcell for joining us. It's been a minute since we had him on. He's probably one of the favorite reoccurring guests we have on Spittin' Chicklets. Yeah, salt of the earth. One of the best guys going. It's good to catch up. I'd love to see him soon enough. And we're

on to game five, guys. I pretty much, you know, I got the Marc Messier guarantee going here game five tampa ends this tampa ends this series we had one good game game four canadians get lucky on to tampa raising it raising it again like a fork in the habs they're done all right boys in addition to the stanley cup there was quite a bit of off ice action last week lots of moves by teams and whatnot and also a couple of awards. Adam Fox won the Norris Trophy. Beat out

let's see, Victor Hedman and Cale McCaffer, the honors. Was this an upset to you, Whit? No, probably not. In the end, not really. Not to pump my own tires, but I think I said he should win this a couple of weeks, if not months ago. And man,

two people have won the Norris Trophy in their sophomore seasons, Bobby Orr and Adam fucking Fox. So to add your name to a list that's just included with only Orr is pretty scary stuff. And if you look at the Rangers and their future, it really all does go around him. And you see him already become the best defenseman in the world, at least this season. And he does it in really interesting fashion because he's not

the fastest player in the world. He's not the biggest, but he's so smart. His hockey IQ is on another level. That's what I talked about when we were pumping his tires throughout the year. But he thinks the game at a legitimately different level than 99% of defensemen, because he's so far ahead of the play in his mind where he's able to see where guys are going to be along with the ability to have the puck and make head fakes and make moves that just completely give false information. It's just an awesome,

an awesome, an awesome season. I'm happy for him. And what's interesting is he, he's got one more year until he's a free agent. But this summer, you'll see what's going on. I think Quinn Hughes is a free agent,

Kael McCarr and Heskinen, right? So with the flat cap currently, are you going to sign a long-term deal? Are you going to try to do a shorter deal to then hammer it when know when the cap's back and the league's going a little a little different post-covid i don't know what the rangers want to do with him what is he going to ask for now in the end though it's a deserving win for a guy who um right away came in 42 points i think his rookie year wasn't even spending most

of the season on the first power play unit that was t D'Angelo and then this year he just took it to another level so congrats yeah and when you say free agent obviously restricted right he did yes he did come out of college and he kind of got to decide to decide where he wanted to go was he not property of was he originally property of Calgary and then went to Carolina and get moved over he was a third round pick from Calgary and then went to Carolina and then get moved over? He was a third round pick from Calgary and then, you know, won the Hobie Baker was dominant in college and pretty much. Did he say not what he didn't want to sign with Calgary? I don't know the entire story of how he went to Carolina first. Maybe that needed to happen to then have the Rangers be able to go in with

them. But what a, I know, dude, our move by a kid who grew up right and is he grew up in connecticut or new york g long island and kevin hayes kevin hayes episode 96 of spitting chiclets over three years ago coming on the pod just pumping adam fox's tires saying he's going to be a stud in the nhl and then he wins the norris well i mean you kind of mentioned it too he ends up getting the first PP minutes. And it's hard to argue because as far as eye tests and numbers are concerned, you really can't deny him winning it.

And then on top of that, you look at the analytics where it's like, holy fuck, did this guy even spend one shift in his own zone? So it's very impressive. What a diamond in the rough situation. Reading the articles I've seen since he won, talking about the analytics, he just pushes the play out of his own zone. He's unreal takeaway-wise, and then he gets it going.

They create shots in the slot. They create so much more when he's on the ice, and it doesn't matter if it's five on five or up a man. So, yeah, I think that you could see Hedman getting it again, but in the end, I like that he was voted the winner. It's pretty cool. It probably helped the shortened season as well. I mean, Hedman, it's tough to argue against him.

But, you know, as far as all the numbers that you're looking at. Yeah, he was just kind of far and above in the shortened season. The best guy. And oh, yes, I'm sorry. So he was part of the Dougougie hamilton to carolina and lynn home to calgary deal he was part of like that whole like package yeah so that's why i said kind of a diamond in the rough situation where yeah you know all of a sudden they got a norris defenseman in his second year and i'm sure a few of the other teams are kicking themselves in the

ass given what the return was but hey uh the new york's got themselves a good one yeah he's got that harvard clout we most of those guys a lot of those guys stay for four years and they end up losing their rights like we saw jimmy veezy a couple years ago fox i think i don't know if he made it known publicly or what but he didn't want to play in calgary didn't want to be in carolina and he kind of uh let's see leveraged his way to the rangers so hey if you can do it as a player good for you make it clear that even though he's from long island he didn't want to play for the islanders i'm just asking i guess that yeah i guess you can deduce that from what i just said you're something else man you're something else but i'll tell you what there's if there's one thing the stanley cup

final has taught us is that and frank the tank said it after the live stream the other night he said this tells us a lot about the islanders and the fact that how they're dismantling or i guess did dismantle the the montreal canadians and and how how hard it was to knock off the the the islanders so i guess we got to thank the the the cap situation which i guess that's another question for you r-ray now i was trying to dig up whether it was true or not is the fact that the tampa bay lightning brought it up a few years back i think it was 2015 true if that's true so they tried to bring up the fact that you shouldn't be able to put guys on long term ir and then activate them and be over the cap and playoff and and then they said that tampa

was the team that brought it up when the new cba negotiations were happening and everybody else was kind of pigeon tossing them saying nah let's just know everyone i think it was the i think the tweet said that they brought it up once they lost to the hawks in 2015 oh yeah because they because they were victim thing they stashed pat kane on it but that could be a twitter kind of like i don't i haven't seen that verified already have you i i look we're the rumor pod we're the rumor pod that's the other rumor guy oh yeah you wait whoa whoa you would never you've never guy do it okay listen i'll just i'll take credit for the johnny goudreau rumor get started wait has r.a never said a rumor on the pod ever? I'm pretty much staunchly anti-rumor.

Did he break a trade? I reported a story that was wrong. That's different than passing along a rumor. No, because not really. In the end, it was a rumor. Well, no. It was told to me something was going to happen, and something changed last minute.

So it was a rumor. No. Blender. Blender eyes. No, I don't think it was a rumor at all. It didn't happen. It didn't happen. That doesn't mean it's not a rumor.

I'll tell you what, all right. I'm going to take the rumor title for the podcast, but it is up for grabs. I'm going to catch you. I'll take the humor. I'm going to catch you slipping one of these days. What's going to make me slip if I'm slipping? Also, Biz, this was an interesting note.

Tyson Barry is the first player in the 60, 70-year history of the Norris Trophy to lead defensemen in scoring and not receive a single vote. That's from at JFreshHockey. I did see one page with the top 15 guys, and he didn't get one vote there. And the other one had, like, every guy in the league. So I didn't have time to go through that. Well, he gets the old, like, anyone could do that job.

He passes it to Dreitzile and McDavid, where, you know, in the end, he makes some great plays, and I thought he had a Island McDavid where you know in the end he makes some great plays and I thought he had a great season but you know what I'm saying like the whole read on him is oh it's not that hard to pass to those two guys that's how you lead the league and fuck you're on a podcast with one of them RA exactly I could have had 40 apples snapping at the Sid I'd have I would I would have led the league in scoring, too, playing with McDusty. All right, moving right up. Or for the defenseman, anyway. All right, moving along to the Vezina Trophy.

Marc-Andre Fleury, one of his first former teammates. You guys, tough the way his season ended, I think, but nice to see him get one. He just keeps further cementing his Hall of Fame resume, eh, Biz? I missed who you said, R.A. I totally glitched out. Because I was also looking at i was i was going to mention kale mccarr quickly going back to the norris saying if he was able to be healthy all season

he probably would have been neck and neck with adam fox but moving on but flower i'm so happy for we were able to interview uh quite a few guys in nyc one of them being kevin weeks and we talked to him about it uh you know kind of uh a bittersweet ending to the season for Marc-Andre Fleury finally gets his first Vezina um after the to add to the three Stanley Cups but I mean with uh it's tough to argue this one given the season he had and the fact that he's doing it at the age he's doing it at um and you know when we talk to Mike McKenna it has to do with his conditioning and his skating and the fact that he's still able to keep up with this NHL pace. Yeah, that's a guy who's taking care of his body as well as he could

since he came into the league. He's always eating well. He's always working out. And McKenna did talk about that. I was just really happy for him because, you know, the three cups, what was it, six trips to the finals right he lost in he lost with me and he lost with Vegas so five sorry um to get the Vesna to go with all that all the all-star games it's it does really cement his hall of fame legacy not that he wouldn't have been to begin

with but it's pretty sick for him to be able to say he's a Vesna winner. And it was deserving. He had a great season. It's so odd that the Vesna winner was scratched in the game that they lost. I mean, how often? That's got to be a first. How many fucking times has that ever happened? That's a first. But that also might be a rumor.

That has to be a first. The Vesna winner being a scratch. What did you say, Ves? I said that has to be a first. but I said that might also be a rumor. But if it becomes true, then it becomes a truma. That's what your stories are, trumas. Yeah, that means they came true. He don't listen.

Yeah, he had a 9-8 save percentage, 1-9-8 goals against six shutouts. Guy's been in the league 17 years, 36 years old. Impressive as hell. Like I said, it was a tough end of the season for him the way things went with Jaboyle off the nut. And Vasilevsky, you know, he's going to win plenty moving forward. So I think it was Flowers' turn to win one. Who was the other guy in the mix other than Vasilevsky?

I just closed the fuck up. Do you know Witt off the top of your head? Let me take a stab at it. Michael Hauser. Wasn't it Grububauer i think it was grubauer hauser imagine how quickly hauser would spend his bonus from winning the vesna he'd get a he'd get a bud light tattoo the size of ben affleck's on his back that's all i get the third finalist that's all i got hockey podcast yeah i'm uh i just vasilevsky and grubauer like yeah oh that a boy mikey you didn't say it with much though so i didn't believe you had you sent that had you how many how important is it to

say stuff with confidence emphasis because people just believe you. That's true. That's why everyone believes Biz. I actually had a 45-1 ticket on Volomov to win the Vezina this year. Obviously, he didn't win, but he had a pretty good season, just not as good as the flower. McDavid, you just mentioned him, Biz. He won the hot and the Lindsay. No surprise there.

He got every single first place vote for the hot. Well-deserved. I mean, how would you in good conscience even vote for anybody else this season? Well, I think he's the first guy to win unanimously since Gretzky as well, where everybody gave him the first place vote. So, yeah, I don't think in good conscience. I probably wouldn't have just to be that guy, kind of like that one guy sent out his list as far as Selkie winners where he had to know number one.

But I mean, hey, but looking at what he's done in playoffs, maybe, maybe, maybe I guess he did deserve a couple of votes. All right, buddy. I'll set any other things you want to add on the awards biz. I don't know. I think we've stroked McDavid off and off this season. Yeah. What are you going to say?

We talk about him every episode. The guy had a legendary season, an all-time season. And next year, honestly, might be better. It's like he just keeps getting better. I don't get it. I had somebody, I think, hit me up in the DMs on Instagram saying that he just bought a cottage on Lake Muskoka right near him, and he asked what I should bring over as a housewarming gift for him,

as in what that guy should have. I said a bottle of Pink Whitney. So, I mean, that's pretty easy. Is this a stranger or a friend of his who's just walking over to his house? Oh, a complete stranger. Oh, that's good. You should give him the address. You guys good? I got nothing.

All right. I was just trying to make conversation, R i hate you buddy uh absolutely no surprise with the call the uh caril caprizoff had a phenomenal year for minnesota basically put that franchise back on the map uh he beat out jason robertson and uh arkans goalie uh alex nadelkovich for the honest i don't think they were even close uh so kudos to him. Training camp starts soon in the KHL, too. Wait, time out. I think that he's holding out right now.

Have we talked about that? No, he's not holding out. They just signed Eric Sinek, which we're going to get to in a second. And Bill Guerin said, we were talking. There's no, whatever report came out said there was silence on both ends. Bill Guerin said it was bullshit. They're talking, they're negotiating. Another rumor. Another rumor.

Here we go. Minus one. Minus two, I guess. I wonder how much money he could get back to go to, receive to go back to Seska. I mean, 10 million a year? I don't know, but there's some salary opened up because I think one of the most legendary players

in KHL history just announced his retirement. And is it? Yeah, it may be. Sergey Mozayakin and and you played against him correct Whit I actually never got to play against him I didn't play against Magnitogors my season over there but thank you you see the highlights you see this guy his numbers I think he went over to Columbus for like three weeks I don't know the exact extent maybe it was a full season but he was a legend over there he got he got over here he's like oh this he thought it was russia and columbus that's what his his interpretation of over here was do they worship the cup over there at all like

not obviously not to the extent north america but the guys like really want to have that on their resume with playing there did you get that vibe at all yeah i think guys in the yeah yeah he's got two gregarion cups gregarion that's what i'm wondering is a gag gagarin gagarin cup like in a higher level than the stanley cup no i mean i'm speaking as an american guy who was there five months but i'm'm guessing Kucherov, everyone holds him to a little higher ground with the cup than they do some dude on who won it this year. Fuck, Hartley's team? I think they hold it to a higher standard because it comes full of woof,

and it's actually huge. I don't know if you guys have seen how big the cup is, actually. So that's kind of why they hold it to a little bit of a different standard. They get an extra week off before camp yeah i'm always wondering about that how much the russians actually care about the stanley cup but so we'll see what happens with carill hopefully he comes back because he's a hell of a talent and now the last one i'm not sure if we mentioned before the jack adams rod brindamore did win it uh well deserved and i thought dean evison might have got it this year uh q joe quengle was the third guy in there so congratulations to Hot Rod on the Jack Adams all right moving right along big trade

this is a real big trade I thought Nashville traded Victor Arvidsson to LA for a second round pick this year in a third round pick next year Arvidsson is 28 he's got three years left on his deal at 4.25 million I think that's one of the best bargains in the league I mean this kid's a 30 goal scorer. And if you've seen Instagram, his teammates are really bummed out. I know guys hate to see guys traded, but it seemed like there was a little bit more than usual in this case, Biz. Well, who sent out the thumbs down?

I think that was Forsberg. Yeah, Philippe Forsberg. I mean, not oftentimes you see the emojis coming out after a guy gets dealt. But, I mean, what a steal for la i mean we talk about how how many times a second rounder is going to end up panning out making an impact on the nhl let alone you said it was the second and a fourth correct second and a third second and a third but i mean three more years left at that that salary i think that that's an absolute steal and i think that he he'd had a he had a bit of an off year offensively.

Maybe it wasn't this year. Maybe it was a year prior. But I think a great pickup for L.A. and not giving off a lot. So I don't know what Nashville's thinking on that one. It's not like they have a ton of prospects in the pipeline ready to take that job. Maybe this had something to do with not losing him for nothing in the draft for Seattle.

But I think it is hard, though. Like Forsberg sees, I'm assuming, one of his friends, his countrymen, Arvidsson, who's a great player. I mean, he's had two little off years. I mean, the 30-goal season was in 18-19, but still they lose him for nothing. So that's the thing. I would find it very hard to believe

that Forsberg would send that thumbs down had a player was coming back, right? He just sees that it's a second and third round pick. I mean, if it was another guy from LA, it's not a tough. That's a great point. You like the move for L.A., and you have to think, though, that to deal him and get nothing back that's going to help you this season,

it was all related to the expansion draft. Yeah, that would have made for an awkward entrance into the training camp. Get the middle finger emoji. Fuck this shit. Now, here's another thing. You mentioned that they did it to probably make themselves okay to not have him get taken away for nothing or somebody else even that they couldn't protect for the expansion draft.

Now, I don't know how the fuck these GMs keep up, man, because I would have completely got fleeced if I was a part of that as a general manager. And, I mean, I guess you saw a lot of them get fleeced in the last one, so teams are a little bit more prepared. Yeah, but you get baked every day. And the only GM who does that is Stevie Y. No.

And they don't have enough prospects to protect. So he's fine. He's fucking. I actually read there was an article online today. I don't know where it was. He's like, take them all. Take all these fucking losers. No, apparently Detroit is like set up to just work the system

and end up getting a bunch of players throughout this expansion draft. I don't know. I got to read the whole article. I got to figure out. Well, I'm actually meeting with Stevie White for lunch when we're at the ball hockey tournament. So he's actually going to come out. He's going to play on our team.

I recruited him. So anybody going to the Detroit ball hockey. He wants to play going to come out he's going to play on our team i recruited him so anybody going to the detroit net right yeah yeah r.a we're gonna have to beat number 34 out for it now quickly talking about that r.a that uh you got a hockey goalie mask made and it got a custom paint job what the tournament well i suppose it's a good time to announce i'm coming out of retirement uh we were gonna make a video down new york at some point you're gonna be available in the expansion draft? He's got a goalie mask like every kid ever to play street hockey, according to R.A.

Well, how many people tweeted back that they actually did have him? Quite a few folks. I didn't have him when I was a kid. Now I did. But, yeah, our friend did. What's your paint job? You didn't see it on the account? No.

I didn't specify it. As far as Devoid Cross Country Mortgage, your buddy, he has, gee, maybe you could pull the guy's the account. I didn't know. I didn't specify as far as Devoid cross country mortgage. Your buddy has G. Maybe you could pull the guy's hand off to give him proper credit. He made it just on a whim, coincidentally. So I'm coming out of retirement. I'm going to play for the Boston team. We're in the lowest division. I don't have to wear rollerblades. I'm going to be I'm going to be looking like Bobby Brown during that versus versus Keith Sweat the other night. Absolute porn buckets.

But it'll be fine. It'll be fine. I'll see how bad I look or rusty I am. But, yeah, I'm probably going to wear that mask. I'm going to try to get my hands on it before we get to Detroit just to make sure I can see out of it and it's a proper fit. Break that thing in, dude. Yeah, I'm excited to take a few shots.

Now, going back to the comment about Detroit picking everybody's pocket in the expansion draft, where did you hear that? It was an article, and I didn't even click on it. It was literally the title, a headline of the article. I'm going to try to find it right now and see what I can tell you. Let's deal with that as we keep talking. I'll keep looking as we keep talking.

We'll get back to how Detroit's going to build a new dynasty throughout this year's expansion draft he's gonna take me out of the radio booth from the coyotes and fire me i can't wait to go to detroit actually i've only been there for a layover i'm gonna check out the motown museum while we're there biz you want to go with you are all with you it's pretty close to where we're staying i'll light a j and go uh listen to you talk to me about the old school stuff now you just mentioned uh you just mentioned the the the versus stuff with with uh with who was it with bobby brown bobby brown and keith sweat yeah jesus he's still running he's still singing god bless him man yeah bobby brown still still out there i don't he's not like regularly touring but he did he did that the other night i

mean him and ke Sweat, that whole New Jack swing, they were fucking monsters back in the day. But yeah, it was funny. He was fucking drowning in his own sweat. It was like he'd sing like the first three words of a song and let the crowd sing the rest. It was kind of funny, but... Oh, they did it live. Got it.

The Red Wings are in a prime position to capitalize on the teams who are in the expansion draft binds. This is by Cam Lewis on the dailyfaceoff.com. So you can check it out. I'm not going to read the entire article right here, but there's a way. There's a way for Stevie Wye to just turn around Detroit a lot quicker than people thought, according to this guy, Cam Lewis.

We're going to be seeing a lot of other players on teams with thumb down emojis going when Stevie Stevie Wise comes in for the draft. We're going to thump a couple Detroit Red Wings in a sandbagger when we're at our street hockey event. That's for sure. Any other miscellaneous hockey news? Lots of it. Duncan Keith is reportedly on the trading block,

and Edmonton appears to be the frontrunners. He does have a no-move clause, so he has a ton of say in where he goes if he goes it's going to be 38 next week but he's got two years left at 5.5 i think that's a pretty good bargain he's playing at a pretty high level i'd say even for his age and he's probably what edmonton needs biz like the kind of veteran steady presence on the back line he's a winner he can kind of yeah you know make that contagious in the room so hopefully somehow yeah winning pedigree and i think towards the end of his career i mean i mean good news for chicago is they got jonathan tapes coming back but you know all in all i think that there's a little bit of a rebuild that's going to have to happen and right now with all these young studs in edmonton that they got to get going they got

to start adding a few more pieces and and I think that that's a great one. Now I would imagine somebody said something about him wanting to head out West. So there was a lot of rumors, whether it was going to be Vancouver, whether it was going to be Winnipeg, Calgary. So the front runner seems to be Edmonton, but Hey, I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up anywhere else either. But the, but the key to this was he wants to be back in Western Canada to be closer to his family. Similar to what we saw.

I don't know if it was a few years ago with Hammonick. Yeah, that was something where he wanted to be around his family. Yeah. The, the whole key thing, I think his son's getting older and he didn't really get to see him at all last season. It said, and I mean, with what he's done in Chicago, you can totally understand.

I don't think any Hawks fan, if they know that's the reason, that's not true. There's definitely some that would dislike him for it. But most people understand. Chief wrote a hate blog. No way. Did he? No, no.

I'm saying. Yeah, if he goes to Vancouver, he said, Chief said if he goes to Vancouver, he was like cursing it. He did blog that. He said if he goes to Vancouver, Duncan Keith's dead to him. I'll pull it up right now. He definitely blogged it, though. Well, if I'm a Chicago Blackhawks fan,

and I've seen what that guy's done for 15 years, three Cups, Norris, Olympic golds in the middle of the year, an all-time hockey Hall of Famer, and he wants to be closer to his son, and the Blackhawks, you guys now stink, I would be like, go ahead. Thank you for your service. You're an all-timer in my

heart. No matter where he goes. Fuck, Chief. What's he talking about? Chief, if Duncan Keith ends up in Vancouver, I will puke my guts out. Oh, that's okay. That's different. That might just disgust him that a guy he loves is playing for the Canucks. Love you, Chief.

You're just so dumb sometimes. I think Seattle's an interesting spot, too, because they said Pacific Northwest. That's still close to Canada. Grinnelli is like the most educated hockey guy on the podcast now. What the hell happened to us? He should go live with Buff and make a reality

show, Biz. He should go find Dustin Bufflin and live in a cabin and do a reality show with those two. You think Buff knows who's playing in the finals right now? Good question. Actually, I have no idea. Buff could be an enormous hockey fan away from the rink. I'm guessing he isn't.

He's probably just fishing his hog off right now, catching a bunch of 40-inch trout. Steelheads. What's that for? Walleye. That's a big fish in Minnesota, right? Walleye. Do you eat walleye

i hope so i think so i've never eaten it i've never eaten it either i'm a straight up salmon guy i like i like fish uh what are they called fish and chips so that's not salmon right that's fried what kind of fish is cod fish that could yeah that could be any could be any any kind of fucking cod and haddock's expensive so it's probably even a lesser fish than that. But if I'm going to a restaurant and getting fish, I'm getting the salmon grilled. Or maybe once in a while at a nice place, you get that sea bass that melts in your mouth. Kick his ass, sea bass. But swordfish doesn't do it for me.

Really? You don't like swordfish? Wow. I feel like it's just, it looks so much better than it is. I don't dislike it, but I'm not going to order it at a restaurant. I think we're going to have about half our listeners shut the pot off. I'm a big fillet of fish guy. I don't give a fuck if they shut the pot off, bitch. How about that?

You really, for real? I don't mind a nice fillet. It's got to be like warm right off the whatever they serve it off of yeah the the what does it come out of what do they even cook a filet of fish probably just fry it i would imagine oh really i like filet of fish my old hand turned me on to them when i was younger so i've always had a thing for them i've never had a filet of fish a wapa or a Wapa, or a Taco Bell. What are you shaking your head for, Grinnelly?

This has got to be some kind of McDonald's swipe-up ad read for you. No way you actually like a Filet-O-Fish. This is Swiss brand that just got $20,000 dropped in it. I don't go to Mickey D's very often. It's only if I'm in a bind. Wait, you get it at Mickey D's? That's the only place I go to. Oh, yeah, that's where you get a Filet-O-Fish with. And then I get salt. Oh, yeah, that's where you get a filet-o-fish with. And then I get salt.

Oh, my God. I was about to say, how about they have those at McDonald's? If you ever get one of those, you're the biggest piece of shit known to man. And you just said that's what you get? Oh, my God. I was reading about Duncan Keith. Oh, my God. Jesus Christ.

You get fish from McDonald's? Filet-o-fish, yeah. yeah oh you're a piece of trash bro the biggest no i i don't mind a fillet if not hey buddy i ain't getting them every day like once and then when you said your dad got him into so your dad's been having him your whole life yeah we used to go to mcdonald's once in a while grab a fillet of fish i used to get i like getting the fries no salt fries no salt nice fillet of fish. I used to get, I like getting the fries, no salt. Fries, no salt, nice filet of fish. If you live that close to the water, there's no need to eat filet of fish.

You can get something closer somewhere. But hey, whatever, to each his own. We just lost half our fans. Sorry, guys. No. Yeah, because you eat filet of fish from McDonald's. They'll never listen again. I heard, and this is probably a rumor, maybe I'm passing along, that the fish and chips in London and England, it's actually like dogfish, sand sharks.

Like they catch them and just sell them. The fish and chips I've had in England and Ireland and Scotland were all top notch. Maybe it's one of those things you're there and like, you know, just being there, you like want it more. It tastes good. Kind of like Guinness tastes better over there, you want it more. It tastes good. Kind of like Guinness tastes better over there, but I love them, no matter if they're dog shark or whatever you called it. Yeah, dogfish.

Dogfish. I don't even – never heard of that. I had a dogfish IPA recently, though. Yeah, that's a sand shark, and a dogfish is the same thing. You didn't know that? All right, well, we can move on. I mean, if Duncan Keith does get traded, like we all expect,

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uh he's been an nhl assistant and a major junior coach coach most recently with the ottawa 67s where he went coach of the year two years in a row uh the team of course has only had one playoff appearance in the last eight years he'll be looking to change that. Biz, let's go to the Coyotes expert. Yo, Terrell Wagon, great hire. We're winning the cup. There you go. No, but on a serious note, young guy coming out of junior, it'd probably be good for the young guys to have a guy who's used to coaching young guys and maybe a little more accepting of this next wave of player.

Because, I mean, you know, it's hard, man. Talk was a champion. He won as a player. He won mean, you know, it's hard, man. Talk, talk was a champion. He won as a player. He won as an assistant. He knows what it takes and the coyotes aren't quite there. So hopefully, you know, the, these young guys are able to get a little bit more leash and find a way to win with, uh, with this guy coming in. So, um, yeah, that's pretty much all I got to say about that. I guess we'll see you next season. All right. Sounds good. Biz, uh, moving right along. Toronto.

You think he'll be the coach when they leave Arizona, Biz? Oh, shit. Wow. That's paddling. All right. What do you want to do about that? Do you want to move along or do you want me to respond to this clown? Yeah, it's your call, buddy.

I was already moving along. Who do you even root for? Who's your squad? Do you have a team? I root for my friends in the league. So when I don't have any more friends in the league, I'm fucking done. I'm not your friend?

You're not in the league. I work for the Arizona Coyotes. No, I actually would be very happy if the Coyotes did well, and I'd love to see them in Scottsdale ripping it up. I just think where their arena is is such a joke. If they could move to Scottsdale, I'd really be all in. Even if they did well now, I'd be happy. But I kind of feel like there's a market out there

that would just be better served with NHL hockey than that Glendale area is. Yeah. Is that a fair statement? Like downtown Scottsdale. Like downtown Scottsdale. Move that thing to downtown Scottsdale. I agree with you.

I don't even know if that's possible. I don't know if it's ever discussed. I think the arena situation is something that's, yeah, holding things back a little bit, but hopefully that gets figured out soon and we're able to move to an area that's a little bit more lively. Because you talk to guys who used to play here for the Phoenix Coyotes when they were sharing the rink with the Suns. Now, by the way, congratulations to the Suns going off to the finals sons and four sons and four um but yeah they said it was rocking back

then where there'd be like rockets sitting front row and it just would create the atmosphere tunes would be bumping and this is in a situation where when they put the hockey rink in the in the old the where the where they used to be when you were sitting in the upper bowl on one side you couldn't even see from the blue line in so people would still show up yeah you wouldn't even see what was going on whether it was the d zone or o zone depending on what period so i i agree location location location get it into scottsdale now that sports gambling sports gambling became legal here too and they gave a license to each of the professional sports teams. So you got that going for you now.

So the sports gambling play has created some momentum for the Coyotes, and I hope that they're able to figure out something with the arena situation. And it sucks, man, because they spent all this money building a brand new facility, and if anybody's been to that rink in Glendale, it's gorgeous. Like there's nothing wrong with that. That facility can throw it on a big old truck. You know how trucks carry houses around and just place it down somewhere else.

Maybe I was actually a monster truck. I was thinking that the other day, just move the building to Scottsdale. Yeah. Cause it's been 25 fucking years, man. And that team has just seems to have to do it in pieces i don't think you could get it all on one truck but i think you just have to

break it down man i'm picturing a big old truck big wide load maybe one of those new tesla ones that they're coming out with oh i heard those are great some people told me they pre-ordered those i love the tesla screen that lets you know that the dog in the car is okay hey don't worry this is gary he's in the back seat it's 68 degrees like that tesla they're always ahead of the game to sum it up business reporting every night though business reporting that tesla is going to drive the glendale facility to scottsdale with one of those driverless tesla cars so i bought a lot in PV, so we'll just slab it right there if they can't get me any land.

Boom, done. All right, moving right along. Toronto signed Wayne Simmons to a two-year $1.8 million extension. He'll be 33 in August, seven goals, two assists in 38 games last year, one assist in the playoffs. Were you a little surprised he got a two-year deal with, you know, given the miles on him and his age? Yes, a little bit, but happy for him.

Oh, 100%. You know, it seems as you get older, you get the one-year deals, guys that are just kind of hanging on. Not that he's just hanging on by any means, but yes, he's at an age where you think one-year deal would make more sense, but they obviously love what they saw. He did battle through some injuries this year, and when he was going, I mean, it's the guy who plays physical in front.

He'll fight anyone he can score. So he definitely added a good element. Exactly. All right. Thank you to Toronto's game. And that was what they needed. So I'm happy for him to get a two-year deal. We've talked since this podcast began that that guy always missed his window.

He was never a free agent during those heavy years when he was fighting all the time and getting 30 and in philly when he was dominant he kind of always got screwed getting a big payday so the more term he gets on any deal the happier i am for him well i think he signed a six-year deal at maybe like 3.75 when he was in phil Yeah, that probably was worded wrong by me, but he never got like the $40, $30, $40 million deal. No, I think one year after that deal, he was like, fuck, because he was overachieving at no time. Now, the way I look at this deal, similar to the Pat Maroon deal, I know Pat Maroon, I think, is a few years younger,

but you guys know how much I value toughness and how important it is, especially in the depth of the lineup. And I thought he had a solid year. He did deal with that hand injury when he took a puck off the hand and or wrist, but they lock him in and a low AAV. And, and, and I think that, you know, moving forward when this team does have success, cause I think it is coming. I think that they got that guy who can solidify that bottom six and he's willing to compete. And you saw in time of need this year when they needed a guy to step up and and getting

a donny brook he wasn't shy he has not lost his spark and he and he is 100 assume that role and being the guy where he can be relied on relied on for that i don't i just i just fucking hit that breakdown out of the park so i don't know you did and you didn't you did and you didn't because i don't want you to take heat but you compared it to maroon do you mean as a player because maroon keeps getting one year deals and we're talking about how we got that second year no i'm pretty sure pat maroon got a two-year deal at 900 last offseason wow i hope you just dunked me. I thought he got another one-year deal. I apologize. Grinnelli, help me out.

I apologize to you and BigRig. Unless I'm right, please let me be right on this one. They won the cup. No, I think you're right. I think he did get a two-year. Maroon is currently in his second year. Oh, my God. Do a loser lap let's finish this segment off entire segment i'm a loser i'm a bum

folks how i bet you there's so many listeners that are just loving you say that give it one more time i actually don't even say it uh grinnelly just run it back one more time just take the audio and run it back the thing is about me i can admit it when i'm wrong man you guys know in the history of this podcast it just happened so freak infrequently me being wrong i don't have to say it that much that's true well i'm gonna gloat uh what else do we got our ray we can move on after i just nailed that segment absolutely uh former Another former teammate of the Whit Dog, Ryan Nugent Hopkins signed an eight-year $41 million extension with the Oilers. The 28-year-old

number one overall pick back in 2011. Also gets a full no-move clause, which is pretty sweet if you're a player. It kind of seemed like the league general manager stopped giving those out willy-nilly like they were a few years ago, but getting one for eight years is clutch. Comes out to $5.125 million a year.

Whit, you played with him. Let's get you a take. Yeah, very happy for this guy. What's surprised about the full no move? It's all eight years, all right? According to CapFriendly, the NMC is there for all eight years, yep. Okay, so now maybe that's an example of um getting a guy to stay there for eight years and maybe the money being a little less but you throw the no movement clause and

and right is that the first time in history that somebody's gotten a no movement clause out of edmonton oh that like the guy like normally it's like I should get the option if I want to move. Sure. I'd be like, nobody gets him. He's like, wait, wait a minute. No, there was guys before you like don't want to go anywhere. You do not even think about putting an M.C. on that contract offer. But this guy, he was he's the nastiest skater. Nobody on his edges. I remember when I was coming back from ankle surgery, he is the nastiest skater. Nobody on his edges.

I remember when I was coming back from ankle surgery, he was coming back from an injury too. Might have been his shoulder. Yeah, dude, Newt separated his shoulder one of the years. He was lighting it up and just took a screamer, nobody near him, into the boards and busted up his shoulder. It was one of the goofier injuries by a first overall pick in the history of hockey.

Same log that got you when you were at Pittsburgh? I think we were buckled in Chicago a couple nights prior to that. If I'm correct, that is a – but he's gone on and, you know, maybe never lived up to the first overall pick offensively. But if you talk to guys on Edmonton and you look at the deal he just signed, he's so good both ends of the ice. And he's like a guy who's – you know what you're kind of getting every night, I always thought.

I just thought he was a hell of a player at a young age and knew he'd end up being just basically one of those 15, 20-year NHLers. The way he skates and thinks, it was a no-brainer that he gets offered this deal to stay because if they look at the future of Edmonton and try and win a cup, having him there just over five average hit that's nice now I think last year he was basically the second line center I think if Edmonton's able to become a Stanley Cup contender I think he's an unbelievable top tier third line center would you would you agree and at that price for that long I think that's a great contract for both sides I couldn't be happier for the guy.

And when you look down the list, I mean, he might be one of the highest paid NHLers by the time this thing's all over. Where did he get on the last deal? I think he signed just over six times six, and then that's not even including his entry-level deal. So I tell you what, a hell of a career for this guy, extremely well-liked by his teammates, absolutely no riffraff off the ice just a great

humble human being i actually used to train with him a little bit with his brother adam at fortias in in vancouver so takes his off season very seriously always in the gym yeah his brother's pretty sure uh i don't know if it was his i don't know if he was 13 or 14. Could have been even 12. But one of those years at that age, right, hockey, like, you know, you're getting ready for junior. Dude, the kid didn't play hockey a full season and was the first overall pick when he was 18 years old.

So he is a natural, right? And I don't remember if he was one of those guys that maybe started like or did some sort of figure skating right you know people talk about jeff skinner that way yeah it's not a guy you want to bring up when talking about eight-year deals but skating skating wise you know what i'm saying in terms of like i think on his edges he he's been either started as a figure skater and figured out or just been incredible skating his entire life. A credibler? Nice talk.

I'm so fucking rattled ever since I tried. Did you transform into biz this episode? I tried dunking on you, and then I didn't, and now I'm frazzled. Chaz Michael Michaels, a.k.a. Ryan Nugent Hopkins, congratulations on a wonderful deal. I think Erickson Eck ended up getting a very similar one too, right, R.A.? Yeah, we're just going to get to that.

Nugent Hopkins, per cap, friendly biz, estimated career earnings, just over $44 million before this deal. So he's going to be over 80 when his career ends. Thanks for coming. Living in Edmonton, you're basically like a prince of Dubai. He's coming at Edmonton, guys. Same amount of oil, too. I would never go at Edmonton.

A pet peeve of mine is he's the number one overall pick. I hate when people say the former number one overall pick. It's like, no, you're always the number one pick of that draft. You're not former. You hate when people say former number one overall pick. Even if they call you what you have picked what fifth the former fifth former number five pick no you you're always that number five pick of that draft you never you're never a former you're just you're always that pick i'm

actually starting to enjoy the 2002 fifth overall pick they say former yeah but so i'll say i'm starting to like these segments and well when i segment, we should turn it into a segment. The things that pisses off are a the biggest mind pretzel. One was when he hates when they warn people that there's sharks in the water. That one really. I was like, what you hate? I like when he's like, why don't they report? Of course, there's sharks in the water.

It's like I see when they make a big, giant Of course there's sharks in the water. It's like, I see when they make a big giant fucking news segment about sharks in the water. I'm fine with putting a sign there because, yeah, tourists might not know that Cape Cod is, you know, sharks fucking 20 feet away. I like when he wanted the guy in front of a firing squad that paid Marshawn's ticket. Oh, I ended up getting a DM from him on Instagram. He's a nice guy.

Yeah, he reached out. He had a laugh about it. He just said, hey, I love what the guy did, and he gave him, I think he gave him $30 toward the ticket or whatever. We had a cordial chat over DM. Anything else pissing you off already? Give me a minute.

Minnesota's Joel Erickson Eck signed an eight-year $42 million extension. Comes out to five and a quarter a year. The 24-year-old had 19 goals last year, 11 assists in 56 games. And, Whit, I know we talked about him in his only the one series Minnesota play, but his two-way play in the playoffs, man, he really stood out, I thought, in that series this year.

I could see why they want to build with this kid in the future. Yeah, no doubt. You know, first overall pick, it was six years ago. I think when Garen came on, maybe he wasn't even sure um what he had with him but he had a great year actually they talked about a game in minnesota this year he blocked like three shea weber bombs late in the game and the way he plays i think he's you know he's a top two-way center i think offensively there's definitely a lot there to grow and build on but he was matched up against number one lines the entire season, and he showed that he's willing and wants to be there with signing there.

And also, if he ends up becoming what they think he can become, he'll be underpaid. So they look for him to outperform this deal, but to get eight years and know that he's a guy who is happy to be there and likes where the team's going, it's a great signing. They also got Bugstad for, I think, $900,000. So you're able to figure out some depth, and Bugstad can play center or wing lower down the lineup.

But I like this signing from Minnesota. I like how they're so big, and we're seeing a common theme right now with everyone going back to being a big, heavy team. It's funny, we were talking about the Wayne Simmons contract I could easily see this guy outperforming this thing by by next year I mean he had 19 goals this year in a shortened season and I think that's a great a great average for a guy who can play you know top line minutes against leagues best like he's he's he's would you consider him more of a kind of like a shutdown guy yeah i think he's certainly better defensively than he is offensively but he's so

good on the defensive side of the park that right if you if you start to see the offense come which he had like a monster world junior he was a first rounder like obviously there's skill there right yeah so i think uh yeah i think he could be outperforming this thing in no time. And another great move by Billy G. Yeah, 19 tucks last year, Biz. So if he bumps that a little, definitely get some value there. All right, well, the way you use the internet has changed dramatically over the last decade, but security tools have mostly stayed the same.

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with plans when you visit A aura.com slash checklists. So go to aura.com slash checklists to get complete protection and savings of up to 40%. That's A-U-R-A dot com slash checklists. I have to mention hockey miscellaneous, the stat we did forget that is absolutely wild, is that this marks since 1980, there's been a teammate of Yara Mergagor in the Stanley Cup finals. Crazy. 41 years?

Are you kidding me? That might be the craziest Yara stat I've heard, and there's 5 million of them. It's funny to think he played with Trotche. I mean, he was he was 18 and 19 when he did but that is that is some wild connection i thought you were gonna bust out the joey chestnut stat there you took me you blindsided me 76 hot dogs broke his own record 14 of the last 15 hot dog eating contests on july got him who got him the one that he lost no clue big cat that guy's

the lid does a lot of hot dog cheddar mustard ketchup where do you come down on what you put in your hot dog biz i like uh ketchup mustard and relish i i like putting like a little bit of onion on it i like dressing it up but i also would like a sausage better than i would a hot dog i'm not a big hot dog guy i like it when it's a little charred too yeah i like a hot dog when they pull them out of the water i think that's fucking disgusting disgusting yeah i don't want i don't want a hot dog cooked on the stove in boiled water i want a hot dog on the grill and i want the bun toasted but i will say i was shocked at like the anger towards uh was it portnoy like i put just ketchup on my hot dogs i didn't know that was like a weird thing

people were all over him for that is that is that not normal just ketchup on your dog well it's it's something that always gets popped up someone will be oh you put ketchup on and it's it's usually like 75 people like that's gross and the other people who like it still don't what is the difference between mustard and ketchup on a hot dog i can't even mustard one spice got a little spice zip ketchup so i almost like putting candy on it it's just sweet corn syrup and sugar i'll say if if like the options aren't there like sometimes you go get a hot dog at a place and like the it feels like they're at the bottom of the barrel with some of the stuff you put on it and it's like watery and there's not it doesn't look fresh so sometimes i'll just keep it off the glass and out and just do ketchup what's weird is though i actually like a fenway frank and those

are like it definitely boiled right and then like the bun isn't toasted so i guess i can do a dog anyway i'm a real dog guy i like sausages too though biz i'm with you on that is he one of the most dominant athletes of our time given the fact that he's won that 14 of the last 15 times and i think the next guy in line um who was in second place only ate 50 hot dogs if people want to if people won't't admit golfers are athletes and they try saying he's an athlete, I'll throw up. I actually couldn't really watch the competition. It makes me sick.

The way they dip it in the water and the bun. Oh, my God. I couldn't watch it. Now, the feed was going out. I was in the kitchen doing one. If it was a bad injury, I'd barely look and snap my head away but i saw that the coverage was out it was it was going in and out but just the thought of like the dump he's gonna take after and the stomach and how he does that it makes me so sick to my stomach to hear you call him an athlete i i watched a little uh a documentary

on how they train in order to expand their stomachs now let me ask you this would you rather eat a hot dog with no ketchup no nothing no condiments on it boiled not grilled and then dipped in water would you rather eat that or a filet of fish oh the hot dog dipped in water i would rather eat a hot dog dipped in fucking acid than I'd eat a filet. What kind of acid are we talking here? Always like shit. Don't waste that. The best thing. Last thing on hot dogs is that it's given us that gift for the lady

getting the seven hot dogs to the face. You ever see that one? Some lady. She's just like the random thing. You never seen it. His hot dog. Oh, yeah. It just essentially means somebody likes dick. Yeah. Hey, good random thing. You ever seen the biz? Hot dogs. Oh, yeah. It just essentially means somebody likes dick.

Yeah. Hey, good for them. Looks like Chris Chelios is also heading to ESPN per Andrew Marchand, New York Post. He's been all over that reporting. I'm curious to see if he might become the next Charles Barkley. You think that's a possibility, Biz? Because Chelios don't give a fuck.

He'll say whatever. Like, he's got a gazillion dollars, kilotan, 17 cups. Like, what does he care oh i i completely agree with you i cannot wait i'll tell you what espn's done a great job of filling up that i guess i don't you call it a panel what's that oh sorry yeah we've i've seen that all right i know she just said go ahead sorry okay no worries three two one man i'm really excited for not only him but the whole panel espn's done a great job of filling it i mean ray ferraro you i mean we can go down

the whole list but this is a one of the latest additions and i agree with you he'll let it fly i don't he's the type of guy if you fired him i don't think he'd give a fiddler's fuck so yes he's gonna let it fly and say exactly uh what he's thinking and and not too long ago i don't know if it was when they were when they had the last olympics on when him and brett hall were doing a little bit of color when they brought them on as far as the panel's concern and i thought they were fun and refreshing because it was kind of like two guys just sitting at the bar shooting the shit now i guess maybe that maybe sometimes that's not everybody's speed and maybe it's not as informative as they want it but i cannot wait to listen to him let it let it fly on espn my biggest

thing with with espn and congrats to chelios that's awesome i do think he'll be great he'll be great at it but with espn and tnt and how this is gonna i'm just so fired up to watch now when this season begins because you know twitter and these clowns online will have their takes here and there i mean i've never really had a hard take so i'll call it probably keep it dry but i want to see the broadcast i want to see what they change intermission wise i want to see the the connection and vibes the color and the analysts have with each other so it's really making me look forward to the beginning of next season just to see how this all goes down with two new networks looking to like prove their metal right bingo i like the theme music too wet for espn awesome so good it's gonna be great to hear that again since we're talking about uh

you know color guys and and this and that uh albert kenny albert he is awesome yeah he's been doing the whole finals. He is a treat to listen to. I think this is his first cup final too. Is it really? Yeah, him and Eddie O are just buzzing up there. Yeah, they've got great chemistry. He does a great job calling the game.

One thing I like about Eddie O too is he's not shy to be critical. If he's seeing something he's not liking, he'll call it right out. So it's just pure honesty with that guy. Yeah, it's what you want. Let's see. A couple of the notes here. The All-Star game next year, 2022, will be in Las Vegas. So you might see us there.

Hopefully. We went to the All-Star game the last couple of months. And we've been dying to get to Vegas. They couldn't get to the final this year, so they didn't make it happen. But next year, we will be there. And we may well be in Nashville as well. They're going to get an outdoor game next season. They haven't announced the specifics yet. Assume probably one of the football stadiums

in Nashville, either Vanderbilt or where the Titans play. And Minnesota is also going to get an outdoor game, too, because they got bumped because of the pandemic last winter classic. So hopefully we'll be there, too. Is there no winter classic scheduled for next year? They haven't. I'm sure they're going to do one.

They just haven't specified what's going to go where yet. Okay. The last time I checked. But, I mean, I think it would be reasonable to assume that many will keep the Winter Classic. I think that's the right thing to do. You know what I mean? If they were going to get it last year, they should get it this year.

It wasn't their fault. Hopefully somewhere cold where the ice stays. Yeah, Minnesota in January should do that. Let's see. The Toronto Maple Leafs now own the longest cup drought in league history at 19,786 days. They can pass the Rangers who had a drought

from 1940 to 1994. So congratulations Leafs fans on a new record. Jonathan Taves released a video saying he's feeling much better and he went into a little bit of detail about what happened last season uh he cited something called chronic immune response system and basically he was just like worn down he was just kind of physically and mentally beat i mean he mentioned like not feeling good at all during his 20s which

is kind of like a weird thing to hear i know you guys are athletes and you're banged up all the time but he basically was just like hurt for his entire 20 so either way we're glad he's feeling well and get him back on the ice next year uh ideally what's up biz did you want well no i was just going to say there was a point in time where his offensive production just wasn't where it used to be and and i don't think it didn't seem like there was something off but he just you know probably didn't have that energy and to find out he was battling through this you know for for many years and finally ended up taking some time away it's good man and i hope he's able to come back and get to that level of playing that he that he once was at because he was i mean when he was in his prime and he was winning those cups

with the blackhawks man i mean he was probably one of the best two-way forwards in the game and um you know it's we know, from a fan standpoint, I feel like we were kind of stripped of that too early. And I hope he's able to bounce back. And I'm glad that he took some time off in order to hit the reset button, man, because he's a heck of a fucking player. Yeah. And you always kind of wondered what was going on.

And that's when the rumor game is scary. You heard some things that were, thank God, not true. And I think that in the end, it's best for the league to have this guy playing. He's a legend. He's a Hall of Famer. And I was just happy for him because it seemed like he almost feels a little relieved to finally feel better and get back on the ice doing what he loves. So good luck to him. Well, and probably a little bit relieved finally finding out what exactly what was wrong.

Right. little bit relieved finally finding out what exactly what was wrong right that's that's the that's definitely part of the the fear factor is when you don't know what's going on in your body it's just like that's petrifying and then and then you're and then you're you're kind of you're communicating that to people and then they just you know there's nothing to show for it it's just you know it could be a frustrating thing man so happy to hear he's doing better and that video that they posted he looked great uh looked in great shape so i'm glad he's back to doing what he loves yeah i almost didn't even want to mention it but it is relevant he did have covid too but he didn't want that to oh like everyone talking about that make it look like he was sick because of that i think it might have

just been coincidental that he was going through through these things and did get covid but you know he mentioned he had i just don't want to leave that out. I think what he said was he thinks it could have amplified what was going on. Is that kind of how we, how we communicated? It might've exacerbated. Yeah. I might've exacerbated it, but like, you know, like he mentioned hurting in his twenties, that had nothing to do with COVID. So I think it was just a lot of wear and tear. And like I said, that would have a name of the, the, they, what's the word? When the doctor tells you what you have with um this is

such an easy one diagnosis yeah yeah it's a diagnosis i hadn't heard we've heard of before but either way we're glad he's healthy and we're looking forward to getting him back next year uh a few other news items here per kirk ludiki and jeff cox of the new england hockey journal jay pandolfo who was an assistant coach in b for the last few years, is leaving the Bruins to join his alma mater in Wits, Boston University, and will be the associate head and an associate head coach on Albie O'Connell's staff. I love his move. I love him. Jay Pandolfo, BU legend, national champion.

Grinnell's neighbor. All-time player there from Burlington. And I think that, you know, it's stability in your life, right? I mean, he's got kids. He's got kids playing hockey. And, you know, the NHL schedule, being a coach, it's hard. I mean, you're not only on the road. We talked about it before.

I mean, you're doing video nonstop. And there's a lot of work at BU with recruiting and everything, but nothing close to the travel of pro hockey and the NHL. And so for a guy to go back to his alma mater, a power team in college hockey, looking to get back in the national title races, I was really happy for him and happy for BU. Well said, buddy. Well said.

Thank you. Congrats to Stephen Johns on his continental journey, I guess you'd call it. He role-played across the whole country, finished at the Pacific ocean. But I saw the picture of him. They, he stopped at the very last blockbuster in bend Oregon and him and his buddy. And they, they like kind of crouched down with like the prayer pose in front

of blockbuster, which I thought it was pretty funny. Like of all the places to stop at, but Hey, good for him, man. He's raising awareness about the mental issues that you guys and, you know, former and current players go through, have gone through. And it feels like something people talk about more and more because this guy had some bad concussions, and he said he was in real dark places, and this is the best he's felt in months.

So we're happy to hear that, Steve, and we'll get you on the show soon enough, and I hope you're feeling better. Biz, what do you got, buddy? I think he was on the Ray and Dregs podcast as well talking about why he decided to take the journey and you know it's not hard guys you you go from doing something your whole life and and all of a sudden it's you know you're not going to be doing anymore and then you just i guess you have a lot of questions where where where things are going so

yeah i'd be interested to get him on and just you know pick his brain about you know why he did it and and take a deeper dive into the conversation i i had a love hate affair with blockbuster biz because i worked at a mom and pop video store blockbuster come and just fucking shut them all down they murdered you but i also had to go there because they got movies i couldn't get at my store so hey and then and then they got bent over and shut down yeah i heard a story that netflix tried to buy a blockbuster at a pretty good evaluation I think they could have sold for big dough at one point

and then they just took them over actually there's a pretty good documentary that goes into detail about it because you have blockbusters yeah they could have gotten into it but it's a little more convoluted than that the guy actually explains it very well it's called The Last Blockbuster it's a fun little doc Ied than that. The guy actually explains it very well. It's called The Last Blockbuster.

It's a fun little doc. I mean, especially if you're from that era. I don't know if it's on Prime or whatever. Oh, buddy, we've definitely talked about this. But I remember going and then the movies be out and you'd check up front. And they had one at the front that they hadn't rewound and put back in the aisle. And it was a whole scene going to Blockbuster. My mom, we got like a 15 minute limit because he used to be in there 50 minutes arguing with colin and sean no we already watched that i can't stand that but they had the candy the movie size candy at the end of the blockbuster it was all time scene going in

there i loved it that's why i want to watch that documentary also speaking of the burying of blockbuster it kind of remained made me think of jeffzos because, you know, Amazon's buried so many companies. And today he stepped down as CEO. Dude, $200 billion he has. I read a thing he could buy every single professional sports league team in the NBA, NHL, Major League Baseball, and NFL, and still have a couple billion left over. Obscene.

He stepped down, really? I wonder if something, a scandal afoot. That's weird for him to just suddenly i don't think he did it suddenly i think it would come out and today was his final day okay uh maybe when he got divorced and he gave his wife like 80 billion maybe that made him maybe want to take she's been giving a lot away she's a lot more uh into the philanthropy philanthropic philanthropic say it all right philanthropy can you can you say it's like a second word i think philanthropic is an is an alley got it yep philanthropic you are

humming right now that fucking sunburn you got the sun must have powered you up with brains little vitamin d can go a long way maybe now maybe he smoked some crack before this episode how do you how do you uh i guess we probably shouldn't get into it because it's kind of a touchy subject but how do you feel about somebody hoarding that much money i know a lot of it is probably still in shares ra but i mean i don't think do you know what he's given away i i i'm a big time uh arguer of like how can you be so mad at a billionaire if they give away money if they give money to charity and stuff like if they don't fuck them but if they give away a lot of money it's like i don't know man like if anything fucking make amazon call amazon

a monopoly and change that whole ordeal 100 yeah i mean. Yeah. I mean, already hates billionaires. I think I, I don't think I've ever expressed that opinion about billionaires on the show. What you in person. Maybe I think, maybe you told me you think I hate it because you think I think certain things. I think that's what it is.

Another rumor. Yeah. Rumor is rumor. Ari hates billionaires. It says you'll only sleep with millionaires. You guys got the same haircut. You guys go to the same barber. Yeah. I went today my boy pat the baba took it down to the nub and then from here i'll just go with the straight the uh the old mark three i have i have

i bought razors hot biz in the mid 90s i still have like dozens left i'll never have to buy another razor for that so as long as i live what's up jeff jeff bezzos made the largest donation of 2020. He donated $10 billion to fight climate change. Woo! I mean, fuck. Maybe think of a better place to give the money to, dude. That's just gonna go fucking get squandered.

Most of the people... Well, they better be using it to put out that fire in the ocean that's going on. I thought you were gonna say $10 billion to the Boys and Girls Club. Just fucking give people fucking cash. You'll pay their bills. Do something, man. You can change lives with that much money. If you earned it, it's yours.

To answer your question, it is an obscene amount of money to have, but I don't know, man. That's the fucking way of the world. If someone invents something or has a company, but I think you've got to be kind of ruthless in a certain way to get to that level to want to have that much money. Whatever. I'm kind of neutral.

I would say I would judge the individual. I don't hate billionaires. Fair enough. I'm with you on that. This guy's a dickhead. He could do more. This guy's a dickhead or whatever. Gee, I want your input on this one. Josh Richards is going to be working with the NHL. He's a TikTok star, the kids tell me.

Yeah, he's an enormous social media creator. He does the BFFs pod with Dave. And yeah, the NHL brought him in to help younger fans grow the game in that sense. And it's crazy that people are giving this kid so much shit. It's like, let him do his thing. sense and it's crazy that people are giving this kid so much shit it's like let him do his thing like he hasn't even before his first day on the on the job people are already destroying the kid like let him try like let him see what let's see what he has that's hockey twitter man we're the worst the people who are destroying him the people who are destroying him he wasn't hired to even

deal with any of those people he's he's getting the younger age group hopefully into hockey. He is, what, 18 years old, 19 years old? He's 19, and he's younger and richer than every single person that's ripping on him. It's like, dude, he's doing better than all you guys. I think that from what I've heard, he seems like a kid who actually has his head on his shoulders, seems like somebody who's driven for success and works really hard. And I think that you've got to applaud the NHL.

When we make fun of their decisions for their musical acts at the All-Star game and shit, you've also got to give them some props when they're bringing a younger face from the internet into the game. I mean, that's only going to get... I mean, what happens if a tenth of his following starts watching nhl games because he's into it it's like how many people actually follow this kid on all of his platforms combined it's an amazing thing to think that you could get shit on as a business as the nhl for bringing in a kid who's very popular with younger people as you're trying to grow your game i love the move yeah we gotta interview him hey guys i'm not even a a TikTok guy. I don't even understand what the fuck it is.

But like you said, he's got a lot of videos. I think this kid's a lot more than just a TikTok. Correct. But that's where he originated. And that's where he's got a massive amount of his following. And of course, it transferred over onto Instagram. Basically, what I'm trying to say is I don't consume what he's putting out. But I understand that if you're an organization

and or a major sports league, you need to worry about your next wave of consumer. And if he can attract all these young fans who haven't really latched onto a certain sport yet, well, if he's into it, and then all of a sudden they're going to start following it, it's only going to mean our game grows. And I tell you what, I work for an organization

and we could use a few extra fans josh direct a few extra our way and we'll get glendale sold out we don't need to put it on this big fucking truck and move it down the way to fucking scottsdale how about that we still gotta work on getting that truck from bezos but we'll figure it out i mean look what dave did though dave got a ton of shit for doing this podcast with him and now it's one of the biggest podcasts in the world so it's how many the biggest podcasts in the world. How many downloads does it get in a pod? They do some interviews on YouTube

that get millions of views. Millions. If you're going to let what the internet crowd thinks, decide what you're going to do in your future or what you're going to do in terms of hiring people, you're an idiot.

You have no chance to begin with. So fuck what everyone says. It's a lot easier said than done, but I love the move. I'll never forget what my agent told me when he told me to delete Twitter. He goes, nothing good can come of this. Have you seen where Biz Nasty's at now? Yeah, it's definitely a love-hate thing.

Like, it's not even hockey Twitter, Biz. It's all Twitter. Like, it's definitely a love-hate thing. It's not even hockey Twitter, Biz. It's all Twitter. People just fight in your mentions all the time. Just say stupid shit. I mean, I get it for my news and shit, but it used to be fun to go on Twitter and fuck around. Now it's a chore. Grinelli, I saw your Instagram story.

Our boy Tom Green. All-time interview. I had a blast talking to Tom Green. Go back and listen to that one from a few years ago, I think it was. But Grinelli retweeted or just what you put on your story. It was such an oxymoron post. It's like, don't post on

social media. People don't care what you say, but it's me posting that. Ah, that's true. Well, he's also posting it too, but he wrote, this is the point in social media history where people realize that their opinions not only don't matter, but in fact make things worse. 330 million misinformed egos tweeting divisive diatribes daily might not make the world a better place. So in an argument for are we better off with the current technology or are we better off without all the current technology that's happened in the past 30 years?

That right there is a decent quote for that. Twitter is fucking stupid. Yeah. And I'll summarize by saying, I think the world would be better off not getting my opinion. So maybe Mark guy was right. Maybe Mark guy was actually right. Yeah.

Gee, I think it's a pretty good move by the NHL. Sometimes they get shit for not reaching out like they should be. And this kid is a, is a perfect, a perfect candidate. I'd say, I will say though tough salad the guy's got to do something about his fucking salad it is brutal right that's what the chicks like nowadays oh that's what these young girls

are into yeah well then i'll fucking date 70 year olds if i was fucking i can't talk about salads dude my salad's fucking trash. I got the worst salad. All right, would you rather be bald or rock his salad? Rock his salad. That's not even close. You can always, well, cut it, I suppose. But you have to wear your hair like him. I'd have to see it first. I'd have to like, because sometimes you might look better bald than certain hairstyles, I think.

I mean, you actually have a good shaped dome to be bald. Yeah, you do have a great head. Yeah, it does look good bald. I will say that. It looks like he's wearing one of those hats that Bryson DeChambeau is wearing, but he's not wearing one. It's just his hair.

Oh, my God, Bryson, dude. His fucking catty-gassed him. Oh, yeah, shit. We'll get into that later because we've got to throw it to an ad. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, George LaRock, we talked to him down in New York last week. Obviously, Montreal and the Stanley Cup, we thought he'd be good to have on the show.

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get some, stay hydrated, and now George LaRock. It's time to bring on our next guest. This bruiser was Edmonton's second-round pick in the 95 draft, one of the toughest customers in the NHL. He went on to play eight seasons for the Oilers before spending time with Phoenix, Pittsburgh, and his hometown Canadians before retiring after 12 NHL seasons. Thanks a bunch for joining us on the Spittin' Chicklets podcast. Georges Larocque, how you doing, pal?

You in Montreal these days or what? Yes, I am in Montreal. The city is buzzing right now, so it's awesome. That's what we wanted to ask you. Just how insane is it? It's been 28 years since this team's been in a Stanley Cup final. Man, it's magical what's going on in the city. The city went from going from depression

because they thought that with the way the season ended, it's going to be first one exit against Toronto. When they were down 3-1, they would inspire Bergevin, inspire the coach, inspire everyone. And then now we have the best coach in the league, best GM in the league. We're going to win the cup, man. It's crazy, man, what's been going on.

And now you're flipping cars outside the Bell Centre. I think I saw a video of you getting in the mix, George. That's awesome. That's awesome. That's awesome. Hey, so you grew up in Montreal, and I'm assuming you were an enormous Habs fan. Do you remember hearing the pressure and how quickly they'd turn on guys and stuff? Man, that's one of the reasons I never wanted to play there. When I was a rookie, I didn't want to play in Montreal because when you're French and you play in Montreal,

there's a lot of pressure, man, that you have to honor. And they love interviewing you because they need people that speak French, right? The media, they're nuts. If you speak English, you sit quietly in the dressing room, the media will come to you. But if you speak French, every day they come at you and stuff, question, pressure. You're from Quebec.

You've got to give more. And me, with the job that I have, man, if I played in Montreal as a rookie, I would have to be the best in the league. And if I get beat up once, I get killed. I get criticized on my front page. Let's get rid of him. He sucks. He's terrible.

So I didn't want to have the pressure when I was a rookie. And I don't think that I'd be able. I played this long in the NHL. If I was in Montreal, Canadian, because of stress. Look, they have Brashear. Look how they treated Brashear. That ended up being one of the best fighters in the NHL. He went nuts in Montreal.

And then he had to get out of there. And look what happened to his career. Over 1,000 games, known as one of the best ever. So this market is particular. When you win, it's awesome. But when you're from Quebec, more pressure playing here. That's why I think they're so successful right now because they're kind of taking on that role as the underdog.

So there might be not as much expectation which is kind of rare for playing in Montreal as you just described. Yeah, but you know what? Every time, every game, every series, they were the underdogs they played toronto they're supposed to lose the chat they were supposed to lose the jet swept the oilers and then you know they played vegas they you know what did they say about the canadian the north

division this year the north division is a sub league because all the other division were so much better it was a super league, and the Canadian division sucked. So people were like, as soon as the Montreal Canadiens play as a team outside the North Division, they're going to get slaughtered. You're describing myself, George. Listen, it was, to my mind, the most foregone conclusion of Colorado or the Vegas Golden Knights smashing Montreal.

And I'm a fool once again, but I don't know. It's pretty cool to see because we've chatted briefly about maybe adding some more playoff teams. Montreal's proved this year of what can happen. But, I don't know. I think that the team is certainly exciting to watch at times, but they're also a little bit like

the Islanders, which I've mentioned I can't stand. Well, you know, I'll be honest with you. We all thought the same thing. You know, for sure. I was saying all the time that Vegas and Colorado, they're playing in a super league, and they're going to thump their comedian. So there's no way I thought Montreal was going to beat Vegas, man.

When I look at that and the way they beat Vegas, and I look at all this, I was like, man, this is unreal. It doesn't make sense. I don't understand hockey anymore. How does Montreal beat Vegas? I never did. Still don't. I'm more curious to know.

I was going to hop in. You and Witt played together, and he's got some pretty funny stories, one of which you ended up racing. Who did he race on the ice? It was me and George. Oh, that's right. Well, first, when George came in, he got traded. No more. Witt. Here we go. you ended up racing who did you race on the ice it was me and george oh okay so first when george came in he got traded and well here we go

with come on okay let's do the story again because i don't recall that but go ahead tell me that story and we'll go i want to hear both sides of it kind of like tory mitchell hey the story was that we talked about how fast you were straightforward, and you're like, I'll race anyone. I'll race you it for $1,000, goal line to far blue line. And I said, okay, and I beat you by.1 inch. But, yeah, I beat you. Terrian came out to be the judge at the far –

and so what happened is I got off to a quicker start, and then I heard you coming. And if it had been another three yards of ice, you were catching me. But at the very end, Terrian was there. And then I went in and I go, that's what you get with these quads, boys, or these calves, and I was pounding my quads. Okay, let's hear the other side. Maybe you're going to say that I got

too many hits in the head when I played hockey, and I don't remember that, but I don't remember you beating me in any race with me. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. We're going to have to... Ask anyone from that

Pittsburgh team that we went to the finals with. know i will i will i'm gonna today i'm gonna ask guys on the team and i'll tweet you later and stuff okay what you're saying is true i'm going to the judge i'm going to the judge no but george george i did tell michelle okay oh yeah he loves me yeah we'll get him on. Hey, hold on. No, but what you did do, do you remember this? Do you remember when you showed up and he bought the entire team PSPs and the game Socom? You remember the battles we'd have? Yes, that I remember.

That was a great move. Yeah, in the planes we all played each other. Yes. George, you bought the councils for the whole team? Like 20 guys. You came back with all of them. Oh, my. That's a very nice gesture.

Let me ask you this, though. So you don't remember racing, winning, and losing. Now, he said that you bet him $1,000. Were you the one teammate where if you were competitive about something, you were always putting money on it? Everything I bet on. All he does. George, remember our warm-up competitions?

$100 a shot. This guy went three in a row three games. And he goes, I make you fucking learn, Whit. Every time he scores. That's true. And the betting, PSP, I remember everything. That's why the race went, man. Hey, I'm sorry, bud.

You're like Jack Nicklaus. You forget about the losses. You move on, but you remember the wins. I mean, it sounds like you were two people. You were this fun-loving guy in the locker room, and then unfortunately you had to go out on the ice and take care of business. Now, did that side of it, did it bother you at all? Well, I'm pretty sure you were the same way too

because you also did the job. When you do the job, there's so much stress in fighting. And believe it or not, I did not like it. It's not me. It was not me as a person. I did it because it was my job, but I didn't like the image that came with it. In the dressing room, I was a clown.

I joke around all the time because it would take pressure away from me from knowing that tonight or the next day, I'm going to have to go out there and fight someone. So it was a way for me to just not go crazy because of the anxiety that I felt all the time with the job. Because it doesn't matter the reputation that you have. We all have it. We all feel anxiety. You never know what's going to happen.

And there's nothing that is for granted. I can get one punch by anyone. It doesn't matter. You don't take anyone lightly. When your teammates looks at you, you have to look invincible. You have to look like nothing's going to happen. And that's the phase that I have. I always have this front.

Don't worry, guys. Guys will come up to me. Hey, George, you think they'll go you? I don't care. You could come. But inside of you, you don't care he could come but inside of you you don't feel like that so when you joke around and stuff it's a way for me to to keep myself like you know light light light enough because there's so much stress in doing it

because on top of the fact that you have to win all the time the pressure that you have people are looking out to you and they want to go after you because of your name but at the same time you don't want to get hurt well you're also fighting and you're also going against guys like donald brashier and and guys where if you do get caught with that one punch it could be the end of your career now throughout those processes who was the who was like the one or two guys you you just like didn't like going against man brashier is one d Derek Bougard, Colton North, Jim McKenzie, man,

Tony Twist, Chris Simon, Bob Grover. Just the name of Jesus. Man, I could go on and on and I didn't sleep the night before. I'd have anxiety.

Pre-game nap, I'd be like so worried up in the afternoon like thinking about it visualizing in my head what's going to happen you know like and and to think about you know like to be composed and to feel confident and not to show that you were scared because fighting is 90 mental and when you get it with a guy and you know it better than anyone you want to show him that

you're not scared and you want to show him that you know what you're confident because if you're fighting a guy that you see any sign signal that he's afraid you got him you got the fight is half beaten and sometimes when i would see the other guy it would be tentative and warm up the way he skated i looked at me too much too much i feel more confident because if i saw a guy that was worried, I'd be even more confident about it. And even though I had a really good reputation, I felt it just like you did because a lot of guys that you fought, they were much bigger than you.

And you, you would go in with anyone, which is even harder because you were outsized a lot of times and you went at it anyway. I was the bigger guy, so I had more to lose because i was not supposed to lose so there's added pressure to me as for you if you we go together me and you and it's a draw you win yeah it looks like i lost yeah because you go against a bigger guy so it's

totally different so you're happy with the job your teammates are pumped up and they're excited and i go back to the bench people looking at me they're like man what the was that they're not gonna say that right but you know that it shouldn't be like that and stuff so you never have anything to lose every time you went at it and but it's we all have different kind of pressure yeah just the shape of my nose that's it that's about it but but still the fact that you did that against guy every time that were much bigger than you it shows all the guys that you have because i was bigger than most guys i fought you were smaller than most guys so in a way what you did was much harder than what i did because i don't know the type of guy i would have been if i'd be the smallest and the tiniest guy

every time i got into a scuffle man it must have been if I'd be the smallest and the tiniest guy every time I got into a scuffle. It must have been... Sometimes I was nervous. I could just imagine on your side how hard it must have been. Oh yeah, it sucked. And you found weed. I could just tell by the way you are off the ice that

I would imagine that it's just not in your human nature where you want to inflict pain, but yet you want to play this game you love at a higher level and as long as you can. But yeah, enough about me. I'll throw it over to Witt here. We want to dive into some more stuff. Well, I'm always curious into guys that did what you did and how early it started. And I know that you went to the Quebec League, and your draft year, 20 goals, 250 pims.

So right away you kind of knew at 16 this is what it was going to be well you know when I came in play junior hockey um you know I can't everybody wants to play in the NHL I remember the coach coming up to me and he said to me he's like you know what George um if you want to just want to have a quiet career playing junior hockey that's fine you know you'll score goals you'll have fun you're overpowering guy you'll play as a 20 years old make 500 bucks a week we'll give you a car whatever if it's what you want that's fine but if you want to play in the nhl with your size you're gonna have to fight and you're gonna have to fight into your game if

you want to be drafted and then i was like my god really and it's like yeah you have to have fighting to your game if you want to be drafted. And then I was like, my God, really? And he's like, yeah, you have to fight. And then I wanted to play in the NHL, so I did. So my first fight, I was 16 years old. I'm fighting Silverman Blum, I'm 20 years old. And my dad is there, and I play Major Tripoli with me. They're watching the game. It was in Coliseum Laval, and I get killed.

He broke a vein on my nose. I was bleeding all over the place and then I I think if I will go back to the dressing room my game is over and I'm holding a towel and bleeding my dad came and watched me in the in a dressing room and I was full of blood I've never I didn't want to fight I didn't know anything and my dad looked at me and he's like what are you gonna do now are you gonna hide behind your mom's skirt are you gonna become a man that's what he said to me when i was bleeding from that moment on i looked at him i said i'm gonna become a man and i never lost again every time i fought i saw my dad in my opponent's face i was so mad at him from that moment on even

when i was the nhl that's my dad's face that i saw that was your motivation because i was so mad at him from that moment on even when i was the nhl that's my dad's face that i thought was your motivation because i was so upset of what he said to me that day and the way i grew up to my dad was you know my dad beat me up a lot in my education because it was pretty severe that's the way it was growing up in haiti you know beating up his kid the marks were not 90s in school being up his kids we have a d mark in school because i used to talk a lot and all the time i was very good student but for him i had to be perfect so the way i was brought up was pretty severe on top of the fact that he didn't want me to play hockey and when he comes watching play that's what he says to me yeah so one time i saw my dad when i fought and i needed counseling to be able to take that image off because man that man, that's fucking weird, man, when you get into a fight. And it's your dad that you see in your face in front of you, even though you're finding 20 twists.

But your dad's face is there, and you want to beat him so bad. It was crazy, man. And I can't believe that I did that for so long. I feel so fortunate that today I did not suffer anything from all the fighting that I did. But today I did not suffer anything from all the fighting that I did. And you mentioned, you know, that there was the stress involved. But you went out there, you kind of went pretty freewheeling, like open it up. You were a lefty, but you weren't really fighting protective at all either.

Was that like by design? It's crazy because after me, the way people used to fight, Peters and the other guys, you know how they grab each other's shoulders like this, and then you go punch each other in the shoulder one at a time. Nobody's getting hurt anymore in a fight. It was just one at a time hitting, not really hitting anyone in the face. The protective way of fighting that there was never damage. fights it was just one at a time hitting not really hitting anyone in the face the protective way of fighting that there was never damage a lot of guys fought like that and to me it was not

fighting the time when i learned how to fight you have to hit the guy in the face until he went down right so grab the guy right in the middle of the chest obviously i have a long reach i'm a lefty having all my weight on my right arm pulling him down and hitting at the same time in his face until he goes down. You try to break his face, try to break his nose, try to break his orbital bones so he never wants to go at you again. So he respects your team. So next time you're in a warm-up, you play him again, he says,

you know what, George, I won't hit anyone tonight. Please don't come after me. George, just shake your head no, okay? And then he'd say, you have any you have triplets that's everybody saw me doing that but it's not because you asked me to go fight so you know back in the time when i used to fight it's totally different to the way that it was after because you know after my time guys would hold each other you know in the arms and then hit each other in their shoulder and they wouldn't really connect but in the day that I learned how to fight, you got the guy right in the chest.

And with my right arm, I hold his chest and put all my weight down to pull him down. And you try to hit him in the face to try to break his face, break his bone, break his orbital bone or anything like that. So when you do damage like that, what happens is that when you play the guy after the next game, in the warm-ups, he comes to you and he tells you, I'm not going to hit anyone anyone please don't go after me or sometimes i'll go up and he'll say george uh just say i'll ask you a question just say no okay he'll ask me if i have triplets or whatever i'd say no and he tell his teammates he asked me to go and i said no so then there's the proof right

there that i didn't want to go or sometimes I would watch a pregame skate of another team before me. And then when I saw the top guys back skating, I knew he wasn't playing tonight. So I put money on the board for the winning goal. I was going to be so happy the guy wouldn't be playing. And then I'd be relieved that I wouldn't have to fight tonight. Sometimes in warm-up, when we played on the road, I wouldn't go on the fourth line rotation to make it look like I wasn't playing. So then the coach, when they write the lineup, they're like, oh, I'm not going to address my top guy.

George doesn't look like he's playing. And then I am playing, and then the guy is not playing because of that. Those little things, even though I had a really good reputation, I did that too. I did all those things also because even though I had a huge reputation and people got to know that I was good at what I was doing I felt the anxiety like everyone else and I used all the tricks in my books to be able to maybe prevent a night or two nights of fighting knowing that there's a chance

it might not happen I know that sounds crazy but you know there's many guys that did that but that was their job man the anxiety that's what it does it drives you crazy and sometimes you have to find ways to to get a bit away from it yeah and also sorry all right real quickly when you talk about you know you knew it was your job and you're playing that role you just gotta make yourself angry you you saw you said you saw your father but was there any guy you really actually did hate? To be honest with you, I didn't hate anyone. Yeah. Because the thing about that is, you know, you're in front of a guy, right?

And the face gives you a little touch. You say, hey, you want to go? Let's go. Then you go in front of a guy and then you do a face like you're supposed to be angry or something and kill each other. He didn't do anything. The guy didn't even play a shit. He's supposed to be angry or something and kill each other. He didn't do anything. The guy didn't even play a shift. He's in front of me. It's the only shift of the game and I'm supposed to be mad at him. He didn't hit anyone. He didn't

score a goal. He didn't get an assist. He's just there to fight the next shift. That's why Jordan would just make stuff up. That's how he got so good. I don't know if you've seen the documentary. You're supposed to brainwash yourself into believing he was doing something bad yeah but yeah exactly yeah yeah no no that's why when you ask me a question i was never mad at anyone and after a point when i felt confident i used to smile at guys other than being angry and because i discovered and when i

was smiling when i was squirming out it would drive the other guy crazy because i'd be like why is he smiling? Why is he so confident? And then the fight was over then before I even threw a punch because they'd be like, man, this guy is crazy. But it was all psychological to play in his head. George would have the penalty box official on the other side hand the guy at PSP. And he'd look over.

He'd be like, are we going? It points out the kind of absurdity of the stage fights, how silly you got. Because like you're saying, this guy, you like him, and he didn't do nothing wrong, and then you got to punch the shit out of him. And George, like you said, you didn't like it, but you were very good at it. Did you have a mentor, someone to help you along the way, or were you completely self-taught? What I did in my career to be good at it is in the summer a lot of guys did boxing but the things you have to do with boxing is when you plant it on your feet and you're boxing

it's that habit on the ice because on the ice you're out of balance when you're punching on the ice so what i did is in the summer i would do boxing on the ice with a padding so that way i strengthen my legs and my core and my balance doing punching on the ice get somebody would do the pad and i had my fold gears on and that's what i did i never told any tough guy that because i didn't want people to all know my tricks but the thing is is that when you do it on the ice all the time the way you punch it was more realistic to a real fight as people doing it on the eye like on the boxing ring when you go on the ice it's completely different you don't use the hip the same way you don't punch the same way and i did that all the time and by doing it on the ice at

valid balance i never go down i never fall because i'm a guy that rarely fall when i was fighting and stuff because of my balance because because I got so used to it. Any position that I would be in, I got used to do this, the scuffle on the ice in the summer. And I think that to me was a huge advantage. And also, I did tons of leg, tons of plyometrics, and I pretty much did no upper body. Because if you do too much upper body, you lose flexibility. If you have too much strength in your upper body, you know,

you're going to fall all the time because you need your legs, your core. So I do yoga a lot. A lot of things like this so I don't get hurt. I have more flexibility so that way I can control my opponent more. I have guys that were so big that couldn't even open the door. But those guys, they can't fight. If you're this big and try to fight,

you have no flexibility to grab a jersey and to even throw or to escape a throw or something. So it's a lot of things I did that I did that most guys didn't do and I saw a big difference when I was... The bigger the guy that was fighting, the bigger the upper body was, the easier it was to bring him down because most of those guys

had zero balance. Now Edmonton took you in the second round. Teams didn't take fighters in the second round even back then. Did they have specific plans for you to fight? What was their role that they were telling you that they wanted for you well uh i'll be honest with you there was no drawing bar to tell me what i had to do i knew what i had to do because you know what you know crazy story about that when i got drafted by them and uh and uh you know dave samenko was there and kevinowe and everybody. I didn't know who Dave Semenko was.

And the trainer came up to me and was like, what number do you want? And I said, I want number 27. And I wanted number 27 because it's my favorite number of my life. That's the number that I have all my years playing junior hockey, major triple A. It's my favorite number. But when I said that to the trainer, I want number 27, the trainer was like, Oh yeah, I love that. That's cocky kid. And I was like, why is this? I didn't know Dave Semenko was. And I was like, why is this? I'm 27. Who cares? So when the media, they did this big thing about how I choose number 27,

people were like, Oh, this kid think is going to be the next Semenko. And I started reading about it. I was like, Oh my God, this is thinks he's going to be the next Semenko. And I started reading about it. I was like, oh my God. This is almost like somebody took number 99. I'm not. I took the number of a legend. I'm a rookie. And people already think that I think I'm going to be the

next Semenko. They think this kid coming out of junior hockey is going to think he's the next Dave Semenko. So I was like, oh my God. I put all this pressure on myself without knowing it. And that's huge expectation when I'm numberko. So I was like, oh my God, I put all this pressure on myself without knowing it. And that's huge expectation when I'm number 27. So I'm glad if I honor, may he rest in peace,

but if I honor the number 27, you know, as much as Dave did, I'm happy about it. But, you know, Dave's one cup when I choked twice in the final. But anyway, you know, it was like crazy pressure, but I'm glad twice in the final. But anyway, you know, it was like crazy pressure, but I'm glad that things turned out.

I was going to go back to the cup you did win. You won a Memorial Cup in the queue with the Granby Predators. Yes, we did. I don't even know where that is. Other than it's in Granby, but like where is that about? Granby is about an hour outside Montreal. And when we won, Quebec hasn't won the Memorial Cup for 25 years. It was awesome.

It was unreal winning that, the experience of that, winning in Piriboro. Nobody gave us a chance, and we did win it. Any other NHLers? Any other NHLers on that team? On my team, Frank Bouillon, the defenseman. Oh, he was a great player. Montreal finished in Nashville, didn't he? Yeah, he was a captain. Yeah, he was a captain, a small defenseman, but tough.

Jason Doig was there too, but he didn't play long in the NHL. Do you remember him? Dan Gonneau in the Rangers a couple of games, but other than that, no one else really. George, was that where you started the LeRoc leap after scoring goals? No, because, okay, listen to this. The LeRoc leap, obviously when I was jumping in a corner, which, by the way, Ovechkin stole it to me.

He stole it? Because he came after me. Oh, yeah, because he came after me. I did that before he was even in the league. He had your poster on his wall in Moscow growing up. Actually, to be honest with you, in junior hockey, I didn't do it. I started doing that in the NHL. And the reason why I did that in the NHL is when I scored a goal,

I never knew if it was going to be my last one. But I'm damn well going to celebrate like it's my last goal. So every time I did, to me it was a celebration. George, I don't know if that's going to happen again, but let's celebrate it. So I just jumped on the board. And that's why I did it. And then people said it was so cool that I did it every time.

And that's how they called it. And it was awesome. I think even one time I almost concussed myself because it was back in the day when all the boards were shaking and stuff, and one time I went too hard at it, and I went back from the bench and I was pretty dizzy. It was insane. I never got dizzy from a fight, but from a rifle leap I did once.

So it shows you how excited that I was when I scored. So, George, who was your first NHL scrap? Todd Simpson. Todd Simpson. When we played in Cal was your first NHL scrap with? Todd Simpson. Todd Simpson. When we were playing Calgary Battle of Alberta, I got called up from the Hamilton Bulldogs, and I laid down Jamie Allison, body check in the corner,

and then Todd Simpson came after me, and it was my first NHL fight. So what was it like to get called up? I mean, did you spend enough time down there where you're thinking, my time has to come soon? Or were you more surprised when you got the chance to go up? Well, I kind of knew it was going to come. It was my second year in the minors, and I kind of knew it was going to be up and down.

And I was pretty nervous, obviously, because I knew if I got called up, it wasn't from my hands and stuff. And to score goals or to to have some scoring to the power play and especially against tagliatelle i knew i was going to get into a fight but i'm glad that it didn't went well and uh and and i went up and down that year uh before becoming uh the year after more irregular and each other uh george you talked about some of the training you did in order to prepare for the fighting whether it was you know grappling or whatever on the ice um I heard that you're a vegan as well is that one thing you did during your career or was it post-career and what are the benefits that

you've had from turning vegan I did that in my last year my last year in Montreal that's when I became vegan and I wish I did that earlier but when I saw documentary yeah when I saw actually hurtlings the documentary it shows you how much better it would be for your health. It's crazy because I did testing before and after to see the difference. And after four months of, you know, the summer training that you do before the season, when I decided to be vegan before my last year in the NHL, the whole summer I was vegan and, you know, I trained normally. And when I did the testing, everything was blew it off the chart I was stronger than ever my cardio went up everything

went up I was like it was insane because a lot of people would tell me I was going to lose all my muscle by being vegan and I got stronger more muscle mass it was unbelievable and I believe my career would have been longer and I would have been able to prevent more injuries if i would have been vegan longer and look today the dental chair is in a million years old he's vegan he's still playing nhl man it's it's crazy and look how big he is you know o'reilly vegan also he won as you guys know the cons might but there's more and more athletes that are vegan and and they're performing and stuff so no it's just energy wise it's much better and and it's i never thought i turned vegan, it's just energy-wise, it's much better. And I never thought I'd turn vegan because I used to eat a cow a day pretty much during my career back there.

When I discovered how much better it was for health, the environment, for the animals, since 2009, I became vegan and I never looked back. What about inflammation? Did it help a lot with that in the recovery aspect? Yeah. Well, just to give you guys something something about inflammation which is a really good question in my career um i had to retire because i had two aneurysms two aneurysms i have no meniscus on my knees um you know and all the wear and care of fighting yourself how tough it is right and a lot of guys that did but because of my vegan diet even though when i retired i was 300 pounds

i ran the marathon three times the full marathon to montreal actually i'm doing my third one this year and i ran about a hundred half marathons no pain nothing no inflammation because of the way that i'm eating if i'm 300 pounds after 13 years playing nhl two years in the minors at 300 pounds i could run full marathons with no pain a hundred half marathon with no pain when i have no meniscus on my knees no inflammation i i do tons of bike like a road bike all the time i do all activities with no pain i credit all that to to uh what i'm, what I'm eating and the energy that it's giving me. And the fact that, you know, the best medication is food, man. And ever since I've been eating like this, I do things that I never even dreamed that I'd be able to do even while I was playing hockey.

So that shows you how good, how awesome this is. And, man, I recommend it to anyone. And actually, if you guys watch Game Changers, it shows tons of athletes that are performing with vegan diets, and they're just incredible. So this is not an insult. I know you're fast going straight forward. Was the knee problem the reason why you might have had a hard time turning the one way? Because if you watch, seeing you turn, man, like an 18-wheeler,

I mean, come on. Yeah. You know what? When I turned, I mean, come on. Yeah. You know what? When I turn, I dig so much on the ice. When most guys would speed up when they turn, I'd dig in the ice, and it looked like I was breaking when I was turning. That's why every time I wanted to raise a guy, it has to be stand still, straight line.

If there was one lap, forget it. Even backwards, if I was forward on one lap, I think you'd beat me if we had to turn. That was part of the deal. You're like, no turns. No turns. That, for sure. Maybe we could get a rematch, considering

that there's no memory on George's side. Do you still skate at all? Wait, wait, wait. I skate, and you know what? I do a rematch with you, and I say sky's the limit. Take your check, put as many zeros as you want. I don't care. It's on.

It's on. If you think I would take that right now, you're the craziest human being alive. I have not skated one time besides filming a commercial, and even then I couldn't take a slap shot and lean on one foot. No bet. No way. 1-0 against you. It will remain that way. I'm going to make sure

he's eating kale all week and I'm going to get him on the vegan diet and you're fucked, George. We're going to embarrass you on the Chicklets YouTube channel. We're going to take all those zeros out of your bank account. We're going to take you to In-N-Out Burger the night before the race, dude. You'll be all inflamed.

You can't get out of bed. Are you weighing 300 right now or no? No, no. Right now I'm 270 because I'm changing for my third marathon. I run 10 to 20 kilometers every day, six days a week. What do you listen to? What do you run?

Right now, techno. Oh, just music? Yeah, music and stuff because I don't want to hear myself breathing when I'm running.

Oh, no. I listen to techno. I crank it up and that's it. I lose myself while running. No, I just love it

and it's a way to keep my weight down because when I retired, I went up to 350. I looked like the Pillsbury man. I was like gigantic and man, I was going to go to China looked like the Pillsbury man. I was like gigantic. And man, I was going to go to China to do sumo wrestling. That's a lot of hummus.

I was going to go to China to do sumo wrestling. Yeah, I know. And then I was like, you know what? I did a vegan conference once when I was a bulb. I used to make pants with my king-size sheet because my pants were so big that I couldn't get any. And then I did a vegan conference and people asked me a question, they're like, you don't look so healthy for a vegan. So I kind of laughed in a way and then I was back in my head, I was like, he's right. What am I doing? I'm talking about veganism and I'm

sweating on the stage and in the towels wipe my face because every five steps that I do, I sweat like I ran 10K. So when he said that to me, it stayed in my head, and I started training and lost a triple X out of my stomach, and I went back to normal. If I'm vegan, what's something bad I can still have? Well, you could have pretty much anything you know there's you could have poutine burgers all the crappy stuff you used to have even though you're not vegan but there's vegan ways of getting everything that you're used to having it's just that mock meat it's not healthy transform tofu for your body it's not good but a lot of people you know because it's not meat they'll have that stuff but i don't like processed meat like this like beyond meat and all that stuff it's not healthy but i've got a few of those everything burgers is that what they're

called the ones that are red and they're made with beets and stuff they kind of popped off recently yeah exactly yeah but there's so much chemical in it just my brain's out jar just fucking painting the ball hey you mentioned you mentioned you listen to techno music were you uh when you were in your playing days would you guys hit up nightclubs? Were you big into the whole techno disco scene? I know Montreal's got some pretty good clubs like New City Gas. Actually, yeah. Actually, you're the pro of nightclub with the tourney that you're doing.

Yeah, I mix well with Molly. You're the only guy that's still living it like we're living it. Yeah, you're living it like we were, like we're 20 years old. old but uh you know it's crazy because when i play in edmonton i'm the only one that would go to techno nights club as the other guys they go to country nightclub and i'm sorry but fuck country how the fuck you listen to country and you go get into a fight after listen to your girlfriend that left you the cow's getting sick. My God, country and fight after? I was playing in Edmonton, man. They put country in a dressing room.

So now to have my music in my eyes, listen to Prodigy smack my bitch. I have to fight tonight. I'm not making love to the guys to the other team. I can't listen to fucking country music. Are you kidding me? So I used to fight in a dressing room for the sterile. And then I'd lose because I was the rookie, because I'm the only one. And then people would break my CDs and stuff.

So I was the only one that'd go to techno music bar, raves and crazy things like this. My teammates and my dad. It looks like Jason Aldean will be singing the national anthem when me and you race again, buddy. I know it gets under your skin. Talk about winning the race in the mental battle before. Hey, so in Edmonton, you had the great run to the cup finals. What a series that was after the lockout against Carolina. How did it end up ending for you with them?

Were you a free agent? You wanted a deal with a no trade clause? What was the story behind that? What happened is when it was done, you know, they wanted to sign me, but with no trade clause because they wanted to sign and trade because they didn't think they needed a tough guy. So obviously I knew if they signed me and then with no move clause, I knew they would trade me after.

So I was like, if you want me to stay here, I need a no move clause. Otherwise, you know, that's it. I'm going to go elsewhere. Kevin didn't want to give me the no move clause. So Wayne called me and, you know, he was coaching the Phoenix and he asked me if I wanted to play for him. And it was such a great honor when Wayne calls you and asks you to play for him. So I'm like, yeah, man, let's go.

So I went to Phoenix. But, you know, after a couple of months, I wanted to get out of there. I don't know how you did it, how you played there, man. I remember fighting in Phoenix and you could hear a fly because there's nobody in the stand. Man, it was embarrassing. I hated it. I don't know how you played there, man. Guys were, guys were asking Greg sometimes if the practice could finish earlier so they could go play golf. Things like that that I've never seen. I love that. And I was like, we were losing all the time. And, you know, we were out of playoffs in December.

So I asked to be traded. And that's when I went to Pittsburgh. But, yeah, it was sad to leave Edmonton. But, you know, I'm glad that I got to play with Crosby and Malkin. It was an amazing experience. And Witt. Witt, I was there. The best D-man in the league.

Snapping it tape to tape. Hey, so when you were in Phoenix, was there a story about you betting somebody about eating the lava cakes? Were you there when that happened? Yes. No, I was there, but no, I never did that. What's there when that happened? Yes. No, I was there, but no, I never did that. What's the back story on that?

Yeah, I don't remember what. It was a rookie party that we were challenging rookie to eat three lava cakes, three full lava cakes. And they tried. They couldn't do it because, you know, our wrist doesn't, right? I thought somebody then stepped up and challenged Jeremy Roenick maybe and said, hey, if you could eat five, I'll give you 10 grand. But he couldn't do it.

Yes, it was Roenick. That's right. And he was like shaking by the end of it because of the amount of sugar and stuff. Oh, my God. One of those is tough to get five. Yes, you're right. You know what? You're right.

I was upset. It was JR, man, that tried to do it and stuff. And, man, by the way, playing with JR in Phoenix was, man, that guy's a legend. It was awesome playing with him and stuff. I'll tell you so many stories off the air about him that I can't say on air. Can you give us one on the air? Okay.

I remember, okay, this one is not that bad. Back then, you know, JR wasn't playing as much right because you know obviously you know his primary scare was kind of done he was towards the end right so i know he complained a lot with wayne about his ice time because he thought he wasn't playing enough and uh you know and and i can't blame him because that guy used to play like 20 minutes a game he used to be a one of the best player in the league and i I remember that time his son was there at the game and he scored a hat-trick. It was insane.

And when he did, when he scored the hat-trick, you know, he was so happy about scoring it and stuff. But at the same time, it was crazy because he kept looking back at Wayne to say, see, what else you put me back out there? I was looking at him. Our team was like, we were dead last in the NHL. Nobody cares if we ever win or not.

That guy scored a hat trick. And he's looking at Wayne as, if you put me out there more, I'd have more of these. Of all people, too, Gretzky. And it's crazy because I look at JR and it's awesome. I'm so happy that he got the hat trick. And I'd be like, Wayne probably doesn't even care about the fact that, you know, the last thing you would think of is, oh, I should have put JR more up there. We got more hat trick because our team was so bad, right?

But, yeah, little things like this and stuff, like I could tell you this because it's pretty funny, but most of the awesome stuff with JR, can't tell it in the air though we can't George when you broke in Billy Guerin was a big part of that Oilers room you guys must have hit it off he's kind of a goofball in the room too yeah Bill Guerin was awesome man Bill Guerin was like a true gamer

he was like he was unbelievable the way that Bill Guerin the leadership that he was he's a funny guy he played physical. He scored goals. Awesome wingman, man. It was awesome. Playing with him and Dagui was one of the best experiences I've ever had there. It was unreal.

I don't mean to jump to the end of the career because there's more to ask but now you are in the mix media-wise up in Montreal, right? Yeah. I have my own radio show every day from noon till three, and a French show at 91.9 talking about all sports, hockey, soccer, every sports and stuff,

so I'm having tons of fun with that. And I'm also a public speaker because I wrote my own book, my own autobiography, which is a bestseller, and I do public speaking all around the world. And also, I own that sport card memorabilia. You know, people that collect sports cards. Oh oh and that's kind of exploding right that's getting big it's

coming back to being bigger now where cards are worth a lot of money now it's it's it's insane it's insane it's it's a bigger it's a huge business billion dollar business in the world people that are collecting memorabilia signing and stuff so yeah i do that and it's i mean it's booming and during covid it became even bigger because people started collecting even more because they had nothing else to do uh do you find it a struggle because three hours every day on the radio that's a grind like is there days when you're like oh it's not a ton to talk about or is it does it seem like you just naturally fit into doing it no i've been doing it for five years now so i'm so used to it you know i could do i could do one with you right

right now with you guys for three hours with no subject or anything i'm so used to it but no i love it i cover all sports and have so much fun and and we have awesome ratings i want to ask you about the battle of the blades i mean i know we talked about your turning so that must have been not only an experiment getting used to turning again, but also with those skates on. Yeah, you know, it took months to get used to just skate with the figure skate. It was unbelievable, that experience that we had. And actually, I got hurt more during, you know,

the year of one year of battle of the blades than my 13 years career in the NHL. You know, I have 13 stitches there that I got hit in the face so many times. The skate blade, I got a concussion from Annabelle Longweb, which is 4'10", 95 pounds. She is. And man, we got hurt so much doing battle of the blades. It was insane. Such an awesome experience. I'm glad I did it. But I could say, to be honest with you, that physically and mentally, figure skating is harder than hockey. Fair enough.

You're also, yeah, you got no teammates out there unless you're doing Battle of the Blades, but I could picture that. Yeah. You got to watch those toe picks. So, George, your last career stop was with the Montreal Canadiens. You grew up there. I mean, that was obviously a dream come true to a guy like you, no? It was not a dream come true to a guy like you, no? It was not a dream come true.

The reason why I signed in Montreal is I had so many teams to pick from when I became a free agent, but my mom begged me to play in Montreal because, you know, playing away all the time out West and in the States, she didn't have the chance to see me play in person and a lot of my family, too.

So they were begging me to sign in Montreal so they'd have the chance to see me play in person and a lot of my family too. So they were begging me to sign Montchalce. I had a chance to see me play there. And it was not a true country because, again, I knew with the way that I was and the way that I talked that I wouldn't fit in into a team that likes players that are more conservative, that don't express themselves the way that I do. And I said, they're not going to like it if I go there. But still, I did it for my family, for my mom, and I said they're not gonna like it if I go there but still I did it for my family for my mom and I think they quite understood pretty fast why I didn't want to play there

because man the team did not like it I remember when I used to talk to the media after the game the two guys from the team were beside me listening to what I used to say and they'd shake their head and be like George why did you go there and'd be like, if somebody asked me if I'm not, how do I feel? Because I'm not playing. What am I going to say? Oh, I respect the coach's decision. I'm going to work hard. I'm going to give everything I have.

Fuck that. If you're mad, you could tell them in an interview you're mad. So I'd say, I'm mad. I can't believe it. If I would have known, I would have signed here. I'd say, I'm mad. I can't believe it. If I would have known, I would have signed here. I'd say I felt. But if you say stuff like that in Montreal, it's front page. And now you become a distraction.

And I was front page all the time, man, because of stuff like this. They hated it. And that's why after when I got released. Well, I was going to ask you, like, did you, how long after you'd signed did you regret it months um yeah a couple months waiting a couple months because what happened is that when i signed in montreal uh the mentality of fighting they didn't like that much i understood now what happened with brashir guys that had this reputation they didn't respect um you know guys that had this reputation. They didn't respect, you know, guys that did the job,

the guys that be out there and pose their respect, right? So I was in and out of the lineup, like, and I wouldn't be playing all the time. It never happened to me in my career. I'd play all the time. And they were just like, they started believing in team toughness and stuff like this. So eventually when they released me,

what happened after they released me? I remember they're playing Boston. They're taking their head off. I remember what he did to Pacioretty. He would have never done that if I was there. Crazy thing happened after, because they had no one to protect anyone. And people were taking liberties on them.

But when I was in Montreal, man, we played the Bruins, nothing happened. Like Lucha, Invincible, nobody was hitting anyone. We played Ottawa, Chris Neal, Invincible. Nobody did anything. That's the way it was because there was somebody there to look after the guys and to go after them, and they took liberties. And they didn't quite understand that, and that's why this mentality

of having a tough guy that would play every game didn't fit in with the Montreal Canadiens. And, you know, slowly after that, they started being a small team that was taking a lot of abuse, that was getting abused physically because people knew if you want to beat that team, you're going to run them out of the building and nobody's going to be there to answer things. And I didn't know that's what they were going to do

because when they asked me to sign with them, they were talking about how they wanted to change that and having a guy to look after the guys and stuff. But clearly when I started playing there, it was not their vision. George, you know who else wouldn't be running around like he's doing these days? It's Tom Wilson. And I saw your tweet. You said the Rangers, if you need a guy, come sign me.

You might have to shed maybe a few more LBs to get back in game shape, George, but you think you could sign with the Rangers and take care of Tommy Boy? Listen, even when I was a fat blob at 350 pounds, I could take him with one hand on my back. There's no way. Tom Wilson? Are you kidding me?

That guy could be in a bully in the league. The only guy that could answer to him right now is what? Lou Chick, Donald Nurse, and Ryan Reeves. And Ryan Reeves. That's it. There's nobody else in the league left. Now those guys have a free pass to whatever they want to do

because there's nobody out there. He has to fight Brendan Smith from the Rangers. You think he has to take a nap for that? He probably went shopping in New York before that game knowing that Smith is the biggest guy I have to fight with. So no wonder he's so tough. And Chad Brown's on his team too. He's playing with Chad.

You know how big he was? Man, if I played that guy, even you, you would give it. Even you with, you could give it to him. I promise you. I ain't giving it to him. I wouldn't. Oh, shit. One thing we didn't talk about earlier on when you were in Edmonton

was you actually, like, you had a hat trick one night. That must have been. Yeah. It all came together. Boom, boom, boom. Couple of rock leaps. Like, anything different about that game, like, going in? You know what's crazy is I'll never forget February 2000.

I'll never forget. February 21st. February 21st forget February 2000. 2001, February 21st. February 21st. In 2000, what happened is that game, I had a fight with Steve McKenna. I have two goals that game, and the crowd is chanting my name to go out there for the empty netter.

So Kevin O'Goles tapped me in the back and said, sorry, George, I cannot put you out there for the empty netter. And the enemy name I scored, and there was 20 seconds left in the game. And, you know, I have two goals in the fight. It's a pretty good game. And I'm like, well, you know, it's okay. We go, I go back on the ice.

I was playing with Jim Dowd and boy Devereaux and the puck goes on there in their zone. Jim Dowd gets the puck. He makes me a pass. I'm in the ice slot. Hockeybirds in front of me. I don't know why I did that. I do a spinorama and I'm alone in front of Stephane Fize. I do it the high slot. Hockey bird's in front of me. I don't know why I did that. I do a spinorama, and I'm alone in front of Stephane Fizet. I do it backhand.

I scored. I went nuts because there was 20 seconds left in the game. I never thought I was going to hat-trick Fizet's backhand and net. So when I scored, I was like, how the hell did I do a spinorama? I tried that many times after I was all on the eyeball. I can't even turn.

I turned with the puck on my face, and it was still on my face. And I did it back, and I scored. I skated back to the bench as fast as McDavid ever skated. And I went nuts. I celebrated. I went nuts. And Wayne called after the game.

He said, 49 more to break my record. I did media interview for hours after the game and you know what i kept my equipment for so long for interview that the next day i had back spas and i didn't practice so guys came up to me in the training room they're like yeah you scored a hat trick you don't need to practice superstar they were giving it to me and stuff and no it was awesome i'll never forget that i can't believe it happened. Yeah, I did the hat trick in PlayStation

but not in real life. It happened in the NHL. It was awesome. You look so different without the long hair. Back then, you had the shaved head then? These goals, these goals though, George. The first one, nice tip in front.

Pretty impressive. Wait till she's the first one nice tip in front pretty impressive what'd you say the third one yeah i'm waiting for it i'm waiting for it in the meantime while waiting for that there's a couple other things off the ice that you did one of which involving fighting uh you went three rounds with jsp one time for uh for off the record i'm sure you have a pretty close relationship with George St-Pierre, the UFC fighter, famous. You know what's crazy about this? We're really good friends, me and George. And George, everywhere he goes around the world, there's a huge crowd

outside of the hotel waiting for him to come out. In Montreal, nobody even stops him because he's not a Montreal Canadian. So, what happened is, before the UFC was going to do with George a fight in Montreal, they've asked me, the UFC, if I do an exhibition match with him because they figured that, you know, it'd be a good publicity for the UFC for the first fight

in Montreal. And if he makes me look bad, people are going to realize how tough George St-Pierre is. If he makes a Montreal Canadian look bad, then he must be really good. Even though he's known as the best in the world, if he mangles with me, people realize how good that he was. So we went to the TriStar in Montreal, and yeah, we mixed

it up, but man, if he wanted me to suck my thumb or put the diaper on me, he could have done it. He could have done whatever he wanted me to suck my thumb or put the diaper on he could have done it he could have done whatever he wanted he's he could have no joke you know you know what's crazy is that when we fought and we're just trying to put the other one down the hardest thing for him was actually to put me down gently because if it was a real fight he put me down way harder but he didn't want to hurt me. That's how good he is

because even though he was putting me down all the time, he was doing it in a way that he wasn't hurting me and I really tried to put him down and I couldn't. It's like he weighed a ton and man, there's a reason why he's one of the best in the world for a reason. He's incredible and I couldn't do anything with him. Hey, but there's, I have a question for you because i've always wondering if it was staged or if it was true that exhibition

game when you fought against jansen was it a real fight or a joke oh no it was it was like half joking but he's a bit of a maniac like he's got a screw loose cam jansen but we just we wanted to put a show on for the fans. Although I don't think he scored a goal that game. I did, luckily. I pulled a rabbit out of my ass. I had a Gordie Howe hat trick. So I won up to him. Although I think he popped me pretty good, so he won the fight and kept the fans happy.

So no, me and him are buddies. Although we did have a few good bouts when we were playing in the NHL when he was with St. Louis. And I think we fought once, maybe even when he was with New Jersey. One of the other things I wanted to ask you about was the movie Goon. You appeared in the movie Goon. That's got to be an honor, like probably one of the more famous hockey movies other than Slapshot. You know what's crazy about that is when I met with the actors,

like crazy anecdotes about it, I talked to Liev Schreiber, and he actually, he said he looked at a lot of my videos to kind of know the attitude and how to fight and how to be. And it was an honor because I was like, oh my God, he looked me up. He's like, I want to get in the role of Bray

and stuff. And he even trained because most of the time he's skating himself. Sean William Scott, he had a double most of the time he's skating himself. Sean Williams got, he had a double most of the time because he can skate and didn't learn how to skate for this movie. But Leo Schreiber wanted to do it himself. So it shows you how hard this guy tried and he was awesome. And when I did the fighting scene with Sean Williams Scott,

when we were fighting, right, I was holding him up. But because he had no balance, I had to hold him up with my right hand because he would fall. When we would hit each other, like for this couple inches from our face, he had no balance. If I didn't hold him, he would go down. But because he has no balance, the first couple fights, he punched me for real. I remember the first time when I got the punch, I let him go and he went down because I wasn't holding him up anymore because he braved me pretty

hard. And I looked at him like I was going to kill him. What the fuck, Stifler? So he's laying on my eyes and he's like, George, please don't rape me, don't rape me. As a joke, he said that to kind of make me laugh and to make me realize that it was actually stifler

that actually did that and he didn't run and he crushed his mom because man i was gonna jump on the ice and i was gonna you know the court touched each other and i was like and then i calmed down because i realized that we're humming and he did it on purpose but man i had to brace myself every fighting scene with him that because we did it so many times because when you have no balance, you kind of never knew where his punch was going to go. And sometimes I would feel it and stuff. So

good thing that he threw pillows because it didn't hurt me. How did you enjoy the acting experience? You work with Jay Baruchel as well. He was a writer on the show, big Canadians fan as well, a movie rather. Actually, there's something

that you probably forgot. You know that movie, She's Out of My League? You remember that movie? Yeah. Okay, that movie, what you forgot with is there's one scene

that was filmed in Pittsburgh. During a game, they were in Pittsburgh filming in front of us, in front of the bench. And if you look at the movie, She's Out of My League, you see a real scene of a game where playing the Islanders. Oh, shit.

Whose goal was seen in a breakaway in this movie? Live goal in a breakaway. Come on, you've scored on a breakaway. We're off-league. If you look, and then if you watch She's Out of My League, you'll see me scoring a breakaway. You're not asleep! If you look, watch, and then if you watch He's Out of My League, you'll see me scoring

a breakaway against the Islanders and the actors for real. They're cheering my goals. So they were filming them watching the game for real? Yeah,

it's a real game. So it's a real action show. I scored for real in that game and it happened to show that goal that I scored. I remember that goal.

I do. Without knowing it, I was an actor because I scored in it and it happened to show that goal that I scored. I remember that goal. I do. Without knowing it, I was an actor because I scored it and it showed my goal, which doesn't happen often, but it happened and she's out of my league. So, Wick, where's your goal in a movie, Wick? Where's your goal?

I don't know, man. Couldn't even get one in a commercial. All I know is it was against the Islanders and we still, so we beat that trash team just like they lost recently. So that's no surprise. George, before we let you go, man, you donated 3,000 vegan meals to charity. What's the back story behind that? Obviously, we know you're a vegan.

Where was it to? So what happened is before the playoff when we were making prediction, I was making prediction when my agent in my radio show, my agent predicted that Canadian was going to make it to Stanley Cup final. And I started laughing at him because the way the season ended for the Canadian, I was like, man, are you nuts? I said, if they make it to the Stanley Cup final, I'll eat a whole chicken because I never thought it was going to make it.

And then I'm vegan. So before the series against Vegas, we're only four wins away from the chicken, right? And my agent is like, you know what, George? I know you're vegan, so how about instead of eating a chicken, because I think they're going to beat Vegas, how about you buy 50 chicken to give to the homeless? And because I'm vegan, I don't just want to eat chicken. I don't want to buy chicken also.

So I said, you know what? I'm going to buy 100 vegan meals regardless they beat vegas or not you know to honor the canadians like what they've done so far and when i said that publicly people joined in to donate meals and this past saturday on the 26th i gave out 3200 vegan meals to homeless people 4 000,000 cakes, and 2,000 bottles of flow water. It was insane. This movement that we're going to now do annually started as a joke to honor the Canadians' ways to the Stanley Cup finals and helping out all the homeless across the city. So, yeah, it was awesome.

Well, that's a great job, and you and everyone involved. R.A., did you have anything else? No, I think that's about it. Actually, real quick, did you like acting? Was that something you want to get back into when you did the Goon stuff, or was it too tedious and too long of a day for you? No, it was awesome. It's an honor to always be back in it.

I was also in Goon 2, and it was awesome to be part of it. So, yeah, no, I loved it. An experience like this, to do it and stuff, especially hockey experience. It's awesome. You get to learn, you know, about those great actors, their career and stuff. Because, you know, you idolize them. Like, you see them on TV and now you're working with them. So, no, it was awesome and stuff.

And with Liev Schreiber. Yeah, he was great. When I used to own a vegan restaurant, he came to Montreal. He gave me a call. We went to my vegan restaurant a couple times. Nice. Yeah, he was great. When I used to own a vegan restaurant, he came to Montreal, he gave me a call, we went to my vegan restaurant a couple times. Nice. No, awesome guy, so I had tons of fun with all these guys. And if you ever have a documentary, you need to have him do the voiceover. He kills it

when he does that stuff. Yeah, I know, and we obviously all watch Ray Donovan, right? Yeah. He's an awesome actor, awesome person. He can announce... I was so happy to work with him. He could take over announcing after Aldine sings the anthem at your guys' 100-meter sprint.

Yeah, George, next year's draft, not 2021, 2022 is in Montreal. So we'll be up there for that. We should connect then. That'd be a blast. Do something on video. You know what? I'll take all of you guys in the vegan restaurant and I'll convert you guys to veganism so you'll

never want to eat meat again. I'll try anything once. Fair enough. Thank you very much, George. Have a great one. You can hear him on 91.1 up in Montreal and his book is on Amazon, George LaRock, The Story of the NHL's Unlikeliest Tough Guy. George, it's been an absolute pleasure.

Thank you, guys. That was awesome. Best of luck to you. That was a blast, George. You guys are awesome. Thanks, buddy. It was an honor to be with you guys was a blast george awesome thanks it was an honor to be with you guys thank you thank you see you georgie thank you take care buddy big thanks to george larock for joining us had a great conversation man he's got a great laugh on biz he's got that like deep laugh that comes from his belly man he he seems like a fun guy to go and have a few pops with oh for sure and wit i will say tough look for you lying about that sprinting story when terrian was the judge um that is a full-blown true story

i don't know if george has the worst memory in the world or that was him playing it off brooks or pick yo dude do you remember when i raced george before practice i do i think it was goal line to far blue line at Mellon from the locker room end to the Zamboni end. Remember it like it was yesterday. I think that locks up the story. Brooks or pick a man of honor, a man of integrity and ask anyone else in that team.

George is misremembering. All right. Before we get to the last bits of the show here, I do want to tell you, cross-country mortgage is much like us at Barstool, a people-first group of people. They are dedicated to the fundamentals of mortgage lending, which results in a fast, convenient,

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Yeah, if you're looking to refi, definitely check them out. They're good people there. Okay, let's see. Moving on to the et cetera portion of the show. Grinnelli, Barstool Athletes, man. As we talked about, collegiate athletes, man, as we talked about collegiate athletes, what are the letters again? Name, image, likeness, right? It's nil. Yeah, the nil. Name, image, and likeness. And

of course, we signed the only guy who went to college longer than R.A., Johnny Walker. Absolutely. He was our first. I looked, I was like, there's no way he's still in college. How many years has he played college? Dr. Walker? How many years has he played at Arizona State?

He's played four, but they gave every winter athlete an extra year of eligibility. That was funny. Thank you, buddy. I appreciate it. I know people laugh out there. Sorry, I didn't hear it. I apologize. That's all right.

We have an announcement for our second barstool athlete, and it's a girl. And she led the NCAA in points last season. She's on the Canadian Olympic team. Daryl Watts. We're going after the big dogs. That's it. So we have Johnny Walker and Daryl Watts. And, gee, anybody who wants to become a Barstool athlete,

what do they got to send? An email or DM? Yeah, it's athletes at barstoolsports.com. There's also a link that we tweeted out that Barstool has tweeted out many times. You can find it there. It's on Instagram. It's on on barstool sports dot com you can find it in all those spots so and just click accept everywhere i think one of them says they might get two percent of your future career earnings but just don't worry about it just click it and you'll be a barstool athlete and ra gets the crafts on your couch whenever he wants

oh shit uh let's see you're not a lawyer read that contract fuck uh july 4th activities biz did you you do anything exciting i'm not well no i'm not really a holiday on a sunday but no i cleaned my whole apartment didn't do nothing me and finn hung out i got back from nyc and just chilled i uh yeah i'm not a big i'm not a big holiday celebrator i just like to relax and enjoy my time i hear you i'm not a big i'm not a big holiday celebrator i just like to relax and enjoy my time i hear you i just chill out and take advantage of it uh whit what about you i had a very relaxing day we went to uh the hingham parade there was a little fourth of july parade in hingham it's actually a hell of a parade dude you had three different groups of

bagpipes you had all the kids on there you you know, the baseball, the hockey, the lacrosse teams on the floats. You had dudes on stilts. Ryder loved it. It was bad weather. So after that, just went back, grilled out, had some steaks and just, you know, hung out. It was relaxing, as Biz said. I enjoyed it. That week in New York, dude, Jesus

Christ. It's disgusting. 99 degrees in that city. I needed to just decompress coming home from that dump i'd love to learn how to play the bagpipes oh man i would love to play them but i'm imagining it take it's got to take a while there it's gonna be tough to learn how to play those if you could play any instrument piano want to play yeah sam i think piano would be mine too piano no doubt it's it's so amazing that as a young kid like you know the last thing you want to do is take piano lessons and you just want to grab the

kid like billy madison grabbed the fat kid that said i can't wait till high school and say no play the piano if you're a guy or a girl people will love you the rest of your life if you're able to if you could go into a party and there's a grand old piano sitting in the room and you can just get on and start ripping tunes, I'd slot or the coolest person at the party, bar none. Jay Harrison used to play for the Carolina hurricanes. I think he played for Toronto a little bit. Maybe might've played in Winnipeg.

Even he is an unbelievable pianist. Is he? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. So I wonder, I'd love to talk to him and be like dude were you so mad when your parents made you play or maybe he just took it up later in life but no i think he was yeah i think he liked it and enjoyed it early on i don't do you know uh what are some other guys in

the nhl that play instruments i know ryan o'reilly's a big guitar player matt duchene yeah he's good he's got a good voice too great voice great in the guitar did you say mike smith brings the guitar on the road mike smith i think i think him and sean burke used to play together a little bit too yeah because sean burke plays as well so all right do you know any nhl guys who play any instruments other than the guitar because the guitar is pretty simple i seem to think it was a goalie who played the drums recently. I don't know if he's still in the league, but I'm drawing a blank, to be honest. Well, Jay Weinberg did. He came on.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, he was a great interview. I was thinking NHL guys. Who was the guy in the Bruins who used to always bring his guitar on the road? Matt Lashoff? Yes, Matt Lashoff. He's been released albums and stuff, I think. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, he's got a couple out there, so check him out on iTunes. A buddy of mine, Rob Bellamy, he played hockey at Maine. He's doing great now. He's singing. He's performing. I saw an Instagram video he put out. He's at a restaurant down the Cape. Rows of women just like Googling, googly eyes at him as he's ripping his songs.

He has his own songs, does covers. My boy Bell showed out him. Great guy. He didn't play in the show, but I'm just thinking hockey players are pretty talented musically. You know, the hand eye, the ability to put in the hours, the practice. That's a good point.

Yeah. I actually worked. I worked on July 4th yesterday with some of our co-workers were in town. Donnie, the wanton Don, KB No Swag, and Nick were in town doing their Rediscovering America tour. So Donnie's like, hey, if you're in town, we'd love to have you on. So I gave him a little tour of Charlestown. We stopped on the Warren Tavern, had a few drinks, gave him a little Charlestown history.

It was fun, man. Those guys are fucking hilarious. I mean, Nick Tarani is like probably the low-key one of the funniest guys in that company. Had me in stitches all day. We stopped by Mitch at the ice cream truck. So, yeah, we had a good time yesterday. Also, too, dude, if you... Wait, two movies to watch on Independence Day. Which one do you

watch? Independence Day or Jaws? Um, oh. Independence Day. Okay. but i think sandlot's a great movie i watched sandlot rider loved it too i was surprised by that but that's a great fourth of july movie true that's good too um you mentioned the golf earlier uh your boy bryson and his caddy had a little tiff just amazing you know it's unreal and and b Bryson's caddy decided to quit the morning, the morning of the first round at the Rocket Mortgage Classic or whatever it was, the tournament in Detroit where he was a joint parting of ways because so often uh in a joint parting ways there's like i quit at eight in the morning before your first round tea time the day of like just an all-time clown move from the biggest clown in pro golf and uh kepka's tweet

hilarious he had a tweet with his picture uh of his caddy i think ricky elliott maybe his name is a ricky elliott Post. Great troll job there. But Bryson, it's like one of the top jobs in the game of golf to be on his bag. You know, he wins so often. He makes so much money. It's like you look at it in the end. Is it worth it, the headache with this dude? And I think he gets there so early and he stays late at night.

And if it's too dark, you can still see the track man numbers. And yeah, I mean, I think that you're not going to dog him for his hard work. But if you're going to be that odd and that weird and that painful to work with while being at the course that long and putting in all those hours, you could see a guy just maybe think, fuck, I can't deal with this dude anymore. And he hasn't come out with a statement, right? So this is completely me guessing, but you just hear and listen to de chambeau it's like why do you think the guy could be doing a book tour in six months hopefully if he's just like tigers he writes

a book describing all the bullshit this kid's pulled in his life because as amazing and talented as he is he is a clown. Also, now that you're the soccer guy, you are officially a soccer correspondent here in Spit and Check, but the Euros are still going on. Yeah, people seem to really like that. People seem to really like that. No, I'm the soccer correspondent, because I saw the German coach getting up to his old antics wit.

Do you follow this guy? No. Oh, the nose picker? Is it Joe Chimlo? I know he's done now. This was his last tourney as a coach of Germany. So I think the last World Cup, he had his hand on the sideline as the game's going on.

He's hand down where his arse is, just getting right in his taint area and then pulls it up and gives it a big old sniff, okay? That was the last World Cup. So now it's the Euro Cup. He's on the sideline just digging for a booger, pulls one out. No. Chomps on it. No.

This guy is the sickest puppy in pro sports. But now he's retiring too. Oh, he's smelling his ass crack. Listen, if you want to do it at home on the couch to check your oil and see where you're at if you need a shower that day i get it but do it on the fucking sideline at the world cup and then to not only have that happen to get busted for it i'm sure he he must have caught wind that people are aware of this unless he he's like tom green and he doesn't have social media anymore or or or

completely avoiding the opinions but then he fucking chomping on his boogers on at the euro cup just does not give a fuck so i don't know if people saw the video out there this guy has one sick puppy did they get beaten out yes england had an enormous win against germany round of 16 uh to go to the round of eight then they they dusted Ukraine to get in the semis. Now they have Denmark on Wednesday. Today's Tuesday, which will be Italy-Spain. Both games are at three, and then the final Sunday at three. So some great soccer.

You can check that out this week. England hasn't won either a Euro Cup or a World Cup or I guess anything of significance in, what, 70, 80 years? Yeah, I don't know the i think in the 60s maybe i'm kind of making that up but i know they keep saying it's coming home it's coming home dude the thing ran away it ain't coming home uh i want i would love to see them win um how i don't like the italians i want to see beckham in a three-piece how is england the home of soccer that's what like that's where soccer was created. In England? I never knew that.

According to FIFA, it was spun off of rugby in like 1860 or something, and that England is the home of soccer. Wow, look at you. I had no idea. Either way, fuck England. I can never root for them. I don't know how 99% of the planet could root for England, given the history of the last 5,000 years. What do you think Italy did in two different world wars, R.A.? I mean, you don't root for them either, right?

I said, I talked the last 5000 years. Italy hasn't trying to take over 700 other countries like England did. If you're English, you can root for them. I just don't understand if you're not English, how you root for English. I have no clue what the fuck is going on. The dogfish and chips. Actually, by the time this episode gets heard by a lot of people, I'm going to be in Colombia Tuesday night. They're playing Argentina in the Copa America, which is basically the Central

and South American version of the Euro thing, Euro Cup, whatever the hell it's called. I can't wait, man. I'm not the biggest soccer guy, but the whole fucking country is going to be watching this game, and I'm going to be there. It's just the atmosphere. It should be a pretty wild night. What are you doing? The final Saturday night, actually, and then Sunday

afternoon is the final of the Euro, so that's a pretty good weekend. You're going down for a shipment. All right. Yeah, we got to cut this. No, I'm going down. My buddy Stu from college is getting married. I'm in the wedding. Stu.

So I'm going down to. Well, today, Tuesday, when the show drops and we'll actually be doing a show from down there and bring my equipment down. And the episode after this will be half recorded in South America or a quarter recorded in South America. I'm fired up, man. It's like an adventure biz. I've never been to South America. I'm just looking forward to taking in a whole new country, new culture. How was vacation? Good. Lost

20 pounds. No shit. Yeah, I was on this powder diet. I drank in the mountains every day. I woke up. Weight protein. I'm definitely looking forward to that. So it should be a fun little adventure.

But all right, we're just about done here. We got one last note that we have to share. Terribly sad news once again. We hate to relay it, but we have to. Columbus goalie Matisse Kivlenic, he died at 24 Sunday night. It was a tragic accident. It was originally reported as a head injury, but Aaron Portsline, who covers the team,

reported that Oakland County, Michigan investigator Tim Wood said an autopsy has confirmed that the death was accidental, but cause of death is fireworks, motor blast, chest trauma. So he was, he got killed by a fucking firework and this poor guy, 24 years old.

I mean, he had, I think eight or 10 NHL games. He was certainly in line to in contention for the team, but we're, we're heartbroken and we want to send our deepest, most heartfelt condolences to of course, his family,

his friends, his teammates, and the organizations that he played for. These are the stories that just they're gut punches when you read them and they're terribly sad. He just played for Latvia and the world and you know, fucking it's just awful. It's awful. I think

Yarmulke Alliance tweet, you know he said life is so precious and can be so fragile. Hug your loved ones today. RIP Matisse, you will be dearly missed. He words it perfectly and just heartbreaking to the hockey community. To see that news is just, it's a terrible, terrible tragedy. We are really thinking of his family and friends. Tough way to end the show.

We know on, um, tried to save it till the end. You know, keep the, keep the mood light. But when you, when you see that happen,

it's like, you just never fucking know. It's so sad. And we really feel for his family. Right. Well, well said what, um,

okay, everybody will, uh, enjoy your weekend. I will check back next week. Thanks. As always, we like to thank our terrific sponsors here on spitting chicklets.

Big thanks to our longtime friends at new Amsterdam, vodka and pink Whitney. Huge. Thanks to everybody over at low bat blue. Thanks for taking care of us during this playoff stretch. Big. Thanks to everybody. It's simply safe for keeping us safe.

Huge thanks to everybody over at Aura. Be sure to check them out. Big thanks to Body Armor for keeping us hydrated. And a huge thanks to our friends at Cross Country Mortgage. If you're looking to refi or just do a regular mortgage, be sure to check them out. Have a great week, everyone.